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their overclocked amps. We guessed that Chance’s agents chose his people by measuring their equipment.
    “
Everything began with the first man,
” a girl’s voice said.
    “Around town? I don’t fucking—”
    “Mary, shut up a second.”
    “Hasn’t used White in a while,” Levi whispered.
    “
We shall name him ‘Last.’
”
    “Fat Chance is a girl?” Mary asked. Quietly.
    “No, Mary.”
    “
Last began with dirt and a plywood shanty, both of which he found.
”
    “We think ‘Fat Chance’ is a Place—a Group, actually.”
    “
He made everything from nothing else.
”
    “We’re not sure if it’s actually in New York.”
    Levi was taking notes. Some of the best lines in the
Book
came from Chance. Sometimes codes, crib-sheet updates. Sometimes it was just gibberish, bullshit. Noise.
    It had never been a story before.
    “
‘Nothing else’ included the circuit boards and cables from a disabled
computer. It also included the tube and capacitors from a discarded monitor, a keyboard, a mouse without buttons, and an inkjet printer. From nothing else, everything began.
”
    White, we knew, after albino marijuana. New York White. Stories about it growing underground in the sewer when everyone flushed their seeds. Blind, and clean, and perfect in the stench. Most thought she was a metaphor for a first-place, a rally point, that Fat Chance had laid in, waiting for the Event. For the Collapse. Everybody’s first-place was based on what we’d cracked of her code. What we’d all cracked and stenciled and spread around town. Around the state. Country. Some said world.
    White meant everything was going okay. According to Plan. A girl, a Place, a Plan. Some called her Snow White. The Cracker. The Bitch, The Whore, The Angel, The Score. The Ice Queen. The Wet Dream.
    Adam and I called her “Hope” if we didn’t want anyone to know what we were saying. In case there were other Salvagers around, and we weren’t sure.
    “
Last began everything with the book in the shanty. It read, ‘This assumes many things.’
”
    “She sounds hot,” Mary said.
    “
This assumes many things.
”
    The audio popped and fizzed. The ’cast was over. Chance’s ’caster eased up on his amp and let the jammers collide, washing the waves with the pent-up shouts, catcalls, and codes that couldn’t get through White.

THE BOOK:

    “TWO”

    SEC. “I” SUBSEC. “B” (“GROUP”)

    (cont’d)

[5] (i) Do not allow your Group to grow too large. (ii) Further, you must elect (or someone must assert) Leadership. (iii) This Leader is the final, authoritative voice during the crucial period before a Group Arrives at its Place. (iv) Post-Arrival, decentralize your Leadership—by force if necessary. (v) Would-be autocrats who resist decentralization are warned that they risk expulsion, rebellion, even banishment or death, for as the Narrative establishes itself, Leaders are primary targets for blame-placement. (vi) Because the early stages of establishing a Place involve many difficulties, losses, and discomforts, it is inevitable that blame will require placing. (vii) Leaders are warned that they will likely carry this blame, and as the majority of Places will Fail, most Leaders will lose either their lives or, at the very least, their chances for survival.
    I.C.

    “EVENT EXIT STRATEGY”

[1] (i) Your Event Exit Strategy is the sequence of maneuvers that will Evacuate your Group to its Place.

[2] (i) That only some will execute an Event Exit Strategy is to your benefit—those who do not will generate the disorder from which you can Forage a number of useful supplies. (ii) Your first inclination, post-Event, will be to assemble your Group and Evacuate. (iii) Disregard your inclination.

[3] (i) Your Event Exit Strategy begins with the convention of the Group in a first-place. (ii) The first-place is meaningless—it is a location only. (iii) You and your Group should take pains not to become attached to the first-place, as it may