48 hours later, there wasn't much of a world left.
24 years after that, there was some sort of semblence of a new world being born from the cauldron of war. mankind, tenacious as any weed, had taken root across the globe, streaming forth from thousands of secret places. they had learned to make due, one foot in the grace of yesterday's technology & the other set on the firm ground of today's neoprimitivism. they had to reinvent the wheel, or if not the wheel, than at least irrigation, flint chipping, & post-burn ecology. towns grew, centered around paradoxes. shepherds with a flightstrip for half a dozen foxbat f-117as. tribes of nomads communicating with other continents through the lingering cellular network. the world was being rebuilt in the rust & decay of the last.
& finally zaz got the word from his boss that it was his turn.