Years into life at the Severn City Airport, Clark reflects on how time was reset by the Georgia Flu: early “Day One” counting gave way to “Year One,” and eventually a permanent post-collapse calendar. As curator of the Museum of Civilization, he tries to explain the lost world to those born after the pandemic, including Emmanuelle, a sixteen-year-old who can barely imagine airplanes, runways, and instant global communication.

The narrative shifts back to the day Clark’s flight is diverted and lands among an unusual number of international jets. He assumes the crisis is temporary and only gradually forces himself to watch CNN, where the outbreak’s scale becomes clear: evacuations fail, hospitals riot, roads clog, and officials warn that exposure leads to sickness within hours and death within days. Clark tries and fails to reach anyone by phone as networks overload, then finds Elizabeth and Tyler in the Skymiles Lounge, with Tyler distracting himself on a Nintendo.

Airport staff have little information, distribute vouchers, and then begin to shut everything down. Clark watches an Air Gradia jet taxi to the far edge of the tarmac and sit unmanned, and an announcement follows: the airport is closing immediately, flights are suspended indefinitely, and passengers are told to leave. Many people attempt to go anyway, but those who return report no transportation; Clark, Elizabeth, and a small group remain as the word “quarantine” circulates.

As the first night stretches on, security checkpoints stand abandoned and fear turns into constant vigilance for symptoms. Clark reads Arthur Leander’s obituary, realizing how quickly ordinary concerns—careers, divorces, and public life—are being made irrelevant by the unfolding catastrophe. He fails to reach anyone at a pay phone and eats from vending machines, listening to music on his iPod while thinking of Robert, his boyfriend, and imagining a future in which they survived and mourned their dead.

With the news worsening by the hour and snow settling on grounded planes, a teenage girl asks Clark for Effexor after running out, underscoring how swiftly basic medical stability is disappearing. Clark tries to keep his mind from drifting into panic, attempts to work, and then feels a sudden tenderness for the strangers trapped with him. He looks around at the sleeping and weeping refugees and understands that all of them are waiting for a “next” that may never resemble the world they remember.