The retaliation that turns Eschaton into a brawl — and totals the game's God-cart

pivotal · 8 Nov YDAU (Interdependence Day)

• When: Interdependence Day YDAU (8 Nov), minutes after event 3, through the game's collapse at the 1600h siren
• What: While Pemulis and Lord argue map-versus-territory metaphysics, Kittenplan suffers "what look like almost Parkinsonian tremors", then shakes off LaMont Chu's restraint and "fires a real screamer at Ingersoll's head". Told she can't launch anything because she's been vaporized by a 5-megaton contact-burst, she "tells Ingersoll to write his congressman about it", takes more warheads from the bucket, and gets "truly serious about hitting Ingersoll", chasing him across the map — which cues the general pile-on. In the melee, Penn and McKenna, who "have long-standing personal bones to pick with Ann Kittenplan", pincer her and hit her twice from behind; she drops her racquet, charges, "takes two contact-bursts in the breast-area before she gets to him and lays McKenna out with an impressive left cross", then holds him in a headlock, punching the top of his skull. Finally she chases REDCHI's General Secretary south across the Asian subcontinent at top speed — and the catastrophe that ends the game is her chase's direct product: the boy, calling for his mother and "in full flight as he looks over his shoulder at Ann Kittenplan's contorted face," barrels into Lord's speeding food cart, launching the Yushityu TP — color monitor, modem, and chassis, "with most of Eschaton's nervous system on its hard drive" — into the arc that ends with Otis Lord headfirst down through the monitor's screen. Her last act of the game is ramming the General Secretary's face into the south fence as the 1600h siren sounds.