Interdependence Day Eschaton: AMNAT's launcher; the riot; the nose

pivotal · 8 Nov YDAU

• When: 8 November YDAU — Interdependence Day ("Sunday 11/8" per the scene), a mandatory total-R&R day; the game runs through the afternoon's first snowfall to the 1600h Sunstrand siren
• What: Todd is AMNAT's launchman in the year's Interdependence Day Eschaton — the endomorphic thirteen-year-old whose accuracy has to be seen to be believed — landing lob-warheads opposite SOVWAR's launcher Ann Kittenplan, and standing at the Sierra Leone parley as AMNAT's "Supreme Commander" beside President LaMont Chu, idly bouncing a warhead on his strings. The game's cold probity collapses when Evan Ingersoll fires a ball — pointedly not a lob — directly at the circle of super-Combatant leaders, striking Kittenplan in the back of the head; the ensuing map-versus-territory dispute over whether players can be targets escalates through Kittenplan's real-ball retaliation into a full snowbound brawl. In the melee LaMont Chu tackles Todd from behind, and Todd ends the apocalypse with his hands to his face, shrieking about his "doze"; the scene's casualty line has Possalthwaite, Ingersoll, and McKenna bleeding. The broken nose bandages him for the rest of the book — and acquires an official cover story within days (see Dating notes).