It’s the end of the world as we know it and the only people who survive at the sysadmins called to their server rooms when it all goes down.

(Wastelands)

Best story in this all-armageddon book so far. Why? Onpage apocalypse. As in: We get to experience it happening. All the other stories so far were this-is-the-strange-new-world kinda thing, where all the death and destruction were in the past, usually waaaay in the past. Okay, it’s told from the perspective of a bunch of tech nerds trapped in a building and interacting via IM with out nerds similarly locked away from the disaster, but still. It’s all normal that morning and then, soon enough, the world is unrecognizable. I really dug the author’s unflinching use of IT lingo, most of which I didn’t know but was able to glean from context. A totally fun and entertaining and inventive story.
What Happened: A computer virus attacks the web. Real virus attacks the people. Something’s blowing up buildings. Craziness.
Destruct-O-Meter: 5. It’s a thorough armageddon — three levels deep — but people are still out there getting by, in a way.