August 10, 2152 marked the end of the last great conflict between nations and, with it, the end of civilization. Presumably, no one knows who or what launched the first wave of nuclear missiles or their targets, but mutually assured destruction followed. Heat and fire far more intense than the surface of the sun itself incinerated most of the world and, with it, most living organisms on it, animal, plant, human…Neither death nor destruction of that terrible magnitude discriminated. In the...