Doob called Ivy—for Izzy had its own cell-phone system now—and got her to supply a few hard quotable numbers, which he rounded off and typed into his script. He then devoted a minute to psyching himself up to adopt the Doc Dubois persona. Formerly the ruin of his first marriage, the basis of his livelihood, and his ticket to the Cloud Ark, Doc Dubois was a person he rarely had to be anymore. That guy seemed as dated as a character from a 1970s television serial. Getting into the persona was nearly as cumbersome as donning a space suit. It required an extra cup of coffee with sugar. When he felt he was ready, he turned on his tablet’s video camera, identified himself as Doc Dubois, greeted the people of Earth, and read his little script.