- Toby: Junk the ancient rules of thought / by which our predecessors fought / Their clashing minds did throw a spark / that scorched the world and wreaked the dark / Let no science fix our path / if only numbers make its math / Our brains will run, we'll surely see, / on some sweeter philosophy / Until beneath a quiet sky / atop the rubble we will stand / and finally demystify / the message in fate's reprimand / Even an atomic blast / can't rub the future from the past / If with incinerated grace / we still become the human race.
- Petra: We live... briefly, yes. Imperfectly? Of course. Stupidly? Sometimes. But we don't mind, because that's the way we're made. And when it's time to die, we don't resist death; we summon it.
- [Mr. Zimit just announced to the class that they'll conduct a final big thought experiment, about survival during a global cataclysm]
- Chips: But what kind of cataclysm are we talking about? Gamma ray burst? Pandemic? Erupting super volcano? A sudden shift in the Earth's axis rotation? Grey goo?
- Mr. Zimit: Hang on, Chips, we'll get there.
- Chips: But is it biological? Geological? Thermo-nuclear? Meteorological?
- Mr. Zimit: Let's go old school. Say... atomic.
- Mr. Zimit: The good news is, although we're about to part ways: Not one of you leaves here lacking the credentials to thrive in the world. You're all well-equipped to push on to university and become happy energetic members of a post-industrial twenty-first century society. On the other hand: what if that society ceases to exist? What if your credentials don't mean what you expected, and your expectations mean nothing at all? I know it's hard to conceive of everything you've based your plans on being wiped away at a single stroke; but it's happened before and it can happen again... So let's say things do change. I propose one last "Gedankenexperiment", a final thought experiment, for our final session together. Something on a grand scale, something juicy. Let's envision... a global cataclysm. In the event of which: how do you survive?
- Jack: Uhmm... the last day of the year is, you know, traditionally sort of a chill experience for seniors. This is starting to feel not-so-chill.
- Utami: [singing] Lenten ys come with love to toune / with blosmen ant with briddes roune / that al this blisse bryngeth;/ Dayes-eyes in this dales / notes suete of nyhtegales / uch foul song singeth./ The threstelcoc him threteth oo / away is huere wynter wo / when woderove springeth;/ This foules singeth ferly fele / ant wlyteth on huere wynne wele / that al the wode ryngeth.
- [In the third iteration, Petra waives her own eligibility, and now announces who receives the last remaining bunker slot]
- Petra: Bonnie, get inside.
- Bonnie: I'm a soldier, I know how to knock things down. You're an engineer, you know how to build things up. I'm not worth as much.
- Petra: My logic's fuzzier. In my apocalypse, everybody is worth as much as everybody else.
- Bonnie: I'm not letting you sacrifice yourself to save me.
- Petra: I won't let *you* sacrifice yourself to save me.
- Bonnie: Then we'll both go up in smoke, and you'll have wasted a slot for someone to live.
- [Petra then asks Chips instead of Bonnie for the last bunker slot]