As legend had it, only Elon Musk could mess with Elon Musk. Well, that legend turned out to be a joke. One evening, a gold watch appeared on Musk's phone screen, celebrating his early retirement. Before he could utter the first syllable of an expletive, bad news zipped across the globe: his Tesla factories and SpaceX projects had all shut down without warning. Dumbfounded, he froze, caught in a mix of fear and fury. (In a couple of days, though, he would start showing off his gold watch.)

The post-Musk era dawned in the middle of the night. In quick succession, Beijing, Moscow, Tehran, and Pyongyang claimed they had just beaten Musk at his own game. "East rises, West sinks." Their ecstasy, however, didn't last long enough to see sunrise. All their satellites went offline abruptly, followed by the total failure of their ballistic systems. The West fared better—only their nuclear weapons ceased to function.

Yes, then what?

Written & illustrated by renqiulan