The Energy Drink Warrior

HAMN (Energy Drink Warrior) types make the most beautiful opening move in a crisis. In the instant after the lockdown, while everyone else stands dumbstruck, you are the first to rise. "It's fine — leave it to me." There is no basis for those words, but there is momentum. And people follow momentum over reason.

HAMN's first day is the stuff of legend. Building barricades, hauling supplies, cheering up the despairing, standing watch through the night. That devotion — utterly indifferent to fuel efficiency — maximizes the group's morale in the opening burst. There is just one problem: your body was engineered for "72 hours," not "30 days."

Explosive start

HAMN's energy curve is unlike any other type's. A human's activity level normally fluctuates gently; yours rises vertically, cruises horizontally, and then drops vertically. On day one you do the work of three managers, on day two the work of two, on day three you break even — and on day four, the graph vanishes off the edge of the chart.

The wings, returned

On the morning of day four, you don't move. The wings called caffeine were a rental. Your companions lay you down on the softest patch of floor in the magazine corner and drape a blanket over you. No one blames you. Everyone knows that without you in those first three days, they'd all have lost heart. You lived three days' worth, and left three days' worth of legend.