(Business 2.0) – Be it a bubble or the next big thing, the market emerging from the new nexus of government, technology, and venture capital will eventually shake itself out. In the meantime, though, there are quick bucks to be made from a fearful American public--and plenty of fast-thinking entrepreneurs scrambling to cash in. The lucky ones even have the nation's pitchman-in-chief doing their marketing for them.

Take NukePills.com, a company that supplies potassium iodide pills to anyone who wants them. According to the FDA, the pills' actual effectiveness is somewhat questionable. It's not that they don't work, it's that they work only for a certain kind of problem--radiation poisoning of the thyroid gland. For instance, if a certain amount of radiation is in the air, it's typically compounded with some form of iodine. The human thyroid gland loves iodine and will store it greedily. If that iodine happens to come laced with radiation, it's a problem. The potassium iodide pill, taken once a day, sates the thyroid's need and prevents it from sopping up iodine from the environment.

For much of 2002, sales were lame. Then came June 10. That was the day the Bush administration announced that Jose Padilla had landed at Chicago's O'Hare Airport with plans to build and explode a radioactive "dirty bomb." Sales rocketed through the roof. According to Troy Jones, the company's president, orders rose from 24 to 2,000 a day. TIME magazine declared that "potassium-iodide pills are becoming to dirty bombs what Cipro was to anthrax."

For the record, the administration changed its tune one day later. Padilla didn't actually have a bomb or even plans for a bomb, the feds admitted, and in fact they weren't exactly sure what he was planning. By then it didn't matter--the market was up and running. Needless to say, the best publicity 3M has ever received for duct tape (besides Garrison Keillor's folksy praise on public radio) was Tom Ridge's February "orange alert" scare.

Other products await their own scares. One is Raditect. It's a souped-up Geiger counter pitched as yet another necessary monitoring device to screw to your wall. It will alert you when there's been a nuclear blast, in case you didn't notice. In fact, Raditect comes with this helpful warning: only for "nuclear emergencies that would present a long-term health risk, not immediate annihilation."

Indeed, sites hawking products for every possible reaction to a future terrorist attack have started appearing all over the web. There's ApprovedGasMasks.com and ProtectiveSuits.com, GammaScout.com and AerialEgress.com. Even in times of peril, it seems, the internet maintains its unsurpassed talent for niche marketing.

All these sites are real, and they peddle a dizzying array of anxiety-inducing equipment. Gas masks, for example, have come a long way from the old days of civilian bunkers. tHose Cuban Missile Crisis-era monstrosities are as antiquated as army surplus pup tents. The latest high-tech gas masks come with built-in communication devices. there's also a full-body mask and suit for infants that comes designed with little pajama footies. As the folks at ApprovedGasMasks helpfully explain, "the parent can also feed the infant using the included bottle without compromising the suit's protective seal."

Gas masks, of course, are inherently yucky things. They look terrifying, like primitive death masks, which makes them hard to sell. So ApprovedGasMasks tries doing it with family values. The kid's mask (for ages 3 to 8) features a picture of a bright-eyed boy, fully decked out for the holocaust, just sitting around reading a book--suggesting that once civilization is back up on her feet, young man, you'll still need to score high on the SATs if you plan to enter the incinerated walls of Yale. At MilitarysurplusChemicalSuits.Com, the pitch is old-fashioned: "Do you really want you, your spouse, or your children to go through life with breathing disorders or scarred flesh from third-degree burns, or worse? It's just not necessary."

OK, so now you've got your alarm working and the proper salves, masks, and safety suits--what about the house? The easiest solution is the Safe Cell. It's a filtration system that draws radioactive air from the outside, cleans it up, and pumps it into your safe room. "When the roads are clogged with insanity," say the makers of Safe Cell, which goes for about $1,800, "you can sit tight knowing you are breathing safe, clean air!" But here's the key sentence in the fine print: "If you are in a location where gamma radiation is of sufficient intensity to penetrate the walls and roof of your shelter, like close proximity to a nuclear blast, additional shielding will be required."

In that case, you'll need an Apocalypse House, which goes for anywhere from $650,000 to a cool $2.5 million. Designed by hArden Structures, this new and improved bomb shelter is designed to protect you from "climatic catastrophe, nuclear blast, nuclear fallout, biological agents, chemical weapons, fires, floods, and conventional weapons assaults." The whole house can operate without any connection to "local power, water, sewage, or other utilities." The structure is designed to withstand the peripheral force of "a one megaton surface burst" beyond 4 miles of ground zero, and then, the sales pitch says soothingly, "to protect and sustain its occupants indefinitely."

Again, though, it pays to read the fine print. Even though the "'Ellipsoid' blast protection" is "designed to withstand, at a minimum, 250 mph wind, flying debris, and small-arms fire," there is an exception: "At the time of the burst, large quantities of debris, dust, and whole sections of buildings, bridges, and structures are hurled through the air from the shock wave," so the shelter might suffer "total collapse." But given the use of the latest "FireX Blast Fortification Cladding," it's quite likely we can go on to consider interior decoration.

Which gets to the point. Bunkers are no longer one-size-fits-all concrete dungeons. "Harden Structures are special," says the pitch, "and so are the people who choose them." You're not like other folks; your house is "designed to still be standing after your neighbors' homes are in rubble." You're not just outliving the Joneses, you're outliving them in style. Given that "the perceived threats relating to the aPocalypse, End Days, Armageddon, or terrorist assaults are interpreted differently from Client to Client," the designers tailor the specs of your fallout shelter to your needs. You can choose among "automatic shutters, steel exterior doors, natural wood, tile and stone interior finishes" for "an unmistakable architectural signature" that achieves an "overall sense of warmth, substance and security."

Being the only person to survive the collapse of civilization stylishly--it's not just a sales pitch for an increasingly fearful world, it's the last word in baby-boomer individualism. --J.H.