Reluctantly, I recall Emmaline, and we head back through the tunnel to the “facility.” At the dining table, Manny and Tanq are chatting happily about modern art, while Tanq pours a gallon of sugar over her second bowl of oatmeal.

“Any trouble?” Manny asks.

“None,” says Wyatt. “I was worried the dog would run off or bark, but he’s a really good boy.”

“Emmaline is the best girl,” I say.

“You were about to tell us about the other facilities,” Trey says as we settle back into our seats.

“Yes! Facilities!” Manny says. “There are a few on each continent. Three in North America, for example. Four in Asia. We scattered them strategically and made sure a handful of potential survivors were within a reasonable geographic distance of each. They’re mostly underground, like this one. They’re equipped with broadcasting equipment, power, supplies. They’re basically safehouses for survivors. There are other mini-facilities throughout the world also, though most of them aren’t quite the secure bunker this one is. We left caches of supplies everywhere, marked so survivors could find them but the Farmers could not. Before the chaos hit, every single facility had reported that they were in good working order.

“But then, one by one, we lost contact with them all. The last one we heard from was the Ak-Chin Cell outside of Phoenix. Then all the power grids in North America went down for good.”

Tanq scrapes oatmeal from her bowl. Trey rubs at his chin.

“What good are bunkers,” I say, “if they’re all just going to run out of power, like this one?”

“Some have solar power,” Manny says. “Even this one has a small solar array that powers a few lights and ventilation. We could survive here a long time; we just won’t be able to broadcast much longer or keep our food refrigerated or heat water. . . . Anyway, like I said before, limited resources and time. We threw together what we could with what we had, as fast as we could. If we’d had another year or two to work with, this facility would have been fitted with full solar or wind.”

Emmaline has finally decided that Manny is interesting enough to check out. She creeps toward him, stretches her neck forward to give his thigh a sniff. To his credit, Manny does not react, just calmly lets her do her thing. “I’ll be honest,” he says. “This was not a foolproof plan. Solar tech needs maintenance. All the facilities need maintenance. Without manufacturing infrastructure to support them, I expect they’ll begin to fail within a few years.”

“You should have picked my stepdad,” I say, my voice tight. “To get the vaccine, I mean. He knew all about wind power.”

Manny gives me a sad smile. “We should have done a lot of things, Paige.”