Wyatt is sitting back in his chair, arms crossed. “I’m not allowed to talk. I’m just listening.”

Before I can tell him he’s an ass, Tanq doubles over with laughter.

“Tanq?” I say.

“I can’t believe it,” she gasps out. “All that time. The null symbol was literally marking the end of the world. I wish I’d known. I would have. . . .” Laughter overtakes her so that she’s unable to speak.

“I’m very confused,” I say. I’m not the only one. Wyatt’s gaze is fixed fast on her face.

But Manny is grinning at her. “Meet one of our Nulls. Ethel here—sorry, Tanq—was hired to do some tagging.”

I gasp. “You’re Null?”

Tanq nods, wiping tears off her cheeks. “It was great. I got paid to vandalize. It’s the only way I could afford my . . . I had no idea who was hiring me or why, but when you need cash as bad as I did, you don’t ask questions. I never did any red ones though. Someone else must have been hired to do those.”

Trey claps her on the back. “I’ve been hanging out with a celebrity this whole time.”

Tanq rolls her eyes, saying, “And yet you’re the one who demanded tribute in Red Vines.”

“My next Red Vines are yours,” he says, putting his hand over his heart as though swearing an oath.

“So, all three of you are famous,” Wyatt says, glaring. “Household names, newspaper coverage. You realize none of that matters now, right?”

I’m not sure what he’s trying to say, or why he’s so angry. It’s a shame that an ass like Wyatt was considered a “candidate” and given the vaccine.

Or maybe that’s too harsh. I need to be better than this. Better than Wyatt, at least.

“You’re right, Wyatt,” I say. “None of that matters. Manny, we have more questions.”

“Hit me,” says Manny.

“Why? Why did the Farmers come? What do they want?”

Tanq adds, “And why do you call them the Farmers? Trey and Paige called them the Orkins, because we all got exterminated. ‘Farmers’ sounds less . . . badass.”

“Orkins,” Manny muses. “I like that. Our friends at the Ak-Chin Cell call them the Colonists.” Manny rubs his upper arms as though he’s just gotten a chill. “You can call them whatever you want. I just know they came here to harvest the earth’s resources. According to the Allies, they’ve done this to dozens of worlds. For some reason, they desperately need planets with carbon-based life, which are rare. The Farmers are so much more advanced than us in most technological areas, so it was no problem for them to engineer a way to destroy the earth’s dominant species and take our carbon-rich planet for themselves.”

“What do they need carbon for?” Trey asks. “Do they eat it?”