Wyatt says, “I was thinking about what you said, how you and Paige won’t get to do the thing you’re good at anymore, and I think that’s bullshit. We’ll find a way for you to keep doing it. I know we can’t bring back the NCAA or whatever, but maybe we’ll invent something new, I don’t know. Anyway, you shouldn’t have to erase what you love.”

Trey is as lost for words as I am, and he can only nod acknowledgment.

“I got something for Tanq too, but . . . she’s sleeping.” Wyatt reaches into his backpack and pulls out a giant plastic tub of Red Vines. He tiptoes across the room toward Tanq and sets the tub gently on her cot at her feet, like a supplicant with an offering.

She does not stir, but I’d bet my new basketball that she’s faking.

“Let’s let Tanq sleep,” Manny says. “I need to log today’s outing in my book. Why don’t you head into the kitchen, and I’ll join you in a minute?”

In the kitchen, Trey puts coffee on. Manny didn’t make breakfast for us this time, so it’s up to us to scrounge our own. I’m suddenly overcome by indecision—eggs again? A smoothie? Plain old cereal? Having choices again is strangely paralyzing.

Manny enters a moment later and plunks down at the table.

“Hey, what did you mean by ‘log today’s outing’?” I ask as I grab a bowl from a metal shelf, a box of cereal from a cupboard. It’s the least complicated breakfast possible.

“I document everything,” he says. “I mean, everything. We know so little about the aliens. Even though they contacted us, gave us the base for our vaccine, communicating was so difficult. They’re too different. Incomprehensible, in fact.”

“Trey said we might have a common ancestor,” I point out.

“Well, sure, but we also have a common ancestor with chimpanzees. That doesn’t mean we speak the same language.”

“Oh, right.”

“Anyway, every cell keeper across the world was tasked with recording observations. We hope that eventually the weight of data will provide some insight or patterns—anything to help us understand them better. Today, for example, I logged the date and time of our outing, the weather, the fact that we spotted no Farmers.” His face falls a little. “I know it doesn’t seem like much. . . .”

“I think it’s good idea,” Trey says, sipping his coffee.

“How’d you get this job?” I ask. “There must have been a lot of competition for it. Everyone would have wanted a vaccine to survive what was coming.” I pour milk into my bowl and carry it to the table.