She’d finished all the cookbooks. Now she was slowly reading every book of philosophy in this house. Hegel, Davis, Tolle, Boggs. It was a way to be close to her parents, immersing herself in these books that had given direction to Brendon’s life, lived verbatim in Kama’s mind.

Sometimes what she read was clear to her, other times the words blurred together, became sounds in her head. This still comforted her, because they were human words, and it had the effect of hearing her parents speaking in the next room, lulling her down towards sleep.

Tonight, words on the Russian revolution calmed her, reminded her of how proud Mama Vivian was that humans had done such a thing.

She dragged herself, wrapped in a towel, to the bed at the front of the hall. Tomorrow she would unmask her grandmother.

Dune had to evolve what she was doing, what she was looking for. Again.

She went back for Mr. Knee, this time at peak daylight. Feet first, through the window into the living room. The house had been trashed since she’d been there two nights before, but no one had touched Mr. Knee. He was still breathing, but likely not for long. She apologized to him, though she wasn’t sure for what exactly—his abandonment? His having to sit through the robbery of his home? Her own cowardice? Her presence at his last moments?

She promised him he wouldn’t be forgotten.

After Mr. Knee, Dune took the time to look through windows for survivors. Then she started breaking into places where she was sure there were people inside. She was rarely wrong.

She understood the true scale of the crisis in this way, by all of the people she found who weren’t being taken anywhere, hooked up to any life support. The wealthy minority had been struck by the crisis of H-8, but they had left as soon as they believed it was happening. So many people couldn’t afford to go. Couldn’t afford to do anything for their loved ones. Like her, they had to watch their loved ones die. Unlike her, they didn’t risk staying, risk that death themselves.

She grieved with the people who had to leave their loved ones like this. She grieved for the people left in the dark houses, or left beside one light in an otherwise dark house, or left inside of houses boarded up with all the lights on, warm air blowing.

The house smelled. She was about five feet from the closed door. There was a window just right of the door and it was wide open with a screen, but it was too cold for open windows at night now.

Another just-in-case house.