Mano wondered if Ruth knew too, if that's why she was asking. She had a way of knowing things she'd never been told directly.

Rick had backed out of comet-viewing at the last minute. “Your sister makes me nervous,” he'd said. “And besides, I'm close to something in this game. I'm sure of it.”

Rick had spent a month's salary on an Apple IIe computer, become obsessed with a video game called Cranston Manor. From what Mano could tell, it was post-apocalyptic, the player looting a mansion that had been hastily and mysteriously abandoned. Details were scarce, so she invented scenarios—acid rain aerosoling into atmosphere, nuclear winter, or maybe the cyanide gas in the comet's tail was potent enough, as people used to believe, to decimate humanity. The game involved endless wandering through pixilated parlors and drawing rooms and garden labyrinths for items of dubious value the player could collect. The program would tell Rick, in text under the picture, things like: You are in the library. There is some moldy cheese here, and Rick would type, Get cheese. And then later the program would say: You are in the smoking room, and he would type, Drop cheese, just to see what would happen.

Rick had, one time, tried to teach her how to play. Mano collected items as advised: Get dagger. Get crystal. Get bottle full of diamonds. She suspected that she would eventually have to fight the mysterious suit of armor that appeared, ghost-like, in various rooms, but she lost interest before she discovered any possible use for the things she carried. Not the dagger. Not the bottle full of diamonds. Not even the game itself made her feel any closer to Rick, all her familiar loneliness back in the atmosphere, as toxic as anything else.

Back on the roof, Ruth pointed at a spot in the sky. “Is that it? Can you see it?”

“Shhhhh.” Mano gazed through her binoculars. She thought she saw the comet, not like a star, no visible tail, just a hazy spot of sky gone a bit lighter than the rest. That figures. She'd have to believe she'd seen the comet the same way she believed Rick was home alone playing a video game, by just deciding it was true, by not thinking too hard about it.

“Don't shush me, Mano. We're not bird-watching. Talking isn't going to scare the comet away.” Ruth took the binoculars. “Not much to look at, is it?”

Mano tried to focus on the spot where the comet was, though she wasn't sure she could see it with her naked eyes. Mano was surprised at the desperation she felt, how much she'd been hoping to see the comet clearly. She'd been trained to see both shadow and light. She wanted the comet to send some sort of signal. I could at least use some luck, she thought. Get comet, she thought.