By the next day, everyone was suffering from the same symptoms.

Everyone except Emma.

She did not know why she was spared from the sickness. Why she felt perfectly healthy, even after holding her mother’s sweating hand, even after pressing a cold washcloth against her father’s feverish forehead.

Leaving her small, cramped room, Emma found herself alone in the gray halls. The silence was punctured by muffled coughs behind closed doors.

School was canceled.

Meals were not being served in the cafeteria.

The bicycle room was silent.

The only sound was constant coughing.

Until that also faded away.

When the sickness arrived, the bunker had a population of ninety-three. Within days, this number began falling.

Emma’s teachers. Her doctor. Her neighbors. Her classmates. Her best friend.

They were all taken by the illness.

And eventually, so were her mother and father.

Until the bunker’s population was just one.

Just Emma.

00010110

Beginning. Middle. End.

This is the formula of a story. I took Emma’s nervous, grief-stricken words and shaped them into this structure. Into a formula that made sense to my logical brain. A beginning, a middle—

And an end.

This was not just the end of Emma’s story.

It was the end of everything she had ever known.

The end of her underground world.

00010111

“I couldn’t stay in the bunker any longer. Not after . . .” Emma’s voice cracked. She swallowed and started again. “Not after what happened. So today I left. And then—well—and then I ran into you guys.”

I was unsure how to respond. I had never interacted with a human before. I was clueless about Emma’s emotions, about the grief that spilled out of her words.

Fortunately, Ceeron was better equipped for the situation. For years, the large robot had researched human rituals. Their habits, their sayings, their confusing jokes.

Ceeron’s deep voice filled the void of silence.

“I am sorry for your loss,” it said.

Emma accepted this statement with a nod. “Thank you.”

“What will you do now?” I asked. “Where will you go?”

“I’ll show you.” Emma picked up a heap of fabric that was laying at her feet. As soon as she slung it over her shoulder, I recognized the object.

So did SkD. It pointed, its screen flashing.

The hint of a smile pulled at Emma’s lips. “That’s right. It’s a backpack.”

“Like mine,” said Ceeron.

“Except yours is a little bigger,” Emma observed.

I referenced the word backpack against my vocabulary database. “I thought human children wore backpacks to school.”

“They did.” She pulled at one of the straps. “A long time ago.”

I did not understand. “But if you are not going to school, why do you need a backpack?”

“For supplies.”

Symbols blinked across SkD’s screen.

“Not those kinds of supplies,” replied Emma. “More like food. Water. A compass.”