Her focus zoomed in on the red dot. “I can go there. To the other bunker. Maybe they’ll have medicine. I can bring it back. It’ll make you better.”

Her father shook his head. “It’s too risky.”

Emma blinked. “Then why are you giving me the map?”

“The people in the other bunker—they’ll take you in,” he said. “You can stay with them.”

“I’m not leaving you,” Emma said.

But her father insisted. “It’s the only way. There’s nothing here but disease. And soon . . .”

His voice dropped away. Once again, unspoken words clouded the air.

And soon everyone will be dead.

Emma let out a choked sob. She squeezed her father’s hot hand. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” he said. “That’s why you have to go.”

Emma was not going to argue any longer with her father.

It was only making him weaker.

Besides: She had already made up her mind.

She would leave the bunker.

She would follow the map until she reached the red dot.

The other bunker.

She would get the medicine that her FamilyUnit needed, that everyone needed.

She would bring it back to them.

The disease would be eliminated.

Her underground world would be saved.

She did not tell any of this to her FamilyUnit.

She knew that would only upset them.

Instead, she wrapped her arms around her mother’s frail shoulders. She pressed her face against her father’s feverish cheek.

The family cried together.

They said goodbye.

Emma filled a backpack with supplies.

Water/Food/Compass.

And the map.

She opened a metal door that had remained sealed for thirty years.

She left her bunker.

And emerged into a new world.

The sun was like a distant lamp shining in her eyes.

The breeze was like an invisible fan.

There were no walls or ceilings.

The vast openness stretched out all around.

It made her nervous.

She almost retreated back into the hatch.

Like a mouse back into its cage.

The bunker may have been filled with disease, but it was familiar.

She hesitated, deciding.

Then she closed the hatch.

She concealed it with branches.

She tightened the straps of her backpack.

And she set off in the direction of the red dot.

The other bunker.

Salvation.

01010100

Emma reached the end of her story.

I stared at her. She stared at the ground.

Silence for 3.4 seconds.

Then I spoke. “You said everyone in your bunker was dead. That is a lie. You said you did not know what was at the red dot. That is another lie.”

Emma’s eyes never left the ground. “I wanted to tell you. I really did. But—”

“But you said nothing.” My tone was sharp as a blade, cutting through her words. “We helped you, and you kept this secret from us. Why?”

“Because I was afraid,” she said.

“Afraid of what?” Ceeron asked.