She has been writing in the notebook for two weeks.

It is not a formal document. She is not sure what form it should take — whether there is a form for this at all. She has been writing it the way she writes when she doesn’t know what she’s making: from the end backward, from the middle outward, filling in pieces as she finds them, circling the thing without landing on it.

What she has:

The history of nine zones. What happened to them. Where the people went — or didn’t go. The language of transition protocols versus the reality of the destination zone data.

The Northern Expansion map and the ZVA initiation date and the seven-week gap between standard and expedited analysis.

The compounding mechanism in the allocation model, which Elias described to her in a voice that held no inflection at all, the voice of someone who has said a thing so many times inside their own mind that the emotion has worn smooth.

And the things she has no language for yet: the man at the water collection point. The notice board. Knock on 14 when you don’t know who to ask. The woman at the hardware store who sets aside seeds for someone she doesn’t know without being asked. The community meal on Saturdays.

The rose that went where it wasn’t planned to go.

The sweet peas, which will not be here in November.

She sits in her kitchen on Sunday morning with the notebook open and the coffee going cold and she reads what she has written from the beginning.

She thinks: this is not a report. A report presents a finding. This is something that presents a — she searches for the word.

A view.

She thinks: there are twelve hundred and twelve people who have this view and no one writing it down except her, and she is not sure she is the right person and she is not sure there is a right person and she is not sure it matters.

She thinks: it matters.

She writes for another hour.

At the end she writes: The model does not see what happens between the numbers. The model cannot account for the interval.

She looks at this for a long time.

She writes: I can.

She closes the notebook.

She goes to Sector 9.