It’s a chilly April evening years later when Liz hears the news.

“Bookmakers have slashed the odds on the existence of extra-terrestrial intelligence to a hundred to one after scientists working at Britain’s Joddrell Bank Observatory announced the discovery of a new Earth-like planet.”

She snorts- a little more bitterness in the sound than she’d ever admit to under torture- and opens the night’s second bottle of wine before declaiming to the empty room, memories she’d thought long forgotten dancing in the flickering light of the TV screen.

“Who says it exists here?”