In the aftermath of MEDUSA’s explosion, a group of armed people on horseback bears down on Tom and Hester. Among them is Anna Fang, who takes Tom and Hester to the nearby village, where Tom is hailed as a hero for killing the monster (Grike). Rather than a hero, though, Tom feels like a murderer and falls asleep heavy with guilt and shame.

When he awakes, Fang asks him to come with her. She has learned of London’s plans to destroy the wall protecting the Anti-Traction cities and wants to warn the people there so that they have a chance to run. She tells Tom how Hester spent half the night praising him for saving her from Grike, which leaves Tom confused. He doesn’t understand Hester but realizes that she’s the “closest thing he [has] to a friend in this huge, confusing world” and agrees to go (249-50).

While London moves on from the burning wreckage that MEDUSA left behind, Katherine hurries to the history museum through streets full of evidence from last night’s party, and the remnants of excitement feel wrong to her. She finds peace only in the museum’s “decent silence, as befitted the morning after the death of a whole city” (254).