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Summary: Part 4, Section 3

From the group leaving the restaurant to the end of Part 4

The group exits the restaurant into a crowd gathering outside the theater across the street. Klara’s sense of spatial orientation is blurred, though it is hard to tell if her confusion is due to the loss of her P-E-G solution, or the unfamiliar environment and mass of people. She is disoriented, picking up bits of the conversations around her: the Father and Miss Helen continuing their conversation, the Father offering to help Miss Helen, Rick asking Klara why Josie is acting strange, the Mother telling Klara not to take seriously the conversation they’d had in the car earlier. The people passing and approaching Klara appear nondescript and difficult to understand until they are very close to her. Klara listens to the Father let slip to the Mother that he’d told Josie the portrait was more of a sculpture, and they begin to argue again only to be interrupted by Miss Helen locating Mr Vance in the crowd. 

Rick and Mr Vance are introduced through Miss Helen, and Josie and the Mother begin to argue off to the side about the AF Mr Capaldi has been building; Josie appears to have figured out the truth behind the “portrait.” They decide to return to the apartment alone, sending Klara off to go with Rick, Miss Helen, and Mr Vance to a diner. Klara is clearly struggling to observe her surroundings with her usual quickness, but is unbothered by it, believing her mental faculties to be fine. She sits in a booth near Miss Helen, Rick, and Mr Vance to observe their meetings.

At first, it seems that Mr Vance is genuinely interested in Rick’s portfolio; he is the chair of Atlas Brookings’s Founder’s Committee, and is the first to reveal to the reader that “lifting” refers to genetically editing a child to make them smarter and more capable. Rick has not been lifted, and thinks that his best chance at college is Atlas Brookings, which is known for accepting unlifted children. Mr Vance looks through Rick’s portfolio and deems him intelligent and capable, but tells him that the college’s acceptance of unlifted kids is essentially a lottery, since so many apply.

After this, the mood changes, and Mr Vance asks Miss Helen if she is trying to get him to exercise favoritism in Rick’s case; she answers yes, desperate to help her son. Mr Vance turns on her, saying Rick is doing well but that she may have just ruined her chances of Mr Vance helping him. He then goes on to torment her about their past relationship, angry she has reached out for the first time in twenty-seven years only to ask for help. He openly belittles her, forcing her to apologize to him for numerous events during their relationship. Miss Helen begs him to help her son, and Rick is aghast that Mr Vance is treating his mother in this way. Finally Mr Vance leaves them, and Klara tries to ease Miss Helen’s fears that she ruined everything by saying she thinks Mr Vance will still help Rick. 

The Mother picks up Rick, Miss Helen, and Klara from the diner. She drops Klara off at the Friend’s Apartment and then leaves to bring Rick and Miss Helen to their hotel. Josie wakes up when Klara arrives and tells Klara that the Mother offered to quit her job to take care of Josie full-time and get rid of Klara, both of which Josie declined. She tells Klara that she’ll never let anything bad happen to Klara. 

In the car on the way back home, Rick tells Miss Helen that he wants nothing to do with Mr Vance despite her hope that he will still help them, and the Mother encourages her not to worry too much until she gets an answer. Klara wonders when the Sun will bring his special nourishment to Josie, but grows depressed when, on their way out of the city, she sees another Cootings Machine has taken the place of the one she and the Father destroyed.

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