The Front Bathroom Incident
- Life goes on for Robert as usual: he gets interviewed by Sharif (who sometimes is Miri and sometimes is the Mysterious Stranger (who is Rabbit)).
- He continues to help Juan Orozco with the composition project, which is reaching the level of full sentences.
- But Robert is so interested in Rabbit/the Mysterious Stranger that he's slacking off on his homework. (The future is so different from the present, right?)
- Finally, Robert agrees to help Rabbit by betraying Bob and Alice. He just needs to get some biometric data with a little box that Rabbit gives him to put in the front bathroom.
- So Robert does that and feels really weird at family dinner. ("So, what did you do today Robert?" "Oh, just betrayed you, Alice.")
- It doesn't help that Alice is acting weird. And so is her virtual self/clothes, which keep changing to show different ranks in different departments.
- Later that night, after homework, Robert hears Alice and Bob arguing. Miri explains that it's not about them; it's just Alice is getting ready for a new job and that makes Bob nervous.
- Later, Sharif comes to ask about beauty and poetry.
- Later, Robert observes the whole town and the house through his computer (again: awesome, though a little invasive).
- He notices that Alice looks kind of like Carlos Rivera when he starts to have a JITT seizure. And he remembers that he read that there are some people who can train multiple times with JITT.
- And then, finally, Alice goes to use the bathroom that has the small box that Robert planted. But he's beginning to feel bad about putting it there.
- So he runs down and bangs on the door, expecting that the box did something awful to her, but she's fine. Confused why he's banging on the bathroom door, but fine.
- And now Robert has the little gray box to help break into the biotech lab and ruin Huertas's book-shredding plans.