The Peripheral

The narrative shifts to the novel’s second plot line as it introduces a hungover Wilf Netherton, who is visited by Rainey’s sigil. Rainey is Wilf’s boss, and the sigil is a kind of video feed that appears before Netherton. Rainey presses Netherton about his interactions with a woman named Daedra West. Both Rainey and Netherton are publicists, and West is one of their clients. Netherton had been involved in a sexual relationship with Daedra, a fact that Rainey clearly sees as a violation. While the text does not explicitly say the year, it is assumed that this plotline takes place in the distant future.

Flynne worries that Burton is planning some kind of revenge against a religious group known as Luke 4:5. She then proceeds to enter, through her phone, into the video game for which she will be working the security detail.

Netherton, feeling regret over his liaisons with Daedra, meets with her via a sigil. It is implied that Daedra is some kind of celebrity in this world of the future. Wilf mentions a person named Annie, a fan of Daedra’s, to play to her ego.

We learn the nature of the job Flynne is asked to perform for Burton. It involves using a quadcopter to drive away the bugs, which in this case are paparazzi, from someone’s residence on the 56th floor of a skyscraper. As Flynne pushes the bugs away, she sees the backside of a woman pressed up against the window of the building. She sees a man lean over the woman, and then the woman slips out away from him. Burton returns, and Flynne tells him what she saw.

Through Lorenzo, presumably an omnipresent cameraman, (likely not a man at all but some kind of AI), Rainey and Netherton watch Daedra West’s visit to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. As the name implies, it is a giant garbage dump that has been fashioned into an island on which deformed humans live. Daedra is there to help establish diplomatic relations with the inhabitants.

Flynne is back inside the game and returns to keeping the bugs away from the building. She notices that the man and woman from earlier are no longer there. Flynne takes note of the team of robots that appear to be preparing for a party. Eventually, a woman appears and stands looking out the window.

The boss patcher is introduced, and his visible deformities are alluded to in the title of the chapter. Netherton and Rainey watch as Daedra unzips her jumpsuit and reveals her many tattoos. The patchers take offense to her tattoos, and when the “boss patcher” begins to attack her, Daedra’s security detail immediately defends her and kills the patcher and others.

Flynne’s shift ends, and the narrator mentions the differences between real London and the London Flynne experiences in the game. Flynne receives a call from her cousin Leon, who tells her that Burton has been locked up but not arrested by “Homes,” or Homeland Security. He apparently got into it with the religious group Luke 4:5. Leon passes a message from Burton to Flynne, asking her to work the same shift in the game.

Netherton is at a pub and is visited by Rainey via a child peripheral, which is effectively an animated body that she inhabits to meet with Netherton in London while she is in Toronto. They discuss the fallout of the incident at the Garbage Patch. She mentions that the whole scene was perhaps an assassination, to which Netherton disagrees. Rainey explains the theory, which presumes Daedra provoked the patchers into attacking her so that her defense system could kill them. Rainey orders Netherton to make sure there are no loose ends between him and Daedra left from their sexual relationship.

Flynne meets Shaylene, Burton’s girlfriend. She then sees Connor’s trike blow past, leaves her meeting with Shaylene, and heads to a bar called Jimmy’s. The narrator mentions that Connor is the town’s only other haptic vet and, unlike Burton, he is physically disabled, having lost a leg, a foot, an arm, and a thumb.

The narrator reveals that Netherton informed Daedra of how his friend, Lev Zubov, hires people from 2023 and the ways he pays them. He explains how time has been exploited so as not to affect the present. He also mentions the jackpot, which is not elaborated upon but suggests some kind of apocalyptic event. Netherton then finds himself in Lev’s father’s house in Notting Hill. He notices Lev’s thylacines, which have been genetically re-engineered. We learn through Lev that Daedra knows about the continua, the program that allows Flynne to act as a security detail in the future.

Flynne finds out from Leon that Burton will be released from his confinement soon. She enters the game again and follows the same path to the building where she was the first time. This time, she recognizes the city as London, but it looks different. She sees the couple from her previous shift. This time, she is able to get a better look at the man’s face, which reminds her of an SS officer. The narrator then describes how Flynne came by the nickname “Ice,” which involves how she controls herself in the game.

Netherton is awakened by Ash, who is one of Lev’s security guards. Ash is covered in tattoos that move on her skin. Another guard, Ossian, also arrives. They catch Netherton sleeping in Lev's father’s land yacht. They bring him to Lev after Ash injects a hangover remedy into Netherton. Through Lev’s sigil, we learn that Netherton was unconscious for 16 hours.

Flynne is inside the game checking things out and notices a gray thing ascending the building, something that reminds her of an aquatic creature called a skate. It is rectangular, and as she inspects it, she notices it breathing and swelling in size. The object releases things that eventually attack the woman in the building through her mouth. As she falls from her balcony, Flynne watches as she is eaten from the inside out and disappears.