Tom and Sylvia make contact.

Then they did the torture where they spin you around very fast in an office chair-like contraption, then stop you suddenly and spin you even faster the other way. How can I be so important? she murmured, bloody spittle strung across her cheeks and hair. Then she realized: she wasn't that important at all. The torture was completely automated. This was sort of like a car wash whereas before it would have taken an entire team of ensemble actors. Soon it would spit her out on a lawn behind a post office or a school. Not soon enough... she was going to faint... not soon...

What? What was that? A tiny package, a vial... by her foot. She thought she had hallucinated it, but no. It had come rolling across the floor and under--into--mother's shoe. No-Shiv. The red box.

Tom and Sylvia stood holding one another in the parking lot.