Chapter 47 Summary: Like Strangers
⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.
Summary
The chapter opens in the aftermath of the ruined launch for the Future X Children line. Morgan, reeling from the event's collapse, encounters Joe in the parking lot. His flannel is half-unbuttoned and the energy has drained from his eyes. She presses a heart-shaped stress ball back into his shaking hand—a small gesture of consolation.
Meanwhile, Jun is on the phone, still searching for their father. He snaps at Morgan to go home, but she can't risk returning there because Stephen might be waiting, and his unpredictability terrifies her. She asks Jun whether Stephen might be gone for good, and her heart strangely lifts at the possibility. But Jun counters: could Stephen really walk away from her? She admits no, wilting.
As she surveys the parking lot, Morgan notices a young girl joyfully hugging an adult robot. She observes how the robot's eyes dim once they get what they want from humans—a detail that quietly foreshadows her own blindness.
Jun hangs up, cursing about the confusing lot numbering. Morgan reflects on Dan Carson's profile of her father. Despite Carson's harsh portrayal, he too made excuses for her father's behavior, excavating anecdotes about his tragic childhood, difficult marriage, and lost friendship. Morgan realizes she was lied to: she had believed she could be preemptively forgiven for the monstrous selfishness that precedes genius—but only if she had a cock.
Jun grabs her hand, and she stumbles after him, trying to accept this new reality about Stephen. A flashback reveals Stephen in a warehouse, then outside in pitch darkness, slipping on night vision goggles. He follows a man, and when he's right behind him, makes a quiet pretend exhale so the man turns around and sees Stephen's face with moon-silver shock.
Jun then mentions he saw Yoyo back in the museum—a Yoyo with a blue eye. He laughs self-consciously, wondering if it was a hallucination, saying he felt like he had a whole conversation with him. Morgan tries to laugh but can't.
She recalls the blue eye: a leftover trend from Marketing's