Chapter Summaries

Porter ordered a cleanup of the NASA base while the sheriff told Cooper’s family that Cooper had committed treason and fled to Asia. In No. 4 Spacetime, Cooper learned the details of Plan C and became convinced it would save humanity, even if he and the others had to work hard to earn better conditions for North America.

• Porter ordered Harry to carry out the plan and clean up the NASA base after losing trust in its loyalty.
• The sheriff told Donald and Murphy that Cooper had supposedly committed treason and left North America, then searched the family’s belongings for Cooper’s personal effects.
• Cooper looked at a family photograph in No. 4 Spacetime and reflected on how much he missed his family.
• Professor Brand explained Plan C: the Mutual Aid Society would help humanity migrate through its Spacetime Tunnel to a habitable planet.
• Cooper learned that he and the others might have to do hard labor to contribute to the migration and secure better conditions for North America.

Cooper and Jody prepared to return to their spacetime through the tunnel beneath Moyulan Base, where Cooper met Jeff and learned about the refugees' devastated world. The chapter ended as scientists emerged from the elevator with unusual biological samples and Jody called everyone to board.

• Jody gathered Cooper and the others to leave Moyulan Base after their data had been backed up and Professor Brand had finished his discussions.
• Cooper met Jeff, a battered robot carrying a puppy, and became curious about his unusually human manner and intelligence.
• Jeff told Cooper he came from No. 5 Spacetime, a world devastated by solar storms, and that the Mutual Aid Society had rescued him and others from slavery and life as wanderers.
• Finch described North America in No. 5 Spacetime as a place of violent resource struggles and asked Cooper about the Golden Gate Bridge.
• Cooper said the bridge in his spacetime had been destroyed by enemy drones during global unrest, and Finch was disappointed.
• Scientists carrying glass containers of strange biological tissue emerged from the elevator as Jody called everyone to return to their spacetime.

Amelia, Professor Brand, and Cooper traveled through the Mutual Aid Society’s spacetime hub to No. 7 Spacetime, where Zhou Kun and Yi Yehua welcomed them and began organizing joint research. The chapter ended as Jody offered to help receive information sent by astronauts on the Lazarus missions.

• Mako Mori escorted Amelia’s and Jeff’s groups through No. 2 Spacetime’s guarded hub after their identities were verified.
• Professor Brand led Amelia’s group through the No. 7 Spacetime tunnel, while Mako Mori guided Jeff’s group toward No. 5 Spacetime.
• Cooper and the others emerged in a rocket assembly plant, passed another identity check, and met Zhou Kun and Yi Yehua.
• Cooper asked Amelia about the third rocket, and she explained that the Mutual Aid Society’s plan did not currently require it to carry people.
• Professor Brand, Zhou Kun, and Yi Yehua arranged to sort research materials and combine their teams’ work on black holes and wormholes.
• Jody offered to help receive information from the astronauts on the other side of the wormhole.

Zhou Kun assessed Cooper, Amelia, Doyle, and Romilly’s astronaut training and arranged for them to study at a space station in No. 3 Spacetime before carrying out their mission. The four thanked him, and Amelia looked around for Zhang Tianyuan, only to find he was not in the factory building.

• Jody offered to intercept and decrypt all signals sent back through the wormhole, and Zhou Kun agreed to provide the necessary equipment.
• Zhou Kun questioned Cooper, Amelia, Doyle, and Romilly about their training and reviewed their files and answers.
• Zhou Kun judged that the astronauts’ training was too basic for them to handle unexpected problems in space.
• Amelia asked whether they would be disqualified, and Zhou Kun said they would go to No. 3 Spacetime to train at its space station before returning for their mission.
• Cooper and the others thanked Zhou Kun, who told them to thank Zhang Tianyuan and Yuan Heguang and to train hard.
• Amelia searched for Zhang Tianyuan and discovered he was not in the factory building.

Zhang Tianyuan and the Mutual Aid Society's branch leaders debated rules for intervening when a spacetime's authorities failed to respond to a major disaster, prompted by North America's catastrophic deaths in The Day After Tomorrow Spacetime. After five days of disagreement, they drafted a new, restrictive proposal that still left room for maneuver.

• The Mutual Aid Society faced criticism over its inability to prevent more than a hundred million deaths in North America after Becker refused to act despite advance warnings.
• Branches submitted proposals for new rules governing intervention in future disasters, while some worried the rules could threaten their own autonomy.
• Zhang Tianyuan reviewed the proposals and found that the North America Branch of Pacific Rim Spacetime had not submitted one because Ning Jihua had blocked Taylor's radical plan.
• Representatives argued for five days, with Wandering Spacetime and Pacific Rim Spacetime favoring stronger intervention and other spacetimes resisting excessive force.
• The participants set aside the submitted proposals and drafted a new one with strict restrictions and room for maneuver.

The Mutual Aid Society approved a new charter establishing the Response Bureau and strict procedures for cross-spacetime disaster interventions. Amelia and her companions learned that the rules could be applied to North America in the Interstellar Spacetime and were told to form a branch and join the investigation.

• The Mutual Aid Society adopted a three-level response system and required independent investigations, unanimous approval, and consent from every branch in the assessed spacetime before intervention.
• Headquarters publicized the charter across the spacetimes and planned an open selection to recruit Response Bureau staff.
• Amelia received the news from Professor Brand and Jody and showed the charter to Cooper, Doyle, and Romilly.
• Amelia explained that Jody viewed the charter as a measured strategy, with level one and level two responses likely to be used most often.
• Jody told Amelia that her group had to establish the North America branch in No. 7 Spacetime and send representatives to the upcoming on-site investigation.

Amelia agreed to return to No. 7 Spacetime to represent the soon-to-be-established North America Branch in an on-site investigation, while Jack Hall settled into the Mutual Aid Society camp with his family as flooding and unrest spread through The Day After Tomorrow Spacetime. The chapter left Jack wondering what his son Sam could do now that university and study abroad were no longer options.

• Amelia said she would pause her spaceflight training and return to No. 7 Spacetime for the on-site investigation, since Plan B had been canceled and Jody needed to handle Lazarus mission information.
• Cooper agreed Amelia was the best choice, and Doyle and Romilly showed their support as Amelia worried about catching up on her coursework afterward.
• Jack Hall joined Liu Chunshi's Mutual Aid Society rescue team's meteorological group and brought his family and Laura to the safety of its camp.
• Armed unrest spread through officially administered camps as people in North America argued over the snowmelt disaster, but both sides avoided the Mutual Aid Society camp.
• Jack worried that Sam's education had stalled because universities and international study were no longer accessible.

Jack arranged for Sam and Laura to join the newly established Cross-Spacetime Special Major Disaster Response Bureau after hearing about it. The Bureau accepted them as public representatives and assigned them to help with its work.

• Jack and Sam both worried about Sam’s future because there were no universities available and Sam refused to study meteorology.
• After hearing an announcement about the new disaster-response agency, Jack called Liu Chunshi to ask whether Sam could join.
• Jack told Sam he was seeking a place for him, and Laura asked to be included because she wanted to join the Mutual Aid Society.
• Jack agreed to ask Liu Chunshi for a place for Laura as well.
• The next day, Liu Chunshi told Jack that the Response Bureau had accepted both Sam and Laura as young public representatives.

After Sam and Laura joined the Mutual Aid Society, Finch returned to his RV and decided to become a teacher to counter Father Jack’s religious influence among the survivors. The chapter left Finch and Jeff preparing to see the Golden Gate Bridge before pursuing their plans.

• Jack accepted the Mutual Aid Society’s terms, and Sam and Laura signed agreements to join the organization.
• After recovering, Finch returned to his RV with Goodyear and asked Jeff what he wanted to do once their journey was over.
• Finch explained that Goodyear was old and suggested Jeff join the Mutual Aid Society in the future.
• Finch told Jeff he wanted to become a teacher and encourage children to believe in science.
• Finch resolved to oppose Father Jack’s efforts to deify the Mutual Aid Society and shape the survivors’ society into a kingdom of God.

Zhang Tianyuan assembled a joint investigation team to respond quickly to the starvation crisis in North America in Interstellar Spacetime, while learning that Professor Brand’s group had ignored repeated attempts at contact. He sent other branch teams ahead and prepared the headquarters team to go directly to North America.

• Zhang Tianyuan appointed Instructor Yin, Bai Xu, Wu Yisi, and Mie Juan to the Response Bureau and selected Sam and Laura for its joint investigation team.
• The satellite department reported that the other side had ignored at least thirty-four rounds of messages and calls, so Zhang Tianyuan canceled further contact attempts.
• Zhang Tianyuan gathered the headquarters investigation team, including Instructor Yin, Wu Yisi, Mie Juan, Sam, Laura, and Amelia.
• Zhang Tianyuan had already sent six branch investigators through spacetime tunnels to the North American desert in Interstellar Spacetime.
• Wang Lei arrived with the CN003-01 Rescue Team, and Zhang Tianyuan asked him about conditions in North America in The Day After Tomorrow Spacetime.

Four months after the disaster, North America’s rescue effort was ending, and Grant’s government struggled to repay its debt to the Mutual Aid Society amid growing unrest. Zhang Tianyuan and the survey team reached a desert exile site where starving people and vultures fought over food, leaving Amelia shaken by what she saw.

• Grant allowed the rescue teams to search cities for supplies to offset the debt after North America could no longer gather enough supplies itself.
• In a desert valley, a starving person wounded a vulture with a stone, but another starving person seized it and drank its blood before fleeing.
• Zhang Tianyuan and the survey team observed the scene by drone after arriving at an exile site inhabited by at least a hundred thousand starving people.
• Wu Yisi concluded that few people at the site could survive more than two years without food or water and amid possible plague.
• Amelia watched the footage, bit her lip, and trembled.

Amelia and the investigation team witnessed the horrifying conditions of starving people in North America and decided not to approach them without enough supplies. After several days of investigation, they visited Cooper’s family, where Murphy spotted them at the door.

• Amelia watched footage of starving people in the desert and realized the reality was worse than she had imagined.
• Instructor Yin, Wang Lei, Wu Yisi, and Zhang Tianyuan agreed that contacting the starving crowds would be too dangerous without supplies.
• Zhang Tianyuan and the other teams spent two days investigating North American cities and deserts with support from Zhou Kun’s satellite imagery.
• On the fourth day, Zhang Tianyuan’s team used Cooper’s information and a password to enter the agricultural district and head for his family’s house.
• Wang Lei approached Cooper’s door while the sheriff waited nearby, and Murphy saw the visitors through the peephole and asked who they were.

Amelia told Murphy and her family that Cooper had left to help save humanity, while Wu Yisi investigated the ghostly activity in Murphy’s room. Zhang Tianyuan confirmed that the higher-dimensional humans had disappeared after the Mutual Aid Society changed the future, though the blight and Saturn’s black hole remained; he left Cooper’s family with a satellite phone and promised to help.

• Amelia reassured Murphy that Cooper had not abandoned her and explained that he had left to seek a way to save humanity.
• Wu Yisi listened to Murphy describe the ghost pushing books from her shelf and found nothing unusual in the room.
• Zhang Tianyuan learned that Murphy’s ghostly experiences had stopped when the Mutual Aid Society first arrived, confirming that the higher-dimensional humans had disappeared while their changes to the spacetime remained.
• Donald and Tom returned, and Amelia explained Cooper’s decision to them; Donald worried that Cooper had left the family and farm behind.
• Zhang Tianyuan gave Donald a satellite phone and promised to send news of Cooper and help protect his family.

Zhang Tianyuan and the Mutual Aid Society investigated the starving people in Interstellar Spacetime and found that North America had ample food and was producing huge quantities of alcohol while people were left to die. The investigation reports shocked the branches, and the spacetime conference laid bare the scale of the authorities’ cruelty.

• Amelia urged Donald to support the fight for humanity, and Donald let Murphy keep the satellite phone after Zhang Tianyuan and the others departed.
• Zhang Tianyuan returned to the space base and gave Zhou Kun the investigation summary, which he could barely endure reading.
• Yuan Heguang and Professor Brand read the reports and were overwhelmed by the evidence of mass starvation and death.
• Reports from the other branches confirmed that the exiled starving people faced the same desperate conditions, leaving every branch silent.
• An investigation representative told the spacetime conference that North America had enough grain for years and showed footage of a large, active distillery shipping enormous quantities of alcohol.

The Response Bureau unanimously activated the new charter and took over matters concerning No. 7 Spacetime. Zhang Tianyuan chose a level one response, leaving open the possibility of helping starving people take food from their own authorities’ granaries.

• Footage showed North America's upper classes living in luxury and hunting both animals and starving people, prompting the representatives to vote on activating the new charter.
• Professor Brand cast the final vote, and all 27 representatives approved the charter.
• Zhang Tianyuan announced that the Response Bureau would take charge of No. 7 Spacetime.
• Zhang Tianyuan selected a level one response because higher-level measures were either unsuitable or a last resort.
• Zhang Tianyuan refused to provide food directly to tens of millions of starving people and said the Mutual Aid Society could help them enter granaries and reclaim food themselves.
• Amelia realized that level one aid could potentially include giving weapons to the starving people.

Zhang Tianyuan organized a Mutual Aid Society operation to give North America’s starving people food and water, while leaving their response to the authorities up to them. At the desert’s edge, the first supplies drew a desperate crowd toward the convoy.

• Amelia reluctantly accepted that the Mutual Aid Society would feed the starving people but would not decide whether they should rebel or negotiate.
• Zhang Tianyuan authorized a level-one response, and the Society’s branches prepared food, water trucks, weapons, and an armed escort.
• Wang Lei led the convoy to the desert, where the starving people initially watched the arriving soldiers with numb suspicion.
• The soldiers handed out compressed biscuits and water, and Wang Lei ordered the convoy to sound its horns.
• Water trucks sprayed clear streams that formed a rainbow, and the starving people surged toward the convoy.

Wang Lei’s team fed the starving people and offered temporary agreements to those willing to fight for food. The chapter ended as the starving people rushed through the Spacetime Tunnel toward a granary, armed with rifles and bullets.

• Wang Lei learned that about twenty thousand people deep in the desert were too weak to move, and sent squads with food, water, and medicine to help them.
• Wang Lei told the starving people the Mutual Aid Society would provide no more meals, then offered temporary agreements to those willing to seize their chance to eat.
• A convoy of heavy trucks smashed through the granary wall and drove through the Spacetime Tunnel into the desert.
• The trucks dumped rifles and bullets before the starving people, who rushed forward to arm themselves and cross the tunnel toward the grain.

The Mutual Aid Society’s armored truck breached a granary, and a horde of starving people poured through the Spacetime Tunnel, overwhelming the guards. Officials questioned the report and suspected the Mutual Aid Society, but struggled to believe it had opened a wormhole just to raid the granary.

• The fat supervisor sounded the alarm after the Mutual Aid Society’s armored truck smashed through the granary perimeter, while guards fired at it without effect.
• Guards approached the Spacetime Tunnel, and starving people surged out, attacking them with rifles used as clubs.
• Some of the starving people regained control, loaded their rifles, and began shooting, while the guards’ defenses collapsed.
• The fat supervisor fled and reported the granary attack over the radio.
• Officials doubted the account that starving people had appeared inside the perimeter and considered whether the Mutual Aid Society was responsible.
• The officials argued that creating a small wormhole to take just over two hundred thousand tons of grain would make little sense.

After the starving people seized the granary, Zhang Tianyuan arranged for its operators to release grain, and the crowd gorged themselves until they realized they could not carry it all away. Barry warned them that the granary’s owners would try to reclaim it, but a starving person answered defiantly, leaving the crowd ready to face the threat.

• The meeting’s attendees judged the reports of the granary’s fall suspicious and ordered the National Guard to retake it.
• Tens of thousands of starving people overwhelmed the granary’s small guard force, while about thirty guards escaped and more than a thousand people lay dead.
• Wang Lei’s field doctors treated the wounded, and Zhang Tianyuan brought the granary’s equipment operators to open the storage bins.
• The starving people rushed to grab and eat grain as Zhang Tianyuan ordered tank after tank opened, until they grew exhausted and began to cry.
• Barry told the crowd they had escaped the desert but warned that the granary’s owners would take action, and one person shouted, “So fucking what!”

Barry explained that the starving people could survive by holding the granary, whose 200,000 tons of grain would deter an attack, and revealed the Mutual Aid Society’s rescue plan. Zhang Tianyuan and Wang Lei left a team to organize the survivors as the Society prepared to rescue more starving people.

• Barry told the starving people they could either trust the authorities again or hold out beside the granary’s grain.
• The skinny beanpole questioned how long the authorities would tolerate the survivors, and Barry said they only needed to endure for a few years.
• The skinny beanpole asked who Zhang Tianyuan and the others were, and Barry explained the Mutual Aid Society and the double-layered Spacetime Tunnel.
• Barry announced that the Society would rescue other starving people and send them to granaries, using grain from this one to feed them.
• Zhang Tianyuan and Wang Lei left people behind to help the survivors establish a management organization.