Hello friends! Welcome back to day five of our readalong for The Ones We're Meant to Find by Joan He!
Today we're reading chapters 24-37. And can I say? These chapters packed a punch! As always, please avoid my chapter summaries until you're finished. Can't catch up today? No worries! Just come back and chat whenever you're done!
Chapter 24:
Kasey stands in front of a stasis pod beneath the stage. The pod opens.
Chapter 25:
In a struggle in the water, Cee manages to hit Hero in the head with the oar, he sinks, but she rescues him. He won’t wake up and she realizes he’s not breathing. She killed him. Cee goes back to the island and lays with the body on the beach until...he come back to life.
Chapter 26:
Kasey activates the pod, calling it ‘C.’
Chapter 27:
After again tying Hero up Cee dives deep into the sea, ignoring her body's protestations and eventually breathing in the ocean. She has a memory of her Intraface extraction procedure. She swims into a dome under the water, and although she doesn’t know why she’s doing it, she’s compelled to go further in before descending 500 metres under the ocean floor. The lights come on.
Chapter 28:
P2C has endorsed Operation Reset and Kasey and Actinium are demonstrating the secondary barometer, meant to serve in conjunction with the primary barometer.
Chapter 29:
Cee is before a room of walls that look like they are made of man-sized bricks. Seemingly on its own accord her hand touches one of the bricks, which slides out like a drawer. But it’s not a brick, more like a casket. The lid opens and Cee whispers her name.
Chapter 30:
The bot has a goal. It will be perfectly calibrated as human. The moment the earth becomes habitable, it’s sole desire would be to follow one command. “Find me.”
Chapter 31:
Kay sits up in the casket. She’s a bit older than Cee remembers. She smiles and says “You found me.”
Chapter 32:
People are outraged that the bot violates the Ester Act. But Kasey insists the bot's happiness and feelings are a means to an end. Once it completes the “Fine me” command…
Chapter 33:
Kay tells Cee to take a seat and starts asking her about her time on the island while observing a holograph of graphs and numbers. She asks Cee if anything went wrong on the island, and once Cee reveals Hero, she asks if he ever tried to kill her. As Kay stands unsteadily from the casket, Cee tries to steady her but finds she can’t move her limbs. Her vision dims.
Chapter 34:
...It terminates. Job done the bot will power down and whoever has been woken will verify the habitability of the outside before waking up the others.
Chapter 35:
Kasey tells Cee how she came to be, all about how she isn’t human and was a means to an end. Cee is determined to live, something she thinks that the real Kay would want as well. Regaining her strength, Cee pushes Kay back into the stasis pod and seals the lid. The pod now has a 192 hour countdown.
Chapter 36:
Kasey and Actinium are planning to deceive the P2C by only waking people trusted not to ruin the planet again from stasis. But first, they need to get the rest of the world on board with Operation Reset. Ekaterina wants her to visit territory 4 to try to convince more people to approve.
In the Coles’ apartment, Kasey invites Actinium to holo in. After he bids her goodnight Kasey starts filtering through the folder of Celia’s memories of her relationships, but to her surprise, Actinium isn’t in any of them. On reflection, when Actinium holo-ed into the Coles’ apartment, she should have been prompted to ACCEPT GUEST in her Intraface, but wasn’t. This leads her to believe that maybe Actinium wasn’t a guest in the apartment at all…
Kasey decides she will confront Actinium in person, but as she arrives at P2C headquarters to depart for territory 4, she is met by Meridian who is also coming along. On a tour of a hospel, they are suddenly charged at by a man trying to steal antiskins. Instead of moving out of the way, Actinium punches the man in the face, and while trying to hold him back, Kasey is also elbowed in the nose by Actinium. In the aftermath Kasey is finally able to confront Actinium about his identity. It is revealed that he is on of the Coles and he had built a bot to go in his place the day his family died. He says it wasn’t an accident. It was murder.
Chapter 37:
Cee manages to get back to the island, but it isn’t easy as she feels the pull of the dome. She has been gone for five days. She unties Hero, but doesn’t tell him what happened.
Well we got a lot of information today my friends! How is this story going to wrap itself up? We have two more days to find out!
Questions:
1. Why do you think Actinium responded the way he did to the man charging at them?
2. How do you think Meridian’s involvement will change their plans, if at all? Do you think their plans of only waking certain parts of the population will be successful?
3. Why do you think Actinium killed his family - or do you even think it was him?
4. Do you think that Cee will tell Hero about what he really is? How do you think he would react to such a thing?
