The narrative returns to 2011 with Samuel meeting his mother. The meeting is awkward, although Faye’s lawyer tries to keep the focus on Faye’s legal dilemma. Faye defends throwing rocks at the governor as a “necessary and essential and knee-jerk response to the governor’s fascistic politics” (199). She faces numerous charges, and the lawyer asks Samuel about writing a letter in her support. Samuel, however, demurs. He asks his mother, “Why did you leave me?” (206). Faye cannot tell him: “It’s private” (207). Samuel storms out of the meeting: “You are a virtuoso,” he yells at her, “A maestro at being awful” (208).

Meanwhile Laura Pottsdam dreads her approaching meeting with the Dean over her trumped-up complaint about Samuel. She is struggling in all her classes; they seem silly and pointless. She much prefers spending hours wandering the mall with her friends who are equally shallow; texting risqué pictures to her boyfriend; or simply drifting off into uncomplicated daydreams.

Samuel agrees to have lunch with a video gamer, who goes by the name Pwnage, whose expertise in the game world of Elfscape impresses Samuel. Together in a diner booth the two commiserate over the importance of the virtual reality world and how by comparison the real world seemed dull and uninviting, how as game characters they touch genuine heroics because in the game world, unlike the real world, effort is rewarded: “In the face of something like that,” Pwnage says, “I’d say sinking into Elfscape is a pretty sane response” (227).