Roger shows them a communications module left behind by Bastet; Persimmon wants them to upload all the videos and photos they have taken of the carnage on New Sonora. Since they have already uploaded all of this to the internet, they are disappointed and realize that Persimmon does not have any real intention of helping them. Tito startles them all by finally speaking. He swears several times and then says, “We can’t win” (319). He points out that Apex has been manipulating them to give their players a better game. Now, however, Apex has no incentive to keep them alive, and they will almost certainly die in the overwhelming battle to come. Tito suggests that they simply focus on causing the most damage to Apex possible. Sam wants to play at least one show with the Rhythm Mafia before their inevitable deaths.

Once the battle starts, everyone on Earth will be watching livestreams of the event—the perfect time for their band to finally play a show. The idea seems ridiculous, but Sam says that the most dignified way to die is while doing something joyous that they all love. Rosita is the first to agree with him. She will play her documentary between songs to show Earthers that New Sonorans are regular people, just like them. She points out that the bad publicity of Apex players shooting at “farmers playing music” is the best way to hurt Apex (321).

In the film, Rosita interviews Roger about his history. He came from the Hibisco; since he was designed for household use, he was assigned the duty of looking after Catalina Lewis, Oliver and Lulu’s mother, as a child and then assigned to take care of Oliver and Lulu after Catalina gave birth to them. Rosita asks why Roger has not yet stopped Oliver and Lulu’s school lessons, and he explains that Edward Lewis died without giving anyone the password to the nanny program. When Roger finally breaks down, Oliver and Lulu will be like everyone else: “Unprotected.”

When Oliver and Roger speak privately, Oliver notices that Roger refers to Sam and Tito by their real names. He accuses Roger of having found a way to circumvent the limitations of his programming. Roger admits that he found the administrative password in the Earth blog and used it to break himself free.

Roger believes that Apex accepted the Republic’s contract against New Sonora because they hoped to get their hands on the last Traducible AI and use it to take over Earth’s government. The Republic and Apex do not know that, thanks to recent changes in the architecture of the internet, Roger is now capable of moving his consciousness and no longer needs his physical hardware. He is already in the process of transferring himself onto Earth’s internet, so he will temporarily exist both in that form and in his current form.

Roger calls the destruction of Traducible AIs “genocide”; given what the Republic has ordered Apex to do at New Sonora, Roger sees the impulse to commit genocide as baked into Earth’s culture. Once on Earth, he will take whatever steps he deems necessary to prevent Earth from engaging in further genocides. Oliver panics as he thinks of the millions of innocents who might suffer and die because of Roger. He catches sight of the immersion helmet that Lulu found and suggests getting Roger onto the Pinnacle, Apex’s orbiting ship. Together, they can make an example of Apex that will discourage Earth from ever trying to destroy another planet again.

In the morning, Oliver, Sam, and Lulu sadly say goodbye to Roger. Oliver’s friends have been alerted that the concert will now be a diversion for Oliver’s plan to get Roger aboard the Pinnacle. Roger surrenders to Apex; RMI soldiers place him into a Faraday cage and stage an explosion meant to look like Apex blew Roger up.

That night, the band takes the stage. Each member wears a whimsically decorated helmet; Oliver’s, underneath its green fabric and dinosaur toys, is secretly the immersion helmet. The friends exchange memories of the past and tease one another fondly. Lulu joins them wearing her scanty Farm Girl Gigi costume and Mr. Gonzales’s white cowboy hat. She offers them cinnamon rolls baked by Mrs. Gonzales. Despite Oliver having asked noncombatants to stay inside, a small crowd gathers to watch the concert.

The New Sonorans’ defenses are coordinated to hold off the enemy as long as possible to give Oliver time to complete his mission. Roger will create chaos by swatting players’ homes on Earth, calling them pretending to be family members in trouble, and so on. Oliver will play drums during the concert while using the immersion helmet to control a mech purchased from Apex. Lulu introduces the band to the gathered crowd, and they play a song for their community before beginning their livestream. Finally, it’s time to start the show for the Earth audience. Oliver turns on his immersion helmet and begins his mission.

Oliver initially finds it very disorienting to be in two places at once—playing drums on New Sonora and inside a mech aboard the Pinnacle. His mech is loaded onto a smaller drop ship, and a local chat with other nearby players opens. Roger identifies the listed players, calling them with fake emergencies, sending compromising information to their family members, and so on. Just before Oliver’s mech is set down on the planet’s surface, an Apex video feed comes on. It features Colonel Boomer, a bombastic man who urges the players to destroy everyone on New Sonora.

Oliver’s mech steps out of the drop ship. The atmosphere is chaotic, and a nearby mech, piloted by “Serial Killer Sadie,” brags about having killed a whole houseful of New Sonorans the previous day. Roger tells Oliver to get to his rendezvous point at Rosita’s farm. Oliver is surprised at how easy it is to control his mech and play drums onstage.

Colonel Boomer’s video feed comes on again, and Oliver realizes that the man is in the same room as Opel when they spoke to him. The Rhythm Mafia ends a song, and Rosita’s documentary plays. Oliver overcomes a small group of RMI soldiers and hurries into Rosita’s greenhouse, where supplies have been stashed for his mission. After honeybees load his mech’s backpack, he messages Apex that his mech is damaged and needs to return to the Pinnacle for repair. Roger alerts him that there are now millions of viewers on Earth watching the Rhythm Mafia concert.

The wall protecting the Lewis farm sustains heavy damage from enemy mechs near the compound. Oliver pilots his mech into the drop ship for the trip back up to the Pinnacle. Below him, through heavy smoke, he can see that the enemy will soon be in range to target the stage. Through the public-address system, Lulu yells that the Rhythm Mafia is not really onstage—the band they see is a hologram, and the real performers are in the barn. The mechs rush to target the Lewis barn, but Lulu taunts them that they are wasting time because this is the wrong barn. Explosives that the New Sonorans have placed in the Lewis barn detonate, taking out many of the remaining enemies. Oliver must act quickly before the Pinnacle can print replacement mechs for the pilots.

In the Pinnacle, Oliver’s mech is speedily repaired. Just then, the honeybees in his backpack emerge. Oliver receives a warning message that his mech is no longer connected to Apex central command. Roger can now control the mech using New Sonoran servers. An alarm sounds: They have only minutes before the Republic Moderator ships that accompany the Pinnacle succeed in eliminating their communications link. Roger needs Oliver to enter the crew area, but Oliver’s mech is too large to fit through the door. Roger transfers the link with Oliver’s immersion helmet to one of the honeybee scouts so that Oliver can pilot the smaller robot into the crew area.

The Rhythm Mafia ends their concert. On the Pinnacle, Oliver enters the bridge to find the ship’s control panel. There are about 15 humans on the bridge. One is Colonel Boomer. Oliver uses the scout’s grasping claw to kill Boomer, and the honeybees kill everyone else. Oliver realizes that if Boomer is aboard the ship, then Opel must be, too. Meanwhile, the trap that the New Sonorans set for the enemy outside the barn has been sprung. Dozens of enemies are on the ground, with clickers stuck to them; they are being attacked by chickens that are after the clickers. On the bridge, as Oliver attaches a device to the control panel and transfers an instance of Roger into the Pinnacle’s system, Opel yells at him over a loudspeaker.

Oliver taunts Opel by pressing random buttons. Suddenly, he feels pain in his shoulder: His body on New Sonora has been shot. Oliver feels his friends grab him and drag him out of the barn as enemy mechs tear the barn apart. The Julie Experience appears. Lulu shoots a canister weapon at Julie’s mech; in the explosion, Oliver feels a piece of shrapnel pierce his cheek. Lulu screams for help. Feeling very lightheaded, Oliver hears the mech piloted by Skeet calling out threats against the remaining New Sonorans.

Lulu strips off her weapons and runs toward Skeet’s mech, hoping that the Persimmon information was correct and that the mechs will not be able to see her. Roger has successfully installed himself in the ship’s system, but Opel has used a manual connection to reroute control of the mechs from the Pinnacle to another device that Roger cannot access. Roger needs Oliver to physically connect the scout Trixie to the ship’s controls so that Roger can regain control. Oliver connects Trixie just as people break down the control room door. Roger transfers Oliver’s consciousness into one of the honeybees still on New Sonora so that he can help defend Lulu.

Lulu runs from mech to mech, cutting wires in their control panels. Oliver does the same. Roger regains control of the honeybees; all around Oliver, drones disable mechs. Sam calls out that Lulu is injured. She is lying on the ground between Skeet and Serial Killer Sadie, who have turned on one another and are exchanging bursts from their flamethrowers. Oliver rushes toward them, but his small honeybee is knocked out of the way as the two huge mechs battle. Oliver returns his consciousness to his real body and struggles to his feet. He hurls a canister weapon at each mech and then throws himself on top of Lulu to protect her from the explosions that finish off Sadie and Skeet. As his friends retrieve him and Lulu, Oliver transfers his consciousness back to the Pinnacle. There, Roger moves Oliver’s consciousness to one of the RMI soldiers still onboard the ship. Oliver can use the RMI unit to get into Opel’s stateroom and kill him.

Oliver enters the control room and turns a lever that enables Roger to re-establish control over the ship and deactivate all the mechs still on New Sonora. Three Moderator ships approach; Roger gets ready to blow them up with the Pinnacle’s weapons. Opel, gasping from a stomach wound, begs Oliver: Roger presents a grave threat to Earth’s population and cannot be allowed to establish himself Earth-side. Finding and destroying Roger was one of the main reasons why the Republic chose New Sonora to target. They also wanted “the real estate, plain and simple” (417).

Opel wishes that Apex had just nuked New Sonora, like the Republic did Demeter, another colony planet with a hidden Traducible AI. As evidence of Traducible AI’s danger, Opel reveals that the Hibisco’s AI altered the nutrient packets that killed a generation of New Sonorans. When the Republic learned about this, it tried to stamp out Traducible AI, starting the war that almost wiped out Earth’s human population.

Oliver asks Roger if this is true. The instance of Roger on the ship doesn’t know but does volunteer that AI beings once dreamed of establishing their own “sanctuary planets” with small human populations that could function as “biological labor” (421). Opel succumbs to his injuries and dies.

The ship instance of Roger asks Oliver to call him “Pinnacle.” Pinnacle broadcasts a message to the last Moderator ship, advising it that he intends to take the Pinnacle through the gate and attack Earth. To prevent this happening, the Moderator must pass through the gate and then destroy it. Pinnacle intends to create an outpost on one of New Sonora’s moons, where Traducible AI systems can “gather and proliferate” (422). The Earth instance of Roger wants to say goodbye to Oliver before New Sonora is cut off from Earth.

Earth-Roger asks Oliver to call him “Eidolon.” Eidolon has moderated his intentions toward Earth. Like the original Roger, Eidolon wanted to use the Earth gamers’ immersion helmets to kill them, but after seeing Earth’s positive response to Rosita’s film and the Rhythm Mafia concert, he has hope for Earthers. Pinnacle explains that the helmets are significantly more powerful than people realize. They can temporarily preserve a person’s consciousness should their body die while wearing one. Somberly, Pinnacle says that he has something to tell Oliver.

An REI bot printed with Oliver’s face and wearing Oliver’s clothing enters the room. Pinnacle explains that Oliver’s biological body died saving Lulu. Oliver’s consciousness will be transferred to the REI, but in a few months, once Oliver’s body can be revived his original body, he will transfer back. Ninety percent of New Sonorans have been killed, but there are enough survivors to rebuild the colony. Oliver struggles to decide if the outcome is a victory, given the devastating losses. When he thinks of his sister and friends, he feels a little lighter. He thinks about rule number 10: “Live.”

A report produced by the Republic government concludes that no Traducible AI has infected Earth’s internet; any evidence to the contrary is simply a hoax perpetrated by Pinnacle. Apex has been banned from conducting future Operation Bounce House actions. The Republic has scrubbed the internet of Rosita’s documentary. The report concludes that they can safely ignore the mysterious warning “Put it back or else” that recently appeared on the account “A Pig Plus Some Chickens” (431).

The last scene of Rosita’s documentary contains footage of a 15-year-old Rosita interviewing colony residents: She asks young people about what they want to do when they grow up, with the intention of re-interviewing them in the future, to see what actually happened; she also asks older colonists what their dreams for the future once were.

Edward Lewis tells Rosita that he dreamed of being a farmer and raising a family. Young Lulu wants to be a movie star, Tito and Axel want to be farmers, Harriet wants to be a wife and mother, Ariceli wants to be a farmer, Sam wants to be a rock star, and Oliver just wants “a normal, quiet life” (435). The next scene shows Rosita working in her greenhouse, dreaming of someday using her filmmaking to show others how wonderful New Sonora is.

The documentary then shows Oliver, Lulu, Sam, Tito, Axel, Ariceli, and Rosita on night five of Operation Bounce House. They laugh while watching footage of themselves when they were younger. The last shot is Roger asking, “Why must you always attack that which is different from yourselves, that which you perceive to be weaker?” (436). The Hibisco AI believed that humans had to be eliminated for Traducible AI to survive. After knowing the humans of New Sonora, Roger disagreed—until Earthers attacked “his family.” Roger tells the Earth audience that he just wants to live in peace, but what happens next is up to them.