The Dream Hotel

Another CRO announcement reveals that there are 31 norovirus cases at the facility, and they are now under a public health emergency. He orders the retainees to do their part to minimize the spread of the virus and to ensure that shift reassignments are obeyed to meet the contract requirements.

Sara trades her personal hand sanitizer bottle for a copy of The Metamorphosis. She thinks about being homesick and listens as the maintenance worker explains that it will take two weeks to replace the camera system. She spends the rest of the afternoon trying to think of ways to convince the other women to go on strike and avoiding people who are clearly contaminated with the virus. She listens in on Jackson trying to bribe Victoria to take a job again, but Victoria keeps doing card tricks and refuses, angering Jackson.

A report at the end of the chapter shows Jackson’s report on Victoria and Sara’s behavior, since Victoria taught Sara the card trick. Jackson reports it as a card scam and unruly behavior on both their parts.

Jackson sends an email to the CRO with information about the critical levels of work capacity, asking for the ability to offer employees who take less-preferred jobs incentives like extended visiting time or preferred medical service.

Sara gets sick and throws up violently. She has a disturbing dream about Hinton confronting her while she holds a can of gasoline, after which she gets arrested. She then has a dream about trying to get the kids out of a sandbox, only to realize she is wearing white like a widow, and her husband is dead from the river accident in an earlier dream. Sara recovers, picking up ambient pieces of information as she goes—35 more people get the norovirus, more wildfires are breaking out, and one of the other retainees got engaged. When she is finally well enough to stand up, she sees a teenaged boy carrying baskets at the bus stop instead of the old woman.

At breakfast, Williams and Hinton approach their table and write Victoria up for vandalism, blaming her for breaking the cameras and earning her another 180 days in retention. The women discuss how this is Williams’s revenge for Victoria’s refusal to accept his advances, but Emily reveals that Victoria did, in fact, break the cameras, and they celebrate her sacrifice that gave them a few weeks of privacy.

Sara visits Toya, who is horribly sick. Her roommate, Alice, was taken to the hospital. Sara listens as the workers discuss delays in laundry and the cameras. She realizes the CRO is in the hallway; he is an ordinary-looking man and is visibly bothered with the conditions in the facility, but then he investigates Toya’s room and says the room is big enough for a third bed. He refers to the women by number and, upon seeing Sara not working, tells Jackson to force the women to work. He orders the workers to take better care of the women’s hygiene.

Julie, as Eisley, desperately writes several emails to Sara asking for updates, even putting funds into her account. Sara’s lack of responses stresses her out, and she eventually slips and signs her name as Julie.

Sara is confused by the emails and blames them on survivors’ guilt but writes a thank-you note and reads the news. She tries to look Eisley Richardson up but only finds pictures of an adventurous girl who died 25 years prior, accompanied by Julie, her best friend. She quickly discovers the truth about Julie and realizes that Julie was a plant, and the company is trying to find a way to increase their profits. She takes the news to Toya.

When Alice returns from the hospital, Toya and Sara confront her and tell her about Julie experimenting on them in pursuit of profit. They beg Alice to join the strike, but Alice refuses, since her score is now 515. Later, as Sara is posing for Emily, she hears musical notes and follows the sound to find Marcela with her guitar. Sara realizes Safe-X will keep plying the women with benefits to keep them compliant.

Sara talks to other women who have recently gotten in trouble and manages to convince them to strike with the news about Julie and the potential to punish Safe-X. She manages to use her news to get 10 of the women to strike, enough to “attract the attention of any retainees who’ve had a complaint or a grievance about Madison. Which is all of them” (286).

Eric Hollins, the CEO of Dreamsaver, announces Dreamsocial, an app that will allow people to share their dreams with their social network and get dream analyses from their friends. Hollins claims the app will allow people to empathize with each other more.

The striking women experience punishments for refusing to work. Toya’s visit with her husband is randomly canceled; Sara’s library privileges are revoked. However, when they go to the cafeteria, they are surprised to see Hinton and Jackson handling the food preparation and serving instead of one of the retainees.

The CRO announces that new soap and linens are available, and the nurse will be holding a hygiene compliance check to ensure the case numbers continue to plateau.

New cameras are installed along with new security measures, including cutting the seating limit at tables and increasing patrols across the facility. Forty-five women are out of work, putting the deadline for Safe-X’s contract at extreme risk. The facility bans the striking women from the commissary and from bartering with each other, and the guards keep a close eye on Sara. She speaks in coded messages to keep them from learning what she means.

Hinton comes to Sara’s door while she is making her bed and offers her the notebook on the condition she goes back to work. She refuses and argues that he can’t force her to work. He tries to convince her that her records of her dreams are important, but she can’t extort him anymore because the lack of work is more concerning to the CRO now. She refuses, determined to maintain her dignity, infuriating him.

At breakfast, the striking women receive little food and struggle to figure out how to entertain themselves with all their privileges revoked. As Victoria tries to convince Emily to make a comic about her imprisonment, Hinton and Williams approach and demand that Toya and Sara follow them.

A list of Sara’s disciplinary reports is included—mostly petty writeups from Hinton—demonstrating the extent of her rule-breaking and how stringent the rules are.

To Sara’s bewilderment, she is put before two RAA agents, who explain that she has been given an expedited hearing and evaluation and does not even need her lawyer to proceed. They explain further that due to the backlog of cases, a legal services facility has been given permission to provide these services to select prisoners. They go over her case record but do not bring up all the petty grievances listed in the previous chapter and seem unusually forgiving. They confront her about the potential for violence in her dreams, but she argues that the algorithm makes a story, but the story is not necessarily true. Sara argues that the algorithm can’t take in context—her being a new parent, her husband being frustrating, and her life traumas.

The agents interrogate her and argue that she is an outlier statistically and could be a risk, but Sara eventually hits a breaking point and decides to stop taking them seriously. Just as the agents begin to discuss her behavior at the facility, the CRO enters, announcing that Sara has served her time because Hinton is overenthusiastic in giving her punishments and writeups. He tells the agents to give Sara a TS-78—inconclusive data—and release her. Sara is shocked that he is now willing to get her out to preserve his profits and curses at him, but the CRO simply pulls up a release form telling her to not discredit Safe-X or hold them liable for anything she has experienced. Sara signs the form, freeing herself. She goes to get her belongings. Hinton bids her farewell, hoping she had a pleasant stay.

Back in her apartment, Sara is overwhelmed by the abundance of her life; she cannot comprehend having as much water as she wants. She watches an animated movie with the kids while Elias frets over bringing her to a doctor, which makes her anxious. He brings her food while Sara plots how to extract herself from the web of surveillance and technology she exists in.

Sara struggles to recover from the trauma of the facility. She has joyful sex with Elias all the same, although she has a nightmare afterwards about her freedom being a dream and Hinton writing her up for needing a psych exam. She struggles to relax but bonds with her father, comforted by his relief in her safety. She tells Elias and her father that she wants to call Toya, which they struggle to understand. She knows they are worried that associating with Toya will put her score at risk again. Her father gives her his phone so she can do it with minimal risk, and she connects with Toya after deciding she wants to live her life on her own terms.