The Space Between Worlds

In the physical and psychological aftermath of Cara’s traumatic traverse to Earth 175, the author uses the protagonist’s recovery period to explore the many permanent costs involved in navigating oppressive systems. The physical toll of traversing is emphasized through the permanent, stripe-like markings on Cara’s body, and although an Eldridge physician talks down to her and views them as a form of disfigurement, Jean reframes them as marks of honor from the goddess Nyame: proof that Cara has been deemed worthy to survive. This reinterpretation shifts the focus of Cara’s experience from victimhood to resilience, suggesting that the damage inflicted by the system is also evidence of her strength in enduring it.

Cara’s physical scars are also matched by invisible psychological wounds, as evidenced by her panic attack upon returning to the traversing hatch. Once a tool of escape, the hatch now stands in her mind as a threat and a trigger, intensifying her fear of becoming trapped between worlds. By forcing herself to sit in the sealed hatch until her terror subsides, and then making the commitment to traverse once again, Cara reclaims a measure of agency over the technology that defines her existence, and she also fully embraces the more superstitious traversers’ belief in the interdimensional presence of the goddess Nyame. This new spiritual conviction carves out a space that is wholly hers; she may traverse on behalf of Eldridge, but what she experiences with Nyame in the void is completely hers. Her realization that traversing is a “gift” (199) rather than merely a job thus marks a significant moment in her evolution, suggesting that even though Cara must exist within an exploitative framework, she can find moments of deep personal meaning.

The author also deepens the novel’s exploration of Identity as Both Static and Fluid by staging a literal funeral for a version of the protagonist, and this act of honoring Nelline’s life and death helps to solidify Cara’s own contested selfhood in multiple ways. As Cara contemplates the similarities and differences between herself and the treacherous, irascible Nelline, the burial allows her to mourn both for a fallen doppelgänger and for the parts of herself that she has lost. This confrontation with her own mortality also becomes a catalyst for rebirth when Esther reveals that she has always been aware of Cara’s status as an impostor on Earth Zero. By finally voicing this knowledge, Esther gives Caralee full permission to be the truest version of herself. This conversation becomes especially liberating for Cara when Esther confesses that the original Caramenta was cruel and that Caralee’s arrival was a prayed-for “miracle” (188). From this point, Cara no longer feels like an utter fraud in this world, for Esther has embraced her for who she truly is. In this moment, Cara, the impostor, is deemed to be more real and more valuable to her family than the original Caramenta ever was. This validation allows Cara to begin integrating her Ashtown past with her Wiley City present: a necessary step on her parallel quest to gain a similar measure of acceptance from Dell.

Even in the midst of Cara’s personal revelations, the author does not neglect the novel’s broader purpose of critiquing The Systemic Exploitation of Marginalized Groups. Through the character of Jean Sanogo, the novel examines the complex moral compromises that are often required to survive within corrupt systems of power. The revelation that Eldridge’s “Maintenance” department is a corporate kill squad—and that Jean was once among their number—reframes the institution as a sinister, self-serving, and shadowy empire that masquerades beneath a sterile, corporate façade. When Cara realizes that her beloved mentor has been a complicit participant in this corrupt system due to his own traumatic history as a child soldier, her disillusionment with the company she works for is complete.

Upon learning that Adam and Adranik are doppelgängers, she has already begun questioning whether the Adam she knows might be just as corrupt as the Adranik she recently defeated. Her growing suspicions on this matter highlight the ongoing issue of Identity as Both Static and Fluid, especially across worlds. Because Adam has weaponized Jean’s traumatic past and harnessed the man’s ruthless skills for the purposes of corporate enforcement, it is clear that Adam, like Adranik, holds many elements of the same ominous “core programming” and has encountered circumstances that strengthen these tendencies—even if his darker traits manifest in vastly different ways.

While Jean freely admits his willingness to condone Adam’s ruthless practices, he forces Cara to realize that his pragmatism has been born from a life in which moral clarity has always been a luxury. Notably, he makes his peace with this imperfect world by advising Cara against direct opposition, viewing it as a form of suicide. Instead, he advocates for a different kind of resistance: surviving and using the system’s resources to mitigate harm that occurs in places like Ashtown. However, this compromised worldview clashes with Cara’s burgeoning conscience, and although she pretends to agree with him, her own moral impulse to compile a list of Bosch’s victims and investigate the R&D floor both establish a crucial moral distinction between her and Jean. While he chooses to look away from Eldridge’s ugly realties, Cara’s righteous actions position her as a figure who cannot accept survival if it means erasing the truth of the system’s crimes.

Within this moral framework, Adam’s announcement of a commercial traversing trip and his claim to have developed an “inoculation” against doppelgänger backlash both serve as potent critiques of capitalism, for the author uses these developments to suggest that systems of power revel in offering exclusive luxuries that are built upon violence and exploitation. At Bosch’s public assembly, he falsely promises to democratize an exclusive technology when his actual plan is to commit multiple murders in order to offer a bespoke travel experience. When Cara boldly visits the R&D floor, her surreptitious investigation confirms her suspicions that the “miracle” inoculation was never developed. She therefore concludes that Bosch’s plan has always been to build his power base on brute-force elimination of any individuals who—either by their actions or their very existence—stand as obstacles to his greed-inspired goals.

Just as the empty R&D floor symbolizes Adam’s fraudulent policies, the electrified security net that traps Cara represents the fierceness with which the system protects its foundational lies, using incapacitating violence to block any attempt to access the truth. This automated, impersonal nature of this defense mechanism illustrates that the preservation of power is the institution’s primary goal. Within this context, Dell’s intervention introduces a crucial counterforce. Boldly acting outside of protocol and against the interests of her employer, Dell takes a deep personal risk, and her actions demonstrate that individual relationships and personal loyalties can disrupt a corrupt institution’s violent machinery. These developments thus set the stage for an alliance between the two women that will prevail by exploiting the system’s own weaknesses.

For as-yet-unexplained reasons, Dell still remains inexplicably wary of Cara’s not-so-subtle overtures, but the watcher’s actions on the protagonist’s behalf nonetheless transcend her professional duties, indicating that she is acting on deeper, unexpressed feelings for Cara. When she saves Cara’s life at great risk to herself, this decisive act shatters her professional exterior, revealing the existence of a fierce, protective loyalty that positions Dell as Cara’s most vital ally. This emergent bond lays the groundwork for a partnership that will eventually help the two to bridge the social chasm between Wiley City and Ashtown, although a few serious issues and resentments from Caramenta’s brief tenure at Eldridge still remain hidden and unresolved.