Frank Q and Maggie My

Frank Q's name is over Rebecca W's corpse in ch. 13. In ch. 20 he steps out of a safe-room bathroom with a plausible ICE story and Maggie My steps out of stealth with a pistol; the system freezes them for shooting in a safe room and Carl leaves lit dynamite in a rat for them. The Maestro's footage (ch. 43) tells the truth: their guide told them the only way to survive was to kill crawlers; they ambushed a group as a family; their daughter Yvette never took part; Frank pulled the dynamite from the rat with Yvette behind him and lost a hand; Maggie strangled her wounded daughter — for the experience, Carl accuses, since the girl would have healed; 'You didn't get the whole story,' Maggie answers. Frank ends the book a hollow man who will not look up; Maggie ends it with a Legendary potion that will let her find any crawler by name, a vow to watch Carl and the cat die, and her first smile. Zev's assessment: it has potential, but nobody thinks they will live long enough.

Mordecai tells Carl that Maggie should sell the Legendary Skill Potion if she has half a brain (ch. 2); Carl watches for skulls in the ruins (ch. 18) and Donut lists her among their enemies under the glass case (ch. 24). Not seen.

Frank alone at the Desperado Club bar, which he has not left since getting off at station 101: a Night Elf Blood Assassin, level 17, one hand, a Seahawks beanie, blitz sticks. Maggie left him after the Maestro's show, took her class without him, blocked him, he thinks, and has the Find Crawler potion. His revenge is the Ring of Divine Suffering and the story that goes with it: he made Yvette wear it, Maggie chose Carl as her mark, and when the dynamite hurt her she could not heal, so her mother killed her. Customs Enforcement and Seattle PD, five years separated, a sheriff's parking lot at two in the morning (ch. 19). Chris kills him in the club and walks out (ch. 20).

What Maggie became

Maggie chose the Infiltrator race — a Scree, a brain parasite — and got into Chris at the end of the third floor; when the takeover finished she left Meadow Lark, hunted Carl, and killed her own husband at the Desperado's counter, possibly for the ring he had just given away (ch. 10, ch. 14). Her sponsors are Prince Maestro and Crown Prince Stalwart, both; she got a Celestial Grenade to summon Algos, the god of pain, on Carl on arrival; their game guide said the collapse dead can come back, and a caprid cleric, a liaison, offered help if she killed Carl: 'They have my other daughter' (ch. 14, ch. 34). 'I'm not angry anymore.'

The end

Petrified in the street, dropped into a flooded tomb, out again to kill a tomb raider, hidden in the sand with Chris's camouflage, she is called out, silenced by the AI mid-sentence, and throws the winding box — a decoy — as far as she can. Carl phases into Chris's head and pulls her out; she bites, burrows up his arm, and is blown out of his neck by the third floor's parasite cure into Mongo's mouth (ch. 34). The AI's quest text remembers her running over a Labrador with her Tahoe (ch. 29).

The caprid liaison who helped Maggie cheat 'has been dealt with' (ch. 1); Carl thinks of him again when Orren talks about sheriffs who go too far (ch. 59). A fan's symbiote is named Maggie (ch. 41).