Still healing from his wounds from the night of the hospital break-in and his daring escape, Day looks for information about the man who might have plague cures. He moves along the Winter and Alta sectors of Los Angeles, and when the Jumbo-Trons pause their advertisements to show the flag of the Republic, “everyone stops in the streets and goes still as the pledge starts” (68). He decides to enter a bar to see if he can dig up any information, and he strikes up a conversation with the bartender, who has “a short, black, bobbed haircut” and “a vine tattoo [snaking] down her neck” (69).

Day realizes that the girl partakes in Skiz fights, illegal hand-to-hand combat matches that people gamble on. Day asks if she has any information about “someone who says he has plague meds” (70), and the girl admits that she has. However, she states that the man “wants to give a plague cure to someone—one person only” and that “this person will know who he’s talking about” (71). The mystery man wants to meet Day at “the ten-second place” (71), referring to a bank that Day broke into a year ago when he met a guard and said he could break into the bank’s vault in 10 seconds.