Van and Jolu are waiting for Marcus when he exits the alleyway, and he learns that Darryl is still missing. The DHS mostly asked them for information regarding him. Five days have passed since the terrorists bombed the Bay Bridge. Marcus understands that the terrorist’s goal is to destabilize the city and create terror for the citizens, not destroy landmarks, because they didn’t bomb the Golden Gate Bridge. He warns Van and Jolu to not tell their parents or attorneys about their imprisonment because the DHS will be watching them. Instead, they will say they were stranded on the other side of the Bay.

When Marcus arrives home, he finds that his distraught parents, Drew and Lillian Yallow, believe he was killed in the bombing. After a tearful reunion, Marcus tells his parents that Darryl took the BART to meet them but never showed up. They tearfully tell him that the BART underwater tunnel bombed at the same time as the bridge.

Later, he discovers a DHS bug hidden behind a ribbon cable in his laptop. Digging up an unwrapped Xbox Universal, he installs ParanoidXbox, a program that will allow him to connect to the Internet anonymously using nearby Xboxes.