A Better World

In the later twenty-first century, the Great Unwinding has left much of the world exposed to catastrophic climate change, polluted air, unreliable utilities, violent unrest and the breakdown of government services. Linda Farmer, a physician working part-time at a free pediatric clinic in Kings, New York, lives with her husband Russell Bowen and their fifteen-year-old twins, Josie and Hip. Russell, a toxicologist and statistician who advised the EPA, loses his job amid government cuts. With no realistic way to pay their expenses, the family considers a position at BetterWorld, a company that manufactures the supposedly sustainable synthetic Omnium and operates protected company towns. Linda also has a chronic respiratory illness that makes daily life outside hazardous, though she does not fully appreciate how strongly it influences her husband's and son's decisions.

BetterWorld representative Jack Lust subjects Linda and Russell to a searching interview about their private lives and willingness to fit in. The family tours Plymouth Valley in South Dakota with Zach Greene and sees its filtered air, farms, prestigious school, medical services and underground survivor shelter with a private nuclear reactor. The town has protected itself from problems that threaten the rest of the country. In exchange, its residents surrender significant autonomy. BetterWorld supplies houses and credits rather than ordinary cash compensation; newcomers pay deposits, submit to repeated performance and conduct reviews, and can eventually qualify for permanent golden tickets. A corporate board governs the town without ordinary democratic accountability, while laborers in Plymouth Valley Extension provide domestic and industrial services without sharing the protected residents' rights. The engineered caladrius, a territorial bird bred for meat, is central to the town's rituals, collectively called Hollow. Promotional guides portray the birds as symbols of renewal and describe traditions involving seasonal offerings and communal celebrations. Dr. Carole Fielding, Linda's former supervisor, cautions her that the enclave could become a prison. Financial desperation and the promise of clean air persuade the family to move.

During their first summer, the Farmer-Bowens enjoy their safety and renewed closeness. In September, however, the company town begins testing the newcomers. Hip is excluded during a competitive soccer game and misses a decisive penalty kick. Josie's athletic ability does not spare her from bullying and status competition. Russell's BetterWorld colleagues withhold data he needs to defend Omnium in court and make his continued employment appear precarious. A troubled nuclear engineer, Percy Khoury, speaks of his lost child and the tunnels, but the town treats his warnings as mental illness. Linda meets Dr. Mitch Chernin at the hospital and learns the professional value of making herself indispensable. The family is also shown the Crowning of the Beltane King, when Keith Parson, son of Anouk and grandson of the town's aging leader John Parson Junior, is crowned with caladrius bones and demonstrates his speed in the Labyrinth. Its apparent pageantry conceals his future role as an executioner.

Linda receives an invitation to ActHollow, an elite charity led by Daniella Bennett, wife of chief executive Lloyd Bennett, with Rachel Johnson, a BetterWorld compliance officer, and Anouk Parson. At a meeting in Sirin's restaurant, she hopes to gain both useful medical work and allies capable of protecting her family. Gal Parker, a former resident, interrupts to plead for her children Katie and Sebastian, called Sebbie. She says the children are seriously ill with a disease described as idiopathic leukemia, that the town has abandoned them, and that her estranged spouse Trish Parker received preferential treatment. Linda later visits Gal's dilapidated house and sees medicines, improvised religious objects and a desperate mother. Gal becomes threatening and speaks about fire and sacrifice. Linda leaves without warning the authorities. The next day, Gal's house has burned. The town says Gal set the blaze and then returned to rescue the children, sustaining severe burns. The children are hospitalized. Linda's guilt at failing to intervene is compounded by the elites' refusal to discuss the incident. Rachel later contradicts some details Gal told Linda, including claims that Trish held Russell's former job or that the family lives in Gal's old house. Gal's behavior is dangerous, but her warnings cannot simply be dismissed.

Membership in ActHollow changes the Farmer-Bowens' fortunes. Their social hazing largely stops, Russell gains cooperation from colleagues, and the twins are invited into better social circles. Linda works at an under-resourced charity clinic in Plymouth Valley Extension, where she meets Danny Morales and his seriously ill infant son Carlos. The clinic lacks the equipment and specialized drugs necessary for difficult cases. Linda wants to provide real care rather than merely support the board's reputation. Russell wins an extension in the first Omnium case and, later in November, wins that case. He increasingly identifies with BetterWorld's leadership. Hip becomes involved with Cathy Bennett and campaigns for birthright golden tickets for residents' children, while Josie is humiliated by classmates, overwhelmed by academic demands and increasingly alienated. Linda and Russell's old disagreements over his work and her unequal domestic responsibilities become harder to ignore.

Hollow becomes more disturbing as autumn progresses. The official resident guide identifies Beltane, Samhain, Thanksgiving and the Winter Festival as joyful traditions. Sick children receive black ribbons at Beltane; adult residents must run before the Thanksgiving feast; the winter celebration is described only vaguely. At Samhain, Linda explores the haunted Labyrinth and mistakes sugar skulls and syrup for actual human remains and blood. Keith corners her and physically restrains her, but she escapes by striking him. The town's leading women laugh off the incident, encouraging her to interpret its threats as elaborate theater. The ceremony also includes a real killing of a caladrius. At Thanksgiving, Linda learns that Jack Lust is challenging Rachel's advancement and, according to Daniella, sabotaged Rachel's sobriety. Linda also hears a drunken Tania Janssen refer to the Parker children as sick children whose fate will affect the coming festival. During the compulsory race, Linda falls and is trampled without anyone helping; she leaves the course without finishing. An old man voluntarily takes last place, receives a black ribbon and kills a bird in front of the crowd. Linda does not yet know that her unfinished race may be used against her.

Fielding sends Linda information about a possible toxic reaction involving Omnium, its GREEN breakdown agent and chlorine. The suspected byproducts include benzene and PERC, both associated with cancer. International data are scarce and disease classifications vary, so Linda cannot initially determine the cause of the children's illness. Russell says that a search of BetterWorld's records produces no convincing cancer cluster and questions Fielding's conclusions. Fielding subsequently dies of lung cancer. Linda discovers a short historical reference to an old Plymouth Valley blight from the period of the original Omnium mill and reads a pamphlet describing sacrifice to a Great White Caladrius. She also sees how the promise of corporate safety depends on exploitation and secrecy. Rachel, heavily intoxicated, admits that her job includes arranging favors and paying people to be silent. She makes additional claims about abuse and possible incest in the Parson family; these allegations are not all independently verified. When Linda visits Gal after the fire, Gal admits she started it in a desperate attempt to spare her children from the Winter Festival and then rescued them. She insists they are still being kept in Plymouth Valley rather than with Trish in Palo Alto.

On New Year's Eve, Linda argues with Josie, who says her mother expects perfection from her but excuses the behavior of Hip and Russell. The family leaves Josie at home to attend a prestigious party at the Parson mansion. There, Linda overhears teenagers ridiculing her daughter, speaks to the despairing Rachel and drinks wine secretly dosed with psilocybin. As midnight arrives, she sees children resembling Katie and Sebbie being led into a restricted passage by Zach Greene. Russell restrains her when she searches for them and embarrasses the hosts by shouting. A seemingly slaughtered goat is revealed to be a prop, leaving the truth of the Parker children's presence harder to establish. Jack requires the family to leave. The next morning, Gal identifies the pictured children in her locket as the ones Linda describes and begs her for help. Dr. Chernin continues to claim the children were transferred but privately hints that he is trying to fix something from inside the institution. Linda's determination puts her marriage, job and continued residence under direct pressure.

Searching for a discarded family snow globe at the waste dump, Linda and Josie begin to reconcile. They find green Omnium sludge mixed with ordinary household waste and chlorine-containing materials, suggesting a route for the chemical reaction Fielding described. Their observation does not itself prove causation. At the clinic, Josie describes the intimidation she faces from classmates and the possibility that the family's golden-ticket status will eventually separate her from those able to remain inside. Linda admits that she is investigating the Parker children and Omnium contamination, and Josie offers to help. Linda arranges for Carlos to be accepted into a Cleveland clinical trial. She collects river water and asks Russell to test it and map illnesses near Omnium waste-processing sites. She also searches the hospital and finds Chernin abusing nitrous oxide. After he accuses her of misconduct, the hospital suspends her and the police threaten psychiatric commitment under a concession Russell has signed to prevent the family's expulsion. Linda subsequently observes guards, Chernin and toys moving into a locked basement room.

Linda gains access to Russell's work computer using the password idiopathic leukemia. She finds his analyses, including benzene and PERC in the river water and a statistically significant association between nearby waste-processing sites and cancer and autoimmune illnesses. Russell admits his more detailed work indicates an increased incidence of pediatric cancers and aplastic anemia, while arguing that incomplete data do not yet prove causation. He does not claim to have falsified the data. He confesses that the company has strong reasons not to disclose its findings before Omnium's patent expires. BetterWorld plans to separate Omnium from its other holdings, which will continue in a new corporation called Caladrius. Russell values the protected home and his increasingly successful career, and urges Linda to remain silent until the company resolves the problem on its own schedule. Linda sees the silence as contributing to avoidable suffering, and the couple reaches an impasse.

Linda visits Gal at a halfway house outside the town and agrees to rescue the children. With Josie's help, she enters a guarded room in the hospital basement, discovers Katie and Sebbie there, and persuades them to come using a phrase Gal taught her. The children have been told they will reunite with their mother at the festival, an explanation the town cannot be trusted to honor. Linda and Josie conceal them under blankets and evade the gate guard by implying the blankets are contaminated. They reunite the children with Gal, who joins Danny and Carlos on a trip to Cleveland for medical treatment. Linda insists on safeguards because Gal previously attempted to kill the children in the house fire. Back in Plymouth Valley, Russell discloses that the board will allow the Farmer-Bowens to retrieve their deposit after the full first year if Linda behaves and he finishes another case. Hip refuses to leave Cathy and the Bennett family, while Linda and Josie attempt to depart without him. The gate guards stop them, announcing that the town has been sealed for an investigation.

All four Farmer-Bowens are forced into the underground Winter Festival, with the first two days consumed by ordinary banquets, speeches, dancing and communal activities. Russell admits that he has long ignored Linda and that Hollow might actually be violent, but the family cannot find a route out. The festival's corporate announcements reveal that Jack, not Lloyd, will become chairman of Caladrius, and that Rachel has been replaced as compliance director. Rachel is treated for alcoholism with the highly addictive drug Glamp and appears desperately unwell. A nonphysician, Tania Janssen, takes control of the charity clinic. Cathy breaks up with Hip, and the twins begin to reconcile. Linda discovers that Hip and Russell's loyalty to Plymouth Valley has partly arisen from fear that her serious respiratory symptoms will return outside its clean air. Their differing positions become more understandable even as their options narrow.

On the third day, most residents are released but a small group of privileged insiders remains. Jack publicly acknowledges the harm caused by Omnium and describes culling long-term residents and using sick children and the slowest Thanksgiving runner as offerings to Hollow. Gal's children are missing, and he announces that the chosen victims must be replaced. Linda, who failed to finish the race, is selected along with Josie and Hip. The elite residents physically attack them, then form an aisle to the Labyrinth. Russell offers himself instead, but Jack refuses. Keith Parson approaches in his Beltane King costume. When Russell blocks his path, Keith slashes him from throat to groin with a machete, killing him. Members of the crowd step in his blood and embrace as the surviving family is forced into the shifting tunnels.

Linda and the twins flee through the Labyrinth and discover real human skulls, freshly spilled blood and human-skin furniture. The earlier Samhain decorations were theatrical imitations of genuine horrors. Keith catches them. Linda attacks his eyes while the twins strike him with rocks; Josie's wrist is broken. Keith pursues them through the Parson family's underground quarters to the reactor and eventually collapses and dies. Percy Khoury appears nearby with specialized tools, speaks of divine vengeance and summons enormous caladrius, which consume Keith's body. Linda and the children find a route to Caladrius Park, collect their luggage and reach the gate. Guards congratulate them for winning and say they can remain with improved privileges. They refuse and walk away toward the PVE halfway house. Linda anticipates that she and the twins will return to New York and that she may eventually take over Fielding's clinic, but the novel presents these as a forward-looking projection rather than documenting every subsequent step. Russell's death is irrevocable, and Linda's health and the family's recovery remain uncertain.

The final source is an excerpt from a history published in 2093 by Jin Hyun, not a continuation of Linda's direct narration. It reports that a disgruntled employee initiated a nuclear meltdown in Plymouth Valley's shelter during the final Winter Festival. Percy's activities near the reactor strongly suggest his involvement, but the document does not identify the employee. Relief workers evacuate residents of Plymouth Valley Extension, while many people inside the protected town refuse to believe their radiation monitors and retreat to the shelter, where they die. The caladrius scavenge the remains and spread beyond the valley. A Chinese-American scientific consortium successfully tests radiation-removal technology at the disaster site, and the history credits that achievement with helping initiate recovery in energy, food systems and global cooperation. The Great Unwinding gives way to an era called the Global Ecosystem, and collective uprisings destroy corporate settlement walls in multiple cities. A public clean-air Bell Jar is planned for New York. The author's retrospective claims about surviving underground residents and the Parson family's private history are explicitly qualified as rumor. The specific later fates of Jack, Daniella, Rachel and other individuals are not independently shown. The ending overturns Plymouth Valley's claim to be the only viable model for survival and confirms that its attempt to preserve privilege through isolation and sacrifice destroys the enclave itself.