Last time on Rhine is also terrible, Rhine was terrible and Jenna was undeservedly nice toward her.

Rhine asks for the first gen beauty team

“The day we met, you asked if my eyes were natural,” I say. “Can irises be dyed?” It sounds painful and absurd, but I’ve seen stranger things in my time here.
The women laugh. “Of course not!” one says.

Then why does everyone ask if they’re natural?! Fucking book.

Although dyeing the iris is such a risky procedure no one does it, there are other ways besides contacts. You can also change eye color via laser or surgery if you feel knowing your eyes are your preferred color outweighs a good chance of later going blind.

Given we know women have no bodily autonomy in this, their owners should be doing this sort of thing all the time if different color eyes are such a big deal.

Anyway point is they say contacts.

Apparently, Rhine’s idea seems like it’s that people recognize her eyes, so if she changes her eye color, they won’t recognize her!!!!!!!! This would have been a great idea about nine or ten months ago, before she met most of the staff in person. Different eye color isn’t that noticeable and it’s faces that people learn to recognize.

Then she starts going on about how her eyes are the key.

Rose said that afternoon when she caught me trying to escape through the elevator. She said that, for my eyes, Vaughn probably paid extra. And earlier this afternoon Jenna said she was worried about what he’d do to me.
Not her, not Cecily. Me. Are the two things related?

No, but now that you mentioned it with no evidence I’m sure it’ll turn out that way. Jenna was worried about what he’d do to her because only she’s trying to escape – well, more like only she’s thinking occasionally about escape.

So maybe she also thinks that if she wears contacts it’s like playing dead for a bear. Evil mad scientist will see her eyes are the same color and wander off to eat some berries instead.

Look I don’t even know at this point. It’s like the author realized the book needed an ending and so it’s time for her to do something, but she’s already blown all sane attempts so we have to dip into randomness.

And if they are, what does that mean—that he’ll pluck my eyes from my head and run some experiment on heterochromia? Heterochromia for the antidote? I can just see the party he’ll hold; Linden could draw up the layout.

I just feel like pointing out Rhine is currently bitching about the idea of evil mad scientist actually finding the cure and saving everyone. This is because Rhine is fucking insane. She honest to god would rather everyone keep dying than get dissected after she’s dead.

I’d like to take a moment to remind everyone: Sign up to be an organ donor. If you don’t, you’re a selfish dick like Rhine. And you don’t want to be like Rhine.

She and Jenna then start planning her basement attempt.

I feel like pointing out here that Rhine has consistently refused to make escape attempts on the justification that if she’s caught they won’t let her out again, but she also consistently makes not-escape attempts to hang out with Gabriel that would result in the same damn thing. We see it coming to a head here in which Rhine’s first and only real plan is to escape onto a different level to say hi to a person, not to leave.

Anyway, then Cecily goes into labor. As this is a book, going into labor happens instantly. Cecily goes from fine to gushing blood. She’s also panicking because she knows it’s too soon. Because everyone else is stupid and/or a dick, no one tells her that by eight months the kid is fully formed and has about the same chance of survival as if it were born a month later. This also happens to be true, but my point here is really just you tell people who are having panic attacks whatever they want to hear, idiots.

Jenna rushes off to find the rapist, although he’s obviously useless. Hopefully he’ll call evil mad scientist, who is not only actually competent but comparatively nicer than most of the characters.

Rhine only now realizes she knows jack shit about childbirth because Cecily’s the one who read all the books. I disagree with the claim she’s an expert, though – assuming this is progressing on anything like proper labor stages, she should have noticed the first contractions and immediately called evil mad scientist to make sure she wasn’t going into labor early.

Luckily, evil mad scientist shows up to be competent and have an actual bedside manner.

Vaughn helps her to sit up. “That’s a good girl,” he coos, and jabs an enormous needle into her spine. I’m dizzy by the sight of it, but for some reason an eerie calm washes over Cecily’s face as the fluid is injected.

Oh no he’s GIVING SOMEONE IN PAIN A PAINKILLER

HOW HAVE THEY NOT LOCKED THIS MAN UP YET

HE IS A MONSTER

Jenna points out that she could go find Gabriel now, but Rhine decides that would get in the way of using Cecily’s suffering as a vehicle for her own emo.

Jenna says no, really, I’m standing right here watching them, you don’t need to watch too.

But she doesn’t know the story about Rose’s baby, how Rose gave birth with no one but Vaughn to take care of her, and the awful thing he did when she was too sedated to stop him. He did something similar to me, after the hurricane.

…you mean, the thing where he told you to stop trying to run away? That’s the same thing as murdering a newborn and gloating about it to the mother?

He’s most dangerous when Linden’s wives are unable to fight back.

Listen. Rhine. You apparently haven’t figured this one out, so let me explain: You’re always unable to fight back. At no point in this book have you had any power to stop him from doing anything.

Anyway, the labor goes on. It’s not clear how long it takes, but it doesn’t seem anywhere near as long as a first birth would usually take (the internet can’t agree on the average here, but upwards of twelve hours is a good estimate).

I miss my mother. She would know what to do; so many babies were born on her watch. Young, expectant mothers would donate their children to research labs; in exchange they were given prenatal care, a few warm months off the street. And my mother was always so careful with the newborns. All she wanted to do was find an antidote so that the new generations would be able to live full and normal lives.

In short:
Experimenting on corpses = EVIL
Experimenting on newborns = good.

finally I snap at Vaughn, “Can’t you do something more for her pain?”
Genius that he is, expert on the human form, aspiring bearer of the world-saving antidote.
His eyes meet mine with neutrality. “No need.”

This is because she’s almost through with labor and painkillers would probably delay the birth. But it’s evil mad scientist, so it’s because he’s evil.

She pushes, and there’s a horrible bloody sound as the baby comes out of her. But worse than that is the silence that follows.

Spoiler alert: the baby is fine.

This entire subplot so far has been pointless. If this book wasn’t awful I would say its purpose was characterization, but no, we’ve been treading water with everything but the romance plot.