The gathering in Temilún solves the novel’s central structural mystery: Renie, !Xabbu, Orlando, Fredericks and the other visitors have all been drawn to the same private network because someone close to each of them has fallen into a coma. Bolivar Atasco confirms that Otherland was built for the Grail Brotherhood, while Sellars has independently connected the Brotherhood’s interest in children to the system. The exact mechanism and purpose remain unknown, but the separate illnesses are no longer coincidences.
The meeting is destroyed before it can become a rescue plan. Dread’s team murders the Atascos in the physical world, causing their virtual bodies to freeze. Singh is already dead, Sellars’s connection is cut and the travelers discover that they cannot log out. Dread then turns escape into infiltration by hijacking one group member’s simulation body. The heroes have reached the hidden network, but entry has cost them their technical guide, their hosts and control over their own identities.
Sellars’s instruction to find Paul Jonas gives the sequel its immediate direction. Paul is not merely another captive: the Brotherhood considers him a lost subject, the Other reacts to his escape and fragments of his former life are beginning to return. The barge’s arrival in the giant-insect world proves that Otherland is a chain of radically different simulations connected by the river. No child is cured and the Grail project continues, so the ending is a cliffhanger rather than a self-contained victory.