Locusts
As the perspective jumps to the ten of twelve, Julio Martinez, it is revealed that they have a new plan for their survival. For a whole century, his virals have been killing and feeding on every living thing, meaning that there is not much food for them left. He compares them to locusts devouring the earth, leaving nothing in their wake. Locusts are symbolic because of their complete and ravenous destruction of crops.
Alicia, the New Thing
Right from the start of the novel, Alicia’s struggle with her new identity is revealed. She calls herself a new thing, a being neither human nor viral, and compares her existence to a composite and being apart. She reveals that she can safely exist among virals, a part of them, but not really, like a ghost.
Stepping into the circle
A large part of the sequel focuses on Lila and Grey’s relationship, their meeting, survival and final reunion at the end. Grey steps into the circle with Lila accidentally, her mind broken, refusing to accept that the world she knew came to an end. The main reason for her delusion is her pregnancy with Eva, and while hugging Lila in her kitchen after painting her nursery in the middle of an apocalypse, Grey feels as if he had stepped into a circle made out of three of them.
Giving people hope
Tired of controlling the people of Homeland through the government and irritated by Sergio, Guilder reveals his final plan, connected to the original virals. His plan is made out of manipulating people by giving them hope through religion, making the twelve the focus of that religion and he, Guilder, the priest relaying the message. “What people needed was a hope beyond the visible world, the world of the body and its trials, of life’s endless dull parade of things. A hope that all was not as it appeared.”
