Ubik

Joe picks up the phone in his hotel room to order room service, but instead he hears Runciter discussing the accident on the phone. It appears that while Joe can hear Runciter, Runciter cannot hear Joe. Von Vogelsang arrives at Chip’s apartment, apparently sent by Al to escort Joe to the moratorium where Ella is located. He also says it’s strange that Runciter’s brain function should have been high enough for the half-life procedure but isn’t. Suspicious of Al’s intentions, Joe refuses to go straight to the moratorium. Instead, he decides to return to New York and the company’s headquarters. Before leaving, Joe and Von Vogelsang find a desiccated corpse in his closet. Joe is distraught when he discovers it’s Wendy. Though Von Vogelsang suspects massive radiation caused her death, Joe thinks that it might have something to with what she said earlier about the premature aging of objects and themselves.

Back at the headquarters in New York, the inertials await Chip’s arrival. They craft a list of clues: “Stale Cigarettes, Out-of-Date Phone Book, Obsolete Money, Putrefied Food, Ad on Matchbook Folder” (103). Concerning the matchbook folder, one of the inertials Edie Dorn adds that it contains strange information about Runciter, yet was definitely in his pocket before they went to Luna.