Reeling from being fired and her tenth rejection, Zelu, high and tearful in her Tobago hotel room, begins writing Rusted Robots. The novel envisions humanoid Humes in Nigeria's Cross River Forest who treasure stories, and bodiless AIs called NoBodies who dismiss stories as useless human chaff. She withholds from all robots the ability to truly create stories. She writes through two sleepless nights, hiding her firing and rejection from her family.

Back in Chicago, Zelu hardly leaves her apartment for three months, dating casually and writing obsessively. Her savings vanish quickly. Msizi visits briefly during a business trip, walks Rainbow Beach with her, and installs his start-up's personal assistant app, Yebo, on her phone. Despite her refusal of help, he Venmos her a thousand dollars, which carries her through three more months. She reflects that her previous, failed literary novel was genuinely bad, while this new robot novel feels like immersion in deep water.

When ComEd cuts her power, she keeps writing by laptop light. Eventually, broke, she moves back into her parents' downstairs bedroom. In a final meeting with her former department head Brittany Burke, Zelu refuses to attend a moderated student meeting; Brittany lashes out, accusing her of being unable to control her anger and calling her a "black wraith," confirming Zelu's view of the workplace as a racist "intellectual plantation." Zelu wheels out triumphantly.

At her parents' house, Zelu endures her mother's nightly dinners and pressure about a job. Her father insists writing doesn't pay and urges her to pursue a professorship. Zelu lies that she's filling out applications, hands her dying English ivy to her plant-loving father for revival, then retreats to her room to dive back into her robot novel for hours.