Rusty is furious to discover that Big Jim Rennie has been appropriating propane tanks from the hospital and town. He and Barbie know that he must be taken out of power. Linda tells Rusty that other children in town have had mild seizures, just as their children did; he speculates that this is some sort of side effect from whatever is powering the Dome. Barbie asks Rusty to hand the Geiger counter over to Julia so that she can enlist her erstwhile newspaper delivery crew—the teens Joe, Norrie, and Benny—to go out looking for clues as to where the alleged generator might be hidden (with strict instructions to turn back if the radiation count climbs too high).

In contrast, Rennie is not worried about the Dome at all. He realizes that the longer it lasts, the more he can consolidate his power—even murder is no longer out of the question. Junior asks his father when he should “find the bodies” in order to pin the deeds on Barbie (401). While Rennie is startled by the plural—he is unaware that Junior has done his own share of killing—he figures that he now has reason to blackmail his son, should it become necessary.