Again the novel focuses on Protagoras, who believes himself safe in this capitalist alternate world. However, he very soon makes a hideous discovery. This is not the authentic alternate capitalist world at all. Something -- at least in his case -- went wrong. This is the mere partly completed fake that REM Corporation was building for Self up to the time that Mrs. Stonemerchant learned of the existence of the real one. Here he finds, for example, the not yet functioning "rides" that he himself designed: a ghostly, lonely, echoing "amusement park," of which he is the sole patron; he is alone in this ersatz world, with no way to get back out.

The ending is not downbeat, however. REM Corporation has not removed its machinery, the autonomic building rigs by means of which they were constructing this "world." At the end of the book we find Joe Protagoras starting the great elaborate autonomic machines once more into action; if he can't leave this ersatz world, at least he can complete it -- make it pleasant and habitable, including the building of ersatz "people" to keep him company. He is emperor of an entire landscape, and he is happy. Of all the major characters, Joe Protagoras came out the best -- which the reader will agree is as it should be.

In this ending, the questions What is real? What is illusion? are answered (or anyhow the attempt will be made within the context of the novel). Joe Protagoras has gone from a "real" but unsatisfying world into an "unreal" but satisfying alternate. The test will be purely pragmatic. If this half-completed ersatz world is capable of answering Joe Protagoras' needs, then it is real -- in the sense that it provides the material out of which he can fashion a reasonably tolerable life. In fact, the issue of "real" versus "unreal" is itself false; the authentic issue is: What will sustain life? What will permit a living organism to function? In answer to this, the ersatz, half-completed world is advantageous, because, among other things, it gives Joe Protagoras a field in which to work creatively (i.e., as he personally completes it). Instead of a bureaucrat he is now an artist, and this ersatz world is the lump of clay out of which he will fashion his own, idiosyncratic reality. Which, we realize, is the finest reality of all.

The mission is to take place in a Latin American country that is an analog for present-day Cuba. Formerly a hedonistic, self-serving dictator ruled, but a year or so ago he was overthrown and killed by a young, idealistic revolutionary. However, this left-wing revolutionary has allied himself with "the other side" -- i.e., the Communist states of Eastern Europe and Asia. The United States would, of course, like to see him deposed, but assassination is out of the question; the revolutionary's followers would know that the CIA had done it, and would become even more fanatical and anti-West. So the mission is this: to find a way by which the revolutionary leader can be induced to come voluntarily to the United States -- which will not only remove him from power in his own country but also will undermine the Marxist-oriented followers and demileaders backing him. But how can this be done?

The scheme worked out by the Mission: Impossible team is as follows. The revolutionary leader (from hereon referred to as R) is at present at a swank resort within the borders of his country -- a pleasure palace left over from the previous dictator's reign. At this fashionable spot the R is conferring with heads of clandestine fighters operating in the mountains of other Latin American countries. R is therefore out of public circulation for a time. Using cinnamon as bait, the team captures and drugs the R and makes off with him -- meanwhile making use of word cuts from audiotapes that the R made in the past: These individual word cuts are assembled so as to form an oral statement to the others gathered at the mansion to explain why the R has "temporarily departed." (I don't believe Mission: Impossible has used word cuts from audiotapes before, as was done in the movie The Great Man.) The team takes the R off to a building that they have taken over. They have made the interior of the building appear to be that of a mental sanitarium. When the R comes to, he is told by the chief "psychiatrist" (probably, of the team, Jim Phelps) that he has been in a complete catatonic schizophrenic state for well over a year. The time is the present, but the R has not ruled; he went mad in the hills, believing himself ruler of the entire country. It was a delusion that the previous dictator (from hereon referred to as D) was kicked out of office and then executed; the D is very much alive and still in power.

Here the magic fakery of the fertile minds of the team begins to operate. The D appears on TV, and this is not an old film or videotape; it is live, and in various ways alludes to the time -- to the now. The D might even scathingly refer to the R as being hopelessly mad and in a sanitarium. Then there are faked newspapers. The R makes phone calls to his demileaders, and Barney cuts into the circuit, at which point Rollin tells the R that first one demileader and then another is either in the D's prisons or dead. The movement failed; it collapsed after the R became psychotic and could no longer keep things running. (The appearance of the D on the TV screen is done by Rollin, using his handy rubber-face apparatus.) But the most overwhelming fakery is yet to come.

When he took office, after deposing and killing the D, the R made an important speech; he remembers it well. It stated to the nation the aims and intentions that he intended to carry out; in this speech the R unmasked himself and informed his conquered country that he intended to lead it into "progressive anticapitalism," etc. The team therefore produces the following. They take the audio portion of the tape (or movie film) of that speech. Rollin, this time wearing a rubber face, etc., which makes him look like the R (repeat: like the R), only it is not the R speaking from the balcony of his new capitol building to huge masses of people: The video portion of the tape or film shows the R in a mental hospital -- the very same one he is in now -- wearing the standard clothes of a patient and delivering his speech to other patients and members of the hospital staff (the team accomplishes this via lip-sync plus Rollin's impersonation).

However, there has been a minor, technical error in the film. A pile of magazines is shown, and the R has noticed this same pile in the now -- and the film is supposed to be at least a year old. The R now employs a bit of electronic gadget knowledge on his own; he manages to get a single frame of the film enlarged enough so that he can read the date on the top magazine. The magazine is current, not a year old. So the R realizes that this is all an illusion (the Mission: Impossible team does not know, however, that he has discovered this). But even though he knows this, he is still physically in their hands. How can he make contact with the outside world -- i.e. his followers? After all, Barney has all the phones tied up, and Willy is skulking about outdoors with a Skoda rapid-fire hand weapon.

But the R is inventive and imaginative; after all, he did come down out of the hills and take over his country. The Mission: Impossible team, this time, is up against a person who is not only as resourceful as they are, but is so along some of the same lines -- for example, electronic gadgetry, Barney's specialty. (I don't recall a Mission: Impossible episode in which the team faced someone expert in their own sort of electronic delusion sleight-of-hand before.)