While looking for Astrid's autistic four-year-old brother "Little" Pete at a nuclear power plant outside of town, the quartet discovers that the barrier's boundaries correspond to predicted radiation patterns in the case of a meltdown.
Sam's group and the Coates students - amongst them Taylor, who can teleport, Brianna "The Breeze", who can run at superhuman speeds, and Dekka, who can control gravity - return to Perdido Beach.
Unknown to Caine, Diana sends his subordinate "Computer" Jack, who is concealing his own ability of super-strength, to Perdido Beach to tell Sam how to escape the "poof".
Sam, Quinn, Edilio and the formerly captive Coates kids join forces to rescue the preschoolers; Orc, who survived the coyote attack and had subsequently transformed into a tall, gravel-skinned being, fights Drake to a stalemate.
Food supplies are dwindling, exacerbated by the presence of mutated carnivorous worms called "zekes" that prevent access to crop fields and only partially alleviated by Quinn's idea to begin fishing the nearby ocean.
Other children are beginning to discover their mutant abilities, including Duck Zhang, who can control his density, and Hunter Lefkowitz, who can emit deadly microwave rays.
At Coates Academy, Caine wakes after having spent the past three months in a fugue state following his encounter with the gaiaphage and makes plans to seize control of the nuclear power plant.
Forced to submit to the gaiaphage's will, Caine takes the uranium to the mineshaft, damaging the reactor and permanently cutting off power in the FAYZ, and leaving Drake behind to stall Sam.
Caine and those he deems useful - Diana, Bug, and a cruel mutant named Penny with the ability to create illusions - make it to San Francisco de Sales, which they discover is still occupied by the Brattle-Chances' adopted children.
Astrid, realizing that the children no longer respect her, uses her authority as a council member to pass laws aimed at maintaining order in the town before resigning her position.
Mary attempts to kill the preschoolers by having them jump off a cliff as she turns 15, having been influenced by Orsay and Nerezza to believe that their deaths will allow them to reawaken outside of the FAYZ.
Drake transforms into Brittney, who discovers that the Gaiaphage was an alien virus intended to seed planets with life before mutating due to exposure to radiation and human DNA.
Perdido Beach erupts into chaos with the knowledge that the bugs are approaching, most mutants too far away to help, Albert near death after being attacked by the remnants of the Human Crew, and the plague having hospitalized many kids.
Meanwhile, Albert decides to flee to San Francisco de Sales to survive an anticipated societal collapse resulting from the barrier darkening; it is revealed that he has hidden the missiles on the island without telling Caine.
Penny drugs Caine and encases his hands in concrete, preventing the use of his powers, but is infuriated when the frightened children of Perdido Beach clamor for his release rather than accept her leadership.
The baby, whom Diana names Gaia, shows signs of possessing several powers, including Sam's light generation and Lana's healing abilities.
Two days after Fear, the inhabitants of the FAYZ have become distracted by the outside world and lose interest in their duties, which leads to Quinn returning to San Francisco de Sales to get Albert, as he is the only one who can get everyone back to work.
Genius teenager Shade Darby, who was present when the FAYZ fell and witnessed Gaia kill her mother, steals and ingests some ASO rock, along with her new best friend Cruz Rojas, a trans genderfluid person with a difficult home life.
Callous artist Justin DeVeere is also exposed to ASO rock and morphs into the giant crustacean-like beast "Knightmare", destroying an aeroplane and the Golden Gate Bridge.
Elsewhere, schizophrenic teenager Vincent Vu obtains ASO rock contaminated by starfish and densovirus genetic material and becomes capable of growing into a giant monstrous form able to control reanimated human bodies.
Homeland Security Taskforce 66 recruits Dekka to voluntarily ingest some alien rock after revealing that Drake has survived the end of the FAYZ, hoping she can combat the various new threats.
Meanwhile, HSTF-66's leader Tom Peaks is fired by the government, prompting him to vengefully ally with Drake and ingest ASO rock, gaining a dragon-like form capable of vomiting napalm.
The horrifically burned Malik gains the ability to morph into an illusory version of his unharmed body, at the cost of projecting unbearable pain to other people and leaving him constantly feeling the Dark Watchers' attention.
Aspiring comedian and FAYZ survivor Dillon Poe buys ASO rock on the black market and gains a reptilian morph with the ability of mind control.
The power-hungry Markovic, now calling himself "Vector", infects New York's government and seizes control of the city, recruiting a small army of Rockborn to assist him, including Justin.
Forming an uneasy alliance with the US government, the Rockborn Gang, with Dekka as their official leader, travel to New York to stop Markovic, joined by Simone, Sam and Edilio.
The older Malik explains that the FAYZ universe was created by an MIT team led by him and Shade 26 years in the future using artificial intelligence and based on their own memories.
Mal Peet, for The Guardian, pointed to the series' "rave reviews, most of them posted on websites by teenagers", though noting that such success stemmed from literary sacrifices that made characters into "crude two-dimensional digitisations".
"[6] Dinah Hall, reviewing Lies for The Sunday Telegraph, also drew comparison with Lord of the Flies and Lost, and wrote: "While it's never going to make it on to the GCSE syllabus, it definitely has the addictive pull of a cult television series...
"[7] Toby Clements, reviewing Hunger for The Daily Telegraph, wrote: "Grant's world is hard-edged but thought-provoking, a Stephen King novel for youngsters in which the children are challenged with reshaping society while fighting off evil.