Edward

Edward is a technically skilled member of the local team whose work turns incomplete hardware and improvised components into a functioning link between Flynne and a remote anthropomorphic drone. Working alongside Macon, he helps construct the equipment, explains what it can and cannot do, and remains part of the practical support network around Flynne and Burton as the operation grows into Coldiron. His role is less that of a visible decision-maker than a careful builder whose cables, adjustments, and quiet cooperation make distant bodies and local action meet.

Identity and Technical Work

Edward collaborates with Macon on a hardware project whose purpose is initially kept from the people arranging its construction. The request is described only as a piece of hardware, and the builders are told they will be paid handsomely for arranging it. When the equipment is examined, Edward explains that they cannot find matching patents or products, so the work does not look like counterfeiting. Instead, its many redundancies and obvious workarounds suggest they are building an approximation of something a more advanced system could do better, using available parts alongside printed and modified components.

That distinction captures Edward’s particular function: he can read the design through its imperfections. The hardware is not a finished product copied from a known plan; it is a workaround assembled from what the team can obtain and make. Edward and Macon therefore bridge different technical capacities, translating an unexplained request into a workable device without claiming to know the full system behind it.

Building Flynne’s Telepresence Link

At Conner’s house, Edward and Macon work at the back of the Tarantula, with toolkits arranged on a pale blue tarp. Their setup includes a large slick, and the scene places their careful hands-on work amid the improvised equipment and salvage around Conner’s property. Flynne comes over to inspect the spiny arm she had seen at Jimmy’s. A change to the vehicle is presented as a repair, but she understands that the explanation is a cover story intended to let her know what she needs without requiring her to conceal anything beyond what she has actually been told. Edward participates in that managed account, while the visible equipment has been altered and a gun or its housing removed and replaced by another attachment.

The telepresence system is similarly assembled through explicit compromise. In Burton’s trailer, Edward cables equipment to Burton’s display, with the white controller placed at the center of an army blanket on the bed. Flynne asks whether the connections are wireless; Edward explains that the cables themselves make up about a third of the device. Its physical arrangement is not incidental: the interface depends on visible, connected components, and the setup must be fitted to a user rather than simply switched on.

When Flynne first accesses the remote body, Ash identifies it as an anthropomorphic drone, or telepresence avatar, and says Macon’s device is imperfect but works. Edward’s contribution is part of the local hardware effort that makes this access possible. The distinction between a game controller and a telepresent interface matters: what Flynne initially understands as a game device is a control system for inhabiting and operating another body at a distance. The project’s roughness does not make it merely a simulation; it brings a remote, embodied presence within reach.

Adaptation and Practical Care

Edward adjusts the interface for Flynne rather than treating the first workable fit as final. He explains that she has more hair, so he padded the back with Kleenex to keep the device pressed against the other body’s forehead; saline also helps it work. The improvised materials make the technology’s dependence on fit plain. A device designed for one user does not automatically suit another, and Edward addresses the problem with a modest physical adjustment rather than a new, fully tailored unit.

Flynne objects that the controller had been described as custom-made for her head. She asks for a separate one to be printed and says she does not want anyone using hers or her peripheral. Edward apologizes, unhappy. The exchange shows both the limits of the team’s improvisation and Flynne’s insistence on a personal boundary around equipment that enables access to another body. Edward’s accommodation has helped the system work, but she wants the hardware—and the remote body attached to it—to remain hers to use.

His attention to practical needs also appears in the ordinary arrangements around the equipment. When Flynne realizes she has not brought cups, Edward retrieves a yellow resin mug from a transparent Hefty gear box. The gesture is small beside the remote-control technology, but it belongs to the same pattern: he notices what the group needs and supplies what is available, whether that means adapting an interface or finding a cup.

The Wider Team and Later Work

Edward remains closely associated with Macon. The two work side by side on the Tarantula, jointly develop the telepresence hardware, and later live together in the barn on the Coldiron property. During the period when the team is supporting Burton and Flynne, Edward and Macon sleep curled together on foam under a sleeping bag after their run on government wakefulness. Later, Macon greets Flynne while holding Edward’s hand. These details establish their intimacy without displacing their shared technical work: they are partners in both the workshop and the surrounding community.

Edward also works as part of a broader emergency response. When Flynne hears gunfire as she is leaving, Edward is present and reacts with alarm; the scene establishes him among those who must respond to danger, though it does not assign him a specific action in the shooting. Later, he and Macon are asleep after working on the government wakefulness effort while others cover the immediate demands around Burton. Their labor is strenuous and collective, and their rest is part of a team effort to sustain that work.

The scale and purpose of their technical work expand at Coldiron. Edward and Macon live in the barn, where they carry out special printing that Coldiron wants kept from leaking prematurely. Industrial espionage is treated as a major concern because the company’s value depends on knowing how to do things unavailable elsewhere in the local world. The barn is therefore not just their home or workshop: it is a protected site for producing and controlling technical knowledge. Their earlier practice of printing approximate hardware from available parts develops into work at the center of a larger technological program.

Narrative Role and Significance

Edward’s importance lies in the concrete labor between advanced designs and usable devices. The novel repeatedly makes that labor visible through cables, a forehead interface padded with Kleenex, saline, printed components, and equipment laid out for repair. These objects resist the idea that remote embodiment arrives as a seamless miracle. Flynne can enter a drone body because people such as Edward and Macon assemble a working bridge from materials, adjust it to her, and keep maintaining it.

At the same time, Edward’s place in the later Coldiron operation links this local, improvised competence to a future-facing technological surge. The company’s ambition depends on producing things other people do not know how to make, while its leaders recognize that introducing too much technology at once could destabilize the community. Edward is not shown setting that policy, but the protected printing work he shares with Macon gives it material form. His arc is consequently one of continuity rather than a dramatic personal reversal: the builder first seen making an awkward device remains a builder in the institution that grows around that capability.