Only a few scattered humans remain on Mars. One of them is Benjamin Driscoll, the lone inhabitant of First Town. He walks around the town, which has remarkably more graffiti and litter than Episode 2, when a telephone rings. After multiple telephones ring, he realizes his opportunity for companionship. Breaking into a home for yet another missed call, Driscoll sits down with a phone book of Mars and starts dialing at A. After days of calling without answers, he starts calling hotels. After guessing where he thinks a woman would most likely spend her time, he calls the biggest beauty salon on Mars, in New Texas City. When a woman answers, he flies 1,500 miles to New Texas City to meet Genevieve Selsor. She turns out to be thoroughly narcissistic and entirely obsessed with her own good looks. Driscoll asks her out on a date, during which she reveals that she decided to stay behind simply because "they wouldn't let me take all my clothes with me back to Earth." She enjoys having access to all the clothes, makeup, footwear, and so forth in New Texas City without having to pay for anything. At the same time, she also laments that she has to do all the cooking and technical maintenance herself. Disappointed, Driscoll runs away when she rejects his advances but still expects him to make a nice breakfast while repairing her sauna. This is a significant departure from the 1950 short story, "Silent Towns." Although the male character is the same, other than going by the name Walter Gripp, Genevieve Selsor is significantly different. Genevieve is not self-absorbed and expectant of Driscoll's labor. Instead, she is overweight and sticky with chocolate and desires to watch movies. Furthermore, she is supposedly too expectant and clingy, as she shows Gripp her ideal wedding dress. Although Genevieve varies significantly in the two stories, they have the same end result: Driscoll leaving for isolation yet again.