Summary:Legion
This page contains a chapter by chapter summary of Legion. We hope this summary will make it easier to find specific areas of the book, as well as providing a quick plot refresher for anyone who doesn't want to take the time to reread the entire book.
Chapter 1
Stephen Leeds goes to J.C.'s room where he uses a picture of Osama bin Laden for target practice. He tells him to use the mansion's shooting range, but J.C., one of the least obedient of the the aspects, merely continues. Tobias then appears and asks about the man waiting in the sitting room. Stephen doesn't want to talk to him because he's probably just another person wanting to study him and his strange form of schizophrenia. He enters a different room with a couch and talks with his hallucinatory psychologist, Ivy. She's displeased with him when she finds out that the petitioner has been waiting for four hours. Stephen finally goes to see him, asking his butler Wilson to bring four drinks, two of them imaginary for Ivy and Tobias. They enter the sitting room where a young man is waiting. He claims that his fiancee is missing and needs help, but with the help of another aspect, Audrey, who is a handwriting expert, Stephen figures out that it is all a ruse so that the grad student can follow him around and study him. He kicks him out and receives the day's mail from Wilson. A blank envelope has nothing inside but a black-and-white picture of the Lone Cypress when it was only a sapling, decades before the camera was invented.
Chapter 2
Stephen is still thinking about the photograph two days later. Ivy insists that it's fake, but Armando thinks it's genuine. Wilson arrives with the day's mail on a silver tray. An identical envelope has arrived, this time with a picture of George Washington after a morning shave. It certainly resembles him, but it's impossible to verify because there are only portraits of George Washington. They go to ask Armando.
Chapter 3
They take the picture to Armando, who claims it is genuine without even needing to run any tests on it. Steve calls the number written on the back of the photo. A woman's voice answers, asking to meet with him. He agrees, and at J.C.'s insistence, stops at his room to grab his handgun. Wilson admits Monica into the sitting room. Steve is quite skeptical that someone has invented a time machine, but she explains that the pictures were taken by a camera that takes pictures of the past. Steve perceives (through Ivy) that the camera has been stolen, and Monica finally admits that is has. She shows him a picture of Sandra, and Steve gets very agitated. She had helped Steve harness the abilities of his mind, then had left him. He agrees to help investigate.
Chapter 4
They arrive at Balubal Razon's house. Tobias discovers scholarly books on religion even though his specialty is physics. Ivy finds a well-used rosary. His work badge is there, but it is too new -- Monica admits that Razon developed a picture before working for her company, Azari Laboratories. They hired him on so he could develop a working model, giving them the rights to the invention, but he fled and destroyed all prototypes. Tobias figures out that he's gone to Jerusalem to prove the existence of the resurrected Christ.
Chapter 5
Monica and Steve board a plane bound for Jerusalem. He flips through a book on the Hebrew language. Tobias and Monica discuss Razon. He finds it noble and courageous that Razon is trying to use science to find truths about religion. When Steve finishes the book, a new aspect, an Indian woman named Kalyani, enters the first class area. She is a linguist and helps Steve say a few words in Hebrew to the stewardess. Monica is incredulous and questions his sanity. She hypothesizes that he creates the aspects so he can pretend to be normal. Steve asks her how Razon got away. She explains that they would swap and copy prototypes all the time, but only he could get them to work.
Chapter 6
After arriving in Jerusalem, they all pile into two cars to drive into the city and arrive at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Monica and her two minions go off to question the crowd while Steve finds a security guard named Moshe just getting off duty. He speaks some broken Hebrew to him, which makes him quite willing to chat. Steve makes up a story about a crazy Asian tourist taking pictures at the Garden Tomb. Moshe says that the same guy was here. He seemed to be a completely incompetent photographer. He didn't care if people got in the way and always used a flash. Steve thanks the guard and meets back up with Monica, who has had no success. After tracking down Ivy and J.C. (off in a corner making out), they all get back in the cars. Steve discusses with Monica about the possible uses of the camera. Use of the technology could end all privacy and shake up the justice system. Suddenly, everything goes black.
Chapter 7
Steve wakes up tied to a chair. Monica is nearby, also tied up. J.C. gives Steve a pep talk and unties the other aspects. He figures out through Ivy that they've been discovered because Monica and her men were questioning everyone at the church about Razon. A Filipino man named Salic enters accompanied by a number of others with guns. He claims to be part of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), but Tobias believes they are lying because the MNLF doesn't go after civilians. He identifies them as members of Abu Sayyaf, a very violent separatist group. They go to a different room with two more heavily armed men and the camera. Steve starts fiddling with the camera and asks for Razon, because without Ivans with him, he has no clue what he's doing. Razon arrives with several wounds, including a missing hand. Steve bluffs him into realizing that they're on the same side, so he gets closer so they can talk, pretending to work on the camera. Word spread about the invention because he bragged to his mother. Salic grows suspicious and jerks Razon away, which the soldiers interpret as an order for more beating. He tries to convince Steve to help figure out the camera so they won't have to kill. They want some pictures -- pictures to prove, Tobias reasons, that Christianity is false. Salic realizes what has been going on with Razon and goes over to him. Razon tries to pull out his gun from his jacket, and one of the soldiers panics and shoots Razon dead. Monica arrives and a fire fight ensues. Steve finds a loose gun and shoots the terrorists with J.C.'s help. One of them is not quite dead, and he detonates a grenade. Steve dives out of the room.
Chapter 8
A month later, Monica visits offering to employ Stephen to rebuild the camera. He refuses and receives the last picture the camera took as payment. Back in his study, he flips through the pages of the last book in a large stack. He figured out that it was the flash, not the camera, that was taking the pictures. He recovered one from the camera just before the explosion, but he can't get it to work. When he finishes looking through the book, a new aspect named Arnaud enters the room. He is an expert in temporal mechanics and quantum theories. He offers his services to Stephen.