The Swartz reconstruction — the missing year is recoverable, and it runs: wraith doses Hal; Hal, Gately, Joelle (Wayne watching) dig up JOI's head too late; Orin breaks; the AFR deploys the master

In plain terms: the "missing year" between the novel's last page and its opening can be reconstructed, and it runs roughly: a dose reaches Hal, the grave-dig for JOI's head happens too late, Orin is captured and breaks, and the Quebecois separatists get the master cartridge.

Where the text lands: as a single package — outline plus step-by-step mechanisms — it is a stretch, which is how the archive scores it; pulled apart, the broad outline is the best-supported reading while the specific mechanics fail, and the whole endpoint looks built to be unanswerable. Among readers: the architecture is near-universal, but the step-by-step mechanics have eroded steadily.

This is the famous reconstruction of the year the book skips. The archive's tested reading holds that the outline is recoverable -- the too-late dig, the race for the master, Orin's capitulation-shaped break, the separatists positioned to deploy -- while the precise causal machinery (how Hal was dosed, whether the film was ever deployed) is not, and the novel appears designed to leave that endpoint open. For the full state of the debate, see the essay The Ending: State of the Debate.