Jessyn forces herself through another day by clinging to routine, using lab work to avoid thinking about captivity and death. In the laboratory, she and Irinna relieve Else and Campar and continue experiments on the alien “berry” organisms, testing cellular movement along nutrient gradients and noting how little they can infer without proper tools or information.

Over lunch, Irinna argues they need reproductive material (sperm, spores, pollen) to identify the organisms’ genetic encoding medium, and the two trade strained jokes that underline how close they are to breaking. A group of small, monkeylike creatures repeatedly invades the lab, raising the unsettling question of whether they are pests, lab animals, or intelligent observers. With no writing materials, Irinna reveals a workaround: she encodes notes into the protein database input so the system’s error log stores their messages.

Jessyn continues processing samples, reflecting on the organisms’ unusual chemistry and structure while feeling guilty about using helpless creatures as test material. When she and Irinna return to the shared living quarters, the domestic calm is fragile: Synnia sits withdrawn, Rickar eats quietly, and Campar washes dishes in a repetitive trance.

Campar suddenly drops a plate, screams, and collapses into a severe panic attack. Jessyn keeps others from touching him, talks him through structured breathing, and stays with him until he begins to regain control. When Campar verbalizes the horror of acting “normal” after abduction, Jessyn bluntly names how each of them is coping and insists that none of them are okay—and that they don’t have to be.

The chapter then shifts to the perspective of a hidden “swarm” intelligence inhabiting a human body. The swarm uses chemoreception to influence and read others’ emotions, senses a magnetic pulse that carries information, and records exhaustive details about the Carryx world-city. It restrains itself from active probing to avoid detection, focuses on finding a secure pathway to transmit its gathered intelligence, and resolves to mimic human trauma—because blending in is necessary for survival and mission success.