Rickar Daumatin confirms to Tonner and the lab team that Dyan Academy administrator Samar Austad is pushing a proposal at the coming colloquy to break up Tonner’s celebrated research group and install Rickar in charge. The familiar lab setting feels grotesque to Tonner as the team—Else, Dafyd, Jessyn, Synnia, Campar, Nöl, and newly returned Irinna—reacts with anger, disbelief, and dread.

Tonner confronts Rickar for accepting the move, arguing Rickar could have refused the position. Rickar insists the decision is effectively inevitable, framing compliance as pragmatic survival. Tonner reminds him the lab is still Tonner’s until the vote, then orders Rickar out; Rickar leaves with an apologetic air that reads to Tonner as smug confidence.

With Rickar gone, Tonner rallies the team, insisting the outcome is not decided yet. Tonner proposes “going loud” by calling in favors to flood the caucus with objections and politically punish Austad. Dafyd cautions that popularity campaigns can backfire with the colloquy and suggests a quieter strategy: map Austad’s allies and enemies, then craft a counterproposal that fractures Austad’s coalition or builds a stronger one, since offering an alternative is harder to dismiss than simply objecting.

Else backs the need to fight, and she pointedly asks Dafyd whether he can do the political groundwork in two days. Dafyd accepts, embarrassed but resolute, taking on the urgent task even as Tonner bristles at relying on a research assistant with influential connections.

That night, Tonner sits on the balcony of the apartment he chose partly to please Else and talks with her under the city lights and stars. Tonner admits he doesn’t trust Dafyd and fears losing the project will strip away his identity, while Else challenges him to name that fear and tries to steady him. Else brings Tonner whiskey and urges him to sleep; he finally collapses into uneasy rest and dreams of the ground falling away beneath him as he struggles to reach the labs, a nightmare that later feels like a warning.