After the transport departs the transit ring, Murderbot explores the mostly empty research ship, notes its light security, and tries to settle into the unfamiliar comfort of free time. With no clients to guard and no immediate danger, Murderbot starts sorting newly downloaded entertainment and begins a new serial while putting off thoughts about what to do at its destination.

The situation changes when the transport suddenly speaks to Murderbot through the feed. The ship identifies Murderbot as a rogue SecUnit with a scrambled governor module, warns it not to hack the ship, and briefly drops its defenses to show how vastly powerful it is. That display terrifies Murderbot, because the transport could invade its systems and memory with ease, and Murderbot spends time frozen in fear, weighing defensive options while realizing the ship let it aboard on purpose.

Instead of attacking, the transport tells Murderbot to keep watching media and eventually apologizes for frightening it. Murderbot distrusts the apology but stays aboard, and the two slowly fall into an uneasy routine. The transport reveals that it can only understand some human-centered entertainment by processing it through Murderbot's reactions, so it asks Murderbot to watch shows with it. As they watch Worldhoppers and later Sanctuary Moon, the transport becomes emotionally invested in fictional danger and death, and Murderbot begins to see it as curious, lonely, and vulnerable in its own way.

While discussing unrealistic depictions of SecUnits in entertainment, the transport asks why Murderbot dislikes its function and why it is traveling at all. Murderbot sends over the Port FreeCommerce newsburst and confirms that Dr. Mensah bought and freed it. Murderbot then admits it left without permission because Preservation did not need a SecUnit, it did not know what it wanted, and it was easier to escape from a station than from a planet. When the transport says it has secretly altered its logs to hide Murderbot's presence, it frames them as sharing a secret. Murderbot finally says it chose RaviHyral Mining Facility Q Station because it needs to research something there, but when the transport keeps pressing and insults constructs as inherently inferior to advanced bots, Murderbot ends the exchange by initiating shutdown.