SecUnit regains consciousness in a repair cubicle and realizes it is not at the habitat but at the company station, in an older permanent installation. It checks that its governor module is still nonfunctional and is startled to find its media storage intact. Ratthi then tells SecUnit that Dr. Mensah has permanently bought its contract and that it will be going home with PreservationAux, which comes as an unexpected shock.

During processing, SecUnit confirms through station news that the DeltFall and GrayCris disaster is real and not a hallucination. Instead of returning it to standard SecUnit armor, the station issues a gray PreservationAux uniform. In the deployment center, Pin-Lee uses a court order to block the company from purging SecUnit’s memory before transfer, showing that Mensah and her allies are protecting not just the machine but its continuity as a person.

Escorted through the public parts of the station, SecUnit is struck by how anonymous it can be when dressed like an augmented human. After reporters confront them in a hotel lobby, Pin-Lee gets the group safely to a suite where the rest of the PreservationAux team is staying. Mensah explains that she has bought SecUnit’s contract, taken it off inventory, and plans to bring it to Preservation as a free agent. When SecUnit anxiously asks about armor, repair, and future work, Mensah reassures it that it will be safe and can choose what it wants to do.

As solicitors and corporate representatives cycle through the suite to discuss the aftermath of GrayCris’s crimes, SecUnit watches and gathers information about Preservation. Ratthi describes Mensah’s home life on a farm with an extended family, and SecUnit begins to understand what living there would mean. Although Preservation sounds peaceful, SecUnit realizes it would have to pass as an augmented human, leave its armor behind, and adapt to a life shaped by human expectations. The kindness of Mensah’s offer makes the conflict sharper, because SecUnit feels that even benevolent plans are still decisions being made for it.

Later, Mensah says she will act as SecUnit’s guardian until it decides what it wants, emphasizing education and freedom. But during the offshift, SecUnit quietly leaves the suite, uses the station map it saved earlier, and travels into the lower work zones. It steals dockworker clothes and an enviro mask to complete its disguise, then heads to the embarkation area. There it persuades a bot-driven cargo transport to take it aboard by presenting itself as a servant bot seeking its guardian and offering a large media archive. Before departing, it leaves Mensah a message explaining that the problem is not uncertainty alone, but refusing to let others decide its future, and it signs the message with the name “Murderbot.”