Walker forces himself out of his workshop and across the open entrance hall to Mechanical, a frightening ordeal for someone who has isolated himself for years. Inside the mess hall, he finds the workers arguing about Juliette's fate after her cleaning. Some hope conditions outside may have improved or that IT finally fixed the suits, while Knox redirects the room's anger toward the sham election, the new mayor, and the way Mechanical is kept powerless and uninformed.

When Walker quietly insists that IT did not solve the suit problem, the room finally notices him. His unexpected presence shocks everyone, and Courtnee helps him to a seat while Shirly brings him breakfast. Once he catches his breath, Walker explains that Juliette had come to him with a theory: the heat tape on the cleaning suits was deliberately made to fail, and that failure was not accidental.

Walker then confesses that he acted on Juliette's suspicion. Because he had accumulated favors with Supply over many years, he called them in after learning Juliette had been taken for cleaning. He arranged for IT's requested materials to be secretly replaced with Mechanical's better supplies, especially the high-quality heat tape, so Juliette's suit would not fail the way cleaners' suits normally do.

This revelation confirms to Mechanical that IT has been sabotaging cleaners on purpose, not to protect them from a harmless outside, but to keep anyone from traveling beyond sight of the silo. Shirly asks whether that means Juliette is alive, but Walker admits she still may have died after her air ran out. The room erupts into anger and argument, and as Walker watches the workers' fear turn into open fury, he realizes he has helped ignite something larger: the beginning of an uprising.