Hidden in Supply, Knox and the workers waiting with him endure the worst part of the plan: doing nothing while the silo shifts around them. Some nap and others talk to calm themselves, but Knox keeps watching the time and imagining every moving piece of the uprising. Although he hopes their new weapons will let them force a smooth, bloodless transfer of power, Knox also fears that arming his people has set off something that cannot easily be contained.

A young Supply worker announces visitors, and Knox is relieved to learn they are wearing blue. Pieter arrives with members of the refinery crew, who have changed into less noticeable clothing to blend in. Pieter reports that the different groups are already moving, but he warns that rumors are spreading quickly through the silo and that people in the lower market were already suspicious. Knox decides there is no turning back, especially if the planned blackouts have begun, and says they must push upward and make enough noise to be heard.

As the combined group prepares to leave, Knox notices how many workers have improvised weapons if they do not have guns. The sight unsettles him, because it shows how naturally people know how to make tools for hurting one another. He organizes the crowd into columns, hides his own rifle beneath cloth and supplies, and leads them out of Supply. Their disguises are thin, but they begin the climb anyway, carrying tools, helmets, and aid supplies over hidden bullets, bombs, bandages, and pain salve.

During the ascent, some workers switch into yellow overalls so they will not stand out in the mids. Knox imagines an ideal outcome in which the confrontation ends before more rebels arrive and he and McLain expose whatever IT has been hiding, proving Juliette was right. The march remains grueling but mostly orderly; at one landing, women complain about the power outages, and Knox's people hand out supplies while spreading cover stories. When Marck's wrapped rifle barrel comes loose, Knox catches it before the group reaches another landing.

As the climb continues, Knox drops back to check on everyone and feels the full weight of responsibility for both Mechanical and Supply. Walker's talk of an uprising now seems real, and Knox begins thinking about the old rebellion he was taught about as a child. He wonders whether he has become one of the villains from those stories or whether the silo's history was a lie, because leading this revolution feels both dangerous and necessary. By the end of the chapter, the physical climb upward becomes linked in Knox's mind to a larger historical cycle of buried violence returning again.