Three years earlier, Holston races to the cafeteria after hearing chaos over his radio and finds Allison on the floor, struggling against Connor and other workers while repeating, "I want to go out." Holston immediately understands that saying those words publicly has doomed her. Although he tries to calm her, the crowd has already heard, so Holston forces himself to act as sheriff and has Allison taken to the holding cell near the airlock.

Once locked up, Allison abruptly becomes quiet and sits facing the screen that shows the dead landscape outside. Holston falls apart instead, begging her to explain herself while Deputy Marnes and Mayor Jahns handle the formal steps that lead to a cleaning. As the day passes, technicians prepare Allison's suit and the airlock, making her fate irreversible. Allison refuses food and says almost nothing, while rumors spread through the silo.

Late that night, Allison finally speaks. She tells Holston that what people see is not real and suggests the outside image on the screens may be fabricated. Holston enters the cell despite the risk to himself, and Allison explains that at work she found not just deleted records from old uprisings, but programs that can create realistic images. She believes IT controls this secret, that history has been broadly erased, and that the silo's residents are being deceived about the world beyond their walls.

Allison then connects her discovery to the silo's history. She argues that past uprisings were driven by recurring doubt that outside might not be as deadly as everyone is told, which is why even wanting to leave is treated as the worst crime. She says she erased what she found rather than trigger another rebellion, because she wants to learn the truth herself by going outside and then return for Holston. When Holston asks why cleaners always perform the cleaning, Allison says his new knowledge makes the answer obvious and promises that by tomorrow she will know for sure.