During an evening power outage in the prison, Patch keeps working in the metal shop while the main lights fail and the emergency system turns the corridors dim yellow. The outage is treated as routine because the prison's aging generator often struggles, but the darkness and disruption create unusually favorable conditions for anyone trying to avoid notice.

After finishing his cleaning, Patch goes to the library to return his key to Cooper, explaining that the warden told him to keep helping only until the end of the month. Cooper asks Patch to help move boxes into the storeroom, and Patch does so before retracing his usual route back toward the main block.

Patch then appears to return to his cell, lie on his bunk with a book, and be locked in for the night by a new guard. The chapter presents this as the visible, expected version of events inside the prison.

Attention then follows Cooper as he closes the library, gathers his belongings, and walks toward the exit desk. Blackjack is absorbed in the sports pages and barely looks up while Cooper signs out and is buzzed through. The final lines reveal that if Blackjack had paid closer attention, he might have noticed something was wrong, because the man leaving as Cooper is walking with a slight limp, strongly suggesting Patch has used the blackout and the library errand to slip out of prison in Cooper's place.