Mission heads toward Central Dispatch consumed by worry for Rodny. Seeing Rodny locked behind a thick, forbidding door near the room where cleaning suits are stored makes Mission fear that his friend may have landed in far worse trouble than ordinary detention. Mission thinks about how dangerous careless words can be in the silo, wonders whether anyone can volunteer to clean in another person's place, and is unsettled by living under the Pact without ever having read it himself.

On level fifty-eight, a signal handkerchief pulls Mission back to work. He follows it into Drexel's apothecary, where he collects a small sack of medicine for delivery. Drexel tries to make Mission earn his tip with a riddle about seventy-eight pounds of feathers versus seventy-eight pounds of rocks, but Mission outsmarts him by pointing out that the larger bag needed for the feathers would add more weight. Drexel grudgingly pays him, and Mission leaves pleased by the small victory.

As Mission continues downward, that satisfaction fades. The silo feels dangerously strained after the recent violence: deputies are calming fighting neighbors, a shop window has been smashed, and threatening graffiti marks the walls. By the time Mission reaches Central Dispatch, the usual activity has thinned out, and even Marko's black eye testifies to how raw the aftermath remains.

At the counter, Katelyn tells Mission that Cam recently came through in an unusually good mood and specifically asked for work headed toward Supply after delivering a broken computer. Mission immediately suspects Cam may be chasing the same opportunity Wyck hinted at before. Because Mission wants both the job opening and another reason to get back near Rodny on level thirty-four, he accepts a freight assignment from Mechanical to Supply and plans to move fast instead of ending his shift normally.