James rode in a small, doorless electric helicopter-like vehicle after killing its pilot, Jeff Jefferson, and using Jeff’s biometrics to keep the craft flying. He joked darkly to the corpse, scavenged snacks, and tested the trike’s navigation. When he tried to set coordinates toward the mainland, the system flagged the unauthorized route, entered restricted mode, and repeatedly demanded verifications while reporting his deviation.

Realizing Ark air traffic is tightly tracked and departures are restricted to high-clearance personnel, James reverted to a warehouse-like target from his map. During the approach, Jeff’s body tumbled out, depriving James of biometric access. The trike initiated shutdown, cutting power mid-descent and causing James to crash from a low altitude. Dazed, bleeding, and in pain, James pulled himself from the wreckage.

As James gathered himself, he saw that the supposed warehouses were actually a settlement of grim cottages housing malnourished civilians, including families with children. He noticed a large contingent of armed soldiers converging not on him but on one cottage. The soldiers dragged out a skeletal, white-blond girl—Clara—and held Rosabelle on her knees outside, arms pinned, while a broad, dark-haired man loomed over her.

The scene triggered James’s trauma from childhood in war-torn orphanages, where children regularly suffered and died. Clara screamed repeatedly while Rosabelle pleaded, “You promised me,” before spitting in the man’s face. A soldier responded by smashing a rifle butt into Rosabelle’s eye hard enough to crack bone.

Weighing his options, James recognized the confrontation as the perfect diversion to slip away. Instead, overwhelmed by Clara’s screams and Rosabelle’s brutalization, he chose to act. He grabbed Jeff’s gun from the crashed trike and committed to intervening, saying, “Let’s do something stupid.”