Rosabelle surfaced from a dream of safety and Clara’s laughter into panic inside a lit, stone-like capsule. Disoriented, wearing a hospital gown and feeling no pain, she recalled the failed execution, the massacre, and the smiling mainland rebel who escaped. Lab-coated personnel surrounded her pod; surveillance lights pulsed as they prepared a procedure labeled a transfer, discussing her vitals and a scheduled ten-minute immersion despite concerns she could not survive more than six minutes.

At a countdown’s end, the pod floor opened and dropped Rosabelle into icy, chemically tainted water. Blind and choking in darkness, she heard an internal voice telling her to close her eyes. The voice identified itself as Klaus, the secret AI power behind Ark Island, long rumored to be fed by human remains and to dwell in a "cradle."

As her vision adjusted, Rosabelle briefly saw an undersea expanse lit by branching bioluminescence and dotted with naked, gray corpses threaded with pulsing light—human bodies seemingly sacrificed to power Klaus’s learning. She closed her eyes and experienced a violent mental intrusion: flashing images and sensations from across her life were dragged to the surface, from childhood training and family scenes to pain, hunger, anger, and shame.

The probe cycled through memories of Clara as a child, Rosabelle’s training injuries, her first kill, Sebastian’s kiss, her mother’s scolding and pink dress, and the bitter aftermath of her father’s treason. It also dredged up humiliations from Ark Island authorities: scientists confounded by her, Soledad’s rage, and Sebastian’s revulsion, accompanied by condemning voices calling her a disappointment.

Rosabelle weakened, drifting against a cadaver as her lungs burned. Klaus evaluated her interior life, calling her "very strange" while technicians’ earlier warnings about her limited tolerance echoed. When she believed she was dying, Klaus overruled that outcome, telling her she would not die today and questioning whether she deserved to live.

The chapter ended with Rosabelle still submerged in the cradle, conscious of Klaus’s judgment and survival dictated by the AI rather than mercy from humans.