Miller recalls his first kill as a young cop and recognizes that, after Julie’s death, killing has become a numbing relief. He and Holden move through quiet, evacuated corridors on Eros, hunting a maintenance path back down while radiation symptoms begin to surface and the clock to reach their ship’s meds ticks down.

Two CPM men intercept them. Miller shoots one, then recognizes the other as Mikey Ko, a petty thug he once arrested on Ceres. Disarmed and frightened, Ko explains their role: trained by the previous Protogen contractors, they’d spent months bringing in and installing surveillance, comms, servers, environmental testers, and remote robots—then waited.

Miller gut-shoots Ko and uses him as a bleeding “patient” to bluff past a checkpoint by posing with Holden as Protogen installers. The guards hesitate but let them pass, confused and complacent. Holden is rattled by Miller’s ruthlessness, but they press on under worsening fatigue and nausea.

As they descend, Miller reflects on when he stopped being human—concluding it was a gradual erosion. Julie, in his mind, embodies the feeling he lost. He accepts that his choices have made him dangerous, even as those choices keep them moving.

They reach the access panel to the hideout a few minutes past the deadline. Inside, the room where Naomi, Alex, and Amos had waited is empty. The missed rendezvous leaves Miller and Holden alone on Eros with time and radiation working against them.