Nearly a year after Sam and Sadie reunited, they finally finish Ichigo, months past Sam’s initial promise. Powered by Dov’s Ulysses engine, they code relentlessly, injuring themselves: Sam’s fingers bleed and he later collapses from malnourishment; Sadie bursts a blood vessel in her eye. Anders Larsson finds Sam on the street and gets him to health services, where an IV revives him.

Marx hires composer Zoe Cadogan, an ex, to create an avant-garde score that deepens the game’s emotion. As Zoe and Marx briefly rekindle intimacy, she praises the ending, which echoes The Odyssey. The game’s distinctive choice has Ichigo age and bear the story’s damage; after seven years away, Ichigo returns home unrecognizable, and the parents only slowly perceive who the child is.

After debugging, the board is cleared and, before dawn in light snow, Sadie and Sam agree they are done. Walking through Harvard Yard to Dov’s, they savor the quiet and their partnership. At Dov’s door, Sadie thanks Sam and says, “I love you, Sam.” She goes inside before Sam can answer.

Buoyed by gratitude, Sam thinks of a poem as he heads home, skips, and slips off a curb, fainting again. On the ice, he envisions his mother, Anna, reassuring him in Japanese.

The narrative flashes back to 1984: nine-year-old Sam and thirty-five-year-old Anna witness a woman—also named Anna Lee—leap from a sixth-floor balcony. Anna comforts the dying woman as Sam, shocked, plays Ms. Pac-Man in a bodega. Mother and son talk around death and chance, and Anna quietly resolves to consider leaving New York for Los Angeles, linking games, mortality, and the desire to find a safer life.