Wren recalls childhood trips with Uncle Jim to Morlee Hadley’s feed store and how Morlee doted on both her son Matthew and Wren. She later learned Matthew betrayed Morlee to the Command for concealment, resulting in Morlee’s deportation to a northern salt mine. This memory resurfaces when Wren recognizes Matthew—now Officer Matt Hadley—assisting Xavier Ford during Silver Block orientation.

Ford explains that the recruits’ tablets are their new communication hubs on base and that wrist devices will be used off-base. He introduces Matt Hadley as an instructor, and Hadley orders the recruits to activate their tablets with thumb scans. Wren sees her identity and records fully loaded onto her device, deepening her sense of surveillance and entrapment.

Feeling cornered, Wren reaches out telepathically to her friend Tana for help escaping the Program, but Tana indicates the network is unresponsive and likely unwilling to help. Wren tests the minds of Ford and Hadley but finds them tightly shielded. She then briefly probes a nearby recruit, Lydia “Lyddie,” whose shield is penetrable, and hears a looping insecurity—“You’re not good enough”—prompting Wren to withdraw and quietly introduce herself to Lyddie.

Hadley announces a ten-question exercise on the tablets. Realizing it is an observation test about details from the room, Wren debates whether to pass or fail to avoid notice. Remembering Jim’s advice not to draw attention, she answers some correctly and some incorrectly, targeting a middling result and earning a 60% score.

Ford publicly dismisses a recruit, Soldier Hutchfield, for scoring zero and being unobservant, then ejects several more zero scorers back to their wards. The severity of the cut surprises Wren, who realizes her strategy could have backfired but also learns that ongoing underperformance may still get her removed from Silver Block or sent back to her ward.

After the dismissals, Ford emphasizes Silver Block’s elite standards and that recruits who do not show promise will be returned to their prior blocks or wards. Wren resolves to continue underperforming to try to get cut from the Program.