In Vinessa Redden’s suite, Vinessa covers her ears and moans, then falls into soft whimpers and a blank stare. Cross gently leads her to a chair and reassures her, then takes Wren to a study where, after a drink, he explains that Vinessa has been catatonic for about five years. Before that she was violent and paranoid due to voices, requiring sedation. He says she was fine for most of his life until symptoms began around his age twelve.

When Wren presses about Aberrance, Cross denies it and calls the diagnosis schizophrenia, noting Vinessa’s veins never turn silver. Wren doubts the conclusion but does not think Cross is lying. Cross explains the General hid Vinessa away; she has not spoken since Cross was seventeen, though she dresses, eats delivered meals, and walks in the garden. Periodically she stops eating, sometimes necessitating feeding tubes, which Cross wants to avoid after a recent two-day refusal.

Wren challenges the hypocrisy of the General’s rhetoric about rooting out weakness and his past euthanizations, while Cross admits the General knows his own weakness is Vinessa and would never allow her to be euthanized. Moved, Wren offers to help, and she and Cross heat prepared soup in the kitchen and bring it to Vinessa. Cross introduces Wren and, showing tenderness, coaxes Vinessa to take spoonfuls; she swallows, and he is relieved. He asks Wren to stay because Wren seems to calm Vinessa.

Seeking certainty, Wren briefly opens a telepathic path into Vinessa’s mind but experiences immediate searing pain and severs the connection. She cannot confirm whether Vinessa is Modified; the mental frequencies are volatile and chaotic like a fragmented mind. Wren looks around the cold, militarily ordered suite, noting the manicured garden and a serene oil painting of a seaside cove.

Cross shares that Vinessa grew up in Ward F before it flooded, and the painting depicts her hometown: a tranquil cove with a lone sailboat—white hull, white sails, navy-blue stripe, red flag. As Wren studies it, she is jolted by recognition: the scene is exactly as Wolf has described to her many times. The recognition shocks her, suggesting a hidden link between Vinessa, the location, and Wolf’s repeated imagery.