- We wake up in cells furnished in weird plastic furniture in an unknown location. Outside the cell window, which is the only visible entry to the cell, we are in a dome-ceilinged room with 4 exits and 12 similar-looking but opaque cell windows.
- Ken (Subject #6): Taps on the window, which calls the attention of a securitron. It informs him that the First Citizen will address them in an orientation soon. The rest of us see the securitron but hear nothing.
- Alder (Subject #1): Recognizes the room as similar to a Vault but lower quality, finds green and gold jumpsuits with “1006” on the back and a Poseidon Energy logo, as well as a few personal-type items like cigarettes. There is a computer in a desk cabinet that runs a Poseidon Energy OS and offers several choices, but they all say, “Currently blocked by First Citizen.”
- Earl (Subject #2): Checks out the bathroom and takes a shower; his singing is overheard by Alder, who knocks on the wall and calls out. Recognizes Alder’s voice and responds, though she can’t tell it’s him.
- Lieutenant Ruth Daly (Subject #9): Her first assumption is that this is a hospital. Recognizes that she has changed and that this is the first time she has felt lucid in a while. Poseidon Energy is familiar to her as a well-known company. She almost smokes a cigarette but stops herself at the last minute. She asks the securitron for the location of the rest of the Europa team.
- Scott: Has heard all the securitron conversations. Knows which number subject is in each cell.
- The floor in the center of the room opens, out of which rises a securitron behind a circular desk. The face on the securitron is a smiling woman with flowing light-colored hair, First Citizen Sally.
- “Welcome to Poseidon Energy Sanctuary 1006. Prepare for your life away from the surface” (a rip-off of Vault-Tec’s “A better life underground”). Mentions benevolent benefactors and getting started “210 years behind scheduled date.”
- Ruth starts banging on the window, and Sally makes her window transparent, so she hides. She throws a file cabinet against the window, which makes her visible as a small black woman.
- Sally randomly selects Subject #11, revealing a pillar-type object with wheels, on top of which is a jar containing a brain connected to two human eyes floating in liquid, who says over the analog speakers, “This is incredibly demeaning.” Introduces self as Dr. Lahena Kulani and says, “I will have my revenge.”
- Sally reveals Earl, who introduces himself, compliments the shower, and asks to learn more.
- Sally says, “We’re here to change humanity.”
- Sally reveals Subject #3, Lieutenant Sebastian Cavill, revealing a shaven-head figure sitting on the bed with their back turned, nodding along to the music but not responding. He has some sort of electronic component on the back of his neck.
- Sally reveals Subject #12’s cell, which has all the furniture piled up to block the window and an unseen person yelling angrily and crashing around.
- Subject #5, Sean Wolf, is a large red-haired man sitting on his bed in worn/patched clothing who asks to go home. He’s a prospector with a rustic accent. At being told that this is his new home, he seems to go into shock.
- Subject #6, Jack Hackman, is a bronze-skinned man with shaggy black hair and green eyes who immediately tries to negotiate with Sally. He’s a well-known radio personality.
- Subject #10, Mike, is a man with black skin and short-cropped hair and beard. He’s angry at being put through this “again.”
- Subject #4 is a Captain America-lookalike physically perfect man with a Hispanic accent who demands to know what happened to him. Sally addresses him as Lance Corporal Isabella Lopez, reminding him that he signed up for Marine Corps Soldier Rehabilitation program and indicating that he was previously a woman who was lethally wounded and had her body replaced.
- Subject #1 is Alder.
- Subject #8 is Wren, a ghoul woman wearing rugged, practical clothing and a compass around her neck who states that she refuses to be a part of this.
- Earl breaks and dismantles the bathroom mirror to pull out a shard of glass, revealing a viewing room behind.
- Subject #7 is a very short, lumpy, ugly brown man of ambiguous age covered in what looks like shredded pieces of bedding caught by small hooked spines on his skin. He is vaguely reminiscent of the Carved People.
- Sally says she can’t guarantee cooperation from any of us except for Dr. Kulani, so she will be sedating us while they take their first samples. Gas releases from vents in each room.
- An alarm goes off, the cell windows all retract, and Sally’s screen blanks out and is replaced by :). All of the other securitrons follow suit and stop moving except for the one outside cell #8, whose display starts showing something different.
- Alder negotiates with Subject #12 to leave the cell. It is a large humanoid creature who has used all the fabric in the room to cover itself completely and shielded its eyes using material from the mirror. It introduces itself as Phlox and only agrees to go with Alder if she promises the humans won’t look at it.
- Ruth attends Sean to get him out of his shock enough to move.
- Scott: Has consciousness and a body for the first time. Is able to track the reboot of the security system and know the structure of the sanctuary: 5 tubes on 4 levels.
- Many of the prisoners start to gather around Lopez, who looks the most competent, which she finds incredibly unsettling.
- Earl directs the group to go out the west corridor, which leads toward water treatment.
- Jack goes to investigate Sally’s desk, and Phlox throws a file cabinet at Sally’s body, destroying it. His search triggers another alarm, and the remaining securitrons start moving, Sally hopping from robot to robot.
- We escape through the corridor before the security door closes, then head upward to maintenance division.
- Jack is wounded, and healing results in him being revealed as a ghoul, though he is able to fix some of the decay. Ruth, Lopez, and many of the others, including Jack, don’t know what a ghoul is.
- The living areas are currently without power, completely empty and unused. There are ghouls wandering around, but Wren and Jack are able to guide them away from attacking.
- In the amusement park/boardwalk area of the central tube, we take an elevator to a viewing platform where we see that we are on an orbital station between the moon and Earth. Sally attacks the elevator with amusement park rides, forcing us to escape to the Trident Towers residential tube.
- Atop the Trident Towers is a docked spaceship. It is clearly not built for human users but seems to have been jury rigged to accommodate them. Cavill immediately recognizes it and plugs himself in.