As the Outreach Guild becomes available in Hungry Eyes, Carl and Donut head back toward the garage. Carl tries to plant a timed sticky explosive on Dwight, but Dwight’s upgraded vine rejects it and Dwight wakes just long enough to curse them before taking first place. In garage chat, Florin explains that NPC teams were not forced through mandatory gates, which helps explain the heavy crawler losses, and Imani estimates that fewer than one thousand crawlers remain alive out of the roughly fifty-five hundred who started the floor.

A new announcer named Damien replaces Zev for a system update. Damien says safe rooms will stay closed until the final heat begins, urges crawlers to join the Outreach Guild, warns them away from the Pineapple Cabaret exploit, and reveals a major rule change: any team that survives the next heat can bring its garage, vehicle contents, and hired NPCs to the eleventh floor. Once there, survivors will get ninety minutes to build a themed parade float, and Damien bluntly advises everyone to take a deal because the apartment building is full of deadly bugs and the next heat is unlikely to be survivable.

Back at the garage, Hedy and several allies are waiting while Mordecai stays inside the safe room. Carl immediately tells the group to steal unused vehicles and upgrades from teams taking deals, and Imani coordinates a large, floor-wide effort to redistribute resources with help from Tiatha, Rosetta, and Tipid. Carl confirms that he has already placed explosives in a vertical line for his planned attack on the apartment building, then reflects that Imani and Katia, more than any figureheads, have been essential to keeping the crawlers organized and alive.

Carl studies the system’s team-balancing logic and realizes the last heat may improve only if enough crawler teams leave through Outreach deals, though he also fears those deals may simply lead to permanent disappearance in stasis. He checks on efforts to persuade other teams, then personally urges Imani to leave while she still can, arguing that she has already done enough and that Chris would follow her. Imani refuses, saying she cannot run from what is coming any more than Carl can and that, if they are going to lose, she wants to go down fighting. Returning to immediate preparations, Carl asks Hedy for a jumping upgrade so the truck can launch from the first floor to the roof, and Hedy upgrades the vehicle’s rockets to a Golden version powerful enough to send it into orbit.