Zelu arrives at MIT to begin the exoskeleton trial with Dr. Hugo Wagner, having defied her family's pleas the morning of her departure—an emotionally crushing scene she dubs "the Crunch," during which she coldly warned her sister Chinyere away from her wheelchair. Despite her mother's tears, her father's negotiations, and her siblings' angry texts, she boarded the plane alone.

In an empty physical therapy gym, Hugo unveils the exos: thin, cyan-painted slivers of aerographene with magnetized steel-ball joints. After Zelu transfers to a table with Hugo's help, she activates the device with voice commands, fingerprint, and retinal scans. The exos magnetically assemble themselves around her legs like a living second skin, fitting her precisely.

For hours, Hugo teaches her about the system while the exos scan her body and a genderless AI voice asks about her lifestyle, including her swimming habits, to build the neural model needed to substitute for her severed leg-brain connection. Hugo refuses to let her try standing yet—that comes tomorrow. Zelu privately worries he hasn't acknowledged that some patients reject the exos entirely.

After a dinner with MIT faculty, a grad student named David flirts with her and asks her out; she takes his number. Back at the hotel, she sifts through guilt-laden texts from her sisters and brother, notes Msizi's silence, and sees her cryptic Instagram post has gone viral. She journals by hand, acknowledging her fear, rejecting belief in miracles, and resolving to continue regardless of tomorrow's outcome—choosing visibility over the invisible role her family wants her to play.