After a robbery at the corner store, Hadrian hides on the roof among dishes and antennae, clutching the stolen purse and the knife used to wound the store manager. He reflects that he tripped the alarm while Rells’s people were beating the shop girl, leaving Hadrian both guilty and judgmental toward the more brutal thieves.

Below, seven Borosevo prefects corner the remaining gang members. Two thieves have already been stunned and fallen into a puddle, and a female prefect confirms that Kaller is still alive after pulling him from the water. Holographic cordon drones surround the crime scene, endlessly ordering bystanders to stand clear.

Prefect-Inspector Gin tries to force Tur, the girl, and another thief to surrender. Tur refuses, fearing mental conditioning by the “bonecutters,” and Ko stuns him despite Gin’s command to hold fire. Gin then offers the remaining thieves an alternative punishment: the Colosso, which frightens them even more because it means mutilation, humiliation, and likely death in the arena.

When the thieves still resist, Gin signals Ko to stun the last two. Hadrian watches from hiding and feels the punishment is a kind of justice for Rells’s violent gang. After the prefects, criminals, drones, and crowd leave, Hadrian remains fixed on Gin’s mention of the Colosso.

Remembering Old Crow’s earlier suggestion that the games might offer work, Hadrian realizes that fighting in the Colosso could be a way to earn money for passage offworld. Dangerous as it is, the idea suddenly feels like the only clear path left to him.