SecUnit recalls how Preservation Station Security first learned what it was. Security initially accepted SecUnit as a consultant and refugee, but after Dr. Mensah told the Preservation Council the truth, Senior Officer Indah and other security leaders feared SecUnit might take over station systems or kill people.

In a private meeting, Indah tried to persuade Mensah to send SecUnit away while its status was evaluated. Mensah refused because SecUnit needed to remain near her amid the possibility of GrayCris retaliation, and because Mensah objected to Indah calling SecUnit a weapon. Pin-Lee quietly began gathering legal material that could support removing Indah from office, but Mensah stopped her and chose to preserve the working relationship. The compromise left SecUnit under restrictions, especially a promise not to access non-public station systems or hack bots and drones.

Back in the present, that uneasy truce frames SecUnit's role at the mall junction where the unidentified dead human has been found. Mensah returns to her council office with assistants and SecUnit's own intel drones assigned to protect her, while SecUnit remains with Indah and Tech Tural. Because Preservation does not use broad corridor surveillance, SecUnit has built its own drone network without breaking its promise not to hack station systems.

Tural reports that DNA has not identified the deceased, since Preservation's records are voluntary and incomplete. SecUnit asks for the raw forensic sweep data and quickly finds that the victim's clothes have an unusual lack of contact DNA, including the victim's own, suggesting the perpetrator used a cleaning field after the attack. Examining the head wound, SecUnit also concludes that if the wound caused death, the victim was not killed at the junction because there is too little blood and tissue at the scene.

SecUnit then analyzes the victim's distinctive clothing. Tural and Indah initially consider it a possible clue to origin, but SecUnit explains that similar recycler-made clothing can come from automated shops or even transport recyclers, meaning it may reveal little. SecUnit suggests the bright, visitor-like outfit could be deliberate: either the victim was not afraid of being noticed, or the victim wanted to appear that way while moving through station transit.

SecUnit reasons that if the clothing was part of a visitor disguise, the victim should also have had a travel bag, but SecUnit's drones see none nearby. Indah orders a search of the immediate area and lost-and-found depots for such a bag. When pathology arrives, Indah has Tural take the broken interface for analysis and dismisses SecUnit for the moment.