…Minus 080 and COUNTING… Killian was in the wings, and convul

After Ben Richards is pulled offstage, Killian waits in the wings, amused by Richards’s hostile performance and obscene gesture to the audience. Richards demands the camera he is owed, and Killian gives him the loaded camera and extra film clips, which Richards pockets.

Killian delays Richards, explaining that Richards still has twelve minutes before his official twelve-hour head start begins at 6:30. From backstage, Richards hears the crowd rage again and sees Laughlin brought on for Bobby Thompson to bait, making Richards feel sympathy for another doomed contestant.

Killian tells Richards that he likes his crude style and offers advice. Killian says Richards cannot truly win against a nation-wide manhunt and the trained Hunters, but Richards might last longer if he stays low, relies on movement rather than weapons, and stays close to “his own people” instead of the middle-class audience that hates him.

Richards admits he felt the audience’s hatred and says he hates them too. Killian answers that this mutual hatred is why the audience is willing to see Richards killed, then leads Richards down a white corridor to an express elevator to the street.

At the elevator, Richards refuses Killian’s handshake again but pauses to ask what would happen if Richards went upward into the Network tower instead of down—who he could kill at the top. Killian admires Richards for thinking big, sends him into the elevator, and repeats the advice to stay low as Richards descends toward the street and the start of the hunt.