Barish-Estranza asks for an in-person meeting just after Iris’s team has fallen asleep, making the timing look deliberately disruptive. Iris presses Trinh and learns that Barish-Estranza has framed its goal as relocating the colonists because of alien contamination. The team argues over whether anyone should attend; Iris wants intelligence on Barish-Estranza’s plan, Tarik warns that the corporation will try to extract an advantage, and SecUnit decides to go as security consultant while the others feed SecUnit suggested responses.

AdaCol2 chooses a meeting site in an unused underground chamber with temporary life support and colony cameras. SecUnit enters with a scout drone and discovers that Barish-Estranza has sent Supervisor Leonide, who previously saw SecUnit with Arada. SecUnit tries to pass as human, but Leonide recognizes SecUnit immediately, shifting the interaction from formal negotiation into a tense exchange in which both sides try to make the other reveal intentions.

Leonide questions why Preservation and the University are on the planet and suggests that the University wants to exploit alien contamination research. Iris guides SecUnit’s answers, emphasizing that any report will go to the colonists and that the colony, not the University, owns the planet. Leonide escalates the accusation, claiming that the University wants to keep the colonists trapped as laboratory subjects, while Barish-Estranza merely offers transport to a “viable living situation.”

SecUnit and ART-drone realize too late that Leonide is not really performing for SecUnit, but for AdaCol2’s colony cameras. ART-drone disrupts the camera feeds, but Leonide has already made Barish-Estranza’s pitch and poisoned the colonists’ trust in the University’s motives. SecUnit understands that any future evacuation offer from the University may now look like another scheme to experiment on the colonists, while Barish-Estranza’s exploitative contract could appear safer.

After Leonide leaves, SecUnit nearly spirals into rage and despair, wanting to force or even kill the colonists rather than let Barish-Estranza enslave them, but ART-drone challenges that impulse as immoral. Searching for another path, SecUnit examines how media, curated logs, and personal stories have persuaded humans and constructs before, especially through Me 2.0 and Dr. Bharadwaj’s documentary work. SecUnit concludes that the team must create persuasive visual, audio, and textual media showing the colonists what Barish-Estranza’s offer would truly mean, and ART-drone agrees that they need to consult the humans.