The car crash causes no injuries, thanks to Icarus' gravity shield. Envoy restores the roadway, and Walter inspects what's left of the driver, whose head has been pulverized in the crash – exposing wires and cybernetic implants!

This immediately makes Envoy suspect Dr. Von Bronson (who is supposed to be dead) and that the whole even was orchestrated to expose Icarus as Experiment Thirteen – but thanks to the distortion of the gravity shield, nobody outside could have seen that it was him who did it.

Walter takes the children up the street while Envoy waits to deal with the authorities. Police arrive, and question her. She's told she'll have to come to the precinct house for a full report, and reluctantly agrees. Once the police car is moving, however, the driver turns and shoots her in the head!

When Envoy finally awakens, she finds herself strapped down to a chair with iron bands, and feels as if she's healed from various invasive cuts. A voice in the darkness confirms that she's been essentially vivisected for study, and then is accused of stealing research – by a still living Dr. Von Bronson, who is a withered husk kept alive by a life-support wheelchair.

Envoy claims that Von Bronson is the copycat, and that she is a Sifran artifact herself, trying to imply that she serves the Tribunal and that Von Bronson's fate is in her hands for his theft of crystals. Von Bronson doesn't buy it, and claims to have perfected Dr. Daedalus' research by creating Experiment Fourteen, which he brings in. The creature is a massive mish-mash of every race and heavily modified with cybernetic controls. Envoy tries to take control of his crystals, but finds them wildly chaotic. She manages to trigger a gravity burst from them though, and this frightens Von Bronson, who retreats and orders Fourteen to destroy her.

The force of Fourteen's attack tears Envoy from her chair (and a few ribs right out of her chest), but she manages to dodge the next attack and make use of the crystal implants in her arms to throw up a defensive shield, even though she can't match Fourteen's power. Relief arrives in the form of a power-armored Born-in-War with a shoulder-mounted rail-gun. Envoy is able to use a gravity lens to boost a sonic attack to stun Fourteen, and then double the power of the rail-gun to knock the creature back.

Figuring the best chance of defeating Fourteen is to attack his cybernetic control system, Envoy keeps Fourteen occupied while Born-in-War sets off an electromagnetic pulse with the rail-gun. It works, breaking the control over Fourteen, but it also sends his power systems out of control. He warns Envoy to run, and she and Born-in-War flee the building (picking up Knick and Knack along the way) before it all collapses into a condensed sphere of concrete and metal. Envoy is able to recover her ribs though.

Born-in-War explains that Envoy's friends sought help from his consulate, and that she's been missing for a week. He's very interested in Icarus' heritage, and asks Envoy about his father.