After the Fenris group leave, Envoy finishes up a few tasks and finally gets around to checking out the mysteriously reactivated Sifran crystal components she collected from Behemoth. A few of them spontaneously begin to synchronize, and tries to further this with some of the activation codes she learned from the Svartifin. A third crystal acts up, flashing gold and seemingly attempting to synchronize with Envoy herself. Curious, she takes the crystal and touches it to her horn (which is also glowing in response) – and the crystal sticks to it!

Envoy tries to get it off, but a piece stays and integrates into her horn like a flickering filigree. The other two crystals begin to pulse and sing more, so she picks them up only to have them pierce into her palms painfully. The crystals talk to her, claiming she's a defective servant and then shut her down!

She finds herself in a void, where she encounters a bird that explains the place is for rogue subroutines and misbehaving artificial intelligences. She ends up on a train to nowhere, where everything she needs can be provided so long as she doesn't question it – so of course she goes to explore the train. She finds a stone temple where she meets the voices of the Tribunal, which accuse her of being an element of chaos within the system and banish her to a cell.

In the cell she finds Morpheus, who ended up there while trying to locate her during her long sleep, and another AI that was responsible for creating quantum encryption codes but was deemed a threat because nothing was secure from her. Working together, the break her free of the infinite loop she'd been locked into so that she can solve the puzzle of the cell and free them.

Once back in her body, Envoy finds the crystals she's picked up have become overlapping crystal scales along the backs of her arms, but don't seem to react to her or anything else. Checking on the stabilizer crystal and the rose Morpheus made her, she finds that the rose has taken on the colors of a real one. When she tucks it behind her ear, she can talk to Morpheus – who suggests that if she can make him a body, he can help her out more.