In this chap­ter, the pro­tag­o­nist, Mick­ey Barnes, reflects on his sit­u­a­tion as he faces a meet­ing with Hierony­mus Mar­shall. He is appre­hen­sive about being late, espe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing the poten­tial con­se­quences on his food sup­ply. Upon enter­ing Mar­shal­l’s office, he encoun­ters his col­league Berto and is imme­di­ate­ly placed on the defen­sive by Mar­shall, who ques­tions his iter­a­tions as an Expend­able.

Mick­ey admits to being the eighth iter­a­tion, and Mar­shall inter­ro­gates Berto about how Mickey’s pre­vi­ous iter­a­tion end­ed up “lost.” Berto explains that Mickey7 fell into a deep crevasse dur­ing a recon­nais­sance mis­sion, which leads to Mar­shal­l’s frus­tra­tion over the fail­ure to recov­er Mick­ey’s body. Mar­shall empha­sizes that their agri­cul­tur­al sec­tion is strug­gling, and the loss of Mickey7 has result­ed in a sig­nif­i­cant hit to their food sup­plies. As a penal­ty, both Mick­ey and Berto’s rations are docked by twen­ty per­cent, which leaves them with insuf­fi­cient calo­ries.

Once out of the meet­ing, the ten­sion between Mick­ey and Berto boils over. Mick­ey con­fronts Berto about not being truth­ful regard­ing the cir­cum­stances of his last death, reveal­ing feel­ings of betray­al and dis­trust. Berto attempts to defend him­self, explain­ing that he would not have left Mick­ey to die inten­tion­al­ly, even if he felt it was risky to attempt a res­cue. Their inter­ac­tion high­lights the fraught rela­tion­ship and ongo­ing dynam­ics between their friend­ship and the harsh real­i­ties they face.

Lat­er, Mick­ey returns to his quar­ters and finds his new iter­a­tion, Eight, sprawled in bed. They engage in a dis­cus­sion about their oper­a­tional duties and rationing dilem­mas. Mick­ey reveals their recent reper­cus­sions regard­ing caloric intake and the neces­si­ty of plan­ning for any haz­ardous assign­ments. Eight pro­pos­es that he should han­dle the next dan­ger­ous task while Mick­ey takes it easy, but Mick­ey asserts his unwill­ing­ness to take on all per­ilous jobs. Their con­ver­sa­tion sig­ni­fies a shift­ing part­ner­ship as two iter­a­tions must coex­ist, share respon­si­bil­i­ties, and nav­i­gate the com­plex­i­ties of their exis­tence in a harsh envi­ron­ment.

As the chap­ter con­cludes, Mick­ey receives an urgent com­mand from head­quar­ters, sug­gest­ing that what­ev­er awaits him may chal­lenge the frag­ile coop­er­a­tion he has begun to estab­lish with Eight.