Chap­ter 16 begins with the nar­ra­tor wak­ing up in Cat’s bed, feel­ing dis­ori­ent­ed. This unusu­al sleep­ing arrange­ment was a con­se­quence of want­i­ng to avoid the painful mem­o­ries of a recent­ly lost room­mate. Their shared bed was­n’t born from inti­ma­cy, but rather as a means to com­fort each oth­er amid emo­tion­al dis­tress, par­tic­u­lar­ly sur­round­ing Nasha and Eight. As the nar­ra­tor slow­ly regains his sens­es, Cat asks about his plans for the day. Upon real­iz­ing that it’s his day off, the nar­ra­tor is left to con­tem­plate how best to spend his free time, but the weight of their sit­u­a­tion lingers over his thoughts. Cat, men­tion­ing she only has a half-shift due to her close calls at work in Secu­ri­ty, brings a sense of shared frus­tra­tion over the unpre­dictabil­i­ty of their lives.

The atmos­phere between them is casu­al but strained, under­scored by their hum­ble and worn-out cloth­ing, a reflec­tion of their bleak liv­ing con­di­tions. The con­ver­sa­tion tran­si­tions as Cat pro­pos­es break­fast, lead­ing to light-heart­ed ban­ter about shar­ing food. This small act of cama­raderie stands in stark con­trast to their iso­lat­ed envi­ron­ment, with the halls of their facil­i­ty near­ly desert­ed. The nar­ra­tor, grap­pling with the loss of com­mu­ni­ty and the harsh real­i­ties of their sit­u­a­tion, notes the smell of sweat in the air, sym­bol­ic of the exhaus­tion felt since their arrival. Their stop at the chem show­er is a reminder of the scarce com­forts they have, with hot water being a lux­u­ry that remains out of reach, fur­ther empha­siz­ing their lim­it­ed resources. These details high­light the grit­ty nature of their lives in this new, oppres­sive envi­ron­ment, where even basic needs are hard to meet.

As they reach the cafe­te­ria, the lack of peo­ple becomes imme­di­ate­ly appar­ent, rein­forc­ing the sense of iso­la­tion. The nar­ra­tor real­izes he’s run­ning low on calo­ries, like­ly a result of Eight’s large break­fast ear­li­er. Cat orders a yam-toma­to scram­ble, while the nar­ra­tor is left with cycler paste—a bland, unap­pe­tiz­ing meal. Their con­ver­sa­tion reveals a stark con­trast between their expe­ri­ences: while Cat seems to accept the lim­it­ed food, the nar­ra­tor strug­gles to cope with the con­stant rationing. The easy­go­ing con­ver­sa­tion soon turns to Cat ask­ing about the nar­ra­tor’s past, hint­ing at the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a crim­i­nal his­to­ry, but the nar­ra­tor swift­ly denies the assump­tion, reas­sur­ing her that he’s not a crim­i­nal. This moment adds depth to their inter­ac­tion, as it intro­duces a point of ten­sion while allow­ing them to fur­ther con­nect and under­stand each other’s back­grounds.

After break­fast, Cat express­es grat­i­tude for the nar­ra­tor’s com­pan­ion­ship the pre­vi­ous night, sug­gest­ing that she would like to spend more time togeth­er. This sen­ti­ment reveals a grow­ing bond between the two, though the narrator’s mind is also pre­oc­cu­pied with the eth­i­cal ques­tions sur­round­ing their roles as Expend­ables. These lin­ger­ing con­cerns about their soci­etal sta­tus and val­ue con­tin­ue to weigh on him as he con­tem­plates the com­plex­i­ties of his exis­tence. Just as he’s prepar­ing for a qui­et, con­tem­pla­tive day, a col­league inter­rupts his plans, call­ing him back to work for a new toma­to exper­i­ment. This sud­den shift in focus high­lights the ever-present pres­sure of their roles, where even moments of respite are fleet­ing and quick­ly over­shad­owed by the demands of their work.

The chap­ter con­cludes with Eight return­ing from his duties, shar­ing dis­ap­point­ing news about the crops. The nar­ra­tor, already bur­dened with the com­plex­i­ties of their sit­u­a­tion, inter­nal­ly reflects on the ten­sion build­ing with­in their group. As he grap­ples with the frag­ile dynam­ics between the crew mem­bers, par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cern­ing their roles and rela­tion­ships, it becomes clear that their sur­vival depends not just on phys­i­cal sus­te­nance but on the pre­car­i­ous bal­ance of their emo­tion­al and moral deci­sions. This cre­ates an ongo­ing ten­sion, as the weight of their exis­tence seems increas­ing­ly tied to nav­i­gat­ing both their phys­i­cal sur­vival and the com­pli­cat­ed, often con­flict­ing, dynam­ics with­in their team.