Legend

When Day was seven and Dad returned from his job at the warfront, police took Dad in for questioning—and sent him home bloody, with broken arms. Day committed his first crime when he sent a lit ball of ice and gasoline into the police station. Nobody caught him, and it burned down an entire wing.

It’s been two days since soldiers marked Day’s mom’s door. With knives hidden in his boots and pig blood smeared all over him, Day approaches the hospital. He has to get to the lab on the third floor—a place he’s been once before, on the day of his failed Trial. After watching soldiers, including Metias, arrive, Day stumbles to the entrance. He pretends to be injured and asks to pay to see a doctor. A nurse nods, so soldiers pat Day down and steal his packet of Notes. After 10 minutes in the waiting room, Day gets up, staggers into a soldier, and asks for a bathroom. In there, Day scrubs his face and changes his outfit. He’ll use the security badge he stole from the soldier to enter the lab.

Day shimmies through a ventilation shaft, which opens into a stairwell. He enters the lab, where he grabs a doctor and puts a knife to the man’s throat. Day asks for the plague cures, and he keeps the doctor in front of him as they shuffle to the refrigerator. There aren’t any cures, but there are plague suppressants and painkillers. Day lets the doctor go, takes suppressants, and then races for the exit, dodging bullets. One still hits him in the arm, and he finds himself locked in the stairwell. Using his knives, he scales the wall and throws himself through a window. The impact renders Day helpless for a minute. But he can hear soldiers shouting inside, so he pulls himself up and limps away.

Metias leads soldiers to where Day hit the ground as Day hurries away, trying to stay conscious. Just as Day is about to climb into the sewer, Metias points his gun at Day and tells him to freeze. As Metias prepares to fire, Day throws his knife at Metias’s shoulder. Day disappears into the sewer and concentrates only on getting back to the Lake sector, where he’ll meet Tess. The steps and voices behind him gradually fade, though he occasionally hears strange bubbling and steam in pipes. After two and a half hours, Day climbs a ladder and comes out in an alley near Union Station. He collapses a block away from where he’s supposed to meet Tess. As Day blacks out, he realizes his pendant is missing.