While out dining on Hughes Island, the crew meet Joseph Gallagher with his minder, Hadley Mazon. Joseph suffers from Lawkin’s Syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that causes the body to degenerate, ironically triggered by rejection of the standard gene therapies used to prolong human life. His destination is also Oberon, where he hopes to recover funds his father left in a secure vault before the revolt over a century ago. It’s a long shot, but the only one he has left. He contracts the Sparrow and its crew to aid him.
On Lison, Conrad catches up with a few acquaintances. After an unproductive meeting between Joseph and Kerri Lansing, a government data administrator, he suggests a more clandestine approach. Gus rummages around in Kerri’s department’s systems and inserts a new appointment into her morning schedule.
The next day, Cinque, Conrad, and Gus meet Kerri again. This does result in a tenuous proposition, involving the retirement of the department head. Afterwards, however, they descend to the basement, locate the off-grid archival system, extract the required data, and hastily exit before security lock the building down.
Back at the hotel, Joseph confirms this is all the information he had hoped for, including the vault’s location and passcodes. Gus discovers Kerri had accessed the records on two previous occasions.