The team is separated. Lady Paladin, Shimmer, and 99 are being held at the Devil's Elbow incarceration facility as material witnesses. Quantum has disappeared. Hex was last seen returning to Adaptec.

99, Shimmer, and Lady Paladin are admitted to the prison. Lady Paladin was placed in a solitary cell, but surprisingly, Shimmer and 99 are put in the general population, housed in a pod with about fifty hardened criminals. They meet some of the other prisoners, in particular:

• Igor Sterankov, “Durak”, a cruel brick who keeps to himself.
• Older man, Brian Van Der Schaaf, “Hypnos”, who seems to know everyone and is friendly to the heroes.
• Young man, Alonzo Castillo, “Fuck-up”, who can randomly mess with people's powers (and messes up 99's).

Also, they meet the guards:

• Murray Goldstein, an old man whom 99 remembers from his days at Rikers.
• Larry Whorton, a young man that 99 senses as “smelling” dead.

Quantum lies low at his house for a couple of days. He sneaks into an office building in Beaverton to make a call to Adaptec, to contact Hex. He gets through, and arranges to meet him at Twin Falls, Idaho. As Quantum is leaving, he notices several small hovering drones coming to the area, apparently looking for him. He is able to escape before they locate him.

Hex is in Utah at Adaptec when he hears of the raids on Daniel Dunlap and all of the Five Foundation superteams, and sees news of the other RC5 heroes being taken away in handcuffs. At the same time, there are local police, FBI, and other federal agents at the front door of Adaptec, looking for Hex. They are told that he isn't there, but they remain outside the building. Hex is trying to figure out how to escape, but Jakob, the young engineer, says that he has a plan. Without Hex's permission Jakob puts on one of Hex's alternate suits and goes outside, where he is immediately apprehended and taken away. Hex takes the opportunity to sneak out the back, his suit hidden in a case.

Shimmer and 99 spend time in prison. Some other prisoners try to intimidate the youthful Shimmer, but one look from 99 fixes that. 99 is also able to trade his meals for things from other inmates (since he doesn't need to eat). Meanwhile, 99 keeps getting impressions from other inmates that they are going to die horribly. It is like his power to make people see their own deaths, but it is almost precognition. Also, for every vision, Judge Judy is playing on the TV in the main room.

Quantum and Hex meet up in Twin Falls, Idaho. They decide to travel down to Santa Rosa, New Mexico, to investigate that mysterious bunker that the General's daughter mentioned. They drive down there in a series of stolen cars, barely escape the police at one point, and Hex gets a ride from a trucker while Quantum flies alongside.

In the prison, at mealtime, Judge Judy finally appears on the big TV (it was preempted by constant coverage about Daniel Dunlap). At this point, Larry Whorton the guard transforms into a humanoid clone killing machine, and tries to kill Durak. A fight ensues. 99 takes on the clone killer while Shimmer tries to destroy the TV, in the belief that Judge Judy has to do with the killer.

Eventually the heroes are able to defeat the assassin, and it is discovered that the guard had been killed a while ago, but it was a mutated clone of him that took his place, preparing to kill Durak. Durak is grateful to the heroes for helping to save his life.

This was a wild one to run, with the characters separated.

I spent a lot of time coming up with realistic reasons why the heroes would be put in prison without there being some huge government conspiracy. Legally, they can be held as material witnesses for as long as necessary, as long as they are considered a flight risk. Since they have teleportation, invisibility, a spaceship, and have traveled to other planets and through time, the answer to that question is definitely yes.

JoAnn gave me two of the really good ideas: a person's clone having an aura of the original body's death, and turning 99's death-based mental paralysis into precognition of a person's death. Those powers are always great hooks into various stories. We had also been watching some television shows about prison, and that gave me some great ideas as well.

I finally got to use Hex's DNPC, which will make things fun in the future. I was a little surprised at how readily Quantum and Hex were willing to steal cars.