Content Warning: This section of the guide mentions suicide.

The following day, the One State newspaper announces that “the road to a hundred percent happiness is open” (71). This they will achieve through a recently discovered operation to remove the imagination, which promises to make Numbers more perfectly integrated with the state. D-503 believes that the procedure might still redeem him from his crimes against the state. I-330 instructs D-503 to see her and forces D-503 to choose between getting the operation or seeing her again. Because of this ultimatum, D-503 decides to continue to oppose the state and agrees to help I-330 and the Mephi seize the Integral on the day of its launch.

On the day before the Integral’s flight, D-503 sees a column of people who have just had the operation to remove their imagination. He finds himself herded along in the crowd toward one of the operating rooms. He manages to escape and sees O-90 outside. O-90 tells him that she wants I-330’s help to save her baby by getting it beyond the Green Wall. However, as D-503 is taking O-90 to see