To save Bless' life, Citizen must make a choice, one that changes both their lives indefinitely.

With the help of the Elysium Underground Network, Citizen launches a successful raid on a Federation prison transport and frees Julian. He is weak, injured, and in bad condition from torture, and brain scans complements of the Federation.

As Bless heals, Citizen's advanced beta emotion chip starts bugging out. Bless employs his hacking skills and "fixes" the chip with an extremely rare nano-tech micro power source. It no longer has any bugs but the chip fuses with part of the Limbic System of her brain stem, enabling her to experience emotions and understand them at a whole new level.

Commander Karr attempts to capture Bless once again, but his plan falls short. He's closer to launching Operation Salvus by having his trio of Advanced Syth-Ls ready. However, the doctors and technicians warn him they're not ready, but he pushed the Syth-L's through anyway in a crazed effort to kill Citizen and Bless.

Commander Karr closes in during a planned Elysium attach to cripple the Federation, trapping Bless in the Vault. Citizen knows what's at stake and mounts a rescue, which takes her off the original mission script against the wishes of Clark and Bless.

The clock is ticking, and Citizen's running out of time. She's nothing without Bless and can't let him die. So, she does the unthinkable, sacrifices her only connection to her humanity-the emotion chip-an irreversible act of love, compassion, and loyalty.