When Clara woke up, she was inside a cavernous building that might have at one time been a factory or an industrial warehouse or a garage for a trucking company (if she had been familiar with such buildings, which she was not). The walls were ringed with partitions through which she could see mattresses, cots, tables, desks, chairs, computer systems, refrigerators, and other evidence that people were making living spaces along the walls of the structure.

She was lying on a couch, in front of a video screen that occupied the entire wall of the section where she was housed. She was not restrained in any way that she knew of, nor was there any sign of the Septemberclaver Systems Operator, his son, or her father, the Games Master.