Kangwen's first entry into Pavilions perimeter

Conner’s first entry into Pavel’s peripheral makes remote embodiment tangible as a bodily event: after Ash activates the body, Conner discovers that he can move, see his hands, and run again. The scene’s decisive turn is not simply that he has entered a machine, but that a body made available to him becomes an immediate experience of restored movement—and an overwhelming release that carries him out of the room and into darkness.

The Transfer into Pavel’s Body

The entry begins in a back room, where Pavel’s peripheral lies on a bunk with its ankles hanging over the end. Flynne goes in with Ash, while Wilf Netherton and Ossian stay outside. Before entering, Flynne has warned them that Conner may be overwhelmed and asked them to give him room if he gets excited. That caution frames the activation as a moment requiring space, not a demonstration for an audience.

Ash tells Pavel to close its eyes. The peripheral looks at Flynne, then obeys. Ash counts down from fifteen; Flynne counts silently with her, imagining the wobble at ten. At zero, the eyes open wide. The sequence is precise and almost suspended: a look, a command, a countdown, and then the new body’s sudden awareness.

Recognition and the Body’s Return

Conner’s first response is to raise his large hands into view. He wiggles the fingers on both hands, touches each thumb to each finger in turn, and returns to the index fingers. Then he sits up as if spring-driven and gets to his feet. The actions establish what the new embodiment means through specific tests of movement and coordination rather than explanation.

Flynne tells him, “It’s me, Conner.” He recognizes her and explains that Macon had shown him a screen-grab. He also recognizes Ash from something he once saw in an Atlanta club, where a boy had called someone like her a hyperspace elf and technically an overdose. His recollections locate the unfamiliar-looking Ash within Conner’s own past, even as he encounters her now beside a body he has never inhabited.

Asked if he feels okay, Conner grins wolfishly in Pavel’s face and exclaims, “Goddamn. Look at all these fingers.” His attention returns to his hands: he looks at them again and says, “Fuck yes,” followed by “Jesus.” Flynne explains that two men outside are with them and are safe. Conner does not greet the three observers with handshakes; instead, he puts his hands in the pockets of his gray pants and takes in the cabin. His questions—whether it is a boat or a dry dock—show him orienting himself in unfamiliar surroundings while the hands remain the immediate wonder.

The Break into Motion

Flynne identifies the setting as a “Big fancy RV.” Conner goes to the window, bends to look out, and declares, “My ass, out of here.” He yanks the door open and skips the gangway, flipping sideways over the railing and dropping roughly fifteen feet. He lands and runs across the garage, along the line of cars belonging to Lev’s father.

The speed of the run contrasts with the careful finger tests that came before it. Flynne follows him as he crosses a space larger than she had understood it to be. The garage’s long arches light up in sequence as he passes beneath them, their shallow glow fading behind him. The environment registers his movement: light appears over his route, then disappears, while Conner keeps going.

Relief, Sound, and the Scene’s Ending

As he runs, Conner screams and whoops hoarsely. Flynne imagines that he may not have screamed in the same way when the event that tore away so much of his body happened to him; now the cries accompany the experience of running, having fingers, and moving at extraordinary speed. The noise holds both pain’s history and the present release, but the narration gives the release no tidy verbal explanation. Flynne can only guess that it is joy or relief, and finds the sound of that relief harder to hear than the screams.

The scene ends not with Conner’s return or a spoken account of what the experience means, but with his passage out of sight. The last arch fades after he runs beneath it; then there is only darkness and the sounds he makes. The ending leaves his first experience of Pavel’s peripheral in motion, with the light tracing his departure and his voice continuing after the visible figure has gone. Through that contrast, the scene presents the peripheral neither as an abstract technical interface nor as a simple substitute body: its significance emerges in Conner’s immediate, physical discovery of what he can do within it.