Joe gets in the truck and tells Riley it’s over, that Bishop is gone. Using Riley’s voice, the other Antennas explain that before leaving, Bishop showed them how to be free. She led them to Riley’s mind, which they now control. Joe sees the 11 remaining Antennas standing outside his truck. The self-images they project into his mind still have hair, suggesting retained humanity. He blinks, and the vision vanishes.

The Antennas, still speaking through Riley, say she belongs to them and begin making her dig her thumbs into her eyes. Joe stops her, but she then bites her tongue until it bleeds. They threaten to mutilate her body unless Joe gives them what he gave Bishop: taking them off the gas. Joe warns this will be painful and fatal, but they reply that they will be truly free.

A memory surfaces of a Father’s Day when five-year-old Riley made him breakfast, a perfect morning before his affair destroyed his family. Joe agrees to free the Antennas if they release Riley. The collective voice promises not to harm her.

Back inside, Joe instructs Tyler to keep all security in the lobby to see Aguirre off. In his office, where Aguirre still works, Joe smashes a monitor into Aguirre’s head, binds him with cables, gags him with his own tie, and retrieves an oxygen mask and a 9mm handgun from his filing cabinet—a gun he hid there years ago after fighting with Kate about it. He tucks the weapon into his pants and leaves.

Unable to face the Antennas for routine rounds, Hannah sends her trainee, Nick Aguta, to examine one of them while she observes from behind the glass. She remembers seeing a faint smile on Bishop’s mangled corpse. Hannah notices Antenna Crowe is completely still, something she has never witnessed. She realizes all 11 Antennas have fallen silent and motionless, staring at their ceilings. The entire level becomes eerily quiet. Hannah orders all staff out of the cells.

On Level One, Joe walks down the hallway, paranoid that the janitors he passes will notice his hidden gun. Hannah emerges from the elevator to report the strange Antenna behavior but stops when she sees his disheveled appearance and the gun’s outline. Unsure if he can trust her, Joe feeds Hannah a cover story for investigators: Stress from his personal life caused him to snap. He makes her promise to keep Riley out of the official story and to protect her, saying he won’t be around to do it. After she agrees, Joe draws the gun, takes her hostage, and forces her to open the control room.

Inside, Chuck and Tariq are arguing about the gas-monitoring system. Joe holds the three at gunpoint and orders them to face the wall. He announces an emergency system reset over the Facility’s intercom, ordering all staff to communal areas. He disables all security doors, airlocks, and cameras. When Hannah warns that Tyler will stop him, Joe reveals a security protocol that allows the supervisor to lock out all surface access, including elevators, preventing any breach from the lobby. With a final command, Joe blacks out all monitors and forces his hostages to don oxygen masks from a supply cabinet.

In the lobby, Tyler realizes he is locked out and curses himself for ignoring Joe’s suspicious behavior all week. Fearing he will be blamed for negligence, he orders guard Phillips to call headquarters for an override, then assembles an armed team including Martinez, Robinson, Wells, and Harrell. They exit the building to access an emergency shaft, but the gate is disabled, forcing them to cut through razor wire.

Joe leads his masked hostages into the Level Two maintenance corridor and distributes scissors, ordering them to cut the gas lines to the 11 Antenna cells. When Tariq refuses, Joe aims the gun at his head. As they sever the hoses, high-pitched screams emanate from the cells. They cross to the other corridor and cut the remaining lines as the screams intensify. It is revealed that Joe’s gun is unloaded—he had planned to apologize to his team afterward.

Back in the main corridor, Tariq feels disoriented. He hallucinates that all cell doors are open and sees Ferro emerge naked, shrieking as she charges with other Antennas behind her. Tariq pushes past his colleagues and runs for what he thinks is the stairwell, fumbling with his keycard. He swipes through two airlock doors that he believes lead to safety but actually open Ferro’s cell. The hallucination breaks, and he finds himself inside her chamber.

Joe realizes the Antennas are making Tariq hallucinate, just as they did with Riley. He tries to stop Tariq, but Tariq shoves him down in the airlock. Ferro attacks Tariq and rips off his oxygen mask. Weakened by the gas, Tariq is quickly overpowered. Ferro gouges his eyes and slams his head against the door, killing him. She takes his keycard and exits.

Joe tries to stop Ferro, breaking her arm in the struggle, but she is unfazed by pain. She slams the door into Joe’s head, cracking his oxygen mask and knocking him down. As Joe succumbs to the gas, he watches Ferro use the keycard to free the other Antennas. At the corridor’s far end, Hannah and Chuck realize this was the Antennas’ plan all along. Ferro frees Crowe, then Vasquez. The two lock eyes on Hannah and Chuck and sprint toward them. Hannah yells for Chuck to run as they flee.

Joe lies paralyzed on the floor, his vision fading as he breathes gas through his cracked mask. He recalls a dream where Kate told him to watch Riley. His vision goes black, but his mind stays alert. When it returns, he is on his back inside a cell with two Antennas carving into his chest. He feels no pain until a voice like Riley’s says, “Welcome to our world” (281), and suddenly all his senses activate, consuming him with excruciating agony.

Tyler and his team descend the emergency shaft and emerge in the dark control room. They enter the Level One hallway and find Chuck’s dismembered body surrounded by blood and hundreds of bloody footprints. Claw marks scar the locked office doors.

In the break room, Hannah and about 30 surviving staffers huddle behind a barricade. They hear Tyler’s voice and begin moving the refrigerator blocking the door. Hannah warns them not to trust what they see, but they ignore her. Nick Aguta opens the door.

The Antennas project a hallucination. Tyler sees Ferro burst from the room and charge at him. He shoots her in the face. In reality, Hannah watches Tyler shoot Nick in the head. Still hallucinating, Tyler steps over Ferro’s body and sees the break room filled with Antennas massacring the staff. He orders his team inside.

The security team swarms in as Hannah dives under a table. They open fire and massacre the unarmed staff, who stand frozen in shock. Hannah screams that it’s a hallucination. The illusion breaks, and Tyler and his men see the room filled with the bodies of their coworkers.

Joe awakens to Riley’s voice. He is on his back in a cell, surrounded by the 11 Antennas and Riley. His body has been flayed but kept alive. The sight reconnects him to his nerves, and he is overcome with pain. When he tries to escape into unconsciousness, the Antennas’ mental screeching forces him awake.

Joe realizes the encounter with Riley in his truck was a hallucination projected into his mind, and Riley isn’t really in the cell with him now. In fact, he believes everything that has occurred, beginning with Kate’s death by suicide, has been a complex hallucination used to manipulate him. The belief that Riley is safe gives him a sense of peace. The Antennas shatter his relief, confirming that Kate is dead, and Riley is alone at his home, having endured the torment of being used as a psychic bridge. The Antennas tell Joe the pain of knowing his family suffered because of him is their gift—it will be his foundation in the darkness.

Tyler’s security team advances down the corridor and finds the Antennas standing around Joe’s mutilated body in Ferro’s cell. Joe weakly says, “Kill them. Kill them all” (299). Tyler executes the 11 Antennas with single headshots. Joe watches them die, seeing peace in their eyes. As he loses consciousness, their voices say, “Goodbye, Joe Gerhard” (299).

Days later, a catatonic Riley sits on the couch, having avoided food and water to minimize movement. The news reports major US intelligence victories, including averting a major terrorist attack by killing a Russian arms dealer named Victor.

Armed men enter and secure the house, followed by Aguirre. He brings Moby, the family dog, found by Animal Control. The dog is terrified of the house, but happy to be reunited with Riley. Aguirre tells Riley that her father and Hannah died in a work accident. He pressures her to avoid involving the police, who have been contacted by her concerned friends, the Vargases. He offers a choice: Be sent to a facility for observation, or take pills that will induce heavy sleep and make recent memories fuzzy and dreamlike.

Riley senses her father’s presence in her mind, an emotional impulse pleading with her. She experiences a vivid memory of the Father’s Day breakfast from her father’s perspective. The memory and its feeling of love cause her to break down sobbing. Her father’s voice clearly says, “Take the pills. Forget it all. Please, Riley” (307). Moby’s familiar, non-fearful reaction to the unseen voice convinces Riley it is real. She takes the bottle from Aguirre, swallows a pill, and immediately falls asleep.

A little over one year later, Riley graduates high school. She lost a year due to the ordeal, and her new classmates ostracize her and call her cruel nicknames behind her back. She has no clear memory of the traumatic events, only vague, terrifying dreams. After a lonely graduation lunch with her grandparents and friend, Silvia Vargas, she drives with Moby to the High Knob Trailhead, a spot her dad always wanted to hike with her.

She hikes the trail, talking aloud to her dead parents about her life and uncertainty about attending Gonzaga University. At the fire watchtower summit, she hears a familiar voice tell her to go far away. This confirms her decision to attend Gonzaga.

Riley reflects on the voice, her secret, which gives her simple, clear guidance. She believes it is her parents protecting her from the afterlife, like a guardian angel. She recalls the voice telling her to sign nondisclosure agreements from her father’s company and accept a settlement, which she did. She doesn’t tell her therapist about the voice, distrustful of the counselor provided by her father’s work. The voice urges her to be careful and safe. Many aspects of her future are unknown, but Riley does know she had parents who loved her.

Aguirre visits the control room of Site C, a new facility in South Carolina, to observe a tuning session. He is greeted by supervisor Janet Hawthorne and her team, Adrian and Phillip. Aguirre reflects on the program’s pending expansion to Sites D and E and misses the first facility, Site A. He liked Site A’s supervisor, an intelligent and resourceful West Point graduate named Claire Thompson, later known as Bishop.

Aguirre overrides Janet’s choice of Antenna-307, an Asian female, and instead requests Antenna-301 for the tuning session. Janet refers to this Antenna as Happy, explaining that they have nicknamed the seven Antennas after the Seven Dwarves. Antenna-301’s nickname is Happy because, despite horrific injuries, he is always smiling.

The video feed shows Antenna-301: Joe Gerhard, covered in scars and bandages, with a focused, contented smile. He looks directly into the camera. His smile is one of “pure bliss” (319) as he psychically watches over his daughter, loving and protecting her across all physical bounds. The sight of Joe’s smile unnerves Aguirre, who suddenly experiences the intense headache that accompanies psychic intrusion.