Equality 7-2521 is caught. On the night he completes his invention, he neglects to watch the hourglass that tells him the time. When he remembers to look at it, it is too late. When the members of the Home Council question him regarding his whereabouts, he answers: “We will not tell you.” The Council sends him to the Palace of Corrective Detention, commanding that he be lashed until he confesses. He escapes from the Palace of Corrective Detention and steals quickly into his tunnel. When he lights his candle, he finds everything as he left it. The glass box is intact, and when he beholds it, he feels that the scars on his back are unimportant.
