Motif · Book 8, A Parade of Horribles

The crawler count

The number on the first safe-room screen: 4,322,395 when Carl first sees it, under a million by the middle of the second floor. He tries not to look at it and always does.

Segment appearances

• Chapter 1 — Chandra; the garage
• Chapter 79 — 715 deals; Britney in Carl's mind; the Nothing in quotes
• Chapter 88 — Interlude: Quasar; the eleventh floor — twenty-three crawlers; Chaco's parade

Progression

The floor opens on 5,501 — three in four of the war's survivors having taken a deal — and the AI says so: 'just over 5,500 crawlers who survived Faction Wars and decided they wanted to continue on' (ch. 1, ch. 2). Fewer than 3,000 are left after heat four (ch. 52) and about 1,200 teams after heat five (ch. 67); after heat six the count is 989 crawlers in 353 teams, 715 of them 'planning on stepping into the Outreach Guild and not coming back out', which leaves 274 (ch. 78, ch. 79). 203 reach the eleventh floor and 172 more take the last deals, so the screen reads 'Remaining Crawlers: 23' — 'We were entering the eleventh floor with twenty-three crawlers' (ch. 88). After the arena: 'We had nineteen crawlers left. Twenty if you counted Penny, which I did not' (ch. 98).