Larry watches out of his room’s solitary window as Cliff continues to work away on whatever the hell it is he’s working on round the side of the house. He watches Cliff come in and out of the side door carrying poles, bedsheets and other electronic paraphernalia and dump them clumsily in the garden. He glances up at the clock and realises he’s been up in his room for hours without even so much as a peep from the others. He sighs under his bandages and pulls himself away from the window. A pang of guilt radiates through him in harmony with the Spirit, which he still feels pulsing gently in his chest from his clash with Rita. He collapses onto his bed and stares up at the metal plated ceiling. As he watches the light dance off the ceiling’s surface, he lets his mind go blank and realises for the first time in a while just how powerless he feels. Powerless to find Niles, powerless to help his friends, powerless against the crushing burden of his life. He pulls his thoughts away from his feelings, rises from the bed and kneels down on the floor. Carefully, he reaches under the bed and feels around for something. Once found, he slides it out from beneath and produces a small box. He takes note of how, like everything else in his room, it hasn’t gathered any dust and stares at it for a while. His reluctance to open it builds as he continues to sit there and stare at it a little while longer. Finally, with a sigh of defeat, he reaches down and removes its lid – careful not to look inside. He lays the lid down but continues to avoid looking inside the box, his eyes instead finding a loose thread hanging from a blanket on his bed. He watches as the thread swings softly, disturbed by the movement of air in his room, and realises he can’t put it off any longer. He takes a breath and looks inside the box – at the one, solitary item inside it. A photograph. He pulls it out and cradles it in his bandaged hands for a moment, and the eyes of his wife stare back at him, frozen in time.
Larry: Oh…
He feels moisture build in his weak tear ducts as he looks his wife in the eyes. Then, without warning, he breaks down and begins to cry. He doesn’t know if any tears come out, nor does he care, he just sits there for a while and lets it happen. He strokes the photo with a finger before finally giving in and placing it back inside the box, which he slides back under his bed carefully. An empty tomb, rarely visited and hidden from the world. He pulls himself together and rises to his feet, looking to the mirror to see at bandaged, featureless face staring back at him. His eyes wander to the message left scrawled across Chief’s whiteboard, still resting against the wall:
WE NEED TO TALK
He looks at it a little while longer and suddenly his heart skips a beat as he notices something that wasn’t there before. The Spirit has replied. Under Larry’s words, scribbled in barely legible black marker pen, is another message:
you need to listen
He reaches over and grabs the board, motivated by the sudden rush of adrenaline the message has given him. He sits back on the bed and reads it over and over, his mind racing as he looks for meaning in those four words.
====================
Some are born wise. Some achieve wisdom. Some have wisdom thrust upon them. As Rita sits on the back porch and watches as Cliff makes the final few adjustments to his project, she eats another spoonful of ice cream and decides that unfortunately for Cliff Steel, none of these statements appear to be true. She watches as he drapes one last white bedsheet over a pole, step back triumphantly, and nod as he admires his handiwork.
Cliff: And I think… we’re all done!
Rita chews on another spoonful of ice cream and gives Cliff’s project a once over. What he has constructed is most fascinating. It would seem, to the untrained eye, like nothing more than a crude tepee assembled from mismatched poles and white bedsheets. In its centre, placed at the foot of a pole holding the sheets up, a large battery has been placed and hooked up to the pole with what look to be car jump leads. A series of mismatched wires sprout out the side of the battery and run up the pole and across the sheets like fairy lights, with another long wire running along the ground, past Rita sat on the porch and into the house. To the untrained eye, it may seem like nothing more than jumbled assortment of tat – a child’s den, constructed out of boredom on a rainy day, perhaps. But as Cliff keeps assuring Rita, this over-complicated tent could very well be the key to finding Niles Caulder. Rita stares at it, unimpressed, and takes another bite of ice cream.
Rita: So… that’s it?
Cliff: Whaddya mean, ‘that’s it?’
Rita: I mean, that is what you were getting excited about?
Cliff: Well, yeah.
Cliff stares at his project.
Cliff: Don’t you like it?
Rita: Oh no Cliff, I think it’s wonderful. Really, I do. But… how exactly is it going to help us?
Cliff shrugs as she puts down her spoon and wipes her hands.
Cliff: Well, if we can’t figure out a way to find Niles, we’ll have to recreate exactly what happened when we lost him.
Rita frowns.
Rita: So you’ve built us… our own White Room?
Cliff: You got it.
Rita: Out of bedsheets and tent poles?
Cliff: Yeah.
Rita: And you think it’ll work?
Cliff: Maybe.
Rita: Because you’ve strapped a battery to it?
Cliff: Yeah.
Rita: Right.
Cliff: Look, don’t hate me for tryin’. Think of it like this – the machine that asshole Eric went into, to become Mister No-dick or whatever, all it was was a white room powered by some batteries, right?
Rita: Well… sure? I guess?
Cliff: So, the-o-retically, all we need to make our own is somethin’ white and some power, yeah?
Rita: …yes?
Cliff: And that’s exactly what we’ve got here!
Rita: So what you’ve built us is an electric tent?
Cliff: No, asshole, I’ve built us our very own White Room!
Rita rests her head in her hands and sighs. Cliff looks at her for a minute, holding his head high. She’s sure that if he could he’d be beaming.
Rita: Okay, so let’s say for argument’s sake this thing actually works. Who are you going to put inside it?
Cliff nods and holds up a finger.
Cliff: One step ahead of you.
He tramples over to the doorway and shouts:
Cliff: HEY! R-A! COULD YOU COME OUT HERE A SECOND?
Rita looks behind her as R.A-2 meanders outside jauntily and stops on the porch.
R.A-2: Good afternoon, Clifton. You require, my assistance?
Cliff: Sure do Wall-E. How’d you like to save Niles?
Rita looks back at Cliff, then to R.A-2 again, and suddenly realises what Cliff’s planning.
Rita: Hang on Cliff, no!
Cliff: What?
Rita: You are not putting R.A inside that thing!
Cliff: Why not?
Rita: Because… because… because… well look at him!
They look at R.A as he stands there, happily staring off into the distance, oblivious to his fate.
Cliff: Yeah? And?
Rita: You can’t put him inside that thing! He’ll go up like a candle!
Cliff: It’ll be fine, trust me. Besides, who else are we gonna use? You want a go?
Rita: No of course I don’t! I just think we perhaps ought to think this through, you know, before we obliterate the butler in an electric tepee!
Cliff grunts and throws his arms into the air. He wanders back over to the mock-machine and sighs, putting his hands on his hips and staring at it for a moment. Rita goes for another scoop of ice cream, but before she can so much as pick up the spoon she’s stopped by the sound of the front gate being opened. Cliff, who it would seem has heard it too, looks round at her and she stares at him for a moment, frozen. They listen intently as the rattling of the front gate stops and is replaced by the sound of someone knocking on the front door. Rita whispers at Cliff.
Rita: Who is that?
Cliff: I don’t know.
Rita: Go look!
Cliff: Why the fuck should I go? You go!
Rita: I’m not going, you go!
Cliff goes to reply but stops as the sound of a voice fills the air.
Voice: Hello? Doctor Caulder? I’ve got your delivery.
Cliff looks at Rita and she frowns. Then, without warning, a figure appears round the side of the house and the pair of them scream.
Cliff/Rita: AAH!
Voice: AAH!
The figure jumps back, startled by their screaming, and looks at the pair of them. Rita calms herself and narrows her eyes as she makes the figure out to be a scrawny young man in a hoodie, carrying a box. The man stares back at them, composes himself, and steps forward.
Ricardo: Uh, hey. I’m Ricardo, from town. I’ve got a delivery here for Niles Caulder?
Cliff shoots Rita a glance.
Rita: He’s not in. What is it?
Ricardo looks down and the box and shrugs.
Ricardo: Just groceries. Bread, milk, Fruit Loops, you know…
The three of them all stare at each other a little while longer, unsure what to say. After a minute Ricardo laughs nervously and steps back.
Ricardo: Uh, if this is a bad time I can come back later…
But before he can disappear Cliff steps forwards and holds out his hands.
Cliff: Actually buddy, you might just be right on time…