Work In Progress

1.18 Beat

[Aglet is sitting in their kitchen, drinking coffee, while Dice is looking through the cupboards.]

Aglet: So, did you find enough things that you can bake with?

Dice: Yeah, I just wanted...

[Dice pauses while inspecting the contents of one cupboard, then turns back to look at Aglet.]

Dice: Do you have any cocoa powder?

Aglet: I have hot chocolate powder, if that works.

Dice: How did you get hot chocolate powder?

Aglet: I actually have a job, remember?

Dice: Yeah...

[Beat.]

Dice: I should get a job.

Aglet: Just apply for one, they'll send you work.

Dice: I want to open a trade shop.

Aglet: Like, professionally?

Dice: Yeah, I already run some trade from our house, but I think I want to do it professionally. Just things that can be preserved. Not that anyone has any money to buy anything from me.

Aglet: Yeah.

Dice: It's really Periscope who needs a job. They don't have anything to do.

Aglet: Have they ever had a job?

Dice: Oh, yeah, they lived on their own for a while before enlisting.

Aglet: Really?

Dice: Well, not on their own.

[Dice pauses.]

Dice: Where did you say that hot cocoa powder was?

Aglet: It should be in a blue tin on the other side.

[Dice opens the other side of the cupboard and finds the hot cocoa powder, and sets it on the table.]

Aglet: Grab the protein ration, too, just so we don't have to eat anything else for a while.

Dice: That's actually a really good idea.

[Dice pulls out a brown paper bag, similar to a flour bag, but with just a red stripe on the outside.]

Aglet: ... So, where was Periscope living, then?

Dice: What do you mean? Before enlisting?

Aglet: Yeah.

[Dice sits down with an array of dry ingredients, which they start measuring and putting in a large bowl.]

Dice: They dated someone for a really long time. Joined the service together and everything.

Aglet: Oh.

[Beat.]

Aglet: What happened?

Dice: What happened to what?

Aglet: Well, you said dated as a past tense, I was just wondering.

Dice: Yeah...

[Dice pauses in measuring ingredients.]

Dice: Yeah, the person Peri was dating died, after they left to come to Harmony.

[Dice resumes in measuring ingredients. Aglet doesn't have a good response.]

Dice: And we just told Peri about it, they didn't know until a bit before they went to have surgery.

Aglet: That's brutal.

Dice: And that's why I'm not staying with Pipette.

Aglet takes a sip from their coffee as Dice continues to measure out ingredients.

Dice: Do you have an egg?

Aglet: That's not why you're not staying with Pipette.

Dice: Yeah it is. Do you have an egg?

Aglet: Dice.

Dice: Aglet, do you have an egg?

Aglet: Forget the egg, you cotton ball. Why are you avoiding Pipette?

[Dice neglects the baking entirely.]

Dice, angrily: Because who wouldn't avoid Pipette? They'll only upset me more, and then I'll go back to the Fixer? Is that what you want? Because honestly, I don't see the harm in it, and apparently you don't either, so maybe I should just go.

Aglet doesn't say anything. Dice returns to the ingredients.

Dice: I didn't think so.

Aglet: ...Do you want to talk about it at all?

Dice: Talk about what?

Aglet: The Fixer.

Dice: Have you ever been?

Aglet: No.

Dice: Then you don't know what you're talking about.

Aglet: That doesn't mean you can't talk about it.

Dice: I don't really want to.

Aglet: But it'll help us all if you just-

Dice: What do you even want to know?

Aglet: ... I don't know.

Dice: Good. Because it's hard to remember anyways.

Aglet: ... It's hard to remember?

Dice: It all gets fuzzy, just, leave it alone.

Aglet: Is that because of what you take?

Dice, ignoring the baking once more: It's because I don't care enough to remember.

[Beat.]

Aglet: Yeah, I should have an egg.

[The screen cuts to Pipette and Moe. Pipette is now making origami of the newspaper.]

Moe: ... So, Dice is mad at you.

Pipette, not looking up: Who's saying that?

Moe: It's just obvious.

[There's a pause as Pipette continues to fold paper.]

Moe: I was going to read that, you know.

Pipette, still not looking up: I don't care.

[The screen cuts to a room where Periscope sits in a chair, one of many in a row along a wall. Periscope is absentmindedly staring at a point on the floor. There's an unidentified voice speaking out of frame.]

Voice: Simmons?

[Periscope looks up from the point on the floor.]

Voice: M. Simmons?

[Periscope looks towards the voice, and stands up to walk towards the direction it was coming from.]

[credits]