"Tell me something," Jesse said, staring at the RV's battered dashboard as they bounced back toward town. "Why does every vehicle I ever touch sound like it's begging for mercy?"
Walter, sitting stiffly in the passenger seat, did not look amused. "Because you drive it like an animal."
Jesse huffed. "I drive it like it works."
"It only works because you ignore its obvious objections."
Lucas, sitting in the back with one elbow braced against the wall, let out a short breath that might have been a laugh if he had wanted to give them the satisfaction.
"You two do this on purpose," he said.
Walter turned his head slightly. "Do what?"
"Talk like you're both trying to win a debate nobody else asked for."
Jesse pointed back at him without looking away from the road. "See? That. That right there. He gets it."
Walter glanced at Lucas, then back out the windshield. "There is no debate. There are standards."
Jesse let out an exaggerated groan. "There are standards and then there's whatever this lecture is supposed to be."
Lucas shifted in his seat. The RV rattled under them, the desert road stretching long and empty ahead. He could still feel the heat baked into the panels from the cook earlier, and the whole vehicle smelled faintly of chemicals and dust. Not a clean smell. Not a safe one. But the kind of smell that made a criminal operation feel real.
Walter kept looking straight ahead. "The first batch is only a beginning."
Jesse's head turned a little. "Yeah? It looked pretty damn good to me."
"It was acceptable."
"That's not what I said."
"It is what I heard."
Lucas stared at the back of Walter's head. "You ever say anything that isn't a correction?"
Walter answered immediately. "Yes."
Jesse smirked. "He's lying."
Walter didn't even bother denying it.
Lucas leaned back and looked out the window. The desert rolled by in flat, sun-bleached silence, and for a moment he just listened to the three of them breathing in the cramped RV. It felt strange how quickly this had become normal. Not comfortable. Not good. Just normal in the ugly, temporary way that criminal work always became if you spent enough time near it.
Jesse broke the silence first.
"So," he said, "we did the thing. We cooked. We made the stuff. Are we all gonna stare at each other till somebody starts clapping, or do we talk about money now?"
Walter's eyes narrowed. "That is your first concern?"
"Yeah, because I'm broke," Jesse shot back. "What's your concern?"
Walter didn't answer right away.
Lucas watched him in the mirror and saw the familiar tension in his face. Walter was thinking in the way people did when they were trying to build order out of chaos. The cook had happened. The process had worked. Now he wanted to know what came next, what needed adjusting, what rules needed to exist before the whole thing could collapse under its own momentum.
When he finally spoke, his voice was calm again. "My concern is that this product must remain consistent."
Jesse snorted. "You say that like it's easy."
Walter looked at him. "It is easier than your attitude."
Lucas muttered, "That's fair."
Jesse turned around enough to glare at him. "Whose side are you on, man?"
Lucas shrugged. "The one that doesn't yell as much."
Jesse turned back around and muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like a complaint he did not want repeated.
Walter kept talking. "If we are to continue, we need a proper arrangement. A distribution plan. Reliable production. No improvisation unless necessary."
Jesse laughed. "Man, you say 'proper arrangement' like we're opening a dentist office."
"We are not opening a dentist office."
"Yeah, I know that."
Lucas rubbed a hand across his face. "He's not wrong, though."
Jesse groaned again. "Of course you'd side with the guy who sounds like he swallowed a rulebook."
Lucas gave him a dry look. "I'm siding with the guy who knows how to make the thing we just made."
Walter's expression shifted slightly at that. Not enough to be called satisfaction, but enough that Lucas noticed.
Jesse caught it too and pointed it out immediately. "See? He likes that. You hear that, Mr. White? He likes your chemistry nerd stuff."
Walter ignored the jab. "We need to discuss next steps."
Jesse nodded. "Fine. Next steps."
Walter turned a little in his seat. "Where is the product stored?"
Jesse blinked. "What do you mean, where is it stored?"
"I mean exactly that."
Jesse frowned. "I was gonna keep it where I keep stuff."
Walter stared at him for a long second. "That is not a plan."
"It's a location."
"It is a terrible location."
Jesse threw one hand off the wheel in irritation and then immediately put it back because the RV shuddered hard enough to remind him it would punish his stupidity without hesitation. "Okay, Mr. Better Plan, where do you want it?"
Walter didn't answer immediately.
Lucas did.
"Not at either of your places," he said.
Both of them looked at him.
Jesse opened his mouth first. "And why not?"
"Because one of you is sloppy and the other one is too obvious," Lucas said.
Jesse narrowed his eyes. "That's rude."
"It's accurate."
Walter gave a small, nearly imperceptible nod. "He is correct."
Jesse looked offended all over again. "Seriously? You're both just gonna tag-team me like that?"
Lucas leaned forward slightly. "If the product is real money, then the storage has to be invisible. Not just hidden. Invisible."
Walter looked at Lucas for a moment. "You have experience with this?"
Lucas shrugged. "Enough to know bad hiding spots make people dead."
That was a quiet line. No drama in it. No flourish. Jesse didn't joke back this time, and Walter didn't either. The RV kept moving, the engine rattling beneath them, and the silence that followed had a different shape to it.
Walt broke it after a moment. "Then we will need a third location."
Jesse stared at him. "A third location? Where, the moon?"
Walter's expression remained cool. "A safe place."
Lucas said, "Safe places are usually just places nobody has checked yet."
Jesse pointed at him again. "That is not comforting."
"It's honest."
Walter's gaze shifted toward the front windshield. "Honesty is useful."
"Now he likes honesty," Jesse muttered. "Great. We're all evolving."
Lucas almost smiled.
Almost.
The RV lurched onto a more familiar road as the edge of the desert gave way to a stretch of town more alive than the open country had been. Signs. Traffic. Faded storefronts. Albuquerque slowly reassembled itself around them in strips of asphalt and heat haze. The world looked normal again, which somehow made the three of them feel more out of place than they had in the desert.
Jesse talked first once they were close enough to civilization again.
"I'm telling you right now," he said, "if this stuff sells the way I think it's gonna sell, we're not doing this for pocket change."
Walter looked forward. "We should not assume success before we understand the market."
Jesse laughed. "You hear yourself?"
"Yes."
"That was not the point."
Walter did not respond.
Lucas watched the city edge pass by through the side window. He had a feeling none of this was going to stay small. Not after today. Not after Walter White had seen the first result of his own abilities and decided it was worth the trouble. Not after Jesse had seen the product and realized there was actually money here.
It was all scaling now.
That was the dangerous part.
Small criminal plans stayed small until somebody got ambitious.
And Walter White already sounded ambitious in the way he spoke about the process.
Jesse pulled into a lot a few minutes later and killed the engine with an exhausted grunt. "Alright. Everybody alive?"
Walter stepped out first.
Lucas followed.
The heat outside was brutal, but not as sharp as the desert had been. It still felt like a weight pressing down, though, and Lucas was grateful for the system's passive in a way he would not have admitted aloud. Walter adjusted his glasses and looked at Jesse.
"We need to talk about the product's movement."
Jesse spread his arms. "Can we not use words like 'product movement'? It sounds like you're trying to sell me a printer."
Walter ignored him. "If the first batch moves, we continue."
Jesse looked immediately more interested. "Yeah, okay."
Walter continued, "If it does not, we reassess."
Lucas leaned back against the car door and watched the conversation settle into something more practical. Jesse was still restless, still impatient, but now he was listening more closely. Walter was not yelling. He didn't need to. The authority came from how sure he sounded when he talked about chemistry and control. He made his uncertainty look like discipline, and that was probably the most dangerous part of him.
Jesse finally asked, "So what, we split it and test it out?"
Walter shook his head. "No. We do not test anything blindly."
Jesse frowned. "Then what do we do?"
Walter looked at him like the answer should have been obvious. "We find someone who can move it."
Lucas's attention sharpened. "You already got somebody?"
Jesse hesitated.
Walter noticed that hesitation immediately.
"You do," Walter said.
Jesse looked away. "Yeah."
Lucas glanced between them. "That sounded way less certain than you wanted it to."
Jesse ran a hand through his hair. "I mean, I know a guy."
Walter's expression tightened a fraction. "A guy."
"Yeah."
"What sort of 'guy'?"
Jesse looked at Lucas, then at Walter, then sighed in irritation. "A guy who can buy it."
Lucas gave him a look. "That's a dangerously unhelpful sentence."
Jesse threw his hands up. "I'm getting there!"
Walter folded his arms. "You are not inspiring confidence."
Jesse snapped back immediately, "You weren't inspiring confidence when you showed up at my house, so maybe don't start with me."
The air stiffened.
Lucas saw it happen before either of them fully did. Walter's face settled into something even flatter than before, and Jesse realized too late that he'd gone a little harder than was wise. For one second it looked like the whole conversation might turn into a real argument.
Then Walter spoke, calm as ever.
"I am not here to inspire confidence," he said. "I am here to make money."
Jesse stared at him.
Then let out a breath and looked away. "Yeah. Fine. Fair."
Lucas shook his head slightly. "That's probably the most honest thing anyone's said all day."
Walter looked at Lucas again. "You understand the stakes."
Lucas met his gaze. "I understand consequences."
"That is close enough."
Jesse crossed his arms. "Wow. Great. Glad we're all on the same page now."
Lucas snorted. "We're not on the same page. We're in the same book by accident."
That actually got a real laugh out of Jesse. Walter did not laugh, but the tension eased a little.
"Look," Jesse said, "I'm gonna set up the meeting."
Walter narrowed his eyes. "When?"
"Soon."
"Define soon."
Jesse made a face. "Why do you talk like a cop when you're not a cop?"
Walter replied, "Because I prefer precision."
"Yeah, and I prefer not being interrogated every time I say a word."
Lucas muttered, "That's going poorly for both of you."
Jesse pointed at him. "You're not helping."
"I'm not trying to."
Walter looked between them, then back to Jesse. "If you are arranging the sale, I need to know the details."
Jesse gave him a long look. "You really think I'm just gonna hand you everything?"
Walter did not blink. "I think you will if you want this to continue."
That settled it.
Jesse looked away first.
Lucas noticed that too.
Walter had a way of standing still that made other people move first. Not because he was physically intimidating, but because he sounded like the sort of man who already knew where the conversation was going and would simply wait until everyone else caught up.
Jesse finally huffed. "I'll call you."
Walter nodded once. "You will."
Jesse groaned. "Man, I hate how much you sound like you mean it."
"I do."
Lucas looked off down the lot and let the conversation drift around him. They had the first cook, the first product, and now the first buyer was hanging in the air just beyond the next decision. That was enough to tell him the whole thing was moving faster than it should have. Faster than any sane person would call safe.
Which, to be fair, was exactly how it always started.
Jesse looked at him. "You coming?"
Lucas glanced back. "Where?"
"Home, man. Or wherever you go when you're done being all mysterious."
Lucas shrugged. "Depends. You got anything else you need?"
Jesse shook his head. "Not right now."
Walter said, "We will need to speak again once the sale is arranged."
Lucas nodded. "Text me."
Walter's eyes narrowed slightly at the casualness of that, as if he did not like the idea of treating a major criminal operation like a normal phone plan.
Jesse, of course, pointed at him immediately. "See? Lucas gets it. You're the weird one."
Walter ignored him and turned to leave.
Jesse followed a second later, muttering under his breath.
Lucas stayed where he was for a few beats longer, listening to the city noise settle around him. His phone buzzed once in his pocket, but not from the system. He pulled it out expecting Jesse.
Instead, he got nothing.
Just a blank screen.
A second later, he remembered the clock.
Two in the morning.
That was still far away.
When the time finally came, he would see what the system thought he needed next.
For now, the bigger question was simpler.
How long before Jesse's buyer turned into a real problem?
Lucas slid the phone back into his pocket and headed for his car.
Albuquerque looked normal again.
It always did.
That was the trick.
It only stopped looking normal when it was too late.