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The air in Jesse's house is thick with the scent of stale cigarette smoke, mildew, and the metallic tang of fear. Sunlight barely penetrates the grimy living room windows, casting long, distorted shadows that dance across the bodies of Walter White and Jesse Pinkman. Krazy-8 sits shackled to the pole in the corner of the small, unkempt room, his eyes wide and vacant, a silent and unmoving statue of a man condemned. Jesse paces in front of the kitchen, the linoleum floor squeaking under the weight of his anxiety, while Walt stands over the cold corpse of Emilio Koyama, his gaze fixed and unblinking.
Walt breaks the silence, his voice a low, commanding rumble. “I have done all that I can for now. The rest is up to you.” He speaks with the cool, calculated cadence of a professor lecturing to a clueless student.
Jesse stops his frantic pacing and turns to him, his brow furrowed with confusion. “What do you mean, man? I’m here. What’s next?”
Walt lets out a weary sigh, his shoulders sagging slightly. He gestures vaguely toward Emilio's bloated corpse. “The body, Jesse. It must be liquidated.” He watches Jesse’s face contort with revulsion, a flicker of disgust passing over his lips. “I’ve already told you what to do.”
Jesse gestures to the house. “What about this? It’s a good setup. We can do it here.”
Walt shakes his head with a look of extreme disappointment, his expression as withering as a desert sun. “No, no, no,” he says, his voice tight with impatience. “That’s not going to work. There are too many variables.”
Jesse stares blankly at him. “What’s so different?” he asks, his voice barely above a whisper. “We’ve got a bathtub. A bathtub is perfect, man.”
“The material, Jesse!” Walt exclaims, his voice rising in frustration. “The container must be polyethylene! Do you know what happens when hydrofluoric acid comes in contact with glass, metal, or ceramics?”
Jesse shakes his head, his eyes glued to Walt's face, his expression a mixture of fear and confusion. “I-I don’t know, man.”
“It dissolves it,” Walt says, as if he is explaining an elementary scientific concept to a slow-witted child. “It eats through it. It dissolves the glass, the metal, the rock, and the ceramics.” He points at Emilio's corpse. “And while it’ll dissolve this… this… unfortunate soul, it will also dissolve the bathtub and the floor below it, turning your house into a pile of sludge within the matter of minutes.” Walt’s gaze is unwavering as he explains the chemistry to Jesse, who has since backed away from Emilio’s corpse with a palpable look of fear on his face. “Do you understand? Do you comprehend what I am saying?”
Jesse swallows hard, the realization dawning on his face. “Oh, yeah, man. Toxic wasteland, I got it. Polyethylene.”
“Precisely,” Walt says, his voice a low, patient murmur.
Jesse shudders at the thought. “So, where do I get a polyethylene bin?”
“A hardware store, of course,” Walt says, his voice tight with impatience. “There’s one a few blocks from here. Just go, buy the bin, and bring it back while I deal with Krazy-8.”
Jesse nods, his eyes wide with comprehension. “Okay, man, I got it. I’m on it. But what if they don’t have one?”
Walt looks at him like it's the most obvious thing in the world, a look he had seen many times during their brief partnership. “Then,” he says, his voice a low, patient whisper, “try another.”