John Kramer

He stood, adrenaline filling him, as he watched the video capture Amanda's moment of taking off her headpiece.

She had done it.

He had begun to have doubt that any of those he had chosen to rehabilitate would ever persevere. Yet she, Amanda Young, had been the first.

He felt a tickle in his throat. Coughing, he went to rewind the tape, the quality of the cameras in that room shoddy but enough to let him relive the moment.

Amanda, squeezing and pulling at scarlet intestines, finding the key, and scrambling to unlock her death sentence, ending with the head tossed scream she unleashed in silence.

Distant scraping footsteps had him turn off the television.

The detective had returned.

The clock read ten minutes before midnight. Always punctual and obedient. John smiled and went to take the penlight at the table, the very penlight his oncologist had left at his hospital bedside during the very public medical screening that had taken place earlier that day.

Doctor Gordon.

John Kramer curled his mouth in disdain. He had a very special plan for the good doctor. It would still need work, but already John knew that a higher power out there would ensure vindication. Karma.

While Gordon had humiliated and dehumanized John in front of the future generation of healers, he had no idea just how his actions would bear severe consequence.

For in the waiting room earlier that day, it had been fate for John to find himself sitting next to the very detective whose sights were set on convicting him.

"Sorry to disturb," Detective David Tapp had been smooth and friendly while John read some gossip rag out of desperate boredom. "But how is Gordon? He any good?"

John had known before he had shown his badge or introduced himself that he was police. He had that same hard glint in his eye and square in his shoulder that Mark Hoffman had. There was a familiarity with violence and cruelty and a stoic resolve to stand up to it.

Admirable.

And the questions had been asked with the intent to determine if Gordon had any skills needed for a certain suspect he was hunting for.

"I hear Gordon's not a surgeon."

"Oh, he has conducted surgeries. Just not for me," John had answered, knowing David had been fishing. "He does have some fascinating hobbies, though."

"Do tell?"

John smiled. "He enjoys metalworking. He mentioned a fantastic clock he had designed." Not a lie, but not a truth, either. The doctor had never told him any of this. John had just observed, from afar, while performing his reconnaissance in anticipation for a future test.

That sowed the seeds necessary for the detective. David had leaned back in his chair, looking deep in thought, lips pursed, and John could tell that there were cogs spinning in his head to put it all together.

"So what are we doing?" Mark broke through his thoughts, dressed in his black raincoat.

John reached over, took the pig masks and handed one to Mark. "We will be taking a man, tonight. Be prepared for resistance. He is five foot eleven. Three hundred pounds." John would not have been able to take him down, least of all pick him up to carry him into the car.

Mark went to retrieve the syringes, already familiar with John's workshop. "Twenty milligrams?"

"Thirty. He will likely be… high strung."

Mark took out the bottle of Diazepam and filled the syringes. There was tension, moreso than usual, and John waited for him to state what was on his mind. "I've been assigned to your wife's case."

This took him by surprise but he nodded as though the opposite. He didn't correct that she was now his ex-wife. "So they're finally looking into it?"

"Sorry it took this long."

"Don't be. You do not control the system. But know that she no longer needs justice. It has been resolved."

"I'm assuming you don't want this to become something?" The detective sounded weary, as though he was familiar with making investigations 'resolve' themselves.

"Perform your job, to the standard you always do. But know that when you find the party responsible for murdering my son, that I will not be anticipating a court date for conviction."

The two of them left, Mark driving, while John looked out to the passing lights and cars speeding by.

"Turn here," John whispered, their final destination in the industrial mall. Mark turned off his headlights and slowed to a crawl. The night was cool. The lights amber and bright. "We will need to stop here. Walk the rest of the way. Stick to the shadows."

Mark killed the engine and the two left the car. Mark looked around, nervous, and John pulled the rubber mask over his head. The two of them, disguised, needed to walk around the warehouses and debris.

Paul Leahy, their target, would be found in his car, drinking and feeling sorry for himself. They could make out the red glow of his taillights. The man was making quite the ruckus. Wailing and letting out yelps, the muffled shatter of glass was reassuring. He was so wrapped up in self pity that he would likely not notice them as brief flashes in the car mirrors.

There was plenty of noise that night, despite the late hour. Sirens. The rumble of heating units echoed off the bricks as well as the hum of fans. But John heard Leahy's agonies break through the white noise.

They were closing in now, staying low behind the car and just out of the mirror's angles. As John poked his head to catch one last look at Leahy, he saw the man drag a shard of glass over his wrist.

Hot fury made John slam his hand against the trunk. How dare he, to his perfectly healthy body. He backed up to the dumpster to the left, crouching behind, waiting.

"Who's there?!" the man, likey drunk, got out of the car. He was heavy breathing, studying the ground and back tires, looking confused.

Mark hurried around the vehicle as the man rounded to the trunk.

With his back turned, John crept up and as soon as he turned to face him, John slammed the needle into his chest, missing his neck.

"RAA-" The man picked John up as though he was a child and slammed him back first onto the trunk. John felt the wind knock out of him and a cough fit overtook him.

He turned to see Mark pulling the man back, trying to strangle him. But Leahy was stronger - enraged, and managed to turn the tables on Mark and was now pinning him. Leahy spun him once again, tossing Mark against the car.

"I'll kill you!" Eyes only for Mark, finger pointed, and alcohol aiding his strength, the current double dose had done little to slow him down.

John forced himself off the trunk, pulled out the spare syringe, and plunged it once more into Leahy's bulk. Finally, he sounded as though he was weakening, his voice a croak, but it seemed the man was a juggernaut, returning his violent attention back onto John.

He felt his back slam against the car again, pain rooting through his bones.

"I'll kill you!"

He was closing in. Growling. John stabbed him again, trying to squeeze as much tranquilizer into him. Finally, the man weakened and slumped to the ground.

"Kill you," Leahy whispered, hands reaching out to the air before collapsing into stillness.

John was panting, taking the mask off so he could get fresh air. He looked to his partner, the man removing his mask, his face drenched in sweat. John wasn't sure if he detected tears as well.

They stood there, eyes locked, a newfound understanding between them, as though they were both wolves that had crossed paths, knowing the other was just as dangerous but choosing to not bare their teeth.

In silence, Mark took the man by his ankles and pulled him. John went to bring the car forward, and the two of them took Paul Leahy to face his trial.

Mark Hoffman

It hurt to inhale. Leahy had really done a number on his neck and chest. He felt like his trachea had been crushed like a soda can.

But Mark did not complain. He figured this guy wouldn't take kindly to any griping. But why'd he have to choose such a fatass for tonight?

He pulled Leahy across the dirty concrete, the occasional shriek of a rat and the drip of foul water his cheerleaders. He looked to the razor wire cage. Fifty more feet. Just fifty more feet, and he'll be done.

He needed to buy a wagon, for next time.

For a man dying of cancer, John had been productive. The cage was more a maze. Razor wire carefully walled and curled, like vines around him. The door would be just out of reach. Mark had studied the map drawn on John' design bench, having the escape memorized, partly out of hope that he could decipher some hidden pattern in case he one day found himself waking up inside of it.

It dealt with a lot of twists and turns. And all routes led to dead ends. The only realistic solution would be to just barrel through the barbs and bee line to the exit door. It was cruel. But Mark didn't reflect on it for long.

He returned to jerking the body backwards, finding all this labor cathartic. It was as though he was back to running three miles every morning, the exercise keeping his mind clear and his energy levels up - though the muscle soreness was getting to him. And he wasn't the spry early-twenty-something year old he once was. His back aways hurt. Ibuprofen was his breakfast now.

He wanted to blame the exercise for why he didn't feel despair after work. Maybe a part of him just liked this change in the mundanity. Maybe he was just sick, infected by John, and he just didn't know it yet.

Or maybe it was because things were looking up with Will, after she agreed to take a temporary leave of absence instead of downright quitting.

They finally made it to the cage. Mark straightened his back and wiped the sweat off his brow, sighing and grimacing from the aches in his spine. He knelt over to remove Leahy's clothes. Poor bastard. He knew this man's background. Alcoholic. Lived alone. Divorced, wife left him years ago. And he just pushed everything in his life away except the bottle. And here they were.

The pity and regret he felt, for this man would suffer, was foreign to Mark. Maybe it was from respect that this guy had given them such a hard time, despite the full dose of sedative he had hit with.

Mark knew this wasn't right. Kidnapping mentally ill people instead of violent criminals was not what he had expected. Mark resented John for tonight.

I got to get out of this.

Yet John knew more than he let on, in ways that made Mark begin to question his own logic. What if this guy was rotten on the inside? And he went and hurt others, until we tested him?

That's what John promised, and Mark hated the beginnings of trust he felt for his new keeper. If it wasn't for John, he probably would not have faired well during Leahy's capture.

He still felt Leahy's grip on his neck, squeezing him as if he was strangling a teddy bear, until his vision filled with splotches as John came through with the additional needle. The pain began to push away the pity.

Blackmail aside, John looked out for him. It made sense. John needed Mark more than Mark needed John.

He pulled Leahy's pants down, took his knife and cut off the shirt, not bothering with fighting the torso for it. He walked out and closed the door, locking the chainlinked containment and went to the other room where John was looking at the peephole.

They had not conversated since the kidnapping and for once, it was Mark who felt a compulsion to break the silence. "I didn't expect to feel any remorse."

"The heart cannot be involved," John whispered ominously. "Emotionally, there can be nothing there."

Mark stepped closer, barely making out his words.

"It can never be personal." Pale eyes looked up at him, intense and all knowing.

"Let's go," Mark chose to ignore John's mystical moment. He had them often, seeming to go off on some tangent of philosophy at random times. He suspected it was the brain tumor. Mark just wanted to go home and sleep.

"No." John pressed his hand to his chest. "You're not done yet." A hand reached and squeezed his shoulder, rubbing it - almost affectionately. "Tonight you will see the difference between killing," John steered Mark to the barrel to sit, "and rehabilitation."

Mark awkwardly obeyed, knowing it better to go along with what John instructed. Knowing how biblical he was to those who did not 'follow his rules', Mark leaned forward to stare at the peep hole. Leahy, in the distance, was beginning to rouse.

He's early, Mark surmised, again astounded by the older man's vigor.

He knew he was becoming more culpable now. In this deep, and with Tapp breathing down John's neck, Mark was next in line for the chopping block if they were ever caught. A feeling of debt owed was in the back of his mind, poking at his brain until he turned to John.

"There is another detective." A part of him felt sick to his stomach, going down a road he knew would forever taint him. "You should be aware of. His name's Tapp. He's smart and he's getting close."

John gave no indication of pleasure or shock. "I know who he is." John leaned against the wall, close to him, as if they were friends on a smoke break, catching up. "I need you to lead him to someone for me." He took out of his pocket a pen in a ziploc bag, playing with it, clicking its built in flashlight. "A doctor. A healer in need of healing." He placed the bag down on a barrel on his way out.

Knowing better than to ask for more details, he retrieved the pen, noting the label imprinted on the plastic.

Lawrence Gordon, M.D. Oncology

He recognized the name, the man the current top of the suspect list for the case. Always one step ahead. Always, John was prepared. It wasn't just the extra sedatives he brought that night. John could locate a dent in a single gear before they tested out one of their prototypes. He had this uncanny sixth sense that was beginning to creep Mark out.

"You look conflicted, Detective, like a man who has one more thing left to lose."

He was certain he was still being followed but didn't complain. It would take time to fully earn John's trust. Once he did, he'd be able to outwit him.

For now, though, it was an impossibility. Mark hadn't figured out what was it about John Kramer that brought out this, he begrudgingly admitted, brilliance.

And it was this brilliance that scared Mark.

Unlike Rosello, he was unsure how to deal with him. He, in return, was watching John in hopes he would slip up. Give up the name of an accomplice. Mark suspected perhaps it was his wife that was the person who would release his dealings with Baxter if John ever disappeared. He wouldn't know, for sure, until the morning.

"Five hours," he muttered to himself when he checked his watch. Fuck. It looked like he would get an hour total of sleep. He sighed and returned to watching Paul Leahy in his razor wire trap.

Amanda Young

She returned, after giving yet another statement to the damn cops.

She was tired. All she wanted was to curl up and sleep. It was only two in the afternoon. But she had nothing else to do. When she sat down on her bed, admiring the crack in the wooden floor, sighing, she hadn't expected to have a guest.

"Amanda."

She stiffened, the voice like sandpaper on her skin.

"Do not be afraid. Your life has just begun."

She turned, dreading to see who it was.

The man looked haggard. Old. Like a hawk, eying a mouse. Yet there was something familiar about him. She just couldn't pinpoint where she'd seen his face before.

"My name is John. I came here to personally extend my congratulations."

So it was him.

She stood up, her fingers trembling. Her first instinct was to grab her bedside lamp and hurl it at his skull. The other was to run out of her apartment, screaming at the top of her lungs until she coughed blood.

But for some reason, her limbs refused to move, as though he had cast a spell upon her.

"What do you want?" She demanded, her voice still rasped from all the interviews she had been doing earlier.

"I want to talk."

She narrowed her eyes. But she wanted to hear him out. She wanted to glimpse into the window of this maniac. She had played out what she would say to him, if she ever crossed his path. That he hadn't broken her. That, if anything, his sick little game had just made her stronger.

"I'm so happy you passed, Amanda."

This made the words freeze on her tongue. "What?"

He was smiling, teeth straight and clean. "I've waited so long. But I knew, the moment I chose you, that you would be the one."

His words didn't sound like that of a maniac. It sounded like that of her old English teacher, who had been one of the only adults to believe in her back when she was in school. "Are you going to hurt me?"

"No. I will not harm you. I merely wish to make you an offer."

She cocked her head to the side. "What kind of offer?" She instinctively wondered if this was another test. Was he about to offer her drugs, to see if he cured her?

"Tell me, will you ever put poison in your body again?"

"No," she whispered, now afraid, feeling as though his stare could bore holes into her.

He nodded. "Though my method was… unconventional, I know it is effective. Tell me, what do you plan to do, now that you're free of the prison that is your addiction?"

She blinked. "I don't know. Get a job?" She said what she hoped he wanted to hear.

"What if I offer you an opportunity," he leaned forward, sounding excited, "for a purpose greater than yourself?"

"I'd say you're nuts," she muttered.

He laughed. "Yes, I'm sure you still need time to process. But tell me, compared to your many trips to the Homeward Bound Clinic, have you craved heroin?"

Fuck no. I want nothing to do with those damn needles anymore. She shook her head. "Like you said. I took my life for granted. But not anymore, John."

"I see promise in you, Amanda. I see great potential. You are a shining beacon of hope for the future. If I am to deliver a legacy before I die, I need you to help me."

His kind words and gentle demeanor was not what she had expected of him. "Why me?"

"Because you are the first but you will not be the last. Together, we can make the world see how precious life is. Will you hear me out, Amanda?"

She took in a deep breath. Her world was spinning. This guy, the cops said was a psycho. But she knew the cops. And they were the psychos. They were the ones who locked away innocent people and ruined their lives.

The way the world was right now, it was all topsy-fucking-turvy. She gave him a sharp look.

What did she have to lose?

"All right, John, let's talk."

Will Maddox

"Mrs. Tuck," Mark forced a smiled as he flipped the pages of his notepad.

"It's Doctor Tuck. And I'm not married anymore."

Will nodded, taking a step forward to shift the attention. "Sorry to hear that."

Jill Tuck had a cold face. She was attractive in features but her dark eyes had a dull appearance, clear she had seen far too much and had little optimism for the future.

"And who are you?" Jill sharply stared at Mark, who had been eying the many posters hanging around the clinic walls.

"Detective Mark Hoffman and this is my partner, Detective Will Maddox. This is about the burglary reported last January."

"Ah. Well, care to tell me why it's taken ten months since the incident to finally sit down with one of you officers?"

"We're very sorry, Dr. Tuck. But we're here now. And we want to help."

Jill seemed taken aback by Will's words and lowered her eyes. "Fine. Come into my office. I can talk until my lunch break ends, then you'll have to come back tomorrow. It's busy."

"Seems like it's always busy," Mark muttered as they pushed through crowds of twitching patients, some pulling at the skin on their faces while others shivered and scratched at their arms.

They reached the office and once the doors were closed Will's urge to take a hot shower subsided. Unlike the waiting room, Jill's office looked immaculate.

She noticed a picture on a filing cabinet behind the doctor's desk, face down. Will made note, curious but politely sat at one of the two chairs across from Jill's seat.

"Maybe i can save everyone's time by telling you, I identified the perpetrator. And he hasn't appeared in my clinic since, despite being a regular patient before all of this happened."

"Expected, it's not likely a criminal would try to get services after he robbed the place."

"See, that's the thing. Cecil Adams had already stolen from the clinic before. He still came, requiring detox weeks later, but he came back. I expected him to do so again."

"Even after the…" Mark looked uncomfortable, his ears flushing. Will watched him, pointedly, bemused at how he would navigate around the topic, "incident with your unborn child."

Jill closed her eyes for a moment and reopened them. "His name was Gideon."

"We're sorry for your loss, Dr. Tuck," Will's voice was gentle.

Jill turned to her, eyebrow furrowed. "Do you have children, Detective Maddox?"

Will swallowed. "No."

"That explains how you can sit there, being so calm, yet have the gall to tell me you're sorry for my loss. What good does your pity give? Gideon was everything to me. And my…" Jill looked away and reached for a tissue on her desk. "Sorry. It's still hard."

Will nodded, understanding. The pain needed an outlet. Will was very familiar with being that outlet.

Mark sat up in his chair. "Jill, so you say a Cecil Adams was the one who attacked you."

"It was an accident. But yes. He took five boxes of Methadone and two boxes of Buprenorphine. They're detox agents we use for heroin abuse."

"Is that a lot?"

"For one person? Very. It was out of character for Cecil to steal that many. The last time, he thought they would give the same level of high as something like oxycodone."

"Do you think he was trying to get high off of what he stole?"

"Not really. I had thought he had been stealing them for a friend. Someone else."

"Any idea who?"

Jill hesitated but eventually shook her head. "No. Can't think of anyone. Cecil didn't have friends. Only fellow drug users. Now, I have five minutes left to eat my lunch and get back out there. Please." Jill stood up and held her hand out to the door, a half-polite, half-impatient gesture.

Will studied the woman, suspecting she was hiding something. Instead of directly asking, she thanked the doctor for her time.

Mark followed her out of the clinic. "So we need to find Cecil Adams?"

"Yeah. But I also think he had an accomplice that night."

"Why?"

"The way Jill got. Sounded like she knew exactly who was with Cecil. Find it weird that she didn't seem interested in us catching him?"

"Yeah, thought it strange. She's a strange woman."

Will paused at the staircase by the front doors. The clinic entrance had a large foyer and trash collected along the hallway.

A glint of light caught Will's eye and she smiled up at the familiar shine of a camera lens. "Think we're lucky enough that they'll still have the tapes from ten months ago?"

"Fuck, if it even still works, I'll buy you a beer."

"I'm feeling lucky, Mark."

Mark Hoffman

When Mark stepped into the warehouse, he knew something was off.

"The shipment has arrived."

He heard a woman's voice.

He stayed quiet and in the shadows as he crept towards the main room where John stood in his black and red robe while a tall, thin woman studied the drill chair.

"Ah, Detective." John had a softer demeanor, almost friendly, when he looked up at Mark's entrance.

Shit. It's her.

Mark remmbered her face, back when her mouth had fresh gashes and she was a twitching mess. Amanda Young was her name. The first Jigsaw Survivor.

As usual, John pulled out a wild card, keeping Mark on his toes.

The woman turned and her curious face instantly darkened into dislike. She must have recognized him from the precinct.

"Who's this?" Mark demanded, stepping closer, not one to feel intimidated by a woman a third his size. Mark studied her pale face and heated eyes.

"Mark, this is Amanda. She will be joining our efforts. And Amanda, this is-,"

"Mark Hoffman. I know him. John. You didn't tell me you were working with a dirty cop."

Ah, so that's it then.

"It would make sense, though, how Jigsaw stays one step ahead of law enforcement after all this time," he explained, a sense of pride washing over his apprehension. He was the reason they weren't all in jail at this very moment.

This enraged her and the cold wariness burned into trembling rage. "No. You and your partner put me in jail on a bullshit charge."

This was a turn for the worse. But Mark remained calm.

"Doubtful. My partner's thorough."

"Oh, he was. There was enough evidence that magically appeared to lock me up. For five years. You ruined my life, and got me charged for shit I didn't even do!" She stepped forward, fists balled, and Mark prepared to grab her if she tried to throw a punch.

Ah, she's referring to Matthews. Now it was all coming back and that tickle of familiarity she had been itching in his brain made sense.

Five years ago. Back when he and Will were still dating. Back when he and Matthews were on their rampage season because Will had been off playing with the FBI. Grissom had creamed his pants over the arrest-rates they were pulling that summer.

She had been with some junkie and in the wrong place at the wrong time. She wasn't innocent, not by a long shot. But Matthews had been on a bureaucratic booking spree. Pills were 'found' in pockets. Paperwork claimed as much. The department's word against hers. And she lost the dice roll.

"Amanda, Mark serves our goals. He is crucial to our plans. Whatever slights you feel he is responsible for, I assure you, are from your past life. Like you, he is here because he believes in what we are doing. He, too, is finding redemption in our cause."

Yeah, right. Mark was thankful John didn't elaborate on exactly how he got involved. But it was obvious, with the glint in John's eye, that he was intentionally withholding these details from her.

Amanda darted her gaze to John, wavering. "But John, you can't trust a cop."

"It's as John says," Mark tried to smooth things over. He didn't want any bad blood. It would just make his current situation all the more worse. "I'm not your enemy."

Her lip curled. "Yeah. Right. Fuck." She turned sharply and stomped away.

Mark inwardly sighed. "What's the meaning of this, John?"

John looked after her, silent for a long pause. "Mark, did you arrest Amanda?"

"Technically? I don't remember. Either myself or my - colleague."

"Your partner?"

Those hawk eyes honed in on him. Impulsive defensiveness pulled the name out of his throat. "Eric Matthews. He was my partner back then." Just the idea of putting Will on this nutjob's radar was one of the only things that still scared him.

"It amazes me. How you can take the freedom of another human being and not have their face forever branded in your memory. Yet Amanda remembers you."

Mark waited for the man to elaborate. When he didn't, anger began to boil up his throat. "Is the reason you called me here just to meet her? For what? Another thing to hold over my head?"

"To introduce you to a… colleague."

"She seems unstable."

"After the ordeal she has experienced, she is learning to live with enlightenment."

"What do you mean?"

"I knew, the moment I saw her free herself from my trap, that she is special." John had turned to his drawing table with a coughing fit and sat down, struggling to take a deep breath. "Detective, can you get me a glass of water, please?"

Mark narrowed his eyes. "Yeah." He turned and went to the next room where the kitchenette resided. He took a glass from the cupboards, turned the faucet valve, letting it run to clear out the stagnant water.

He turned and kept his composure when Amanda stood inches away, as though trying to startle him.

"If John says you're cool," she crossed her arms, "then I'll give you a chance, Detective."

Already, she seemed to be imitating John. Mark could tell right away that this was a woman with a weak sense of identity. Someone who would have been picked up by a cult or con artist, if it hadn't have been John.

Sure, Mark was a prisoner. But so was she.

She just didn't realize it yet.

"Let's just make things clear," she added, "I don't trust you."

"That makes two of us."

She seemed to find that funny. With a smirk she reached over and took the glass from his hands. "I'll take this to John. There's a shipment of crates out back. John wants us to begin assembling something tonight."

Already, she was calling the shots? Mark remained the observer, not planning on pushing back unless it was in his favor.

But he already knew that Amanda complicated things.

He went to retrieve the crate. It was a cold night. In the run down, ghost town of an industrial mall, there were only rats to witness Mark as he shoved a dolly under an oversized crate, grunting as he forced it to tilt and carefully brought it back inside.

Whatever was in there, it was fucking heavy.

It took him a while to bring it into the auxilary space where currently a prototype for a giant gear-driven rack and some torture chair were resting. John and Amanda were currently working on attaching drills on each side of the chair.

"Detective, you can leave that there. It is time to retrieve our next test subject."

John had a book shelf full of binders, each with numbers neatly drawn in sharpie. There were seven of them. The first, had been opened and rested at a nearby workbench.

Mark could make out the distant photographs, black and whites of a young man. Mark moved the picture where an envelope with the bulk of a cassette tape and an address written over it gave him his next destination.

Mark Wilson. The Cypher Room.

Ah, he remembered that night, when John and him painted every square inch of that basement room with red painted numbers. It had given him a headache. The safe was already staged. The floor had plenty of broken glass. The antidote was in fridge. The flammable jelly was in the chem locker.

He turned to the next page, hoping this was the only task for the night.

When he saw a new headshot, this one an older scrawny man, Mark mentally grimaced.

Jeff Ridenhour. Bring him here before sunrise.

Why did John need these two tonight? This was ridiculous.

It would take all night to gather these two and stage them.

Mark inwardly groaned but took the materials. Another night with no sleep. Great.