One Side of the Line: The Call That Could Save a Life

Okay. Do NOT look at the timer. Look at me. Well— you know what I mean. Look at the phone. Just listen to my voice. Good. Now, tell me what you see. Slowly. Start with the casing. No, no, that's... that's fine. It's supposed to look like that. Messy. They want you to panic. We are not going to panic. Right? Right. Okay. The wires. Tell me about the wires. How many? Seven?

Okay. Seven. And the colors? Red, blue, green... yellow... another blue... okay, hold on. Two blues? Describe them. Are they different shades? One is sky blue, one is dark. Navy. Got it. And the last two? Black and... white. Okay. Standard. This is... manageable. I need you to find the primary detonator lead. It should be connected to a small, silver cylinder. Do you see a silver cylinder?

Don't touch it! Just tell me if you see it. Okay. Good. Which wire goes into the top of that cylinder? The black one. Of course it is. Okay. Now... this is the easy part. We're going to isolate it. You have scissors? Pliers? Kitchen scissors are fine. Just... are they metal all the way up? The handles aren't metal? Good. We're not trying to complete a circuit with your hand.

Now, I want you to take the scissors and cut the WHITE wire. Only the white one. It's a dummy lead. It does nothing. Cutting it will give us more room to work. Can you do that? Hey. Look up. Find a spot on the wall and look at it. Think about... I don't know. What did you have for breakfast? Cereal. Okay. What kind? I hate that kind. Tastes like cardboard. You feeling better?

A little? Good. Now cut the white wire. Okay... okay... anything? Any change? Any new lights? A sound? Nothing. See? One down. You're doing great. Absolutely textbook. Now... the hard part. The two blue wires. One of them disarms the sequence. The other... accelerates it. The schematics I have here are for a model six, but this sounds like a seven-A, which is... different.

What? What do you mean it's beeping faster? It shouldn't be— Oh. Oh, god. The white wire... it wasn't a dummy. It was a trip. It told the timer you're here. Okay. New plan. Forget the schematics. Forget everything. How much time does it say? Don't say it. I don't want to know. You don't want to know. It's just a number. It's not real. What's real is you, and me, and these wires.

Navy and sky blue. Tell me about your kid again. What's her name? Lily. That's a beautiful name. You're going to see Lily tonight. You are going to go home, and you're going to hug her, and this will all be a story you NEVER tell her. Do you understand me? Good. Cut the sky blue wire. Because the navy one is insulated with a polymer sheath and the sky blue one is cheap PVC!

It's the work of a penny-pincher, not a master. CUT the sky blue wire. NOW. Did it... stop? The beeping. Oh, thank god. It stopped. You did it. You did it. Okay. Okay. Don't move. Just... put the scissors down. And just... just breathe. Help is five minutes away. You're safe now. Just stay on the phone with me. We can talk about cereal.