Title: The .DAT Room

INT. FLUORESCENT-LIT ROOM – DAY

The room is sterile. A cheap government-issued table. One-way mirror. A few stale donuts on a paper plate no one has touched. A laminated sign on the wall reads “Session in Progress – Do Not Interrupt.”

PAULA, arms folded, leans against the wall. Her gaze is part concern, part cop-show stare-down. She’s seen things. She smells jockstrap talk coming.

Two DOCTORS, one with a clipboard, one with an overcaffeinated tremor, observe silently. Behind them, a large screen shows scrolling JSON that says nothing. Useless. A decoy.

LUPA sits in a swivel chair across from FITZ, who is seated calmly but with the thousand-yard stare of a man who just tried to open a .dat file in Notepad.

LUPA’s wolf ears twitch. His headset flickers green, glowing faintly with some druidic sigil no one can translate.

LUPA (softly)

Hey, Fitz. I’m here. Just me, alright? Not them. They’re background noise.

(Lupa slides a green football across the table. It pulses once—calm, not bright.)

LUPA (CONT’D)

You said the JSON was empty. That’s okay. You’re not. You’ve got layers. We’ll unpack them one file at a time. I’ve read enough .dat to make a demon weep. I can do this in my sleep. But I need you with me.

PAULA (dryly)

He brought a glowing football into the interrogation room.

DOCTOR 1

Is that… druidic encryption?

LUPA

(shooting a glance over his shoulder)

You wanna read his files so bad, maybe you should ask him what they mean instead of poking around like he’s a system crash in human form.

He turns back to Fitz.