"Heh, kid, do you distrust me that much?" Tinwood said, sounding slightly displeased. "I already told you before, I'm sincerely fulfilling the contract. When your Metal Clunkers got into trouble last time, I didn't run away. Isn't that proof enough?
"Besides, I've been helping you for dozens of days already. I could have continued until the contract ended and left safely. So why would I take the risk of leaving early? Do you think I'd be that stupid?"
"Not exactly," Richard said. "I've always believed that your intelligence befits your status as a higher life-form. You know what the wisest course of action is."
"Then that settles it," Tinwood said. "This benefits both of us. I can't think of any reason to refuse."
"Perhaps." Richard neither confirmed nor denied it. "Stay as you are for now. I'll think about your proposal some more."
As he spoke, Richard walked out the door and left Eden Garden.
Only Tinwood the tree remained in Laboratory No. 3.
Tinwood stared at the closed door for quite a while. Then, the face on his trunk suddenly curled its lips into a faint smile, and he muttered to himself with certainty, "You'll agree, kid. I can sense that you're feeling a little impatient. This will save you a great deal of time, so how could you possibly refuse?"
Impatient.
Pandora was feeling somewhat impatient now as well.
Inside Pandora's private room in Eden Garden.
Pandora sat behind her desk, writing furiously on a sheet of papyrus as she calculated something.
"Scratch, scratch, scratch..."
A moment later, she reached the end of her calculations and obtained an answer. Pandora merely glanced at it before tossing the papyrus aside.
After committing the numbers to memory, Pandora took a fresh sheet of papyrus and continued her frantic calculations.