Everything Must Go opens with a slide indicating that the recording is for Internal Use Only, followed by information on when and where the recording took place.
June 18: Expedition
We first see an Async investigation team as they explore an area of The Complex. Initially the team comprises of Naren Warne (who we also see at the beginning of the movie), Dr. Aaron Ng and Bill. The episode opens with the team walking through the hallways and making observations about the area. The architecture here is similar to that at the start of the movie, except that there are no instances of objects no-clipping and there are some arched areas and closed doors. At intervals still photos are shown on the screen of places of interest, including a door with 9 handles and a curved wall that doesn’t reach the ceiling.
Dr. Ng who has walked ahead, sees something of interest and excitedly calls the others over. In the room there are three identical signs of different sizes that appear to be in a straight line. The signs have orange text that says “Everything Must Go!” (these signs are actually replicas of a sign from Cap’n Clark’s Ottoman Empire). The two smaller signs have no-clipped into the floor to varying degrees. The team returns back to The Threshold and will go back the the following day to perform a more in-depth investigation of the signs which they refer to as structures.
June 19: Investigation
The next day at around 11am, the team ventures out with a “mobile toolkit” which is a trolley of equipment they can use for their investigation. Naren also will take a bag of various disks and media with him that are needed at the KLWNA Outpost which they are going to head to after investigating the signs. This time Dr. Ronald McCarthy replaces Dr. Ng, joining Naren and Bill.
On arrival to the room with the signs, Naren begins taking video footage of the sign, while Dr. McCarthy and Bill go about taking data on the placement and size of the signs, calculating different measurements and distances. Naren notes that the material for each sign gets thinner as the signs get smaller. Once they have collected all of the data, Dr. McCarthy sets about analysing the data, while Naren and Bill start on a “Natcom Survey” or “Destructive Analysis” of the signs, firstly cutting a square out of the top of each sign. Naren observes that the signs are made of corrugated polypropylene substrate, a material common for retail signs and that they have been screen printed. They then set about cutting the middle sign from the floor that it has clipped into (referred to as intersecting). They get a clean cut against the concrete but their instruments can only penetrate a centimeter below the concrete where it appears that the sign and concrete have become indistinguishable from each other. Going back to the pieces that have been cut from the signs, they discover a peculiar pattern in that the signs are “instances of the same physical object” – with any marks, scratches and smudges that would not be part of the printing process present on all three.
A Fourth Sign
As the team are about to pack up, Dr. McCarthy theorizes that due to the distances between the signs, there could be another sign at either end of the room that is in or behind the wall. He grabs a saw and begins cutting into the wall that is on the side of the room with the smallest sign. Once the drywall has been removed, he peers into the dark wall cavity to see another even smaller sign.
Naren attempts to get closer to the sign and take video footage of it. Once he has finished filming, he insists that the team should get going as they are behind schedule. Dr. McCarthy tells him he just wants to take measurements. When he turns around, he notices something in the darkness of the other side of the wall cavity and calls Naren over check it out with his camera and flashlight. As Naren zooms in on the object, he realities that it is a hand. Feeling very uncomfortable, he walks back to the center of the room insisting that the team leaves and that they can return tomorrow to investigate and bring a team of 20 people with them if need be. Dr. McCarthy and Bill keep on peering into the darkness curious about why there is a hand inside the wall.
New Discovery
At this point the camera switches off and when the recording starts up again, we see that the team have cut a hole into the other other side of the wall which has revealed a dark area ahead of them (the total opposite of the area they are in which is illuminated by the fluorescent lights). Naren continues to express that they are making a huge mistake and that it’s stupid to keep going. Nevertheless he turns on his flashlight and is the first to go through the hole in the wall. After shining the light into the open area – revealing a very different looking area to the familiar mono-yellow rooms – Naren shines it to his right and jumps of fright for a second, before realizing that he is only looking at a mannequin (albeit a very creepy one). This solves the mystery of the “hand” which is in fact only a mannequin hand that has clipped through the wall. The mannequin is standing next to a ship’s steering wheel [a replica of the ship’s wheel we see in Cap’n Clark’s showroom at the beginning of the movie].
The team continues to explore the area with Naren noting that it feels different to other areas. In fact the area resembles a liminal space that looks like the Cap’n Clark’s store (although the team do not know of Cap’n Clarks at the time) – white walls with blue bordering at the top, mostly tiled floors with some carpeted areas, and gabled roofing with florescent lights (however the lights are all off here). Dr. McCarthy notices more “Everything Must Go” signs are hanging above a hallway, however unlike the previous signs, these ones all have a consistent size (the same size as the first sign from the previous area). Occasionally the team comes across some random furniture or items, but for the most part, occurrences are very sparse – a couple of coat hangers, some lawn furniture, boxes and pallets.
Naren still continues to express his concern about exploring the area and that they should head back, however Dr. McCarthy reassures him that the exploration is easy. The excitement can be heard in his voice as the team continues down more corridors, still in darkness.
Sounds
Startled, the team hear a sound. As they turn down a short corridor, they can see a light in the distance. Heading in the direction of the light, they come across objects that have clipped into the floor – another instance of the mannequin and steering wheel and a set of lawn furniture. As they pass by corridors branching off each side, Dr. McCarthy says that “it’s just getting better and better”. They discover that the source of the noise is a TV that is playing what appears to be a few seconds of still camera shots from different areas of a house and high-pitched, sped up piano music. In-between the scenes, the screen comes up with “无信号” which is “No Signal” written in Mandarin on a blue background. [The TV and stand that it is on are the same as that which Clark watches when he is sleeping in his shop].
As the team are looking at the TV, they hear a loud banging noise in the distance and the sound of something falling. Naren yells out that they have to get out of there. The team walk away from the TV area and have only walked a few meters when a door opens nearby. They encounter something that is very tall [that of course being Pirate Clark]. Naren runs before the camera cuts off.
This reveals that the footage is of the events that occurred prior to the found footage at the beginning of the movie and that Naren had been fleeing this area – the fate of his colleagues remains unknown.
