Three
short episodes to be released three at a time, in two parts as a pilot
for an ongoing series involving these heroes in their state at pilot's
end.
____________________________
('Face Down' live by Prince and the NPG)
A high security prison, a sullen man awaiting his fate when the lights go out. He knows. Emergency back-up clicks on, the old digital clock on the security console flashes red ~
12:00
The security gate slides open as the world spins to change. Hallways shift to her direct line path creating it before her, while the guards are stuck running Escher-like corridors in her wake.
In the control room the warden tries to
work the monitors through the static, everything appearing normal,
everyone's just taking the long ways around to everything, to his great
frustration.
12:01
Through the bars, the walls shift to her path while the man in the cell waits for what's
coming but the rest seem unaware they're lost in their own maze.
She stands at the cell as it open, he charges to pass her for the door but pushed back down by the face. She pulls the bed sheet watching him with a smile as she twists it tight.
12:02
A kick across the faces when he thinks about it, spinning his back to. She wraps the sheet around his throat and twists hard, kicking his feet out from under him.
Assassin - "You really do talk a lot." He struggles and twitches, she twists some more.
12:03
The lights start to fade from his eyes.
12:03
He drops.
12:03
With a metallic thunk, she bangs the bunk-side bar and loops the sheet over, walking away. The world spins around her still, falling back to order on her straight path out to the balcony, she leaps.
Her clothes unravel as wings on their own mechanism through her spine, she flies naked over the turning city.
('Skids' by Pain Teens)
The tallest of skyscrapers bent at their peaks to spires turning off into the clouds beyond sight. Walkways turn with them, people walking along as though nothing were new, their new destinations chosen for them.
To
morning time. A woman sits up in bed, not at all happy about it. Her
name is Formalda Hyde. She dresses for the office, a lovely fucking
day. Makeup on at 2:10 in the song ... and out the door.
The white steam from the pits illuminated by daytime's sun turns night's apparition of Hell into a Heaven of pinks and orange hues, reflecting off architectures settled placements.
She boards her very old hover-truck, apparently of a different age entirely, one may wonder if the four hover engines were mounted into old wheels' hubs.
Built for construction when people still did that before the machine, beaten to hell but otherwise kept clean enough ( ... ). As she merges the hover traffic in the sky headed for the central tower, it echoes over the city ~
Some guy - "! God DAMN It !"
Investigator - "We were getting everything. Everything ! And you know he did not, kill himself."
Warden - "No I do not know that he did not kill himself."
Investigator - "Well I do know. He had a sweet country club deal ... and he was talking."
Warden - "Well maybe I wasn't privy to that particular conversation, and maybe I might like him better dead than playing golf under my men's watch."
...
Investigator - "Get the fuck of my office. Take the day off. Go home and take a nap. While we go dust Your goddam prison for fingerprints, and a whole bunch of other inevitably pointless Bullshit, so we can All come back knowing the Same Goddamn NOTHING as YOU !!!"
...
Warden - "You done ?"
Investigator - "Yeah ... I'm done. I'll ... see you at the ... fucking thing."
Warden - "Seriously."________________
At the coffee shop across from the tower, corner from the exchange ~
Formalda Hyde - "Do you even know the things they say about him !? Everyone's freaking the fuck out."
Nunya B Ness - "I know some of the things they say about him ... "
Formalda - "Oh for fuck sake. Do you even comprehend how terrifying that is ? The implications ?"
____
The investigator's wife watches him get ready in a suit he clearly does not want to be wearing.
Investigator - "Sure you don't wanna come ?"
Isabel - "God no they'll talk to me. Did ... you find anything out ?"
...
Investigator - "Nothing. Not a trace."
Isabel - "I'm glad he's dead."
Investigator - "I get that a lot."
____
Formalda - "I'm saying the whole office is in a fucking panic about it. You have no idea. They're terrified. They're all sudden;ly like ... louder all the time."
Nunya - "Compensating ... "
Formalda - "hmmm ... "
____
Isabel
- "I mean what if he got off again ... did we ever really know he
wouldn't have ? He never would have stopped. Especially not then."
Investigator - "I'm not disagreeing with anything you're saying in particular."
Isabel - "And all those political connections ... my God the last one might have pardoned him."
...
Investigator - "I just ... I wish we could get those people their closure."
Isabel - "Closure they got, you mean pain. To make him suffer for what he did and maybe they're right. And for you to keep pumping him for names. Anyone interesting ?"
Investigator
- "His whole damn phone book of interesting, each and every one harder to take down than he
was. Fucker was laughing. ... I'm glad too."
________
Formalda - "You have no idea the things they say. He's a killer. A psychopath ... "
Nunya - "That's not actually a medical term."
...
Nunya - "I'm just saying if you're not gonna. ! Curious !"
Formalda - "Just. After the deal. Okay ? This is gonna be really good for us."
Nunya - "When has what's been good for me not been what's good for us ?"________________
Voice - "And was he afraid ?"
Assassin - "He was. But ready."
Voice - "And did he run ?"
Assassin - "Approximately three feet."
Voice - "Good."
...
Assassin - "Tell me a story."
Voice - "Only one tale left to tell and it is your own. One string loose and just waiting to be tied, and then ... this world will be yours."
Assassin - "It already is."