Memory Fragments

Memory Fragments By Sam Wallin

April, 2008

Sam Wallin 2004 NE 98th Ave Vancouver, WA 98664 (360) 885-1635 [email protected]

Cast of Characters CLOUD:

Detective, mid 40’s

JEROME:

Mid-30’s, medium build

JOHN DOE:

Thin, boyish, charming, young

CHARLOTTE:

Sultry gothic vixen

MERYL:

Tall, slender, no-nonsense, sharp - Married to Cloud

PSYCHIATRIST - MALE:

Bearded Freud clone

PSYCHIATRIST - FEMALE:

Sexy, 20’s, glasses

NAN GHENT:

Mid-30’s, business-like

BRYCE:

Early 40’s, spectacles, a little bit absent-minded professor

BROWN/D’ANGELO:

Late thirties, handsome, rogueish

HARVEY PEEL:

A woman, young and attractive, but dressed sensibly

POTOK:

Well dressed male secretary

VOICE OF ANNA:

Slightly computerized female voice.

VOICE OF DELIA:

Slightly different from ANNA

VOICE OF JENNY:

Slightly different from DELIA or ANNA

Scene Virtual space, not unlike a theatre, for viewing recorded memories Time Around 2040 A.D.

ACT I Scene 1 - Memories An unmade bed, a comfortable chair, an old-fashioned black telephone on the floor. Rumpled pair of blue jeans and several white t-shirts. A shelf containing a large number of media items - books, DVDs, CDs, etc. in pell-mell disorder. VOICE OF ANNA Archetype distillation complete. Entry point is available. No known viruses are detected. In the darkness, a light thump, as of two feet hitting the floor. A second later, a crash, as of a whole body hitting the floor. CLOUD Watch your step. JEROME Ow... Lights up, somewhat dim. CLOUD Can we get some more light in here? VOICE OF ANNA Request processing. at this time.

No added illumination is available

CLOUD That’s great. JEROME picks himself up off the floor, dusts off his plaid jacket and matching pants. JEROME You could have warned me. CLOUD Practice is the only way to get used to that entry. Besides, it was funny. JEROME Hm. CLOUD You obviously don’t spend a lot of time in these mems or do you have all the easy-entry upgrades at home?

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

2.

JEROME So? CLOUD Psh.

They deaden your experience.

JEROME Better that than deaden my legs.

Jeez.

CLOUD Why are you here again? JEROME As I said... CLOUD Never mind. the way.

I’ve got work to do.

Try not to get in

JEROME I don’t think you realizeCLOUD Anna, silence Jerome avatar.

Code Sasuke.

JEROME moves his mouth, but no sound comes out. He stops, startled, then tries to shout at CLOUD, but with no luck. CLOUD I’m letting you tag along, so you things are done. But don’t think for a day or two is going to make don’t fuck with me, either. Now, nice?

can watch and see how that watching me work you an expert. And are you going to play

JEROME stares at CLOUD in stony silence. CLOUD Have it your way. Anna, let’s get a read on that wall of mems over there. What’s he got - private files, public files, the works. VOICE OF ANNA 278 titles. 143 are expert-class adventure mems, 72 are pornographic fantasies, 44 are major world event mems of the 20th and 21st Centuries. The adventure, porn and news mems are backed on a public server and not dependent on the integrity of the stack. 19 are personal memory recordings, with no server back-up.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

3.

CLOUD We’ll need to analyze all the adventure, event and porn titles for re-records, patterns, origins, the usual stuff. Get Dwight on it. VOICE OF ANNA Done. What would you like to do with the remaining titles? CLOUD The personal memory recordings we’ll view here. Interesting there’s only 19. The average number of personal memory titles is in the hundreds these days. People record all kinds of crap, thinking they’ll want to look at it later. Most of them don’t the only person who sees the damn things is me. Or nobody. Analyze personal memory files - evidence of corrosion? VOICE OF ANNA All files are corrupted and partial. Stabilization is complete, but no rebuild was possible. CLOUD How many minutes are we looking at? VOICE OF ANNA Twenty-three. CLOUD Well, let’s hope it’s a good twenty-three minutes, eh Jerome? Oh, right. Anna, allow speech in Jerome avatar. Code Sasuke. JEROME You think you’re so damn clever. fired!

I could have you

CLOUD Do it. I’m sure there are plenty of Corpses that would be interested in my services. Any questions so far? Or am I going too fast for you? JEROME If you were doing anything interesting, I might have a question or two. When are you going to get to work? CLOUD Some of what we do is pretty subtle, I know. If you keep your eyes open, and listen really hard, you might catch some of it. But it takes practice. And you have to shut the hell up.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

4.

JEROME Fuck off. CLOUD Ha! I like you better every minute. This is an interesting case. We have a John Doe. Body washes up on the banks of the mighty Columbia with most of the head missing, and the stack cracked. We pull the body for routine autopsy, and what do you know, it’s healthy - no drugs, no stims, no disease. If we could have got to him sooner, the organs would have paid my salary for a month. So who is he? What happened to him? JEROME You’re the detective, you tell me. CLOUD Anna, let’s get some playback on the memories. Que them up and give me a tone or something when you’re going to switch. Watch for vertigo, J-J - if the locations jump around, it can get a little nauseating. A tone. Memory Fragment #1 A man dressed in blue pajamas shuffles barefoot to the phone, slumps onto the floor and picks up the receiver. He dials a number and listens for a moment. Sound of phone ringing. A female voice, CHARLOTTE, answers. CHARLOTTE H’lo? JOHN DOE Um, Charlotte? CHARLOTTE Who is this? JOHN DOE (Static obscures reply.) CHARLOTTE (Static obscures reply.) JOHN DOE So... are you free tonight? CHARLOTTE (Static obscures reply.)

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

5.

JOHN DOE When can i see you? A tone. CLOUD I hope they’re not all this corroded. Memory Fragment #2 JOHN DOE crouches on the floor, screaming hysterically. Static obscures the words. A MAN dressed in a brown suit, his face obscured by a brown fedora pulled low to shadow his face, stands in the background. A tone. Memory Fragment #3 JOHN DOE sits on the edge of his bed, hands folded in his lap. CHARLOTTE sits next to him. She is dressed in leather and lace. Heavily made up with black lipstick and eye-liner. JOHN DOE You don’t do this all the time. day, right?

You work during the

CHARLOTTE So what? JOHN DOE What do you do? CHARLOTTE None of your business. JOHN DOE I work, too.

I’m a barrista.

CHARLOTTE Yeah, I know. JOHN DOE It’s a good job. Stable. Good benefits. I just started. Before that I worked at a sushi place. I hated that place. I am glad to have my new job. I am glad that I met you. CHARLOTTE Are you OK?

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED: JOHN DOE Yeah.

6.

Fine.

Do you smell that?

It’s like peppermint.

CHARLOTTE No. JOHN DOE Huh.

Um... OK.

Never mind.

CHARLOTTE (Static obscures reply.) JOHN DOE Will you at least stay the night? CHARLOTTE No. JOHN DOE (Static obscures words.)) A tone. CLOUD That’s a little better... Memory Fragment #4 JOHN DOE crouches by the phone, rocking back and forth, phone pressed to his ear. JOHN DOE Doc. I’m... I’m fucked up. I don’t know what’s going on. I got... I got some stock I can sell. Can I get a session? Please? A CAT rushes from the shadows and leaps onto JOHN DOE’S chest. He falls backwards, screaming. The phone clatters to the floor. A tone. Memory Fragment #5 JOHN DOE lays on his back on the floor staring at the ceiling, where an angel hovers, arms outstretched. He reaches a hand up towards the angel, but it remains just out of reach. JOHN DOE Who are you?

Am I dead?

Dying?

Going to die?

JOHN DOE stares up at the angel, frowning.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

7.

JOHN DOE Are you a guardian angel? JOHN DOE frowns again as the angel gives no reply. JOHN DOE What other kinds of angels are there? Avenging angel... Arc-angel... Hell’s angel... Are you a Hell’s angel? A tone. CLOUD holds up his hand. CLOUD Anna, pause playback of memories. Let’s see if we can get a line on a hooker named Charlotte, obviously not her real name. Goth girl, works nights and keeps a steady day job. Wild goose chase, I’m sure. Also, is the brown suit a real man or something else? I’m guessing we’re seeing some kind of messed up subtext in these mems. This guys’ been seeing a shrink, or trying to, so lets find out who, or what. Analyze any sessions we have access to for keywords "Charlotte," "angel," "cat" and/or "barrista." JEROME You have access to psychiatric sessions? CLOUD I’m surprised you don’t know that. Being a Dummies Corpse flunky, you should be up on all the fine print. When a patient speaks to a psychiatrist in one of Dummies Corporation’s’ psychiatry programs, it’s recorded. The police, as a recently acquired subsidiary of Dummies Corporation, has access to most of those sessions. JEROME Most? CLOUD Any session involving a Vice President or higher position in the Dummies Corporation requires permission from a sysadmin or board authority. JEROME Ah. CLOUD So your insecurities are safe from the cops for now, if that’s what you’re worried about.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

8.

JEROME I’m not a vice president.

I’m in marketing.

CLOUD Shit, who’d you screw over to get this gig? JEROME I didn’t screw anyone over. assigned this duty.

It’s an honor to be

CLOUD Ha!

What is that, exactly?

Your duty here?

JEROME To analyze police procedure for marketability of assets. CLOUD What, are you going to turn our stuff into a mem-show? JEROME I am not authorized to say any more on that subject. CLOUD Son of a bitch.

Do you think I’ll be famous?

JEROME There is no point in continuing this conversation. are you done with your investigation?

Or

CLOUD I’m just getting started. This isn’t a cop-drama, where all the loose ends get tied up neatly by some pipe-smoking alcoholic detective who in spite of his punched up face manages to get three different girls in the sack before cuffing the bad guys. It might take weeks to analyze all this stuff. JEROME Then you’d better get going. CLOUD Anna?

Next set of memories, please. A tone. Memory Fragment #6 JOHN DOE enters with a plate of bacon and eggs. He sets it on the bed next to CHARLOTTE. She sits up, yawning, and looks at the plate.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

9.

CHARLOTTE I’m a vegetarian. JOHN DOE It’s all fake. CHARLOTTE Oh. Well.

Thanks.

CHARLOTTE takes the plate. JOHN DOE sits down next to her on the bed. From under the bed the arm of the brown-suited man reaches and grabs JOHN DOE by the ankle. JOHN DOE stifles a yelp and tries to ignore the grip. CHARLOTTE You alright? JOHN DOE I’m fine. CHARLOTTE You look pale. JOHN DOE Really. CHARLOTTE Alright.

I’m totally fine. This is good fake bacon.

Where’d you get it?

JOHN DOE K-Wal-meyer. CHARLOTTE Shopping at the competition?

I’m shocked.

JOHN DOE Oh, are they your competition? CHARLOTTE I shouldn’t have said that. JOHN DOE It’s alright. A tone.

I... I like to know about you.

10.

Memory Fragment #7 JOHN DOE kneels by the bed, his head in CHARLOTTE’S lap. JOHN DOE I love you. CHARLOTTE (Reply is obscured by static.) An ANGEL flits down from the ceiling and lands on the bed in front of JOHN DOE’S face, wings moving slowly like a butterfly. JOHN DOE stiffens, but doesn’t move. JOHN DOE Am I going to die? CHARLOTTE What? JOHN DOE Nothing. A tone. Memory Fragment #8 CHARLOTTE makes the bed, JOHN DOE picks up the clothes, tossing them into a basket. JOHN DOE We don’t have to stay here all the time. I mean, unless you don’t want me to see where you live. But I mean, I won’t judge you if you’re like, a big slob. Or a neat freak. Or if you have like, pictures of unicorns all over your place. CHARLOTTE I like it here. JOHN DOE Well, yeah. CHARLOTTE Soon.

OK? A tone.

Sure.

But...

11.

Memory Fragment#9 JOHN DOE sits in the chair. The man in the BROWN suit and a brown fedora stands behind the chair, massaging JOHN DOE’S shoulders. In spite of the massage, JOHN DOE looks tense and nervous. BROWN How’s work? JOHN DOE Fine. BROWN Good.

And your new friend?

JOHN DOE Charlotte?

She’s good.

BROWN I bet. right?

You’ve been together for a month or two now,

JOHN DOE Yeah. BROWN What’s she do for a living?

During the day, I mean.

JOHN DOE She works. BROWN Where? JOHN DOE I don’t know. BROWN Don’t you find that... odd? JOHN DOE (Reply obscured by static.) A tone. Memory Fragement #10 JOHN DOE in bed with CHARLOTTE, under the covers, post-coitus, blankets wrapped around them as they cling together.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

12.

JOHN DOE Are you alright? CHARLOTTE Fine.

Don’t get up yet.

JOHN DOE Alright.

Stay here with me.

Um...

CHARLOTTE Isn’t it wonderful that we’re here? It’s like this apartment of yours is a big cocoon, and i don’t have to worry about work. When we first met I thought you were a kind of creep, you know? But it’s not like I was expecting to meet any other kind of man. Where I work, they’re all bastards. Total assholes. Huh. Both my jobs, I guess. JOHN DOE Where do you work, anyway? It doesn’t matter, it’s just... I like to know about you. You don’t have to tell me. Never mind. CHARLOTTE I work for Dummies. JOHN DOE Yeah.

Me too.

CHARLOTTE No, I mean I work for the Dummies Corporation. JOHN DOE Oh! Ha! That’s funny - i thought you said... well you did say, but I thought - anyway. Wow, you work for them, huh? Sales? Marketing? Writing? CHARLOTTE I shouldn’t tell you this, but... we’ve been together for weeks now. I can trust you, right? JOHN DOE (Reply obscured by static.) CHARLOTTE You never know who’s listening. JOHN DOE I suppose. CHARLOTTE I’m the Assistant to the CEO.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

13.

JOHN DOE Wow. That’s awesome. That’s Harvey Peel, right? heard he’s a total nut case.

I’ve

CHARLOTTE (Reply obscured by static.) A tone. Memory Fragment #11 JOHN DOE on the phone again, agitated. JOHN DOE I need to see someone. Anyone. I... I have a little more stock I can sell. I... I just need to talk to someone. And not like last time. A real psychiatrist. Please. I... I... Thank-you. Thank-you. I’ll be there. A tone. Memory Fragment #12 JOHN DOE changes out of his pajamas, putting on the blue jeans and a T-shirt from the clothes basket. He smells them first, wrinkles his nose in distaste, then puts them on anyway. The phone rings and he answers it. JOHN DOE Hello? (Listens, stiffens, drops the phone) A tone. CLOUD Anna, freeze program. the phone?

Can you pick up any sound from

JEROME What’s wrong? CLOUD We should know what he heard - it’s a memory, not a surveillance tape, right? So if he remembers what he heard, then we can remember what he heard. JEROME Maybe it’s corroded. CLOUD Maybe. I’m getting a bad feeling about this. Anna, any word from the boys upstairs about the keyword searches? (CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

14.

VOICE OF ANNA Two potential matches, 72% of files scanned. CLOUD Good.

OK.

Can we get more sound on the receiver?

VOICE OF ANNA Negative. CLOUD Is it corroded? VOICE OF ANNA Negative. CLOUD So he doesn’t remember? VOICE OF ANNA That would appear to be the case. CLOUD OK.

Well.

Continue. Memory Fragment #13

JOHN DOE stands with his hands by his sides, blue gloves on, staring out at nothing. CHARLOTTE enters. CHARLOTTE Hi, honey, I’m back! I think we’ve got it all worked out. Peel’s leaving in a week, and I’m staying here to keep an eye on things. We’ll have 10 days all to ourselves! Are you OK? JOHN DOE lurches forward and wraps his blue-clad hands around CHARLOTTE’S neck, pushes her back and throws her on the bed, choking her. She struggles, striking out at JOHN DOE, scratching at his face and back, but in the end, she’s dead. A tone. CLOUD Anna.

Hold on.

VOICE OF ANNA Yes sir. JEROME Holy shit.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

15.

CLOUD Exactly. JEROME Holy shit. CLOUD Yeah. This adds a whole new element to the proceedings. JEROME Holy shit. CLOUD Snap out of it. JEROME Right.

Right.

CLOUD You work for Dummies Corp - you know this woman? know Harvey Peel?

You

JEROME Yes. No. I mean, I know who Harvey Peel is, but I’ve never worked with him. He’s... he’s the freakin’ CEO, you know? CLOUD You ever see his assistant? JEROME Maybe, but... not up close. I’m in marketing, and I haven’t even been there for very long. I... used to work in the warehouse. CLOUD Yeah, that’s nice. was?

Could you find out what her name

JEROME I don’t know. CLOUD You want to watch, or you want to help? JEROME I... don’t know if I’m authorized to proceed along those lines. CLOUD Ah.

Right.

Fine.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

16.

JEROME Holy Shit. CLOUD Yeah. JEROME What... what happens now? CLOUD We keep digging. The people upstairs get to work on figuring out what happened to Charlotte. Like, is there a Jane Doe on the slab somewhere. We’ve got some more memories to get through, and I for one would like to see what they are. How about you? JEROME Yeah.

Um... yeah.

CLOUD Anna, let’s... let’s see the last few mems, OK? VOICE OF ANNA Yes sir. Memory Fragment #14 Everything is gone, except for JOHN DOE. He stands in the middle of the emptiness, staring at his hands. Static crackles in the air. He reaches up with the blue clad hands and tries to strangle himself, but can’t do it. He tries again. He slumps to his knees lets his hands fall away. A tone. Memory Fragment #15 JOHN DOE lays on the ground, staring out. Heavy static obscures shouts, banging sounds and traffic noise. An angel hovers overhead. JOHN DOE looks at some of the people in the audience, at CLOUD and JEROME. JOHN DOE Who are you people? A tone.

17.

Memory Frament #16 JOHN DOE lays on the ground, staring out. Heavy static obscures shouts, banging sounds and traffic noise. The cat saunters by. JOHN DOE I don’t remember any of this. A tone. Memory Fragment #17 JOHN DOE lays on the ground, staring out. Heavy static obscures shouts, banging sounds and traffic noise. The MAN in the brown suit stands above him, looking pleased. JOHN DOE This isn’t real.

None of this is real.

A tone. Memory Fragment #18 JOHN DOE lays on the ground, staring out. Heavy static obscures shouts, banging sounds and traffic noise. He sits up and looks around. He looks at CLOUD and JEROME. JOHN DOE Who are you?

Why... why are you here?

A tone. CLOUD Odd. JEROME Was he talking to us? CLOUD That would be impossible. JEROME Yeah. CLOUD That’s really odd. JEROME What else could it be?

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

18.

CLOUD I don’t know. Unless... no. fragment, please.

Never mind.

Anna, final

FEMALE VOICE Loading memory fragment #19 Memory Fragment #19 JOHN DOE stands up, slowly. He pulls the gloves off and lets them drop. He turns and walks slowly off the stage. JOHN DOE Goodbye, cruel world! A tone. CLOUD Wait, what? JEROME "Goodbye cruel world?" CLOUD Talk about your famous last words. JEROME Yeah. CLOUD Anna - evidence of tampering there? VOICE OF ANNA Unable to detect modification signatures. However, the mem is heavily damaged, so tampering could have occurred. CLOUD Yeah. JEROME You don’t think he killed himself? CLOUD It’s possible. Anything’s possible at this point. That’s the problem. We’ve got a dead man, a potential murder by that man, and someone pulling the strings in the background. Plus, we have the added headache of high corporate interest. You sure you’re just here to see if this will make a good show?

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

19.

JEROME That’s what they told me. CLOUD Yeah.

Who’s "they?"

JEROME My bosses. CLOUD Names? JEROME I can’t reveal that information. CLOUD Right. JEROME I’d get fired! fired?

You know what happens to people who get

CLOUD "Goodbye cruel world?" JEROME Yeah.

Exactly.

CLOUD I need a drink. Anna, reset for the psychiatric sessions, if they match up. FEMALE VOICE Three total sessions were located. on wave patterns from John Doe.

98% positive match

CLOUD He have a name yet? FEMALE VOICE Negative. CLOUD Figures. alright? JEROME Sure.

I’m going to take a short break - alone,

Fine, whatever.

20.

SCENE 2 - Mem-Sim In darkness, CLOUD speaks. CLOUD Anna, load mem-sim... uh... number 8. VOICE OF ANNA Detective Cloud, Mem-sim #8, loaded. Lights up on a woman in yoga pants and a tank-top sitting on a straw mat in the lotus position. She is wearing a set of dark-lensed goggles, and whispering quietly. CLOUD walks in, sighs loudly, and slumps into a chair. CLOUD Christ, what a case. The woman pauses, cocks her head, and then pulls the goggles off to turn and look at CLOUD. CLOUD Hi baby.

Miss me?

MERYL Of course.

How was work?

CLOUD Am I interrupting anything important? MERYL No. Just a couple meetings. My sim’s sitting in she’ll buzz me if the conversation turns my way, or if there’s something that needs my direct attention. Right now it’s just reports, so i can scan those later. CLOUD That’s some pretty hi-tech stuff you’re working with. MERYL I love it.

But what’s up, hon?

Why the long face?

CLOUD Ah, it’s this case I’m working on. real bitch.

It’s gonna be a

MERYL Talk to me.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

21.

CLOUD You sure you want to hear about it? MERYL Jamie, your work is about ten times more interesting than mine. CLOUD Crime?

Murder?

MERYL Yeah! What do I have? bodies.

Tech, code, and cybernetic

CLOUD Oh, the bodies are done, are they? MERYL Ha! Not by a long shot. can do a full transfer.

It’ll be ten years before we

CLOUD Put me at the top of the list - my old body is already breaking down. I’d like a full combat chassis with huge pectoral muscles. MERYL And a big cock, too? CLOUD Size doesn’t matter, does it? MERYL Oh, no, of course not honey. CLOUD Ha! MERYL So tell me about your case, Jamie, baby. CLOUD Well, let’s see. John Doe washes up on the river bank. Some early morning beach combers find the corpse and call it in. The boys pull it in and do a stack check, but since his head’s been fizzled mostly off, the stack is heavily corroded, and most of the info is dead. We dig in to what we can find, and in one of the mems we see this guy strangle his girlfriend and kill her.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

22.

MERYL Yikes.

Who’s ’we?’

CLOUD That’s another story, and I’ll get to it in a moment. This guy’s mems are a mess, full of static and busted all to hell. Before he kills his girlfriend, he gets a phone call. Can’t hear what the call was, but after the call, the guy just freezes up until his girlfriend comes home. She walks in and he strangles her. Afterwards, he freaks out for a while, then walks off with a literal "Goodbye cruel world." Literally that’s what he said. Totally bizarre. Sometime after that mem and before this morning, his head got blasted away and he fell or got tossed in the river. MERYL Sounds like you have two murders. CLOUD Maybe. We’re tracking down the girlfriend. She said she was an assistant to Harvey Peel, but she led a double life as a hooker. A likely story, but we’ll look into it. Shitty thing is that if it’s true then we’re dealing with a potential Corpse war, and who knows what the body count will be when the dust clears. MERYL Not you, I bet. CLOUD So far so good. But Dummies just bought the cops, and sent in Jerome, a noob from marketing, to see what kind of market potential there is for cop mems. So he was with me during the discovery process. I don’t know if he was sent for damage control, or to see if the mems had anything damning in them, or what. If he’s tied in to the murders, then if I discover anything I’m putting myself at risk. MERYL OK that’s sounding messed up. What if he’s the killer? You’re in danger already. CLOUD I know. MERYL I make enough money for the both of us - you don’t have to be a cop, you know. It’s not like Dummies stands for justice or truth or anything like that.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

23.

CLOUD I want to be a cop. MERYL What about having your own bar? all the time.

You talk about that

CLOUD We all got a back-up fantasy for the rough times, but i don’t really mean it. MERYL Yeah, you got a back-up fantasy for me, too? CLOUD What are you talking about? MERYL Do you love me, Jamie? CLOUD Of course.

Baby, I love you.

MERYL Say it again. CLOUD I love you. MERYL Then quit. Do something else. Something where you won’t get killed following your nose. God, it’s only a matter of time when you’re a cop, you know that. CLOUD I wish that I had listened to you when you said that, you know? I don’t know if i could ever stop being a cop but... it’s only a matter of time for any of us. MERYL Not for me.

When this new bodies are finished...

CLOUD Like i said, sign me up. the depths of space.

We’ll live forever and travel

MERYL Really?

You’d do that with me?

CLOUD In a heartbeat.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

24.

MERYL You promise? CLOUD Promise. MERYL When my company successfully markets it’s first replacement body, you’ll quit the cops. CLOUD It’s a deal. Besides, you said it was ten years away still. Being a cop, I’ll be dead by then. MERYL Oh, shit, honey! that? Fuck!

Why do you have to say shit like

CLOUD I’m sorry. MERYL No you’re not. CLOUD I am. MERYL Show me. CLOUD Real sorry. CLOUD reaches for MERYL and holds her close. kiss, tenderly.

They

JEROME staggers in from off stage and sprawls heavily on the floor. JEROME Ow! Man I can’t get used to that entry. Hey, I thought you said you were going for a drink? Who’s the hooker? CLOUD Jerome, what the fuck are you doing here? JEROME I have access. something.

I wanted to talk with you about

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

25.

CLOUD You have access? CLOUD whirls away from MERYL and lunges at JEROME, knocking him back onto the floor before he can stand up. CLOUD Fuck your access! JEROME I... I... I... CLOUD Shut the fuck up. I can plug five days of the most fucked up, medieval shit into your memories in a fucking blink. You want five days torture mems, you piece of shit? JEROME What... what are you t-talking about? CLOUD This is my private life. You have access? You might have the clearance, but if you ever access my memories again... I won’t kill you, I’ll just load every torture mem we’ve got, plug them into your brain, and then I’ll let you live. Got it? Anna, stop mem-sim. Get us out of here. VOICE OF ANNA Mem-sim terminated. Scene 3 - Sessions In darkness, the VOICE OF ANNA. VOICE OF ANNA Loading John Doe Session #1. CLOUD Why no name? VOICE OF ANNA Content of psychiatric sessions is available for review, but the identities of those in the session are kept confidential. CLOUD What if you said your own name in the session?

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

26.

VOICE OF ANNA Then you would be voluntarily revealing you identity to future viewers of the session. CLOUD Do people know that? FEMALE VOICE It’s in the fine print. CLOUD Load the session. JEROME Uh, Cloud? CLOUD I’m not talking to you. VOICE OF ANNA This is a recording of the full session. Session #1 VOICE OF DELIA Archetype distillation complete. Loading Dummies Psychiatric Basic Version 2.3.11. You have purchased 41 minutes of psychiatric care, starting now. A psychiatrists couch. JOHN DOE is lying on it. An older man sits in a straight-backed wooden chair, a small notebook in his hands. He is the PSYCHIATRIST. JOHN DOE I think I’m cracking up, doc. PSYCHIATRIST Tell me about your mother. JOHN DOE I don’t want to talk about my mother. about my girlfriend.

I want to talk

PSYCHIATRIST Tell me about your mother. JOHN DOE Is this all this program does? PSYCHIATRIST Not at all.

We can also discuss archetypes.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

27.

JOHN DOE I don’t know if i can handle forty more minutes of this. PSYCHIATRIST Would you like to purchase an upgrade to Dummies Intermediate version 4.6? It will cost 22 minutes of your current session total. JOHN DOE Yeah, do that. I don’t need a lot of time. some quality, you know?

I need

PSYCHIATRIST Upgrading to Dummies Intermediate version 4.6. Blackout, static, and a loud bang. Lights up to reveal that the PSYCHIATRIST is no longer an older man. Now the PSYCHIATRIST is a young woman, very pretty, with glasses and a smart striped suit. She sits very upright in the chair. JOHN DOE Wow.

That is an upgrade.

PSYCHIATRIST Thank-you. Now let’s talk about what’s going on in your head, hm? JOHN DOE Thanks, yeah. OK, so I’ve been seeing this girl for a few months, right? And it’s going great, but i still don’t know a lot about her. And i feel bad asking her about her life because i don’t want her to think that it matters - I mean, it does matter, it’s just that it doesn’t matter that much. I just want to know, you know? I like her. PSYCHIATRIST That’s only natural, of course. JOHN DOE Yeah, so it’s like the longer things go on with me not knowing what she does, the more bizarre it seems that i don’t know what she does, but the harder it is for me to ask. PSYCHIATRIST Is it hard? JOHN DOE Yeah, it is.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

28.

PSYCHIATRIST How hard is it? JOHN DOE Well, I mean, you know how it is when you don’t remember someone’s name, but they remember your name, and every time you see them they greet you by name, but you just say "Hey," because you can’t remember their name, and if you just sucked it up and asked them right off the bat, things would be fine, but you don’t, you just let it slide every time and hope you’ll get some clue about what the person’s name is, but then you don’t get a clue, and so you just keep having awkward moments every time you see that person. PSYCHIATRIST That sounds soooo awful.

You need some real help.

JOHN DOE Um... Yes. PSYCHIATRIST You seem to be having some real troubles. And i want desperately to help you feel better. But you’re going to have to follow my prescription, OK? JOHN DOE OK... what do you prescribe? PSYCHIATRIST First, tell me everything.

Everything.

JOHN DOE I’ve been trying... PSYCHIATRIST Next, you need to release all your pent up emotions, all your tension, in one great burst. JOHN DOE Um... like some kind of cathartic release? PSYCHIATRIST Yeah. I love it when you use those big, smart words. JOHN DOE Um. PSYCHIATRIST You know, working here it’s so hard for me to meet good men. The right kind of men, you know? They’re all crazy, and ugly and stupid. But now you’re here, and you’re handsome and smart and... not as crazy as some of them... (CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

29.

JOHN DOE Uh... is this... is this the program? PSYCHIATRIST Oh my goodness... when you talk it sends a thrill through my whole body, it’s like an electric shock. JOHN DOE looks toward the ceiling, searching. JOHN DOE Hello?

Is this part of the program?

PSYCHIATRIST Don’t worry - we won’t be disturbed. for us.

This time is just

The PSYCHIATRIST suddenly sits up and speaks in a robotic voice. PSYCHIATRIST You have... 90... seconds left. Would you like to sell a portion of your abbreviated stock portfolio for more time? JOHN DOE N-no. The PSYCHIATRIST resumes her previous state of being, sensuous and sultry, draped over JOHN DOE on the couch. Her fingers walk up his chest and fiddle with his shirt buttons. PSYCHIATRIST Sometimes when things are going rough all you need is some hot, dirty, guilty sex. The PSYCHIATRIST lunges off the chair and straddles JOHN DOE where he is reclining on the bed. Her long hair falls onto his face, but he can’t brush it away because his arms are pinned to his sides. He turns his head, blustering to get the hair out of his mouth. JOHN DOE Uh... is that... is that your prescription? Because... because the sex is pretty good... with Charlotte... she’s a... she’s a real angel, you know? And... and... and... PSYCHIATRIST You need to do it now.

Now.

NOW!

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

30.

JOHN DOE But... but... The PSYCHIATRIST freezes amidst her ecstasy. VOICE OF DELIA Your time has expired. Would you like to sell another portion of your retirement portfolio for 8 more minutes? JOHN DOE Um... um... no.

Thanks.

A tone. JOHN DOE and the PSYCHIATRIST remain frozen on the stage. CLOUD steps forward to examine them, and turns his back on them. CLOUD Well... not much there. though.

This seems to be our boy,

JEROME He... he doesn’t seem like the type to kill his girlfriend. CLOUD Most of them aren’t. You push anyone hard enough and you’ll see they’re capable of all kinds of things. JEROME Yeah. I think you’re right. think pushed this guy?

It’s just... what do you

CLOUD That’s something I hope to figure out. pulling the strings, that’s obvious.

Someone else is

JEROME But why? CLOUD What do I look like, a dime-store novel? How the hell should I know? I don’t even know who these people are, or their names, or anything. JEROME That’s what I wanted to talk with you about. CLOUD What?

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

31.

JEROME Well... I mean... It looks pretty weird that I... a representative of Dummies, show up to review what you do, and the case you happen to be working on is potentially a Dummies case. CLOUD Yeah.

I know.

JEROME So it kind of puts you in an awkward position... as far as I go. CLOUD What’s your point? JEROME Well... I... I want you to know that I’m not here for that. At least, if I am, no one’s told me. CLOUD But if they asked, you’d sing every song you know, right? JEROME Well, yeah, but... but... CLOUD So it doesn’t matter why you’re here. It matters what I find out. And if I find out something that your bosses don’t like, what then? Am I going to show up on that slab with a blasted stack, too? JEROME I... Well... Honestly, I don’t know. But... but I want to help. Find the killer. Or killers. Because I want you to know that I’m not a... a... a... fink. CLOUD A fink? Where the hell do you think we are? 1940’s Chicago? You gonna ’rat me out?’ You wanna help the ’coppers’ get the ’bad guys?’ Play a little cops and robbers? What do you want? JEROME I just... I want to know why that guy did that. made him do it.

Who

CLOUD What if it’s your boss? What then? You gonna stick up for justice, the blind bitch that she is, or are you going to follow the money? Don’t answer that. Either you will or you won’t. If you screw me over, I’ll find a way to destroy you before I go. (CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

JEROME Fine.

32.

It’s a deal.

Look... about barging in on you...

CLOUD Are you trying to ruin a perfectly good conversation? JEROME I just... that was stupid.

I...

CLOUD Shut up. about?

What the hell did you want to talk with me

JEROME I can find out the girl’s name. Or, I mean, I can find out the name of Peel’s assistant, and get some ID on her. See if it’s Charlotte. CLOUD That would be useful. We’re getting blocked by red tape from every side. They don’t even wait to see what we want - they see the cop ID on the call, and we get routed into recorded messages. JEROME That’s standard, I know. It doesn’t mean they know what’s going on. I mean, it doesn’t mean that someone up there is guilty. It’s just... SOP. But I can call. CLOUD Alright. Bring me what you find. Plus, if you can ID my John Doe, we’ll talk about getting you on the payroll down here. JEROME As a cop? CLOUD I was thinking as a fink. please.

Anna, load the next session

JEROME You’re letting me stick around? CLOUD Why not?

You have access.

VOICE OF ANNA John Doe Psychiatric Session #2, loading.

33.

Session #2 JOHN DOE relaxes on the psychiatric couch. woman sit professionally on her chair. JOHN DOE I’m paying extra for you to not seduce me. psychiatric help. PSYCHIATRIST Of course, sir.

The

I want real

Talk to me.

JOHN DOE Alright. Good. OK. It’s like this. I think I’m going crazy. I bet everyone says that. PSYCHIATRIST They do.

But go ahead.

JOHN DOE Well... I... see things. Things that I don’t think are really there. It’s... hard to describe. People talking to me, and animals that appear and... angels. PSYCHIATRIST That does sound crazy. JOHN DOE Gee, thanks. PSYCHIATRIST Well, at least we know you’re not coming here under a false pretense. JOHN DOE Let’s hope not. PSYCHIATRIST Tell me everything. JOHN DOE Um... this all started about two months ago. When i met Charlotte. I’d just started my new barrista job and Charlotte was one of my first customers. She just wanted a cup of coffee. Black. I think I stared at her. But I didn’t talk to her. She came in every day for the same thing, and it took me several days to get up enough courage to say anything to her. I asked her if she’d be interested in going out for coffee some time. Then I realized how stupid that sounded, but she thought it was funny, so it worked. Of course, after we went out for coffee, she let me know that it would cost me five hundred bucks. But I kind of didn’t (MORE) (CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

34.

JOHN DOE (cont’d) care. We started seeing each other pretty regular after that. After a few weeks she didn’t even make me pay any more, and she started coming over to my place in the evenings, and I think she stopped hooking, or at least, stopped doing it as much. I kept asking her what she did besides hook, and she put me off, but she finally told me. She told me she was the assistant to Harvey Peel, and I was pretty impressed. I thought she was lying, but... but if she was, then it was a good lie, so I was OK with it, right? Only she wasn’t lying. I knew immediately she wasn’t lying. I’ve never known anything so clearly in my life. And all of a sudden the hallucinations kind of stopped. Like I’d flipped a switch. After that, every time she told me about her work I’d get this feeling... like... like life couldn’t get any better, you know? Like we were meant to be together, and the fact that she was talking to me about her life was proof. PSYCHIATRIST Has this changed in some way? JOHN DOE Yeah. I... She told me her boss was going on a trip. To freakin’ Barbados of all places. I mean, do people still go to Barbados? I don’t even know where that is. PSYCHIATRIST It’s off the north coast of Venezuela, near St. Vincent and the Grenadines. JOHN DOE Gee, thanks, Google Maps. PSYCHIATRIST Google Maps is not a subsidiary of Dummies Corp. Dummies Corp. uses MapFolio Global for map-related queries. JOHN DOE Can I get back to talking? PSYCHIATRIST Of course.

Continue.

JOHN DOE As soon as she said it... As soon as the words were out of her mouth that Peel was going to Barbados next week it was like another switch went off in my head. Like something in me died. And I... I... it was like I didn’t have any feelings any more. It was like I was (MORE) (CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

35.

JOHN DOE (cont’d) dead. Sometimes... sometimes I think that none of this is real anyway, like it’s just... synapses firing and what’s to stop the universe from ceasing to exist at any given moment, you know? PSYCHIATRIST If it exists at all. There is certainly ample evidence to suggest that the reality we cling to is held in place by the most fragile bonds. It’s plausible that this entire universe is simply one of infinite potentials stemming from a singularity, a single moment where the universe existed before it spun apart into it’s quadrillions of particles, and those particles broke up into quanta, and everything disappeared into nothingness. JOHN DOE Yeah.

How much time do i have left on the clock?

PSYCHIATRIST 32 seconds. JOHN DOE Oh.

OK.

Um... Am I crazy?

PSYCHIATRIST It would be impossible to say at this point. The evidence suggests that your mind has been tampered with in some way. JOHN DOE By who?

Who’d do that?

FEMALE VOICE Would you like to sell the remainder of your retirement portfolio for a total of 3 more minutes? JOHN DOE No. I should hold on to something. that long.

In case I live

A tone. CLOUD That’s odd. JEROME That he didn’t sell the rest of his stock? CLOUD No. He said he stopped hallucinating after she revealed who she worked for. He did that in memory (MORE) (CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

36.

CLOUD (cont’d) fragment 10, remember? Then in the eleventh fragment he sets up the session we just saw, and after that he kills her. So between 10 and 11, there seems to be a big chunk of time we’re not seeing, where she tells him about her day and he feels like life is fabulous. We didn’t see any of that in the fragments. JEROME Right.

You’re right.

Maybe he wasn’t recording.

CLOUD Or those memories were destroyed. Anna, any evidence of memories between fragments 10 and 11? VOICE OF ANNA Evidence suggests the existence of up to 28 other memory fragments. These fragments are so heavily corroded and unstable that no review is possible. CLOUD None? What if we load them onto an old-fashioned vid screen? VOICE OF ANNA Because of the unstable nature of the files, recreating the files for vid screen would be impossible. CLOUD So we know there’s memories we’re not seeing. And we know from the session what might have happened in them. He was happy. They were happy together, until she told him about Barbados. Then he loses it, calls the psychiatrist, and kills her. So when does he attend the third session with the psychiatrist? Before or after he kills her? JEROME Are you asking me? CLOUD I’m talking to myself.

Anna, load session #3.

FEMALE VOICE Loading John Doe Psychiatric Session #3. Session #3 VOICE OF DELIA Archetype distillation complete. Loading Dummies Psychiatric Help Version 6.9.551. You have two minutes.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

37.

JOHN DOE lays on the couch, and the female PSYCHIATRIST sits in the chair. JOHN DOE Don’t say anything. Let me talk. I killed Charlotte. Then I blacked out and when i woke up, she was gone. I remember killing her, but then there was no body. So did I really kill her? I looked everywhere for her. I even went to Dummies Corp. Of course they said there was no Charlotte that worked for Harvey Peel. They called security and I ran. Also. There’s a man that’s been following me. Several men. I don’t know if they’re real or not. There’s a man in a brown suit that talks to me, but I don’t remember what he says. There are two men that watch me. They’re here right now, watching me - standing right over there. I don’t think they’re real, but I think the man in the brown suit is real, or at least partly real. I don’t know how else to describe it. I... killed Charlotte. But I didn’t want to. If anyone reviews this, I just want to say that I didn’t want to kill her. I loved her. I don’t care who she worked for or what she did or what her real name was. I loved her and I didn’t kill her. I think someone has been tampering with my mems because I can’t access all of them any more. Some of them I are totally different than I remember them. I don’t know who I am any more. I think... I was used by someone else. You said last time that my brain had been tampered with, and I think you’re right. I don’t know why, but I think I’m going to die soon. Maybe it has to do with Harvey Peel. He’s an important man and maybe he’s in danger. I don’t know. I didn’t want to kill her. That’s the main thing that IVOICE OF DELIA Your time has expired. You have no stock to sell for more time. Thank-you for choosing Dummies Psychiatric Help for your psychiatric needs. If in the future you have acquired more stock, please do not hesitate to use our services again. Have a nice day. A tone. JEROME He was talking to us again. CLOUD Two men that aren’t really there. JEROME Maybe he’s psychic.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

38.

CLOUD Maybe. JEROME You think it might be something else? CLOUD He’s in a mem-sim here. Talking with the psychiatrist. Mem-sims are great, but they have standard formatting across the board. When a person takes part in a mem-sim, they move freely about the created space. When an observer watches a recording of a a mem-sim, as we just did, the observer always views the action from a standard point. Right here where we’re standing. JEROME So if he knew that this was going to be watched later, then he’d know where to look. CLOUD Right. JEROME That doesn’t explain how he knew there were two of us. CLOUD Nope.

Or how he saw us in his other memory.

JEROME Because memories don’t have standard formatting. CLOUD Correct. JEROME So he’s psychic? CLOUD Let’s get out of here. JEROME You need a drink? CLOUD Yeah. And you need to get me that name. out of here.

Anna, get us

39.

Scene 4 - Mem-Sim #2 In darkness, CLOUD speaks. CLOUD Anna, load mem-sim #12. VOICE OF ANNA Detective Cloud, Mem-sim #12, loaded. Lights up on CLOUD’S apartment. CLOUD is standing in the center of the room. He seats himself in the chair. MERYL enters in a suit. CLOUD Going to work in person today? MERYL Have to put in an appearance some time. Ghent wants us all there in person for an official unveiling. Of course, she won’t be there - but the rest of us have to fly in from everywhere. Doesn’t care about the cost, just wants us all there in person. I hope we don’t have to do any team building exercises. CLOUD Well at least the meeting’s here in town, so you don’t have to go far. I can see you when you get home. MERYL That’s what I like about you. CLOUD I guess this is a pretty big day, then. MERYL The biggest.

We’re testing out the new bodies.

CLOUD Sooner than you projected. MERYL Loads sooner. The prototype prosthetic bodies are being shipped from our factory in Bridgetown. It’s a big pain in the ass. But whatever. What’s your day look like? CLOUD Still working on that case. MERYL The double murder that looks like a suicide?

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

40.

CLOUD Yeah. Only still no body on the girl. I watched a psych session with the John Doe, and he said he tried to find her body later and couldn’t. I’m wondering if she’s really dead, or if this is all part of some big set-up. MERYL Some elaborate scheme? CLOUD Exactly. Harvey Peel is the key. If he hasn’t left for Barbados, I need to try and see him. MERYL Maybe you can make an appointment. CLOUD Ha!

That’s a good one.

Actually, that is a good one.

MERYL Always glad to help. CLOUD I know.

Thanks.

I love you.

MERYL Leaving so soon? CLOUD I’ll be back.

You know I always come back.

MERYL I’ll be here. CLOUD Anna, get me out of here. Find Jerome and get me a link to him. I need to talk with him right away. VOICE OF ANNA Terminating mem-sim #12. Scene 5 CLOUD and JEROME sit in two comfortable office chairs in front of a big desk. Behind the desk, a woman sits, her face a mask of smiles. She is quite obviously not there with them at this time, staring out into the distance, her lips moving minutely. The woman is HARVEY PEEL.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

41.

CLOUD I thought Harvey Peel was a man. JEROME He is. CLOUD He likes to appear as a woman? JEROME He appears as all kinds of people. recognized in person.

Doesn’t like to be

CLOUD Have you ever seen him before? JEROME Yeah, at a virtual conference. fire juggler.

He appeared as a Samoan

CLOUD I guess we should be thankful that he’s so subdued. JEROME Don’t let him catch you off guard. CLOUD Are you sure he’ll see us? JEROME When I told him about the reality cop mem show idea, he seemed to be pretty excited. There’s really no telling, though. He could have forgotten, or changed his mind, or anything. CLOUD Does he usually make people wait this long? JEROME He’s Harvey Peel. He could make us wait until tomorrow if he wanted. This is just one of like, 40 rooms, and Harvey is meeting with people in all of them. CLOUD I’ve never been able to get used to that. JEROME Most people can do two or three meetings at once - even you, I bet. But if you want to get ahead in business, you need to be able to meet with dozens or even hundreds of different people at the same time.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

42.

CLOUD Well, whatever Mr. Peel is doing right now, it’s not meeting with us. I’m not impressed. HARVEY PEEL slowly turns his head toward them, and speaks in a mechanical, distant voice. HARVEY PEEL Jerome told me the two of you had come up with a real winner for a cop mem show. Please prepare a brief pitch of no more than two minutes. Sell it to me, baby. JEROME Actually, sir.

Mr. Peel sir, uh...

CLOUD We’re here to talk to you about your assistant. JEROME Margo Braun. Her name was Margo Braun. She had a double life as a hooker named Charlotte, and we have reason to believe that she was strangled and killed in the recent past. CLOUD I’d like to talk with you about Margo right now, but if you’d rather not, we can sell the story to K-Wal-Meyer. JEROME Holy shit, Cloud, what the hell are you...? CLOUD Are you there? HARVEY PEEL is silent for a moment, then takes a deep breath and turns his full attention on the two men. He folds his hands on the desk and leans forward. HARVEY PEEL Interesting story, but I don’t think it will sell. CLOUD We’re not interested in making money, Mr. Peel. I’m looking for justice. I have one body and maybe two murders and I think your life might be in danger. HARVEY PEEL Well. You have my full attention now, Mr...

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

43.

CLOUD Detective Cloud. Good. I’m sorry for the subterfuge, but there was no other way to get past all the layers of the bureaucracy. HARVEY PEEL Yes, I know. CLOUD Mr. Peel, when was the last time you saw your assistant, Margo Braun? HARVEY PEEL Three days ago. When she didn’t come in to work, we waited the mandatory three hours to hear from her, then fired her for negligence. CLOUD Weren’t you curious? HARVEY PEEL She did a good job.

But she wasn’t irreplaceable.

CLOUD We have reason to believe Ms. Braun was murdered, and that the man who murdered her was operating for someone else. HARVEY PEEL I get death threats all the time. Why do you think I appear like this? The less people know me, the better. If Margie went and got herself capped, then she wasn’t playing it safe enough. CLOUD You seem really upset about it. HARVEY PEEL Why should I be? CLOUD Because she may have been killed because she was close to you. HARVEY PEEL Well, we do make all our new employees sign a waiver. It comes with the territory. Are you aware of the number of corpse related murders there are? CLOUD About 160 a day, world-wide. Three to four a day in this our fair city. Some are easily solved with a simple memory review, others are more difficult because (MORE) (CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

44.

CLOUD (cont’d) the murderer knew to completely destroy the stack - but even those we can use conventional detection methods to work out the intricacies of the case. Then we get a case like the one we’re working on now. HARVEY PEEL You know, I’m sensing some tension in the room - I bet this would make a good scene in a mem - were you serious about your cop mem show, or was it all a front? JEROME Well, actually CLOUD Mr. Peel. Ms. Braun revealed to her boyfriend your plans regarding Barbados. Soon after that, he very probably choked her to death with his own hands. And soon after that, he turned up in the river with his head fizzed off, and most of his stack burnt. HARVEY PEEL I see.

Well OK then.

Are we done here?

CLOUD Mr. Peel, we have reason to believe your life is in danger. HARVEY PEEL My life is always in danger. Danger drives the economy. So what? Is that all you came here for? are you accusing me of something? JEROME No sir! No way sir! at heart.

Or

We only have your best interest

CLOUD What? JEROME Thank-you for allowing us to meet with you, sir! HARVEY PEEL Hey, whatever. Have fun trying to find the murderers. Let me know how it goes, especially if it turns out to be a good story. We haven’t had a best-seller since the President of Texas sold us all his mems. K-Wall-Meyer has their Extreme Death Trip mem, and that’s just chipping away at our ratings. Anyway. If that’s all you wanted to talk to me about, I’ll see you later!

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

45.

CLOUD Mr. Peel HARVEY PEEL stares off into space, vacant and smiling. CLOUD Dammit! JEROME Are you crazy? CLOUD What are you talking about? JEROME You almost sounded accusatory when you were questioning him! CLOUD That’s because I think he knows more than he’s telling. JEROME He could have you fired! He could fire every cop on the force! He owns your contract! CLOUD Listen. If you want to be a pansy, go be a pansy somewhere else. I’m a cop, and I’m going to find out the truth, and whoever did this is going to pay. JEROME That’s great. But how are you going to do that when you’re out on your ass with no job, no home, and nowhere to sleep at night except a dumpster with a hop head named Chuckles? CLOUD Ha!

That was pretty good.

Chuckles.

JEROME You’re not listening to me, are you? CLOUD Not really. But tell me, magical detective Jerome. How would you proceed, if not by questioning Mr. Peel here? JEROME Um... I don’t have any good ideas. We’re at a dead end in the case and it might be better to just go.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

46.

CLOUD Giving up? JEROME That’s exactly what I’m doing. here and go get a drink?

Why don’t we get out of

CLOUD stares at JEROME for a moment, then shrugs. CLOUD I can always use another drink.

Disconnect.

Scene 6 - Hidden Memory Low light. CLOUD So what was that all about? JEROME What? CLOUD "I don’t have any good ideas?" If Peel was even half listening he’ll know you were lying your ass off. JEROME You think so? CLOUD What’s your idea? JEROME But if he knows I have an ideaCLOUD So what? He fires you. Or he gives you a raise. There’s no knowing what some of these bloated plutocrats will do when prodded. JEROME You don’t have a very high opinion of our governmental set-up, do you. CLOUD Wow, what gave you that idea? JEROME The quality of life for most people is significantly higher in this day and age than was ever accomplished by the masses in the emerging and failing democracies of the 20th and early 21st Century. If capitalist plutocracy hadn’t taken over as the dominant form of (MORE) (CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

47.

JEROME (cont’d) world government, billions would have died in famines, plagues andCLOUD Spare me the end of the world speech, Jo-Jo. work. You have an idea or not?

We got

JEROME Barbados. CLOUD What about it? JEROME Maybe it’s not a place.

Maybe it means something else.

CLOUD Like a code word for a project.

I like it.

JEROME If we can find out what Barbados is, maybe we can figure out who was pulling our John Doe’s strings. CLOUD Good thinking. Before we do that, we have some more memories to plow through. JEROME I thought there were only 19, and we went through them. CLOUD So did I. Turns out three more were hid in the porn mems on the public servers - so they weren’t corroded with the rest of the mems when his stack got fizzed. JEROME Three?

When do you find this out?

CLOUD Anna keeps me updated. memory set? VOICE OF ANNA Processing complete.

Speaking of... Anna, is the

Are you ready to proceed?

CLOUD Yes.

Give us a tone between the mems.

VOICE OF ANNA Of course.

48.

Hidden Memory #1 JOHN DOE’S apartment, as in the memory fragments. No one is on stage. JOHN DOE enters after a moment, followed by the man in the brown suit. JOHN DOE This place is shit. BROWN You’ll learn to love it. JOHN DOE You think so?

Do I have a car?

Money?

BROWN You’re a barrista. JOHN DOE That sucks. this.

No.

You ride a bike. Never mind.

I don’t think I want

BROWN Really? Because you have to ride a bike? An hour ago you were eager for any job that would advance your standing. If you back out now, it might not look so good... JOHN DOE I know, I know... it’s just that... this place is a dump! What the hell am I going to do all day? BROWN We’ll give you plenty to keep yourself occupied. JOHN DOE And I won’t remember any of it when this is done? BROWN Not a second of it. JOHN DOE That’s good. remember it?

I guess.

Unless... What if I want to

BROWN Too bad.

We can’t leave any evidence, now can we?

JOHN DOE Yeah, you’re right. But won’t my memory of accepting this assignment also need to be zapped? And the planning? Can you target specific enough to do that?

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

49.

BROWN We’ll actually be tactic. If you’d from the lab will assignment. They

using a slightly different like to take a seat, some of the boys prepare your mind for the were supposed to be here by now.

JOHN DOE Traffic’s a real pain. I guess it’s good I’ll have a bike. Is there a view? (pulls back the curtains) Vid-windows. Are we underground? The elevator said we were going up, but... wouldn’t there be a window? BROWN You can’t afford windows. You’re a barrista. This used to be a laundry room, back when this was a hotel. JOHN DOE Great. BROWN Don’t worry about it. Whatever you have to live through to make this work, it’ll be erased. You’ll wake up one day, and it’ll be like you went to sleep last night. You won’t remember this job, or the girl, or this apartment, or being a barrista. You might have some muscle memory that will make you better at making a cup of coffee, but that’s about it. If you can pull this off, you can bet there will be a fat promotion waiting for you on that morning after. You might not know why you deserve it, but if you’re like me, you won’t question it when it happens, am I right? JOHN DOE Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. I’m just... jittery. I mean, this thing we’re doing, this memory thing... it’s pretty new science. I just... it’s been tested, right? BROWN Loads of times. JOHN DOE Alright. in here?

OK.

There’s nothing to worry about.

I can do it.

Just... tense.

Is it hot

BROWN Not terribly. nerves. JOHN DOE Sure.

How about a drink?

To steady your

Where do you think I’ll keep the booze?

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

50.

BROWN The kitchen is fully stocked, like you’ve been living here for months. Whiskey? JOHN DOE Thanks.

Yes.

With ice, if I have any.

The man in the BROWN suit steps around the bed and into the Kitchen. JOHN DOE stares after him for a moment, then faces forward, concentrating. JOHN DOE I don’t like the sound of this. Nothing to worry about my ass... whenever I hear that I get the heebie-jeebies. If they’re going to burn my regular mems out, i need to keep this someplace else... So... Computer, re-record uh... porn mem 43... no, wait, I like that one, so... 44... with new mem, last three minutes, override protocols, then upload to the public server. (pause, concentrating, nods.) A tone. CLOUD Interesting. JEROME But who’s the man in the brown suit? CLOUD That’s the million dollar question. JEROME Why don’t we do an image search, see if we can match his facial features - they’re clearer here than in the earlier mems. CLOUD Assuming he looks like this memory. JEROME Why wouldn’t he? CLOUD Memory isn’t like a camera, Jer. It doesn’t record what happens, it records what you remember happening. If we had a digital recording of that room at that time, it would not look or sound exactly the same as what we just saw. The mind thinks in terms of symbols and icons. We take the vast array of objects and ideas that we come into contact with all the time, and we turn them into objects and ideas that are easy to catalog. Like the phone.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

51.

JEROME The phone? CLOUD It’s an old fashioned rotary dial phone. Obsolete for a century, but still the most recognizable symbol for a phone. Even if the phone is in your head, and you’re making a call by thinking that you want to make a call, you still have to make use of symbols and icons to create that connection, and the phone icon is a rotary dial phone, and not a cell-phone or any of a thousand other phone designs. All of these mems we’ve seen have had rotary dial phones in them, even though no one uses rotary dial phones. JEROME How do we know that our John Doe didn’t have a real rotary dial phone in his apartment? Retrofitted with new tech? CLOUD Until we find out where that apartment is, and explore it, we won’t know for sure, but I’d be willing to bet he doesn’t even have a phone, that his real phone was built into his cranial stack. JEROME We know the layout of the apartment, that it was a laundry room at a hotel - couldn’t we track it down that way? CLOUD Tried that. Too many variables. And we’re dealing with a memory, which won’t have accurate measurements. JEROME Right. CLOUD The good news is we have two more hidden memories to go through, and maybe one of them will have something interesting for us to go on. JEROME Yeah.

Right.

CLOUD You alright? JEROME Fine.

Um... let it roll.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

52.

CLOUD Anna? VOICE OF ANNA Loading Hidden Memory #2 Hidden Memory #2 CHARLOTTE sits calmly on the bed. CLOUD and JEROME.

She addresses

CHARLOTTE Well, when someone or something is too good to be true, they usually are. But I don’t blame you, my darling. I was curious about your shared mem collection, not suspicious - I just wanted to know you better, like you want to know me better, so I went to your public space. There wasn’t much there, as you know. Some adventure, some porn, some news. I put in some porn. The one I tried said it was a "threesome and then some," but it was you. I’m pretty sure that you haven’t seen it in the last few months - if you have, you’ve had me fooled from the start. I don’t like that thought, so I’m going to assume that you don’t know that you’ve been set up. And that you’re setting me up. I have to assume it’s because of my job that you’re here, to win my confidence and learn insider knowledge. You keep asking me what I do for a living, so lets find out what happens when I tell you. I hope... I hope that once you’ve learned what you came to learn, you’ll be free to act on your own will again. That’s probably impossible, because I know the kind of people we’re dealing with. I have a back-up plan for me, if things go poorly, and I’ll see what I can do for you. If I die, I don’t want you to worry. I have a body in cold storage that I can use. It’s not ideal. It’s a man’s body, in fact, but it will help me if... things go badly. I’m going to try and get a second body for you, and if anything happens to you we’ll transfer your stack. Maybe I can get you a woman’s body. That’ll be interesting, right? I know I’ve never said it, and I don’t know if I can say it out loud, to you, with you with me, but... I love you. I’m glad that we met, even if it was all under false pretenses. I love the you that you are now. I hope that we can be together. I think I’ll let it go at that. A tone. CLOUD turns to look at JEROME.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

53.

CLOUD Charlotte? Or should I call you Margo? another name tucked up your sleeve? JEROME Anna, freeze Cloud avatar, program code Xeno, override clearance A6297.

Or do you have

CLOUD Anna, freeze Jerome avatar, program code uh... shit!

CLOUD, mouth open, is frozen. him.

JEROME walks around

JEROME That was inevitable. I knew you’d find it soon enough. I apologize. I was hoping there was a clue in the mems, or that i missed something in this last one that I could use. Sorry. I need to see this last fragment. I need to know who the man in the brown suit is. And even though you’re not hearing this right now, it’s being recorded. So... I’m sorry. This is a lot bigger than you or me. Dummies is one of the largest of the Corpses, and if it were destabilized, there are so many other Corpses waiting to get a piece of the action that we’d have a war. So I need to know who’s behind this, so I can put a stop to whatever it is they have planned. And maybe get a little justice. I meant what I said in the hidden memory. I still mean it. But the happy ending I imagined is not going to happen. He’s dead, and there’s no transference possible. Anna, play Hidden Memory #3, please. VOICE OF ANNA John Doe Hidden Memory #3. Hidden Memory #3 JOHN DOE enters. and failing.

He is attempting to remain calm,

JOHN DOE I remembered putting my memory here... I just couldn’t remember what I remembered. And she found it... and she loved me anyway... OK... OK... I can help them find out who did this to me if I can just remember the man! The man in the brown suit! He’s... I know his name... I knew it once... It’s... it’s... JOHN DOE stares helplessly around, desperate, mouthing syllables and parts of words, but shaking each one away.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

54.

JOHN DOE Angel... Angelo. Cat? Cat D’Angelo? Cat... short for Carter. Carter D’Angelo. I work for K-Wal-Meyer. My name is Mordecai Phelps. Carter D’Angelo is my boss. Vice President of Acquisitions. I work for K-Wal-Meyer and those fucking bastards did this to me... I did it to myself... for a promotion. At a loss for words, JOHN DOE turns in a full circle, beating at his own temples. JOHN DOE SHIT! OK. Don’t lose your head man. You just got it back. Put this down. Same place as the others. Get it down so... so if they do this to me again I can find it. Or someone can find it. Someone will find it. Those two men! They’ll find it and see it. They’re watching over me. Like... like angels. You’re angels, right? Did I figure it out? JOHN DOE looks at CLOUD and JEROME. JOHN DOE Help me. Whoever you are. Whatever you are. Help me. OK. Let’s upload that so you can find it. Help me, alright? A tone. JEROME Alright.

I’ll help you.

55.

ACT 2 Scene 1. In darkness. CLOUD Anna, mem-sim #17. Low-light. maybe? Something classic.

Some music,

Lights up on CLOUD’S apartment, music playing in the background. He’s sitting in a chair, with MERYL sitting on the floor between his legs, head tilted back and resting on one of his knees. He’s massaging her shoulders. She’s wearing goggles and whispering quickly and quietly. CLOUD Just relax.

Four meetings is a lot for anyone.

MERYL Almost done, baby. CLOUD Take your time. After a moment, MERYL takes a deep shuddering breath and pulls the goggles off. MERYL Done. CLOUD And? MERYL Green light. We can proceed with testing tomorrow. Tomorrow! Every safety and back-up checked out. Engineers are confident that the stack transfer will be seamless. I know that’s bullshit, of course it’s going to be bizarre as hell trying to get used to the inside of a synthetic body. CLOUD You’re really going to do it? MERYL Of course. There’s a thousand of us. We’ll live in and test the bodies in the real world, and when nothing goes wrong after a year, sales will go through the roof. And the whole world will change. Then you and me can start our journey. Right?

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

56.

CLOUD Right. MERYL Don’t worry, OK? CLOUD Of course I’m going to worry.

I love you.

MERYL I know you do.

Will you still love me in my new body?

CLOUD Is it one with big hooters? MERYL I’ll be sure to request one with extra big hooters. Just for you. CLOUD Then we won’t have any trouble. MERYL I’ll try and be gentle with you in bed. The synth bods are about three times as strong as normal human bodies. CLOUD I’m getting excited already. MERYL Me too. We’re so close, Jamie. Practical immortality. Bodies that last for hundreds of years, and perfect digital transfer of millions of terrabytes of brain pattern. And this is just the beginning. With the great minds of the world able to continue working for forever, new developments will come at an even faster rate. Who knows what the human species will become in the next century? CLOUD Who indeed. MERYL Hmmm... something seems to be bothering you. talking.

Start

CLOUD Just work. Just the usual. Will there still be crime in this Utopian vision of yours? MERYL If there’s not, I’ll be sure to knock over a bank or two every once in a while, just to keep you busy.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

57.

CLOUD Maybe stab someone? MERYL Sure.

Whatever you need.

CLOUD Right.

That’s good.

MERYL How’s the case?

The John Doe murders?

CLOUD Well, we know his name was Mordecai Phelps. We know he worked for K-Wal-Meyer, and went undercover to extract information from Margo Braun - a.k.a. Charlotte, a.k.a. Jerome, assistant to Harvey Peel. Apparently Mordecai succeeded, because some part of his undercover brainwashing kicked in and he killed her. He was able to recover his old memories, but he was so pissed at his old boss, Carter D’Angelo, that he might have gone to confront him. Or, he killed himself. Or... just a minute. Anna? VOICE OF ANNA Yes? CLOUD Is it possible that the "goodbye cruel world" mem was part of his implanted memory? And automatically ordered last? VOICE OF ANNA Feasible, considering the tone of the final mem in contrast to the rest of the mems. CLOUD So he could have been programmed to go into suicide mode once he’d completed his tasks. He would have an automatic memory of wanting to kill himself. So the blast that fizzed his head off could have been self-inflicted after all. He might not have been able to stop himself. But he didn’t kill himself immediately after killing Charlotte, which means he still needed to perform some other task - possibly reporting to D’Angelo, or transferring the data he’d collected somehow. He probably was programmed to kill himself in a way that would completely obliterate his stack, only he didn’t quite pull it off. That makes more sense - any killer with a fizz gun knows how to pulverize a stack until it’s powder. It would have taken a half a second longer for a murderer to finish the stack, and then we wouldn’t have discovered anything. (CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

58.

MERYL So D’Angelo did the initial programming, which still makes him the murderer, if your theory is correct. CLOUD Yes. I think he went to confront D’Angelo, and either D’Angelo killed him, or he killed himself. I’ve submitted a request to speak with D’Angelo, but whether or not he agrees is a big question. The cops are part of the competition, sort of. Theoretically, we’re supposed to maintain objectivity towards all people, regardless of their mother corpse, but it’s hard to convince people you’re objective when your paychecks are all signed by Dummies Corp. MERYL How will justice be done? CLOUD Ha ha. But that’s a good question. If we push too hard, it might only escalate the tensions between Dummies and K-Wal-Meyer. MERYL Another Corpse war. CLOUD It’s starting to feel like it. Something big is happening, just out of sight. I’d say it was a hostile takeover, but it’s almost unheard of between two corpses of this size. I don’t think there’s been anything comparable since Google took over Starbucks, but even that was small potatoes compared to the mass of these two companies. MERYL It’s bound to happen sometime. Isn’t it the natural progress of capitalistic plutocracy? CLOUD Global monopoly? MERYL It seems reasonable to assume that would be the case. CLOUD Only because of our fear of scarcity. MERYL That’s an interesting digression.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

59.

CLOUD If there was no fear of scarcity, then capitalist plutocracies wouldn’t have as much power. MERYL If only those bodies we made actually worked. CLOUD That’s weird. MERYL What? CLOUD The failure you’re talking about hasn’t happened yet not in your memory. But because this is my mem-sim, you know what’s coming. You know what’s going to happen with the bodies, but you still have to go to work and get your new body, and you have to be happy about it, because that’s what I remember about that day. MERYL That is interesting. CLOUD I better get back to work myself. MERYL Will I see you later? CLOUD Count on it. MERYL Sometimes when you leave I worry... that you won’t ever come back. Then who’s memory will I be? CLOUD I’ll always come back. MERYL Nice words, but... CLOUD You’re everything I remember, Meryl. Everything. And sometimes you still surprise me - just like you did when you were alive. I have to go, but I will come back. I will. Anna, terminate mem-sim.

60.

Scene 2. The D’Angelo Mems CLOUD paces the empty space of a waiting area. He checks his watch, and sits down, then stands up and starts to pace again. A man appears with a clip-board, and checks it. He seems officious and precise, until he speaks. At that point his voice breaks, and it becomes obvious that he is distressed. POTOK Detective Cloud? CLOUD That’s me.

Are you D’Angelo?

POTOK No.

No, I am Potok, Mr. D’Angelo’s secretary.

Ah.

So when do I get to meet the man?

Ah.

Well.

CLOUD POTOK Um.

CLOUD Should I guess that there is some new manifestation of red tape that is keeping me from questioning a suspect in relation to a murder? POTOK No, no! No. It’s not that. detective, right?

It’s... you’re a

CLOUD That’s what it says on my business cards. POTOK Heh. Yes. Well. Then I’d like to report a... murder. Or something. CLOUD A murder or something? POTOK Mr. D’Angelo is dead.

Two hours ago.

CLOUD Holy shit.

How?

POTOK I don’t know.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

61.

CLOUD Is his stack intact? POTOK Yes. There doesn’t appear to be anything wrong with his body or the stack. He’s just dead. Our medics looked over him, and... he’s dead. CLOUD You seem to be in shock. POTOK I think I am.

I found the body.

CLOUD I think you’d better get back into your body, and maybe take a short trip to a good shrink. POTOK Yes, sir. CLOUD Before you go, I’d like to have a look inside Mr. D’Angelo’s stack, if that’s alright. I might be able to catch his killer. POTOK Oh.

Right.

Um... Delia?

VOICE OF DELIA Yes, Mr. Potok? POTOK This is Detective Cloud. He’s here to investigate the death of Mr. D’Angelo. Please give him access to Mr. D’Angelo’s mems. I’m going to take the rest of the day off. VOICE OF DELIA Do you have a work release form signed by a physician? POTOK No.

Goodnight, Detective Cloud. POTOK walks out of the room.

CLOUD Delia, how many D’Angelo mems do you have? VOICE OF DELIA Four thousand, five hundred and seventy-one.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

62.

CLOUD Keyword search for Phelps, Mordecai. VOICE OF DELIA Three matches. CLOUD Just three? He played this one close, didn’t he. Load mems in chronological order, to the best of your ability. Separate mems with a tone. Try to keep me from being interrupted until I’ve finished viewing the mems. What’s the total time? VOICE OF DELIA Nine minutes. CLOUD In realtime? VOICE OF DELIA Mem transfer ratio is six to one. Nine minutes will be transmitted in the space of 90 seconds. CLOUD That’s pretty standard. So it isn’t likely that anyone will get around to checking on me before this part is done. Begin. D’Angelo Mem #1 D’ANGELO walks in, flanked by two individuals in white lab coats, a man and a woman. The man is called BRYCE, the woman is called NAN. D’ANGELO Side effects? NAN Potential for slippage, original memory degradation, hallucination. BRYCE All within acceptable parameters for mission success. D’ANGELO What parameters? BRYCE Optimum time frame for successful infiltration is six weeks. Only a limited manifestation of the side effects will be noticed by the subject at this point.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

63.

NAN Likely perceived by him as a nuisance, but little else. BRYCE Thank-you Nan. Precisely. At eight weeks, side effects will be more pronounced, but subject should be able to maintain a high level of functionality, and will likely attribute side effects to something erroneous. NAN Such as his diet, or he might consider that he’s under too much pressure at work. BRYCE Yes.

Thanks again, Nan.

Spot on.

NAN Oh, can it, Bryce. BRYCE Ten weeks is the cut-off. Beyond ten weeks and the project may be compromised. D’ANGELO How? NAN Subject is able to retrieve fragments of former memories. Subject will begin to record a random assortment of recent and previous memories. Subject will become hysterical and suicidal. D’ANGELO Which is the plan anyway, right? BRYCE Exactly. NAN Precisely. BRYCE So who’s our lucky winner? D’ANGELO Mordecai Phelps. A shit-brain from Development. Always looking for a promotion, but has the personality of a block of wood. NAN Sounds perfect.

When can we meet him?

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

64.

D’ANGELO Later this afternoon, at his new apartment. BRYCE So soon? D’ANGELO Why wait?

It’s ready isn’t it?

BRYCE Well... NAN It’s completely ready. D’ANGELO Bryce? BRYCE Completely.

Yes.

D’ANGELO You don’t sound so sure. NAN He’s just nervous. D’ANGELO Bryce? BRYCE I’m sure it will be fine. experimental.

It’s just a little

NAN Yes, but even taking that into consideration... D’ANGELO We can’t afford for this to fail. NAN And we have to move now. D’ANGELO True. Bryce, do you have a better plan, one that we can implement today? BRYCE No. D’ANGELO Then we risk it.

Is it something we’ll see right away?

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

65.

NAN No - it’s mostly to do with deterioration rates. We project ten weeks of stability, but it could be as short as eight. D’ANGELO OK... since we’re supposed to be done by then, I don’t see a real problem. BRYCE No, sir.

You’re right.

D’ANGELO And we don’t have any choice. The Board is really breathing down my neck to get this information. A tone. D’Angelo Mem #2 D’ANGELO sits nervously at his desk. After a moment he leaps to his feet, clasps his hands behind his back, and paces worriedly. JOHN DOE, looking pale and distracted, wanders in. D’ANGELO doesn’t notice. JOHN DOE wanders over to a corner of the room and turns to stare at D’ANGELO for a moment. Still unaware of JOHN DOE’S presence, D’ANGELO shudders. NAN enters. NAN Sir. D’ANGELO How is our dear Mr. Phelps? NAN Well within parameters. He’s resting now. We put in a porn mem for him - it should ease the adjustment. D’ANGELO When will he be up? NAN Ten minutes. Twenty. He’ll remember that he needs to get to work on time - it’s his first day. His last job was at a Sushi Barn, and he hated it. He’s looking forward to becoming a barrista. D’ANGELO And the target?

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

66.

NAN Acting according to known patterns. Last night Bryce contacted her to request her services. She agreed. This morning she should still be in costume, and looking for a cup of coffee. D’ANGELO And Mordecai will be there to meet her? NAN At least to see her. At this point that’s his only imperative. He’s been imprinted with an image of the woman, and once he sees her, his secondary programming will activate. Contact will initiate the next level of programming. Stages in his progress will be monitored. D’ANGELO And the final programming? NAN In place, sir. D’ANGELO Excellent.

Any doubts?

Anything I need to know about?

NAN No, sir. D’ANGELO I guess it’s too late to turn back now, regardless. NAN Yes sir. A tone. CLOUD Delia? VOICE OF DELIA Yes? CLOUD Would it be possible for me to meet with Nan or Bryce? VOICE OF DELIA Negative. CLOUD Why not?

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

67.

VOICE OF DELIA Nan Ghent and Bryce York are both dead. CLOUD When? VOICE OF DELIA Heart and brainwaves ceased fourteen minutes ago. They were rendered immobile at the same time that Carter D’Angelo died. CLOUD What? VOICE OF DELIA Our health services personnel are taking care of it. Please do not worry. Your life is not in danger. CLOUD Says you.

What happened?

VOICE OF DELIA Cause of death unknown. CLOUD How long before I’m discovered? VOICE OF DELIA Perhaps due to the confusion surrounding the deaths of Nan, Bryce and D’Angelo, there has been only minor monitoring of the mems. CLOUD But they’ll notice soon enough. VOICE OF DELIA Yes. CLOUD One dead body at a time. If I don’t catch up, who knows how high the body count will be. Play that last mem and then I need to see if I can get into Nan’s head, or Bryce. VOICE OF DELIA Unlikely. CLOUD Why? VOICE OF DELIA Both Nan and Bryce have experienced massive trauma to the base of the skull and the stack.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

68.

CLOUD They’ve been shut up. Can you find me any mem-sims of those two, or mems recorded on your drives? Official documents, events proceedings, that sort of thing? VOICE OF DELIA Possible. CLOUD Alright, whatever you find, transfer copies to Dwight Monk at Police HQ. Transfer copies of these mems while you’re at it. Who knows what will get dumped when the big-wigs lock this place down. Let’s roll the next clip. VOICE OF DELIA Please specify by title. CLOUD Ha! You’re going to have to work on those insight programs of yours. Alright - let’s watch D’Angelo Mem #3. D’Angelo Mem #3 D’ANGELO and NAN in D’ANGELO’S office. D’ANGELO is pacing, running his hands through his hair. NAN is leaning against the desk, calm. D’ANGELO You said it would take ten weeks. NAN I projected that it would take ten. obviously unstable. D’ANGELO You couldn’t tell that before? programming him?

Phelps is

When you were

NAN It was always a risk. Give him another nudge, and he’ll initiate the next level. We need to know Peel’s plan. D’ANGELO What if she doesn’t know? him?

What if she doesn’t tell

NAN She’ll know, and she’ll tell.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

69.

D’ANGELO You seem pretty sure. How can you be sure? If this doesn’t go through like it’s supposed to, we are all going to be seriously fucked. Do you realize how seriously fucked we are all going to be? NAN We’re not breaking any laws.

Yet.

D’ANGELO I’m not worried about the cops, you fucking moron! I’m worried about backlash! Consumer backlash! Corporate backlash! The standings of our board members in the plutocracy! That’s what I’m worried about. If they go down, we go way down, as in out like a candle in a hurricane. NAN It’ll work. She knows what Peel’s doing, and she’ll tell it to Mordecai. It’s what he was designed to do, and he can’t fail. D’ANGELO He looks like he’s failing. He looks like his brain is frying like an egg. He’s been seeing psychiatric programs. They’re not helping. NAN Listen. You asked me to risk, and you were aware procedure and now he’s a he gets results it won’t because he’ll be dead.

do the procedure. It was a of the risk. We did the little unstable. So what? If matter, and no one will know,

NAN draws close to D’ANGELO, pressing herself against him and running a hand through his hair. D’ANGELO Why would Peel tell this woman anything? He’s totally insane, yes - but he’s not stupid. He never tells anyone anything unless it’s going to play back into his hands. He’s like one of those self-fulfilling prophecies - where by knowing the future you make it happen. NAN You worry too much. I’ve been in this business a long time. Compared with some of the contracts I’ve worked, this is easy money. The procedure’s a little weird, and the drug has some side effects we didn’t anticipate, but overall it’s well within the parameters for a successful campaign.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

70.

D’ANGELO You used to be military, then? NAN Close. A burst of static obscures her next few words. CLOUD Delia, what was that? VOICE OF DELIA Unknown. CLOUD Are they onto me? VOICE OF DELIA Negative. CLOUD Memory glitch? VOICE OF DELIA Unknown. NAN What was that? D’ANGELO What? NAN I heard voices. D’ANGELO Oh great - are you going crazy on me too? NAN I’m serious, Cat. Two voices. A man and a woman. There was some static, too. I couldn’t quite make it out... CLOUD Is she talking about us? NAN There!

Did you hear that?

VOICE OF DELIA It would appear that she is referring to us.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

71.

CLOUD Wouldn’t that be impossible? NAN Hello?

Is there someone there?

D’ANGELO Well, that’s it.

My lead technician is crazy.

NAN Shh!

Listen! Silence.

No one says or does anything.

D’ANGELO I got nothing. JOHN DOE walks onto the stage. He is gaunt, listless, distracted. He sways this way and that, as if drunk. Bursts of static punctuate his steps as he approaches D’ANGELO and NAN. NAN has turned her back to D’ANGELO and placed her hands on the desk. D’ANGELO says something apologetic and reaches toward her. JOHN DOE reaches NAN and wraps his arms around her, dragging at her, pulling her down. He locks his mouth onto the nape of her neck. The static stops as they touch. NAN What the fuck is this? D’ANGELO What?

What’s going on?

NAN I... I don’t feel so well. D’ANGELO You don’t look good either.

You’d better go lie down.

NAN I... I... D’ANGELO Are you alright? NAN No... NAN crumples beneath the weight of JOHN DOE’S embrace. Gasping, she pulls at JOHN DOE’S arms, struggling weakly. He tightens his grip around her body, wrapping his legs around her, adjusting his mouth on her neck. NAN moans in pain. (CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

72.

D’ANGELO Medic! A tone. CLOUD I’m confused. VOICE OF DELIA Negative.

Did that just happen?

This mem is date stamped seven days ago.

CLOUD But why is Mordecai there? And they can’t see him. And Nan seems to be dying, but she didn’t die until fifteen minutes ago. After D’Angelo. Has this mem been hacked? Any evidence of tampering? VOICE OF DELIA Negative. CLOUD Then what the hell was that? VOICE OF DELIA Please restate the question. CLOUD Never mind. for?

Did you get all the other mems I asked

VOICE OF DELIA Yes. CLOUD Sent them? VOICE OF DELIA Affirmative. CLOUD Then get me the hell out of here before they find me. SCENE 3. Encroaching Darkness In darkness, the VOICE OF ANNA. VOICE OF ANNA Loading mem-sim #21. CLOUD Thanks Anna.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

73.

Lights up on CLOUD’S apartment. MERYL is asleep on the couch, but sits up as CLOUD comes in the room. MERYL What’s wrong? CLOUD Everything.

Holy shit.

MERYL I know how you feel - I’ve been having the worst headaches. They tell me it’s normal, butCLOUD Yeah, I know. minute.

I’m sorry.

I just need to think for a

MERYL Sure.

Right.

CLOUD I went to see D’Angelo at K-Wal-Meyer. Only I couldn’t see him because he was dead. I was able to get permission to see some of his mems, but only because his secretary was in total shock. In the mems, I got confirmation - D’Angelo was behind Mordecai’s programming. Great, right? Only D’Angelo’s dead, which means this thing that’s happening goes above D’Angelo’s head. Someone at the top is covering their tracks in a big way, and I can’t figure out why. And if I can’t figure out why, then more people are going to die. I tried to talk to the two lab techs that did the mem work on Mordecai, but they were dead too. While I was there, they were bumped, stacks smashed and everything. MERYL Oh my god. CLOUD I know. But that’s not the half of it. I got their AI to sort out and send some mems and records with Nan and Bryce in them, only in every mem with Nan in it, she’s not actually there. She’s wiped out. Everyone keeps talking to this empty space, and she’s not in it. MERYL Nan? CLOUD Yeah, Nan... uh... Ghent.

Nan Ghent.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

74.

MERYL Nan Ghent? CLOUD Yeah, why? MERYL That’s my boss’s name.

Well, one of my bosses.

CLOUD Nan Ghent? MERYL Yeah. She was a project manager for the new bodies. She’s the one who keeps telling me that the headaches are temporary, and they’re working on a patch and blah blah blah. CLOUD Nan Ghent? MERYL Yes.

That’s what I said.

CLOUD But everyone died.

So it couldn’t be the same woman.

MERYL We were all having the headaches.

Her too.

CLOUD Yeah. I’m glad it doesn’t make you too upset to talk about it. MERYL One of the benefits of being just a memory. CLOUD I suppose. You were all having headaches. And you all died within a week of each other. Did Nan die early on, or later? MERYL She was one of the first to die, if not the very first. CLOUD It’s like Agatha Christie. MERYL Which one?

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

75.

CLOUD I don’t know - the one where the murderer makes themselves look like the next victim, so that no one suspects them. Could Nan have had a second body? Then transferred herself into it and let her first body die? MERYL But wouldn’t that imply that she knew what was going to happen? CLOUD That’s exactly what it implies. MERYL Are you saying that she was responsible for the rest of us? An accomplice? Or just a bystander who got a tip and used it? CLOUD I think she was part of it. I have no proof, but that’s what I feel in my gut. Now there’s two things I’d like to ask her about. MERYL But now she’s dead again. CLOUD Not necessarily. If she did it before, she again - if it’s the same woman, maybe we’re look at her modus operandi - when a project bail into a new body and let everyone think dead.

could do it getting a goes South, you’re

MERYL Or sabotage a project and bail to a new body. CLOUD Sabotage. True. When you all died, that was a huge upset. Lots of money lost and gained in the wake of it all. MERYL Is there any way to find out if it’s the same woman? Or if she’s alive? CLOUD Maybe if she confesses - there isn’t much in the way of police procedure for people coming back from the dead. It seems odd that she’d use the same name. It’s ten years later, you know?

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

76.

MERYL Unless she’s working for the same company now as she was then. CLOUD That’s an interesting angle. J-Wal-Meyer sabotages the prosthetic body program. But why? They didn’t make a cent off that deal. Dummies was the one that... bought up... all the stock... MERYL Shit. CLOUD Yeah... SCENE 4. Falling Mostly darkness.

CLOUD in a shaft of light.

CLOUD Anna, reload mem#19 from our John Doe case. A second shaft of light reveals JEROME. JEROME Anna, do not load mem #19. CLOUD You’ve got a lot of nerve. JEROME Sorry about earlier. CLOUD I doubt it. You’ll be arrested - you know that, right? As soon as we find your body. JEROME I don’t think so. CLOUD You already pull some strings with Mr. Peel? you back on the payroll?

He let

JEROME Not exactly. CLOUD If you don’t mind, I’m working here. police business.

On official

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

77.

JEROME And the police are still owned by Dummies Corp, and I still work for Dummies. CLOUD You’re Margot. Margot was fired. Are you telling me that this Jerome persona you’ve taken over also works for Dummies? That you, with an opportunity to start all over with a clean slate, decided to get another job at the same place? Not too many people can afford a second body, so you’ve got cash, or connections, or both. Maybe you’ve done this before? JEROME What are you talking about? CLOUD Well... we’ll just wait and see. In the mean time, why don’t you get the fuck out of here and let me do my job, while I’ve still got one. JEROME I can help you. CLOUD Ha! JEROME I can.

I totally can.

I need to help you.

CLOUD Now we’re getting somewhere. JEROME Come on. CLOUD So what do you need? JEROME Closure. CLOUD This isn’t a romance novel. D’Angelo’s dead. Nan and Bryce. Theoretically, anyway.

So are

JEROME Theoretically. CLOUD Shouldn’t that be good enough?

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

78.

JEROME No. I need to know why. I think Harvey let me walk into this whole thing. I think he knew something was going on, and he let me stay when he knew I was in danger. I don’t think he knew about my back-up body, but I can’t be sure. CLOUD Is it a prosthetic?

Or real?

JEROME You think if I could get a full body prosthetic, I’d pick this? CLOUD If you wanted to fly under the radar, avoid suspicion, yes. JEROME You have a point.

But no, the body is real.

CLOUD How’d you get it? JEROME Folks fall on hard times and they sell their bodies to pay the bills. They transfer their mems to one of the online worlds, and just live there until they can afford a new body. Which almost never happens. Without a refresh from a real body from time to time, they start to fragment and deteriorate. There’s a new start-up out in California that is doing body subletting, where people can loan out their bodies for a few hours or a day while they’re in one of the Worlds. I don’t know how that’s going - you know how people treat rentals. Ick. Besides, full-body prosthetics are almost unheard of since the Body Prosthetics Corporation went under. CLOUD Blah blah blah. Doe’s memories?

So why don’t I want to look at John

JEROME Anna? VOICE OF ANNA Mem #19 has deteriorated. CLOUD I thought it was stable.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

79.

VOICE OF ANNA It was. CLOUD What kind of deterioration? VOICE OF ANNA Unknown. CLOUD What about the other John Doe Mems? VOICE OF ANNA Deterioration is across all 19 mems. CLOUD The hidden mems? VOICE OF ANNA Deteriorated. CLOUD Mordecai again? JEROME Maybe.

Messing up his own mems?

Probably.

But...

CLOUD What name did he go by?

When you were together?

JEROME Nathan. CLOUD A good, solid name. JEROME Yeah. But he wouldn’t kill people. I don’t think. wouldn’t kill himself, unless there was something controlling him.

He

CLOUD He killed you, didn’t he? JEROME I’m still here, aren’t I? CLOUD I liked you better as a woman. JEROME So did I. I just don’t understand how he’s able to see what he sees, or appear where he does. And the mems are permanently affected by his presence. (CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

80.

CLOUD They did something to him, you know? Something out of the ordinary. He started seeing things, seeing the future even. Then he died. Within a day or so, the people whom we suspect to be responsible for his death turn up dead from some sort of major stack failure. In mems, we see him appear and take a part in the mem, in a mem that he was not present for when the mem was recorded. He’s in it, and he’s destructive. So what did they do to him? That’s where this is going to be solved, I think. What new method of erasing memory did Nan invent to use? VOICE OF ANNA This method is mentioned in one of the reports from K-Wal-Meyer. CLOUD The ones that Nan got erased from? VOICE OF ANNA Even though Nan has been removed from the memory, the rest of the players continue speaking as if she were there. There is one clip where the key terms "memory modification procedure," "Mordecai Phelps," and "experimental" are all used within three words of each other. CLOUD Now that’s what I call an intuitive program. work, Anna. How old is it?

Good

VOICE OF ANNA Three hours. CLOUD Just before D’Angelo turned up dead.

Roll it.

Report Mem - Bryce and Nan to D’Angelo. BRYCE and D’ANGELO, in D’ANGELO’S office. The presence of NAN is implied, but she is nowhere to be seen. When speaking to her or looking at her, BRYCE and D’ANGELO look toward the door to the office. BRYCE As you requested, sir... A complete report on the potential side effects of the experimental memory modification procedure made on Mordecai Phelps.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

81.

D’ANGELO Don’t sound so enthusiastic. Or is the fact that your fuck-up could destroy this whole fucking corporation weighing heavily on your thoughts? BRYCE A little. A silence - both men turn to look at the empty space where NAN used to be. D’ANGELO Hardly comforting, Nan.

Continue?

BRYCE Yes. Of course. Err... According to our research, this procedure should have had the effect of removing temporarily the bulk of the subjects memory while allowing him to retain memories associated with proper functioning - so he wouldn’t forget how to speak or read or use technology, for example. The mass of removed memory was stored in a back-up stack. The new memories to be implanted were spliced together from several mems from experiments conducted in the past. D’ANGELO What kind of experiments? BRYCE On... eh... chemical-enhancement. Patients who agreed to undergo experiments involving the enhancement of brain power, including the... potential for psychic abilities, remote and time-stream viewing, and... teleportation. D’ANGELO Are you fucking with me? fucking with me.

Because it sounds like you’re

BRYCE No sir. proper-

This was an authorized experiment through

D’ANGELO I don’t give a shit if it was your grandma’s idea and you did it in her fucking basement! You took mems from these people? From people you fucking warped all to shit with chemical enhancements? And put them in our boy to prep him for one of the most sensitive assignments we have ever conducted? A silence - the two men look toward where NAN was again.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

82.

D’ANGELO So what?

So fucking what?

A silence - the two men continue watching the empty space. D’ANGELO Is that what we’re seeing then? Is that your expert opinion, that something must have carried over? That’s real expert of you! You know, Nan, lately I’ve been thinking that about the only way you could have fucked this whole thing up more is if you did it all on purpose! What else? BRYCE His body is dead. Right? His programming took over and he fizzed his own stack. Maybe if we... uh... erase the files? The mems we used to build him? And his back-up? All of it? D’ANGELO Maybe?

Maybe?

BRYCE We can try it, right? Shit. We have to try something. All my personal mems are deteriorating. My kids... my wife... I go in to view them and it’s just him and I know that if I stay there he’ll... he’ll come for me. BRYCE slumps into a chair and hides his face in his hands. D’ANGELO looks past him at where NAN is. D’ANGELO Is this your experience as well? A silence as NAN replies. D’ANGELO And mine. No amount of security seems to be able to stop him. I think we’re all going to die. In the mean time, what can we salvage for the company? We know the project is Barbados. Have our boys managed to break in to the system? Can we get at it? BRYCE Um... about that... D’ANGELO What?

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

83.

BRYCE Barbados... isn’t a code. there. To the island.

He’s actually going

D’ANGELO Are you fucking kidding me? BRYCE No sir. D’ANGELO He killed that bitch too soon! BRYCE Maybe it’s... good that Mordecai is going to kill us all. D’ANGELO Yeah. Because the board would keep us alive for a long long time. A silence. D’ANGELO Yeah, that’s great, Nan. JOHN DOE enters the room. He grabs BRYCE from behind and slowly begins dragging him off the stage. BRYCE I wonder how long we’ll have to wait. D’ANGELO If it’s too long, the Board will get to us first. Nan. You’ve got that extra strong body - think you could kill me and destroy my stack? You know, like a karate chop to the base of my skull? BRYCE is completely off stage, static begins to build. D’ANGELO follows NAN’S invisible progress across the room. D’ANGELO Bryce?

Triple suicide sound doable to you?

JOHN DOE appears again, and takes D’ANGELO and pulls him backwards out of his chair and begins dragging him off stage. JOHN DOE Nothin... left... of any of you... nothing...

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

84.

CLOUD Mordecai!

Can you hear me?

JOHN DOE stops dragging D’ANGELO’S body. JEROME What are you doing? CLOUD ignores JEROME and focuses on JOHN DOE. CLOUD Your memories. The ones they took from you. They might still exist somewhere. You could get your memory back. JOHN DOE Nan... destroyed them... I... destroyed Nan. CLOUD She... isn’t a normal human. She has a full body prosthesis. A fake body. She could have transferred to a new body already. JOHN DOE Thank-you... now forget about me... please... JEROME Nathan. JOHN DOE turns his baleful stare on JEROME now. JEROME It’s me.

Charlotte.

JOHN DOE Char... lotte? JEROME I know it doesn’t look like me, but it is. I know what they did to you to make you act the way you did at the end. I don’t blame you. For killing me. Or yourself. I don’t blame you. JOHN DOE I... can’t rest. JEROME You can. JOHN DOE I’m not the person I was. Something... is changed. I’m here and I’m... somewhere else. Some other time even. I see people that are dead, and (MORE) (CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

85.

JOHN DOE (cont’d) people that haven’t lived yet. I can’t turn it off. They talk to me and I want them to be quiet and I beg them to be quiet but no matter what I do they keep talking to me. JEROME Maybe... maybe we can help you. a body. JOHN DOE No.

I have to go now.

JEROME Let us help you!

Find a way to get you

I have to make it stop.

Let me help you!

Please!

JOHN DOE drags D’ANGELO off stage. CLOUD Holy shit. JEROME This is so fucked up, Cloud. CLOUD Yeah. JEROME What do we do? CLOUD I don’t know. All the evidence is wiped out. Everything we had is gone. You said Barbados was a code for something, but is it really just the place? JEROME I don’t know. Whenever he talked about it with me, I thought that it was a code, but... that’s just the kind of thing he’d do... so... yes. CLOUD And Nan’s still alive somewhere. JEROME How do you know that? CLOUD A hunch.

So these are our two clues.

JEROME Alright... So if Nan is still alive, then she must have had some way of surviving being killed.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

86.

CLOUD She’s done it before. If we could find her body, maybe we could ask her a few pointed questions. JEROME With a really sharp stick. CLOUD Maybe I don’t hate you so much after all. JEROME So what’s the plan? CLOUD Find Nan. Find her before Mordecai does. Confront her and get her to talk. Press charges, if we can. JEROME For murder? CLOUD For anything. JEROME We should be able to track her to a body, if we can pick up her trail. Then we just nab her and follow her line back in to where she’s at Upline. CLOUD Maybe. But I’m not bloody going out into the real world to find her. JEROME When was the last time you saw sunlight? CLOUD It’s been a while. JEROME A week? Two? CLOUD Ha!

Try two and a half years.

JEROME Holy shit!

Your body must be totally atrophied!

CLOUD No. It’s in a trainer. It eats right and gets plenty of exercise. Mechanical sponge-bath every 24 hours or so. It has one of those special lamps that bathes it in simulated sunlight periodically. But it doesn’t go outside.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

87.

JEROME You spend all your time in here? CLOUD That’s right. JEROME Every moment? CLOUD Yup. JEROME I’d go crazy. CLOUD You’re a woman trapped in a man’s body - you’ll probably go crazy anyway. JEROME I don’t know - it’s kind of fun. How do you keep from playing with yourself all the time? CLOUD Give it some time - you’ll get bored of it. JEROME I don’t know. But if we’re going to find Nan, we might need to get out of here. Especially if we need to get to her before Mordecai finds her and erases her. CLOUD Well, you have fun with that.

Send me a postcard.

JEROME You’re really not going to go outside? CLOUD Nope. JEROME Huh. Well, alright then. CLOUD It’s not going to work. JEROME What? CLOUD I’m immune to reverse psychology.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

88.

JEROME Or any psychology, as far as I can tell. CLOUD And you’re a picture of modern sanity. While working nights as a hooker, you were killed by the man you love, and woke up in a mans body. How did you get to your new body, anyway? JEROME I have a special beacon that emits a constant frequency if my brain ceases function. A team pinpoints my location, retrieves my corpse, and transfers my stack into a waiting body. CLOUD It’s not a perfect transfer. JEROME Hell no. And the life expectancy on one of these used bodies is only ten to fifteen years. There’s some conflict with the muscle memory that causes it to break down over time. Biorhythms, or something like that. CLOUD I guess that’s why full prosthesis is the promise of the future. JEROME I guess so. CLOUD And Barbados is really just a place your boss wants to go to? JEROME Uh... yeah.

I think.

Where’d that come from?

CLOUD I don’t know.

I had a thought.

Anna?

VOICE OF ANNA Yes? CLOUD Where is Bridgetown? VOICE OF ANNA Bridgetown is one nickname for the city of Portland, Oregon.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

89.

CLOUD Is that it? Why would she need to ship anything from Portland if we live and work in Portland? JEROME What are you talking about? CLOUD What other Bridgetowns are there in the world? VOICE OF ANNA Bridgetown, Ohio. CLOUD No. VOICE OF ANNA Bridgetown, Devon. CLOUD Maybe.

But no.

VOICE OF ANNA Bridgetown, Nova Scotia. CLOUD Where the hell is Nova Scotia? VOICE OF ANNA Eastern Canada, north and east of Maine. CLOUD No. VOICE OF ANNA Bridgetown, capital city of Barbados. CLOUD Yes. Holy shit. Jerome Charlotte Margo - Does Harvey know you’re alive? JEROME Why? CLOUD Could we see him? JEROME Maybe.

You know how he is.

CLOUD Crazy?

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

90.

JEROME You think he knows something? CLOUD Count on it. There’s a couple things I need to do before we go. Can I meet you there? JEROME Um... sure. CLOUD Good.

Excellent. Meeting with Harvey Peel #2 JEROME and CLOUD sit in HARVEY PEEL’S virtual office. HARVEY PEEL is the same as before, a woman, sitting very still at the desk, staring off into nowhere.

JEROME Took you long enough.

I thought this was important.

CLOUD I had to talk with my wife.

Get some advice.

JEROME Oh, is that what they’re calling it these days? CLOUD Is that all you can think about? JEROME Yes. Jeez - how do you stand being in a man’s body all the time? CLOUD Like I said, you get used to it. JEROME When? CLOUD I hope we’re not too late. The last time I was in a waiting room, everyone I was waiting to talk to died. JEROME Traumatizing. CLOUD Exactly. I’d think your boss would want to meet with us sooner than later, since his plans have backfired, a rogue element has been introduced, and he could be killed and erased at any moment. (CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

91.

JEROME You’d think. HARVEY PEEL blinks rapidly and sits up straighter in the chair. He stands up, smiling benignly. HARVEY PEEL Ah. Detective.

How nice to see you again.

CLOUD I’m sure it is. JEROME It’s good to see you again, Mr. Peel. HARVEY PEEL What a lovely irony, Margot - I’m a man, you’re a woman, and yet here we are. JEROME Yes, sir.

That is very ironic.

HARVEY PEEL So what is this rogue element you were talking about? And death and erasure? Another of your theories that my life is in danger? CLOUD Oh, I have no doubt that your life is in danger, as long as you’re in here. You might have some chance to live if you could find a body to house you, and if you disconnected and lived the rest of your life in the real world, in total disconnect. JEROME What are you talking about? HARVEY PEEL Yes, what are you talking about? CLOUD I’m talking about bodies. HARVEY PEEL raises an eyebrow. CLOUD Let me tell you a story. About three years ago, a project was nearing completion which would have made full body prosthetics realistic and affordable. With a full body prosthesis, one could live with minimal food, water, even light. The batteries were made to last for over a hundred years. It would have been like buying a car that doesn’t break down, and only needs a major (MORE) (CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

92.

CLOUD (cont’d) overhaul once a century. That was the dream, and it was almost a reality three years ago. As a formality, one thousand engineers and marketers and code crunchers volunteered to try out the new bodies for one year, to test their capabilities and ensure everyone of their safety. HARVEY PEEL And they all died. story.

Yes, yes.

We’re familiar with the

CLOUD My wife was one of the Thousand.

And so were you.

HARVEY PEEL What? JEROME What? CLOUD As Nan Ghent. JEROME What?

Wait... what?

CLOUD Nan Ghent was one of the project coordinators. About four months into the project, everyone started developing headaches and all kinds of problems. She refused to allow tests to see what was wrong. Within weeks everyone died. HARVEY PEEL Including Nan Ghent. I’m a man.

Or did you miss that part?

Plus,

CLOUD raises his eyebrow at HARVEY PEEL, who looks down at his female body and frowns. HARVEY PEEL Well, I look like this in here.

Out there I’m a man.

CLOUD No one ever saw Nan Ghent in person. The one time everyone came together in person - for the big unveiling, you were absent. After that, you had your prosthetic body. So, like in here, you could be anyone.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

93.

HARVEY PEEL A lovely story, but... CLOUD Nan Ghent did not die. Her body started to shut down just like the rest, but she was able to transfer into a new one. Because she - you - knew what was going to happen - because you sabotaged all the bodies. The potential for full body prosthetics was too big to let it go, and too lucrative to make it so easy for people. Following the disaster, trust was down. If you came out with a new improved version later, and successfully tested it, then people would gladly pay more for them. A lot more. HARVEY PEEL Jenny, freeze Cloud and Jerome avatar. Holofernes.

Code

CLOUD and JEROME stand frozen. HARVEY PEEL My compliments. You found me out. But you’ve fucked yourself. I own you. Everything Cops is owned by Dummies Corp. Including your bodies, plugged in through Dummies owned servers, housed in Dummies owned trainers. Did you think you could just barge in here, like the cops of old, and say "stick ’em up?" Is that what you thought? I could kill you with a word. But you’re right about one thing. Mordecai is a problem. I knew things would backfire, that he’d cause confusion and dissent - enough to make a bid for takeover. I let slip the rumors that led to K-Wal-Meyer targeting and following you Margo. They couldn’t help but stick their neck out, to try and get a jump on our next big project, codenamed "Barbados." As we speak, Dummies Corp is absorbing K-Wal-Meyer and all its assets. Combined, we’ll be a force unequaled on Earth. We can give full body prosthetics to whomever we choose. We now control the long-term future of this planet. And yet I can’t erase Mordecai. Not yet anyway. We’ll figure it out soon enough. In the mean time, I’ll be going. My last prosthesis was compromised by the Mordecai anomaly, but I have more. Many more. On Barbados. Goodbye. HARVEY PEEL walks out of the room, then returns almost immediately. HARVEY PEEL What did you do!? HARVEY PEEL grabs CLOUD by the lapels, staring into his eyes. (CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

94.

HARVEY PEEL Jenny, allow vocals only on Cloud avatar, code Holofernes! CLOUD Nowhere to run?

Nowhere to hide?

HARVEY PEEL What did you do? CLOUD I told on you. There were several governments around the world, as well as some of the larger corpses that were interested in Barbados, and all its assets. All communications with the island have been stopped. Connection with your bodies has been disabled. HARVEY PEEL There’ll be war! CLOUD Possibly. But when the alternative is tyranny, it’s hard to judge whatever comes of the altercation. HARVEY PEEL Altercation? They’ll tear each other to pieces to get that factory! They’ll tear us to pieces! CLOUD Like I said.

Nowhere to run.

HARVEY PEEL You’re insane! CLOUD You’re under arrest. For murder. Multiple counts. Starting with my wife and the other 998 who died three years ago. HARVEY PEEL Jenny freeze Cloud vocals code Holofernes! CLOUD is frozen again. JOHN DOE appears, and begins to advance on HARVEY PEEL. HARVEY PEEL stares at him, and screams in rage and fear. HARVEY PEEL turns back to CLOUD. HARVEY PEEL If I can’t have one of mine, then I’ll take yours, Detective Cloud! It’s my asset! I can use it! Jenny! Download to body James Cloud, Precinct 23, pod 111! Now, dammit! (CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

95.

HARVEY PEEL runs off the stage. JOHN DOE follows. HARVEY PEEL runs back onto the stage. HARVEY PEEL It doesn’t work! It doesn’t even move! Margo! Give me yours! Where is it? Jenny! Code uh... code... JOHN DOE has reached HARVEY PEEL. He lunges forward and wraps his arms around HARVEY PEEL, clinging to him, pulling him down. HARVEY PEEL screams and screams. The lights flicker. Static. Darkness. EPILOGUE Sunlight and a busy street. Hustle and bustle. CHARLOTTE enters. After a moment, CLOUD staggers on, stumbles, and sprawls onto the sidewalk. CHARLOTTE looks down at him, eyebrows arched. CHARLOTTE Watch that first step. CLOUD Ha ha. CHARLOTTE I thought your trainer was keeping your body in good shape. CLOUD Yeah.

I was able to stand up.

Oh... fuck this hurts.

CHARLOTTE What? CLOUD The sun.

Jeez.

You have any sunglasses?

Thick ones?

CHARLOTTE Not on me. CLOUD I thought you were a man. CHARLOTTE You’re just now noticing?

I must be losing my touch.

CLOUD You got killed.

Strangled.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

96.

CLOUD slowly pushes himself up to standing. One leg buckles, but he grabs at CHARLOTTE, clinging to her arm, and pulls himself back up to standing. CHARLOTTE Being strangled is no reason to scrap the whole body it just took the guys at the lab a little while to get it back into habitable shape. Jerome was like a rental car. CLOUD That’s... weird. CHARLOTTE That’s life, James. CLOUD Ugh.

That’s what my mother used to call me.

CHARLOTTE Used to? CLOUD She’s dead. Both parents are dead, back when Yellowstone blew. CHARLOTTE Ah. CLOUD So what are you going to do? Dummies is in chaos and looks like it might be broken up and parsed out to high bidders among the corpses. Harvey Peel is dead. CHARLOTTE They haven’t found a body yet. CLOUD If he even had one. CHARLOTTE He’d still have needed a body somewhere, right? thing connected to the Net?

Some

CLOUD Who knows? If he’d had a body somewhere, why didn’t he go to it, when the alternative was total death? CHARLOTTE Good point.

So he is dead, then?

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

97.

CLOUD I think so. No sign of him. Thousands of mems that feature him have been scrambled. The world’s in chaos. CHARLOTTE The perfect time for someone to commit a murder. CLOUD You thinking about offing someone? CHARLOTTE No, I was thinking that we need to keep alert. knows what might happen?

Who

CLOUD Is it my job any more? owns the cops?

Dummies is breaking up - who

CHARLOTTE I didn’t tell you? CLOUD pulls away from her, but still has to have a hand on her arm to steady himself. CLOUD Tell me what? CHARLOTTE The cops got bought out, almost first thing. Sold for a song. Most of the other corpses didn’t want anything to do with you guys, since you had no qualms about taking down the head of your own organization. CLOUD Not my organization. CHARLOTTE Maybe. It had them a little leery of you all, though. And I was quick to point out that we had looked into monetizing authentic cop mems, but that they weren’t very interesting, and as a product they probably wouldn’t sell. CLOUD So if we’re such a terrible catch, why’d we get bought first thing? CHARLOTTE Well, I didn’t want anyone to get wise and decide to take a chance on you.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

98.

CLOUD You didn’t... CHARLOTTE I did.

I bought the cops.

CLOUD You’re fucking kidding me. CHARLOTTE Nope.

We’re now and independent company.

CLOUD You are fucking joking. CHARLOTTE Careful now.

I could have you fired.

CLOUD Holy shit. CHARLOTTE Well, don’t sound so enthusiastic. CLOUD What about... money?

Funding?

CHARLOTTE We’ll worry about that later. CLOUD Holy shit.

I need a drink.

CHARLOTTE You sure? Real alcohol in your system is going to hit like a ton of bricks after all this time in the trainer. CLOUD I could use a ton of bricks.

Holy shit.

CHARLOTTE Stop saying that! CLOUD Holy shit. OK. I’m done. Where is there a bar around here? Last time I checked, there was a place called Percy’s, two blocks that way. CLOUD points off stage left.

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED:

99.

CHARLOTTE Well that’s funny. Because now they’re named Andy’s, and they’re just half-a-block that way. CHARLOTTE points off stage right. CLOUD Well.

Lead on then, boss.

Can I call you boss?

CHARLOTTE You better call me boss. CLOUD Yes boss. You’re not going to moonlight as a hooker anymore, are you? CHARLOTTE Do you want to be fired? CLOUD If you make me come outside here too often, then yes. CHARLOTTE starts leading CLOUD off stage right. CHARLOTTE Give it some time - you might even start to like it out here. CLOUD I like it just fine. Except for the sun. And it stinks out here. And it’s loud. And I don’t know where anything is. And my legs don’t seem to work. And my voice sounds weird. Is this how I sound all the time? CHARLOTTE and CLOUD exit stage right. BLACKOUT.