Verity Rush Recharged

VERITY RUSH OF LIBERTY LANE in………. Algorithm Reactive 2 ‘The lamp of the body is the eye. It follows that if your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light. But if your eye is diseased, your whole body will be all darkness. If then, the light inside you is darkness, what darkness that will be!’ NEW TESTAMENT MATTHEW 7:5 3 OPENING IMAGE A MONTAGE SLUDGE CITY, TWO DECADES FROM NOW A vortex of dust and sand swirl around us as we move through Sludge City, an eerie wasteland that was once Manhattan. The only sound is the howl of a rising wind. The wind drops, and is replaced with the voice of a young woman. This is the Narrator. NARRATOR V.O. There are times when assumptions about power and influence – about who sets the rules and must follow them are challenged. Where there cannot be agreement, so begins politics. Then one discovers a desire for power, so begins war. Out of the dust storm emerges the ancient wreck of a green head, a fallen Statue of Liberty. It is decaying, its body barricaded with metal sheets. The green head is still visible and the reminder of a once free world. NARRATOR V.O. To understand the conflict you had to go back to the old world. A time before the fanatics where there was eloquence, not hectoring. Equality of all before the law, free will and the press. STREET: Hundreds of females clutching protest placards against industry leaders: ON PLACARDS WE READ: Hands off Women, Hands off Nature, Hands off our Planet. UNIFORMED POLICEMEN: Arresting women where we see them being shoved into police vans. NARRATOR V.O. It is true what they say. Men have no inclination for peace. Masked Man, head of the Brethren Crime Syndicate, tormented Sludge City in a private vendetta that came to be known as the Turbulence. To counter the brutal assaults made against innocent civilians, Sludge City’s governing body, the Vogues of Liberty Lane, challenged the Brethren’s assaults with a weapon that rose above the peak of human potential, an iron fist that carried the torch for justice, a phenomena that no man could yet understand, and her name was………..Verity Rush. 4 FADE IN INT. MINISTRY OF SCIENCE – NIGHT Through the floor to ceiling window we see night only just starting to leak into a dusk sky. We are looking at a surgically clean room. In the centre of the room is a stainless steel bench. Atop the bench is a computer with a large screen monitor displaying two intertwined columns of DNA and the vaguest hint of a white, box sized DNA sequencing machine in the background. Behind the lab bench is a man, dressed in a white coat. This is ERNST DARKSTAR, fifties, slick grey hair. A banker’s geneticist. He is speaking into a micro- recorder and looking at the screen monitor with an intensity that could conjure up a heart attack. On screen is an X-ray blow-up of the human genome sequence. A moment later Darkstar’s colleague, MORRIS MINDFUL enters the lab. He has large brown eyes, a mop of wild gray hair and is dressed in a shabby tweed coat. He suffers a facial tic under duress. Right now, the cheek muscle is moving faster than bullet speed. Mindful is carrying a letter. We READ: Professor Ernst Darkstar c/- Sludge City, Ministry of Science. MINDFUL I see you’ve gone behind my back and done a deal with a drug cartel (beat). Mindful, cut up shakes the envelope. Dupane Biotech Institute has signed off on the grant for the Ministry’s, Human Intelligence Project. Darkstar’s eyes calmly shift to the letter in Mindful’s hand then back to his screen monitor. A genius rarely feels inclined to give an explanation. DARKSTAR Don’t you know Morris? Opening other people’s mail is a federal crime. MINDFUL For the record Ernst, it was addressed to the Ministry of Science and given that I am the 5 Chief Science Officer, why not? We were supposed to be a team. Darkstar’s brain is steaming. Government had come to lean upon him with presumption. Every syllable struck a false note. DARKSTAR (cont’d) Let’s be quite clear about this. Is your story going to be you don’t believe in good breeding? Mindful knows this sizzling insult has some truth to it. He cools down. MINDFUL (cont’d) I am prepared to accept the fact that the Intelligence Project was your initiative. But I’m asking you to consider the risk. A proud, pompous Darkstar, no longer shields his ambitions from the Ministry of Science or more notably, a sentimental old fool like Mindful. DARKSTAR (cont’d) Such an advanced tool will give us unprecedented power over the natural world. As soon as Hargreaves delivers the algorithm, my dream of raising intelligence levels will become reality. MINDFUL (cont’d) The algorithm is not FDA approved. How do you intend to complete the project? DARKSTAR (cont’d) There are ways and means. If the Ministry of Science is not ready to shoulder risk, then I am prepared to sever ties and it will be my name on the IQ patent, that I can promise you. MINDFUL (cont’d) You may be a leader in the field of molecular genetics but the fact remains, the Ministry mentored that genius. Darkstar looks up, smug. DARKSTAR (cont’d) Genius is not collaborative I’m afraid. Only mediocrity. Others who have made your mistake usually die of poverty. I don’t understand where you get these socialist sympathies, Morris. As a scientist you know never to set 6 limits. MINDFUL (cont’d) (defeated) That’s right, we’re scientists. But when science conflicts with a person’s core beliefs, it usually loses. An irate Mindful, storms off. Professor Darkstar WATCHES him exit. INT. UNDERGROUND PARKING LOT - NIGHT We’re with Professor Mindful in the front seat of his white Datsun, and can see by the twitch of his cheek muscle that he is highly agitated. He scribbles the words, Hargreaves TPL, on a notepad, punches in numbers on his cell phone and scans the deserted parking lot. Sensing danger, Professor Mindful, stammers to get out the message. MINDFUL It’s….. me. I realize it’s late…..but it can’t wait. Check your emails. About that matter we discussed. I’ve sent you a highly confidential report that is of vital importance to Liberty Lane. Read it, and call me back. I’ll be waiting. Mindful FLIPS down his phone and pulls out of the parking space. After he straightens the wheel, headlights BLIND Mindful’s eyes. A car door SLAMS on a dark sedan with tinted windows. We see three THUGS from the Brethren Crime Syndicate. They answer to macabre names: Doomsday, Deadly and Midnight. The Brethren are dressed in the style of Tarantino assassins: white shirt, skinny black tie, aggressively tailored black suits. They DRAG Mindful from his vehicle and bundle him into the trunk of their vehicle. We see another body inside the trunk, a man, gagged and bound. The dark sedan GUNS the engine and quickly disappears from sight. EXT. SLUDGE CITY – DAY A foggy morning. We’re on the edge of an arched bridge looking across from Sludge City, to the Voids, that was once the borough of Queens. 7 The arch of steel SWOOPS up from the City and alights about seventeen hundred feet later on the southwestern tip of the Voids. The bridge spans the East River, and a rail track and a roadway runs across it like two slashes through a dollar sign. The East River is the color of lead, and looks beat up and hard-used. CLOSE ON sultry goth vixen VERITY RUSH, in black military grade sunglasses. She is strikingly beautiful and decked out in a type of black thermal suit. A shocking pink kerchief is wrapped around a head of platinum blonde hair, pirate style. Verity TURBOS a 360 SPIN. It’s a mini-tornado. Everything around her goes FLYING. VERITY VERITY RRRRRRUSH! In an eye blink, Verity is recharged. VERITY’S P.O.V. Ahead something looms out of the fog. PULL BACK to see an ancient wreck of a train crossing the bridge, moving at two hundred and fifty miles an hour. With spirit speed, Verity is on the move. EXT. RAILTRACKS – DAY We’ve never seen anything move so fast. Verity RACES towards the tracks, decides to have some fun and on the roadway beside the tracks, races the train. Her shocking pink head scarf FLAPS in the wind, hair flying, out of the office, she’s free! CLOSE ON Train Driver. He casts Sludge City’s white light a sidelong glance as the human meteorite comes up alongside the train. Verity SPINS in mid-air. She drops to her feet, then starts running backwards, comfortably. This is not too intimidate. This is the picture of a woman, comfortable in her own skin. The Train Driver gives Verity the THUMBS UP before the train disappears inside a tunnel. Verity SPINS like an ice skater and faces straight ahead. She PEELS off to the left having arrived at her destination. EXT. THE VOIDS – DAY The outskirts of the Voids. An arid, rocky landscape 8 surrounds a decaying, crumbling wall about one hundred feet in height. It is the gateway to the Voids, Sludge City’s ghetto. Seconds later a 1956 metallic blue Firebird III PULLS up alongside Verity.

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