Midnight Snack and Other Fairy Tales

by Diane Duane

  Gunter glances up and down the street to make sure no one sees, then MELTS THROUGH THE SIDE OF THE VAN, out of sight.

  INT. VAN IN STREET NEAR ORMONDE—NIGHT

  In the van, Gunter glances at the technical equipment, also getting a close look at something not visible earlier—lying flat in a clear plastic box, a foot-wide green pancake of plastic that looks like a computer motherboard. It’s etched in lines of gold and silver metal: GLOWING LEDs and tiny crystalline components jut up from its surface, jewel-like. It HUMS faintly, and a subdued SHIMMER hangs about it. The design of the circuit board’s etching recalls the FIVE-POINTED STAR-In-CIRCLE which is both the Erickson logo (inverted) and the pentagram Carlyle described to Harry (right side up). Off to one side of this portable pentagram, along with a couple of empty fast food wrappers and dry coffee cups, is a well-thumbed paperback manual.

  Gunter is drawn to this pentagram—literally drawn to it, like taffy being pulled. He holds a hand over it, testing the thing’s power the way you’d test the suction of a vacuum cleaner. His ARM IS PULLED OUT OF SHAPE as he holds it closer to the circuit board, and the HUMMING gets louder. Gunter YANKS BACK his arm, alarmed.

  Gunter then SPOTS the manual, grabs it and READS a few pages, registers SHOCK AND SURPRISE. He hurriedly LOOKS OUT the van window. In the shop, the two Techs HEAD TOWARD THE REGISTER with their purchases.

  With the manual in his hands, Gunter CLOSES HIS EYES and STEPS BACKWARDS out of the van. He goes through the wall, but the manual doesn’t: it BANGS into the inside wall, FALLS to the floor.

  GUNTER (O.S.)

  Scheisse.

  He STEPS INTO THE VAN again. In the shop, the two Techs are about to come out. Gunter hastily LEANS THROUGH the front passenger’s seat and ROLLS DOWN THE WINDOW. He fumbles behind him THROUGH THE SEAT for the manual—PICKS IT UP and MANEUVERS IT around the seats and drops it out the window, then quickly ROLLS UP THE WINDOW and ducks back into the rear of the van as the Techs COME OUT of the convenience store.

  VAN TECH 1

  Why didn’t you buy a ticket? It’s up to seventeen million quid this week.

  VAN TECH 2

  You kidding? You’ve got better odds of being hit by a meteor. Too many people in the game right now…

  Just as one of them PULLS OPEN the driver’s side door from the sidewalk side (the van is parked pointing the wrong way in its lane), Gunter DROPS DOWN THROUGH THE FLOOR OF THE VAN onto the ROAD underneath it, then GROPES for the manual to PULL IT UNDER THE VAN WITH HIM before the second Tech comes around on the other side and sees. The second Tech GETS IN, and the van STARTS and DRIVES AWAY. Gunter ROLLS to the curb, GETS UP, dusts himself off in grim satisfaction, and MAKES OFF with the book.

  INT. ORMONDE HOTEL LOUNGE—NIGHT

  Doris, George and Joy meet Gunter as he ENTERS.

  GUNTER

  I am sorry… I did not find her.

  DORIS

  Oh, dear!

  GUNTER

  But look what I did find.

  He sits down, hands Joy the manual. She and the others sit with him, look at it in confusion.

  JOY

  (bewildered)

  “Erickson Paralepsis Services Harvesting Routines Manual”?

  GUNTER

  It is very technical. A lot of instructions for their van drivers: no smoking around the equipment, no liquids, no ferrous materials, no all kinds of things. But look at these pages here.

  GEORGE

  “Sweep protocols.” “Storage strategies for large sweeps.” “Decanting residuals.”

  Gunter points to the diagram which shows a ghostly, human-like shape being decanted from the portable pentagram, the “holding pattern”, into a larger pentagram, a big one set into the floor somewhere.

  GUNTER

  This is what I saw in the van: a small one. It pulled me to it. If it had pulled much more strongly, I would have had to go right into it. This must be a larger one, into which what the small one catches is decanted.

  (a look at George)

  “Residuals.” That is us.

  (grim)

  Human souls. We are a residue, to these people. Like coffee grounds in the bottom of the pot. They collect us together, apparently in large numbers. See, there are references here to sweeps of four, five hundred residuals.

  DORIS

  But whatever do they do it for?

  JOY

  We have to find out.

  George sits down slowly beside Gunter, looking at the manual: then up at the others.

  GEORGE

  You know, this could be the answer to an old question.

  JOY

  What do you mean?

  GEORGE

  Some years back, every now and then, some of the dead started to go missing. One day they’d be where they’d been for decades: then, suddenly, they’d vanish.

  JOY

  (to Gunter)

  But you told me that sometimes people would just go on, to wherever.

  GUNTER

  But such a release usually has to do with the dead one solving an old trouble, ending a pain: they tell their friends before they go. These disappearances, though—no one knew why they happened. The people were just gone.

  Joy takes the manual, looks at it. Most of her attention at the moment is on the Erickson logo.

  JOY

  And this started when?

  GEORGE

  Maybe ten years ago.

  JOY

  I think that’s when Erickson started his company. I’ve got to ask Harry…

  (unhappy beat)

  I don’t even know if Harry is talking to me any more.

  DORIS

  Why?

  Joy hands him back the manual.

  JOY

  I told him. About here.

  GUNTER

  And he did not take it well.

  JOY

  (head in hands)

  No. Oh, what am I going to do!

  (looks up)

  But that’s later. Right now I’m going to go there.

  GUNTER

  Where?

  JOY

  Wherever those vans go. I’m going to wait for the next one that comes along, and follow it.

  GEORGE

  Joy, surely that’s unwise. Wherever these vans are based, they’re not going to let you just walk in there.

  JOY

  George, where’s Sarah?

  He looks at her, upset.

  JOY (CONT’D)

  I bet you anything that one of those vans took her. We have to find out where they go!

  Gunter has been riffling through the book, increasingly troubled. Now he looks up with the expression of a man doing something new for the first time.

  GUNTER

  I will go with you.

  JOY

  I’ll go change into something more comfortable.

  (to George)

  Look, play it safe. Don’t let anybody go out till we get back.

  He and Doris look at each other, nod. As Gunter EXITS, Joy pats Doris’s hand, then smiles understandingly at George as she FOLLOWS Gunter.

  INT. ORMONDE HOTEL—JUST AFTER MIDNIGHT

  Joy THUMPS DOWN THE STAIRS in black jeans, black T-shirt, dark leather jacket.

  JOY

  Leave the key, leave the key…

  Gunter waits for her by the door. Doris stands behind the desk, anxious. Joy GIVES HER the room key, gives her a hurried thumbs-up, makes for the door.

  DORIS

  Joy, dear, what should I tell your husband if he asks about you?

  JOY

  (grim but humorous)

  Tell him I went to get a prescription filled.

  She and Gunter EXIT.

  EXT. ORMONDE HOTEL—NIGHT

  They go down the street toward where Gunter saw the van turn earlier.

  GUNTER

  Which way was the van you saw going?

  JOY

  (points)

  That way.

  GUNTER

 
The opposite from mine. They may be working up and down the side streets.

  JOY

  Come on —

  EXT. LONDON STREETS, NIGHT—MONTAGE OF SHOTS

  Joy and Gunter on various dark streets, searching. BOBBIES WALKING the beat or IN CARS PASS THEM once or twice. Joy and Gunter nervously try to look normal, but beyond a couple of suspicious glances, they’re left alone.

  For a long time there’s no sight of a van, and the two of them become increasingly weary and dispirited. But just when they’ve nearly given up, an Erickson van PASSES them from behind. Not far behind comes a CAB. Gunter WATCHES the the van as it turns out of the street, ahead of them: Joy SPRINTS for the cab, HAILS it. It STOPS: they hurl themselves in.

  JOY

  (through the passenger-side window as she gets in)

  Follow that van! The little white one, yeah…

  The cab zooms away.

  EXT. LONDON STREETS / INT. CAB, NIGHT—MONTAGE OF SHOTS

  They follow the van—and follow it, and follow it. It drives for a long time, and the meter runs up, and up.

  GUNTER

  Do you have this much money?

  JOY

  Somewhere here…

  She starts going through her pockets. Gunter watches, amused.

  EXT. STREET OUTSIDE ERICKSON COMPUTERS—NIGHT

  The large shiny building we earlier saw from the inside. Down the road is a small bus terminus, where buses sit waiting for their runs to begin. Little SHOPS—coffee shop, newsagent, curry house—are nearby.

  The pursued van PASSES this terminus, comes to the Erickson building. OPENED by a guard, a gate GOES UP and the van goes down a DRIVEWAY and STOPS at a big ROLL-DOWN GARAGE DOOR. The driver LEANS OUT, swipes an ID card through a READER by the door. It OPENS: he drives into a parking-unloading facility underneath the building as the door CLOSES.

  The cab PULLS OVER half a block away and lets out its passengers. Joy pays the cabbie, comes away counting her change ruefully.

  JOY

  Not much of that left. How are we going to get back?

  GUNTER

  My mother used to say, “We will burn that bridge when we come to it.” What will you do now?

  JOY

  I’m coming with you.

  GUNTER

  Schatz’, you cannot just walk in there. I can. You must wait.

  He looks around, spots the coffee shop.

  GUNTER (CONT’D)

  Over there. Sit, have a cup of coffee. I will not be long.

  JOY

  “Shots?”

  Gunter reaches out to touch Joy’s cheek affectionately—then stops himself.

  JOY (CONT’D)

  Don’t. Just—be careful.

  Gunter nods, then heads toward the Erickson building.

  Outside it he slows down to examine the building. The front door is centrally placed. Access to the small round passenger-drop area in front of it is by a little road branching from the driveway by which the van entered the underground parking area, on the right side as Gunter faces the building. A wall joins the front of the building on the right side and curves behind it.

  Security cameras are here and there, but none seem to be covering the wall. Gunter makes for the wall and PASSES THROUGH IT; then THROUGH THE SKIN OF THE BUILDING.

  Joy watches Gunter go, then HEADS FOR the coffee shop.

  INT. ERICKSON COMPUTERS—NIGHT

  Gunter makes his way THROUGH THE BUILDING cautiously. Before entering a given space, he puts just enough of his FACE THROUGH A WALL to see in without being seen himself—a humorous but spooky effect. In this way he PASSES THROUGH several dark and unoccupied OFFICES: then PUTS HIS FACE THROUGH A GIRLIE CALENDAR on the wall of the downstairs security office and sees that it’s OCCUPIED. Gunter PULLS BACK quickly. (These through-matter passages make a tiny soft SOUND like an intake of breath, which can alert someone to them in a quiet place.)

  The GUARD in the office HEARS this little sound, GLANCES UP, sees nothing: goes back to his work. (NB: most of the people working in this building have no knowledge of their company’s traffic in “residuals”, and so will be as frightened by ghosts as anyone normally would.)

  Gunter BACKS OFF and tries another way, heading toward the side of the building where the vans were entering. He passes through more OFFICES, a CLOSET full of janitorial equipment, a LADIES’ ROOM (with slight embarrassment): comes into a stairwell: listens—hears nothing in the stairwell itself, but downstairs, the sound of VOICES, faint.

  Gunter goes down the stairs, then has to throw himself hastily through a wall to avoid being seen/run into by two TECHS throwing the “basement level” stairwell door open and going up the stairs.

  TECH 3

  Nah, it doesn’t bother me, it’s just the shapes they had when they were alive. They’re just sort of an ectoplasmic tape recording that plays itself over and over where they used to hang out. They can’t think, or feel anything.

  TECH 4

  I guess you’re right. It’s just the way they look, sometimes. That little girl…

  TECH 3

  I know…you hear them yelling, you feel bad at first. But it’s like lobsters when you drop ‘em in boiling water, they can’t really feel pain as such…

  Gunter’s head appears from the wall on hearing the line about the “little girl”. He looks angry. His face vanishes again.

  Another sequence of rooms: some dark and containing nothing but computer equipment. One of them is dark, but windowed, with Venetian blinds inside. Gunter peers cautiously out.

  Below is the main “shop floor” which lies underneath Erickson Computing: a large, windowless, high-ceilinged clean room. Toward its street side, there’s room for vans to drive in (an open roll-up garage door at one side leads to the driveway the van went down). The loading / unloading area is separated from the clean room by a floor-to-ceiling glass wall, with electric airlock doors. Two vans are parked here, and ND TECHNICIANS unload equipment from them, including two of the “portable pentagrams” as seen in the van earlier. They bring this equipment through into the clean space. Gunter looks down at it all in amazement and increasing horror.

  GUNTER

  Mein Gott, was ist das?

  In the middle of the floor, protected by a low railing, is a fifty-foot wide version of the portable pentagrams’ circular “motherboard”. The complex design of this master pentagram shimmers and sparkles with rainbow light, and a deeper, dissonant HUMMING noise comes from it. At the bottom point of the pentagram “star,” nearest the office where Gunter hides, is more electronic equipment. Against the far wall is an assembly line featuring large and small machinery, and some large, industrial style, heavy-duty fuse-boxes up on the wall. More ND TECHS are loading the machinery at the left-hand end with small objects impossible to make out at this distance, and removing and packaging what seem like the same small objects at the right-hand end of the line.

  One portable pentagram is brought over by a ND TECH to the equipment station near him, and mated to it. Switches are thrown, that HUM gets louder, and LIGHT AND COLOR FLOW from the portable pentagram into the main one. Gunter’s whole body is visibly PULLED OUT OF SHAPE toward the main pentagram. He he has to BRACE himself against the window to keep from being sucked in.

  And suddenly the middle of the master pentagram is FULL OF PEOPLE. Young and old, male and female, in the clothes of many time periods, they stare in fear, then rush to the edge of the pentagram, HAMMERING to get out. But the light shimmering around the circle keeps them in.

  At a larger control console, other switches are THROWN by another ND TECH. The lines of the star in the pentagram begin to GLOW. One by one, the people trapped inside are SUCKED toward those lines. As they SCREAM in horror, each person DISSOLVES into a whirl of SOULFIRE and is sucked into the pentagram circuitry. Each time a flash of LIGHT RUNS along the circuitry, out of the pentagram and down the cables and conduits leading to the “assembly line”.

  Gunter, hanging on to keep from bein
g pulled through the wall, watches as TECHS at the start of the assembly line feed in small CHIPS. Each is a smaller version of the pentagram design. Each time a pulse of light comes from the master pentagram, the machinery LASER-ENGRAVES the light and the soul trapped in it onto one of the chips. The chip then passes down the line to TECHS at the other end, who slip it into an anti-static envelope, then into labeled boxes: FOR ERICKSON SUPER*STAR PDA/SMARTPHONE, FOR ERICKSON STELLATION MULTICORE PC, FOR ERICKSON epsCETERA 360 SMART-SECRETARY, FOR ERICKSON MULTICASH INTELLIREGISTER, etc.

  The boxes are put into larger packing cases and loaded into Erickson vans, which drive away, each stopping at the garage door to swipe a door-opener card.

  The whole process goes on more or less continuously as emptied portable pentagrams are taken away and new ones slotted in.

  Gunter, horrified, has decided on a plan of action. He MELTS through the wall of that room into the next as a new portable pentagram is slotted into place and a TECH starts throwing its switches.

  Unseen, Gunter works his way around through the walls of the surrounding offices toward the assembly line. The “decanting” process starts again, but only a few people appear in the main pentagram. Gunter looks at it as he appears out of the concrete wall near the garage door, then REACTS with horror. In the middle of the pentagram, terrified, is Sarah.

  GUNTER (CONT’D)

  (sotto; horrified)

  Ach nein!

  Gunter RUNS runs out into the loading space, toward one of the small panel vans with a side door open; inside is an open TOOL KIT. Gunter grabs a WRENCH and SINKS down into the floor so that only the hand with the wrench sticks up. With great effort, like someone submerged in molasses, Gunter makes his way through the solid concrete behind a TECH who’s carrying in another portable pentagram. The Tech never sees him. Gunter stays close behind the Tech, following him in through the airlock and the barrier.

  On the far side the Tech goes one way, and Gunther’s hand and the wrench another, off behind a BIG MACHINE. In the middle of the room, more Techs prepare for the transfer of the souls to the chip-making machine. Gunter HAULS HIMSELF UP out of the floor, looking terrible—even a dead person has trouble going through so much solid matter in a hurry. Once on his feet, Gunter looks up at the big fuseboxes. They’re high up. But there’s a ladder hanging near a wall-mounted box that says FIRE and has other emergency equipment. Gunther grabs the ladder, puts it up against the wall.