by Daniel Slack
Introduction
This is apart of The DSU. A network of stories that support, expand and deepen each other across a complex and expanding universe.
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Titles include:
1. Inaffection: The Absence
Contacts:
@DanielSlackDSU
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Before we start...
This is a story told in the rough form of a screenplay - a movie.
This format works best with lower font sizes, especially on smaller devices.
If you've never read a screenplay, you'll need to know the following:
EXT - Exterior. Found in scene headers to indicate we are outside.
INT - Interior. Also found in scene headers, but to indicate we are inside.
(O.S) - Off screen. Found next to character names.
(V.O) - Voice over. Also found next to character names.
(CONT'D) - Continued. Used to indicate continued speech next to character names.
SUPER: - Superimpose. To indicate text is seen over images.
The rest should be self-explanatory.
Enjoy...
FADE IN:
INT. BRIAN'S BATHROOM - MORNING
BRIAN (V.O)
Hey, I'm Brian.
Brian looks in the mirror, nods, then continues inspecting his face having just woken up.
BRIAN (V.O)
I'm an astronaut, not a particularly good one, but, what do you know? That means you think I can't say my life is boring or mundane.
Brian walks away from the mirror leaving us with the reflection of an empty bathroom.
BRIAN (V.O)
Well... you at least don't want to hear me complaining that when I wipe my ass the shit is brown. Every single time. Really, the whole astronaut business for me is a step inside of a bigger plan, but more on that later.
A roll of toilet paper sits on top of the toilet tank.
EXT. CORRIDOR
Brian walks through his house, down the stairs, to the kitchen.
The walls are bare save a biological science degree from Oxford University. The rest of the house is unremarkable, modern, seemingly expensive, nothing exciting.
BRIAN (V.O)
To be an astronaut, you used to have to have degrees from universities, thousands of hours of flight time, a blood pressure of one-hundred and forty over ninety and all that other shit anyone could find on the NASA astronaut requirements page. I guess it's still like that for the most part, but, times change.
INT. KITCHEN
Brian walks in, pours himself a cup of orange juice then sits down to drink it.
INT. EMPTY ROOM - WHITE BACKDROP - DAY
Brian stands, arms crossed, with 7 red plates spinning on 7 sticks about as tall as him.
BRIAN (V.O)
I do have a degree in biological science, but I also know how to spin plates. So what does that say?
INT. BRIAN'S KITCHEN - MORNING
Brian finishes his orange juice.
BRIAN
(to us)
Now, I don't work for NASA, at least not directly.
INT. COCKPIT OF A SMALL PLANE - DAY
Brian is wearing a red baseball cap and chewing gum.
BRIAN
I just fly planes...
INT. COCKPIT OF A FIGHTER JET - DAY
Wearing a flight helmet and speaking into a noise attenuation microphone.
BRIAN
... some jets...
INT. TRUCK CABIN - DAY
A blue worn out baseball cap.
BRIAN
... trucks, like the big eighteen wheelers, and other less impressive automobiles, you know, cars, bikes and so on.
INT. A TRAIN CAB - DAY
A YOUNGER BRIAN, sits excitedly in the front of a train.
YOUNGER BRIAN
I even drove a train one time when I was sixteen...
INT. COCKPIT OF A SPACE SHUTTLE - DAY
Brian sits in front of a massive control panel wearing casual clothes.
BRIAN
... but, what I'm really interested in is piloting spacecrafts.
Brian steps out of what is now clearly a model spacecraft cockpit in an empty museum. He walks past the plane and jet he was also sat in as he talks:
BRIAN
Despite being able to pilot any machine you throw at me, there's no place to drive one like space.
Brian stops, leans against a tank and smiles.
INT. BRIAN'S KITCHEN - MORNING
He takes his cup to the sink and starts washing up all the dishes.
BRIAN
To get into space is easy. I think the going rate for tickets to the orbit tour thing is only something like a couple of hundred. But, the only way you fly into space nowadays is to become an astronaut. For a while about thirty years ago, if you had the money, you could get your own space rocket, you know, a small one, and blast off. But, then some political bullshit lead to the united global government, U-G-G for future reference, saying no to that and locking down the skies so that only companies such as PNL, I don't know what that one stands for, could turn space into a tourist attraction. PNL also deals with a lot of satellite construction. Not the ones used for T.V and such, but structures like the hundreds of United Globe space stations. I'm a contracted pilot that works between NASA and PNL, basically for the government. What I do is fly workers and cargo between Earth and the space stations. Occasionally, I might get some real astronaut work.
EXT. FLIGHT DECK - DAY
Brian stands in front of a spacecraft on a busy flight deck of a colossal aircraft carrier.
Quite a way above Brian's head is the name SCARLETT in red on the nose of what looks like a bulky cargo plane crossed with a military jet.
BRIAN
This is a P-X-six-nine-two, I call her Scarlett. She is mine. She has a wingspan of three-hundred metres and is about three-hundred and seventy-five metres long. That's five times bigger than your average Boeing triple seven--or seven, seven, seven, however you want to say it. Scarlett can travel three-hundred-thousand kilometres on one tank of fuel. That's almost to the moon. And can do so in an average of twelve hours. Oh, I love her. I don't need to say that though. For one reason, she already knows, and for another, she can't hear me from here.
INT. SCARLETT'S COCKPIT - DAY
Brian sits in the cockpit seat facing the massive windscreen of his spacecraft.
BRIAN
But, she can hear me now. Hey, Scarlett.
SCARLETT
Hello, Brian.
BRIAN
Her voice is just so sexy. If I haven't heard it in a while it'll give me the shivers. She reminds me of Samantha, that AI computer app thing in Her, except our technology isn't that advanced yet. But, I'm still waiting on that update, you know, fingers crossed.
INT. BRIAN'S HOUSE - MORNING
Brian dries his hands at the sink in the kitchen and walks back upstairs.
BRIAN
You might say my life is good and maybe I could agree. I've got a nice home, a good job and just the best girl. It's just too bad that Scarlett's so into her work. But anyways, I mentioned that this whole astronaut bit is just apart of a bigger plan. Don't worry I haven't forgotten that. Do you remember the part where I said I have a biology degree. I think I showed you it... anyway, biology is my mistress. Don't look at me like I'm a bad guy, Scarlett knows, she just doesn't want to hear about it. So, you know, keep it shtum.
Brian walks through a door with the word LAB written in red tape on it.
INT. BRIAN'S LAB - MORNING
Brian stands in front of a microscope and an array of multi coloured specimen tubes and Petri dishes. He we
ars red gastight chemical protective overalls.
BRIAN
I wanted to get some blue overalls, but I could only find them in red. It was that or yellow, so...
Brian picks up a specimen tube.
BRIAN
This is the reason I have to wear this ridiculous thing and had to pay nearly a quarter of a million to retrofit this room into a lab. This is malaria...
Brian puts down the specimen and picks up three more.
BRIAN
This is mad cow disease, this is smallpox and this is HIV. These are the reasons I went to university--or college, if that's your persuasion. First to study biology and secondly to study virology. I only managed the degree in biology though. My virology professors were not nice people. Long story short, some people got ill and I had to get out out of university only having achieved my biology degree. That's what pushed me into the astronauting business, well, that and my piloting abilities. Not to brag, but I'm pretty talented.
He puts down the specimens.
BRIAN
Nowadays, no kid wants to be an astronaut. We're like the truckers of space, those guys in Alien. All the commercialism that has polluted space travel has also polluted children's perspectives of trained pilots who go out into space. They all want to be superheroes and fight Godzilla. The scary thing is someday soon that might be possible. That's why little Timmy and Betty want to grow up to be scientists. So they can fuck around with the genes of what used to be chickens, they're all called something different now though, or to screw with gravitons and various forms of dark energy. I'm going off on a tangent, so to get back on track, this is N-S-V-I-three, the non-specific virus inhibitor, three.
Brian gestures over to a silver silo.
BRIAN
This has the capacity to store tens of thousands of different viruses by completely neutralizing them so they are like comatosed death balls floating around, waiting to get in your body and make you piss your intestines and shit blood. But, what is even scarier than that machine is this...
He steps to the side revealing a small grey box with a specimen tube loaded into it.
BRIAN
This has no formal name. It is simply known as The Box. This is my very own invention, it's like a giant cell as it serves as an environment that viruses can be born into. In short, it can actually control the process of viral reproduction. That's just one function. If I feed it the right proteins, there are nucleotides within the machine that will form into DNA with lethal gene sequences. Viruses are like people, well, people are like viruses. To assume that we have a genetic predisposition, we can manipulate genes to manipulate behaviour. If the machine pieces together the right DNA strand it can produce a virus that'll behave in any way I want it to. All I have to do is hook up The Box to my computer and upload a code. In no time I can produce FUX eight, a virus of my own design that will make you shit blood until you die. And you thought I was joking before. I haven't managed to code a virus that'll make you piss your intestines yet. I'm still working on that one.
INT. SCARLETT'S CARGO BAY - DAY
Standing next to an open container with a chrome plated silo in it, Brian gasps.
BRIAN
You remember this guy? Well, no you don't because you haven't seen him before. This is N-S-V-I-two. He does exactly what three does just at a lower capacity. Packed in here I've got a whole load of airborne viruses of my own design as well as some of the classics such as HIV, influenza and hepatitis. These have been modified to be airborne and much more dangerous. With N-S-V-I-two we are going to fuck some shit up.
Brian closes the doors of the container, puts his fingers to his lips and walks off.
INT. SCARLETT'S COCKPIT - DAY
Brian is back in his seat looking out onto an ocean that meets a perfectly blue sky miles away on the horizon.
BRIAN
To quote some guy some teacher told me about in some class: control is 'an intrinsic necessity of life itself'. I don't know much about the guy, but he was right there. Without control a person understands that they have nothing in this world, though it may be true nobody likes to know it. Whether you believe in free will, a God or even the law, you conform to this idea of ownership and non-objective causality. The world revolves around one thing and that is the self, at least to an individual. All substance in this world: what you like, what you dislike, what you love, what you detest is a product of your mind. Everything only means what you tell yourself it does. So, if we don't have a sense of control, the ability to affect, we mean nothing to our environment.
SCARLETT
Sorry to interrupt, Brian, but orders are in.
BRIAN
It's ok, warm up and when you're ready, let's get up in the air.
The whole cockpit begins to hum. Brian brings his seat forward and straps himself in.
BRIAN
Control is best when microcosmic. People like to run a household, but as a part of a community that will sell them food, collect their rubbish and so on. A community only exists because someone is running a town or city making sure the government of a country funds public transport, schools and hospitals. Countries were run by political parties or monarchies, countries are now run by U-G-G. People like to have control over controlled situations, so I figure, if the world became fully connected through wires, waves, roads and a certain degree of peace, which gave rise to the U-G-G... why shouldn't I have a go at controlling an already controlled situation? The U-G-G and in turn, the world.
SCARLETT
Ok, Brian, we're ready.
Brian turns to us and smiles.
BRIAN
Yes, we are.
INT. SCARLETT'S COCKPIT - LATER
On the way to the docking station Brian is bored, autopilot is on and he has nothing to do.
BRIAN
Scarlett, you know who you're named after?
SCARLETT
No.
BRIAN
I haven't told you before?
SCARLETT
No.
BRIAN
(to us)
Maybe she's just being polite.
(to her)
What do you know about movies?
SCARLETT
Nothing I'm afraid.
BRIAN
Well, there's this one called Gone With The Wind. You, my dear Scarlett, are named after the lead. Scarlett O'Hara.
SCARLETT
Oh?
BRIAN
Oh? Where'd you get off saying 'oh'?
(imitates)
Oh?
SCARLETT
What do you mean?
BRIAN
Nothing. Anyhow, you should know, Scarlett O'Hara is an anomaly, a paradox.
SCARLETT
Oh?
BRIAN
(shaking his head)
Yes. You see, in film, characters, especially the leads, must be likeable, or understandable. If they're not, then the film, it could be The Godfather, All About Eve or Fargo, will be absolute shit. For me at least. There's no point in watching if there's nobody to take us through the story.
SCARLETT
This is quite hard to follow.