A Monster and a Gentleman

by Lila Dubois

  There was a touch on his shoulder, and Oren looked up. Jo, a pretty, artsy woman with dark hair sporting one icy-blue stripe near the front, smiled at him. “I forgot to say hi. Hi, Oren.”

  He chuckled. “Hello, Jo.”

  “You don’t need to say hi. We see him every day.” Cali bitched from behind them.

  “I’ve told you before, I’m sure they have medication for whatever’s wrong with you.” Jo returned to the couches, taking a seat next to Cali even as they continued sniping at each other.

  “There’s nothing wrong with me.”

  “Denial. A symptom, wouldn’t you agree, Oren?”

  “Leave me out of this.”

  “You’re getting bitchier as you get skinnier,” Cali told Jo.

  “What can I say? Amazing sex burns calories.”

  Oren had a very brief image of Jo having sex with her boyfriend—he was one of the monsters, but unlike the ones who were acting in the movie, Jo’s guy Tokaki turned into a massive white tiger almost as long as a freight car from the tip of his tail to his nose. The mental image of them having sex made hentai tentacle porn look tame.

  “Jesus,” Oren murmured. He finally had the best shots cued up and in order. “Ready?” he asked over his shoulder.

  “Yes—wait, there’s more people coming,” Jo said, ignoring Cali’s groan of frustration.

  Though the dailies didn’t need to be seen by anyone but Cali and her assistant directors, as the production went on more department heads showed up every day. Some were just curious, he was sure, but others had realized that since the monsters wouldn’t adapt to the world they created the way animator-created computer monsters would, they had to pay more attention to what the actors looked like, how they moved and what fit their scale.

  Pete Bierbaum, the special effects supervisor, was the first one in. He only recently lost his dazed look. In charge of all the real effects—things in the camera, such as blowing up cars—he’d been having a field day since he realized that if he wanted one of the actors to chuck a car across the road, he could just ask them to chuck a car across the road—no rigging, engineers or expense besides the car itself. This had more than doubled what he could do with his budget, and the man had developed a borderline obsession with having the monsters drop stuff from fifty feet up, just to watch it crash.

  He was followed by the VFX supervisor. Visual effects were the big men and women on campus on most movies, and Catherine seemed at a bit of a loss as to what she’d be doing. They’d made a good choice in VFX—Catherine was good and creative. She’d take the footage, which was already amazing, and make it more so.

  The location manager, Nell, took a seat on the floor by Jo, opening a binder and pointing to what were probably photos of upcoming locations. Jo was responsible for the overall look of the movie, and that meant she had to okay all locations. Since those locations also had to be cleared through the producers and Cali, the LM’s job was not one Oren envied.

  More above-the-line people filtered in, including the assistant directors, casting director—who had to vet all principal actors to make sure they wouldn’t freak when they saw the monsters—special effects makeup and the director of photography, who was wearing a shirt that said Show Me Where to Point the Camera.

  “Play it,” Cali demanded.

  There was silence as the scenes played on the massive main monitor. The film was raw even though it was digital, with the scene timings and tags running along the bottom. The sound wasn’t fully synched yet, so not all the dialogue came through, but it was enough.

  When it was done playing, Oren turned in his seat. He scanned the faces, seeing awe, shock, thoughtfulness and anxiety.

  “It’s good.” The assembled group looked to the door, where Margo, one of the producers, stood. Her dark hair tumbled around her in waves and her ever-present clipboard rested on her hip. “Good job with the kiss. The stuff I saw last night was bad.”

  “Don’t say bad,” Cali stood, wading through the group. “But yeah, it sucked. They worked it out.”

  “Good job, everyone.” Margo nodded, then she and Cali left the room.

  Little by little, the others filtered out, many stopping to chat or asking to see a particular scene. When they were gone, Oren leaned back in his chair. Checking his watch, he saw that it was just after two. He could drive an hour to his place in North Hollywood, get a few hours of sleep and then drive to set. Or he could just crash on one of the couches here.

  Grabbing a pillow from a desk drawer, he ambled over to the couches. He’d forgotten how long the days were, how tiring and frustrating it could be.

  He closed his eyes, a smile creeping over his face. It was good to be back.

  Hollywood Heartbeat

  Monsters are Real!

  We were planning on showing you exclusive stills from Calypso Production’s untitled film, but it’s not about the film anymore. It’s about the actors.

  Check this: the actors aren’t human. That’s right, those hotties who’ve been showing up all over the red carpet along with the lovely Akta Patel aren’t human. They’re monsters.

  Real monsters.

  Don’t believe me? Think I smoked some bad stuff? Here are the stills from the production.

  That’s right, you’re looking at a monster embracing, or killing, Akta. Some of you are going to say that it’s just really good effects, but remember this—no special effects house is working with them. ILM, Zoic…none of them are associated with this movie.

  Maybe it’s puppets?

  Nope, Jim Henson Studios has never heard of them. Handspring says no too.

  AND this is a shot from the production footage. Not the post footage.

  No CGI, no live-action puppetry. How are they doing this?

  A source on the production confirms the actors are real monsters who can change into humans at will.

  MONSTERS ARE REAL.

  It’s not about the movie anymore, people. It’s about these monsters. Where’s the CIA? FBI? Those people from Roswell? We want to know the truth about this movie and who these actors are NOW.

  The next morning, Oren jogged from the parking lot into the Calypso Production offices in Miracle Mile. Forty-five minutes ago he’d been in the shower, finally jumping out after his phone rang for the fifth time in a row.

  In the thirty-second conversation he’d had with Lena, he’d gone from sleepy and irritated at all the phone calls to shocked and horrified. He’d raced from his apartment, still wet from his shower. As he took the stairs two at a time, he could feel his shirt clinging to his back, his jeans sticking uncomfortably where they’d absorbed the water off his skin.

  They were waiting in the conference room. The doors were all propped open and as his footsteps echoed on the tile he saw the five co-owners seated around the conference table.

  Oren dropped into a chair and looked at the grim faces. “I pulled up the blog in the car on the way here.”

  “Fucking blogs,” Cali snarled.

  “You love Hollywood Heartbeat,” Lena said quietly. The blonde beauty was perfectly put together, despite the fact that it was a day off.

  “I did when they were reporting on the writers’ strike. Now they’re just another shitty tabloid.”

  “Tabloid or not,” Oren said, not wanting to listen to the women fight, “they have shots from the footage.”

  “We’re sure they’re not just paparazzi photos?” Akta was twirling her hair into a rope.

  “No.” Oren looked at his phone. “You can see the top of the numbering in the still. They cropped most of it off but didn’t get it all.”

  “And they said that it’s a shot from the film.” Margo’s words hung in the air.

  Oren stared at his phone, mind whirling. “Someone from the production must have given it to them.”

  The room seemed to take a collective breath.

  “Maybe not…” Akta looked around, seeming hopeful that Oren was wrong.

  “It has to be. They call them m
onsters. Why that word? Is that the first word that pops to mind when you see them? No. Gargoyle, or demon, is closer. Monster is what they call themselves, and yet that’s what the blog said too.” Jane’s words were clipped and hard, as if she were spitting them out.

  Margo rubbed her arms. “They know that the human actors we’ve been sending out on publicity runs are the same as the monsters in the footage. That isn’t shown on the tape, there’s no transformation in this scene, so whoever gave it to the blog also told them about the changing.”

  Margo’s eyes rested on him and Oren stiffened. Straightening, he looked around the table. Five pairs of eyes rested on him. While Lena and Jane’s gazes were carefully shuttered, Cali and Margo’s were openly accusatory and Akta just looked worried.

  His back teeth ground together. How could they think he’d betray them?

  “You think I did this?”

  “You’re damn right I do.” Cali leapt out of her seat.

  Lena put a hand on her arm and said, “Did you?”

  “Of course not.” Their accusation was like fire in his belly. “How could you think that I did this?”

  There was a moment of silence. Oren let out a harsh laugh and rested his head on his palms. “Of course. Ask the drug addict. If there’s a crime anywhere within a five-mile radius, he’s probably at fault.”

  Anger at the accusation twined with a familiar feeling of resignation. At the height of his fame, with every hot young director begging for him, two Oscars under his belt and more money than he’d ever dreamed of having, he’d been living the life—including a raging coke addition. For a year he’d been fine—a functioning addict—but then there came a time when he couldn’t do the work. Full of himself and driven by drugs, he’d insisted he could do it and destroyed reels of footage, mangled a movie and exposed himself as an addict and an asshole to friends and colleagues alike. He’d become the poster boy for how drugs could destroy a career, even in Hollywood, where coke had been built into movie budgets at that time.

  Ten years later, and eight years sober, he was still haunted by his past. This movie was going to be his big comeback.

  At least, he’d hoped it would.

  “Don’t act all hurt. You’re the one who fucked us, fucked us all. Do you have any idea how screwed we are?” Cali was practically vibrating with rage.

  “Yes, I do. And I’m not acting like anything. I didn’t do this. I wouldn’t have.”

  “Oh really? Because from here you look like a pretty good suspect.”

  “This is just on one entertainment blog right now. If you stopped wasting your time accusing me of something I didn’t do based on my past, we might be able to get in front of this.”

  Rumor and talk had helped ruined his career once. He didn’t want it ruined again.

  “Maybe you gave the footage to a friend or showed it to someone without realizing?” Lena said diplomatically.

  “Of course not. Why, besides my past, do you think I did it?”

  “Fuck you being a druggie, everybody in Hollywood was fifteen years ago. You’re the damned editor! You’re the only one with the footage.” Margo’s voice was tight and angry.

  Oren blinked. “Oh.” He sat back and cleared his throat. When she said it like that, it made sense.

  “Oren. If you tell us who you gave it to, we won’t pursue the breach of contract.” Lena’s voice was still level, though now that he really looked he could see the strain on her face.

  Every person working on the film had signed huge, comprehensive confidentiality agreements. They were common, especially for movies that needed their plots kept secret.

  “If I had any idea, I would tell you, I swear, but I didn’t do this. I wouldn’t. Not only would I not hurt any of you or the guys, but look at it from my perspective. This movie is my comeback. I don’t want to risk that.”

  That gave them pause.

  “I don’t have as much to lose as Luke and Runako and Henry, in the global sense, but as far as my life and my career, I do have a lot at stake.”

  “That does make sense, and I want to assure you that our suspicions are mostly rooted in the fact that as the editor, you have access to the footage.”

  “Mostly, but not all.”

  Lena’s gaze met his. “No, not all.”

  Oren nodded his acceptance of that. Addicts couldn’t be trusted. He knew that, better than most, but after so many years sober, it hurt to hear it.

  “Great. I’m glad we all had that moment. Let’s get back to the problem.” Cali drummed her fingers on the table. Lena grabbed Cali’s hand, stilling the motion, before speaking.

  “Good point, Cali. Oren, who else could have accessed that footage?”

  He sat back for a moment, working through possibilities. “The only editing bay currently set up is the one I use. Before I go to the set for the night, I move that day’s footage onto the server and off my computer. The server is hardwired, with no wireless connection, so no one accessed it remotely.”

  “So you mean that whoever copied this must have done it two days ago, when we were looking at that footage on the dailies?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the only place to access it is your computer?” Margo was taking notes, a line forming between her brows as she frowned.

  “This is not making you look any less guilty.” Cali was pacing now, Lena having given up on restraining her.

  Oren ignored her. “In theory, someone could have downloaded that footage from the server if they were in the building, but access to the server is password protected.” Oren rubbed his temple. “My computer doesn’t have a password, so they probably got it from there. However, whoever did it would need to know AVID.” The video editing software was not the sort of thing that anyone but a professional in the industry would have experience with.

  “That narrows it down,” Akta said.

  “Not really.” Margo was frowning at her notes. “Almost everyone on the crew has been to film school, which means they’ve all taken classes in it.”

  Everyone started talking at once as theories and accusations flew around the room. Oren went to Jane, who for the most part stayed out of the fray.

  “Where are the guys?” Oren wanted to tell them in person that he hadn’t been the one to leak their secret.

  “We kept them away.” Jane, looking sweet and kind with her blond hair in a braid, eyes blue and bright, shook her head. “They would have killed you before you had a chance to say you didn’t do it.”

  That was a sobering thought. He’d seen Runako throw a car thirty feet—several cars actually, they’d done multiple takes. He didn’t want to think about what any of them were capable of doing to a human body.

  “Well, thank you.”

  “I’m sorry we accused you.”

  “It’s okay…I’m used to it.”

  Jane’s eyes softened. “I really am sorry. We’re all just so upset.”

  “I understand.”

  “Ladies, and Oren.” Lena tapped her pen on the table to get their attention. “Let’s pull ourselves together. The logical place to start is with the blog.”

  For the next hour, they made plans. When they were done, everyone had an assignment. Oren’s was simple enough—check his computer and see what he could discover about the file being copied.

  He left, leaving the women still debating. He’d do what they asked and check in on the files, but he was also going to look into this himself. His reputation, and his future, were on the line.

  Chapter Three

  “We’ve been betrayed.” Luke’s words were low and quiet.

  They were in a clearing high in the hills of Griffith Park. The park, used by Angelinos for hiking, picnicking and stargazing, had become their retreat. Only a small portion of America’s largest urban wilderness had roads and trails to make it accessible to humans, which meant they were safe—or so they hoped.

  They’d adapted to living here, each in their own way and their own time. From Luke, whose l
ove for human culture, particularly movies, was the root of this effort, to Runako, who had once been their greatest opposition.

  But while they’d learned to live and move in the human city, it was not built for them, and they’d each found themselves forced to spend more and more of each day in their human forms. There were times when they wanted to wear their own skin, to feel the power of their true bodies.

  Times like now.

  Luke, Henry, Michael, Runako, Seling and Tokaki were in their true forms, standing or sitting silently in clearing. No one answered Luke’s statement. There was a tension to their silence and stillness, as if each was afraid to express the anger that boiled in them. Afraid what they would do in their anger.

  “What do we do?” Seling asked.

  “We let the females investigate.” Luke was confident in his beloved, sure she could get to the bottom of this, and if she couldn’t do it herself, she’d know who to hire.

  “That will take time. Now it’s just that one website, but in the time it takes them to investigate others may decide to take the blog seriously.” Henry, whose normally pale blue skin had turned black with anger, leaned against a tree.

  He was a purer black even than Runako, who stood with arms folded, gaze focused on the ground.

  “What other options are there?” Tokaki asked in the old language.

  “Can’t you read their minds?” Henry asked.

  “I’ll try, but humans who are upset and worried are hard to hear.”

  “Maybe you’ll overhear someone thinking about it.”

  “Yes.” Tokaki nodded his massive head. “I will keep trying, but there is no guarantee I will ever find the person. If they are smart, they will avoid us or be careful to pretend to be on our side.”

  They fell silent for a moment. Finally, Luke said, “We knew this was a possibility. We knew what we risked.”

  “As it stands, if we back out, we won’t be safe. They have enough video from the movie that the humans would come looking for us.” Michael’s voice was carefully neutral.