EXT. HOTEL -- THAT NIGHT
Elias and Sasha, dressed very well,
hustling into the lobby.
ELIAS
You know, the more I think about
it,
the more I kinda
like the idea of
heading up the main costume play
committee myself...
SASHA
Take it easy. You’ve got enough
on
your plate as it
is, just writing
HARUNA.
FLASH SHOT
Of the costume players dressing each
other. This is the
same
"dressing room shot" we saw before... except we see
more of it. At the very end of the line of
dressers: YING
QUAN. Watching
the other costume players with cool, spying
eyes.
BACK TO SCENE -- CONTINUOUS
ELIAS
It just sounds like fun, that’s
all.
I’m rolling
again and enjoying myself!
And in a way I don’t want to miss
any
of the
fun.
SASHA
You won’t.
She pushes open the double doors to
--
INT. BALLROOM -- CONTINUOUS
Where the SAME DANCE that we saw in
Elias’s fantasy is
taking
place. The same decor, everything. And at the
center of it all...
HARUNA AND THE PRINCE, CHEEK TO
CHEEK
Elias sees them, and his breath is
sucked away.
Specifically, SHE
takes his breath away.
Elias is being announced by the FOOTMAN
by the door, but he
doesn’t
really hear it. He steps closer to her...
And then Haruna CHANGES PARTNERS on the
Prince, JUST LIKE
SHE DID IN
THE FANTASY. And her new partner is ELIAS.
For a moment they just dance, looking
at each other.
ELIAS
(approvingly)
Haruna, I presume.
HARUNA
Elias
Marlowe.
(beat)
What do you think of me?
ELIAS
I think I’m pretty goddamned
impressed.
I mean --
not just the look or the
costumes or whatnot, but... you
move
the way I
imagined she would move. You
sound like her. How the
hell?!
He laughs; she laughs with him.
HARUNA
We -- I -- made some calculated
guesses. I suppose they
paid off.
ELIAS
Say, I hope he doesn’t get jealous
on
you. That being in
the script and
all...
Elias shoots a glance over at the
Prince, who is completely
ignoring them; he’s sampling the punch
bowl.
HARUNA
No, we’re not that far into our
roles.
Yet.
They both share another laugh.
HARUNA
May I ask you a question about
your
last book?
About VALIS?
ELIAS
Sure.
HARUNA
Why did you kill VALIS? In terms
of
the story, it was
what made sense...
but I still want to know what you were
thinking.
ELIAS
I’m not sure I follow you...
HARUNA
In every book in the series Valis
has
climbed higher
and higher. In the
beginning he was a brute animal. He
went from being a soldier to a spy to
a
diplomat to a
general... up and up and
up. The only real end for that kind
of
ascension is for
him to become a god.
This woman is clearly smart. It’s
intimidating him a bit.
ELIAS
Wait -- stop! You didn’t say a
"god".
You said, for
him to die was what made
sense.
HARUNA
How else do you become a
god?
She’s got him there. He’s
fascinated.
ELIAS
So who are you, really? Outside of
the
outfit and the
stuff I wrote.
HARUNA
Is it so important?
ELIAS
It’s important to me. I want to
know
what’s going
through the mind of
someone looking into my work and seeing
something looking back at them.
HARUNA
I can’t give you the answers now.
But
I can tell you
where to go to find the
answers.
She steps back from him as the dance
ends.
HARUNA
Three Hundred Conduit Drive,
Plaza
Zero. Come by
tomorrow anytime after
noon.
Elias grins broadly.
ELIAS
I’ll bring lunch.
He steps back from her as she is drawn
back into the crowd.
It takes
him a lot of work to catch his breath.
ELIAS
(sotto voce)
Holy flying baby shit, what a
woman.
INT. DRESSING ROOM
Ying Quan, dressed as one of the women
in Haruna’s
entourage, slips
back in. No one else about. She slips out
the back door.
INT. HALLWAY NEAR RESTROOMS
Ying Quan enters; loiters near the
ladies’ room.
Elias hustles up
the hall a few moments later and heads into
the men’s room.
Without hesitating, Ying Quan follows.
INT. MEN’S ROOM
No one except for Ying Quan and Elias
(about to enter a
stall). Just
as Elias swings the door shut --
BANG!! Ying Quan THROWS herself against
it.
Elias is HIT in the temple with the
corner of the door.
Dazed.
Ying Quan jerks a HOOD over his head.
Seizes Elias’s tie and gets him into a
CHOKEHOLD.
Drags him out in
front of the sinks.
Someone else emerges from another
stall. It’s Foster.
He cocks
his fist and BASHES Elias once, twice. Elias
slumps.
FOSTER
(to Ying
Quan)
Okay. Gimme it.
Ying Quan gives up a GUN that resembles
the others.
Foster dumps it in
a toilet and FLUSHES.
YING
QUAN
Looks like we
didn’t need it after all.
INT. HALLWAY
Ying Quan and Foster drag-propel the
now-limp now-blind
Elias
towards a rear door and exit to...
EXT. REAR ALLEY
...where they drag Elias into a waiting
CAR. VRRROOOMM!
Tires SPIT
GRAVEL and bite into the road. The car zooms
off.
INT. BALLROOM
Sasha looks at her watch; looks
around. Confused.
Walks over
to Haruna.
SASHA
Excuse me -- have you seen
Elias
anywhere?
HARUNA
Not since I danced with him.
INT. CAR -- MOVING
Elias, dazed, slowly shrugs off his
dizziness.
ELIAS
I didn’t order a limo...
YING QUAN
We did.
She leans on him in a manner that is
anything but
suggestive.
Elias tries to keep his sense of humor
about him.
ELIAS
"We". Okay, "we" is good.
"We"
implies multiple
conspirators, people
with identifiable voices --
Foster socks him in the stomach. Elias
retches and shuts
up.
INT. BALLROOM
The whole place is being thrown into a
quiet hysteria.
Every side
room, every closet is being checked, with people
SHOUTING back and forth to each other.
Everyone’s pocket
PHONE seems
to be RINGING at once.
Sasha is
standing very, very still and looking very angry.
A COP comes over to her, with something
on a dessert tray.
COP
We found this in one of the
toilets.
It’s what’s left of the GUN.
INT. WHITE ROOM
Blindingly bright. Everyone is a hazy
smudge.
Elias, still hooded, is half-dragged
and half-wrestled into
the room
by Ying Quan and Foster. His feet SKID and SQUEAK
on the floors.
Sitting at the other end of the room is
SLAZENGER.
SLAZENGER
Give the man a
chair.
Elias is strapped into a large chair.
The hood is folded
back enough
for his mouth to be revealed, but nothing else.
SLAZENGER
Can you hear me,
Elias?
ELIAS
Yeah... who is this? Where--
SLAZENGER
Good. I want you to listen
carefully.
I’m about
to give you some information
that could save your life.
ELIAS
Oh, yeah?
SLAZENGER
Foster, loosen him up, would
you?
Foster takes a rubber CLUB and slams it
into Elias’s side.
Elias
wheezes and writhes.
SLAZENGER
Shut up and
listen to what I’m telling
you. You and this make-believe,
this
adult playtime
you’ve spun for yourself
and others -- this cesspool --
this
legitimized
masturbation fantasy. It’s
a big mistake, Elias.
Elias, still wheezing, tries to suck
air back into his
lungs.
SLAZENGER
Once upon a time people used
to burn
the books
they didn’t want other people
to read. I keep thinking, they
had
half the right
idea, anyway. They just
didn’t go far enough.
ELIAS
...the fuck are you talking
about?
SLAZENGER
Every story that’s ever been
told is a
lie. We’re
out to destroy all the
lies, Elias.
Foster and Ying Quan look on with cold
eyes.
YING QUAN
Beginning with burying
you.
Elias is now shaking openly.
SLAZENGER
In a little while, you will
be sent
home. You
will not be permanently
injured -- but you will have more
than
enough to
remember us by. You will
have sixty days to reconsider
your
position. If in
that time you have
not, at the very least, removed your
books from the market, we will
destroy
you. -- This
is not a request.
ELIAS
Wait -- this is stupid
--
SLAZENGER (TO
FOSTER)
No permanent
damage, okay?
His words are knocked out of his mouth
by Foster’s bruising
fists.
Over and over, until the room goes HAZY.
Somehow he is no longer wearing the
hood. Is he
hallucinating?
The straps on the chair come loose.
Elias tries to stand
and
plummets to the floor. He rolls over... sees the FACES
clustered over him...
...And one of them is HARUNA, reaching
down to help him up.
Her hand
is strong around his; he stands...
ELIAS
Help me stand up... on my own
feet...
...But she’s not there. He’s wounded
and delirious, and the
floor is
rushing up to greet him. WHAM! BLACKOUT.
CROSSFADE TO:
INT. HOSPITAL WARD -- NIGHT
Elias, in bed, seen from overhead.
Asleep. Drugged.
Lying on his
side with his ribs taped.
SASHA
He had two sprung ribs and a
punctured
lung when
they found him. It’ll be at
least a day before he’s in any
condition to tell us what
happened.
HARUNA
And no one saw him leave. Or
be
removed.
SASHA
We’re following up on that now.
Not
everything’s
going to come at once.
(beat)
We’ll need to get a statement from
you.
ANOTHER ANGLE -- SASHA AND
HARUNA
Are watching Elias from behind a CLEAR
PARTITION.
But Sasha is
actually looking more at Haruna -- at the way
she’s looking at Elias. Haruna’s face is
uncommonly RAPT.
SASHA
(to Haruna)
Come on. He doesn’t even
know we’re
here.
Haruna nods, not looking
away.
CUT TO:
INT. HARUNA’S ROOMS --
NIGHT
Rooms, plural. Not just one room, but
a honeycomb-like maze
of them.
Doorways gape open to some rooms; others lead into
and out of each other through ramps and little
staircases.
It looks like a
museum that someone tore all the exhibits
out of and decided to live in.
Haruna stands at a dresser, examining
her half-dressed self
in a
full-length mirror. She steps back and yanks out the
SWORD that seems a staple prop for the
character.
She fences with the air. Her movements
are a near-perfect
match for
the fantasy version of her we saw earlier...
except this time the camera regards her with
flat-out
realism.
HARUNA’S VOICE
(taunting)
You’re in love.
A FANTASY HARUNA, like the one Elias
ran with, sits in a
chair on
the other side of the room. Smirking at the "real"
Haruna.
The other Haruna turns and looks a
little startled, but
relaxes.
HARUNA
I like what I see in him. What’s
wrong
with
that?
FANTASY HARUNA
You liked what you saw in
me, too.
Nothing
wrong with that.
HARUNA
Well... What do you think of
what we’ve
created so
far?
Haruna gestures around. Fantasy Haruna
looks at the room(s)
approvingly.
FANTASY HARUNA
All this for what you see in
me...
HARUNA
We threw away a lot of what we were
to
be this. I hope
it was worth it.
Fantasy Haruna shakes her head.
FANTASY HARUNA
I’m not obliged to tell you
that.
You’re going
into uncharted territory
here, all of you. Personally...
I
can’t wait to see
what happens.
Haruna slices the air again with her
sword.
Fantasy Haruna is
gone.
Haruna brings up the sword in a sharp
salute.
HARUNA
(to herself)
You’re going to love it.
INT. ELIAS’S APARTMENT --
AFTERNOON
Elias, alone, propped up in bed, with
the Haruna books --
the
originals -- in his lap. He’s staring down at them,
working his mouth around, crimping his fingers.
Getting up
his nerve.
ELIAS
Fuck it.
He slides a finger under the seal of
the second book and
breaks
it.
LATER
Elias is reading the books. A strange
expression on his
face, like
he’s seeing something he doesn’t want to.
RAPID FOOTSTEPS getting closer
--
INT. MANSION CORRIDORS --
NIGHT (FANTASY)
The fantasy Haruna and her band of men
and women are moving
as quickly
and silently as they can through opulent
hallways.
Armed to the teeth.
EXT.
MANSION (FANTASY)
Haruna and the others dive out of
windows seconds before the
mansion BURSTS INTO FLAMES.
ELIAS
Turning pages. His frown
deepening.
EXT. ALLEYWAY --
DAY/NIGHT ; (FANTASY)
A figure in RAGS plasters up POSTERS
with Haruna’s face:
REWARD.
TIME-LAPSE as the poster ages and fades with the
seasons.
And then, at normal
speed, ANOTHER POSTER gets plastered up
over that one: "THE ESCAPADES OF HARUNA
(available at
Worther &
Cie.)"
ELIAS (V.O.)
It wasn’t long before what
little truth
was
known about her life was twisted
out of shape.
EXT. BOOKSELLER’S --
DAY ; (FANTASY)
Copies of THE ESCAPADES OF HARUNA -- a
cheap, dime-novel-
type
rendition of Haruna’s adventures -- stacked up in the
window. A curious crowd mills in and out.
Haruna, in disguise, peers from a
nearby doorway.
She is
obviously disgusted.
ELIAS
(V.O.)
If there was
anything worse for her
life than infamy, it was
celebrity.
Gline's script will come to a rather
dramatic, and surprising, conclusion in next months zine! Watch for it!
