Strange Days Page #2

But Lane doesn't slow down. He leaps across the void and

makes it to the other building, landing in a sprawl.

We reach the edge and look down. Six stories. No ladders

or fire-escapes. Whip to behind us. Cops running across

the roof.

LANE:

Come on! F***ing jump man!

The POV backs up from the edge and then runs toward it...

Out into the void. Moving... airborne... then...

WHAM! Right into the parapet wall.

Slipping down. Brick wall right in our face. Bloody

fingers grabbing for a rusty piece of pipe running along

the edge.

Looking down... feet dangling over a sixty foot drop.

A cat walking through a patch of light in the alley below,

oblivious.

Breathing raspy. Snapping a look up as the pipe gives

way.

A keening whine coming from us as we scramble to climb up

but...

Snapping a look down--

Walls rushing past, sound of wind, and our own raspy

scream--

Ground rushing up--

Split second impression of a cat, looking up, yowling and

running out of the way as--

Pavement fills frame. A burst of violent red light.

Sound like a gunshot... but no echo.

Only silence. And blackness.

CUT TO:

INT. UNDERGROUND PARKING GARAGE

Lit by miles of fluorescent. Empty and echoing. Close on

Lenny. He has something on his head. Something that

looks like a mutated set of Walkman headphones, except

they have little gecko fingers that fit along the temples

and over the forehead. PLAYBACK "TRODES". Lenny whips

off the trodes, gasping as if he got gutpunched.

LENNY:

Goddamnit! You know I don't deal in

snuff. How many times I hafta tell

you?!

Lenny is with a guy everybody knows as "TICK", a pale-

skinned creature of the night in T-shirt and leather

jacket. Tick is a bottomfeeder in the techno-underground

of the near future.

TICK:

Don't have a f***ing coronary, Lenny.

LENNY:

Well you could've at least warned

me. You know I hate the zap... when

they die. It just brings down your

whole day. Jeez, Tick.

TICK:

Sorry.

LENNY NERO is low thirties. Handsome. Charming. And you

better check to see if you still have your ring after you

shake with him. He is wearing an expensive Italian

jacket, and what he thinks of as a "power tie." His Rolex

isn't real. His greasy hair is too long and curls around

his collar. He needs to shave. A little sleazy. But he

has energy, and heavy street smarts.

Lenny is sitting on the hood of his '97 BMW 1035i. Tick

is facing him, sitting in the back of his beat-to-sh*t

70's van. There are a lot of tapes and tech stuff piled

inside the van. Lenny has a Haliburton case open next to

him, like a drug dealer. In fact the whole setup looks

like a drug deal, but it's not. Though it is illegal.

The case holds Lenny's personal playback deck, his trodes,

and a rack of the little tapes in which he deals. They

are about the size of DAT tapes, and hold about 30 minutes

of sensory experience... everything a person sees, hears,

and feels... recorded directly from the cerebral cortex at

the moment it is happening.

LENNY:

How'd you get the tape? Why didn't

the cops put it in evidence?

TICK:

With all the blood I guess they

didn't see the rig. Guy had it

under a wig.

LENNY:

Yeah, but how'd it get to you?

TICK:

I got ways, Lenny, I got ways.

(off Lenny's impatient

look)

Okay, okay... I got a deal with some

a the paramedics. My guy pages me

and I pick it up at the morgue. So

whaddya think? This clip's gotta be

worth at least a grand. Right?

LENNY:

Tick. Not to dash your hopes, but I

don't deal this kind of product, you

know that. I'll give you four for

it, cause I've gotta cut off the

last bit. And my customers want

uncut.

TICK:

F*** that! The last part's the

best. You dry-dive six stories and

blammo! Jack right into the Big

Black.

LENNY:

I don't deal black-jack clips! It's

policy. I got ethics here.

TICK:

Yeah, when did that start? Come on,

man! It's what people want to see,

and you know it.

LENNY:

So lay it off to somebody else.

TICK:

Come on, Lenny. I got expenses. I

got to get this rig fixed. Look at

it...

Tick holds up a zip-lock bag containing the Walkman-sized

stainless steel CORTICAL RESONANCE RECORDER, the record

deck we saw earlier in the POV. Also in the bag is the

SQUID NET, a matrix of sensors designed to conform to the

human head (this is different from playback trodes). The

whole works are covered with congealed blood.

TICK:

Give me six at least. This's a good

clip, here. Gets you pumpin'.

LENNY:

Yeah, well, the first part's okay.

Better than the usual soaps you

bring me.

TICK:

Now that is cold, Lenny. I always

bring you choice.

Lenny fishes around in a cardboard box at Tick's feet,

pulling out a tape.

LENNY:

Sure, like this low-grade sh*t here,

some girl in a fight with her

boyfriend... it's a test-pattern.

Nothing happens. I'm snorin'.

TICK:

Hey, you're always saying, 'Bring me

real life. Bring me street life.

And, like, one man's mundane and

desperate existence is another man's

Technicolor.'

LENNY:

I said that? Look, I'll take it for

five, and you'll make out okay,

because in this case it's pure

cream, you don't have to cut

anything back to the wearer.

TICK:

Ha! That's for f***ing sure.

LENNY:

What else you got?

CUT TO:

MONTAGE/SERIES OF SHOTS

Lenny in his BMW, driving through the LA streets.

Streetlights and neon flare across the windshield in a

calligraphy of light. Lenny works the cellular, gets

messages on his DIGITAL PAGER, weaves in and out of

traffic -- punches the buttons on his radio, changing

stations all the time. Raw, nervous energy: like a kid

who can't stay still. It's a hard hustle in the big food

chain.

LENNY:

Look, Jerr. I'm nothing if not a

man of my word. I'll drop the money

by tomorrow, next day latest. It's

a little crazed right now. Yeah, on

my mother's eyes, I swear. Thanks,

buddy.

(hangs up)

Prick.

(to the car ahead

honking)

What kinda move you call that?!

Lemmings.

Lenny turns up the radio. SELECTED DRIVE-BY IMAGES, as

the talk-radio provides commentary.

Lenny's car passing under glowing Santa Clauses on the

light-poles. Banners proclaiming the coming "Millennium

LA" festivities.

TALK-RADIO HOST

... it's a little after 2 am on

December 30th, 1999... the second to

last day of the whole darn century,

and the phone lines are open. Dan

from Silverlake, you're on the air.

Transition to a rougher section of town. Buildings roll

by endlessly, tagged by gangs in graphic tribal patterns.

some are burnt-out ruins.

DAN FROM SILVERLAKE

Uh, hi.

HOST:

So Dan, are you looking forward to

the New Year?

A building is burning out of control. In the foreground,

silhouetted, a drunk sleeps soundly on a bus-bench.

DAN:

Not really. I mean what's the

point? Nothing changes New Years

day. The economy sucks, gas is over

three bucks a gallon, fifth grade

kids are shooting each other at

recess... the whole thing sucks,

right? So what the hell are we

celebrating?

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes