Untraceable Page #4

BROOKS:

Not Columbia, Maryland?

GRIFFIN:

That’s right.

BROOKS:

So this site, which could have

originated anywhere from Oslo to

Timbuktu-

16.

GRIFFIN:

--is streaming locally. Yes, sir.

BROOKS:

The odds of that are-

MARSH:

A billion to one, if it were a

coincidence. But it’s not.

Brooks glances at her. Pause. A tiny stand-off.

BROOKS:

Care to explain?

MARSH:

I’d be happy to. We only found out

about the site because, within

minutes of it going up, it was

tipped to the County Sheriff and

the Baltimore PD. Both tips came

from an Inner Harbor pay phone.

Whoever’s behind the site lives in

the area and wants attention.

On the screen, a text banner appears: GYETS...MTC...GYETS

...MTC...GYETS ...MTC....

BROOKS:

What’s that?

MARSH:

Chat-room shorthand. “Glad You

Enjoyed The Show. More To Come.”

The emoticon comes strutting across the screen. It stops and

laughs mockingly at its audience. Brooks smirks-

BROOKS:

Cocky little bugger.

MARSH:

He can afford to be. His site’s

incredibly sophisticated. Every

frame of the video’s hidden and

relayed among all of its viewers.

Lots of viewers...lots of relays,

like a mosaic...and it’s impossible

to tell where it originated. It’s

almost like he’s built his own peer

to-peer serving network for every

frame.

(beat)

(MORE)

17.

MARSH(cont'd)

Let’s alert STAD and see if it’s a

new distributed serving technology

they recognize. Meanwhile, I’d

like to pull Griffin off Innocent

Images and-

GRIFFIN:

(to Brooks)

I really could use the break, sir.

MARSH:

Working together we might be able

to-

.

BROOKS:

I’ve got a better idea. Call the

Humane Society.

Brooks casually walks away.

MARSH:

Wynn, I really think-

Brooks stops and turns back with a patronizing air-

BROOKS:

Now, I know how you single women

love your felines, but given the

state of the world, don’t you think

there are more important things for

you to worry about? Maybe something

under our jurisdiction?

MARSH:

(firmly)

This is our jurisdiction. It’s

obscenity.

BROOKS:

(eyes narrowing)

Shocks your conscience, does it?

Well, it’s a good thing you never

met my Granny Brooks, ‘cause she

used to drown ’em by the litter.

(to everyone else)

Back to work, gentlemen.

Brooks raps his knuckles on a desk and walks on. Marsh is

pissed.

EXT. CAMDEN YARDS -- TWO WEEKS LATER -- EVENING.

Gorgeous dusk. Waving flag. Packed stadium. A BAPTIST

QUARTET sings the National Anthem to a packed stadium.

.

18.

INT. CAMDEN YARDS -- SAME -- EVENING.

The bright parking lot is packed. Last-minute TICKET HOLDERS

hurry up to the stadium turnstiles. From inside, the anthem

ends.

INT. CAMDEN PARKING LOT PERIMETER-- SAME -- EVENING.

HERBERT MILLER, 50, burly and amiable, an Air Force tattoo on

his forearm, walks up, looking around. A distant roar from

inside the stadium. Miller sees what he’s looking for.

FOLLOW MILLER, walking across the street to a Volkswagen bus

parked in the shadows under a tree. The bus’s side door is

open and SOMEONE pokes around inside, moving aside piles of

junk. Miller stops right behind him..

MILLER:

Hi.

The person gasps, whips around, startled. We don’t see his

face.

EXT. MARYLAND MAIN STREET -- DAY.

Marsh, parked outside a children’s martial arts academy, sits

in her SUV, flipping through a travel magazine.

INT. SUV -- SAME -- DAY.

Marsh lowers the magazine, stares into the middle distance,

thinking. A HANDSOME YOUNG MAN, crossing the street, gives

her a smile.

Marsh, snapping to, gives him only the faintest smile back.

She glances at her laptop computer, sitting nearby. She

can’t help herself. She flips it open and starts to type.

We hear the music of killwithme.com. When the next window

opens, Marsh sees something she did not expect. Her face

changes terribly.

WOMAN (O.S.)

(knocking on the window)

Hey!

Marsh nearly jumps out of her skin. Stella, carrying a

grocery bag, stands at her closed window, pointing to the

parking meter.

STELLA:

Meter’s empty! Got a quarter?

19.

EXT. CYBER DIVISION HEADQUARTERS -- LATER -- DAY.

Marsh strides quickly across the parking lot.

MALE VOICE (O.C.)

Hold it right there, copper.

Marsh smiles when she sees Griffin, disheveled and unshaven,

climbing out of his used sports car.

MARSH:

Sorry about the timing.

GRIFFIN:

(hurrying to join her)

Hey, it’s not your fault. I had

nothing to do, anyway. Except sit

around, trying to figure out why I

couldn’t get to first base last

night with a date who was both

promiscuous and unattractive.

MARSH:

Maybe if you went out with women

you’ve actually met....

GRIFFIN:

There’s a prescription for loneliness.

I work nights. Who do I

meet?

Marsh laughs and puts a consoling arm around him.

INT. MARSH’S WORK STATION -- MOMENTS LATER -- DAY.

Marsh, settling into her chair, is already urgently typing

into her keyboard-

MARSH:

For the past two weeks, it hasn’t

changed:
a saucer of curdled milk,

a dead kitten, a pile of maggots.

Then Friday night around eleven,

the site was down. Gone. I hoped

forever. But then, an hour ago-

She hits Enter. What Griffin sees on the screen makes his

face unhinge. He looks closer. He can’t believe his eyes.

REVERSE ANGLE:
It’s Herbert Miller, the man from the Orioles

game, in the same basement room as the kitten, bound and

gagged, cemented upright at the waist into the floor.

20.

Bare-chested, Miller is surrounded on three sides by A DOZEN

INFRARED HEAT LAMPS. Just two are turned on, glowing red.

Miller drips with sweat, defiant, struggling, yelling into

the gag. In the background, the TV, still sitting on the

box, shows a NASCAR race.

Griffin leans down, types, hits keys, then, using Marsh’s

mouse, drags a live network NASCAR broadcast across the

screen and places it beneath the race on the website.

.

GRIFFIN:

Still streaming live.

Marsh points with her cursor to the top left corner of the

screen, where a digital counter marked ETOD counts down the

time:
23:46:32

MARSH:

Estimated Time of Death.

On the right side of the screen, Marsh points to a counter

marked NOV with a rapidly increasing number: 27,108.

MARSH (cont’d)

Number of Viewers.

She points to the text crawl at the bottom of the screen.

MARSH (cont’d)

This is what connects them.

The text reads:
The more that watch, the faster he cooks

...The more that watch, the faster he cooks...The more that

watch, the faster he cooks....

Griffin is horrified, but then he realizes.

GRIFFIN:

Wait, it’s bullshit, right? It’s

fake. It’s gotta be. The guy’s an

actor!

WILKS (O.S.)

He’s a helicopter pilot.

They turn. There’s Wilks, holding up a Baltimore Police

Department missing person’s report bearing a color photo of

Miller, surrounded by his happy wife and three smiling

daughters.

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