EXT. Tropical resort – Day
Music cue: Barbie Girl by Aqua
The camera works its way through the crowded poolside to reveal Deadpool riding a giant inflatable unicorn, wearing a Mickey Mouse t-shirt, drinking a colourful (gin) cocktail complete with tiny umbrella and curly straw.
Deadpool (to the audience)
Oh hi there, this is awkward, it’s not what it looks like…
Ok, that’s a lie, it’s actually exactly what it looks like, but life hasn’t been all unicorns and pleasuring myself. I promise we’ve been busy, it’s just that it turns out this whole “threequel” thing is hard—I mean just ask the makers of Blade: Trinity.
With the backing of my new sugar daddy, I took up gaming (mostly to sling insults at 12-year-olds), watched all of Netflix, even went to Wales for some gin-fuelled impulse shopping with a friend. Ewch ddreigiau!
Now I’m back, and just slightly in debt, no more distractions or interruptions, so this is the plan…
Deadpool gestures to the audience with his finger to ‘hold that thought’ and turns away to take another sip of his cocktail. As he raises his hand it disintegrates and the cocktail drops.
Deadpool (turning back to the audience)
What the fu—
Smash cut to titles.
Beyond the flickering a red, softly pulsating, light. Below the light a door. Even from this distance it looked heavy, and very locked, but it was still a door.
Above the door an understated sign.
[J.A.S.P.E.R]
The last thing I remember was leaving work on Friday afternoon and catching the bus home, just like I do everyday. I don’t, however, remember the actual bus ride itself. It’s worth mentioning that this alone isn’t particularly odd, I quite often arrive at my destination without any recollection of the 40 minute journey I’d just endured.
It’s not that there is anything wrong with me, I just tend to zone out, headphones in, gazing out the window at the not particularly interesting world passing by.
But what happened on Friday?
If we’re assuming it’s night time, is it still Friday? The throbbing ache on the left side of my head, and the sensation that I’ve been asleep for a week suggests it probably isn’t Friday. And this is not Kansas.
He stood in the centre of his 37th floor apartment gazing out at the Japanese city. Surrounded by a small crowd of faceless bodies, he had no idea why or how he had gotten to be there.
What appeared to be a nuclear power plant in the distance was spewing purple lightning into the sky. It was unlike anything he had ever seen before. Something clearly was not right.
The building began to quiver as the light show intensified, slowly but steadily building to a violent shake. The tone and pitch of the buildings rumble suddenly changed, dramatic, like cutting into a harp with a chainsaw.
Floor to ceiling plate glass windows exploded outwards as the ceiling began to crumble. The tower collapsing in on itself, debris enveloping a final pulse of the distant light show. No pain was felt, just darkness.
He awoke in a cold sweat. 3:21am. Wednesday.
Even with this in mind, and knowing they only had about a hundred metres between themselves and relative safety, the next few minutes would not be without obstacles.
Thus far they’d been sticking to the side-streets to avoid drawing the attention of the guard posts that had been set up along the main strip.
This itself wasn’t as simple as it sounds, as most of these side streets had been cut or blocked off in some way – and moving or getting around these blocks quietly wasn’t the easiest thing to do.
Day 4000.
I’m the only one up, everyone else is still tucked away in ‘bed’. It’s my turn to run the system checks. We only have to do this every 500 days, unless word comes through that they’ve found it — if that happens we all get up.
Because all our communications are pre-recorded we don’t really have to worry about any lengthy lag, the messages are just there ready for us when we get up. The sunlight though, it has diminished entirely. ‘Our’ Sun is now just a star like all others, including the one we are headed for.
Ok, technically, we aren’t headed for a star, but a planet. The catch being that they haven’t actually discovered the planet yet, the technology required for that wasn’t around when we launched, and apparently — 4000 days later — it still isn’t around.
All systems are functional. Back to ‘bed’. Onward to wherever we are headed.
Reaching the corner Miles, the self designated leader, went first. What he found was a whole lot of nothing, he motioned for the rest to follow him.
They had no other choice, the elevator had closed and there were no controls to call it back again.
Rounding the corner they were greeted by more corridor, devoid of all features aside from a pair of flickering fluorescent lights about half way down that provided intermittent illumination.
Before them stood a wall of screens with a single command console located off to the left hand side of the room. They appeared to be displaying surveillance feeds. The video quality was grainy and monochrome, this room had been here for years. A hundred windows into a hundred different worlds.
“254,” Miles bluntly observed, “It’s a grid, A1 through P16. 256 screens, but C7 and G13 seem to be off.”
From the entry the source of the feeds wasn’t immediately clear, nor was it obvious who was being monitored. Were these commercial security feeds? Finance? Government?
Moving closer to see that each had a counter increasing rapidly in the top right hand corner. But counting up from what? It wasn’t counting seconds, maybe milliseconds? With no other dates or times visible, the group initially assumed the feeds were live.
That assumption was wrong, well, half wrong. To this point David hadn’t said anything to anyone aside from the brief – forced – introductions when they’d entered the tunnels a few hours earlier.
From towards the back of the group David finally spoke up, slowly gesturing to the screens in the upper right hand corner.
“That… I. I think that’s me…”
I’d tell you how all this started if I actually knew. All I have are rumours and tall tales. Everything from a bad business deal, to the assassination of some high ranking official.
Whatever it was resulted in all communications from the government ceasing, it’s as though they no longer exist. However we know that’s probably not the case, as someone had to have given the order for the national guard to step in.
Five years on from being unceremoniously ousted from the Wayne Enterprises board by a group loyal to his father’s original vision for the company, Detective Bruce Wayne now spends his daylight hours working at the GCPD cleaning up the loose ends that Batman can’t.
By night, Batman’s ongoing dance with Gotham’s colourful underworld has recently become intertwined with the pursuit of a mysterious new vigilante in town, Eko. Seemingly sharing a common enemy, Eko’s motives seem well intentioned, but their methods cross moral lines that have becoming increasingly difficult for Gotham’s heroic trinity to ignore.
As a chronostorm approaches, a deadly shift is about to ripple through the city, bringing with it new threats and allies, the fall of justice, and the rise of a dramatic redistribution of power that will result in the city’s long standing tribal lines of heroes vs villains being blurred, forever changing Gotham’s future … and it’s past.
I haven’t moved since my eyes opened, still in a state of uncertainty due to the surrounding darkness. Scared to move for fear of injury or falling or stepping on something. That’s reasonable, right? No one likes stepping on cockroaches in the night or walking into door frames.
Can’t stay here forever though. Especially since I’m not exactly sure where “here” is. Feeling around carefully, I seem to be on a bench or a table. It’s hard and uncomfortable, I know that much, probably explains why it feels like I’ve been lying here for a week.
Sitting up. I hear what sounds like an elevator.
But woah, really should’ve done that slower. You know that disconcerting sensation of all the blood rushing away from your head as though you’re about to…