INTERIOR - NIGHT
A giant, hairy nostril repeatedly tries and fails to inhale a sleek, shiny dolphin.
Or rather, it's just a CLOSE-UP of an ordinary nostril, and the 'dolphin' is a silver pendant, pinned lengthwise against every sucked breath of the dusky nare. It's like the little aquatic figure is desperate to swim free, but some decrepit olfactory organ is just sucking everything away into a vortex that won't let it leap away.
But there is something playful about it. A pendant doesn't just hang over a nostril. Someone is hanging it there. Someone with a pale, slender hand, dangling it, then toying with it... until finally, the dolphin stops up the snorer's nose and sticks there, waking him with a suffocated start.
The dolphiniste laughs lightly, offscreen, and it's a sound that tickles the air. ONE blinks the sleep from his eyes, taking in TWO's delightfully attractive face, and smiles.
TWO says, "Hey, Sexy."
They're in bed together, ONE under the bed sheet and TWO lying on top, still in her street clothes. TWO begins to pull at ONE's side of the bed sheet, kissing what she discovers of his body as she goes. She has kissed all the way down to his crotch by the time he is fully aware of what's going on.
TWO says, "Four."
ONE says, "As in A.M.? Babe...I've only had like an hour sleep. I need to go to work in the--"
TWO says (sitting up, abrupt), "OK, champ! Take er easy, why dontcha..."
TWO draws the bed sheet all the way back over ONE's head, as if covering a corpse.
ONE says (muffled), "In the cabinet."
TWO gets up off the bed and walks over to the cabinet in the adjoining bathroom, She opens and finds in the cabinet a pack of condoms (brand: LOVE BAGS). Opens that as well, and pulls out all the condoms -- she pulls out every single one, unspooled in a series of strips of little plastic packets.
Now she unzips her purse while placing it on the sink. Stuffs all the loose strips of condoms safely in the purse, and then she fetches from inside a SECOND pack of LOVE BAGS. She opens that, and then pulls all the condoms out of this one as well, which leaves both empty packs sitting next to each other, where we can see clearly now that they're not quite identical: where the original pack reads 'REGULAR' in a normal font, the new pack from the purse reads 'EXTRA LARGE' in a boldfaced font.
TWO starts carefully folding each strip of extra-large LOVE BAGS and inserting them into the empty pack once occupied by the regular-sized LOVE BAGS. She does this one at a time, making sure they don't look messed with.
TWO says, "Hair."
INTERIOR - DAY
TWO says, "It is nice."
ONE says, "How would you know?"
TWO says, "I'm sitting here, too."
ONE says, "Not that spot. I mean this spot. Right here. I really like it here. I don't see what's so special about over there."
TWO says, "It's a nice place in general."
They're in a coffee shop. ONE seems really anxious about something, glancing everywhere all the time and whatnot.
TWO says, "Neither do I, really."
ONE says, "But you chose to sit there. Why would you select such an undistinguished position? What were you thinking?"
TWO says, "I guess I was thinking I need to rest my feet."
ONE says, "Aren't you even the least bit nervous? How many are we at?"
TWO says, "Uh, five. I'm excited. But I wouldn't call it nerves."
ONE says, "Of course it's nerves. It's all nerves."
TWO says, "What all?"
ONE says, "You all. We all."
ONE grips the table suddenly.
Scene starts with two people laughing.
TWO says, "And I want you to have it."
ONE says, "Great."
TWO says, "Great."
Neither moves a muscle for a beat, by the end of which, ONE is no longer laughing.
TWO says, "I need you to do just one more job, first."
ONE sighs deeply, head dipping almost to the knee.
TWO says, "You can't be 'retired'. This job's too good to pass up. And it calls for the best."
ONE says, "What about Prab?"
TWO says, "Prab's too self-absorbed."
ONE says, "I'm too self-absorbed."
TWO says, "But it doesn't make you careless."
ONE says, "Eric could do it."
TWO says, "His standards are low."
ONE says, "Are they?"
TWO says, "Remember the bank job?"
ONE says, "Vaguely."
TWO says, "Turned out ugly."
ONE says, "...that was ugly?"
TWO says, "You didn't notice?"
ONE says, "How careless of me."
TWO throws hands up sarcastically, as if in fake surrender.
ONE says, "Get Tony then. He's a closer."
TWO laughs, "Oh God. Tony. Where is he now?"
ONE says, "The Big Hotel. Don't know why you're laughing. He's careful. Skilled. Impeccable standards."
TWO says, "Is that so? How would you know?"
ONE shrugs, "He worked for you, didn't he?"
TWO says, "That's pretty sweet of you, you feeling OK?"
ONE says, "Tony's pretty sweet."
TWO laughs, "But not honest."
ONE says, "Who needs 'honest'?"
TWO says, "Perfect isn't it?"
And we follow TWO sidling up to ONE, who is looking intently at a framed work of art that is facing away from us.
TWO says, "Thank you."
ONE says, "You're an artist, my friend."
TWO says, "I try."
ONE says, "And this is a regular fucking Picasso."
TWO says, "High praise."
ONE says, "If you didn't exist, it'd be necessary to invent you."
TWO laughs, "You did!"
ONE says, "I mean, sure, in the sense of, I started you off. But the way you turned out..."
ONE examines the 'regular fucking Picasso' more closely, looking it up and down.
ONE makes a gesture that encircles all of 'it'.
TWO says, "It never would have existed without you."
ONE says, "Thank you. You will never know how much that means to me."
TWO smiles, hard now, "And I really, really appreciate it."
ONE nods, "Think I could do it again?"
TWO says, "Do what again?"
ONE says, "You. Do you think I could invent another, y'know... you. If I had to."
TWO says, "Dunno, maybe? I wouldn't put it past you. But don't worry about me, pal. I'm sticking around. I owe you that much."
ONE says, "Oh I don't question your loyalty. Don't think that."
TWO says, "I don't."
ONE says, "I'd be disappointed if that turned out to be your final thought about me. It's just that, now that I have this... this priceless work of art..."
ONE blows a speck of dirt off the priceless work of art.
Suddenly it's 'Whoops!' Too many seats.
So I say, "You don't wanna do this."
So he says, "I don't wanna do what?"
And I don't wanna, y'know suggest anything, so I just look around and shit. I've been rudely awakened right? Seems prudent then to take stock of the situation. I've been sleeping in here for exactly 15 nights at this point. Not by the calendar: I just know I had to move the piece-of-shit a few hours ago because city responders classify a vehicle as 'abandoned' after it's been parked where it isn't registered for more than 14 days.
My wheeled, soft-sided carry-on appears to have been disturbed. It was already somewhat deflated without the cheap, bulky sleeping bag now unrolled around me in the driver's seat, and it's still where I left it, telescopic handle collapsed, thermos and hot water bottle peeking from its inner folds. I can still feel the other set of each inside the bag with me, next to the monkey wrench with the rubber grip. These are cold nights in Van, mid-December of '22, and my piece-of-shit's HVAC's been busted since last winter.
It's the outer pockets. They've been slashed and rifled through, the contents of the top one spilled onto the seat: my drinking thermos, a blister pack of LED flashlights; a first aid kit; a balaclava; and an orgy of gloves — knit gloves, work gloves, ski gloves. My Helly Hansens are pulled half out: the 'rain pants', even the heavy rain jacket I was advised to buy at great expense in the short interval between getting hired and then fired as a ditch digger by a concrete pouring company last spring.
When I'm not wheeling it around behind me, I keep the carry-on next to me on the passenger seat. So when the driver side is reclined, as it is right now, there is one back seat unoccupied. That's the trouble with sleeping in your car. Too many seats. Oh, you can 'get lost' well enough on a random residential street with locals parked all around. But once you've been found, you're found, and there's only a cheap manual lock, or maybe a wireless RollBack hack, between you and instant bedmates. Way too many seats.
I prefer to choose my bedmates in advance, thanks.
Flying (in an aircab)
The tamper alarm is shrieking like a triggered bitch. A pungent mist hangs in the air. 'Tamper alarm?' thinks Agent-94. That might have something to do with the forced-open underpanel. Shreds from the panel's cover have spilled onto the floor in front of the aircab's two passenger seats, along with assorted entrails from inside. Above the panel is a 180-degree video panorama, currently off. The hum of the cab's engines rises for brief intervals as its altitude dips due to pockets of air turbulence.
The tamper alarm continues shrieking. A neuroelectric storm rips through Agent-94's synapses, jolting open a seam of recognition
chiselled so deep by years of exposure training, no desensitiser could ever block it. 'It's that mist,' thinks Agent-94.
> PLAY the teaser for INJECTION QUEST
