I’M A BAD BAD BAD BAD MAN (Section of The Skellig, Gamble and Terrence) FADE IN: INT DERELICT THEATRE – DAY Once a grand theatre, it is now derelict. The stage is a living quarters with just a bare minimum of salvaged stuff. Plus guitars, a basketball hoop and a couch that serves as a bed. Terrence keeps it spotless. He’s sat on the couch/bed, watching her, his look unreadable. A makeshift kitchen, on propane gas, GAMBLE finishes making coffee, curious about it all, trying to ignore the flashing greens and blues of the prohibited data setup. Gamble carries two mugs of coffee. She gives him one. He takes it, indifferent, and initially cant hold back the sarcasm. TERRENCE (not looking at her) So, what’s this plan then, insect? Gamble fluffs her wings and blows on coffee. She sips it cautiously in case it’s crap but hey! Good hair guy with good coffee. She’s a little bit in love. GAMBLE We head for the badlands come nightfall. TERRENCE Dear god–– GAMBLE It’ll be worth your while. New things are interesting. TERRENCE A skellig? What the almighty fuck is a skellig? GAMBLE Sort of shape-shifter for the pleasure, curiosity or necessity. Immortalish. Originally part of a ragged bunch of rocks just off the coast of County Kerry in Ireland. Long time ago. Magical being. Considered myth. TERRENCE You don’t sound Irish. GAMBLE Neither do you. TERRENCE I’m not. Stop it. This is just weird. Go again. GAMBLE Good coffee by the way. Point score keeps going up, Terrence. TERRENCE Please don’t change the subject. GAMBLE What’s “the batch back in the thirties”? TERRENCE It was tragic, Gamble. And, by the way, your human face looks maybe thirty, thirty-five. Quite pretty. She’s blushing; fidgets and looks interested in a speck of something embedded int eh coffee table. TERRENCE (CONT’D) A fucking genetic nightmare. The experiments delved into the efficacy of HERVs. Does she understands. She does. She shrugs, still picking but pretending a lightness she doesn’t feel. Terrence, however, is in his stride. TERRENCE Human endogenous retroviruses. The experiments produced what’s called a lentivirus that hadn’t seen the light of day since… oh, I don’t know, some Paleolithic ancestor fell into a crevasse in Norway or froze to death on the Altai Mountains. Or some modern silly wankery cross-breeding simians with human mammals. They were potentially as contagious as all get out—to people—and were quarantined. They’ll likely all be euthanized at some stage, but government red tape takes years. You looked uncannily like one of them when you came in and it would have been a national emergency if you had been. GAMBLE “Potentially”? You mean an entire species was imprisoned for life, with the possibility of extermination? Terrence shrugs but avoids eye contact. He blows on his coffee and makes small slurpy sounds as he sips. Then he places his cup on the floor and stands. Does this desperate foot-to-foot, jiggy-type move. GAMBLE You need to pee? She’s hopeful. Still can’t work out if he’s peculiar. TERRENCE God, I am in so much trouble! When my supervisor finds out I’ll be one fucking dead savant scientist. And he will find out, you know. GAMBLE How much time do we have? TERRENCE Till morning. GAMBLE When’s that? Terrence touches the network implant in his temple. TERRENCE Now. GAMBLE What do we do? TERRENCE We leave. GAMBLE How? He smiles with mischief and pretend cool TERRENCE I’ve got a motorcycle. GAMBLE Seriously? Petrol? TERRENCE One can still get it if one knows who to ask. GAMBLE Scientist and an outlaw. I’m impressed. But how do you get about without being seen? TERRENCE In the underground. The old rail system goes to the badlands. I fossick on my days off. GAMBLE For what? TERRENCE There’s all kinds of interesting stuff left in Dodge. Like books and external hard drives with news broadcasts on them from before the crash. GAMBLE And me. We sip the coffee, thinking. FADE TO BLACK.
