Sanitation Run

Chapter 10: Nexus

DINING ROOM, BRUCE’S APARTMENT, CITY (NIGHT)

The evidence of dinner litters the table: pizza stones, crumby plates, stained napkins, bottles of sparkling water.

Bruce and Valerie sit at the table.

VALERIE: I’m a courier. I do pickups. Deliveries.

BRUCE: For whom?

VALERIE: (glancing at her phone) Whomever. They tell me where to go. What to do.

BRUCE: Who’s they?

VALERIE: (shrugs)

BRUCE: You don’t know who you’re working for?

VALERIE: Isn’t that part and (smiling) parcel of the job?

BRUCE: Not the legal kind. What’s your employer saying now?

VALERIE: Nothing.

Silence settles in. Not so much as the tick of a clock.

Until Bruce starts up with the flick of his lighter.

VALERIE: The first one came at me in the sewers.

BRUCE: Before or after you picked up your payload?

VALERIE: (pondering) Are you suggesting causation?

BRUCE: Correlation. What are you carrying?

VALERIE: I never look.

BRUCE: I suppose it’s against the rules?

VALERIE: In this line of work.

BRUCE: How would they know? Assuming you never deliver the package?

VALERIE: Who’s assuming that?

Valerie yawns.

BRUCE: Take the bedroom.

VALERIE: (surprised) What?

BRUCE: It’s not mine anymore.

VALERIE: What happened?

BRUCE: Automation.

VALERIE: How do you mean?

BRUCE: Auto taxis are programmed with internal ethics.

VALERIE: I know that. What they should do in the case of an accident. Who they should--

BRUCE: Prioritize. (pained) They were in a crash.

VALERIE: I’m sorry.

BRUCE: The other car was a Priority One carrying politicians. A couple of geriatric quacks.

VALERIE: I’m sure the auto--

BRUCE: (hand becoming a claw) I saw the footage. They would have walked with mere bruises. Priority Ones are programmed to be avoided AT ALL COSTS. (sickened laugh) My family...

VALERIE: Your family was the cost.

BRUCE: You should go to bed.

BEDROOM, BRUCE’S APARTMENT (NIGHT)

Valerie is a motionless black lump on the bed. Her phone sits unattended on the nightstand.

A wedge of light creeps in when the door is opened, showing a path from Valerie’s phone to her finger and back again.

LIVING ROOM, BRUCE’S APARTMENT (MORNING)

Dim daylight sneaks in through a gap in the curtains, suffusing the room with blue light.

Bruce dozes on the couch, feet up on the ottoman. Valerie (enraged) storms up the hallway.

VALERIE: Where’s my phone?

Bruce opens an eye but makes no other attempt to move.

BRUCE: Gone.

VALERIE: (irate) GONE? (stomping over to the couch) What do you mean GONE?

BRUCE: You’re a puppet, Vale. You never asked what you were doing.

VALERIE: I was living.

Valerie kicks the ottoman away, causing Bruce’s ankles to SLAM to the floor.

BRUCE: Do this. Do that. “Follow the leader.” You’ve been automated.

VALERIE: How do you... (eyes wide) You read--

BRUCE: Everything.

Valerie’s hands ball up into fists.

VALERIE: How...

BRUCE: Biometrics.

VALERIE: (through clenched teeth) Where’s my phone?

BRUCE: (nodding toward the window) You got a shovel?

Valerie, enraged, springs at Bruce. Bruce rolls to his feet but doesn’t retaliate. He takes it: every punch and slap and swipe.

BRUCE: It’s time (pause) you learn (pause) to run (pause) your own road.

VALERIE: (punctuating each syllable with a punch) My handler gave me everything!

BRUCE: (face bleeding) Then use it.

VALERIE: (dropping her fists) What?

BRUCE: What they gave you.

VALERIE: (steaming)

BRUCE: Come on. Open it. (goading) It’s the only road left you.

KITCHEN, BRUCE’S APARTMENT (MORNING)

Valerie sits at the table in a staring contest with THE PAYLOAD before her.

VALERIE: I’ve never questioned.

BRUCE: Maybe you should.

VALERIE: Maybe I shouldn’t.

Valerie fingers the package, FEELING it. She tears it open like a hunter kills his catch and slides the contents out onto the table.

It’s her phone. The EXACT ONE she was using.

VALERIE: You’re playing a trick on me.

BRUCE: (shaking his head) No.

VALERIE: It’s off.

BRUCE: Turn it on. Is it locked?

Valerie touches the screen.

VALERIE: Not anymore.

She plays music through her earbuds.

VALERIE: Same playlist. (tapping an earbud) Already paired.

BRUCE: It’s the same phone.

VALERIE: It’s not. This one... has an app.

LIVING ROOM, BRUCE’S APARTMENT (MORNING)

BRUCE: What’s it called?

VALERIE: Nexus.

BRUCE: Ominous.

VALERIE: (showing the phone) Aren’t you going to destroy this one too?

BRUCE: Not until we know what it is. Or what your handler wanted you to do with it.

VALERIE: Thanks to you we might never know.

BRUCE: I did what had to be done.

VALERIE: You made me into a loose cannon.

BRUCE: Well aren’t you?

The silence answers for her.

VALERIE: You want me to open it now?

BRUCE: I had my two coffees.

Valerie touches the phone. At once the power goes out. Only the light of the screen illuminates Valerie’s face.

Bruce crosses to the window and peeks out.

BRUCE: Whole block’s out. What do you see?

VALERIE: (shaking her head) Numbers. Alphanumeric codes. They’re... (scrolling down) endless.

BRUCE: (sharply) That smell. What did you do?

VALERIE: (scouring the darkness, pulse throbbing) I chose one.