Sanitation Run

Chapter 7: Twine

CATWALKS, INTAKE RESERVOIR, WATER TREATMENT PLANT (EVENING)

Helicopter-mounted spotlights sweep the lot, illuminating intensifying rain. Bruce and Valerie are at a standoff on the catwalk. Valerie has her hood up. Neither recognize the other.

BRUCE: Don’t think they’re coming to check the plant.

Valerie moves on THE PAYLOAD. Bruce crouches over it protectively, lifting out a meaty hand.

BRUCE: Don’t.

VALERIE: I need that. It’s mine.

BRUCE: What is it?

The chop of helicopters picks up. The sweeping lights circle the intake reservoir.

VALERIE: I don’t know.

BRUCE: Who are they?

VALERIE: (curtly shaking her head) They have guns.

Bruce fingers THE PAYLOAD and tosses it at Valerie, who catches it and turns to go.

BRUCE: Not that way.

SETTLEMENT RESERVOIRS, WATER TREATMENT PLANT (CONTINUOUS)

Two shadows run alongside the open pools, water brimming. The slender shadow paces the other easily. Bruce is not a runner.

Spotlights continue to sweep.

PUMP CONTROL SHACK, WATER TREATMENT PLANT (CONTINUOUS)

Bruce shoulders into a shack full-up with a control console and pipes and gauges. It’s a tight squeeze for two.

When Valerie drops her hood Bruce recognizes her as the young woman from the diner.

BRUCE: We need visual.

VALERIE: Why?

BRUCE: See how many.

VALERIE: (shivering) The rain’s brutal.

BRUCE: Odds in our favor. You see the office?

VALERIE: Office?

BRUCE: Big building near the tanks.

Valerie nods.

BRUCE: Can you get there?

VALERIE: We’re already splitting up?

BRUCE: Consider it a test.

VALERIE: Why are you helping me?

BRUCE: Not many genuine humans these days. You seem like one.

VALERIE: Whatever that means.

BRUCE: I’ll take the far side up. Stick to cover and try and get a headcount.

GRAVEL LOT, WATER TREATMENT PLANT (EVENING)

Helicopters land on opposite sides of the lot. Soldiers in full tactical gear flood out and fan out.

OFFICE ENTRYWAY, WATER TREATMENT PLANT (EVENING)

Valerie slips through the door into darkness slashed with blue from the outside flood lights and helicopter beams.

A thick hand grabs her shoulder from out of the shadows.

BRUCE: It’s me.

VALERIE: Scare me half to death why don’t you.

BRUCE: (leading Valerie through the building) How many’d you count?

VALERIE: Six. You?

BRUCE: Six.

VALERIE: This building is a deathtrap. Why are we here?

BRUCE: First step is survival. You hop that fence, there’s nothing for miles. See?

VALERIE: Si.

BRUCE: I’ll give em four minutes.

LOCKER ROOM, WATER TREATMENT PLANT (CONTINUOUS)

There are no windows. Bruce allows the lights. They move double-time.

BRUCE: (changing into his coveralls) Check for “Watts.” She was your build.

VALERIE: (opening Watts’ locker and starting to change into coveralls and a cap) Slim pickings.

BRUCE: Better than hypothermia.

VALERIE: (tucking THE PAYLOAD into an inner pocket) You sound like you have a plan.

BRUCE: Nobody plans for this.

Valerie checks her phone:

FOLLOW THE LEADER

An EXPLOSION reverberates throughout the building, causing the lockers to clang shut. They’ve breached.

BRUCE: Checking your mail?

VALERIE: (pocketing her phone and zipping up) After you.

BRUCE: The first one’s the hardest. Keep out of the way.

BACK HALL, WATER TREATMENT PLANT (CONTINUOUS)

Bruce crouches low as he moves down the hall, surprisingly silent and swift for his bulk. He waits at a blind corner for the betrayal of a bootstep and gets it.

Bruce leads around the corner with a fist into the trigger-arm of a soldier, sending up a spray of bullets. Shards of ceiling tiles RAIN DOWN on the ensuing fight.

Bruce tries to wrest the gun away. The soldier thrusts with the stock. Bruce dodges, trips the soldier over backwards with his leg, and DRIVES his elbow into the soldier’s stomach FULL-FORCE.

Bruce slides away the gun, cradles the soldier’s neck, and twists. Over.

He immediately unbuckles the soldier’s helmet and holds it up to his ear while he searches the body. No patch. No affiliation.

Indecipherable foreign language plays through the earpiece.

He turns the body over and takes the soldier’s vest for his own. He’s too big to secure it but it’s the grenades he wants, not protection.

Soldier #1 sleeps in a closet.

Bruce turns to find Valerie standing in the hall, rifle QUAKING in her hands.

VALERIE: Is he de--

BRUCE: (regrettably) No way around it. Can you shoot?

VALERIE: (shaking her head) I run.

BRUCE: Give it here. And get down.

RECEPTION DESK, WATER TREATMENT PLANT (CONTINUOUS)

Bruce leads them into a dusty and disused reception vestibule on the side of an open lobby. Once upon a time the fountain worked.

He sets the helmet on the floor. The earpiece emits a rapid chain of language. They know they’re one down.

Valerie ducks beneath the counter.

Bruce uncaps a road flare from an evacuation kit in the room, chucks it across the lobby, and stands sentry behind the counter.

The flare makes the dark darker.

Ominous radio silence.

Bruce flicks the lobby lights, lighting up three soldiers for milliseconds. Remembering their locations, he shoots into the dark.

Someone returns a grenade through the glass.

BRUCE: MOVE!

Bruce grabs Valerie and BURSTS through the rear door back into:

BACK HALL, WATER TREATMENT PLANT (CONTINUOUS)

The grenade goes off, sending Bruce and Valerie flying, muting all sound.

BRUCE: (getting up) We need the office. Upstairs.

Valerie can’t hear him; he points up.

VALERIE: (mumbles assent)

Automatic gunfire fills the air as Bruce pulls Valerie into:

STAIRWELL, WATER TREATMENT PLANT (CONTINUOUS)

They pound up two flights of concrete and pause before the door.

Bruce motions to wait and eases the door open, peeking barrel-first into:

UPPER HALL, WATER TREATMENT PLANT (CONTINUOUS)

Opposite the stairwell is a three-way intersection. A sizable cactus occupies nine o’clock. Bruce starts to walk the long hand of the rifle from nine to three.

Forget subtlety.

Bruce forces the door open to twelve o’clock and bisects the water cooler and the soldier behind it opposite the stairwell.

The steel door catches bullets.

Bruce shoulders the rifle and unclips two grenades. He launches the first around the door toward three o’clock. He drops the second down the stairwell.

BRUCE: (looking at Valerie) Cross the hall in three. Two.

They dive across the hall just as the first grenade carves a corner out of the building. A fire starts, black smoke BILLOWING.

They enter:

OFFICE, WATER TREATMENT PLANT (CONTINUOUS)

The wall of flickering green CRTs still lights the room. Cameras. Angles. The klaxon has long surrendered.

Bruce locks and barricades the door with a chair.

VALERIE: How’re we getting out?

Bruce crosses to the mini fridge and hurls a bottle of water at Valerie. He drinks from another.

BRUCE: Ideas?

Bruce (arms crossed) appraises the screens:

Soldiers run across catwalks. Others storm the office building. A helicopter idles, ready to fly.

BRUCE: Before you ask, no: I can’t fly a chopper.

VALERIE: (glancing at her phone) Can you kill the yard lights from here?

BRUCE: They’re running full tac. Night vision.

VALERIE: What if you light them up brighter?

BRUCE: (thoughtful) That might work. But we’re gonna need a distraction.

Pandemonium fills the screens: muzzle flashes, chaotic movement.

VALERIE: (amusedly) Ask and you shall receive.