TP 1
TP ONE Leon is hiding in an abandoned town, attempting to access a conduit with experimental technology in the hopes of connecting to The Abstract and finding his missing memories. His old partner Suunto arrives to persuade him not to use the machine and offers him a job with a client rumoured to have access to ImpCorp. Although tempted, Leon refuses as he sees no way of working with the team again after his past addiction ruined a job. Given this is his last option, Leon agrees to go with her if the machine fails to give him access. Leon gets momentary glimpse of The Abstract and its raw power, before the machine explodes and he is forced to destroy it all and flee with Suunto before security arrives.
Central Dramatic Question - will Leon get access to The Abstract using his machine?
TP1 Character Arc - Leon moves from being determined and reckless by using the machine - to - being intimidated by the vast power of The Abstract and nervous about having to return with Suunto.
Tag: #turningpoint #sequence Link: Chasing The Rhino Masterlist
STEP 1: SETUP Leon is examining a childhood memory of his mother on a portable projection device as a way to steady his mind. He observes a distant city and feels a desire to return to his former life, which he quickly dismisses, although his concentration is ruined. Frustrated, his attention is drawn to the pit and the machine that he hopes will enable him to access The Abstract.
SEQ 1 Leon examines a fragmented memory from his childhood on an external memory recording device, in a dilapidated house, overlooking a distant city as a way to steady his mind. He delves into the memory, searching for details unknown, despite knowing there is nothing left to discover. It has been enhanced as much as technology allows. He replays and mimics the voice of his mother as she speaks and pauses the image on the half of her face that is exposed and touches his own, trying to connect through physical resemblance. He feels a sense of calm by examining her. He wants to recover his missing memories and the damaged image of his mother. He wants to know who she is and what happened to her. He thinks accessing The Abstract at its source is his only way to restore them, and for that, he needs calm. STEP ONE CDQ Will Leon find a sense of calm in order to access The Abstract?
SEQ 2 Leon looks to the city in the distance and remembers his time there - indulgence driven benders deep diving The Abstract. He feels an urge to deep dive in The Abstract again, and his body reacts, showing signs of his former addiction and destroying the calm he created. SEQ 3 Frustrated and angry and himself, he takes control of his breathing. He reminds himself that this time will be different. He will be in control. He looks to the broken, antique wrist watch on his wrist. He considers pulling it apart again and reassembling the parts, but there is no time. He laughs at the irony.
CDQ ANSWER No, he does not achieve the sense of calm he was longing for, and instead must make the attempt slightly agitated.
CHARACTER ARC Calm and concentrating deep in a memory - to - somewhat agitated.
STEP 2: COMPLICATION Suunto, his former business partner arrives and tells him she wants him for an upcoming job rumoured to involve ImpCorp. She may have another way in. The client has asked for him directly. Leon is intrigued, but refuses as it will involve him going back to the city and the team he let down. Suunto tells him of her conversation with the engineer who helped him create the machine in the pit, and how he does not believe it will work. She is here to talk him out of using it. There is a monthly drop in pressure in the conduit due in a few minutes, so he is going to try anyway. If it doesn’t work, and he survives, Leon agrees to come back with her to meet the client, but does not commit to do the job.
SEQ 1 Leon’s attention is drawn to the Abstract hacking machine at the bottom of the pit. He tells himself it is not like before and that he is the one in control now. He tells himself it will work, but knows accessing The Abstract this way is a risk. His old boss and business partner, Suunto arrives in spectacular fashion, complaining about having to wear boots. She has not seen him in almost a year, and knows it must be important for her to track him down. Leon says he is not coming back, no matter what she has to offer. He is focused on the machine, and the upcoming pressure drop that will give his machine the best shot at accessing ImpCorp through the underground conduit.
STEP CDQ Will Leon use the device to get access to The Abstract?
SEQ2 Suunto reveals there are two reasons why she is there: the engineer contacted her to say you are about to kill yourself with the machine, and she may have a way into ImpCorp. Leon is dismissive of the first reason, and enticed by the second, but is determined to use his machine. He has invested too much time and all of his remaining resources in creating it. Seeing he is in ‘one of his moods’, she offers to assist on condition that if his ‘mind doesn’t melt’ by using the machine, that he at least come back to meet the client with her. He agrees, but knows that if the machine works like he wants it to, there will be no need to access ImpCorp anyway.
SEQ3 Leon explains to Suunto the light bars on the dashboard determine the strength of the connection, using an old traffic light system. If failsafe doesn’t kick in and the lights hit red, he is likely dead and she should hit the button above the doorway to set off a series of explosives and run. Initially, Suunto thinks he is joking. Leon injects himself with a needle and watches his blood fill the tubes on the dashboard. The next step is the send the blood through the tubes to the machine in the pit, where he will hopefully get access.
CDQ ANSWER Leon will use the device, but he is unsure whether it will gain him access, or kill him.
STEP CHARACTER ARC Leon moves from slightly annoyed, but also pleased by Suunto’s arrival - to - strangely calm and comforted by having Suunto with him.
STEP 3: PAYOFF Leon has his subconscious sucked into The Abstract using the conduit and his mind gets a sense of it’s vast, overwhelming power and his insignificance. The memory he used to access The Abstract becomes vivid. It is only momentary though, and he is thrown back to The Real (reality). His mind struggles with connecting to his body and The Real. He is shocked back to reality with a stimulant to find his machine destroyed. Suunto notices a line of flying objects moving from the city towards their location. Realising he must have triggered an alarm, he sets off a series of small explosives that bury his device and collapse the building. Suunto and Leon flee into the ruins.
CDQ ANSWER - Yes, he gets access, but it is only momentary and reaffirms how unprepared he is.
TP1 CA - Leon moves from being determined and reckless by using the machine - to - being intimidated by the vast power of The Abstract and nervous about having to return with Suunto.
SEQ 1 Leon watches his blood flow along a fine tube, over the edge of the pit, to conduit hacking machine. He places his memory into the dashboard and it rises before them. Suunto comments that it is always that memory he uses to access The Abstract. Leon tells her it is his only one. He draws himself into the memory and hears the machine activate as the pressure in the conduit drops.
STEP CDQ - Will Leon get access to The Abstract through the machine?
SEQ 2 He sees the dashboard before him explode. He is torn from The Real and into The Abstract. His conscious is violently torn apart. He loses sense of himself and becomes the boy in his memory. The memory is The Real to him. He sees his mother’s ImpCorp uniform and hears her melodic Irish accent say, ‘I hear you, my little one.’ He feels the joy of child caught sneaking up on his mother.
SEQ 3 Leon is pulled back to The Real just as violently as he entered. Suunto pulls a needle from his arm. He feels the rush of the stimulant and is shocked to find himself a man again. Leon mutters, ‘it worked.’ Suunto points to the shattered dashboard and the hissing and smoke pouring from the pit. Leon goes to the pit to find his machine being swallowed by the strange Abstract fluid pouring from the pipe. It rolls like tentacles over the device, tearing it apart.
SEQ 4 Leon knows his resources are depleted and destroyed. He downloads the now full memory to his device. He now knows The Abstract can heal his mind if he can get enough access and survive the process. Suunto tells him it is time to leave and points to a line of approaching lights from the city. Leon sees the are security drones, coming to investigate the breach. He gathers his escape pack and pulls the lever above the doorway. The flee as a series of small explosives destroy the house. Leon curses the loss of his machine, but also knows that he may have another way into ImpCorp and access to The Abstract. He is not going to lose that opportunity.
STEP CDQ ANSWER Leon does get access, but it almost kills him with its power and it destroys his machine.
CHARACTER ARC Leon moves from a mixture of calm, anticipation and recklessness- to - feeling intimidated by the power of The Abstract and fueled with a confidence that he will access The Abstract again.
scenes
These are meant to align with each of the sequences….
The mist is starting to roll in over the valley below - a bit earlier than usual, as it is only late afternoon. Leon sits in a dilapidated dining chair in front of a half boarded up window. He has portable memory projector in his hands, about the size of a phone, and he turns it on by pricking himself on an exposed needle. He knows a small tentacle has inserted itself in his thumb, but he has long since lost the feeling. He is feeling somewhat nervous, and wants to calm himself. This memory is the way to do it. The memory appears before him a virtual scene, half in reality and half digital projection. It is washed out, grainy in parts and has small elements missing. He is looking through the eyes of a child: himself. He sees what appears to be his mother, from a low angle. He sees her turn around to him, her face obscured somewhat by the sun streaming through the window behind her. He feels her warmth and his body reacts to her, like it would have as a child. ‘How did you get in here? You’re meant to be sleeping.’ Leon says the words as she says them, in almost perfect pitch and tone. There is a slight accent to her words, possibly Irish. She picks him up and he is about to be drawn in to a hug, when the memory ends. Leon rewinds the memory a second and watches the moment he is picked up and hugged again. He pauses the image on half of her face and examines it through the grainy representation of her, his mother. He rotates the memory and the patchy nature of it appears clear. There are swipes of two dimensional inserts that are revealed as false when the image is rotated from the original perspective. Leon removes the parts to try and examine her from another angle. He knows he has done this a hundred times before, but he cannot help himself. It is part of his method. Examine the memory, calm his mind. He comments on her kind smile, a tinge of red in her curled hair and the curve of her jaw. He unconsciously runs his hands over his own lips, to his jaw as he watches. He is lost in the memory a moment and thinks he could have the memory enhanced again, but laughs at the thought. He has spent the last two months constructing a machine to enable him to find his memory through The Abstract. SEQ 2 He switches off the memory device and looks through the glass of the window. ImpCity is in the distance. The late afternoon fog already obscures its base and vessels move through the sky in ordered lines. The work day is almost done. It is time for families to plug themselves into The Abstract and forget their existence in The Real. Leon feels the pull of it all: the people moving in lines, which merge into neon lights, which merge into coloured cables that connect to a porting machine. A flashback - He is swamped by an image of Nort, his Abstract diving buddy. ‘Let’s chase that rhino, man.’ Leon pushes a tube into his arm and the blood starts to drain from him. Leon recovers from the flashback and puts a hand to his elbow. It is a mass of scar tissue where he has had the port removed. He stands up and the chair clatters next to him. His mind is a mess of desire for The Abstract, the fingers of his right hand type an unconscious code and his lips smack together. ‘No. Not now. No time. Not now.’ The taste of his addiction has returned, although not as strong as before, it still itches and calls him back to the life he left. He places his hands against the window frame and works to control his breathing. The memory device is clutched too tightly in his hand and he places it on the window sill. He returns to his breathing and he feels the lure of The Abstract slowly fade. Leon tells himself that all he needs is a bit of time and some calm. His old mechanical watch is on his wrist, and he foolishly looks to it. He does not have the parts. He laughs, which helps to break the lure of The Abstract.
step 2 scene Leon slips the memory device into his pocket and sits on the window sill. He steadies his breathing and tracing the cables from the porting device, just like the one in his memory to a pit in the middle of the room. ‘It’s not like before,’ he mutters. ‘You’re in control now.’ He works on his breathing against the tide of his addiction. He knows he is not in control, but he needs to take the shot at connecting to The Abstract. He wants to find his missing memories, and The Abstract is the place where memory thrives. ADD IN SOMETHING - a mother duck always knows where her babies are, my dear. or something motherly. or ’you think I wouldn’t know where you were? It’s me, Leon. I keep track of everything. ’You’ve really moved up in the world, Leon’ Suunto arrives in the doorway, cocktail in hand, black party dress with heavy, elaborately decorated boots. ‘I know you depend on me, sweetie. You’re living worse than when I found you. I had to wear boots, damn it! Boots! You know I don’t wear anything with less than a three inch heel.’ ‘I’m not coming back.’ He quickly says. He moves from the window, to the port. She pouts, feigning disappointment. ‘You don’t even know what I have to offer.’ ‘I didn’t know you owned boots. Where do you get boots like that?’ ‘Custom, my love. I designed them for something that will likely make you a little embarrassed. But if you really want to know…’ Leon shook his head. He made the mistake once. Even his therapist told him to stop talking to him about it. ‘Never do.’ He turns on the porting machine and a soft green light pulses on the machine. A corresponding light pulses on his left forearm. A strip of light races from it and pulses along his arm, outlining a six by four grid of letters, numbers and symbols that interchange in time with the pulses. ‘Going somewhere? I thought you’d given up?’ ‘I have.’ ‘It doesn’t look like it.’ ‘I haven’t since I left. This is different. I’m going into ImpCorp.’ ‘So I’ve heard.’ Leon looks confused. She should know nothing of this. “I doubt it.’ As soon as he says it, he knows that it is her business to know. ‘Who?’ ‘I had a call from a rather flustered engineer you might know.’ Suunto moves from the doorway, towards the pit. Leon shakes his head. The engineer who helped him build the machine must have talked to her. ‘Apparently, you are thinking of doing something quite rash, and using a machine to access The Abstract using a conduit.’ She looks in the pit. ‘That is one impressive looking way to kill yourself, Leon. How did you find an underground conduit anyway?’ Leon feels himself calm, despite his predicament. Being with Suunto does that to him. Despite the situation and the pressure, she always had a way of calming him. ‘I’ll be fine.’ ‘That’s not what your little engineer friend say. He said you are likely to fry that lovely brain of yours. Something about pressures and a lot of guesswork.’ ‘It’s not guesswork. The pressure will be fine. There is a dip in pressure coming in..’ he twitches his fingers and taps at his forearm keyboard. ‘four minutes and seventeen seconds. I’ll be fine.’ There is a silence. Leon pulls a needle from the porting machine. With his permanent port removed, he is going to have to create the blood connection the old fashioned way. As he is about to start drawing blood for the porting machine, Suunto says she has a client that she thinks is from ImpCorp. Leon hesitates with the needle at his skin. Sensing she has his attention, she continues, telling him that she also asked for him by name. This could be a way in for them. Leon says he has prepared too long for this. He is not going to risk a sure way to access it, for a rumour. She says that her rumours are as much rumours as his guesswork is guesswork. Leon smiles. She is wrong. His guesswork is guesswork, but a way to touch The Abstract through a conduit is too much to resist. He is going to do it anyway. He tells her he is going to do it, no matter what she says. She can see he will not back down, so she proposes that if his brain is not melted by the machine, that he will come back and do the job. He does not want to return. He has too much guilt to work with the team again. She tells him she will smooth the waters for him if he does return. He refuses again. The timer is counting down. He agrees to her proposal to at least meet the client if the machine fails. He injects his blood into the machine by directly placing a needle in his arm. Suunto comments on his missing port. Leon says that cold turkey was the best way, and she nods. He watches it pump from the porting machine to the device in the pit. She asks how she will know the machine is frying his brain. He directs her to a small screen with three green bars. The bars rise with the strength of the connection, from green to amber to red. If all three bars hit the upper reaches of Amber, he has a protocol in the machine to cut the connection. She should not need to do anything. If it doesn’t work and it hits red, he is likely dead. Just press the big red button above the door and run. She laughs, thinking it is a joke, but its not.
step three scene
Leon watches the blood pump from his arm, along the small pipes, over the edge of the pit. He cannot see the machine, but he imagines the vials filling. He pulls the memory device from his pocket and removes the chip withing. He places it in the porting device and his memory rises before them. Suunto says, ‘It’s always that memory, isn’t it.’ Leon replies ‘It’s the only one I have.’ - this reveals how desperate his search is. This is his only one from his past, and the clarity of his memories seems to fade quicker than most - it is actually because there is a dampener in his brain that is designed to suppress his ability to remember long term memory. The pressure drops and the machine in the pit punctures the conduit. He is ripped from the real and tastes the torrent that is The Abstract. It happens in a split second. Once moment, he sees the porting machine flash red and the screen exploding. As if caught in a hurricane, he is thrown about from nothing to fragments of memory to nothing again. He feels his conscious torn apart. He loses sense of his body and thought, and the memory he used to access The Abstract appears to him fully, in an instant. He is thrown into his memory. His mother’s face appears before him, her ImpCorp uniform, the smell of a newly cleaned, white surface, the extra song in her voice. The sunlight, actually an overhead light, the childhood longing to be picked up, overwhelming. The memory is torn apart as quickly as it appeared. He finds himself, screaming and laughing in pain, back in The Real. Suunto is pulling a needle from his arm. He is back in The Real again, connected to his body. He feels the blood trickle from his arm. Suunto slaps him and tells him to get focus. Leon feels what must have been a stimulant, course through him. The Real snaps back to him, but he still sees aspects of his memory blurring into The Real. He is drawn to the details he previously did not have. He mutters that ‘It worked.’ ‘No, it didn’t. You almost killed yourself, and worse, you made me spill my drink.’ There is a screaming noise coming from the pit. Leon makes his way there and looks down He can see the coloured, biological ooze leaking into the pit. It churns over the machine in the bottom of the pit, slapping it with what appears to be wet tentacles of pulsing goo. The machine is in pieces. Leon curses. The machine was the last of his wages. He hears his mother’s voice in his head, the phrase repeated from his memory, with a new phrase added - ‘my little one’. He copies the memory to his memory device in an instant, not trusting that it will stay in his head when all the others have disappeared. He is pulled back from his memory again by Suunto pointing out the window. A line of lights, indicating vehicles, blinks in the distance, from the city, moving towards them at great speed. ’I think your little experiment is over, Leon. Leon sees the approaching lights - attack drones and security no doubt. He wonders if he has time to salvage the machine in the pit, but knows he does not. He does not want to return to the city with Suunto. He does not want to reconnect with the team. He is not ready as the guilt is still too strong. Suunto hurries him. He grabs a backpack, places his memory device in it and takes a last look at his hovel. He hits the button above the door. Suunto says ’At least I wore the right shoes.’ They run to the sound of small explosives triggering and a house collapsing behind them.