Post by MSS Productions on Jan 8, 2021 1:58:19 GMT
The screen opens to a black screen instead of the usual One World government logo revolving in the center of the screen. In the darkness of the screen, the sound of debris settling could be heard. Debris falling, landing and rolling down other bits of debris as well as the soft roaring of a fire and the words.
“Two days later…”
Morning Star Studios presents…
The One World Government logo appears in the center of the screen revolving around in a circle. It sits in the center of the screen for a few seconds, much longer than usual before the face of Phillip Lamont appears.
Phillip looked more haggard than we had ever seen him. His hair was a mess and he looked like he hadn’t slept in days. Unlike every time before there was no picture or video that appeared beside him. Just the image of the One World Government logo and the words “City One in ruins.”
Phillip Lamont: “This is...uh...This is Phillip Lamont, coming to you directly from our studios in old New York. As many of you know, all signals from City One have been suspended until further notice. You all saw what happened, we aren’t allowed to show it again.”
Phillip didn’t look at all comfortable with the words he was speaking. He licked his lips and looked down at the desk where he sat for a moment.
Phillip Lamont: “Our hearts go out to those who...uh...From The City…”
The shot slowly pulls out of the television and into the living room of Leann and Trevor Perry, but they weren’t alone. Neither of them were paying any attention to the television now, and neither of them looked any better than Phillip. Trevor had a thin layer of stubble on his face showing he hadn’t slept in days and Leann had dark circles under her eyes.
A man of middle years sat on the other side of the table. His hair was brown and hung down to his collarbone. His own cheeks and jaws were covered with dark stubble and he leaned heavily on a solid white oak cane.
Trevor was looking down into the contents of a duffle bag that only he and Leann could see.
Trevor Perry: “This will take care of it?”
Unknown Man: “Yup. But it’s a one way ticket to a City.”
Leann Perry: “It doesn’t matter. After what happened, we have bigger concerns.”
Trevor Perry: “...Agreed.”
The camera pulls back again and into the darkness beside the talking Lamont’s face. It stays dark until the words…
“Day 31”
..appear on the screen and the darkness fades into a shot of the Saints headquarters looming large overhead.
The City
Episode 8
“True nature.”
Episode 8
“True nature.”
Starring
Torian Drake
As
John Moren
And
Kendra Goldilocks Goganious
As
Becca Calaway
Torian Drake
As
John Moren
And
Kendra Goldilocks Goganious
As
Becca Calaway
The camera slowly pulls out to show a figure walking in from the left of the street, coming in from the bank beside the headquarters. The shot shifts to inside the first floor of the Saints home, focused on the door as people milled about trying to find the source of the blast that had shook the city.
Sativa Nevaeh as Leann Perry
Zachary Sears as Trevor Perry
Johnny Maverick as Thomas
Bellamy Parteabon as Hayley
Zachary Sears as Trevor Perry
Johnny Maverick as Thomas
Bellamy Parteabon as Hayley
Two men on the upper level near a pair of windows began to bark orders at the men on the ground below.
Saint Soldier #1: “Someone find out where that damn fireball came from!”
Saint Soldier #2: “Felix will...Who the hell…”
Saint Soldier #3: “Who the fuck is that?!”
Harmon Janssen as Felix Salar
Caliban as Oliver Jamison
And
Robi Mitchell as Joslyn Erari
Caliban as Oliver Jamison
And
Robi Mitchell as Joslyn Erari
The camera shifts to outside the door on the main floor as two hands press to it and push. It immediately moves to inside as the doors throw open, revealing the blood-stained and limping John Moren. Immediately men and women dressed in white Saints colors on both levels of the building ready their arms.
Saint Soldier #2: “You stop right the fuck where you are or we’ll put more holes in you than cheese.”
John Moren: “Than cheese? Seriously?”
The blood stained man shook his head and lifted his hands to the sky muttering to himself.
John Moren: “You are really bad at this aren’t you?”
John quickly found himself surrounded by the white clad men and women, many of whom were holding brand new assault rifles. John glanced around him as they milled about, taking in the shining new weapons, and pursed his lips.
The fact that someone was obviously supplying the Saints hadn’t gone over his head.
It didn’t take long before the doors on the other side of the room slammed open and a hulking figure appeared between them, making his way across the floor. Felix had Thomas and Hayley with him following behind.
Thomas Calaway: “Sir, we were discussing the girl…”
Felix Salar: “I said it could wait, Thomas! Do not make me repeat myself again! Now get the hell out of here and take her with you!”
Hayley and Thomas each exchanged a look then slowed to a stop. The two turned around and went back the way they had come but Felix never broke stride. When he reached John, he towered over him, as he did everyone else he met.
Felix Salar: “You’re either incredibly stupid, friend, or you got balls of steel to be walking in here like that.”
John’s lips lifted into an impressed motion and he looked above him at the two men standing on the balcony, including the one who had commanded him to stop.
John Moren: “He’s better at it than you are.”
John looked back down, though still up from his perspective, to Felix.
John Moren: “You have something I want and I figured after doing you the favor of taking out the Misfits? You owe me.”
If it was possible for Felix to look both perplexed and annoyed at the same moment, that did it. He blinked down at John and let out a little hesitant laugh. A strong, heartier laugh followed the first and Felix looked around, causing the other Saints to begin to laugh nervously.
Felix Salar: “I owe him. You hear that?!”
Felix didn’t so much as strike John, as much as he threw his whole upper body back around and back handed him with such force that it lifted him clean off his feet and threw him back toward the door. John rolled to his stomach, coughing up a mist of blood across the floor as he did.
Felix Salar: “And what prize do you think you deserve?”
The word deserve oozed a new level of venom and danger but John just sniffled, sucked in a deep breath, ran his tongue between his bottom teeth and bottom lip and spat out a mouthful of blood onto the floor.
John Moren: “Looking for a kid, a girl. Around 17. Brown hair, bit on the skinny side.”
Felix Salar: “Yeah, I got Felicity’s butch little friend in a cell, what of it?”
John once again pursed his lips and nodded very slowly as he pushed himself up from the floor. He turned and once again found himself face to chin with Felix. Without warning John lashes out with a headbutt that takes Felix square in the mouth.
The big man staggers backwards, blinking and wavering on his feet like he was about to fall over and pass out from the sheer force of the impact. He manages to right himself just as the Saints are all raising their guns but he lifts his arms shouting a command.
Felix Salar: “No!”
John grins, showing the blood on his teeth and Felix shakes his head, a grin on his own bearded face.
Felix Salar: “Take this fucking idiot’s weapons and take him to a cage. Let him stew there for a few days without food or water and see if that changes his mood any.”
John raises his arms letting two men holding assault rifles take the guns from the holsters on each of his thighs. Once they slide them into their own belts they each take him by the bicep yank him past Felix.
As he passes John grins a bit up at the bearded man.
John Moren: “See you soon.”
**
The shot shifts to two figures half speed walking down a hallway. In all the confusion, with everyone’s focus on Felix and the stranger in the main hallway, no one was watching the hallway leading to the cells.
At the end of the hallway the two burst through a door and into a large square room that had been converted from a storage chamber and into a jail of sorts. Bars had been installed from ceiling to floor separating portions of the room into six small cells.
The two scanned the room and found the brown haired girl huddled in a corner of the cell the furthest from the door.
Hayley Calaway: “BECCA!”
Becca’s head came up and she found herself once again staring at the faces of her parents. Hayley and Thomas rushed to her cell from one side and Becca to the bars from the other and the three of them hugged each other in the solitude of the empty room.
Thomas Calaway: “Oh god, Baby, it’s so good to see you!”
Becca sniffles and pulls back looking up at her parents, the confusion apparently on her face. Confusion, and anger.
Becca Calaway: “Where have you been?! How could you just leave me!? I was just a little girl!”
Hayley looked down at the floor and then up at Thomas who sighed and shook his head.
Thomas Calaway: “You remember that last raid we went on, Baby Girl?”
Becca nods and wipes her nose on her sleeve.
Becca Calaway: “Uh huh.”
Thomas Calaway: “The Saints caught us. We made a deal to work for Felix...to keep them from finding out about you.”
Becca Calaway: “But….why was mom hanging on him…?”
Hayley looked down once again and whispered.
Hayley: “We both had to make sacrifices, Sweetheart….”
Becca Calaway: “Sacrifices? What kind of sacrifices?! What did you do?!”
Before her mother could answer a gunshot rang out and all three of them looked up to the door. The shot was followed by three more in rapid succession, and then a few seconds later all hell broke loose as a single gun firing became dozens of them.
Thomas blinked looking from the door to his former wife and then back to the door.
Thomas Calaway: “What the hell is going on?!”
Hayley Calaway: “I have no idea? Maybe the Misfits?”
Becca Calaway: “.....John’s here….”
The two looked through the bars at their daughter and found her standing there with a little grin on her face.
**
The camera shifts to the two Saints leading John down one of the many hallways leading to the cells where they would keep him until he broke and took whatever deal Felix offered him. John walked between them in silence with his arms held up and his hands in clear view...until they rounded the corner.
When the three of them came around the corner and John found no one else ahead of them he threw his weight to the side crushing the man on right against the wall. As he did the man on his left was pulled right and off balance, falling to a knee. John lifts a leg and thrusts it out catching the man in the face, sending him head first into the wall.
The man behind him continues to struggle to get to his weapon, but John is able to get a hand on his belt and pulls it first and shoves the barrel into the man’s side while pinning him to the wall firing off three shots. Then and only then does he come off the man and turn leveling the gun at his head and shooting him point blank in the head..
As the man collapses to the side one of the doors of the hallway opens and a woman comes walking out rubbing her eyes, an angry look on her face.
Saint female soldier: “The fuck?! I’m trying to sle…”
John turned and didn’t hesitate. Three shoots came out, two taking her in the chest and the third in the face as she fell. As she went down John heard the sound of a rifle action being pulled back to load a round and threw himself through the door just as the bullets ripped into it.
He came back out and fired a couple of rounds but each of them missed as the man was still on the ground and John aimed high. He threw himself out of the door and dropped to the ground, firing across the floor to take the other man that had been leading him in the chest.
John scrambles to his feet and checks the bodies, quickly taking his other handgun and ejects the empty magazine of the one in his hand by flipping the slide to the side, throwing the magazine out. He placed the empty weapon in the groove of his bent knee, but as he did the door he and the two men had come through burst open revealing a half a dozen men.
Though he couldn’t see them, John could hear them. He took the clip in his free hand and reached back but before he could find the hole it went into the men and women came around the corner. The only problem was, John was expecting them.
The gun in his right hand fired repeatedly, each round taking someone in the chest as they rounded the corner. After the third round fired he felt the click of the clip in his other hand going in and quickly rose pulling the other hand around with the newly loaded weapon now held ready.
The newly loaded weapon spit fire at those coming around the corner as John back peddled step by step and when he felt the door at his back and heard the familiar voice on the other side he lifted a leg, driving his heel into it, throwing it open.
**
The camera shifts back into the storage chamber that had been converted into a set of holding cells, both Hayley and Thomas were looking at the door while Becca waited behind the bars with a little smile on her mouth. Outside the door in the hallway the gunshots continued, coming ever closer.
Hayley Calaway: “Thomas, let her out.”
Thomas Calaway: “If Felix comes in and finds her gone do you have any idea the hell to pay?! Where will we go?! We can’t hide in this City from the Saints.”
Hayley Calaway: “Thomas, dammit, let her out! She’s not safe in there!”
Thomas Calaway: “Hayley….”
Before the two could continue their argument the door burst open and they both jumped back bumping into the bars. John backed into the room the two handguns in his hand spitting fire as they fired round after round into the people coming around the corner.
Once the doors shut, both the handguns slides were pulled back showing they were out. John quickly ejected the two magazines with flicks of his wrist and loaded fresh ones in before snapping the slides back into place with a pull of the trigger.
John Moren: “You okay, Kid?”
Hayley Calaway: “Who the hell are you?!”
There was an accusation in the woman’s voice as she looked between the man and her barely eighteen teenage daughter, but Thomas knew better. When John turned and looked at the girl on the other side of the bars there was no romantic love there.
Fraternal, perhaps.
Romantic, no.
Becca Calaway: “My jaw hurts a bit but other than that I’m okay, John.”
John Moren: “Let her out.”
Hayley Calaway: “Who the fuck…”
John’s arm shot up and the barrel of the gun in his right hand touched the blonde woman’s forehead, between her eyes and she let out a surprised, afraid, squeak. There was something about John’s eyes as he stared at her.
She saw death. Hers. Felix’s. Everyone’s.
Just death.
John Moren: “Open. The fucking. Door.”
Thomas did as John demanded and released his daughter from the cell. Becca came out and immediately hugged her father and then her mother, all under the watchful eye of John who stepped back to a safe distance once she had been released.
After the reunion Becca looked up at John.
Becca Calaway: “What now? It’s been 31 days, John….”
John Moren: “I’m not leaving without you, Kid. There’s no way in hell I am leaving you to this shit.”
Becca Calaway: “I’m not leaving without them.”
John Moren: “And who, exactly, is them?!”
Thomas Calaway: “We’re her…”
Becca never looked back at her parents as she cut them off, addressing John instead.
Becca Calaway: “It’s a long story John and one we don’t have time for right now. Once we are all somewhere safe I’ll explain it all.”
John let out a deep steadying unhappy breath through his nose but nodded.
John Moren: “Then we have a problem, I only have one…”
John reached into his back pocket and pulled out a single black laminated paper, across the front of it it said “Release Pass” and Becca put her hands over her mouth in dismay.
Becca Calaway: “That’s what you were going to get?! What about the woman back home? What about her brother?”
John Moren: “I can go back in and get a medical pass. What’s another month? I am not leaving you here in this hell, Kid. I’m not doing it.”
Becca threw herself forward and for the first time since they met she hugged him, fierce and hard, her closed fists pressed into his back. John rested his chin on the top of her head and pressed a kiss into the hair.
Thomas and Hayley both looked at one another, the selflessness of an outsider struck them both mute. Neither in all their years in this hell had they ever found anyone on the outside who cared about anything but their own passes.
To find someone who would not only fight for their daughter, but surrender their own needs for her? It was unthinkable.
Thomas Calaway: “..T...thank you for taking care of her….”
John Moren: “Thank me after she’s outside the walls.”
Thomas Calaway: “I think I can help with that….”
All of them turned her eyes to Hayley and she laid out the entire plan.
Hayley Calaway: “About a month ago me and another of Felix’s wives….”
As she spoke the class windows of the door John had come through exploded as bullets ripped through them. Thomas tackles Hayley into the steel bars to get her out of the line of fire and John shoves Becca behind him as he presses into the wall.
Hayley Calaway: “....Felicity has Release Passes!”
The blonde screams from the bars, not bothering with the whole story. John peaks through the broken window, with the camera following his gaze to reveal a small army of men and women in all white making their way down the hallway. He arches his arm into the window and fires off two shots that step their march cold as the group in the hallway dives for cover.
Thomas Calaway: “Felix killed her Hayley, they’re no use to us now!
Hayley Calaway: “She still has them on her!”
John Moren: “Where would they take her body?!”
Hayley looked between this man she didn’t know and her family. She knew she didn’t have a choice.
Hayley Calaway: “I’ll show you.”
John nodded a curt nod as Thomas and Hayley began to argue behind him that she didn’t have to do this. He fired another shot into the hallway then turned his attention to Thomas.
John Moren: “Are you armed?”
Thomas nodded and lifted his shirt to show the 50 caliber handgun in the holster attached to his waist.
John Moren: “I’ll take her and get the passes, you and the kid get to the gate.”
John took the step separating him and Thomas and took him by the shirt.
John Moren: “No one gets so much as a look at her. She gets a hangnail, a splinter? She gets a splint end? It’s on you.”
Thomas looks down at the hand holding his shirt and then back up at John shoving it away.
Thomas Calaway: “She’s my daughter. I know how to….”
John Moren: “I don’t care.”
Without waiting for him to reply he motions for Hayley to lead the way and the two slipped out one of the other doors leading into the jail area while Thomas and Becca slipped out another, both avoiding the build up of men heading their way.
The camera stayed with John and Hayley as they crept through the hallways of the Saints headquarters. As they neared a cross section of a hallway John suddenly shoves her to the side through a door. He comes in after her and presses her into the door with a hand over her mouth.
She pants into his hand while his eyes watch the window and two large men holding automatic weapons race by the window. Once they were gone John removed his hand from Hayley’s mouth and the blonde woman whispered.
Hayley Calaway: “Why are you doing this? Why would you risk so much for someone you don’t know?”
John Moren: “Your daughter is….special.”
He answers and pulls the door open slightly to peek out.
John Moren: “A one in a million type of person. Someone who offered to help a stranger. That’s rare enough in this world, let alone in a City. She’s like a unicorn in a zoo. She doesn’t belong locked up in a place like this. She could do a lot of good in the world, if the world gave her a chance.”
Hayley Calaway: “She grew into such a strong woman….”
John Moren: “Why you did what you did is none of my business but if you feel bad for it? Make it right.”
Hayley Calaway: “Make it right…”
The two reentered the hallway and crept through the halls and up a set of stairs to the second floor. The camera following along behind them as they ducked into a room near the one Felix used for an office.
Sitting on a table in the middle of the dark and gloomy room was Felicity Yanc. Her head was lulled to the side and her eyes were closed. Hayley crossed the room and laid her hand on the woman’s chest.
Hayley Calaway: “Neither of us wanted to be here. Don’t get me wrong, Felix never forced us to do anything we didn’t wanna do. It is always all about consent but...it’s better to rule in hell if you have to live in it isn’t it? But Felicity never accepted her role….she wanted out. She wanted to go home….”
Hayley reached into the woman’s shirt and pulled out a small fanny pack-like object that had been hidden inside. She unzipped it and inside saw the many passes inside. She turned and tossed it to John, her eyes widening a split second after it left her hand.
The roar of automatic gunfire assaulted the speakers as bullets filled the room. John was thrown forward, hitting one of the metal instrument trays that overturned, spilling him to the floor, blood soaking the back of his shirt.
Hayley stood there her whole body shaking.
Hayley Calaway: “Pl...please…”
The camera slowly turns and finds Felix Salar and two of his Saints standing in the doorway. The two men were each holding rifles and Felix held a gold 50. Caliber handgun, a lot like Thomas’s. Felix’s face was red with rage.
Felix Salar: “None of you had to stay. You all had a choice.”
Hayley Calaway: “Felix, please...she’s my…”
Felix Salar: “The only rule…”
Hayley Calaway: “Felix….”
Felix Salar: “...You cannot betray me.”
Felix said and the whole room filled with the sound of a loud shotgun. Hayley fell backwards slowly, her face turned and faced John. John’s eyes slowly opened and he saw Hayley’s blood stained face. Her eyes opened and were empty.
Hayley Calaway was dead.
Felix Salar: “Make sure that one is dead.”
Felix began to leave the room as one of the men rolled John over and spun back around when gunshots came out. The man standing over John fell to the side and John’s arm came up firing. The rounds caught the other Saint in the stomach and the chest sending him back into Felix and over the railing where he fell to the floor.
The camera saw two figures on the ground floor shooting as they headed in from near the front door but focused more on Felix as he was thrown to the side, his gun knocked from his hand and falling over the balcony.
Felix let out a bull like roar and charged into the room as John struggled to his feet. When he reaches John he grabs the man and lifts him into the air, driving his back into the table where Felicity’s body laid. The body of the red haired woman fell from the table and landed beside the still body of Felix’s other wife.
Felix grabbed John by the jaw and forced his hand back, his other hand gripping his side where it was clear a bullet ripped clean through him from front to back and pressed his thumb into the wound. John let out a pained scream.
Felix Salar: “You could have lived like a king!”
Felix screamed and drove a clubbing blow down into the side of the wounded man’s head. John tried to get his arm up but the bigger, much stronger Felix was just too powerful. John reaches up, bringing the gun up to shoot Salar but Felix takes his wrist and begins to force his arm slowly backwards.
Felix Salar: “You had to come into my turf and start shit didn’t you?!”
Felix pressed his other hand into the wound harder and John screamed again, the arm holding the gun now inches from John’s own head.
Felix Salar: “Wait until I find the girl. She and her father are gonna both die slow.”
Felix leaned down over John’s face, his beard nearly touching John’s skin.
Felix Salar: “Really fucking slow.”
John’s eyes widen and while he does try and muster a sudden burst of strength, he can’t find it. Felix gets the gun in line with John’s head and his finger presses into John’s own to make John pull the trigger and end his own life when the shadow of another figure appears in the shot.
A figure runs in from the doorway and jumps, driving a superman style punch into the side of Felix’s head with the butt of the pistol in his hand. The camera spins around to find Oliver landing beside the table and then turns to find Joslyn in the doorway with a rifle of her own aimed at Felix, which she fires as he stumbles back hitting him in the back of the leg and the knee.
Felix stops to a knee in the middle of the room and Oliver extends a hand to John. John takes the hand and the dark skinned man, with his dreads still flowing back and forth from the jump pulls him to his feet.
Oliver Jamison: “You’re a hard man to find.”
Joslyn Erari: “We saw the Casino blow and knew you were making your run. Thought you could use the help.”
Oliver Jamison: “...and we kinda owed it to the kid.”
John Moren: “You’re thirty up?”
Oliver Jamison: “Yup.”
Joslyn Erari: “Been up.”
John just nods and begins to limp toward the door. He doesn’t even look at Felix as he goes, lifting his arm and the handgun in his right hand fires twice striking him in the torso and sending him toppling to the floor with no blood spatter.
John limps out ahead with Oliver and Joslyn walking behind him. Small fires were now burning all over the Saints HQ and blood stained white clad bodies were lying everywhere. The three descended the stairs and headed through a large pair of double doors out into the afternoon sun of a courtyard.
The courtyard spans a hundred yards to the wall where a large door sat open. Inside the large metal door stood two dozen men in military uniform, all holding large caliber rifles. Two men sat behind heavy machine guns all pointed at the courtyard.
Becca and Thomas were both standing with them.
The trip reached the other side of the courtyard and through the door when a man holding a tablet and scanner, not a gun, came out a door to the left.
Man: “Names and passes.”
Oliver and Joslyn stepped forward first, told him their names and handed over their passes, which were scanned with a handheld scanner. Once their information was checked the man with the tablet looked up with a smile.
Man: “Welcome home, both of you and congratulations on finishing your thirty day challenge. One of my men will escort you to somewhere you can get a shower, something to eat and a change of your own clothing. Please place whatever weapons you have inside.”
A soldier stepped forward with a large bin that Oliver and Josyln both dropped their weapons into. After they turned to face John and the two extended their hands. John took each of them and watched as they were led to safety deeper inside the wall. Once it was his turn John limped forward and held out two release passes, while Thomas kept looking back at the Saints HQ.
John told him without words, Hayley wasn’t coming and the reaction on Thomas was instant. His lip began to quiver and he wrapped his arm around his daughter.
John Moren: “John Moren and Thomas Calaway, one release pass for his daughter Becca Calaway and an education pass for Becca Calaway from me.”
Becca looked up from her father's chest to John when she heard that. He could have taken the medical pass still, but had chosen instead to make sure she got a helping hand, a step up when she got out into the world. Tears began to leak down her face but the man with the tablet blinked.
Man: “We don’t have a Thomas Calaway….”
John Moren: “Doesn’t matter. Rule 48.2 states that anyone with a release pass is allowed release for the pass holder and one other person of their choosing.”
Armed Soldier: “Where’s Mr. Salar?”
John turned to look at the armed man, but he didn’t say anything. He simply looked back at the man with the tablet who seemed to be inputting information. Once he was done the man looked up and smiled.
Man: “You are correct, rule 48.2 does indeed state that. Mr. Moren, Mr. Calaway, young Becca? Congratulations on completing your challenge. One of my men will escort you to somewhere you can get a shower, something to eat and a change of your own clothing, except for Mr. Calaway and young Becca. Clothing will be provided for you.”
The soldiers were all whispering among themselves as the man opened a hand and a soldier brought the bin forward.
Man: “Please turn over all weapons.”
Thomas did as he was asked, and Becca showed she had none. John dropped a handgun into the bin and motioned to the empty holsters on his thighs. Though he did pull his shirt down over the small throwing knife tucked into his belt.
The man with the tablet returned to the room off to the right. Three of the soldiers motioned with their rifles and started off into the deeper portions of the thick wall that separated the City from the outside world.
As they limped on John glanced behind him and found another half dozen had broken off the guard and were walking behind them.
Soldier #1: “Mr. Salar doesn’t usually let the contestants come to the wall alone. He usually escorts them.”
John Moren: “You work for the One World Government or Felix Salar?”
The soldiers all laughed and smirked at one another as the leader answered.
Soldier #1: “The government, of course.”
Becca looked back at John, her eyes now concerned. She caught it too. The soldiers led them past a set of stairs where they could see Joslyn and Oliver were being shown into rooms. John looked up at the two and then at the hallway ahead.
John Moren: “Isn’t processing up there?”
Soldier #2: “We’re going to a different processing center.”
John’s eyes returned to the hallway and that hardened look returned to them. The same look he’d had in the fight with the Misfits and the Saints.
John Moren: “Of course we are.”
Thomas Calaway: “Why?”
The soldier didn’t answer. The group led the three of them deeper into the wall and then to a door on their right opened on its own as they approached. Across from it another door was hissing closed with the camera just catching the faintest glimpse of a storage area.
The three walked into the room with the soldiers behind them, between them and the door.
Thomas and Becca looked at one another confused but the camera followed behind John as his eyes scanned the room. The walls were all sparking white, as if they had been scrubbed clean with bleach multiple times. The camera shifts around again focusing on three small drains built into the floor of the room.
When Thomas tried to speak John shook his head ever so slightly. He limped over slowly putting himself between the soldiers and Becca.
Soldier #5: “Is it true you worked for the anti-activist unit?”
John Moren: “Would it change anything?”
The soldier just stared at him with the others all looking between each other in shock.
Soldier #1: “Not really.”
Thomas Calaway: “What’s going on here?!”
John Moren: “What are we waiting on?”
Before the soldier could answer the door behind them hissed as it opened and Felix Salar himself appeared on the other side of the door. His face was stained red with blood from being pistol whipped and he was limping heavily on the leg Jolsyn had shot.
Thomas Calaway: “....Shit…”
John Moren: “How the fuck did you survi…”
Felix was actually shaking with rage as the soldiers all parted for him, one of them actually handing the big man his side-arm. John however noticed he wasn’t nearly as bulky in the chest now.
John Moren: “....Vest. Naturally.”
Felix Salar: “This is my goddamn City. Did you really think you could walk into my house and take a shit on my front carpet?!”
Thomas Calaway: “Felix, Sir…”
Felix raised his arm and a bullet tore through Thomas’s shoulder spinning him around into the wall. Becca screamed and pressed herself into John’s back but one of the soldiers grabbed her and pulled her away while others raised their rifles to point at John as he moved to protect her forcing him to step back with his hands up.
John Moren: “You hurt her and so help me god, I’ll kill all of you.”
Felix laughs at the futility of the threat and looks around at the soldiers as if to remind himself of that fact. He raised the gun and pointed it directly at Becca’s head. As he did the camera comes in close on Becca’s face as the words playing through her head played for the audience.
Voice of John Moren: “Reach out and grab the gun with your left hand….”
Becca’s arm shot out and grabbed the side of the gun in Felix’s hand in slow motion, while Thomas watched on in horror.
Voice of John Moren: “While you do this move the gun to your right while moving to your left...Third step, take your palm like you are gonna karate chop my wrist, just behind the thumb..”
Becca did exactly as John had shown her, shoving the gun off to the right while she moved left. The gun fired striking the wall and not her. As she did she brought her other hand up and hit the joint of his wrist.
Voice of John Moren: “Step four...the hand holding the barrel? Push it back toward me, while pushing the chopping hand inward at the same time...“Now, while the fingers are weak and loose? Yank back toward you as you step back, bringing it to your chest to grip it for use…”
Becca used both hands as she had practiced and stepped back with the golden handgun now held in her own hands and pointed at Felix. None of the soldiers knew what to do. It all happened so fast.
John reached behind him while reaching out his other hand at the same moment. It hurt and he grunted through the pain but he grabbed one of the rifles and pulled the soldier toward him while pulling out the throwing knife with the other.
The knife caught another of the soldiers in the throat. John yanked the rifle up driving it into the soldiers face. As he brought the rifle around beside him the gun in Becca’s hand fired, catching Felix in the upper chest, this time blood splatters across the floor.
The other soldiers all scattered, some of them making it through the doors and into the storage room across the hall before John opened fire, but most of them were cut down in a hail of bullets.
Without even pausing to check, John turned and fired a single shot at Felix, taking him clean in the head with Becca looking up at him in shock. She knew what he had done.
John had made sure he had been the one to kill Felix.
So it wouldn’t be on Becca’s conscious.
Outside the door the sound of running feet announced the arrival of more soldiers to join those in the storage room. Soldiers loyal to Felix Salar.
Soldier #1: “Come on, we can talk about this! There are a dozen more soldiers here now. If we come in there to clear that room by force all of you die!”
The soldier came out with his hands up and the rifle hanging down over his stomach. John limped to the door with Becca and Thomas, pressing a hand to his injured soldier. John slowly stepped forward through the door into the hallway, limping heavily with the camera coming in behind him showing the soldiers on the other side of the door.
The camera scanned the room as room as John spoke, taking in all the stored clothes, food and medical supplies.
John Moren: “Quite an army Felix built himself.”
Soldier #1: “All of them knew to come when they heard the shots.”
John nodded slowly pursing his lips, the camera showing the blood running down his side through the shirt. He was wavering on his feet with his head down thinking.
John Moren: “They all knew...all.”
John whispered to himself then looked to the side at the two standing behind the door. He looked from the door leading to the storage room where the soldiers were hiding to the button on the wall beside him that would open and close the door he’d just come through.
John set his jaw and took a deep breath then looked over his shoulder at Thomas.
John Moren: “Make sure the kid has a good life.”
John slammed the side of his fist into the little button on the side of the door and it hissed closed. Becca, realizing what John was gonna do began to thrash against her father to try and get away.
Becca Calaway: “NO!!”
John raises his arm while the soldier across from him stands wide eyed and instead of shooting him John hits the small round ball hanging off his belt while the camera comes in sharply to show the medical supplies.
Including the oxygen tanks.
The small round object on his belt explodes when hit by the bullet. The blast hits the tanks triggering a massive explosion that erupts as the door the soldiers were behind slams shut as the security features take over.
The force of the blast before the doors can close is enough to throw John back into the door. John slams into the door and hits the ground motionless as the camera shifts to outside the wall just in time to see a massive explosion rip a part of the wall apart sending shrapnel from it out into the wasteland.
The camera stays on the burning wall as the sounds of Fleurie’s “Soldier” begin soft and easy with the sound of her gentle voice and the piano.the words.
“Soldier keep on marching on.
Head down til the work is done.
Waiting on that morning sun.
Soldier keep on marching on.”
Head down til the work is done.
Waiting on that morning sun.
Soldier keep on marching on.”
The shot changes to inside as the other soldiers and Joslyn and Oliver now in plain clean clothes all rush into the hallway and find John lying motionless on the ground.
The doors behind the group opens and Becca comes running out screaming and crying in slow motion but before she can get to John, Joslyn grabs her and holds her back while the others begin to provide medical attention to him.
“Head in the dust, feet in the fire
Labor on that midnight wire
Listenin' for that angel choir
You got nowhere to run.
You wanna take a drink of that promised land.
You got to wipe the dirt off of your hands.
Careful son, you got dreamers plans.
But it gets hard to stand.”
Labor on that midnight wire
Listenin' for that angel choir
You got nowhere to run.
You wanna take a drink of that promised land.
You got to wipe the dirt off of your hands.
Careful son, you got dreamers plans.
But it gets hard to stand.”
The shot continues to slow motion following Becca as the soldiers tend to the bloody and motionless John Moren. John is rolled to his back, his head lulls to the side. Blood was everywhere, even drenching his hair now. Tears run down the girls face as Joslyn, Oliver and her father try to comfort her.
The shot quickly shifts to Thomas and Becca sitting behind a table and arguing with the man with the tablet from earlier. Explaining what John had done and why. That the soldiers had taken them to kill them and John had saved their lives.
The song slows down to only the piano and then quickly hits hard as the shot shifts to a closed sealed room with a man lying on an operating table with doctors all huddled around him and working hard.
“Soldier keep on marching on.
Head down til the work is done.
Waiting on that morning sun.
Soldier keep on marching on.”
Head down til the work is done.
Waiting on that morning sun.
Soldier keep on marching on.”
The song slows down again as the camera follows Joslyn reaching a rural home somewhere and being greeted by a little boy with an oxygen tube under his nose. She hugs him tight and shows him the medical pass John had helped her survive to win.
The shot changes to Oliver Jamison standing at an airport terminal. A young woman of asian descent rushes out when the doors open and the two embrace while Oliver hands the officer his Movement Pass while holding the woman tight with his other arm.
Finally Becca and Thomas are shown walking into an elevator of one of the housing units. Thomas is now fully healed and Becca looked happy, well adjusted and ecstatic to be free and with her father.
“Quiet now, you’re gonna wake the beast.
Hide your soul out of his reach.
Shiver to the broken beat.
Darken to the heat.”
Hide your soul out of his reach.
Shiver to the broken beat.
Darken to the heat.”
The camera follows Becca and Thomas as they talked and laughed through the hallway of a housing unit. The carpet and wall paper are extremely familiar and when they reach the door the music drops to a slow ‘OooooOoo’ of Fluerie’s soft voice.
The door opens to reveal John Moren seated behind a table. Becca throws her bag when she sees him and Thomas stands back with a little smile but that smile faces when Becca stops running.
John doesn’t come up off the table. He sits, a file in his hand and a hollow, empty look in his eyes. Becca’s seen whispering “John?” as the camera follows her around to find him staring at a case file with a small note at the top.
“The file is the death report for Lesli Moren.
Reported cause of death: Suicide.
Actual cause of death found upon investigation: Homicide.
Suspects: Leann and Trevor Perry, husband and wife grifters.
Case status: Close. No evidence.”
The note attached to the top reads.
Note: “For old times sake. Wanted you to see this. They went into City Three voluntarily once the new rules for those sent to the Cities were put in place. Once a Lancer, always a Lancer.
Til Death
Charles.”
John Moren: “...they killed my sister….”
Becca Calaway: “…”
“Soldiers keep on
Keep on
Keep on
Keep on marching on.
Soldier keep on marching on.
Keep on.
Keep on marching.
Keep on
Keep on marching.”
Keep on
Keep on
Keep on marching on.
Soldier keep on marching on.
Keep on.
Keep on marching.
Keep on
Keep on marching.”
John’s hand closes into a fist crushing the file in his hand while Thomas slowly eases the door closed, a serious look on his face. Becca sits beside John with her head on his shoulder and her arm over his shoulder but Thomas just stands there staring at him.
He knows what happens now.
The camera shifts to the walls of a city. It comes inside one of the homes to show Trever with a surgery scar on his chest as he pulls a shirt on. Leann comes in behind him and slides her hands over his back as he grins.
The shot then changes again back into the home of John Moren as the music drops to silence for a moment and a final beat drops comes as the shot comes in close on John’s face and the murder in his eyes.
“Soldier keep on marching on.
Head down til the work is done.
Waiting on that morning sun.
Soldier keep on marching on.
Soldier keep on marching on.
Soldier keep on marching...on.”
Head down til the work is done.
Waiting on that morning sun.
Soldier keep on marching on.
Soldier keep on marching on.
Soldier keep on marching...on.”
A quick flash between the laughing Trevor and Leann Perry and John’s face, the look of cold hate in his eyes. The episode ends on a close up of the eyes with the same look Hayley had seen all those weeks before.
Death.