Chapter 5: Veins

OPEN CANALS, DOWNTOWN (MID MORNING)

The sun finally pushes through the clouds, vying for dominion over the city’s flashing neon and LCD billboards. The perpetual shadow of vertiginous high-rises makes it a battle.

The main canal is several feet below the sidewalk and fenced. Valerie alone dares to hop it and prowl the narrow concrete edge.

Valerie appraises the fanged mouth of the sewers where water gushes out into open air. If THE PAYLOAD made it through there, it’s flowing free now.

Despite the daylight, the water appears unnaturally dark :.and evermore viscous.:. Ice collects in the notches where it slows.

She follows the canal downstream, wherever it goes. For however long it takes. Eyes peeled.

Other canals and pipes discharge into this main channel. The weirs are all down. Garbage flows SWIFTLY: food trays, bottles, plastic bags.

The canal feeds through a tunnel, forcing Valerie back over the fence and onto:

RIVERSIDE PATH, CITY (MID MORNING)

Valerie jogs awkwardly alongside a sparse park strip in view of the water, shopping bag flailing.

People on park benches look up from their screens. She resembles a sad woman late for a date, not a runner. Maybe that’s a good thing.

There’s commotion in the canal up ahead: flocks of fighting birds. A MASSIVE crow wins out, hauling a fish through the air, GUTS DANGLING.

The fish lands in front of Valerie, tar-black and writhing.

KITCHEN, BRUCE’S APARTMENT, CITY (MID MORNING)

Bruce takes a bottle of sparkling water from a fridge FILLED with them and pours a glass.

LIVING ROOM, BRUCE’S APARTMENT, CITY (MID MORNING)

Blackout curtains insulate the room from day.

Bruce sits on a couch watching an old sitcom. The shelves are full of DVDs. A thousand. Movies and old TV boxed sets.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

The only apparent luxuries are the large TV and speaker system. Opposite the modest home gym in the corner lives a lush dieffenbachia.

Bruce turns his attention to a photo album on the end table beside a glistening crystal ashtray filled with mints.

He reaches over as if to pick up the album but instead goes past it to the lamp, consigning the room to darkness.

FLASHBACK: ENTRYWAY, CLAIRE’S APARTMENT (NIGHT)

Lights switch on, illuminating a flat primed for a move: boxes everywhere, random clutter. No sign of Claire.

One small package stands out from the others. There’s a note:

Vale - This came for you while you were out. I’ve a bad feeling about this. Please...

Valerie stops reading and opens the package. It’s a phone (the same one she’s using in the present). She turns it on:

THE TASK REQUIRES DEVOTION.

DESTROY YOUR PHONE.

SHED YOUR OLD LIFE. SAVE YOUR FUTURE.

ARE YOU DEVOTED?

RIVERSIDE PATH, CITY (AFTERNOON > EVENING)

Time lapses. The sun arcs overhead and starts to fall. All the while Valerie walks, jogs, runs, eyes trained on the flow always.

She passes through downtown, midtown, endtown, and into the city outskirts. The canal is a river now, its banks dead-brown grass. A highway runs beside her.

It’s getting colder. She breaks to swallow more pills with a swig of water from a bottle.

She should be more prepared than this. What’s she doing, coming out here?

The answer lights up her phone:

EVERYTHING UNTIL NOW WAS A TEST

GET IT BACK

FLASHBACK: ALLEYWAY (NIGHT)

Valerie crouches behind a dumpster near a winding fire escape. Garbage litters the ground. She’s holding a hammer.

Valerie stares down at her phone, contemplating her existence. It’s a cliff jump. It’s like suicide. It’s blind faith.

The first SMASH is the hardest.

After that the RAGE flows, RAW AND UNBRIDLED. Therapeutic.

It’s done.

The new phone in her pocket throbs, as if it knows:

NOW WE MAY BEGIN.

GATES, WATER TREATMENT PLANT (EVENING)

Valerie’s feet crinkle pea gravel. She approaches a tall fence bearing signs ad nauseum: DANGER, ENTRY PROHIBITED, SURVEILLANCE

The sky over the VAST lot pools ink-black, darker than the rest, OMINOUS. The river flows into here, underground.

VALERIE: (beholding the ground) Can’t go under it.

VALERIE: (admiring the fence, extending forever left and right) Can’t go around it.

VALERIE: (touching the fence) Can’t go through it.

Valerie pans up at MENACING barbed wire.

VALERIE: (swallowing hard, fingers GRIPPING the fence) Gotta go over it.