Where Am I?

Where Am I?

by

Dr. Faustus at EroticMadScience.com

Here is the sixth Gnosis College script, Where Am I? As usual, I have broken the in-site version of the script into hyperlinked sections, indexed below. A PDF version of the script can be found here.


Prologue
Amazing Devices
Taking Lessons
Plotting Comeuppance
Things Go Awry
Fatal Plotting
Fruition of a Plan
Epilogue

fade in:

int. the sculpture court in a museum – day

IRIS BROCKMAN, dressed neatly in a skirt and blouse is walking around the court among other museum patrons.  Iris is studying the sculptures.

Iris stops in front of one sculpture in particular.  She furrows her brow and looks at it especially intensely.

close-up:  the sculpture

The sculpture is of a beautiful, nude voluptuous young woman with long hair.  It is executed in a material resembling white marble.  The model’s face is caught in an ecstatic expression, her hands extended outward in an attitude of prayer.

(Note:  It is the Ashley statue from Apsinthion Protocol.)

extreme close-up:  the name plaque under the sculpture

It reads “The Ecstasy of Faith:  Artist Unknown”

back to scene

Iris walks a circle around the sculpture and looks at it from behind.

EXTREME CLOSE UP: the sculpture’s buttocks

A tiny mole or pit can be seen on the right buttock.

int. a women’s locker room at gnosis – flashback/day

ASHLEY MADDER is standing naked, talking to JANE and LAURA, who are wearing one-piece bathing suits.  IRIS is standing in the background, behind Ashley, wearing a towel and looking on curiously.

ASHLEY

A good Christian girl? Meaning I believe in God the creator of heaven and earth? The creator of men and women? Well didn’t God create this?

Ashley runs her hands down from her belly to her upper thighs and back to her buttocks.

EXTREME CLOSE UP: ashley’s buttocks

They are the same as the buttocks on the sculpture, right down to the tiny mode.

back to scene

ASHLEY

Or this?

Ashley strokes her mons veneris.

ASHLEY

Or these?

Ashley cups her hands under her breasts and lifts them up.

ASHLEY

Dare we mock the efforts of our Lord and Creator by failing to admire His handiwork?

JANE

Ashley!

LAURA

I want them to look, too.

Laura removes her swimsuit and stands naked next to Ashley.

ASHLEY

There’s the spirit! So who else is with us?

Iris, in the background, removes her towel.

int. a sculpture court in a museum – day

Iris is leaning forward to inspect the little mole.  She reaches out as if to touch it, but is interrupted by a DOCENT.

DOCENt

Miss!  What are you doing?

Iris jerks her hand back.

IRIS

(looking and sounding flustered)

Sorry…I didn’t know what I was doing there for a moment.

DOCENT

I didn’t mean to startle you.

(looking at the statue)

She is a remarkable piece of work, isn’t she?

IRIS

Yes, indeed.

DOCENT

So much so that we sort of have to watch her closely, which I guess is why I was so abrupt.  I’m afraid we’ve had a few incidents involving agalmatophiles and this artwork.

IRIS

Agalmatophiles?

DOCENT

(stage whispering)

Pygmalionists.

IRIS

You mean creeps who want to…

The Docent nods sadly.

IRIS

(making a face)

Ew.

INT. theater stage at gnosis – day

BUCK YALE is performing in as Angelo in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure.

(Note:  They are in Act II, Scene 2.  The PROVOST, a SERVANT, LUCIO, and ISABELLA are also visible on stage.)

buck

(as Angelo)

Oh cunning enemy, that to catch a Saint, /With Saints dost bait thy hook: most dangerous/  Is that temptation, that doth goad us on/ To sin, in loving virtue: never could the Strumpet/ With all her double vigor, Art, and Nature/ Once stir my temper: but this virtuous Maid / Subdues me quite: Ever till now/ When men were fond, I smiled, and wondered how.

int. backstage at gnosis – day

Buck is conversing with his friend/flunky LEE PORELLO.  Buck is still made up and costumed as Angelo  Lee has a backpack.

BUCK

Did another one at Euphoric last night, Lee.  A real winner.

LEE

Oh, one for the list.  I’ll add it.

Lee pulls a notebook computer out of his backpack.  He fires it up and opens it.

EXTREME CLOSE UP: the computer screen

It is a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, containing column heads with “Name (if known)” “Institution (if known)” “Hair” “Tits” “Ass” “Other Features.”

back to scene

BUCK

Name was Sally, or maybe Sherry.  I wasn’t paying that much attention.  Sort of a hippie chick who was very drunk.  Long blonde hair.  Boobs like footballs, dude.

LEE

Entering it now.

(types for a few seconds)

Let’s see…run a sort.  Wow.  103 at Euphoric alone, dude.

buck

Chicks are really into talent dude.

LEE

Got some news for you, though, dude.

BUCK

Yeah?

lee

You remember Professor Alkibiades and his trunk full of tricks?

BUCK

Indeed.  His trunk full of so-called exotic stage props?  The ones that looked mysteriously like a collection of bondage toys?  Collected from his wanderings around the world that abruptly ended last term…

LEE

In an incident that the Gnosis administration is strangely quiet about…

BUCK

Dude, I myself could have sworn that girl looked of age.  She most certainly didn’t look thirteen. Some things are just not fair.  And old Humbert certainly was a great acting teacher.  You really found the trunk?

LEE

Indeed.

BUCK

Well, clearly he won’t be needing it for the next few decades, so let’s definitely retrieve it when…

Lights begin to flash.

BUCK

Shit!  Third act.

LEE

Break a leg.

int. the gadget – day

(Note:  The Gadget is a student snack bar at Gnosis.)

The Gadget is mostly empty.  In the background, WILLIE and MAUREEN from Invisible Girl, Heroine are visible, facing each other across a small table.  A television is on, and can be heard in the background briefly.

hartrey (o.s.)

(anchorwoman reading T.V. news)

The mystery continues about last night’s mysterious building collapse at the State Home for Wayward Girls in Pleasant Prairie.  W-P-P-T reporter Zoe Zeitgeist is on the scene with a report.

Iris is waiting at a counter.  CHARLIE brings her a large cup of coffee to go.  Iris hands Charlie an ID card, which he swipes.

(Note:  Charlie is the same character as served coffee in Progress in Research.)

IRIS

Thanks. Charlie, gotta run off to senior seminar with the ever-interesting Aphrodite Mora.

charlie

Oh, Professor Chic and Trendy, eh?  Lucky you.

IRIS

(rolling her eyes)

Yeah.  Lucky me.

Back to top.

int. buck yale’s room – day

Buck and Lee putting down a moderately sized but heavy metal footlocker.

LEE

Ugh.  What do you suppose Alkibiades was collecting?

BUCK

Well, there’s only one sure way to find out.

Buck goes over to a dresser drawer and takes out a small prybar.  He pries open the footlocker.  He and Lee look into it.

LEE

Damn.  That guy was into some kinky shit, look at these.

Lee removes a pair of shackles. They have been elaborately inlaid with pornographic designs.

BUCK

A man of refined taste obviously.

Buck removes a rattan cane and a couple of small flails.

Lee takes out a leather zippered mask and some sort of electrical apparatus.

LEE

(examining the apparatus)

What the fuck do you think this thing is?

BUCK

I think that’s called a violet wand.  Some sort of electric shock administering thing.  The Chicago Police Department used to use them for giving suspects the third degree.  But what I’m really interested is this box here.

Buck removes a long flat box.  The box has writing in Japanese on it, as well as the English words “HYPERSPATIAL CINCTURES.”

Buck and Lee look at each other, and then Buck opens the box.

Inside the box are a number of short dbouble belts with a clasp and a knob at one end.  The belts are laid into black velvet.

LEE

What the heck?  Just some kind of ugly jewelry.

BUCK

Dare you to try one on.

LEE

Well, I don’t know.

BUCK

You want me to set you up with some big-titty Euphoic chick or not?

LEE

Well okay.

Lee takes a belt out of the box.  He puts it around his right wrist.  He then brings one end of the belt to the clasp.  The belt suddenly tightens through the clasp as if of its own accord.  Lee GASPS.

LEE

Damn!  It feels like it’s…gripping into my skin somehow.

BUCK

Any pain, though?

LEE

No.

BUCK

So I wonder what…

Buck reaches and turns the knob on the clasp.

The double belt separates in the middle with a crackle of blue sparks.

Lee’s hand separates from the wrist and falls to the floor.

LEE

Holy fucking shit!  My hand!

Lee and Buck stare in astonishment at Lee’s separated hand.  The “stump” at the end of Lee’s arm is slightly metallic.

buck leans over and picks up Lees hand.

LEE

You cocksucker!  What have you done?  I…

Lee’s hand clenches as of its own accord, grasping Buck.

LEE

I can still feel my hand.

Buck and Lee look at each other in astonishment.  Then Buck places Lee’s hand on top of the dresser, balanced on its “stump” so that it can stand upright.

LEE

I can still move my hand.

Lee’s hand proceeds to move through a number of gestures, ending up with giving Buck the finger.

Buck watches, mesmerized.

Lee picks up his detached hand with his other hand, and holds the two belt-edges to each other, so that they meet.

Buck turns the clasp.

The belt releases and falls to the floor.  Lee’s hand is reattached.

LEE

Fuck.  What is that thing?

BUCK

The coolest fucking toy I have ever fucking found.

int. seminar room – day

About fifteen students are sitting around a table in a seminar.  The seminar is led by PROFESSOR APHRODITE MORA.  One of the students is Iris.  Another is DOLLY GIBSON.

(Note: Professor Mora is a stunner.  She wears a low-cut blouse the exposes ample cleavage.)

MORA

So as can be clearly seen, the discursive tropes of “competition” and “selfish genes” so clearly connected with the synchronic development of Thaterite-Reaganite “free” market capitalism serves as a clear example of how supposedly “scientific” legitimacy can be provided by an allegedly neutral but in fact hegemonic discourse.  The use of the topos of a “game” as in “evolutionary game theory” is a particularly clever and insidious strategy for trivalizing any atempt at counterhegemonic discourse.  Other examples include…yes?

IRIS

You are aware, Professor Mora, that that the final two chapters of John Maynard Smith’s Evolution and the Theory of Games are about the evolution of cooperation.  How is that an example of Thatcherite-Reganite capitalism, or whatever.

MORA

I’m sure we don’t need to consider John Maynard Smith, whoever he was.  As the work of Sandra Harding so clearly shows…

IRIS

Uh, excuse me?  John Maynard Smith was one of the twentieth century’s most prominent mathematical biologists.  I really don’t understand how you can claim to speak authoritatively about the content of evolutionary biology, especially game-theoretic approaches to evolutionary biology, if you don’t even know who he is?

MORA

Well, if he’s so important, Iris, why isn’t he referred to in Social Text?  Or Postmodern Science Studies?

IRIS

His most important single book was published in 1982, well before all that, though that would seem to be relevant if you want to talk about the ideology of Reagan and Thatcher.

dolly

Well, perhaps some people just don’t get it.

MORA

Well put, Dolly.  Moving right along…

Iris looks outraged.

int. buck’s room – night

The room is dark, save for a single light from a desk lamp, which is shining on Buck.

Buck us standing naked in front of a mirror.  On a dresser to his right is the box containing the hyperspatial cinctures.

Buck takes a cincture and wraps it around his left wrist, then detaches his left hand.  He holds his hand up in front of the mirror and wiggles his fingers.

BUCK

Damn.  Can’t believe this shit really works.

Buck reattaches his hand.  He then holds the cincture in both hands and looks at it for a moment

BUCK

Life isn’t worth it without the risk.

Buck wraps the cincture around his neck.  He holds his hair on the top of the head in his left hand and with his right turns the knob on the cincture.

Buck detaches his head and lifts it up.  He holds his head aloft in both hands and looks at himself in the mirror with an astonished expression.

BUCK

Fuck, man!  A-fucking-mazing!

Buck tilts his head forward in his hands so that it looks down.  Buck’s cock is becoming erect.

Buck lowers his head carefully to his middle and turns it around.  The Buck takes his own cock in his mouth and sucks a few times, then he releases his own cock.

BUCK

(whispered)

Awesome.

Buck goes back to fellating himself.

INT. A MUSIC PRACTICE SPACE – DAY

MADAM ANNA sits at the piano keyboard and is faced by TANYA YIP, a voice student.

(Note:  Madam Anna is the same character as appears teaching belly-dance in Study Abroad.)

madam anna

Tanya, relax, take a deep breath, and let us try again, beginning at “Fuelt mich…”  Ready?  Breathe!

Tanya breathes in deeply.  Madam Anna begins to play paino accompaniment from the appropriate point in the Queen of the Night’s Aria “Die Hoelle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen.”

tanya

(singing)

Fuehlt nicht durch dich Sarastro Todesschmerzen,/So bist du meine Tochter nimmermehr…

When Tanya tries to hit the first F in altissimo her voice gives out with a SQUEAK.

Tayna stops, her face scrunching in frustration.

Madam Anna stops playing and looks up at Tanya, speaking softly.

MADAM ANNA

Let us leave off for today.  When you come back next week, I promise to show you something that will allow you to draw deep within.  You can reach that high F.

Tanya bites her lip and nods.

INT. BUCK’S ROOM – NIGHT

The room is initially dark, until Buck and Dolly enter.  Dolly is hanging on Buck, giggling and giving him kisses.

Buck switches on the lights.

BUCK

Just a minute.  Let’s make it nice.

Dolly lets go of Buck and hops up on his bed.  Buck takes out a book of matches and begins lighting some candles around the room.  Then he turns out the lights, so that the room is lit by candlelight.

Dolly kneels on the bed and looks at Buck.

DOLLY

I’ll make it nicer.

Dolly whips off her shirt, exposing bare breasts.  She kneels, pulling her shoulders back so that her breasts are thrust forward.  She throws Buck a come-hither glance.

BUCK

Yes, that certainly is nicer.

DOLLY

And I’ll make it nicer still.

Dolly reaches into a drawer in the nightstand by Buck’s bed and pulls out two pairs of handcuffs, which she holds up.

DOLLY

You know how much I like it…and how much you like it.

BUCK

I have something even better.

Buck produces the case with the hyperspatial cinctures, opening it for Dolly to look into.

Dolly picks one up and looks it over.

DOLLY

Seems like a curious design for a bondage toy.  How does it work?

BUCK

I’ll show you.

Buck loops one of the cinctures around his left wrist, detaching his hand.  Dolly SHRIEKS.

DOLLY

Ohmigod Buck, what have you done!

BUCK

I’m perfectly okay.  Here.  Feel.

Buck holds out his detached hand to Dolly.

Dolly looks fearful at first, then reaches out gingerly.  Her fingertips touch those of Buck’s detached hand.

DOLLY

You can actually…feel?

BUCK

Yep.  And I can move.

Buck curls his fingers around Dolly’s.

Dolly’s mouth falls open.  She takes the hand in hers, then runs it over her chest.

DOLLY

Can you feel that?

BUCK

Your heart is beating fast.

Dolly touches the hand to one of her breasts.

DOLLY

And that?

Buck’s hand latches onto on of Dolly’s breasts.

DOLLY

Hey!

BUCK

Oh, now I really like what I feel.

Dolly detaches the hand, with a little bit of difficulty.

DOLLY

But Buck…

BUCK

Oh, that’s not a problem.

Buck re-attaches the hand to his arm, releases the cincture, and holds out his wrist for Dolly to see.

BUCK

Back in one piece.  Good as new.

Dolly looks at Buck’s wrist, feels it, then turns away and thinks for a moment.

DOLLY

It would be more amazing than just being tied up…I mean…

BUCK

Yes?

DOLLY

Let me try it…on just one wrist.

montage – buck and dolly cincture sex

–Dolly trying a cincture on one wrist, holding her hand up in amazement.

–Dolly naked and sitting in a chair, holding Buck’s detached head between her legs so that he can perform cunnilingus on her.

–Dolly lying flat on her back, all four limbs detached, being fucked by an intact Buck.

–Dolly astride Buck, fucking him.  Both heads are detached.  Dolly holds Buck’s head on her neck, while Buck holds Dolly’s head on his neck.

–Buck holds Dolly’s trunk (all limbs and head detached) upright and fucks it from behind.  Dolly’s head is fastened to a light fixture by her hair and swings back and forth in a pendular motion watching this.

int. tanya’s room – night

Tanya is pouring over a musical score at her desk, making annotation with a pencil and trying to concentrate.  NOISY SEX SOUNDS are coming through the wall.

DOLLY (o.s.)

(muffled, through wall)

Ah…ah…ah!

BUCK (o.s.)

(muffled, through wall)

Yeah baby!

Tanya pounds angrily on the wall.

TANYA

Keep it down over there, you guys!

The NOISY SEX SOUNDS continue unabated.

Tanya puts her head into her hands.

INT. BUCK’s room – night

Buck, naked, is holding Dolly’s head in his hands.  Dolly’s naked body lies on the bed, her neck at one of the pillows.

Buck lays Dolly’s head on the pillow and reconnects it to the body, turning the knob on the cincture.  The cincture releases, showing Dolly’s head reattached.

Buck climbs into bed next to Dolly.  They embrace and kiss.

DOLLY

Sweetheart, that was amazing.

BUCK

I do know how to make it special, now don’t I?

int. gnosis college pub – night

The pub is dark and somewhat smoky.  Sounds of MUSIC, CONVERSATION, GLASSES CLINKING, and so forth in the background.

Iris sits at a small round table with JILL and ROB.  They all have half-finished mugs of beer.

(Note:  Jill and Rob are the same characters as appeared in Dreamscapes.)

IRIS

It is an absolute travesty, I tell you.

jill

The senior seminar with Professor Mora, you mean?

IRIS

Aphrodite Mora.  How on earth did she ever get handed a senior seminar required of all philosophy majors?

JILL

I hear she was all the rage on the critical theory circuit — the toast of Paris.

IRIS

Continental philosophy.  As if anything of value has been done on the wrong side of the Channel since Kant breathed his last.

JILL

She published in all the right places.  The poobahs in Old Bricks could scarcely contain their excitement at bringing her on.

IRIS

Or they could hardly contain their excitement at her bringing it on.  Professor Aphrodite of the deep plunging neckline.  Oh, she’ll waggle her pretty tits at them and they’ll hand over anything she wants.  Senior seminar required of all majors?  Done for you, Professor Trendy.

rob

Well you have to admit, she does really have, uh…

Rob breaks off as Jill glares at him.

ROB

I mean, tell us what’s so bad about her academically.

iris

The whole course is a travesty!  It’s one bizarre characterization of work in the natural sciences after another, as if what working scientists did all day was just some power-tripping word game.  Arrogantly she declares that science is mere rhetoric.  Dame Aphrodtie wouldn’t know an experiment or a model if it bit her on her tight little European ass.

ROB

Have you asked?

IRIS

Oh, I will.  Do you know Dolly Gibson?

JILL

Oh yeah.  I was on the same floor as she was freshman year.  She was a roundheel even then.

IRIS

Yes, well she proves quite the intellectual roundheel as well.  A dim girl, but one who knows how to suck up.

ROB

Really.

IRIS

And she’s scheduled to do a presentation on…get this…the ideological import of Einstein and relativity theory next week.  This girl probably couldn’t escape first year physics to save her life, and yet I bet Professor Cleavage will just eat up whatever nonsense she spouts.  With Great Cthulhu and the two of you as my witnesses, though, I hereby vow to fix her clock.

JILL

Oh, now Iris, you’re asking for trouble.

iris

You bet I am.  I intend to show off some science in action.

ext. gnosis campus – night

Iris, Jill, and Rob are walking across campus together.  The camera tracks them as they walk under a light.

IRIS

Do any of you guys know if the situation with Ashley Madder ever got resolved?

JILL

She just seems to have vanished after her father was killed last years.  I heard a rumor that she went to a school in Switzerland.

IRIS

Pity.  Maybe she and Aphrodite could have faced off in a best breasts competition.

ROB

(putting his hands up in a submissive gesture)

I didn’t say it — I swear.

The three LAUGH as they walk out of the light.

A moment later a bedraggled-looking figure steps into the light.  It is wearing a hood, which it removes.

It is JILL-PRIME.

(Note: Jill-Prime is also the same character as appears in Dreamscapes.)

The figure looks around, then follows the threesome out of the light.

Back to top.

int. a music practice room – day

Madam Anna sits at the keyboard of a piano.  DR. SRINAVAS sits on a chair silently.  Dr. Srinivas is very neatly attired in a three-piece suit.

Tanya enters, looking slightly flushed, wearing Gnosis College athletic sweats.

TANYA

Hi Madam Anna I’m sorry to run in late but Orgo lab ran a little over and…

(noticing Srinivas)

…Oh, sorry.

MADAM ANNA

Tanya, I would like you to meet my friend Dr. Srinivas.  Dr. Srinivas, may I introduce my student Miss Tanya Yip.

Dr. Srinivas rises and extends a hand to Tanya.

srinivas

How do you do, Miss Yip.

TANYA

Fine, I mean, pleased to meet you Doctor Sri…sir..

SRINIVAS

(smiling politely)

Srinivas.

MADAM ANNA

Tanya, Dr. Srinivas is a great expert on certain aspects of the physiology of singing, and I believe he might be able to help you.

TANYA

Gee, uh, thanks.

MADAM ANNA

Shall we begin then, Tanya?

Tanya nods.

SRINIVAS

Begin perhaps with a major arpeggio, A above C to the octave above.

Madam Anna plays it for Tanya to hear.  Tanya sings it on a neutral vowel, somewhat unconvincingly.  Srinivas frowns.

SRINIVAS

There may be an issue with breathing.  If you don’t mind Miss Yip lift you sweatshirt just a few inches so that I could have a closer look.

TANYA

Er…

MADAM ANNA

It’s okay, Tanya.  Dr. Srinivas is a medical doctor.

SRINIVAS

Yes, among other kinds of doctor.

Tanya hesitates for a moment, then lifts her sweatshirt, exposing part of her abdomen and navel.

SRINIVAS

(peering intently at Tanya’s abdomen)

Again, please?

Madam Anna plays the arpeggio, which Tanya sings.

SRINIVAS

Yes, I believe I see now.  Your breathing lacks conviction and thus your singing often does as well.  It is as if certain vital energy is trapped and not escaping.

TANYA

I’m afraid I don’t understand.

SRINIVAS

It is difficult to explain without a great deal of technical terminology which I doubt that you know, but I could show you.  If I am to show you, however, I will have to touch you briefly.  Would that be alright with you, Miss Yip?

TANYA

Well, you are a doctor, right?

SRINIVAS

All right.

Srinivas touches a point just below Tanya’s navel.

SRINIVAS

It is here.

EXTREME CLOSE UP: tanya’s abdomen

Srinivas strokes just below the spot he has touched, very gently.

back to scene

SRINIVAS

With a small amount of manual manipulation, a greater degree of vital energy could be freed.  Again!

Madam Anna plays the same arpeggio.  Tanya sings it, more convincingly this time.

SRINIVAS

You see?

TANYA

Wow!  That actually felt…kinda good actually.  So there are points on the human body associated with releasing energy?

SRINIVAS

With releasing in the brain energy and information that is fundamental to the structure of music.  We can make it easier to move through various keys.  Shall we try.

TANYA

Yes.

SRINIVAS

(to Madam Anna)

Ascend.

Madam Anna plays the A-major arpeggio, followed by Tanya, who abdomen continues to be massaged by Srinivas.  Madam Anna and Tanya proceed upward through B-flat major, B-major, and finally C-major.

Tanya holds her high C for a few seconds before descending back down.

taynya

Amazing!  I never knew that could feel so…natural?  But are there other points on my…I mean on the human body associated with musical ideas?

SRINIVAS

Well, there are points on the spine associated with modes, just for instance.  If I may?

Srinivas strokes Tanya’s belly a little more explicitly now, then reaches around and beings tapping on on of the vertebrae of her upper back.

Tanya spontaneously sings from C to C in Ionian (that is in a conventional major scale).

TANYA

That just…spilled out of me!  Are there other modes?

SRINIVAS

Ascending the verbrae ascends through the modes, with the right technique.  The next one up is Dorian…

Srinivas moves his tapping up one.  Tanya sings the same interval in Dorian mode.

SRINIVAS

…Phrygian…

Up another, and Tanya sings the interval in Phrygian.

(Note:  Tanya continues lifting her sweatshirt as Srinivas’s fingers rise up her spine.)

SRINIVAS

…Lydian…

Same as before, this time in Lydian mode.

SRINIVAS

…Myxolydian…

Same as before, this time in Myxolydian mode.

SRINIVAS

…Aeolian…

Same as before this time in Aeolian mode.

(Note:  At this point, Srinivas’s fingers reach the strap of Tanya’s bra, and therefore cannot make contact with Tanya’s skin any higher up.)

Tanya whips off her sweatshirt and casts it aside, then reaches back and undoes her bra-strap.  Her bra hangs loose.

TANYA

Locrian!  Please…

Srinivas gently taps the Locrian mode out of Tanya.

When he finishes Tanya shudders and stands there breathing heavily for a moment.

TANYA

What else is there?

SRINIVAS

(hesitating for a moment)

Every sensitive bit makes music of its own.

Tanya glances back at Madam Anna, who smiles reassuringly.

Tanya slowly pulls her loose bra off and lets it drop to the floor.

Srinivas reaches out with both hands, and begins gently tweaking Tanya’s nipples.  Tanya closes her eyes, then begins to sing, softly at first, then more decisively.

Srinivas’s hands play over Tanya’s torso as if Tanya were an instrument.

Tanya suddenly GASPS as Srinivas’s hand finds its way under the waistband of her her sweatpants.

Tanya and Srinivas stare at each other in silence for a moment.

TANYA

Yes!

Tanya thrusts her sweat pants and underpants down.

Srinivas pulls Tanya onto his lap.  Tanya kicks away her sweatpants, leaving herself naked except for her sneakers..

Cradling Tanya, Srinivas proceeds to “play” all of Tanya, as if her were an instrument.

(Note:  Think Balthus’s painting The Guitar Lesson for inspiration here.)

Tanya sings wildly as Srinivas’s “playing” moves to a clitoral massage, and finishes in a shuddering, highly vocal (and musical) orgasm.

Srinivas stops his playing.  Tanya rests on his lap with her eyes half-closed for a moment.  Then she stands up and faces Madam Anna.

TANYA

Now!

Madam Anna begins to play the piano accompaniment to “Die Holle Rache” which Tanya, still naked except for her sneakers, sings brilliantly and without vocal flaw.

cut to:

int. outside the closed door of the practice room – day

CONNIE MORTON, neatly clad, is walking by.

The MUFFLED SOUND of Tanya’s performance can be heard faintly through the door.

Connie approaches the door and puts her ear to it to listen more closely.  She makes a face.

connie

No way!

cut to:

int. a music practice room – day

Tanya completes her performance. Madam Anna and Srinivas applaud.

Tanya, by now covered in a sheen of sweat, bows and smiles.

int. a seminar room at gnosis – day

Dolly is giving a presentation in a seminar led by Professor Mora.  Iris and other students, including JETHRO, look on.

DOLLY

(partly reading from notes)

So we can clearly see that given the collapse in the stability of metanarratives associated with the topoi of the bourgeois ego toward the end of the Victorian so-called Era of Progress, the masculinized fiction of equally parameterized space with its characteristic denial of difference could only then possibly be replaced with a feminized notion of a continuum…

Dolly looks up at Professor Mora, who looks back and nods encouragingly.

DOLLY

…that crates a critical elision between such absolute notions as space and time and the phallocentric priviliging of the notion of absoluteness over relativity, thus the emergence of the Einsteinian moment in physics.

IRIS

Wait a minute, are you seriously trying to tell us that Einstein had to invent special relativity because Europe’s collective dick went limp sometime around the turn of the twentieth century?

TITTERS from the rest of the seminar.  Professor Mora frowns.

MORA

Surely, Iris, you’d don’t believe in the masculinist bourgeois myth of the heroic scientist questing for truth.

IRIS

We certainly know enough about how Albert Einstein came up with special relativity to know that it was largely his achievement.  And what we do know has next to nothing with the outpouring of verbiage we have been hearing for the last twenty minutes.

DOLLY

I take exception to that.

IRIS

Do you now?  Well, since you’re clearly such an expert on relativity, perhaps you’d care to answer a simple question.

Dolly scowls at Iris.

IRIS

For an observer in a frame of reference A comparing a clock in his own frame of reference to another clock in frame of reference B, where frame of reference B is traveling closer to the velocity of light than A, should the observer in A expect the ticks of the clock in B to be slower, faster, or the same in B?

DOLLY

Well clearly the use of a notion of a frame would appear to involve an unjust privileging of something that is otherwise not in a frame, to say nothing of the masculinist assumptions behind the notion of “his” frame of reference.

MORA

Well put, Dolly.

IRIS

(rolling her eyes)

Faster, slower, or the same?

DOLLY

Surely the very notion of “the same” involves a denial of what we might critically call difference.

(Note:  Jethro speaks in something of a drawl.)

Jethro

That would be slower, right?  Time dilation equal to a factor of v?

IRIS

Thank you for that precious moment of sanity, Jethro.

MORA

And what is the relevance behind this rhetoric of vee-ness?

IRIS

The point is that this is not rhetoric.

MORA

All science is merely a form of rhetoric, Iris.  Or haven’t you been paying attention all semester?  Critical theory has proved that.

IRIS

No it isn’t.  Special and general relativity are not language games.

MORA

(sighing)

Iris…

IRIS

Have you ever flown in an airplane, Professor Mora?

MORA

Talk about questions in rhetoric.

iris

Then you have probably found your way safe to wherever you were going using something called the Global Positioning System.  You have heard of the Global Positioning System.

MORA

(brightening)

A hegemonic device of the U.S. military industrial complex desigmed to divide space through hegemonizing,..

IRIS

(waving a hand)

Yes, yes.  And something also which embodies both special and general relativity.

DOLLY

That hardly seems like a meaningful claim?

IRIS

No?  Well, how about an explanation.  Imagine that you find yourself in in a featureless desert.  You have a map, but the map itself has no features.  But you have a clock, and it is synchronized to two other clocks, attached to radio transmitters whose position you do know.  Each clock broadcasts its time to you constantly, and you have a radio.

DOLLY

So?

IRIS

The speed of radio waves is finite, so if you listen in to the radio transmissions, you’ll notice that the times you pick up lag the time on your clock slightly.

DOLLY

So?

IRIS

So if you know the lags in the times, you can calculate the distance to the transmitters, whose positions you do know.  You do at least remember the formula relating time, velocity, and distance,  You know, from high school physics?  Or maybe middle school math class?

DOLLY

(reddening slightly)

The hegemonic notion of temporality…

JETHRO

(his drawl deepening)

Aw shoot, now that’s too easy.  Distance is the product of rate and time.

IRIS

Precisely.  So with two distances figured out and…I’ll allow also that you have a compass with your map, hint hint.

JETHRO

I see.  Easy as pie.  You just draw circles representing the distances on your map, and where your circles are tangent, there you are.  Why that’s just the cleverest…

IRIS

Ah, but in real life it isn’t quite so easy.  Because what if time is running at a different rate where the two transmitters are?

JETHRO

It would make the calculation a lot more complicated.

IRIS

And if your clock happens to be on a satellite whirling around the earth in medium orbit?  Last chance, Dolly, to show us that you know something about what relativity theory predicts.

DOLLY

This is absurd.  Professor Mora…

JETHRO

I get it.  You have to account for some time dilation because the satellites are moving fast, but also account for the relativistic effects of their being further out from earth’s gravitational field.  Why that’s,…

Jethro tails off as Mora shoots him a withering glance.

MORA

Really, Iris, what is the relevance of this diversion.

IRIS

Diversion?  The point is, Professor Mora, that all the theory and all the rhetoric in the world will not save you if the plane you’re on while jetting off to the next critical theory conference miscalculates its position and attempt to land on a mountainside rather than a nice flat runway.  There’s a hard reality to where you are, and you can’t save yourself if you don’t know where that is.  And in that last statement, I summarize my objection to all the proceedings in this seminar.

Scattered APPLAUSE from some students around the table, GROANS from other students.

int. a well-appointed office – day

DIRECTOR RICHARD YGLESIAS sits behind a large desk, looking at a dossier.  An AIDE hovers quietly behind the Director’s right shoulder.

At the end of a conference table projecting from the Director’s desk, COLONEL JEREMIAH MADDER sits in his motorized wheelchair.

(Note:  Director Yglesias is a different character from the character in Invisible Girl, Heroine.  Colonel Madder is the same character as appears in Invisible Girl Heroine and Dreamscapes.)

director

I am not sure I fully understand about this State Home for Wayward Girls operation, Colonel.

colonel

What is there to explain, Director Yglesias?  It was a standard black-ops research project, duly approved by your predecessor.

DIRECTOR

Hmm.  Yes.  My predecessor.  And at the end of the project it would appear that the senior agent assigned to the site appears to have disappeared, along with most of the site.

COLONEL

Black-ops, Director.  These things have been known to happen before.

director

You seem to be having a bad run of luck here, Colonel.  I have also read in the dossier that a U.S. Army Special Forces officer on secondment to your section is now in what appears to be a permanent semi-comatose state.  And that in finding him, two members of a hard-target search team also detailed to your section somehow disappeared.

COLONEL

Actually, sir, what our forensic medicos say…

The Director holds up his hand, stopping Madder.

The Aide leans over and whispers something in the Director’s ear, the points to something else in the dossier.

DIRECTOR

And the disappearances go on, it would seem.  A special search unit in South-East Asia section…

COLONEL

That team was dispatched on sound intelligence.

DIRECTOR

Sound intelligence, Colonel?  I’m afraid I’m having some trouble putting this picture together.  A naive college girl wanders naked into the Sarawak jungle, then wanders back out six weeks later, nearly as naked, bearing fairy tales about the gentle natives and their mysterious spider gods.  On the basis of which, we send in a team of six wilderness-trained, state-of-the-art gear equipped, special forces operatives which promptly just vanishes without a trace?  Can you enlighten me just a little here, Colonel?

COLONEL

Well, even the best global-positioning technology has been known to fail on occasion, sir.

The Director closes the dossier, then closes his eye and rubs his temples.

DIRECTOR

This is not a freak show we are running here, Colonel.  This is an agency charged with protecting national security.  However inclined I might be to take an indulgent view, based on your past service, I regret to inform you that there will have to be a formal Board Inquiry into your activities over the past few months.

COLONEL

Sir.

DIRECTOR

You will not be placed under suspension, for now.  But I do urge you to keep your bureaucratic head down until the inquiry convenes.  Dismissed, Colonel.

The Colonel salutes, then rolls out of the Director’s office.  The door opens automatically for the Colonel.

Back to top.

INT. BUCK’S ROOM – NIGHT

Dolly is pacing around the room furiously, while Buck regards her calmly from the bed.

DOLLY

I can’t believe that little bitch was willing to trash me in front of the whole class like that.

BUCK

I’m sorry about it.  Really I am.

DOLLY

Going on and on about science and technology, little Miss Know-It-All.

BUCK

Yes, really terrible.

(glancing at the case containing the cinctures)

So anyway…

DOLLY

Buck, have you been listening to me at all?

BUCK

Well, sure, baby.  You had a bad time in class today.

DOLLY

It wasn’t just a bad time, it was humiliating.

BUCK

I bet I can make all that go away.

DOLLY

(turning her back on Buck and crossing her arms)

You don’t care about me at all.

BUCK

What?

DOLLY

You don’t care what I have to say at all.  All this time you haven’t been thinking about anything but your little toys.

Buck goes up behind Dolly and begins massaging her shoulders.

BUCK

Dolly, baby, listen to me.

DOLLY

You probably only care because I’m the only girl at Gnosis who’s willing to play in your sick little games.

Dolly sheds and wipes away a tear.

BUCK

Dolly, I promise you, I will help you make sure that that smartass little slut Iris Berkman…

DOLLY

(sniffs)

Brockman.

BUCK

Iris Brockman gets her comeuppance.  I’m sure that Professor Mora will handle the academic side of that…from what I’ve heard from Bucknell in drama, who’s fucked her a few times.

DOLLY

Stop it, Buck.  She’s one of the few profs here who’s been nice to me.

BUCK

Sorry, anyway, there’s a relationship thing going on there, ancd Bucknell says she’s brook no dissent on her work.

DOLLY

Small consolation for me.

BUCK

As for us, I say we pull off the sort of caper that will humiliate her right back.  And I’ll be in on it, with all the theater help I can recruit.  I promise, Dolly.

Dolly turns around and looks into Buck’s eyes.

DOLLY

Oh Buck, you’d really do that for me?

BUCK

You bet I would, baby doll.

Dolly kisses Buck passionately.

Buck glances over her shoulder at the case containing the cinctures.  Dolly looks at it too, then nods shyly.

Buck kisses Dolly.  Dolly begins removing her shirt.

int. a darkened classroom – night

The room is dimly lit by light coming through a transom window.  TOM and DICK are setting up a videocamera with a long-distance lens that points out a window.

Tom

I hear this Buck Yale character is the great Don Juan of Gnosis.

dick

Yeah, I hear that too.  Small wonder that Pedro specified getting some footage as part of our pledging Omega.

TOM

I hear Pedro is no slouch in the ladies man himself.  Do you think those stories about how he boned another guy’s girlfriend in front of the whole frat including the other guy are true?

DICK

I dunno.  I keep hearing bits of stories, but for some reason the guys don’t seem to want to talk much about it.  Which makes me think it might be true.

(adjusting the angle on the camera)

Third window on the left, right? Let’s see.  I’ll just focus…

close-up:  the monitor screen on the camera

An image comes into focus.  It is Tanya naked on her bed, seen through the window of her dormitory room, masturbating.

back to scene

TOM

Third window, dude.  Third!

DICK

(staring at the screen)

Aw, c’mon.  Can’t we get more footage of this?  Please, dude?

TOM

Dick, buddy, I’m as much in favor of pecker-directed thinking as the next Gnosis guy, but Pedro’s instructions were explicit.  And I really, really want in to Omega.

Dick grits his teeth, then swings the camera slightly.

close-up: the monitor screen of the camera

We see the image on the screen swing to  Buck’s dorm-room window.

At an angle, Buck can be seen fucking the half of Tanya form the waist down, while Tanya’s upper half sits on the headboard of Buck’s bed, head back, eyes closed, mouth open.

back to scene

DICK

Damn, dude.  What the fuck is going on in there?

TOM

Is that like one of those real dolls or something that some guys are into?

DICK

I dunno, dude.  I think those things are for losers who can’t get real women.  For what I hear, Buck’s got plenty of the real thing lining up outside his door.

TOM

Maybe he’s like one of these sick fetish-type guys.  You know, the sort who really gets it on for weird.

Tom and Dick stare gap-mouthed at the screen for a few seconds.

DICK

I wonder what Pedro’s going to say when he sees this.

TOM

I have a sinking feeling that he’s going to propose some sort of extra-credit prank.

int. hallway in hume hall – day

A number of students are leaving a large lecture class.  One of them is MICHIKO MAEDA.  Buck trots after her and catches up with her.

(Note:  Michiko is the same character as appears in Dreamsapes.)

BUCK

Hey…hello there.

michiko

Oh.  Hello.

BUCK

It’s Michiko, right?

Michiko keeps walking on.

MICHIKO

Yes, that’s right.

BUCK

I thought that was a really amazing question you asked Professor Cooperman just now.  I mean, who’d have thought he’d get so flustered about a question about the interpretation of dreams?

MICHIKO

Well, thanks.  I do try.

BUCK

I’m Buck Yale, by the way.

MICHIKO

Oh yeah.  You’re that actor guy.  You just played Angelo in Measure for Measure, right?

BUCK

Yeah, that’s right.  Tell me, and be brutally honest…did you like the performance?

Michiko just shrugs and keeps walking.

Buck looks momentarily crestfallen, but quickly regains his composure.

BUCK

So, d’ya think you might like to get coffee or something sometime?

MICHIKO

(glancing at Buck only briefly)

Sorry Buck, but I’m really really booked up these days.

Michiko strides off.  Buck stands and shakes his head.

int. dean ford’s office – day

Iris sits opposite from DEAN FORD, who is sitting at his desk.

(Note: Dean Ford is the same character as appears in Study Abroad.)

IRIS

Look at this paper, Dean Ford.  Look at it.

ford

The midterm paper for Professor Mora’s class.

IRIS

And the grade at the bottom?  A D-minus?  How do you figure that?

FORD

Perhaps you would be better suited to tell me that than I you.

IRIS

Oh come off it, Dean Ford.  I’ve worked very hard here at Gnosis and it has shown.  I made Phi Beta Kappa in my junior year.  I’m on track for admission in Ph.D. programs in philosophy.  Do you really think I’m going to pop out a D-minus in a required senior course in my own major?

FORD

Well as you know, Miss Brockman, I am an anthropologist by training, not a philosopher, and I don’t think it would be very seemly of me to intrude my judgment into a different discipline.

IRIS

Yes, I thought you might come up with an answer like that.  So I actually solicited the opinions of a few other members of the philosophy faculty on this paper, thinking that maybe I’d somehow managed some colossal goof or act of self-deception.  Stranger things have happened.  I submitted it to them without telling them what or who it was written for. And I invariably got back responses like “this is first-rate work,” “this would look good coming from a graduate student in the field,” and so forth.

FORD

I see.  And have any of these other faculty been willing to commit this opinion to writing?

IRIS

Strangely enough, when I approached them about that, they all backed away, making various excuses about propriety and so forth.

FORD

And what does Professor Mora have to say?

iris

She is at least willing to commit her opinion to writing.  “It is inappropriate, given my commitment to the deconstruction of hegemonic notions like ‘quality’ and ‘objectivity’ to concede that any grade other than the one I give is anything other than the right one.”

FORD

Well…

iris

Dean Ford, she’s practically admitting that her grade is punishing me because she doesn’t like my opinions and has nothing to do with how well I work.

FORD

Well, I’m sorry, Miss Brockman, but I can’t very well just overturn the judgment of a fellow member of the Gnosis faculty, especially one so eminent, one whom we worked so hard to recruit here, one who…in any event, don’t you think you would be a bit better off trying to be a little more accommodating of Professor Mora’s methodological approach, however unorthodox you might happen to find it, rather than picking some sort of fight with her?

iris

Yes, that seems to be her opinion as well.  She ended her last e-mail with a smarmy comment to the effect that improvement is always possible on the final.

FORD

Well, there you go.  Maybe you should give it a try.

IRIS

Translation:  knuckle under to my authority or I’ll screw you but good.

ford

Iris, I really don’t think you’re taking the right attitude about al this.

IRIS

(rising)

If I decide to sell myself, Dean Ford, I swear I’ll get something worth it in exchange.

Iris spins on one heel and leaves the office.

Dean Ford shrugs and SIGHS.

int. basement stacks of gnosis library – day

Buck and Lee speak in whispers in a section of basement stacks.

LEE

So that’s the carrel over there.

Lee gestures down a row of shelves.

shot:  iris’s library carrel

lee

Your girl Iris likes to come in late at night.  A born grind.  I still can’t believe what you’re planning.

BUCK

Well, what can I say?  There’s nothing like a pissed-off woman for motivating little schemes like these.  At the critical moment she’ll be over there, waiting to give Miss Grind the shock of her studious little life.

LEE

I also find it hard to believe that she lets you play around with those cincture things.

buck

Buck knows how to find women who are into adventure.

LEE

But most of all, I don’t know why I have to be around for this.

BUCK

Well, in our little plan Dolly won’t have use of her arms in the usual way, and she’ll need some strong male backup in case of problems.

LEE

And this strong male backup is me because, why exactly?

BUCK

Because, loyal friend, dear Dolly has been getting a mite clingy and possessive lately, and the Buckster, having a natural taste for variety and adventure, has lined up a little of just such.

LEE

(rolling his eyes)

Oh, lord.

BUCK

You have heard of one Cleo Mount, yes?

LEE

Yeah, I have.  Isn’t there some story about her having some sort of wild jungle adventure of her own last year.

BUCK

The one.  And for one special night, while the steady is occupied with dishing out comeuppance, lucky Cleo will get to be my jungle queen, the lucky girl.  The date is already set.

LEE

You beggar belief, Buck.

BUCK

But I’ve set you up good more than once, and will again, if you can just see your way clear to doing this one little favor.  Just lurk in these old stacks for a while, and show up and save the day if things get out of hand.  Which I don’t think they will.  Hey, you get to play being me for a while.

LEE

This seems eerily familiar somehow.

Just then Lee is interrupted by a WHIRRING sound.

LEE

(raising his voice to be heard over the noise)

What the heck is that?

BUCK

Beats me.  But hey man, it’s Gnosis.  There’s always some hard-to-explain project going on.

int. iris’s room – night

Iris is sitting at her desk with a simple laptop computer open before her.   Iris starts up an application which asks for a userid and password, which she provides.

close-up:  the screen

A dialog box reads “Connecting…” replaced by another that says “Authenticating…” followed by a window showing MR. TAKAYAMA, a middle-aged, neatly attired Japanese businessman.

back to scene

iris

Good morning, Mr. Takayama.

takayama

Good evening, Miss Brockman.  It is a pleasure to hear from you again.

IRIS

The pleasure is entirely mine, Mr. Takayama.

TAKAYAMA

Though I must say that I wish you would rejoin our employment here in Tokyo.  You were easily the most popular item on our menu at the Club Cuisine.  You would be generously compensated.

iris

It is a kind offer, Mr. Takayama, but as we have discussed before, I do feel an obligation to complete my education here at Gnosis.

TAKAYAMA

Most commendable.  What can we do for you, Miss Brockman.

IRIS

Mr. Takayama, I understand from my past association with it that your research consortium is at the forefront of various kinds of bodily transformation technologies.

TAKAYAMA

Your assessment is flattering but I hope not inaccurate.

IRIS

Has anyone in your consortium considered the technological or commercial possibilities represented by agalmatophilia?

TAKAYAMA

Ah, most interesting.  There is someone in one of our divisions who has a potential technology, although there have been…stability issues.  We seem to be missing certain key data necessary to calibrate the process.

IRIS

What if I were to tell you I think there’s a potential achievement of the relevant process.  No promses, just a possibility.

TAKAYAMA

It is commonly thought here that if we could actually make the process work, there would be significant niche market.

IRIS

Really, Mr. Takayama?  Whose analysis is that?

TAKAYAMA

There will always be a deep appeal to whatever it was that was once alive.  In luxury goods markets, real leather, real silk, real fur will always comand a premium over their synthetic substitutes, precisely because of the seductive fact that they were all part of something once alive.  Add to that the natural erotic appeal of a well-formed sculpture, and you can see commercial viability.

IRIS

Yes.  I see.  That was certainly the appeal I sensed behind the Club Cuisine.

TAKAYAMA

There would be the usual tedious legal issues, although our consortium might well be able to find our way around that.

IRIS

I might just be able to provide some data, if that scanner-sensor you provided me with as a souvenir still works.

TAKAYAMA

Really?  Now that would…

IRIS

I might even be ale to run a field test on an experimental subject.

TAKAYAMA

Miss Brockman, much as we admire your dedication to your work, I hope you are not proposing yourself as such a subject.

IRIS

I am flattered that you think my youthful beauty something worth preserving down the centuries, but no, I think not.

TAKAYAMA

Well, let us proceed on step at a time here and see.  If you can retrieve and upload the necessary data, we’ll start from there and stay in touch.

IRIS

Yes, indeed.  Well, talk to you soon, Mr. Takayama.

TAKAYAMA

I hope so, Miss Brockman.  Takayama out.

Takayama’s image disappears from Iris’s computer screen.

Iris pushes her chair back from her desk and sits for a moment in thought.  Then the phone on her desk RINGS.  Iris lets it ring three times and then answers it.

IRIS

Hello?  Yes?  Oh hi, yes of course I remember you Willie…yes, yes.  No I’m fine, nothing unusual at all.  No, haven’t talked with either Bridget or Cleo in a while.  You sure everything is okay?  Uh huh.  Uh huh.  Well, no…

Iris opens a desk drawer and takes out a small, camera-like device.

IRIS

(into phone)

I was actually planning on taking a little trip off campus for a day or two.  Oh, just a museum out of town.  Sure.  Sure.  You take care, too.  Bye.

Iris inspects the device, then grins.

int. a room at omega house – day

PEDRO is sitting at a desk, watching video on a computer screen.  Tom and Dick look over his shoulders.  Pedro is grinning widely.

(Note:  Pedro is the same character as in Apsinthion Protocol.)

pedro

Damn, boys.  You did good.

Tom and Dick grin and fist-bump each other.

PEDRO

We need to get ahold of that dolly to put our pledges through their paces.

Tom and Dick’s grins fade.

tom

Uh, dude, are we supposed to just break in?

PEDRO

No need.  I’ll show you why.

close-up: the computer screen

Pedro moves the slider on the video display.  The video rapidly whips backward through the surveillance of Buck and Dolly to that of Tanya.   It pauses on Tanya.   Sound of TYPING, putting Tanya into a moving loop.

back to scene

PEDRO

Either of you know this young lady next door?

DICK

No.

PEDRO

You like the looks of her, though, don’t you, Dick?

EXTREME CLOSE UP: dick’s crotch

Dick has an erection visible through his khaki slacks.

back to scene

PEDRO

The point is, I know her.  She’s Tanya Yip.   She and I have the same voice teacher.

TOM

I never figured you for someone who studied singing, Pedro.

PEDRO

(glaring)

You got a problem with that?

TOM

(shrinking slightly)

No.  Not at all.  Just sayin’.

PEDRO

Anyway, she sure hates good old Buck Yale, who hits on her regularly when he isn’t generating more noise than a Port Said bordello next door.  So you might say this little act of surveillance was a favor to her, and not just a chance for you two to show your props.

DICK

Uh…

PEDRO

And now that we’ve done a little favor for her by uncovering a naughty little secret about Mr. Ladies Man next door, I think…

Pedro reaches for a phone on his desk and begins dialing as he speaks.

PEDRO

…she might do a little favor for us.  You dudes best hope that the ledge outside her window doesn’t ice up soon.

(into phone)

Tanya?  Hey, it’s Pedro.  Oh, fine, and you.  Yeah, actually I just heard something you might find interesting…

Tom and Dick look at each other, worried.

INT. THE SCULPTURE COURT IN A MUSEUM – DAY

Iris approaches the Ashley sculpture and pretends to be studying it closely.  She glances briefly at a MUSEUM GUARD, who is watching her.

After a moment the Museum Guard turns away.  Iris glances again to make sure he’s gone, then pulls out the small camera-like device out of her purse.

Iris holds the device discretely and pushes a button.  Red laser-like lights spring forth from the device and scan it from bottom to top.

When this is done, Iris puts the device back in her purse and hurries away.

Back to top.

INT. BUCK’S ROOM – NIGHT

Dolly is sitting on Buck’s bed.  Buck gently fastens a cincture around her neck, turns the knob, and lifts her head off her shoulders, placing it on the dresser opposite.

BUCK

Got your line ready?

DOLLY

Try me.

Buck covers Dolly’s head with a handkerchief.  Then he lifts it off.

DOLLY

(trying to sound scary)

Surprise, bitch!  Bet you’re sorry now.

Buck emits a high-pitched mock SHRIEK and starts to flee.  Then he and Dolly both LAUGH.

BUCK

Okay, so I guess you’re ready.

DOLLY

But Buck, you’re not just going to leave my body there, are you?

BUCK

What would you rather rather?

DOLLY

I guess, I feel insecure about just leaving it there.

BUCK

I’m not sure I want to try explaining to the library staff why I’m leading a headless zombie around.

DOLLY

Well, can’t we at least hide me somewhere?  It would really make me feel more secure.

BUCK

Well, I have drawers and so forth, but you’re too big to fit in any of those, unless…

Buck reaches out and takes up a cincture.

DOLLY

Hmm.  Pretty sick.  But I would like the rest of me to be out of sight.

Dolly’s headless body stands up, and swiftly disrobes down to its underwear.

Buck cinctures off Dolly’s four limbs, then picks up her trunk and puts it in one drawer, then the four limbs and puts them in another.

BUCK

Better now?

DOLLY

Okay, let’s do this.

Buck picks up Dolly’s head, and puts it gently into a backpack.  He zips the backpack to not quite closed.

BUCK

You okay in there?  Can you breathe alright.

DOLLY (O.s.)

(muffled by the bag)

It’s a little claustrophobic.  Can you get over to the library quickly?

BUCK

Sure thing, Doll.

Buck puts on a coat, picks up the backpack and leaves.

ext. outside Buck’s dormitory – night

Buck leaves via the front door, carrying a backpack.

Ton and Dick, loitering some distance away, see him leave.

TOM

That’s him.  Let’s roll.

int. gnosis library at Iris’s carrel – night

The carrels are deserted.  Buck steals up to Iris’s, sets down his backpack, and gently pulls out Dolly’s head, which he sets upright on the desk.  Dolly SNEEZES.

DOLLY

Jeepers Buck, what do you carry around in that thing?

BUCK

Aside from severed heads?

DOLLY

Oh, ha ha Mr. Bondage Toys.  You’re sure that Iris will be in here?

BUCK

Either Lee or I has been watching.  Saturday nights always at ten.  The little grind.

DOLLY

And you really, really promise that you’ll be right nearby, for whatever happens?

BUCK

I promise, Doll.

Buck kisses Dolly on the forehead, then covers her with a large silk handkerchief that he draws out of his backpack.

buck

Now you scare that little bitch good.

int. gnosis library stacks away from iris’s carrel – night

Buck talks to Lee in whispers.

BUCK

Okay, so you’re going to watch, right?

LEE

You guys are the most twisted fucks I have ever met.

buck

I’m sure there are many more so at Gnosis.

LEE

And what, exactly, am I supposed to tell Miss Weight Loss when comes the coup de theatre and it is me, rather than her Prince Charming, that rides in to save the day?

BUCK

I dunno.  Be imaginative.  Say I had to go to the men’s room really, really badly or something.  Look, I really gotta run.  I’ve got a wild jungle girl to bone.

Buck pats Lee on the arm.  Lee shakes his head and rolls his eyes. Buck leaves.

int. dormitory corridor outside tanya’s room – night

Tom and Dick tap gently on the door with a “shave and a haircut” knock.

Tanya opens the door and gestures for Tom and Dick to come in.  They do.

Tanya sticks her head out of the door, then looks both ways in the hall before closing the door again.

EXT. LEDGE ON THE SIDE OF THE DORMITORY – NIGHT

Tom and Dick exit Tanya’s window, then carefully move down the ledge to Buck’s.

With a small pry bar, they jimmy open Buck’s window, then slips inside Buck’s.

int. gnosis library stacks – night

Lee, looking bored, paces through the stacks, looks at his watch, rolls his eyes again.  He walks down the stacks, trailing his hand along the spines of books.

He settles on one fat volume, raises and eyebrow, and pulls it off the shelf.  He looks through the gap between the books.

His jaw drops.

shot:  Lee’s p.o.v. the gap between the books

Deep cleavage between a large pair of breasts belonging to LUCINDA.  The a book is put in the gap in the books on the opposite shelf, blocking Lee’s view.

back to scene

Lee drops the book on his foot.  He hops up and down, silently mouthing obscenities.

Sound of a CART ROLLING.

int. the stacks further away – night

Lucinda, in a low-cut blouse, is bending over her reshelving cart, look at books.

Lee starts around a corner of shelving, gawking.

Lucinda looks up, GIGGLES and winks at Lee, then leaves pushing her cart.

Lee pauses for a minute, as if deliberating, then he also leaves, pursuing Lucinda.

ext. outside the gnosis library, front – night

Buck is trotting down the stairs toward CLEO, who is at their base.  They exchange conspiratorial glances, then head off together.

int. bucks room – night

Tom and Dick are looking around the room, through drawers, etc. as quietly as they can.

Dick opens the drawer containing Dolly’s torso.

DICK

(whispering)

Shit, Tom, look at this.  Paydirt!

The look at the torso.  Dick reaches out and touches it.

DICK

That’s amazing.  It feels soft and warm, just like a real girl’s skin.

TOM

And it appears to be…breathing…which I can’t figure out.  It even seems to be…reacting.  Do you see how it appeared to start breathing faster when you touched it?

DICK

Fucking amazing.  Where do you get a toy like this?

TOM

I dunno, but I do know that even Pedro is absolutely gonna take a dump when he sees this.  Which he has to

Tom and Dick look at each other.

tom

(glancing at a blanket on the bed)

Let’s wrap it up in that blanket and smuggle it out.

dick

Uh…

TOM

C’mon, buddy!  It isn’t stealing if we intend to bring it back.

Dick grabs the blanket, and together Tom and Dick start bundling up Dolly’s torso.

int. iris’s carrel – night

Dolly’s head is still sitting under the silk handkerchief.

DOLLY

Something feels wrong.  Buck?

(pause, then a little more insistently)

Buck?

EXT. OUTSIDE BUCK’S DORMITORY – NIGHT

Buck leads a giggling Cleo up the stairs into the dormitory.

On their way up, they pass Tom and Dick coming out, carrying something wrapped in a blanket.  Buck doesn’t seem to notice them.

INT. IRIS’S CARREL – NIGHT

DOLLY (O.S.)

Buck?  Uh oh.

Sound of FOOTSTEPS approaching.

Iris enters puts a knapsack on the carrel next to the handkerchief.

Iris squints, frowns, and then lifts the handkerchief off Dolly’s head.

Iris looks startled but quickly regains her composure.

Dolly tries to speak, but only a SQUEAK comes out.

Iris takes a pen and pokes Dolly in the check a few times experimentally.

DOLLY

Hey!

IRIS

A trick?

Iris pokes Dolly’s cheek a little harder.  Dolly’s head falls over.

DOLLY

Ow!  That’s enough.  Stop this!  Buck!  Buck!

Iris’s mouth drops open.

DOLLY

(now sounding frightened)

Buck?

Iris presses experimentally at a point where the edge of the cincture is adhering to the skin of Dolly’s neck.

EXTREME CLOSE UP: cincture-skin contact

A tiny drop of blood appears.

back to scene

iris

Amazing.  Not a robot.  Some sort of hyperspatial gate tech, perhaps?

DOLLY

No…no…please…don’t do that.

Iris picks up Dolly’s head and rights it, then sits back and rubs her chin, contemplatively.

DOLLY

What is wrong with you?  You were supposed to be scared shitless.

IRIS

Dolly, for reasons you probably aren’t able to appreciate, I am a little more inured to dismemberments than perhaps you imagine.

int. buck’s room – night

Buck and Cleo are undressing each other with a certain clumsy enthusiasm.  Once they are both naked, they kiss.

buck

I can’t believe how much I’ve looked forward to this.  I am so hungry for you.

cleo

(putting her arms around Buck’s neck)

Ooh.

EXTREME CLOSE UP: buck’s neck

Cleo’s mouth is reaching Buck’s neck, as if to nibble one of his earlobes.

Suddenly Cleo’s tongue, which is oddly pointed on one end, darts out and “stabs” Buck’s neck just below the ear.  A little spot of blood wells out where the tongue struck.

back to scene

BUCK

What the…

Buck goes limp and slumps to the floor.

Cleo stands over Buck and grins.

CLEO

I’m hungry for you too, Buck.

Cleo extends one of her arms toward the wall.

EXTREME CLOSE UP: the inside of cleo’s wrist

A small gland or aperture becomes visible.  Then a white thread shoots forth from it.

back to scene

Cleo has shot a thread from her wrist to the junction of wall and ceiling in Buck’s room.

ext. gnosis campus – night

Iris is trotting across campus, carrying a full backpack, from which OUTRAGED GRUNTING SOUNDS can be dimly heard.

int. a bedroom at omega house – night

Pedro is sitting alone at his desk, surfing the web.  There is a KNOCK at the door.

pedro

Come in.

Tom and Dick enter, carrying Dolly’s torso wrapped in a blanket, which they set on Pedro’s bed.

PEDRO

You guys back from your mission?

tom

Dude, you must see this.

Tom and Dick unwrap the torso.

PEDRO

Jesus on a popsicle stick!

DICK

Amazing, no?

TOM

I’d say it’s pretty fucking fetishistic of him to dress up a doll in a real girl’s underwear like that.

PEDRO

Yeah.  I agree.  Let’s take that shit off and see how deep the realism goes.

Pedro, Tom, and Dick remove Dolly’s bra and panties, then marvel at what they see.

INT. BUCK’S ROOM – NIGHT

Buck is hanging in a giant spiderweb that stretches wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling in his room.  Cleo looks at him admiringly.

CLEO

Poor Buck.  Skeletal muscles all paralyzed?   Not much you can do?  Well, there’s at least one thing you can do.

Cleo goes down on her knees so that she is facing Buck’s limp cock.  She kisses it, then strokes it.  Buck’s cock starts becoming erect.

CLEO

I always thought it was senseless design, making the male erectile mechanism dependent on blood engorgement rather than just providing a muscle where it was needed, like the tongue…

Cleo licks Buck’s cock, then kisses it again.

CLEO

But now I can see it as being a useful backup system that will work when other things just wont.

Cleo envelopes the head of Buck’s cock with her mouth, then sucks it a few times.  Buck’s erection quickly reaches full.

CLEO

Oh, wonderful, wonderful.

Cleo leaps up into the web in a single bound, her hands clinging to the webbing, her thighs wrapping around Buck’s hips.

CLEO

I’ll make you very happy before the end.

Cleo reaches down with one hand and adjusts Buck’s cock so that she can envelope him, the lowers herself onto it and begins copulating with him.

int. iris’s room – night

Iris pulls Dolly’s head out of her backpack and sets it up on the desk. She then pulls a pair of women’s panties out of Dolly’s mouth.

iris

I thought it might be nice to have a little talk somewhere a bit more private.

dolly

You take me back where I want to be or I’ll scream for help.  I swear I will!

IRIS

Dolly, dear, this is a women’s floor.  Random screams are always occurring for no obvious reason.  I suppose you could keep screaming, but then I would be obliged to stuff my panties back into your mouth and leave them there until I felt better about you.  You might not like that, but you have to admit that in your present condition there’s not a great deal you can do about it.

DOLLY

I want you to take me back to Buck Yale’s room and put me back with the rest of my body right this minute.

IRIS

What a relief to know that there still is a rest of you.  But first a few questions.

Dolly scowls at Iris.  Iris stares back.

IRIS

Dolly, dear, I’m also in a much better position to wait things out than I think you are.

Dolly blinks.

IRIS

Good.  Now let’s begin with the question of just how you got your head off your body to begin with.

DOLLY

Okay, okay.  Buck has these things, something he found among the abandoned storage of that drama professor who got sent to jail for sex with a little girl sometime back.  It’s a case full of belt-like things, labeled “hyperapatial cinctures.”  You can wrap it around a part of you and detach something.  Except that it’s not like it’s severed…blood, nerve, impulses, all that goes through and you’re not hurt.

IRIS

A hyperspatial gate?  Possible in theory, I guess, but who would have known anybody would actually ever have made such a thing.

DOLLY

So anyway, the rest of me is back in Buck’s room.  It was just meant to be a prank, Iris.  I swear, we didn’t mean any harm.  I just felt like you had been mean to me in Professor Mora’s seminar and…oh…

IRIS

Dolly?

DOLLY

I’ve been feeling things happening to the rest of my body somehow…I thought I was just disoriented but that…just felt like someone undressed me…oh..Buck, is that you?

int. pedro’s room at omega – night

Pedro runs his hands up and down Dolly’s torso, squeezing its breasts and tweaking its nipples.

PEDRO

(shaking his head in amazement)

Feels completely like a real woman.  Even appears to breathe and is warm like a real woman.

Pedro knees down and begins performing cunnilingus on the torso.  The torso arches back, as if in surprise.

PEDRO

Even tastes and smells just like a real woman and…

TOM

Dude, I believe this less and less.

Pedro massages Dolly’s clitoris with his hand.

PEDRO

…and gets wet like a real woman?  Damn, who made this thing?  How far does its programming go?

DICK

Japan, maybe?  I hear they have really good robotics in Japan.

Pedro continues his massages for a few moments more.  The torso begins to quiver and shudder.

PEDRO

All I know is that one really needs to put the robotics to the test.

Pedro drops his trousers.  He is massively erect.

DICK

Oh, dude you’re not really going to…

Pedro penetrates Dolly’s torso and begins fucking her vigorously.

TOM

Oh yes he is going to.  That’s our Pedro.

INT. IRIS’S ROOM – NIGHT

Dolly’s face contorts.

DOLLY

Oh…oh…ohmigod.  Oh, Buck.  Amazing.  You’ve never felt so hard inside me.  Oh…oh…

Iris looks on, dumbfounded while Dolly continues to make SEX NOISES that end in a NOISY CLIMAX.

int. pedro’s room – night

Pedro finishes and pulls out of Dolly.  He rolls over on the bed for a moment with his eyes closed.  Then he pulls up his pants and stands up.

PEDRO

Felt as real as the real thing.  Maybe even better.

Pedro glances at the torso, which trembles for a few moments before relaxing.  The Pedro looks at Dick.

PEDRO

Try it.

DICK

Uh, I dunno, Pedro.  I’m feeling a little weird here.

PEDRO

Try it.  You want to be my brother here at Omega?  Then show us you’re man.

Dick hesitates for a mopment, then lowers his trousers.  He is erect.  He climbs on the bed and penetrates Dolly.

INT. IRIS’S ROOM – NIGHT

Dolly sits with her features slack and her eyes closed.  Iris is still looking at her in astonishment.

Suddenly Dolly’s eyes pop open wide and she GASPS.

DOLLY

Buck!  Is that you?

IRIS

Again so soon?  No wonder he has such a reputation.

DOLLY

I don’t think even he can…oh no..oh no..oh no

A look of comprehension and grave concern appears on Iris’s face.

IRIS

I think we need to leave. now.  Dolly, where is the rest of you.

DOLLY

Buck Yale’s room, Machen Hall Room 403.  I think we do need to hurry.  Please hurry.  Oh no…oh no..ah..ah..

Iris puts Dolly’s head in a backpack, throws on a coat, and heads out the door.

int . outside pedro’s room at omega – night

A number of frat boys including FRAT GUY and DICK are milling around, snickering and leering.  Pedro comes out and addresses them.

PEDRO

I guess you all hear what bit of good luck came our way tonight, brothers.  And you can take your go, before we return what we borrowed, with one rule, which I lay down as I am in charge of this situation.  The second hole gets saved for my second go.

frat guy

Dude no way you can shoot again so soon.

PEDRO

Dude yes way I can, as you shall yourself see.  For now, I am going down for a snack.

Pedro leaves.  Dick nudges Frat Guy.

DICK

It’s that Apache blood they talk about sometimes.

EXT. GNOSIS CAMPUS – NIGHT

Iris is hurrying across campus with Dolly’s head in her backpack.  From the backpack come occasional grunts, moans, or hysterical giggles.

IRIS

(hissed)

Pipe down!  Do you want all of Gnosis to know that you’re just a head at the moment?

Iris is hailed from behind by OFFICER JACK CLEARY.

(Note:  Officer Cleary is the same character as appears in Apsinthion Protocol)

cleary

Excuse me there, young lady.

Iris turns around and speaks as Cleary approaches.

IRIS

(hissed, over the shoulder)

Can it Dolly.  It’s the campus beadle.

(to Cleary)

Evening Officer.  What can I do for you?

ClearY

Sorry to have to inconvenience you, miss, but I was wondering if I could check your campus ID.

IRIS

Uh, sure.  I mean, is there any reason why?

CLearY

Well, we’ve been having all sorts of reports over the last several hours of non-students running around campus acting suspiciously, and even a few calls about break-ins, so we’re putting on a little more security.

IRIS

I see.  Just a minute, please, officer.

Iris puts her bag down and reaches into it.

shot:  Interior of the bag

Dim light filters in showing Iris’s hand reaching past Dolly’s head to grab a wallet.  Dolly’s face is contorting

back to scene

IRIS

(handing over the wallet)

Here you go, Officer.

Cleary opens the wallet, looks at the ID illuminated with a flashlight, then turns his flashlight on Iris’s face to confirm that the photo matches.  Iris squints, then smiles prettily.  Cleary turns his flashlight beam back to the ID.

CLearY

Iris Brockman.  Senior.  Okay.  This seems fine.  Sorry to have interrupted your evening, Miss Brockman.

IRIS

(putting the wallet away and picking up her backpack)

Oh that’s okay.  It’s nice to know that someone is looking out for us here at Gnosis.  Well, good night, Officer.

CLearY

Good night, Miss Brockman.

Iris turns to leave.  There is a MUFFLED MOAN from within her bag.

CLearY

What was that?

IRIS

What was what?

DOLLY (O.S.)

(muffled)

Uhh…

CLearY

I could swear I heard something strange.

IRIS

Oh, uh.  Sorry that’s just me.

CLearY

You?

Iris makes a face, then GRUNTS slightly, attempting to imitate Dolly.

IRIS

That time of the month…sometimes it’s…painful.

CLearY

Oh, ah, gee, sorry Miss.  You’d better get on home.

IRIS

Yes I’d better hurry.

Iris hurries off.

int. pedro’s room – might

A group of naked frat boys are standing around Dolly’s torso.

Pedro enters the room, wearing a white bathrobe.

Dick solemnly hands him a tube of lubricant.  Pedro squirts some out and lubricates Dolly’s anus.

He disrobes.  He is fully erect.  The frat boys cheer.

Pedro lubricates himself, then penetrates Dolly anally.

The frat-boys CHEER and CHANT with every stroke that Pedro takes.

EXT. gnosis campus – NIGHT

Iris is trotting along a footpath, past COED #1 and COED #2.

There is a muffled SHRIEK from within Iris’s backpack.

Coed #1 and Coed #2 look at each other, alarmed.

Iris shrugs and goes on.

INT. BUCK’S ROOM – NIGHT

Buck is still hanging in the web, with Cleo wrapped about him.  He MOANS slightly.

CLEO

Do not fret, darling.  Having drained you dry below, I shall now drain you dry above.

extreme close-up: buck’s neck

Cleo nibbles at a spot on the neck, just above Buck’s jugular vein.

back to scene

CLEO

It may seem a hard fate at first, but think of what it means.  Before tonight you were nothing but a man.  But now you are destined for a higher fate.  To be a blood sacrifice.  The first nourishment taken by a fledgling goddess.

Cleo nips at Buck’s neck.  Buck begins to BABBLE.

CLEO

Doesn’t that appeal to you, darling?  Doesn’t it turn you on?  The thought that you will be incorporated into a goddess?  That tonight you will achieve a form of immortality?

There are RATTLES and THUDS from one of Buck’s dresser drawers.

CLEO

Who or what dares interrupt this sacred moment?

Cleo stretches out a leg from her position on the web.  She grasps one of the handles with her toes and pulls the drawer open.

The cinctured limbs — arms and legs — of Dolly’s spring out of the drawer and begin flopping about the room.

Cleo GASPS, then flings herself off the web.  She sweeps up her clothes and SKITTERS out Buck’s window, leaving Buck hanging in the web.

int. corridor outside’s buck’s room – night

Iris is approaching Buck’s door.  The sound of WHIMPERING can be heard from within her backpack.

Iris reaches the door.  She KNOCKS on it.

iris

Buck Yale?  Someone out here really needs to see you.

Muffled BABBLING SOUNDS come from within the room.

IRIS

Buck, you open this door now or so help me I shall make this night truly miserable for you.

dolly (o.s.)

(muffled, from within the bag)

Try the knob.  He often leaves the door unlocked.

IRIS

(muttered)

I wonder why.

INT. BUCK’S ROOM – NIGHT

Iris enters the room.  She looks up at Buck hanging in the web, then down at Dolly’s limbs scattered on the floor.  Iris looks somewhat astonished.

DOLLY (O.S.)

What’s going on?  Let me see!

IRIS

I’m not sure you really want to, Dolly.

Buck looks up and BABBLES some more.

IRIS

But I suppose some things just have to be faced.

Iris steps all the way into the room and closes the door behind her.  She then takes Dolly’s head out of her bag and shows it to Buck.

IRIS

Good evening, Buck.  Remember her?

DOLLY

Buck!  What is going on?  How did this happen?  You were supposed to be there for me Buck!

Buck’s head slumps to his chest.  He BABBLES some more.

dolly

Iris, please, please check the second drawer.

Iris SIGHS.  She puts Dolly’s head down on the dresser and opens the second drawer.

IRIS

Nothing in here except some old clothes.

DOLLY

Oh my God, no!  That’s where the rest of me was supposed to be.  Where am I?  What’s happened to me?

IRIS

This is really fucked up.  And I know from fucked up.

DOLLY

You lost my body?  You somehow lost my fucking body!  I’m supposed to be a head for the rest of my life?  By God, Buck, I swear that if I ever…

Dolly is interrupted by a KNOCK at the door.

dick (o.s.)

(outside the door)

Special delivery for Mr. Buck Yale!

Sound of SNICKERING, rapidly receding FOOTSTEPS from outside the door.

Iris goes to the door and opens it.  She looks left, then right, in the corridor outside.  Then she looks down.

Iris kneels.  There is some sort of wrapped parcel at her feet.

Iris unwraps the parcel slightly, then picks it up and carries it into the room.

IRIS

Looks like we found the rest of you.

int. buck’s room -night -later

Dolly is almost whole.  Her face is streaked with tears.  Iris is reattaching her left leg.  Buck is still hanging in the web.  He now looks angry.

Iris places a robe over Dolly’s shoulders and places the last cincture back in its case.

Iris turns to address Buck.

IRIS

Well, Buck.  Seems like you managed to make something of a mess of things here.

BUCK

Iwul ish!

IRIS

Something that frequently comes from playing around with technologies that you don’t fully understand.

BUCK

Iah!

IRIS

See, there’s something you might have known if you had read the documentation that comes with the technology.

Iris holds up a booklet printed in Japanese.

IRIS

But you never bothered to learn how to read Japanese, did you, Buck?

BUCK

Feh!

IRIS

See, if I understand correctly, these little cincture dinguses have a finite power supply.  Makes sense that they would require some sort of power assist, really.  I mean, think about it.  Suppose you cinctured off part of yourself and then took that bit higher up in a gravitational field.  Well then, any bodily fluids would automatically gain in potential energy once they crossed the cincture barrier, which would in effect allow you to create a sort of perpetual motion machine.

BUCK

Ooo uing aeyerth.

IRIS

Well, I’m sorry Buck, but physics says no to that.  Unless of course you put in some sort of power-assist, thus keeping things consistent with the requirement of conservation of mass.  Of course, the designers of this these doo-hickeys did provide a means for monitoring the power.

Iris picks a very small cincture out of the case, handles it in a curious way.  A single little red light appears on the knob.

IRIS

Aw.  Looks like you’re almost out of power.  Good thing I got here when I did, or poor Dolly here might have suffered a spontaneous and very messy dismemberment.

Dolly SOBS.

IRIS

I think, though, there might be just enough power left in the system for one last little experiment.

Iris takes the cincture, walks over to Buck and wraps it around the base of his penis, then cinctures it off and holds it up for him to see.

buck

Ooh. o o!  aaa!  Aa ihm!

IRIS

Stop me?  Hmm.  In any mood to stop me from what I am about to do, Dolly?

Dolly shakes her head.

iris

Well.

(tucking Buck’s penis into her backpack)

I intend to hide this but good.  Once you’ve used your formidable eloquence to convince your now ex-girlfriend to get you out of your present predicament, you can come to me, and beg to be allowed to do me a little favor.  And if you ask nice enough, and be a good boy and do what I tell you, then I just might let you have your precious member back.

(goes to door, opens it, and speaks over her shoulder before leaving)

But work quickly, Buck.  You wouldn’t want the batteries to unexpectedly run out, or anything.

Iris leaves.

BUCK

Aaahh Oooo!

Dolly looks away, disgusted.

Back to top.

int. the hallway outside iris’s room – night

Iris approaches her door, and fumbles for her keys in her backpack.  As she is doing so, an adjacent door opens.  CLAUDIA sticks her head out.

claudia

Iris?

IRIS

Oh hey, Claudia.

CLAUDIA

Was wondering when you’d be back in.

IRIS

Well, it’s been something of a long eventful night.  What’s up.

CLAUDIA

Someone came by with a package for you.

Claudia ducks back inside her room, then emerges with a large box covered in Japanese writing and bearing a logo of a cute manga character, which she hands to Iris.

CLAUDIA

Courier came by with it for you earlier.  I signed for it.  Hope that’s okay.

IRIS

Oh, sure.  Thanks a lot.

CLAUDIA

It looks like it came all the way from Japan.  I guess someone over there thinks you’re a doll.  Night-night.

Claudia goes back into her room.

iris

(to herself)

Wish you hadn’t put it quite that way, Claudia.

Iris finds her keys and enters her room.

INT. IRIS’S ROOM – NIGHT

Iris reaches into her backpack.  She takes out Buck’s penis and puts it on her desk.  She looks at it and smirks.

Then she takes a box-cutter out of her backpack and opens the package.  She finds inside a tripod, which she sets up, and another object which looks like an old-fashioned box camera.  Iris looks this object over.

IRIS

Awesome.

int. a hospital room – day

Colonel Madder and MARIE are looking over the semi-comatose SAMSON, who is lying on a bed.

(Note: Marie and Samson are the same characters as in Dreamscapes.)

marie

I don’t understand?  Can’t you wake him up?

COLONEL

No, Marie.  We can’t.  The doctors have tried everything they know, but John Samson just won’t revive?

MARIE

But why?

COLONEL

We’re not sure.  I can let you in on this.  Something evil is going on at Gnosis College, Marie.  We’re not sure what.  John was working for us, and he was trying to find out.  But we think that someone figured this out and got to him first, and now…

(gestures sadly)

…there seems to be very little of him left.

MARIE

(sniffs, wipes away a tear)

That’s so unfair.  He was so…beautiful.

COLONEL

It’s in the nature of evil people that they don’t care what they destroy in the pursuit of their foul objectives.

MARIE

If only there were something that I could do.

COLONEL

There might not be anything you can do for John, Marie.

MARIE

I would do what I could to catch and punish those who did this to him.

COLONEL

Marie, whoever did this is clearly a ruthless and dangerous individual or gorup.  I could never in good conscience ask someone as young as you…

MARIE

I’m not a child, Colonel.  I am nineteen years old.

The Colonel pauses for a moment, as if lost in thought.

COLONEL

You’re a very brave young woman, you know that, Marie?

Marie stands up a little straighter.

COLONEL

We could perhaps ask you to report back…from time to time.  Be a pair of eyes and ears for us.  Report on anything unusual.

MARIE

Oh, yes.  I would do that.

COLONEL

But you must never…promise me never…try to do anything on your own without our asking you to.  I won’t have innocent life on my conscience.

MARIE

Oh, yes Colonel.  I would.

COLONEL

All right.  I’ll speak to my aide, and he can speak to you later.  But the basic idea is that you should keep your eyes and ears open for anything that seems weird or unnatural

MARIE

Weird or unnatural?

COLONEL

There is reason to believe that whoever did this to John Samson was playing around with some sort of strange, unauthorized technologies, or maybe even the supernatural.

MARIE

(turning a little pale)

The supernatural?

COLONEL

Maybe even.

(turning to Samson)

Poor boy.

int. a japanese bathhouse – dream sequence – day

A group of bath girls, one of whom is clearly Michiko in a kimono, attend a group of JAPANESE OFFICERS in World War II era uniforms, who are carousing, drinking sake, and so forth.

There is a series of LOUD BANGS at the door.  The officers drop their sake glasses and flee screaming.  The bath girls cower in various parts of the room.

The door is kicked in.  Buck enters, dressed as General MacArthur with a corn-cob pipe and mirrored sunglasses.  He is brandishing a Colt automatic as he strides into the room.

Buck looks around coolly.

Michiko stands up a bows submissively.

(Note: Michiko speaks in an high-pitched voice with a stereotyped “Japanese” accent in the following scene.)

MICHIKO

American solider, you conquer us.

Buck nods slightly.

MICHIKO

We oriental girls, so lucky be conquered by you.  So big…not like Japanese man.

EXTREME CLOSE UP: Buck’s crotch

He is hugely erect, and this fact is visible through his officer’s trousers.

back to scene

MICHIKO

You like oriental girl?

Buck steps close to Michiko.

MICHIKO

You like bath?

Buck parts the kimono with the barrel of his pistol sot that it falls open.  He then begins “caressing” Michiko’s body with the pistol (always pointed at her).

Michiko’s kimono slips to the floor.  Her lips part.  She GASPS.

Buck begins thrusting the barrel of the pistol back and forth between Michiko’s legs.  Michiko MOANS.

cut to:

int. buck’s room – day

Buck is lying on his bed.  Sunlight is streaming through his window, illuminating a few stray strands of spiderweb on his wals.

Buck thrusts down his shorts and is about to masturbate, only to discover his penis is still missing.

Buck HOWLS with frustration.

INT. iris’s room -day

The camera-like device Iris received from Japan is sitting on her desk.  Iris is reading some sort of Japanese documentation.

Buck’s penis is hanging upside down, the ring of the cincture laying over the open mouth of a jug.  It is initially flaccid, stretches out to fully erect, then promptly deflates again.

As it does so, Iris turns away from the documentation and regards it curiously.

IRIS

Poor boy.

Iris picks up a cellphone and types a text message into it, then turns the phone off.

cut to:

INT. BUCK’S ROOM – DAY

Buck is sitting on the side of the bed, his head buried in his hands.

There is a BEEPING SOUND.  Buck picks up a cell phone of his own.  He looks at the screen.

BUCK

Fuck!

Buck hurls the phone away.

int. computer center – day

A dimly-lit room with rows of computers.  Several students are working at terminals.  Iris is working on one in the back corner.

shot:  computer screen

Screen showing a chatroom called “Hypertheory.”

String of text being entered. “Falala definitly hding ct. at Euphoric State, mt begin looking for new entrie sin his Paris seminar.”

Entry under a different screenname:  “Gnosis next?  Might look in on Mora?”

Entry under another name:  “Lucky her if he does.  Hear her star might be fading, though.”

back to scene

Iris looks at the screen for a few seconds more, then grins.

int. a darkened dormitory room – night

The room is lit mostly just by candles.

Tanya in a circle with Marie and KITTY and TRICIA.  They are passing around a hookah.  Marie is inhaling as Kitty speaks.

(Note: Kitty and Tricia are the same characters as in Progress in Research.)

kitty

So that’s, like, amazing.  So this sort of therapy that Madam Anna has set you up with this Dr. Srinivas guy is actually improving your singing.

TANYA

I feel so liberated, musically.

tricia

It sounds a bit on the weird side.

KITTY

You’ve been through much weirder.

Kitty and Tricia exchange raised eyebrows, which Tanya ignores.

TANYA

I think I’ve made enough progress to take a shot in the Verdi Requiem competition.

TRICIA

And challenge Connie Morton for the role?  She’s the student soprano queen of Gnosis.  No way!

TANYA

I just feel really confident.  I can almost feel myself hitting the high C in the “Libera me.”

KITTY

Wow.  Sounds like this Dr. Srinivas really has done a lot for you.

TANYA

Oh, yes…it seems that he is not just teaching me to sing, but teaching me to dream as well.  For example…

dissolve to:

int. stage (tanya fantasy sequence) – day

Srinivas is sitting on a chair on stage, dressed in white tie and tails.  He is illuminated by a spotlight.  All around is darkness.

A second spotlight comes on, illuminating Tanya, who is on the stage off to Srinvias’s left.  She is wearing a simple robe.  Tanya walks across the stage.  The spotlight tracks her.

Tanya turns and faces the same direction as Srinivas.  She bows.  There is the sound of APPLAUSE from an unseen audience.

Tanya removes her robe and hands it to a pair of hands that are briefly visible in the spotlight.  The robe is taken away.  Tanya is naked.

There is silence interrupted only by occasional SHUFFLING or a COUGH.

Tanya sits on Srinivas’s lap.

shot – the audience

Seated men and women in evening dress are listening and watching attentively.

back to scene

Srinivas begins to “play” Tanya as if she were an instrument.  She SINGS beautifully, but without distinct words.

tanya (v.o.)

And I feel no shame about being there, or about anyone watching.  Becasue I do not have to be Tanya anymore.  I am instead a beautiful instrument, and something for everyone to see.  I give up being me.  I surrender.  I submit.  I fuse with the music.  And it is ecstasy, and orgasm that runs the length of the performance.

dissolve to:

INT. TANYA FANTASY SEQUENCE – LATER

Tanya is completing her performance.  She ends on a high note, then dismounts from Srinvias, who stands.  Tanya is covered in a film of sweat.

FURIOUS APPLAUSE, SHOUTS, WHISTLES, cries of “BRAVA” from the audience.

shot:  the audience

Standing ovation.

back to scene

Both Srinivas and Tanya bow.

A pair of hands returns Tanya’s robe to her, which she puts back on.

int. a darkened dormitory room – night

TANYA

I mean, I know it’s totally weird and all, but it’s an image that just keeps recurring to me.

KITTY

Sometimes weird can be good.  But don’t let Connie know.

Tanya, Kitty, and Tricia LAUGH.  Marie looks thoughtful.

INT. GNOSIS COLLEGE PUB – NIGHT

Sound of MUSIC PLAYING.  Iris is sitting at the bar, WAGNER working behind it.  Iris gestures for Wagner to come over. He does.

(Note: Wagner is the same character as appeared in Study Abroad.)

IRIS

Wagner!  Long time no see you bartend.

wagner

Well, unfortunately a job that I thought be more of a gravy train than this one fell through.  Haven’t seen much of you down here, Iris.  What’s your pleasure?

iris

Been busy.  How about a pint of Charles Dexter Ward?

wagner

Sure.

Wagner fetches Iris’s beer and puts it down in front of her.

Iris puts some cash on the bar, more than would be plausible for even a very expensive beer.

IRIS

Stay and talk to a lonely girl for a few minutes, Wagner?

WAGNER

Anything for a lady, I guess.

(leans closer, conspiratorially)

Why?  Are you looking for a connect or something?

IRIS

You know that back room that they don’t use very often, the one they call the Cave?

WAGNER

Sure.  You can apply to use it through the Student Activities Board.

IRIS

But tending bar here as you do you have a key, right?

WAGNER

Yeah.

IRIS

Suppose I told you want to host a very small, very private party there on short notice and don’t want the hassle of going through the official channels to host it.

WAGNER

Oh, I don’t know if I really…

Iris puts a paperback romance novel on the bar.

IRIS

Careless me.  I’ve just left my book on the bar.  Being a conscientious sort you’ll check it as I run to the ladies room.  If you like what’s inside, I might just forget it a second time when I leave to attend an important meeting.

Iris takes a healthy swig of her beer, then gets up and leaves.

When she’s out of sight, Wagner picks up the book and looks inside of it.  He raises an eyebrow.

cut to:

int. gnosis college pub – night – slightly later

Iris returns to the bar.

iris

So, how’s your taste in literature, Wagner.

WAGNER

You dispose of a surprising amount of cash for a college student.

IRIS

I’m planning on having a little party at Wednesday, 11 p.m., in the Cave.  Does that sound like fun to you.

wagner

It sure does.

IRIS

If the party goes well, I sure won’t miss the cash.

WAGNER

I’m sure it will happen, right on time.

IRIS

Wagner, you are worth your weight in premium hops.  But if you’ll excuse me, I have an appointment to keep.  Ta!

Iris leaves, taking her beer with her.

Wagner picks up the paperback novel and flips through it.  Bills are visible at one point.

WAGNER

Seems like everyone wants to corrupt poor little me.  Still, as long as they pay in cash…

int. a corner of the gnosis college- pub – night

Buck is sitting at a table with his back to the wall.  He is wearing a sour expression.

Iris approaches and sits down.

IRIS

Well, if it isn’t my new friend Buck.

buck

What do you want?

IRIS

Just to make a little proposition…a favor in return for the safe return of that which you most adore.

BUCK

(beginning to rise threateningly)

I ought to…

IRIS

Ought to what, Buck?  Manhandle me out of this pub or beat the truth out of me?  In front of twenty witnesses?  Or perhaps stalk me across campus until you got what you wanted?  I wouldn’t count on success.  I have more resources than you can readily imagine, and in any event, as perhaps you might understand, time is running out for Mr. Happy.

Buck sits down, deflated.

IRIS

You would be much better off taking the proposition I am about to offer.  Not only is it safer, but it’s something right up your alley.  An acting job, in fact.

Buck eyes Iris silently.

Iris reaches into her backpack and takes out several fat volumes, which she places on the table in front of Buck.

iris

These are works by one Michel Falala, bullshit French theorist extraordinare.  The man with the incomprehensible, sneering theory about everything.  Now as it happens, on this campus there is a faculty member, on Professor Aphrodite Mora, who more than anything pines for the approving word of an ultra-trendy intellectual like Falala.

buck

So?

IRIS

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, and I very much advise that you do, is to read up, figure out how to talk like Falala.  Then you are going to impersonate him at a private assignation in the Cave with Professor Aphrodite Mora.

BUCK

That’s crazy!  I’m sure I don’t look anything like this Falala character.

IRIS

Except that you don’t have to.  I came across a little open secret recently in the theory community, which is that Falala is a voyeur.

BUCK

A voyeur?

IRIS

He likes to watch.  And this is known.  He has an elaborate, utterly bullshit theory about how his being dirty undermines patriarchal capitalist hegemony, or some such.  We needn’t worry about the details now.  What’s relevant is that you can sit back in darkened shadows and talk Professor Aphrodite Mora out of her clothes.

BUCK

You’re nuts.

IRIS

Ever tried to imagine what Aphrodite Mora looks like out of her clothes, Buck?  I think you might just enjoy your work.  And at the end of it, you get your magic wand back.

BUCK

And then you want me to…

iris

No, Buck, then I want you to disappear while bare Aphrodite and I have a little…talk.

BUCK

I really don’t fucking believe this.

iris

(standing up)

Your choice, Buck.  Text message me to say yes.  In the meanwhile, don’t worry about your missing part.  I promise to take good care of it.   And anyway, speaking as someone who has never had one, I can say with authority that it’s actually easier to get through life without one than you might think.

Iris drains her beer and leaves.

Buck looks after her for a moment, then picks one of the books up off the table and begins flipping through it.

int. madder’s home office – day

(Note:  This office is the same richly-appointed office seen at the start of Dreamscapes.)

Madder is sitting at his desk looking over some documents when a PING sound is heard.  Madder looks over at his computer

close-up:  madder’s computer screen

A small bubble has popped up, reading “CHERUBINA:  Possible evidence of bizarre technique/technology being used to teach singing in context of some sort of artistic rivalry between senior girls Tanya Yip and Constance Morton.  Unclear but very strange.

close-up: Madder’s face

He scratches his chin.

close-up: madder’s computer screen

Another ballon pops up, into which Madder types “ARCHANGEL:  Discretely try to find out more and report back.”

back to scene

Madder sits back in his chair and smiles.

ext. gnosis campus – day

It is a brilliant, snowy day.  Iris is walking across campus.  Rob jobs after her and catches up.

ROB

Iris!  Hey. An I glad to catch up with you.

iris

Oh, hey Rob.  What’s up?

ROB

I was wondering whether you’d seen Jill lately.

iris

Whether I’d seen Jill lately?  Well, no, I don’t think I’ve seen her for over a week.  You mean to say you haven’t seen her?

ROB

Well, no.  I mean, I’ve gotten a bunch of e-mail messages that are all from her account and they all sound like her and are apologizing for not being able to see me but telling me that we’ll be able to get together soon and that she’s fine and all that.  But it’s starting to get spooky.  I mean, shouldn’t I see her

iris

Hmm.  We are all pretty busy these days.

rob

And I don’t think it’s that she’s mad at me or anything.  I mean, okay I’ll admit we had a little spat about my being in that study with that Japanese girl, Mariko or whatever her name is.  I mean, she’s something of a knockout herself and maybe I talked a little too appreciatively about her.  But then Jill showed up and she was so…passionate and I thought we were all made up.  And then she seems to just drop out of sight.

IRIS

Rob, Jill is trying to do a thesis.

ROB

I mean, a little while back I saw another woman walking across campus who had a face that I thought was hers but then it wasn’t and…I’m cracking up, aren’t I.  I mean, what if she’s in some kind of trouble?

Iris stops, faces Rob, and takes both his hands in hers.

IRIS

Rob, calm down.   I know Jill is very special and I know why you’d feel concerned.  Anyone would be. But I’m sure it will all be fine.

(gives Rob’s hands a reassuring squeeze)

And as for Jill’s being in any kind of trouble, believe me, I know for a fact that she can handle trouble.  She really can.

ROB

Okay.  Thanks.  It’s nice to have the words of reassurance.  You.ll let me know if you hear anything, right?  And if you see her you’ll tell her that I’m worried, right?

IRIS

I will.  I promise.  You take care, okay, Rob?

ROB

Okay.

int. mora’s bathroom – night

The bathroom is dimly lit.  Mora is reclining in a babble bath, relaxing.  A glass of wine and iPad are sitting on a footstool within easy reach.  Some candles are burning near the bath.

Mora takes the wineglass, takes a sip, luxuriates for a moment then puts the glass back.  She taps the screen of the iPad. which lights up.

Mora scans the screen for a few moments casually.  Then she suddenly sits bolt upright (note: still covered in bubbles).

MORA

What?

Mora grabs the wineglass, takes another and larger sip, reads further, then downs the entire remaining contents of the glass in one large gulp.

Mora puts the glass down, dropping the iPad into the bath as she does so.

MORA

I’ll show those subintellectual turds!

Mora grabs a towel from a nearby rack and wraps it around herself.

int. the vegetarian dining hall – day

Connie is sitting alone at a table.  She looks a little pale and her nose is red.  Marie, carrying a tray, approaches her.

MARIE

Hi!  Mind if I join you?

(Note:  Connie’s voice is a little hoarse.)

CONNIE

Well, I wouldn’t mind the company, but you might not want it.  I think I might be a little bit contagious.

MARIE

(sitting down)

A cold, eh?  There’s been something going around.  Hey, you’re Connie Morton, aren’t you?

CONNIE

Yes.

MARIE

Well, what do you know?  I remember seeing your bel canto recital when I was just a prospective.  I didn’t realize that I’d be running into you over at the vegetarian dining hall.

CONNIE

Oh?

MARIE

I mean, I’m just trying out vegetarian to see if I can make it work.

CONNIE

Animalkind will thank you, no doubt.

MARIE

So will you be solo-ing in the upcoming Verdi Requiem?  I’ll just be you’re a shoe-in.  Your voice is so lovely…

CONNIE

(smiling wanly)

Well, the part goes by competitive audition, and it seems like suddenly the competition has become a good deal stiffer lately.

MARIE

Oh, I didn’t mean…

connie

No, of course not.  But I also have this wretched cold, which has been interfering with rehearsal.

MARIE

I’m really sorry to hear that.  I mean, I would so much like to hear you.

CONNIE

Darndest thing, isn’t it.  They can make syphilis and AIDS go away for ever, but they still can’t cure the common cold.

MARIE

Well, you know actually, my dad is a doctor and…

They are interrupted  by the appearance of JIREEN.

(Note:  Jireen is the same character as appeared at the end of Dreamscapes.)

jireen

Afternoon, ladies.  Mind if I join you?

MARIE

Oh, uh, sure.  I don’t think we’ve met.

CONNIE

Me neither.

JIREEN

Well, you might say I’ve been around for a while but I thought it  might be a good idea to give the vegetarian hall a try.

MARIE

(brightly)

Oh?  You’re trying out vegetarian too?

CONNIE

Relationship troubles with someone who eats elsewhere?

JIREEN

Second is a little closer than the first.

MARIE

Oh dear.  I’m Marie, by the way.

CONNIE

Connie.  And you are?

JIREEN

From my parents I got Jill-Maureen.

MARIE

Couldn’t make up their minds?

JIREEN

Something like that.

Back to top.

int. the cave – night

The Cave is a space consisting of a vaulted brick ceiling with doors at either end.  It is dimly lit

Buck sits on a chair in a far part of the space.  Behind him are a set of lights and further back still, Iris with her camera-like device on a tripod.

BUCK

(nervously)

I hope this plays.

IRIS

It’s the part of the lifetime, considering the stakes.  I’m sure you’ll do great.

There is a TAPPING at the far door.

IRIS

There’s your cue.  Break a leg.

Iris turns on the klieg lights behind Buck.

BUCK

Entrez.

Mora enters.   She squints into the lights.

shot:  mora’s p.o.v.

The positioning of the lights silhouettes Buck, making his features essentially indistinct.

back to scene

MORA

Monsieur Falala, etes-vous la?

BUCK

S’il te plait, arretes-toi la.

MORA

(looking surprised)

Vous tutoiez avec moi, Monsieur Falala?

(Note:  When Buck speaks English “in character” as Falala he speaks with a heavy Gallic accent.)

BUCK

Surely we should look beyond such oppressive and normalizing protocols as the proper use of formal and informal grammatical constructions of the second person.  To do so involves a futile denial of the radical contingency of selfhood, no?  And while we are here, let us intersect the resonance of this Gothic yet mock-wholesome All-American setting  by the use of the appropriate West Germanic dialect, yes?

MORA

Speak in English?  Surely if you prefer.

BUCK

I do, for as a dialect we are inevitably invited to make the conceptual leap to the concept of the dialectic and therefore to the overcoming of binary oppositions through the transcendence of contradictions, no?

MORA

Yes.

BUCK

Ah, you learn quickly?  You are Aphrodite Mora, yes?

MORA

Yes.

BUCK

I would not be so vulgar as to invoke a hegemonic concept of authorship to describe the relationship you have to the paper, but certainly by the convention you are associated in the interplay of infinite differences with a paper entitled Deconstructing the Male Gaze?

MORA

About the construction of the objectificaton of woman, though naturally the concept of woman must be placed under erasure to eliminate the Western metaphysical conceit…

BUCK

(waving his hand)

Yes, yes.  But do we not understand that only through conversion into the opposite is there sublation.

MORA

Meaning that the only way to resist the male gaze…

BUCK

Is to submit to it.  It is an iron logic.

Mora pauses for a moment, as if in thought.

MORA

Tell me more about my work.

BUCK

I am told that your deconstruction of castration anxiety as loss of the central signifier transcends noumenal categories of the sublime and the ridiculous.

Mora begins removing her shirt.

MORA

Clearly, contingencies radicalized the irony.

BUCK

It was a subjunctiviztion of Lacan that clearly refuted parallelism.

MORA

Oh!

Mora finishes removing her shirt and begins sliding her her skirt down.

BUCK

Though more clearly productions under the transgenderization of hegemonic discourse, an exfusion of which has made you the toast of the left bank, though none dare admit it.

Mora’s skirt slides to the floor.  She steps out of it.

MORA

Please go on…je vous en prie!

BUCK

English please, my dear Aphrodite!  Only you can ignify ligneous collectivities…your publication record so shows!

Mora slowly unhooks her brassiere and removes it.

BUCK

You must consider expositionalizing lactational superbity…but not without proceeding to the liminal exposition of the negative signifier, which only you, Aphrodite, can do without limerance.

Mora turns around, slides her panties to the floor, then steps out of them.  Then she removes her shoes.

mora

Does this signify, Michel?

Iris leans over Buck’s shoulder. (Note: the next lines are spoken hastily, while a look of confusion begins to spread on Mora’s face.)

iris

(whispered)

Good work, David Garrick.

BUCK

(whispered)

I have no idea what the last twenty sentences I’ve uttered mean, and my head hurts.

iris

(whispered)

Nonetheless it got the job done.

(handing him a ziplock bag)

Here, with me all the time.

Mora looks on puzzled.

MORA

Michel?  Is there someone there with you?

shot:  mora’s p.o.v.

Buck is standing up in silhouette, unzipping his trousers, and apparently doing something with his cock and a plastic bag.

back to scene

MORA

You want me right here?  Oh, Michel…

BUCK

(out loud, in his proper voice)

Oh thank fucking Christ almighty.  I am so out of here!

Buck turns and runs out the back door.

IRIS

And don’t let it hit you in the…oh never mind.

MORA

(reddening)

What!  What is this?

IRIS

(stepping out into the light)

For such a self-celebratory genius, Professor Mora, you prove remarkably easy to lure.

MORA

(as if frozen, trembling with rage)

Iris Brockman!  I might have known, especially after your missing three consecutive seminars.

iris

Yes, well aside from feeling rather ill-used, I had other and more challenging things to work on.

MORA

Such as setting up this disgusting and juvenile prank?

iris

Prank?  Prank?  You think I would go to all this effort to set up a prank?  I think not, as you are about to find out, for one sorrowful moment.

Iris steps behind her camera-like device.

Mora puts her hands on her hips and thrusts her chest out defiantly.

MORA

Oh so you think you’ll add some dirty pictures to celebrate your little triumph.  Well, enjoy it while it lasts.  When this college’s administration gets through with you…

IRIS

Oh, I do like that defiant pose.  Could you hold it please?

MORA

As if you have the courage to even press that button you’re holding…

IRIS

As if?

Iris presses the button.  A band of red light springs forth from the camera and scans Mora.

Mora begins turning to stone from the feet up.  At the last moment, her face registers shock and surprise, which is frozen into place on her petrified features.

Iris circulates around Mora’s petrified features and inspects them.

iris

How gratifying when technology works as expected.

Iris produces a cellphone and dials a number.

iris

(into phone)

Done.

Iris hangs up the phone.  She reaches into a handbag and pulls out a pack of cigarettes.  She lights one and draws on it.  Then she goes and blows smoke in Mora’s stone face.

IRIS

I hope that was as good for you as it was for me, Professor Mora.

There is a tapping at the front door.

iris

Come in.

Enter ENRIQUE and MANUEL, two workmen, carrying tools a hand cart with lumber and packing materials.

enrique

Senorita.

IRIS

Gentlemen.  Es aqui.

manuel

(inspecting the statue thoughtfully)

Es muy guapa.

IRIS

Si.

cut to:

INT. THE CAVE  – NIGHT – LATER

Enrique and Manuel have finished packing Mora into a wooden crate, which they are in the process of loading onto a handcart.  Iris is watching them.

IRIS

Senores?

ENRIQUE

Si, senorita?

Iris produces a cooler which she slides out and opens.

IRIS

Cervezas por ustedes.

MANUEL

O, gracias senorita.

IRIS

De nada, senores.

Enrique, Manuel, and Iris each take a beer.  Iris produces an operner and opens all three.  They drink a silent toast.

INT. DEAN FORD’S OFFICE – DAY

Dean Ford is talking to PROFESSOR HARVEY HAMBURG.

ford

A whole week, Harvey.  No responses to anything.  No responses to messages.  No one picking up her mail.  No one showing up to teach her classes.  Where is she?

Hamburg

No one knows, Jack.  I’m sorry.  But I’ve asked around the department and no one, not faculty, not secretaries, not students, has any clue.  I suppose we ought to file a missing persons report with Pleasant Prairie Police.

FORD

Yes.  I’ll arrange that.

HAMBURG

We could, I suppose, contact the Federal authorities.

FORD

No.  No way.  No damn way we are calling the FBI back into anything having to do with Gnosis short of absolute proof positive of some sort of Federal offense.  You remember last year’s fiasco.

HAMBURG

Yes, I know.  Sorry, Jack.  I forgot what a sore point that was down here.  I guess the question will come up, assuming Aphrodite doesn’t show up by semester’s end, what is to be done with her students.

ford

Well, college policy in this case is to put an asterisk on the transcript.  The students won’t have to make up the course and it will have zero weight in their grade point averages.  We did it for Joseph Corwin’s students last year, i suppose we can do it again this year.

HAMBURG

Yes, I suppose we’ll have to.

FORD

Great Vishnu, I am really beginning to hate my job.

int. iris’s room – day

Iris is talking to Takayama on her computer link-up as before.

TAKAYAMA

Extraordinary work, Miss Brockman.

IRIS

Why thank you, Mr. Takayama.

TAKAYAMA

You provided a field test of technology under remarkably adverse circumstances.  You have provided us with a statue of inestimable worth, which will bring a fine price from one of our private clients, and you also recovered some lost technology for us, in the form of the hyperspatial cinctures.

IRIS

I aim to please, Mr. Takayama.

TAKAYAMA

I must ask you something, though.

iris

And what is that, Mr. Takayama?

TAKAYAMA

Don’t you feel, what is the word? “guilt” at having in effect murdered one of your professors?

iris

Thanks to you and your associates, Mr. Takayama, I have already been dead any number of times.  It changes one’s perspective.

TAKAYAMA

Ah, an excellent answer, Miss Brockman.  Would you excuse me for a moment?

iris

Of course, Mr. Takayama.

There is a DESCENDING BEEP sound.

Iris picks up the camera-petrifying device, which is sitting on her desk, and looks into its business end.

IRIS

(to herself)

It has its appeal, doesn’t it?

Iris puts the device back down.

There is an ASCENDING BEEP sound from Iris’s computer.

TAKAYAMA

Miss Brockman, you are too good for restaurant work.  Your resourcefulness and determination mark you out as exceptional.  My associates and I would like you to consider taking an executive role in our organization.  Upon your graduation if you wish, of course.  Further details of our offer are being transmitted to you.  We respectfully ask that you consider it carefully.

IRIS

I shall consider it.  There is of course one question that came up in the course of my research, and it is related to how generously you were willing to compensate me for my recent project.

TAKAYAMA

The question being, Miss Brockman?

IRIS

In researching Michel Falala, the bait for what I must guess is the late Professor Mora, I uncovered that in addition to having a reputation of beiing a scoptophile, he has a substantial private fortune and collects art, particularly sculpture.  One is led to wonder if perhaps Aphrodite Mora’s fate is somewhat happier than one might have thought.

TAKAYAMA

Hmm.

IRIS

Though I suppose you are hardly at libety to disclose the identities of your ultimate clients, are you, Mr. Takayama.

TAKAYAMA

No, naturally.  But I must commend you on your perceptiveness.  It is traits like that which make for a successful executive.  Do consider our offer carefully.  Takayama out.

iris

Thank you Mr. Takayama.  I most certainly shall. Brockmann out.

Back to top.

int. the gnosis library – day

WILLIE is meeting with Jireen.   They speak in whispers.

JIREEN

Things are definitely afoot, Willie, and I have reason to think that the enemy is still out there.

WILLIE

Bridget is still missing.  Now a philosophy professor is missing.  And Jireen, people are starting to ask questions about Jill Keeney and Maureen Creel.

JIREEN

I am doing what I can about that last bit.  But there’s still more.

WILLIE

Oh no.

fast montage maureen surveillance scenes

A series of shots of Maureen doing the surveillance with shotgun microphone that enabled her to discover the invisibility technology in Progress in Research.

JIREEN (v.o.)

You realize that Maureen had — and that I therefore have — a talent for snooping, yes? I’ve been paying some strategic social calls on our four sleeping beauties from some of our last adventures.  And there’s something strange afoot having to do with the long-planned Verdi Requiem.

back to scene

WILLIE

Libera me, domine.

JIREEN

Exactly.  We need Aloysius’s help on this.

willie

Jireen, Aloysius’s nerves are at the breaking point.  The only thing he wants right now is for you to be two girls again and to get on with his life and his quest for Moira Weir.

JIREEN

Well I’m sorry for Aloysius, but all that will have to wait.

Display caption:  TO BE CONTINUED…

fade out.

Back to top. Creative Commons License Where Am I? by Dr. Faustus at EroticMadScience.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at eroticmadscience.com.

One thought on “Where Am I?

  1. quite an ironic fate for a senator’s daughter getting petrified and be put on display for public pleasure!! Iris really is quite smart to recognize the statue to be the naked and beautiful Ashley Madder herself!! I really love that Ashley’s beauty got an artistic value!! But what will happen if the museum closes down or the museum personnel accidentally drops the forever petrified Ashley?? This beautiful odalisque really is quite unlucky thoug!!! I believe that after 10000 years when the technology to reverse the Howard based transformation will be invented, none will even bother to waste that to bring back an ages long petrified nude woman to her fleshy life!! Don’t you think?? Hope we will see some flashes of Ashley in the museum display like volume 8 number 8 in upcoming stories!!

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