We Must Boost the Signal, Page 37

Page

Everyone knows what they're not talking about.

Script

PAGE 37 (Four panels)

Panel One: Close-in view of Dr. Xu. He has a raised eyebrow.

Dr. Xu: A different plan?

Panel Two: Hope, turned around with the empty tube seen on the previous page now behind her.

Hope: You know, at least one licensed psychiatrist has determined that I might be “delusional” and “suffer from suicidal tendencies.”

Hope: It might be a serious mistake to leave me alone in the laboratory.

Panel Three: Dr. Xu standing next to Macneil. Xu has a look about him of dawning enlightenment.

Dr. Xu: Of course, the risk of mistakes is part of the scientific enterprise.

Macneil: In law enforcement, we make mistakes all the time.

Panel Four: Hope standing in the same position as in Panel Two, except now with her arms crossed.

Hope: So I’m to be allowed to continue with my research, then?

License

(Click on the image for larger size. Creative Commons License
We Must Boost the Signal, Page 37 written and commissioned by Dr. Faustus of EroticMadScience.com and drawn by Lon Ryden is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.)

We Must Boost the Signal, Page 36

Page

Back at the lab

Script

PAGE 36 (Four panels)

Panel One: Side view of Macneil driving and Hope sitting in the passenger seat in the front of a government-issue black sedan. Neither is speaking.

Caption: Agent Macneil whisks me back to Dr. Xu’s laboratory promptly.

Panel Two: View “from above” looking down at Hope, Macneil, and Xu, who are engaged in some sort of conversation.<;p>

Caption: At the laboratory I ask Dr. Xu if he has enough “specimen” to fill an additional tube. He says that he does and arranges it.

Panel Three: Hope stands next to an empty tube, touching the side of it with her fingers. Xu is in the background.

Hope: …and Dr. Xu, do you think it would be possible to get some of my scanning equipment sent here?

Xu: We could easily have it shipped overnight, Dr. Montclair? Have you somehow found a way to tune it to a brain other than your own?

Panel Four: Close up on Hope, Xu’s P.O.V. She has turned her head and is facing out of the panel.

Hope: No.

Hope: But I thought it might be convenient to have the equipment here in case a different plan should happen along.

License

(Click on the image for larger size. Creative Commons License
We Must Boost the Signal, Page 36 written and commissioned by Dr. Faustus of EroticMadScience.com and drawn by Lon Ryden is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.)

We Must Boost the Signal, Page 35

Page

Law beats medicine.

Script

PAGE 35 (Four panels)

Panel One: View of Hope, sitting in her chair, cooly regarding the row between Macneil and Lehman.

Caption: I watch the two men muttering angrily in low tones for some time as each pretends to be my defender and protector.

Panel Two: Lehman, with an angry expression, finger jabbing at Macneil.

Caption: Lehman, a true psychiatrist, is committed to helping his patients achieve autonomy and rationality.

Caption: Though only as long as those patients use their rationality and autonomy to make the “right” choices, of course.

Panel Three: Macneil, standing with his arms crossed, presumably facing Lehman, scowling.

Caption: I think Macneil has an inkling of what I’m up to.

Caption: He should be horrified, but he’s a bureaucrat under pressure to crack a case, so I think he’ll override any scruples he has.

Panel Four: Hope, back in the same clothes she was wearing when she was detained by the police, leaning forward over a desk in someone’s institutional office and signing a document on a clipboard.

Caption: In the end, Macneil must have been carrying the bigger stick, because they let me go.

License

(Click on the image for larger size. Creative Commons License
We Must Boost the Signal, Page 35 written and commissioned by Dr. Faustus of EroticMadScience.com and drawn by Lon Ryden is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.)