DEFIANCE Uncut 18

The camera approaches a doorway that has been left slightly ajar. The flickering light of a computer monitor from two generations ago; flashes through the crack.

As the camera nears; the gap slowly grows.

The result; Lance Warner sits at his desk in his small and very cluttered office. His back turned to the door and his eyes affixed on the outdated screen.

The camera operator attempts to focus on the screen and it’s content, but by the time the white balance and other camera stuff can be sorted out on the fly; we meet the content at the same point it was originally shown on DEFtv. It shows Scott Douglas and an unknown second viciously clapping an innocent women in the head with a steel chair.

Based on the amount of tape played prior to it becoming intelligible, it’s clear, it must be the tape Lance snitched away during Scott Douglas’ ASECENTION entrance at DEFsec’s behest.

Watching on from over his shoulder; Lance furiously takes notes on a yellow legal pad.

Nodding to himself as if to confer with … himself. He slams the pen down like a man who is certain of whatever he has just written. A few linear stokes follow, likely triple underlining the same thought.

Lance shoots up from his seat and tosses the pad down on his desk. The computer makes a sound not uttered by a working computer since 1996 and he reaches to the right of the screen and ejects a tape from a device slightly too large to be a standard consumer VCR.

The Thugs 4 Hire are about to enter a conference room inside the DEFPlex, leading them along the hall is the short and stocky, Coleslaw Jenkins. 

Jenkins:
Aiight, now remember - you get half this now, half this after dat Showcase. Got me?

The Pigeon, Emilo Byrd nods his head, as his partner Hurtlocker Holt follows closely.

Jenkins approaches the conference room door. Knocks, it opens.

The trio steps inside the room. Seated at the far end of a solid wooden table is Jonathan Wildside. He points to a briefcase at the end of the table. Slaw opens it, showing a stack of cash to the Thugs.

Byrd: 
Looks right.

Wildside speaks.

Wildside:
Count it if you want. 

Holt eyes the briefcase, then Wildside suspiciously.

Byrd:
I'm sure that count's right.

Jenkins:
It is.

Bryd tips a hand to Wildside, a gesture of a deal done right.

Wildside:
See you boys in a few weeks.

Holt:
Yup.

And out they walk. 

Lance Warner:
I heard you back there … you know what? That’s fine.

Lance remarks to the camera man as he exits his office with the tape in hand.

Lance Warner:
This …  

Lance holds up the tape and shakes it slight but furvently.

Lance Warner:
... this will set the record straight. This shows, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that Scott Douglas is NOT a vicious women beating villian but nothing more than a professional wreslter who found himself in a  …

Lance trails off as the lights in the hallway being to flicker. The intial lighting issue quickly lends to a complete outage. The emergency lighting illuminates momentarily; before it as well falters.

A voice finishes Lance’s sentence. Creepy.

Voice:
… situation that he will never be able to atone for.

The lights return with a flickering strobe effect; Midorikawa’s emerald mask and protruding goatee can be made out briefly. The lights fail once again as if they were attempting to rally; yet surcumb in the end. 

Midorikawa:
Scott Douglas … is the greatest evil this world will ever know. No record shall ever purvey his true nature or that of which he is capable of.

The lights flicker once again and return to full capacity to reveal Midorikawa dawning the Reaper gear other than his traditional mask, flanked by the other two Reapers. Ruby and Sapphire eyes burning with the intensity of seven suns.

Lance Warner:
The truth will be told. This will not stand … 

The lights are gone again before Lance can finish is sentence. They return as quickly as the vanished but Lance now finds himself inches from Midorikawa’s masked face and with a newfound tension on the video cassette case he holds.

Midorikawa:
The truth matters not, only victory.

The lights again fail. Lance is left in a petrified state for several seconds before their return. He finds himself alone, thankfully … and tapeless, unfortunately.

Lance Warner: [scoffing]
... fake news.

Peering over his shoulder in a, rightfully so, paranoid state … Lance Warner heads back to his office. He mutters to himself flipping back and forth between; journalist integrity and livid frustration.

Lance Warner:
Douglas gets escorted from the production office but … WHERE were Wyatt’s jack booted polo shirts when I’m being accosted by these masked maniacs!?

He rounds a hallway corner.

Lance Warner:
EVEN Kendrix was never this much trouble! And now these … these … REAPERS want to impose on my FIRST amendment rights!?

Clearly raddled and extremely flustered Lance continues to murmur to himself as he enters his small dark office.

Lance Warner:
… prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right …

Lance sits down to his desk and turns to the computer on the rear table. He shakes the mouse and brings the computer out of sleep mode.

Lance Warner:
… to rip video to my computer.

The screen comes alive and shows a still shot of the video seen previously with a dialogue box set on top displaying the notification.

“Render Complete.”