Participants:
| Scene Title | Heisenberg |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Uncertainty principle, also called Heisenberg uncertainty principle or indeterminacy principle, statement, articulated by the German physicist Werner Heisenberg, that the position and the velocity of an object cannot both be measured exactly, at the same time, even in theory. |
| Date | March 16, 2018 |
MY ENEMIES!!!
This is a FORM LETTER, because I do not have time to write an individual letter to each of my ENEMIES. The important ones, yes, but for you? No, you will be CRUSHED!!!
I have brought them all to heel, raised my sword and swallowed them into the Void! With a thunderous ROAR I arrive, and you realize that I am the god Magni, sent down from the heavens with purple light and fury!
You, like others, have probably doubted my GODHOOD.
You, like others, have probably doubted my POTENCY!!!
MY WIVES, and THEIR WIVES, and THEIR HUSBANDS, because I AM SECURE in my masculinity, because I am the GOD Magni, will eat the FLESH OF MAN.
MY WIVES, and THEIR WIVES, and THEIR HUSBANDS, will conquer the world, like all of the GREAT CONQUERERS!!!
GENGHIS KAHN!!!
CAESAR THE APE!!!
DOCTOR DOOM!!!
CASTLEVANIA DRACULA!!!
THE GREAT GOD CALIGULA!!!
I HAVE WALKED AMONG THEM, I HAVE TRAVELLED THESE HEAVENS AND ENTERED THE GREAT CELESTIAL PLANES!!!
I have dined with ZEUS, I have walked HAND and HAND with NIKOLA TESLA when he revealed himself to me during one of his EXPERIMENTS!!!
I AM THE GOD OF THIS WORLD, GOD KING MAGNI!!! THERE IS NOTHING THAT I DO NOT SEE, NOTHING THAT I DO NOT HEAR, NOTHING THAT I DO NOT FEEL!!!
I HAVE THE SIGHT OF THE VOID, THE SIGHT BESTOWED UPON ME BY THE ENLIGHTENMENT OF THE COSMOS!!!
I am both MAN and GOD, a MAN GREATER THAN MAN!!!
The wisdom that I have achieved, by staring deep into the VOID, the sleepless NIGHTS, the endless STUDY!!!
MY FATHER BEFORE ME, THE MAN NAMED PIOTR, A FALSE GOD WHO DID NOT KNOW WHAT HE HAD BIRTHED, he filled my mind with KNOWLEDGE, the useless knowledge of MAN!!!
But I am more.
I am GREATER!!!
I WILL DESCEND!!!
I AM THE GOD KING MAGNI!!!
"What the fuck is this, Pete?" A file folder is slapped down on a burnished wooden desk so hard it sends the other files scattering off of its surface. Looming large in the well-appointed office, surrounded by taxidermied animals, bubbling fish tanks, and tall ferns, Erica Kravid stares with wide-eyed expectance at the cigar-smoking man seated at the desk. As if to emphasize her point, the dark-haired woman reaches down to pull a hand-written manifesto from the file and throws it into the man's lap. "What, the fuck is all of this!?"
Leaning back in his chair with a creak of wood and springs, Pete Varlane withdraws his cigar from his mouth and levels a gray-eyed look up at Kravid. "It's his manifesto," is rather plainly stated. "Look, Erica. Sweetheart." Pete picks up the file with stubby fingers and turns it around, pushing it back across the desk at her. "One, I was working on something," he motions to the paperwork on the floor. "Two, this isn't your project," he motions to the file. "Three, if you talk like that to me again I'll pull your fucking eyes out and shit in your sockets." Punctuating his sentence is a flick of his cigar's ashes onto the carpet. Gray brows rise, and Pete levels a firm look at Erica. "You know I'm not shitting you. Or— well— I will be. In your eye sockets. If you fuck with me?" His lips twitch up into a fleeting smile.
Sucking in a slow breath, Erica pivots away from Pete's desk and scrubs her hands over her face. She looks like she hasn't slept in days, dark circles under her eyes, hair unkempt. "Pete," Erica exhales the name into her hands. "We have an on-site meeting tomorrow, and our investor wants to see results from both Eclipse and Heisenberg." Slowly sweeping one hand down over her mouth, Erica looks vacantly at Pete. She can't fathom how he's remained in charge after all this time. How they're not all dead from sheer incompetence.
"Good," Pete's retort is without any clarification at first. He just sucks in another breath from his cigar and puffs it out the corner of his mouth. "Show them Eclipse, all the good work we've done there. That's the carrot." He dangles a finger in front of himself with a wage of his hand. "Then, bring them down to the lab to show them where we're at on Heisenberg. Really just, let them do a full interview. I'll figure that's the stick." He cracks a smile, followed by a heavy belly-laugh. Erica closes her eyes, one hand pinching the bridge of her nose.
"Pete, we have nothing to show for the entire Heisenberg project." Trying not to bring her voice to a shrill level, Erica steps forward to the desk again and leans forward, pushing the file back to Pete. "Have you read literally any of this?" Her brows lift, and Peter's eyes meet hers for a time. Then, slowly, Pete draws the folder over and opens it. A single page is pulled out, a hand-written missive on old San-Francisco Institute letterhead. His brows furrow, cigar pinched between teeth. He looks up to Erica, then back down to the paper.
"What the fuck even is this?" Pete asks incredulously, and Erica's eyes widen and both of her hands go up to rake through her hair.
"That— that is what I've been trying to ask you." To her credit, Erica doesn't completely break there and then. She contemplates how quickly she could break his skull open with that marble ash tray beside him. How many bludgeons before he stops. Instead, she just wets her lips and talks to him like he's five. "Those, are his journal entries. Ever since you brought him back the last time, he's been getting increasingly more erratic and unhinged. We're not getting quality information, because there's nothing to get information from anymore, Pete. The other half is severed, we're just getting— fucking— " Erica paws through the file and pulls a page out, straightening up to read aloud from it.
I don't know what to do. It's dark, cold, it smells weird. My teeth keep falling out, and I don't know how this happened, how I got into this…
My skin feels weird.
The city is in ruins, it's radioactive, I think I've hid down here too long…
They won't find me, but…
God, I think my hand is starting to melt, my hand!
I don't know where to go, I can barely remember anything, it's like my brain is melting too. I feel like there are people I can see, people I can look for…
My heart feels weird.
I don't know who I'm writing this for, I just… I want someone to help me, but no one's coming, and I can't walk, I can't stand, I'm too weak.
Why is it so radioactive, what happened?
I can't even remember how I got here…
I think I hear people fighting, explosions…
Oh god, I can only hear out of one ear now…I remember getting here, but I was already missing teeth, so maybe this all started before I got here…
I think it's getting faster.
Wait, I remember someone who can help me!
Sa
Pete's attention is locked on the middle-distance between his desk and the tank full of tropical fish. When Kravid is done reading, he looks back up to her slowly. "Did you read the one about Doctor Price?" His brows raise slowly. "Clones? I didn't even know they'd met." He sounds more amused than frustrated, which only serves to agitate Kravid further. She slaps the page she'd taken back onto the desk and closes her eyes, breathing deeply before exhaling a slow and weary sigh.
"Pete, he's become completely unhinged. Half the time he doesn't even know where he is anymore. Sometimes he just sits there, in the corner of his cell, and cries himself to sleep. There's no financial value in keeping him around anymore. We have most of the pre-war research, I can… create a presentation based on that, use it as a bridge to discuss Eclipse, and then we can just put this whole project behind us." Looking down to the desk, Pete snubs out his cigar and sniffs noisily. He slowly pushes his chair out, rises to stand, and circles around the desk. As he approaches, Erica looks to her side briefly and then back to Pete as he closes the distance between the two and offers out a hand.
Pete's lips creep up into a smile again. "That's a very heartfelt proposal," he admits, fingers spread and hand out. "I knew you had it in you, Erica." Kravid's mouth tenses, wrinkles form at the corners of her eyes. She starts to step away and demure from the handshake, but Pete lashes out and painfully grabs her wrist. By the time she lets out a scream, it already feels like her body is on fire. Painful red blusters form on her skin, her bones ache, and Kravid drops to her knees with a howling scream.
"But, that is my fucking son," Pete spits the words out, leaning over so as to be within inches of her face. "I lost my wife while I was hiding in this fucking lab, Erica." He squeezes harder, and Erica's fingers twist and her body contorts in agony. Her veins are bright red and visible beneath the bleaching pale skin of her bare forearm. "I lost my fucking son to Richard Cardinal's fucking incompetence!" Voice raised, Pete continues to squeeze until there is an audible snap and Erica's scream turns into a yelping wail. Blood begins to drool in thin rivulets between Pete's fingers and her skin has twisted around his grip where it isn't blistered and peeling. "You want to put my only fucking son down like a dog because he's a little weird?" Lifting one foot up, Pete kicks Erica in the chest and knocks her over. A horrifying snap sound comes with that movement, as her right arm from the forearm down just tears off in his hand leaving a bleeding stump behind.
Pete throws the rest of Erica's arm onto the floor and walks over to her, lips downturned into a severe frown and face bright red. "The next time you threaten my family," Pete screams at her, delivering a swift kick to her side, "I will turn you into a fucking bowl of Jello and eat you with a dollop of whipped cream!" At all the commotion, the doors to Pete's office opens and a pair of men in black suits step in with guns drawn. Pete looks up at them and then down to Erica, who is crawling around in shock on the floor.
Pausing, Pete slides his tongue over his teeth and steps away from Erica. "Take her down to the fucking lab and have the Doctor reattach her fucking arm," is a dismissive order given with his back to security. The guards look at one another, and then one bends down and picks up Erica by her good arm. The other starts to walk over to Pete's desk to further ask questions, but stops when Pete turns around and levels a baleful stare at him. "Jesus fucking Christ on a bicycle, did I fucking stutter!?" The guard practically leaps back at Pete's words, sucking in a sharp breath and hastily helping the other escort Erica's moaning form out of the office.
Pete rolls his eyes once they're out of his office, walking over to his liquor cabinet and pouring a finger of whiskey. He downs it in a single swallow, then pours twice as much more. Eventually, Pete takes a slow, calming breath, then walks back over to his desk and looks down at the file. Glass up to his lips, Erica's blood smudging his fingerprints everywhere, he takes a slow sip. Gray eyes settle on the folder, on the corner of a photograph sticking out showing a much younger Pete holding a baby boy in his arms. He looks back to the middle-distance between desk and fish tank. The silence in his office lingers for a long time, until finally Pete uses a pinkie to nudge that photo back under the file's cover.
He sighs, and returns to work.