SHAPES

GENERAL: Well, Mister President, there’s…there’s really no easy way to say this, so I’ll just give it to you straight.

(beat)

GENERAL: At approximately 1900 hours tonight, NORAD and Cent-Comm received signals indicating the presence of a new shape on the North American continent. After cross-referencing data and verifying instrument functionality, all relevant parties concluded that we had in fact detected a new shape. It was located five point five clicks south of Topeka, Kansas. Now-

PRESIDENT: Run that by me again, you detected a new…shape?

GENERAL: That is correct, Mister President.

PRESIDENT: Tonight, here in the United States…you’re telling me you found a, a goddamned new shape?

GENERAL: (lowering his eyes) That is correct. Mister President.

(The PRESIDENT sinks back into his chair, sighs heavily and brings both hands to his face. He rubs his eyes, seems to center himself, and leans forward.)

PRESIDENT: I must be the Biblical Job reborn. Handed shit sandwich after shit sandwich. Alright, who knows about it?

GENERAL: Unclear at this time. The Five Eyes of course, potentially China, maybe the Soviets-er, Russia. No media so far as we know.

PRESIDENT: Okay then. Balls. Balls! New shapes. What, I mean, not that it matters, but what kinda shape?

GENERAL: That is uh, not something we’ve got a real handle on at this point, Mister President.

PRESIDENT: No handle on it? There’s a goddamned new shape in the center of our country and we don’t have any fucking clue what it-

GENERAL: We are working on it! Mister President! We’ve got the relevant experts here. We’ve brought him in already. The man to my left is Dr. Chris Proce. He’s the chair of the geometry department over at MIT. One of the preeminent geometry men walking the earth today.

(PROCE is a thin man of slight stature, bad posture, bad teenage mustache. His glasses are thick-framed and thick-lensed. The lenses make his dark eyes look oversized.)

PROCE: Hello, Mister President. It is an honor. You know, I voted for you in November and-

PRESIDENT: Spare me, Proce! Now’s not the time for it. If I wanted my ass kissed, I’d buzz my secretary in here, and I’m pretty sure he’s at lunch anyway. What do you have on this goddamned new shape?

PROCE: Oh, oh, well (he adjusts his bowtie and straightens his posture) the new shape has been detected. However, our analysis can’t really begin until we have the proper tools to begin breaking it down from top to bottom. A sort of full-blown audit, if you will. (he snorts in a very nasally sort of way.) I will need 30,000 pages of graph paper, 22 protractors, 130 rulers, 184 graphite pencils-

(The PRESIDENT slams his fist angrily on his desk)

PRESIDENT: We don’t have TIME! I wanna find out what this bastard-shitting shape is TONGIHT!

(PROCE wilts)

PROCE: I’m sorry, Mister President, but protocol for these sorts of discoveries demands that our team first plots…the…vertices…and….

(He begins crying)

PRESIDENT: General, are you really telling me this human puddle is our best Geometry Man? What about, uh, what’s his name?

GENERAL: Oh no, Mister President, don’t even think about-

PRESIDENT: Oh to hell with protocol and procedure at this point, Jeff. I don’t care if he’s blacklisted. I don’t care if he’s a loose cannon. I don’t give a rat’s hairy grey ass if he plays by his own rules. A crisis like this demands only one man.

GENERAL: Sir, I cannot advise strongly enough against-

PRESIDENT: Bring me…Darren Bader!!!

(TITLE SEQUENCE)

(South Los Angeles. The spotlights from some movie premiere drag across the smoggy sky. Sirens from police or ambulances are heard in the distance.)

(We enter the office of DARREN BADER, a smoky, mostly wood office. It’s disheveled. The pictures on the wall hang askew, the desk is covered in empty booze bottles. DARREN himself is lighting a cigar, sitting in his highback chair, thinking.)

(The door explodes open and flashlights catch the particulate dust and cigar smoke as the GENERAL and his cohort enter the room.)

GENERAL: Darren ‘The Rhombus-Killer’ Bader…

(BADER draws from his cigar, the orange glow only illumating his eyebrows and blackish eyes. He slowly exhales a lungful of cigar smoke, and it drifts over his desk and falls to the floor like a liquid.)

BADER: Is that you, Jeff?

(the rhythmic thumping of helicopter blades is present, but the searchlights fade into the grey)

GENERAL: Yeah, Darren. It’s me.

BADER: Thought I’d see you again soon. I had a dream about you.

(The GENERAL looks down, seems to hesitate trying to find his words, and then looks up before being cut off)

BADER: This is all about that new shape, isn’t it?

GENERAL: Well, yes. I would say that’s what I’m here for. Yes.

BADER: I figured.

(The room is completely dark. It’s all black and there are just little veins of greyish smoke catching distant searchlights once in a while.)

BADER: Proce can’t do it or what?

(He smiles as he turns the lights on in his office with the flick of a switch.)

GENERAL: You know damn well he can’t handle this like you could. Will you please just…

BADER: Just what? Huh? Forget it all? Come back into the fold? Unlikely!

(Bader screws the cap off of a bottle of booze with a swift thumb motion, and then takes a big drink of it.)

BADER: Just go back into Geometry!? Huh?! After what happened to me!?!

(He pounds the bottle with ferocity)

GENERAL: (apologetically) Darren…

BADER: (defiantly) Oh yeah. Darren. Jeff. It’s like we’re friends. When all the shapes are accounted for, we’re thicker than thieves. Circle, square, triangle. No problem. Everything is a-ok. Nothing to worry about…

GENERAL: I’m not asking you as a general, I’m asking you as a five star friend. You used to believe in-

BADER: Yeah! I used to believe in a lot of shit! Back when the shapes were easy! Back when my daughter was alive! Back when we killed that rogue dodecahedron together!

(The GENERAL slumps and rubs his temples, but seems almost embarrassed, catches himself and sits up)

GENERAL: I’m not really asking you. I’m ordering you. You swore an oath. And I’m demanding that you fulfill it.

(BADER finishes the bottle of booze, rubs his lips with his forearm defiantly. He stares at the floor a few seconds. He looks up, an excitement in his eyes.)

BADER: You know as well as I do. I swore I’d never do Geometry again. Not after last time. Not after where that cone went, not after what the cubes and those rectangles did to our friends. Christ, Willie Wagner was what, 19 years old?! Nothing ahead of him but daylight, until those bastard shapes got involved. You know I don’t do geometry like the textbook teaches. You know I’m a hardnosed badass who plays by his own rules. You know I’ll fuck up a rhombus any day of the week. I’ve been out of the game for a long while. Maybe too long. Maybe my daughter would want me to quit feeling sorry for myself, and take up the only charge I seem fit for. Alright. A new shape has been found, huh? Haha. I’ve got something for all the shapes, old and new.
(He snorts, looks up)
BADER: For old times’ sake. Let’s fuck this shape up.