(Part One by Nathan Stout)
[INT – NIGHT – NATHAN’S TRUCK]
(Chris is still driving around North Texas, almost two hours after leaving the casino. Nathan snores in the passenger seat. Chris is too proud to wake him and ask directions.)
CHRIS: Ugh. I know Nathan lives less than an hour from the casino. Why can’t I find his house?!
NATHAN (in his sleep): Ummmmm. Needs more gas. More lawn to do.
(Chris drives into the semi-brightness of some major roads, and sees a sign that says “Six Flags Employee Entrance.”)
CHRIS: Oh no…
(Chris makes a U-turn and heads back into the darkness of the more rural parts of North Texas).
NATHAN (in his sleep): Errrmmmm. Look out for that rock. It’ll ruin the blades.
CHRIS: I guess you were going to get to mow one way or another…
NATHAN (in his sleep): Reveal the outermost piece of ice on each data fort.
(Chris yanks his head over to look at Nathan.)
CHRIS: What?
NATHAN (in his sleep): Roadblock: Ice – Code Gate – Random. End the Run.
(Chris looks back at the road just in time to see a curb straight ahead. Somehow, Nathan’s sleep gaming distracted Chris just long enough for him to not notice that he just shot through a 3-way stop with the way forward that only led into someone’s front yard. The truck hits the curb full on, and Chris eats the steering wheel.)
FADE OUT
FADE IN
[INT – NIGHT – HOSPITAL]
(Nathan wakes up with a start. He is lying in a hospital bed, the room’s lights low. He feels his face, and seems happy nothing is missing there. He looks down at his legs, arms, and torso. They all seem to be there too. Just some soreness on his face. He blinks a few times, still trying to put things together. He never thought playing a game of Net Runner the CCG could be land you in the hospital.)
MIGUEL: Hey…
(Miguel, lying in the next bed, looks over at Nathan).
NATHAN: Hey! What’s going on?
MIGUEL: You look like an Oompa Loompa. Har har… cough cough splutter.
NATHAN: Wha…?
(Nathan reaches for a conveniently placed mirror on his little rolly stand, and looks at himself. His face is somewhat swollen, and he is covered in blue bruises).
NATHAN: What happened?!
MIGUEL: They said you were in a wreck.
NATHAN: Really? I just can’t remember it.
(Nathan fidgets uncomfortably in his bed.)
NATHAN: I need to whiz.
MIGUEL: Me too…
(Miguel lies back and exhales, with a look of pleasure on his face.)
NATHAN: Uh, what are you doing?
MIGUEL: Taking a leak. This is the greatest thing ever. I don’t know why I didn’t start using one of this these years ago.
(Nathan sees the yellow filled tube coming out from Miguel’s sheets into a bag hanging on the bed side. Nathan lifts his own sheets and looks.)
NATHAN: I didn’t get one.
MIGUEL: Oh you should.
(Nathan looks around as if looking for a nurse.)
NATHAN: I want one. I want a pee bag. I want one now.
(After a few moments of silence Nathan inhales loudly.)
NATHAN: The wreck! Chris! Where is Chris?! We were riding back from the Rick Springfield concert at the casino! He was driving!
MIGUEL: They took him into surgery. Apparently, he had a late night snack of Ford steering wheel.
NATHAN: My truck!
(End of Part One)
(Part Two by Chris McGinty)
[INT – NIGHT – HOSPITAL]
(Nathan is dialing the nurse’s desk by pressing “0” on his bedside phone. He wants to find out if Chris is ok. It’s about this time that the hospital room door opens. In the low light it’s hard to see, but from the outline it’s clearly Chris… or Marilyn Manson without the platform boots.)
NATHAN: Chris! You’re alive! Miguel said you were in surgery. Are you ok?
(Chris turns on the light. His head and face have been covered with metal during the surgery so that he looks like Trapjaw from He-Man.
(Go ahead. Go “Google” it. We’ll wait.)
(Ok, you can imagine it now? Good.)
NATHAN: Dear lord! Your face!
CHRIS (with a growling voice): We have things to do He-Man!
(Nathan turns to Miguel, but Miguel isn’t in his bed. The bathroom door opens, and Miguel comes out dressed like Ram Man.)
(Go ahead.)
(Got it? Good.)
NATHAN: What the hell is going on here?
(Angelina runs in dressed as Teela. We’re not waiting this time. You should at least know Teela.)
ANGELINA: Nathan, if I had to assess the situation in a quick moment, I would guess that you’re having a very ridiculous dream.
NATHAN: Ridiculous how?
(Angelina’s outfit suddenly turns dark, and her skin turns yellow.)
[INT – NIGHT – HOSPITAL]
(Miguel sits in his bed doing a crossword puzzle.)
NATHAN (in his sleep): Of course, you would be Evil-Lyn…
(Nathan wakes up and looks around.)
MIGUEL: Why would I be Ram Man is the more appropriate question?
NATHAN: That was so weird.
MIGUEL: That and I imagine that when Chris comes out of surgery, he’ll look more like Roger Ebert than Trapjaw.
NATHAN: Oh, and you’re the expert on my dreams all of a sudden, Sigmund?
MIGUEL: I looked up Trapjaw on Google. That’s not how Chris would look.
NATHAN: Then what would he look like.
(It’s at that moment that the hospital room door opens, and the light comes on. It’s Chris. The studio audience cheers like he’s Fonzie. Chris nods at Miguel.)
CHRIS: Heeeeey, Mr. C!
MIGUEL: How are ya, Fonzie?
NATHAN: But how does he look?
(He looks fine. Never better.)
CHRIS: Yep. Agent Two dropped by before they put me under, and healed me right up. I’ve never felt better.
(Chris walks over and plucks the crossword puzzle from Miguel’s hands.)
CHRIS: You seem to be stuck on 42 across.
MIGUEL: Yeah. It’s an eight letter word, and the clue is, “What Nathan keeps trying to miss.”
CHRIS: Deadline.
(Chris tosses the puzzle back to Miguel.)
CHRIS: Speaking of Miguel. He dropped us off to get your truck to go to the Rick Springfield concert. Do you know what this means?
NATHAN: That there’s yet another minor continuity glitch in this story.
(Chris lifts Nathan by the back of his hospital gown, and carries him like a suitcase to the window. Quincy is standing there salivating.)
QUINCY: Do it, Chris!
CHRIS: It means that you’re dreaming still!
(Chris swings Nathan like he’s riding The Conquistador, and, on three, tosses him through the glass and out the window. Nathan screams as he falls toward the ground. Then he gets his head straight, and shifts the lever marked G. He turns into a fighter jet with arms and legs, and crashes through buildings. He comes out on the other end, and hears a woman yelling for him. He looks up to see Angelina floating away.)
NATHAN: Huh?
ANGELINA: Help me, Nathan!
(Nathan pops open the cockpit, and reaches out to her, barely holding on. He grabs her arm, and pulls her back into the cockpit. Once back inside; she snuggles up to him.)
MINMEI: Oh, Rick!
(Nathan looks and sees that Angelina is, in fact, now Minmei. He looks in the mirror. He has long, black, unruly hair, but still basically looks like Norm from “Cheers.”)
NATHAN: Eh, at least I’m cuddling up with Minmei.
[INT – NIGHT – NATHAN’S TRUCK]
(Chris pulls into Nathan’s driveway, careful not to park too near the lawnmower.)
NATHAN (in his sleep): Oh, Menmei.
CHRIS: Lieutenant Hunter! Wake the hell up!
(Nathan starts awake.)
NATHAN: Wait… so there was no truck crash… and no hospital.
CHRIS: And no Minmei cuddles.
NATHAN: I talk in my sleep?
CHRIS: Only about the embarrassing stuff.
NATHAN: But it was so real. Miguel was there. And you were there…
(He turns to the window, where he finds himself face to face with Dorothy and her entourage.)
NATHAN: And you, and you. All of you.
Dorothy looks at Nathan sternly, as though he was stealing her lines.
“No, unfortunately for you, and your HQ, that was all real,” said Dorothy, “we seem to have wandered off the yellow brick road in the dark. Do you know how we can get back there?”
Nathan points west.
“Yeah, you just go due west. It’s out where they were talking about building that bypass.”
“Ok, thank you,” said Dorothy, and they all wandered off.
NATHAN: But it seemed so real. We left the casino. You got lost…
CHRIS: I delivered pizza for almost two decades, boy! I don’t get lost. Especially when I use the navigation on my phone. We left the Rick Springfield show a little less than an hour ago, and now we’re here safe at your house.
NATHAN: Hmmm. For a brief moment, I thought maybe your injury might wake up your super power from its latent state.
CHRIS: I wouldn’t worry about it. I’m pretty sure we’ll get our powers back, whether we want them or not. Now let’s go get some sleep. You have a lawn to mow tomorrow morning.
(They exit the truck and wander inside.)
[INT – DAY – GLOVAL’S QUARTERS]
CAPT. GLOVAL: And that is the tale of Nathan’s dream on the way home from the Rick Springfield. Oh Lisa, I didn’t see you there with coffee.
LISA HAYES: It’s ok, Captain. Unlike our core audience, I enjoy it when you recount events for a whole episode. Coffee?
GLOVAL: Thank you, Lisa.
(They both sip at their coffee.)
LISA: So what happens next in the saga of Chris and Nathan?
GLOVAL (chuckling softly): We’ll all have to wait until next week to learn that, my dear.
(End Episode Twenty-Three)