Showdown at the Major Phazer Lazer Tag Emporium

INT. MAJOR PHAZER LAZER TAG LOUNGE - NOT DAY NOT NIGHT

It is not day. It is not night. It is the forever florescent neon limbo of the lazer tag emporium. Blacklight and glow in the dark with no windows. Arcade game noise from every direction. Through the vents even. It is the casino of adolescence. If Walt Disney made Blade Runner. Children running and kicking and swinging at each other, snorting icing off mini cupcakes and eating cheese doodles off the floor, with miles of ribbon tickets in their pandemic fists. Zombie employees in neon vests, wading through them, forearms and elbows hover at their torsos above the heads of these unbathed masses, emptying change from machines and scraping gum off the geometric shapes of a carpet laid in 1987.

This is the dystopian world of ZACKERY, ASST. MGR, 17 years old. He stands, world weary, leaning over the plexiglass display case of rubber prizes. 10 tickets top shelf for suckers, 25 tickets second shelf for suckers, 100 tickets fourth shelf for suckers, and 500 - 1000 tickets bottom shelf for dreamers. He administers the weigh scale, piling tickets on top, and reading the digital display: 187

ZACKERY : That's one from shelf four, three from three, and one from the top.

Zackery picks something from the top shelf. A stick of gum.

ZACKERY : Gum?

The KID, 8, on the other side looks up at him, dubious. Zackery isn't budging.

ZACKERY : Machine says 187, it's 187.

A quick gesture from the kid. If this was a casino the gesture would mean fold. Zackery understands. Gives back the tickets as the kid walks away.

KID : (to the girl next in line) Systems rigged.

ZACKERY : Welcome to life, kid. Next!

Zackery pockets the stick of gum in the front pocket of his neon vest and is about to deal with the next sucker in a line that will go on to the end of the night but...

MANAGER : Zackery. You're in charge rest of the night. Have to lock up too. Got the girlfriend's kid's birthday tonight and I've got to blow up a bouncy castle on the westside by 7.

ZACKERY : (kind of a whine) Jadon...

MANAGER : You've done it all before. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. (taking him aside) Remember what I told you, okay. Kids are kids. They're corrupt. Vile. It's us versus them. And they win every time. You might win a battle. But don't expect to win the war. Your job is just to keep a lid on the whole thing till close. Don't worry, you got this.

CYAIRA (I know, I don't know how to pronounce it either), a goth 15 year old, interrupts. She squeezes through to take Zackery's place behind the scale as the manager bolts.

CYAIRA : Code yellow. In No Man's Land. The pit at the end of the ramp.

ZACKERY : Crap.

CYAIRA : You wish. Off you go assistant manager. You heard the man. You're the man now. Above my paygrade.

She shoos him away with her black spiderwebbed fingernails.

INT. MAJOR PHAZER HALLWAYS - FLORESCENT FLICKER LIT NIGHT

Zackery's comfortable shoes carry him and a sloshing bucket labelled "code yellow" through more halls and near crashes with birthday parties, sibling assaults, and bullies. It is all happening at his waist and he keeps his eyes up, forearm out, seeing none of it. This world has hardened him.

Around a corner to swinging saloon doors with the neon label "DEFENDERS ENTER." A mousy girl, her face to the wall, cries, convulsing as the swinging door smacks her back, continually pinning her to the wall, oblivious children coming and going.

Zackery puts down the bucket, grabs her, open palms pressing her shoulders like the safe environment training orientation taught him, moves her to a safer space. Picks up his bucket,

takes a deep breath and stiff arms the doors to enter...

INT. MAJOR PHAZER LAZER TAG GAME ZONE - FOREVER NIGHT

...the GAME ZONE.

A multi-leveled maze of passages and openings. Claustrophobic one moment and wide open sitting duck territory the next. Red and blue lazer beams clash and run up walls and mirrors. Disco ball scrolling lights on every surface. Children screaming with unsupervised abandon and plastic firearms.

Zackery, his neon vest more neon than ever, could walk through this "DEFENDER ZONE" half of the warehouse in his sleep. Kids with flashing vests running in all directions try to shoot him, run into him, run into mirrors. He goes down a short ramp, up a longer one, around two quick corners, and he is out of the defender zone and into NO MAN's LAND as labelled by the glow in the dark professional graffiti. A wide open space between the two zones. He sees THE GIRL, 6 yrs, dressed for dance class, not lazer combat, weeping in the centre, down a long ramp. He walks down it to the girl and the lowest point of the retrofitted warehouse. The Pit. Full exposure here. He bends down to talk to her, eye to eye.

ZACKERY : Hi, I'm Zackery. What's your name?

The girl gets herself together on the outside. She looks at him with big doe eyes. Can a six year old have a smoky voice?

FEMME FATALE : You shouldn't be here.

ZACKERY : Oh, I guess it's weird to see grownups in here. But I'm not just any grown up. I work here.

FEMME FATALE : (looking him up and down) You're not a grown up.

ZACKERY : I basically am. Anyway, we need to get you out of the Game Zone and find a parent to clean you up.

FEMME FATALE : I can't go. He won't let me.

ZACKERY : (confused) He? Who...

FEMME FATALE : Don't ask me. I'm not allowed to tell you. I'm not a tattletale. (beat, turning away) You should go.

He grabs her by the shoulder, forgetting his training. She turns to look at him, world weary. They have that in common. He feels he has stepped over the line. He lets her go.

FEMME FATALE : It's too late for me. Save yourself.

Zackery hears the whizz of something past his ear and a plunk against the water in his "code yellow' bucket on the floor. He ducks out of instinct. Another quick zing and plink.

Zachery, more to himself than to anyone else.

ZACKERY : BB gun?

He looks up to where he thinks it's coming from. Darkness. He realizes the threat, the ASSASSIN, has the high ground.

He hears the laughing and the screaming. Hears the screaming differently now. They're not screaming. They're screaming.

Another zip, ding! Another pre-teen combatant yelps, falls.

Zackery grabs the girl, liability be damned, picks her up in a fireman's carry, and starts to run back to the Defender Zone. They come across the kid from the exchange in the Lounge, trying to cross No Man's Land, who now gets a BB in the lazer tag chest plate. A light cracks. The kid looks down, what the heck... another BB from the Assassin connects in the thigh and the kid drops to his knees in agony.

But Zackery isn't looking back. Leaping now and covering more ground with 17 year old legs and the knowledge two summers of sanitary sweeps of this warehouse funhouse provides, Zackery is anticipating corners and half walls, and spinning around mirrors, as the girl slaps his back to let her go. BBs glance off padded walls and plexiglass guard rails. Screaming, panicked kids are getting picked off, innocents caught in the cross-fire. One in the shoulder, another in the shin. Another in the chubbiness of the torso sticking out from a too tightly strapped chest plate. All drop in various places.

Zackery is close to the exit. He stops. His gut told him to. Tries to feel the air with his senses. Peeks around a corner and another BB missile comes at him, but from an unexpected angle. The Assassin has moved, is in pursuit. And Zackery is pinned down in sight of the exit. A pile of kids and their owies blocking his way out.

FEMME FATALE : Let me go! Let! Me! Go!

Zackery puts her down and holds her.

ZACKERY : Listen here, kid. I can't leave you behind. I can't let you get hurt.

He holds her close in his arms, protecting her as best he can and makes a run for it. Closes his eyes. Three long strides. And then... a jump. Spinning his body in the air to shield his girl from danger. Fosbury Flop back arches over the BB'd prepubescent mass piled like cordwood under him, breaks the swinging saloon doors of the Defender Zone Exit to land...

INT. MAJOR PHAZER HALLWAYS - FLORESCENT FLICKER LIT NIGHT

...a full body roll. He looks up at the mousy girl, still standing where he put her earlier, now staring down at him.

Zackery realizes the Femme Fatale is still held tightly in his arms. Lets her go. She stands on her own. She can't look at him. He looks at her. Notices. Spins her around looking at her white stockinged legs, white backside, white penny shoes.

All white. More to himself than to anyone else.

ZACKERY : No code yellow.

She starts to walk away.

ZACKERY : Do you know who that is in there? It's okay to tell a grown up.

She stops. Is silent. Then a half smile as she walks away.

FEMME FATALE : You're not a grown up. And I'm not a tattletale.

Zackery yells out to her.

ZACKERY : But I saved you!

She stops. Turns. Still that half smile.

FEMME FATATTLETALE : You saved me? Did you? (beat for the reveal) I asked him to give you a head start. He'll probably give you another when you go back in.

And she turns away and is gone in a crowd of birthday party kids, cake, giftbags and balloons.

He wants to take in the moment but Zackery does not have time for her. He has to deal with the Game Zone Assassin.

He stands, brushing off the popcorn and Spitz shells, and walks back to the swinging saloon doors.

Two stiff arms and he is through to discover...

INT. MAJOR PHAZER LAZER TAG GAME ZONE - FOREVER NIGHT

...silence. All kids are gone. Except for one.

ZACKERY : (into the air) It's just you and me kid!

Zackery begins to walk tentatively. Looking all around in the darkness. Every spiraling light, every mirrored reflection, every empty space is a possible threat. A corner. A walkway. A ramp. Another corner. Finally No Man's Land. Not a BB BB'd.

ZACKERY : So you've given up?!

ZIP! PING! Zackery body rolls down the ramp into the pit. Looks up and sees a shadow pass in front of moving lights.

Zackery jumps across No Man's Land and enters the "ALIEN INVASION!!" side of the Game Zone.

Eerie silence. Not a single arcade game or lazer pew from anywhere. Only the squeak of Zackery's running shoes on a padded gym mat floor.

Then... a patter of shoes on carpet. From somewhere. Zackery scans. He reaches up to a handrail and jumps up and over, skipping the ramp, and pursues. Throws himself up against a wall in a corner and waits. Looks at the mirrored wall opposite. Stares at himself. You idiot!

Another perspective now unlike any we have seen so far. A dark body with dark ball cap, a BB handgun in silhouette. It walks, hunched low along a half wall, scanning below to laneways and spaces with no ceiling. It continues to move along, trying to get an angle on where Zackery is pinned. It finally can see the mirror and the reflection of the neon vest. He holds the gun out over the half wall, waiting for the vest to come out from behind the wall. But instead...

An ARM reaches from below to grab Assassin's wrist. GOTCHA!

Back to Zackery's corner and wall with mirror. The neon vest with the name tag "ZACKERY, ASST. MGR," suspended on the padded wall, falls to the ground. Gum remains where it was chewed and used to stick the vest to the wall.

INT. MAJOR PHAZER RESERVED PARTY ROOM - FOREVER DAY

THX-1138 with ice cream cake. Scuffed white tile floor with scuffed white walls and somehow scuffed white ceiling tiles all lit by bare florescent tubes of light. Shadows do not exist in this room. Zackery holds the BB gun in one hand and the collar of the Assassin in the other.

ZACKERY : This is a serious offense. He could have really hurt someone.

MOM : (shrugs) Yeah, sorry. You gonna let go of my kid now?

Zackery lets go.

ZACKERY : Ok. Well, I'll have my manager contact you tomorrow...

ASSASSIN : Give me my gun.

Zackery looks to his mother. Say something.

MOM : You can't take my son's property. We're not leaving until... Crystal! Let's go! Your Yelp review...

The voice fades as our Femme Fatale steps out from around a corner. Zackery can't believe it, any of it. Holds the gun. Frozen. She looks at him, both desperate and disgusted.

ASSASSIN : You heard her. Give it.

ZACKERY : But he was shooting kids. Innocent? Kids? I had to...

ASSASSIN : Geez, I gave you a head start.

Zackery wonders. Why aren't you saying anything? But he knows. No tattletale here. It's over. Gives the kid his gun.

MOM : What do we say?

ASSASSIN AND FEMME FATALE : (him: smug. her: cold) Thank you.

EXT. MAJOR PHAZER LAZER TAG EMPORIUM ALLEY - NIGHT. FOR REAL.

Zackery locks the doors of the emporium. Cyaira sits on a curb and vapes as they wait for their rides home.

CYAIRA : You did a good job tonight, Zack.

ZACKERY : Did I?

CYAIRA : They all die tonight and come back tomorrow to do it all over again. Anything else? Above our paygrade.

Zackery takes the vape from her. Takes a puff. Vapour rises to the neon lights of the Major Phazer Lazer Tag Emporium sign. It flickers, then buzzes back on, stronger.