Script Excerpt from episode #2 'sacred trust'

EXT. Altered safehouse – late night massacre – heavy rain

-- JAGGED DISSOLVE TO:

The community’s safehouse is besieged by severely mutilated bodies resulting from nearly uncountable slashes. The victims range from elderly to children. The slashes themselves are bizarre. At Jim’s feet is a very pregnant woman with two bowies protruding from her torso, one from her tummy... as if to broadcast: one for her, one for her baby. Countless trails of blood cover her despite the hard rain. He can’t look away until the rain washes her & her baby’s blood away.

The way LIGHTNING hits the faces of the dead, they appear to be crying.

THUNDER reverberates as if God’s outrage.

Where the dead are strewn, there’s a carved, blood-filled message:

ALTERED DESERVE DEATH.

Jim can’t be here anymore. He limps back to the car. Not knowing what else to do, Ben catches up and drives away.

Jim takes a last look at the crime scene from their departing car through the window. Through the heavy curtain of rain. Still there is not enough distance from the dead.

Ben makes a concerted effort to keep his eyes solely on the dark, drowning roads.

Never in his 22 years of NYC police work has Jim seen anything even remotely like this. For the first time, he is completely stunned by the violence.

Frozen from the wailing silence of the crime scene, Jim can speak only once he & Ben get their unmarked car back into the familiar scenery of the SI unit’s parking area.

Jim’s mind now tries to begin processing the crime scene’s images. But he and Ben are still in shock.

Jim is at a particular loss to make sense of what he’s seen because he is not aware of Altereds, or of the Unfinished.

JIM
It’s sick... Several criminals...
Throughout the tri-state... Hunting
people they accuse of being inhuman.

Jim gets out of the car, nauseated, pacing hard with his cane.

JIM
They sure looked human enough when
we arrived to the scene and their
blood was... everywhere... How could
there possibly be so much blood
outside in that rain?

BEN
Calm down, Jim.

JIM
How am I supposed to? Do I look
strange to you? What if some
psychopath calling himself a
savior slashes me into
fragments, or my kid?

BEN
You don’t have a kid... Do you?

JIM
I’m talking about anyone’s family.
You saw that –- that inhumane...
That -- What was that? What for?

BEN
The criminals involved are not
preservers of humanity. They are out of
control, using the current situation
as an excuse to... butcher people
they feel threatened by.

JIM
The only current situation I see is
sociopaths walking our streets with
stunners, bowies, swords, and even those
electric laser-sabres, and using them
like that.
(pacing more strenuously)
What’s the point of those weapons?
Haven't these animals heard of guns?
At least they could shoot their prey
instead. But this...
(voice trails off)

BEN
Even when you look at the people carrying
these weapons, not all of them are insane.
Not all of them are looking for an excuse
to kill fellow people, Altered or not.

CLOSE ON: JIM

JIM
What are you trying to say...
“Altereds” really exist?

BEN
Maybe.

JIM
(beats, lost in thought)
I do think there are spree killers
out there.

BEN
Serial killers?

JIM
That won’t take breaks.