The riverboat rolls, inside a sleeping cabin, both young.
Mother - "A hundred years old, Sam. And all ... crusty inside ..." A grey streak grows in her hair, she smiles.
Clemmons
- "Not quite. And you're nearly a crone ! I saw you over edge running
alongside, striding like goddess among ancient gazelles."
She starts unbuttoning his shirt.
Clemmons - "In fact I'm pretty sure I remember you admitting
we're the same age ... back when you still loved ... things ... But we're all better now, 'Great Lady'."
Mother - "You talk a lot. I wondered if that was your angle, but fear of death, Sam ? I've outgrown it."
Clemmons - "Happy you ..."
She slams him to the wall, vines growing up his arms, raising them with the
clearly special revolver in his hand and taking root in the wood of the
wall, cracking it.
She kisses him as they both begin
to grow young again. His head slams against the wall, followed by vine
up his neck, wrapping around his head, padding between. His eyes go
wide.
The revolver is torn from his hand and the vines.
________
Note ~
'Tourists' understand that nothing is real here, at least for
them. They take nothing seriously except the tokens required for the
rides and market, oblivious good-timers.
As it is in
the marketplace,
they are the ones without cloaks who bow to those with. Those with are
there for business, those without, pleasure. Many are the same from
every other marketplace scene.
('Whole Lotta Hott' remix by Kitty Kitty Boom Boom)
Hands
pump tokens into carnival vending machines, pulling out rifles and
pistols, random assortments. Other pay on ammo at the nearby machine.
__
The
train exits the mountainside tunnel (side view of it's name 'The Shooting Gallery') into a dust storm of horse and
carriages, early cars and a few old racers. Harpoons strike the side, a
few making windows and setting grapple with chains.
A couple of crop duster looking WWI refits fly over.
Each
of the train's passenger car looks vaguely buffalo-like from the side
(never seen fully before, only angled down the side on entry or
departure).
Armored at the fore in a thick
plate, buffed at the top for storage with piping and gear-works running
from it beneath the windows. Out of context the cars would have
been considered more 'steam-deco', with a swooshed overhang from the
full-armored
fore to back over the window rows as a sun-shield.
Side-clamps
drop from the undercarriage, grabbing the rail tracks on sparking
rollers as the engine gains steam to counter their drag and the whaling
carriages pulled across the field, some flipping behind while the crew
pull themselves toward skidding.
A few pop 'davinci
gliders' on rope, some from the heavy drag chains and others from their
direct grapples launched. Overhead the planes line up for a bombing run
along the length.
__
More tokens pump as the travelers prepare, apparently excited as the cabin shakes hard.
Engineer - Loudspeakers squeak on, "Alright you lazy bastards. Time to get what you paid for."
The crowd cheers ...
__
Windows
open along the sides while the bandit teams approach, field filled with
everyone with a 'new plan' ( ... ) and everyone they know, tourists of
their own market.
Inside the train Mars pries out a
harpoon, dropping those climbing it's chains to the stampede, lost in
the dust. He bows smiling 'excuse me' to a flustered passenger, moves
her aside to hack a rope with a heavy knife.
Glider sent spinning overhead, then lost to the dust storm.
A
line at the front of the cabins forms, tokens are pushed as the gunnery
chair (costs ten) pops at the fore top storage. The gatling seated
tourists start pedaling (he got the idea from Andromeda's gunnery).
Guns fire randomly into the bandit swarm with mixed success while
similar
pours through the windows. More tokens pump, next up.
(insert fun time for the battle choreographer, for now that's you)
...
Rocketeers
make their way parallel to the engine in swaying makeshift rocket-cars
(the ones in the twenties were pretty cool, and also hilarious),
pounding the tracks ahead. The engineer pops the side window and shoots
out the starboard rocketeer, while the port blows the track ahead.
Engineer - To himself, "Bastards." Takes a drink and gets on comm while working the levers, "Alright 'tourists', rough ride ahead." Cheers returned through the comm, he flips it off. "I really do think I hate them all."
He shoots the other rocketeer.
The under-clamps withdraw while thin nearly pin-like legs pull out from the pipes under the armored fore and beneath the windows. The engine leaps ahead, steam-stack leaning in a bit more like a rhino.
The rest take foot as the cars skid off the blown track, separating and crashing into each other sparking signals between and keeping track on the engine. They fan to stampede, view to the high above as the pursuers pour from the surrounding woods.
The ropes and hooks slide from the thin legs, while they pierce any vehicle in their path not knocked aside. Eventually a rocket takes out a rear hip and one car's down.
The engine veers off and back, guiding the rest into a circle around it (like a wagon train). Mars jumps off one with a kit and runs to the wreck. The tourists fire at the regrouping bandits as he pulls the spare hip and parts from the underside and starts fitting.
...
Up and back he gets in it as they return to charge, knocking all aside. One by one they leap for track and connect, steaming away from the failed bandit survivors, what's left too slow.
They steams into the 'Hollywoodland' platform, banged and sooted, dragging the heavy chains. The passengers babble out excited as the gates open.
One - "Okay now where the hell's Eve ?"
Eve - Back turned on the near platform, "It's 'Hey-wa'."
She paints a kneeling tourist's face, his hands locker in prayer. The tourist opens his eyes wide and smiles, paint complete, she strokes his cheek and smiles back down at him.
Eve - Sweetly looking into the painted one's eyes, "And how ..." She clocks the tourist across the jaw to his apparent ecstasy before he dissipates to smoke on the cement.
Eve - "... the hell do you not know that by now ?" She picks up the token from her collection plate (some candles and a 'Face-paint 1Tkn' sign). "Where's my fucking book, Ah-Damach. Gimme." She sees Naamah exit the train behind One, "... hey Naamah ..."
Naamah - "Eve."
...
Engineer - To himself, "Bastards." Takes a drink and gets on comm while working the levers, "Alright 'tourists', rough ride ahead." Cheers returned through the comm, he flips it off. "I really do think I hate them all."
He shoots the other rocketeer.
The under-clamps withdraw while thin nearly pin-like legs pull out from the pipes under the armored fore and beneath the windows. The engine leaps ahead, steam-stack leaning in a bit more like a rhino.
The rest take foot as the cars skid off the blown track, separating and crashing into each other sparking signals between and keeping track on the engine. They fan to stampede, view to the high above as the pursuers pour from the surrounding woods.
The ropes and hooks slide from the thin legs, while they pierce any vehicle in their path not knocked aside. Eventually a rocket takes out a rear hip and one car's down.
The engine veers off and back, guiding the rest into a circle around it (like a wagon train). Mars jumps off one with a kit and runs to the wreck. The tourists fire at the regrouping bandits as he pulls the spare hip and parts from the underside and starts fitting.
...
Up and back he gets in it as they return to charge, knocking all aside. One by one they leap for track and connect, steaming away from the failed bandit survivors, what's left too slow.
They steams into the 'Hollywoodland' platform, banged and sooted, dragging the heavy chains. The passengers babble out excited as the gates open.
One - "Okay now where the hell's Eve ?"
Eve - Back turned on the near platform, "It's 'Hey-wa'."
She paints a kneeling tourist's face, his hands locker in prayer. The tourist opens his eyes wide and smiles, paint complete, she strokes his cheek and smiles back down at him.
Eve - Sweetly looking into the painted one's eyes, "And how ..." She clocks the tourist across the jaw to his apparent ecstasy before he dissipates to smoke on the cement.
Eve - "... the hell do you not know that by now ?" She picks up the token from her collection plate (some candles and a 'Face-paint 1Tkn' sign). "Where's my fucking book, Ah-Damach. Gimme." She sees Naamah exit the train behind One, "... hey Naamah ..."
Naamah - "Eve."
...
________
Lilith - "So ... what's in the Appendix ?"
Mambathu - "Hm ? Oh ! I thought you'd stop listening."
Lilith - "I was planning on tuning back in when you got to it. You never got to it."
...
Lilith - "He's still here now. In this version. I can smell him."
(blackscreen
through the credits and I am glad I grabbed this because I can't find
it on the tube anymore, 'Riverdale' got the 'nice cut')
~ after credits ~
~ after credits ~
Nocturne
rides chained in the back of an armored truck, marked for money
transit. She stares past the guards with their guns on her twitchy, out the back window,
burred light through a thin slice of scarred bulletproof glass.
Agent - "We
have a storm brewing. A fight between gods. We need you to settle them." He lights a
cigarette and passes it to her, holding it. "All of them."
Nocturne - Exhales ... "Enumeration."
Agent - "At least five. Ones being scouted. Hunter in the field."
Nocturne
- "That means more." Inhales his pass. Extended in exhalation, "Why
..." She watches the smoke over the dusk light ray from the slot
window.
...
Agent - "Why ?"
Nocturne - Looks at him. "Do they die ?"
...
Smokes watching her, younger guards tighten their grips. Eyes go to each other's, a safety goes off.
...
Agent - Begins singing, "Why ... oh why ... oh why must they die ..."
...
Nocturne - "Why always they die ..."
Both - From outside the truck as it passes in the night, a puddle splash. "... I'll never know why ..."
~ From 'The Underdogs', by Mariano Azuela ~
(traditional version sung over final black-screen)
Someone plunged a knife
Deep in my side.
Did he know why ?
I don't know why.
Maybe he knew.
I never knew.
The blood flowed out
Of that mortal wound.
Did he know why ?
I don't know why.
Maybe he knew.
I never knew.