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INT. CAR, NIGHT.
Matilda is driving Jimmy's car.
Jimmy is watching her in profile.
BEAT
|
 MATILDA:
What?
JIMMY:
You used to baby sit my brother and me.
MATILDA:
Is that a question?
Well if it is, the answer is, yes.
JIMMY:
How did she arrange this?
MATILDA:
Arrange what?
JIMMY:
She worked with my old man and now with me-
MATILDA:
Jimmy, I don't think she's exactly working with you.
And from what I've heard you were assigned to this case
while Pandora was unconscious.
Now she's capable of a great many things but not of arranging
your assignment while she's unconscious.
JIMMY:
I thought she didn't sleep.
MATILDA:
Being unconscious isn't the same as sleeping.
JIMMY:
What kind of powers DOES she have?
MATILDA:
Powers?
She doesn't have any "powers."
Pandora isn't some kind of superhero.
JIMMY:
She healed herself from-
MATILDA:
That wasn't anything more then what every one can do.
With a few rare exceptions.
JIMMY:
What does that mean?
MATILDA:
We all have the ability to heal ourselves and we all
cannibalize the resources in our bodies in cases of extreme
duress. Her responses are just excellerated, but not beyond
precedence.
JIMMY:
Lizards regrow tails, people don't regrow hands.
MATILDA:
Are you sure? I regrew my tonsils.
I'd show you but I'd crash the car.
|
BEAT
|
MATILDA:
Most of us can't regrow limbs and things because our
cells can only duplicate themselves. But when we were
infants in the womb, and even after birth, we grew parts
of our bodies that weren't simple duplicates of the neighboring
cells. Those cells were able to follow our DNA map and
grow cells that weren't duplicates but rather what ever
the map said should be next. As we become older our cells
loose that ability, hers haven't.
But there's a human born with this ability every twenty
seconds.
JIMMY:
So where did the two of you meet?
Some medical lab?
MATILDA:
(Laughs)
What?
Why would you say that?
JIMMY:
Because you have your own amazing powers.
MATILDA:
I'm just a normal girl Jimmy.
JIMMY:
A normal girl who's aged like ten years in the last thirty.
MATILDA:
Hmm.
Jimmy, how old do I look to you these days?
JIMMY:
I don't know. Maybe seventy, which I know is impossible.
MATILDA:
You once told my you thought I must be a hundred years
old.
JIMMY:
(Frowns)
I must have been a kid.
MATILDA:
Yes, but you weren't that far off. I'm ninety two Jimmy.
JIMMY:
What?
But thirty years ago you'd have been about sixty. I don't
remember you looking sixty and now ... you can't be ninety.
MATILDA:
Thank you Jimmy, but I was born at home in Sydney Australia
in nineteen sixteen.
|
BEAT
|
MATILDA:
I have to say your manners have improved.
JIMMY:
Your Australian and you name is Matilda?
MATILDA:
Pandora calls me that. Its not the name I was born with.
JIMMY:
What's your real name?
MATILDA:
Telling you that Jimmy would just cause us more trouble,
just think of me as Matilda, I've been Matilda for a much
longer time then I was ... that other person.
|
|
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|
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INT. PANDORA'S APT, NIGHT.
Matilda lets them in.
|
MATILDA:
You can get yourself what ever you want. Don't worry
about finishing off something, we'll be leaving Chicago
soon.
JIMMY:
Leaving?
Why?
MATILDA:
Because Jimmy, after what happened today in the plaza
and when its connected to Pandora being the only survivor
from the train accident ... we won't be able to live below
the radar.
|
Matilda goes into the bedroom and begins to pack.
|
JIMMY:
Where will you go?
MATILDA:
I don't know. We own apartment buildings in New York,
Los Angeles, Seattle, Atlanta most of the biggest cities
in this country and others.
JIMMY:
How can you afford all of that?
MATILDA:
Real estate.
If you have the time investing in real estate is the
next best thing to a sure bet. The value will always increase.
Its just a matter of timing.
JIMMY:
And time.
MATILDA:
Uh huh.
JIMMY:
How long have you been with Pandora?
MATILDA:
A long time.
JIMMY:
She looks ... she looks younger then me.
MATILDA:
Well obviously she's not.
JIMMY:
Uh huh.
And why won't you tell me-
MATILDA:
Because I know the answer and I can tell you, you don't
really want to know.
|
Jimmy shakes his head and goes to the kitchen.
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LATER
Jimmy and Matilda are having drinks in the living room.
|
JIMMY:
Can you tell me how you missed that thing when you shot
it? I thought you hit it.
MATILDA:
It wasn't there. And I did make a good shot. I practice
every other day at the range.
JIMMY:
Every other day?
MATILDA:
It used to be pistol practice every day, along with cardio
and weights but ... I'm really too old for every day any
more.
JIMMY:
Why?
MATILDA:
Being Pandora's friends has its ... dangers.
JIMMY:
You said you shot true?
MATILDA:
(sighs)
I'm not sure but I think what happened was that the furie
wasn't there when the bullet passed through that space.
JIMMY:
Wasn't there?
|
Matilda nods.
|
JIMMY:
How can that be?
MATILDA:
A Furie is a demi god. The Gods live in the fourth dimension.
We, live in the third dimension. We have: height, width
and depth. Three dimensions. The fourth dimension adds
time to height, width and depth. We live in the present,
the gods live in the ever, when ever. The Furie must have
known my bullet was coming so she simply wasn't there
at the time my bullet passed through that space.
JIMMY:
But ...
That's weird on so many levels.
MATILDA:
I think Pandora told you that you didn't really want
to know the facts behind everything you were seeing.
JIMMY:
Yes, but ... you said a Furie is a ...
MATILDA:
Demi God.
The Furies were created when Cronos castrated his father,
Saturn. Three drops of Saturn's semen fell on rocks and
the Furies were made from this. They are not full gods,
rather like monsters, bird claws and wings, women's bodies
and hair. They were given the job of punishing living
persons who had earned the wrath of the gods.
For the Greeks, everyone goes to Hades when they die.
But the Good go to the Elysian fields where its always
spring time and there is always a good battle to be had.
The bad go to Tartarus where its always ... the hottest
possible summer or the coldest possible winter and the
battles are all bad. And its said that a person the Furies
are torturing looks forward to death even if it means
going to Tartarus because Tarturus is better then being
punished by the Furies.
Pandora thinks that this Furie is here amusing herself
by causing suffering to others. We have no idea where
the other Furies are and why this one isn't with them
but if she's amusing herself the disasters she causes
are only going to get worse as she gets bored with repetition.
JIMMY:
So, what can we do?
MATILDA:
Nothing.
The only thing likely to cause a Furie any injury is
Pandora's sword. The trick is confining the Fury to a
place where she can't get away while Pandora uses her
sword on it.
JIMMY:
Why can Pandora's sword hurt a Furie and nothing else
can? Where does that sword come from? I've only seen it
in Pandora's hands. She seems to pull it from -
MATILDA:
From the fourth.
That's why it can hurt the Furie, because it exists in
the same dimension she does.
JIMMY:
And that makes Pandora-
|
|
 
|
|
|
INT. TUNNELS UNDER CITY, NIGHT.
Pandora is walking towards us through the darkness and fog, steam,
etc.
|
JIMMY:
(O.S.)
some kind of God or demi god or -
MATILDA:
(O.S.)
Pandora's just a girl, just a normal person ... except
she's far from normal.
|
Pandora opens a door and enters a concrete room at the bottom
of a metal stairwell.
She starts up the stairwell.
|
|
 |
INT. APT HALLWAY, NIGHT.
Pandora comes out of the stairwell and onto her floor.
She opens the door to her apartment.
|
 |
|
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INT. APT, CONT.
Jimmy and Matilda look up startled as Pandora enters.
|
MATILDA:
Well, did you find it?
PANDORA:
Uh huh.
|
Pandora makes strait for Jimmy and takes his drink way from him.
She turns her back to the windows, drinks and looks at Matilda.
|
 PANDORA:
(mouths, no sound)
Weapons.
|
Matilda nods and puts down her drink.
Matilda goes into the bedroom where she opens a closet door that
blocks the view of the windows.
|
PANDORA:
Jimmy-
JIMMY:
You're going to tell me to go home. But this is a case
for the Chicago police, its my case and I have to stay.
PANDORA:
I understand. But I was going to ask that you try to
stay out of the way because-
|
[crash from the bedroom]
Pandora spins around, sword out, and cuts through the window.
There's an explosion of light from outside and near the bedroom.
The light places the Furie on the glass outside the living room
in profile.
The Furie melts the glass and enters the living room ready to
fight.
Pandora pushes Jimmy aside and jumps back, afraid, as the Furie
enters. (soon though Pandora will be between the Furie and her
"escape" back through the window.)
|
PANDORA:
Alecto.
FURIE:
You think me my sister?
I hoped you knew. I looked forward to true fear and anticipation.
PANDORA:
I am glad you are not Alecto. Because she is too strong
for me. Tisiphone I can bind you-
FURIE:
You are no wizard and only a demi god can bind Tisiphone.
PANDORA:
The binding I set relies on no magic but that of your
name, Tisiphone. You are bound to me.
|
The Furie attacks.
She throws Pandora around the room like a rag doll.
Matilda comes to the bedroom door and fires another light weapon.
The furie cringes and Pandora dives for a hidden panel that slides
a steel door, closing off the bedroom, into place.
Jimmy strikes the Furie from behind and hits it, it was disoriented
by the light.
|
PANDORA:
Jimmy, don't.
This isn't your fight.
|
The Furie grabs Jimmy and holds him in her talons while she fights
Pandora.
Pandora breaks bone after bone, which heal again and again, but
not without pain and not without Pandora becoming smaller and
weaker.
Pandora feints and then back swings, she cuts off one of the
Furie's arms.
The arm falls to the ground and quickly shrinks to the arm of
a 9 year old boy.
BEAT
The Furie smashes through the wall into the hallway with Jimmy
still in her talons.
|
  
|
|
The fight goes down the hall.
The Furie only fears the sword.
She mops the floors, walls, and ceiling with Pandora but Pandora
never looses her grip on her sword.
|
|
 |
The Fight enters the stairwell where the Furie rips the steel
from the wall and causes it to collapse to the bottom.
Then she goes after Pandora.
Pandora is forced to drop into the darkness and dust.
BEAT
The Furie flies upwards.
|
|
|
|
EXT. ROOF, NIGHT.
The Furie drops Jimmy on the roof and then lands on top of him
with her talons sunk completely through his hips and legs.
She tears his clothes from his torso exposing his skin.
Her face comes very close to Jimmy's, saliva drips from her fangs.
|
FURIE:
How long before she comes to save you?
|
She hooks a claw under his skin near his shoulder then she pulls
back the strip of skin all the way down to his waist.
Jimmy screams in pain.
|
FURIE:
Will there be anything of you left?
|
This time she tears a strip up from his waist to his throat.
|
FURIE:
Who is she and where did she get that sword?
|
POV JIMMY
Pandora comes out of the elevator shaft.
Jimmy, in his bravest moment, doesn't reveal that Pandora is
walking up behind the furie, without her sword.
|
JIMMY:
I don't know.
FURIE:
That's good.
Because if you knew-
|
She tears another strip of flesh from his throat down to his
belt.
|
FURIE:
I might have to stop.
|
She starts another strip up from his belt.
Jimmy is screaming in pain.
|
FURIE:
And humans feel pain so exquisitely.
|
Pandora reaches behind her head, draws her sword and lops off
one of the Furie's wings in one move.
The Furie screams and goes into a barrel roll.
Pandora lops off a leg.
The Furie has lost her leg and arm on one side.
She hobbles away trying to fly but she can't, unbalanced as she
is.
|
PANDORA:
You can't flee Tisiphone.
Not while I live.
FURIE:
Then you'll die.
|
She attacks, and gets inside Pandora's sword arm.
They wrestle and when Pandora frees herself she's spurting blood
from three different arteries.
The Furie is now content to wait and simply not get too close.
|
FURIE:
Humans are so delicate. You'll be dead in moments and
I'll be whole again. You know what I'm going to do with
your carcass?
|
Pandora's spurting arteries stop bleeding.
|
FURIE:
Who are you?
PANDORA:
You're executioner.
FURIE:
I'm an immortal demi god, a daughter of Saturn.
PANDORA:
NOT immortal.
Your brother learned that when I shoved this vary sword
into him and watched it suck away his soul.
|
The Furie hobbles back as Pandora advances.
She bumps into the vents.
Her claws sink into the vent and she raises herself up but then
there's no place to go.
Jimmy pulls himself over and finds Little Stuff's leg.
|
JIMMY:
(yells)
Pandora you can't kill her.
|
The Furie hears the name and finally she fears.
Pandora stabs the fury in the left breast.
|
PANDORA:
I can.
|
She pushes the sword through the Furie and into the steel of
the vent.
|
PANDORA:
I will.
|
The Furie fights like an insect skewered on a pin, getting smaller
and smaller until all that's left is a naked nine year old child
with a sword through his chest and back (angled to hook his rib).
|
PANDORA:
I have.
|
The life goes out of Little Stuff and he relaxes.
As he relaxes he slides down the sword towards Pandora, the slash
in his chest being cut wider and wider as his body weight pulls
on his wound.
When the body reaches the sword hilt we can see his rib stretching
outside of his body.
Pandora jerks the sword out of the cowling and drops the kid
on the roof.
|
JIMMY:
Pan ... how could you?
PANDORA:
He died two years ago when Tisiphone took over his body.
JIMMY:
Still ...
PANDORA:
Every damn day for half a billion years, that's how.
|
Pandora turns to take care of Jimmy.
|
       
|
|
|
INT. PANDORA'S APT. LATER.
Jimmy is on the couch as Matilda places the last bandage over
his chest, the blood has already soaked through. He looks like
he has stripes on his chest.
Pandora is noticeably smaller then she has been in any other
scene.
|
PANDORA:
(to Matilda)
How did you think of the UV?
MATILDA:
Photons, only thing I could think of.
PANDORA:
(Nods)
Partially in the fourth.
JIMMY:
Is that why your sword could hurt her?
|
They stare at him, not understanding.
|
JIMMY:
Its made of light?
|
Pandora smiles and draws the sword from an invisible sheath behind
her head and presents it to Jimmy.
It looks like a common iron sword.
|
JIMMY:
But, I saw it.
It was like a lighthouse.
|
Pandora and Matilda nod.
|
JIMMY:
What?
What is it?
MATILDA:
Its called, Hope. And its not limited to three dimensions
either.
|
Pandora sheaths it again.
Matilda hands Pandora a back pack
[sounds of police cars, etc, outside]
|
PANDORA:
Take as much credit as you can Jimmy, for the good stuff.
As for the bad stuff, tell them a crazy lady did it.
MATILDA:
A pair of crazy ladies.
JIMMY:
But-
MATILDA:
And don't let them send you to a hospital. A doctor gets
a look at how fast you're healing and you'll be on the
cover of every tabloid in the country.
JIMMY:
Okay, okay, I understand why you have to leave but ...
You've got to explain some of this.
|
Pandora doesn't react and Matilda shakes her head.
|
MATILDA:
You never were much of a student Jimmy.
JIMMY:
What does that-
MATILDA:
I explained all of this to you when you were a child.
I told you about Zeus, the Furies, the giants ... and
Pandora, the first woman.
|
Pandora isn't pleased with Matilda and turns her to leave.
|
JIMMY:
Hey!
|
They don't turn back as they climb over the debris and disappear
into the hall.
|
PANDORA:
(O.S.)
I'm hungry.
MATILDA:
(O.S.)
You always are.
PANDORA:
(O.S.)
No, I'm always horny. I'm only hungry a half dozen or
more times a day.
MATILDA:
(OS)
That's not what I meant and you-
JIMMY:
Pandora!
Matilda!
|
BEAT
Firemen shine a flashlight through the broken door.
|
FIREMAN:
Hey!
Anyone in here?
JIMMY:
Yeah, I'm in here.
FIREMAN:
Where are you?
JIMMY:
On the couch.
|
The Firemen come in but when they shine their flashlights on
his bandages ...
|
FIREMAN:
Oh, my God.
JIMMY:
Its okay. It looks worse then it feels.
|
BEAT
|
JIMMY:
I think the bleeding's stop.
FIREMAN:
We need to get him a stretcher.
JIMMY:
That radio tied into the metro police channel?
FIREMAN:
Yeah, but-
 JIMMY:
(Sounding more authoritative then ever)
I'm a cop.
|
BEAT
The Fireman gives him the radio.
The second Fireman goes for the stretcher.
|
JIMMY:
Hello, Metro Chicago, This is Detective O'Niel who's
on?
|
FADE TO BLACK
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