Scene 2 — In Season

The Fedora Handbook, Rule #6

“Every organization needs a treasurer, a secretary, and a scapegoat. With careful planning, these can be one person.”

INT. A GRAY ROOM WITH NO WINDOWS — TUESDAY, 10:52 A.M.

The room is already set with twelve chairs arranged neatly around an ornate conference table. Marcy Antellier is laying out pens, one at each place, and a small bowl of mints in the middle of the table, while Bartholomew Tranche-Lard (facilities) impatiently waits for the quarterly meeting to begin.

BARTHOLOMEW

What are those?

MARCY

Mints.

BARTHOLOMEW

It's a meeting, not a hotel.

MARCY

(Smiling)

It's a meeting! So take a mint.

Bartholomew Tranche-Lard takes a mint and holds it up to inspect it, the way you might a fine jewel. The man is gigantic, and he looks like a drill sergeant who has been retired to the school as their gym coach. Everything he does is too loud, and not on purpose.

Dalton Hillcrux comes in behind him, on a call, and does not hang up until he has sat down.

DALTON

No. No. Tell them no. Tell them we'll do it in

April.

He hangs up. He puts the phone face down on the table and looks at the mints.

DALTON

Whose idea?

MARCY

(Still beaming)

Mine.

DALTON

It's fine.

Dean Magnus Sterling comes in with Priya Kessler-Vance. He is mid-sentence. She is walking half a step behind him and not in a subordinate way.

STERLING

(Red faced)

-and I said to her, I was saying, the thing about

this institution is that we are in CHARGE of

knowledge!! That is the WHOLE of what we are.

KESSLER-VANCE

Sit down, Magnus.

They sit down. He is at the head of the table because it did not occur to anybody else to sit there. She is at the middle of the table because that is where the agenda is.

BARTHOLOMEW

The House.

KESSLER-VANCE

What about it.

BARTHOLOMEW

The floor plan has changed twice this month. The

south corridor is a foot longer on Tuesday than it

is on Monday. The Helps on the west side have

stopped going into the reading room. Nobody has

told them to stop and nobody knows why they have.

KESSLER-VANCE

It's contained.

BARTHOLOMEW

It's contained the way a tiger is contained in

your house while you remain locked outside. The

thing in the back room is doing something to the

building. I would like it on the record that I

said that.

KESSLER-VANCE

It's on the record.

The door opens without a knock. Montgomery comes in. Black suit, plain, no tie. Black sunglasses, and a wire at the collar that is hard to miss and no one mentions.

He stands behind the chair at the far end of the table and looks at Bartholomew.

MONTGOMERY

It isn't a leak and it isn't contained. It is a

thing you were given and you do not understand,

and I am not here to explain it to you. I am here

because the alternative to checking on it is

finding out.

MONTGOMERY

The floor plan is going to keep changing. The

Helps are going to keep avoiding the reading room.

Every quarter somebody at this table is going to

tell me the building is doing something new, and

every quarter I am going to come down here and

tell you the same thing, and the same thing is:

leave it alone and write it down. That is not a

difficulty. That is a job. You are supposed to be

able to do it.

Bartholomew puts the mint in his mouth. It is the loudest thing that happens for a while.

MONTGOMERY

Meridian does not come down here because we enjoy

the drive. We come down here because the last time

we stopped, somebody moved something.

Montgomery takes a mint from the bowl. He puts it in his pocket. He does not eat it.

MONTGOMERY

Term one is over. Where are we.

KESSLER-VANCE

Where we expected to be. The November drafts came

in on time and the December list will settle where

it always settles.

MONTGOMERY

And the exception.

KESSLER-VANCE

Still an exception. Still small.

MONTGOMERY

Small is not a category of exception that Meridian

recognises.

KESSLER-VANCE

(It's handled. It will come out at the front end)

and nothing downstream will see it.

MONTGOMERY

(Then it isn't handled, yet. It's just going unnoticed)

for now.

KESSLER-VANCE

Yes.

MONTGOMERY

Fix it.

The door opens again. Odile comes in first, and then Dr. Alfrès Jairis-Égari, and the room does something the room does every time. It stops. Not because anyone decides to. Because the room has been having this meeting for a very long time and it has never once had this meeting without him.

He is old in a way that serves as a point of reference. He has long ceased to walk freely - one part carried and another part guided, yet still he is still legally the man who owns the buildings. Odile sits him down and sits beside him and does not touch the pens and does not take a mint.

ODILE

He can hear you. He would like you to continue.

Nobody has said anything yet.

MONTGOMERY

We were just finishing.

ODILE

He would like to hear the exception.

Kessler-Vance looks at Sterling. Sterling looks at the table. Nobody looks at Odile, which is the arrangement.

KESSLER-VANCE

One provisional. His hours below ground are

running longer than the band. He does not seem to

notice. He is doing well in his coursework and

poorly at being unremarkable.

ODILE

Name.

KESSLER-VANCE

Owen.

Odile does not react. Dr. Jairis-Égari does not react. The room, which has been holding its breath without knowing it, puts the breath back.

ODILE

He would like the file.

KESSLER-VANCE

Of course, no one is stopping him.

ODILE

He will have it before Friday.

KESSLER-VANCE

Before Friday.

ODILE

And the photographer.

KESSLER-VANCE

Which photographer?

ODILE

There is only one person on campus authorized a

camera.

KESSLER-VANCE

Her approval is state-issued. It is renewed

annually. It is for anomaly documentation. It is

not ours to review and it is not ours to revoke.

ODILE

(He knows whose it is. He is asking if she has used it for)

anything else.

KESSLER-VANCE

She has used it for everything else. She

photographs whatever she looks at. The state

approves it because the state would rather the

photographs exist than not.

ODILE

Does she keep them.

KESSLER-VANCE

In her room, in a box under her bed. She has been

advised that it is inapprobate to display them

where they can be seen.

ODILE

Has she taken one of the House.

Kessler-Vance does not answer immediately. This is the first time in the meeting that she has had to think about what to say.

KESSLER-VANCE

(She has photographed the outside of the building. She)

has not been inside. The House does not let her

in.

ODILE

He would like to be told if that changes.

KESSLER-VANCE

You'll be told.

Dr. Jairis-Égari's hand moves. It is the first time it has moved since he sat down. Odile takes it and holds it and does not look at anybody.

MONTGOMERY

Then we're done.

He leaves. He does not say goodbye. He does not say anything else. The mint is still in his pocket.

STERLING

Well. I think that went well.

Nobody answers him.

The door opens one more time. The Caretaker comes in.

He is not hurried, does not take a mint, does not sit down. He stands at the middle of the room and looks at the empty chair at the far end - the one Montgomery has just left, and then he looks at Marcy.

THE CARETAKER

The box under the bed.

MARCY

Yes.

THE CARETAKER

Is it still under the bed.

MARCY

It has never been under the bed.

THE CARETAKER

Where is it.

MARCY

Inside the wardrobe, on the doors, where they have

always been. The box under the bed has four

photographs in it and they are photographs she has

already shown somebody. The ones that matter are

in the wardrobe.

The room does not react. This is obviously not new information.

THE CARETAKER

Good.

He leaves. He is in the room for less than a minute. Nobody in the room says his name and nobody in the room writes down that he was here.

Bartholomew takes another mint and this time he eats it immediately, which he does not normally do, and which nobody comments on.

The room begins to end in the order it began. Dalton is already on another call. Sterling is still at the head of the table and is the last to stand up. Marcy is collecting the pens. Odile is watching Jairis-Égari and does not look at anybody and does not take a pen.

Cut to:

INT. HALLORAN UNION — ROOM 3C — WEDNESDAY, 7:00 P.M.

A folding table, dice tin, and hats.

The grid on the pizza box lid has been redrawn because the old one wore off, and it is not the same size as the old one, and Miles has noted that in the ledger.

Victor stands at the whiteboard, drawing a diagram of the south road. It has more arrows than it needs.

GUILDMASTER [VICTOR]

The Collegium has received a complaint about the

toll bridge on the south road. The keeper has not

filed his returns for three weeks. This is a

matter of civic importance, and the Collegium has

entrusted it to us.

DEREK

Us? Or you?

VICTOR

Us, Derek. The Fedora Society acts as one body.

That is what a society is.

MILES

(I thought a society was just a club with a)

constitution.

VICTOR

It is a body, Miles. A body with a constitution.

A constitution is the skeleton of the body. We are

the muscles.

Derek raises an eyebrow but says nothing. Simon leans back in his chair, relaxed, like a man who has been on many toll roads and found them all the same.

SIMON

(So we go south, collect the missing returns,)

and come back. Easy.

VICTOR

It is never easy, Simon. The toll keeper is a

small man named Undertaker. He has worked that

bridge for years, and he knows every inch of the

road. He will talk. He will delay. He will offer

you tea. Do not drink the tea.

DEREK

Why not?

VICTOR

Because tea is for civilians. You are collectors.

Collectors do not drink tea.

Miles writes down: 'No tea.' He writes it in a new column that he draws without asking.

VICTOR

You leave at dawn. The animal will accompany you.

It has been restless all week, which means the

road is not right.

At the mention of the animal, the marmot looks up from the floor beside Owen's chair. Then it puts its head back down and closes its eyes.

Cut to:

INT. THE SOUTH ROAD — IN THE FICTION

The road is old and wet. The party walks two by two. Victor describes the countryside: low hills, grey grass, the sound of water somewhere out of sight.

DEREK

This reminds me of the Via Appia. The Romans built

roads like this, straight and true. They lasted

forever.

SIMON

This road is curved.

DEREK

It curves because of the hills. The Via Appia went

around hills too. The Romans were not stupid.

MILES

(Are we sure this road is on the map? I don't)

remember a south road.

VICTOR

It is on the map, Miles. You are just not looking

at the right map.

Miles writes down: 'Map discrepancy noted.'

The animal stops. It stands in the middle of the road, looking toward the bend ahead. Then it sits down.

PALADIN [SIMON]

What's wrong with it?

RANGER [Owen]

I think it sees something.

VICTOR

Roll for the animal's instincts. It knows the road

better than any of you.

Roll for what the animal senses on the road.


THE ANIMAL, ON THE SOUTH ROADDC 11

Echo: 0 · Score: 0

The toll booth is a stone hut with a wooden window, and the window is closed. The road bends around it. The animal stops again, this time at the threshold of the booth, and will not go further.

DEREK

Why won't it go in?

SIMON

Maybe it smells the tea.

VICTOR

The animal does not drink tea. It does not enter

toll booths. It knows the toll is not a toll.

They knock. The window opens. Undertaker is a small man, or a thin man folded into a small shape. He looks at them like a man who has already paid.

UNDERTAKER

The Collegium sent you.

DEREK

We're here to collect.

UNDERTAKER

Then you'll need the form. They always send the

form. They send the form and the two men who carry

it, and one of them reads while the other one

watches my hands.

MILES

We don't have a form.

UNDERTAKER

Then you're can't be from the Collegium.

The window closes. The road is too quiet again.

VICTOR

He is correct. The Collegium did not send a form.

That is why they sent you.

SIMON

Because we don't know any better.

VICTOR

Because you can be sent back.

The window opens again. Undertaker looks at the animal sitting in the road.

UNDERTAKER

It won't come to the window. It knows the toll.

Owen

What is the toll?

UNDERTAKER

(A name. One from each of you. It can be)

anyone. Someone you would give up.

The party looks at one another. The animal has not moved.

DEREK

Marcus Antonius. He was a liar and a thief.

UNDERTAKER

That name is already in the box. You'll need

another.

Roll for the toll. What the table rolled is in the box.

Derek thinks. He thinks the way a man thinks when he has already spent his best name and is now being asked to spend another.

DEREK

Gaius Octavius.

UNDERTAKER

Also in the box.

DEREK

How many Romans do you have in that box?

UNDERTAKER

Most of them.

Simon leans forward. He has not been worried this whole time, and he is not worried now.

SIMON

(I don't have a name to give. I've never wanted to)

give anyone up.

UNDERTAKER [VICTOR]

Then you may pass. The toll is not for everyone.

Only for those who have someone they would give.

MILES

That seems unfair.

UNDERTAKER

The road is unfair. It is old. It was here before

the Collegium, and it will be here after All the

Collegium is, is a paragraph in a ledger.

Miles writes that down. It takes him a moment longer than it should, because he is not sure if it should be written in the ledger or somewhere else.

MILES

(I could give the name of the man who approved the)

road. He's probably dead, but a name is a name.

UNDERTAKER

Dead names are acceptable. Some say they're the

best kind.

The window closes. Then it opens again, and the undertaker sets a small box on the sill. It is a wooden box, very old, with a slot in the top.

UNDERTAKER

Speak into the box. If you lie, it will know. If

you tell the truth, it will know that too. It is

the only part of the road that still remembers

what the road was for.

Derek looks at the box. Then he looks at Victor.

DEREK

Is this in the rules?

VICTOR

It is in the road.

Roll for what happens when the box is opened.

LISTENING · THE BOX ON THE SILLDC 13

Echo: 0 · Score: 0

The party is still deciding what to say into the box when the curtain behind Undertaker shifts. Undertaker does not turn around, but his hands go still on the window ledge.

A girl steps out. She is their age, maybe a little younger. She is dressed in layers of green and brown that do not look like they belong to the road. She holds a small, folded page against her chest, as if it is the only part of her that is still dry.

THE GIRL

Don't speak into the box. It doesn't just remember

names. It remembers voices. Once it has your

voice, it can call you back to the road whenever

it wants.

The party is quiet. Victor is not quiet.

VICTOR

She's not in the module.

DEREK

She's not in the ledger, either.

MILES

How do you know?

DEREK

She's not dressed like someone in a ledger.

The undertaker sighs. It is the sigh of a man who has kept a secret for too long and is almost relieved to be found out.

UNDERTAKER

She came across the bridge three weeks ago,

carrying a page from a book and a cough that

wouldn't stop. I let her stay. The forms for

letting her stay are worse than the forms for

filing returns, so I filed the returns wrong.

That's all. That's the whole crime.

SIMON

And the toll of names?

UNDERTAKER

(That's part of the bridge. I don't make the bridge.)

I only keep it.

The girl takes a step forward. The animal, which has not moved from the threshold, rises and walks to stand beside her. It does not growl. It does not wag. It just stands there, as if it has been waiting for her to come out.

SIMON

What's your name?

THE GIRL

(I don't give it. Not to collectors. Not to men who)

carry boxes with slots in them.

DEREK

Then what do we call you?

THE GIRL

(I'm a druid. You can call me that. It's not a)

name, but it's the truest thing I have.

Derek looks at Miles. Miles looks at Victor. Victor looks at the ceiling, as if the word 'druid' is one he has seen in a footnote and never expected to say out loud.

VICTOR

(Druid. That's a class in the old sense. The one)

that talks to trees.

DEREK

(Trees? Like the things in the margins of the)

old maps?

SIMON

I thought those were a metaphor.

MILES

(The word 'forest' appears in the ledger three)

times. All in margins. All in different hands.

The girl looks at them for a long moment. She looks at Miles, then at Derek, then at Simon, then at Owen. When she speaks again, her voice is quieter, but no less sure.

THE GIRL

You really don't know what a forest is.

It is not a question.

THE GIRL

It's not a metaphor. It's not a map. It's a place

with a thousand voices and no names, and it's

dying. That's what I'm trying to save. The last

one. And the page is the only part of it that can

still speak.

She holds out the page, just enough for them to see. It is not paper. It is a leaf from a codex, broad and veined, with letters that look like they have grown there. Derek leans in, and the girl pulls it back against her chest.

DEREK

Is it a leaf or a page?

THE GIRL

Yes.

The patrol arrives before anyone can ask what that means.

There is no sound. No marching feet. No horns. Just a change in the air, and then a man in the road, and then two more behind him. They are wearing the colours of the Collegium, and they are carrying a form.

PATROL LEADER

Collectors. The road is closed. The bridge is to

be cleared. The girl is to come with us.

SIMON

She doesn't seem to want to go.

PATROL LEADER

She isn't asked.

The animal turns. It does not growl. It simply places itself between the girl and the patrol, and it does not move.

PATROL LEADER

Call off your beast.

Owen

It isn't a beast. It's my companion.

PATROL LEADER

(It is the same thing. Call it off or we)

will.

Roll for the standoff. What the table rolled is in the box.

THE STANDOFF AT THE TOLL BRIDGEDC 13

Echo: 0 · Score: 0

The patrol is gone. The road is quiet again, but not the good kind of quiet. The kind that comes before more men.

THE GIRL

(We have to go. The bridge won't keep them)

long. It's old, but it isn't loyal.

DEREK

Loyal?

THE GIRL

(The bridge only keeps what it's been paid to)

keep. The Collegium underpaid it years ago.

The undertaker is already at the window, pulling a latch that opens a small gate at the side of the booth.

UNDERTAKER

There's a path behind the booth. It follows the

old road, not the new one. The new road goes

south. The old road goes somewhere else.

SIMON

Where does it go?

UNDERTAKER

It goes to the place the road used to be before

the Collegium decided where roads should go.

The girl looks at the party. Then she looks at Owen.

THE GIRL

Your animal already knows the way. It won't cross

the bridge because it can smell the old road

underneath. That's why it sat down.

MILES

I thought it was because of the tea.

THE GIRL

(There is no tea. Tea hasn't crossed this)

bridge in twenty years.

Derek looks at the empty cups on the undertaker's sill.

DEREK

Then what were we supposed not to drink?

UNDERTAKER

The water. The water comes from the old road. It

remembers the road. If you drink it, you remember

it too.

The girl is already at the side gate. She motions for the party to follow.

THE GIRL

The animal knows. Let it lead.

Roll for the animal to find the old road.

THE ANIMAL AND THE OLD ROADDC 12

Echo: 0 · Score: 0

They follow the animal. The old road is not a road in the traditional sense. It is a memory of a road, and it goes where the new road cannot.

Behind them, the toll booth is still. The undertaker has closed the window. There is no sound from the bridge, and there will not be until the next bell.

The girl walks beside Owen. The leaf is still against her chest. She does not speak for a while.

THE GIRL

(I didn't think I'd ever see a real animal)

again. Not one that knew the old roads.

Owen

What do you mean, a real animal?

THE GIRL

The ones in the Collegium are made. They're copies

of the idea of an animal. Yours isn't. Yours came

from somewhere else. It knows the old road because

it was born on it.

Derek, from behind them:

DEREK

(Are we still collecting the toll? Because I)

think we've gone a little past the toll.

SIMON

(We're not collecting anything. We're running.)

We're doing it quietly, but we're running.

MILES

I have to record that. 'The party is no longer on

the south road. The party is on the old road. This

was not in the ledger.'

VICTOR

Write it in the new column. The one we made for

things that are true but not approved.

Miles does. It is the first time the column has been used for something that is not a joke.

The old road goes on. It is not straight. It curves like the land had curves before the Collegium graded them. The girl stops once, and the animal stops with her. They are standing at the edge of a treeline.

The trees are not like the trees in the margins of old maps. They are taller, and darker, and the leaves are heavy with water that has not fallen.

THE GIRL

We're here.

SIMON

It's a forest.

THE GIRL

It's the last one.

The party stands at the edge of the forest. The animal walks a few steps into the trees, then turns and looks back at them, as if to say, 'This is what I've been trying to tell you.'

VICTOR

And that is where we will end for tonight.

Because I need to read what a druid actually does,

and I don't want to do it in front of you.

Nobody laughs. Derek is still looking at the trees.

DEREK

I thought forests were a myth.

SIMON

So did I.

MILES

(The word 'forest' appears in the ledger three)

times. All in margins. All in different hands.

The girl looks back at them from the treeline. She is not smiling. But she is not running anymore.

Blackout.

EXT. CORLISS FIELD — FRIDAY, 4:30 P.M.

Owen is crossing the field because it is the short way back from Plant Services and he has a torch in his pocket and a bucket in his hand.

A machine at the far end fires punts. It is on a trolley and somebody has to keep feeding it and nobody is feeding it, so it goes off every forty seconds whether or not anybody is ready.

CHAD is under them. Two freshmen are trying to be.

It fires. A FRESHMAN runs to a place on the grass and stands on it and puts his hands up, and the ball comes down eight feet behind him.

CHAD

Again.

Chad takes the next one himself. Two short steps back, a wait, one more, a wait, about a foot to his left, and he has it against his chest without appearing to have gone anywhere at all.

A FRESHMAN

How do you know where it's going?

CHAD

I don't. It's still going up. Nobody knows where

it is yet, including it.

CHAD

Take half of what's left. Then look at it again.

Then take half of that.

He says it the way you say a thing you have said four thousand times.

He notices Owen on the touchline.

CHAD

Thinking part!

Owen has both programmes in his bag. He has had them in his bag since September and has taken them out about eleven times.

Owen

Can I ask you something.

CHAD

Go on.

He gets the September sheet out and holds it where Chad can see it and puts his thumb on the line.

Owen

Thirty.

Chad looks at it for about two seconds.

CHAD

Yeah. Bell.

Owen

He's not on the October one.

CHAD

No. He went in September.

Owen

Went where?

The machine fires. Chad does not look at it. It comes down forty feet away and rolls.

CHAD

Reviewed. He was carrying from last year and he

didn't get it back.

Owen

In September? Review's in December.

CHAD

Review's in December for you. We go in June.

Owen

Why June?

CHAD

Because you can't review a squad in season. They

did it years ago and lost four in a November and

the season went, so now it's June, and by June

you've had two more terms to be fine in.

He says this the way you would say the away kit is white.

Owen

So Bell got reviewed in September because—

CHAD

Because he came off the squad in August. Knee.

Once you're off, you're on the December one like

everybody else, except he was carrying two and it

was September, so they didn't wait.

Owen stands there with a programme in his hand.

Owen

They didn't wait.

CHAD

No.

Owen

Chad. Where did he go?

The machine fires. Chad takes a short step and waits and takes another and catches it, and holds it, and does not throw it back.

CHAD

I want to say home. Everybody says home.

Owen

Do you think it's home?

Four seconds, which is longer than Chad has taken over anything all year.

CHAD

I think if it was home he'd have said something to

somebody. He had a locker with a picture in it.

Somebody cleared the locker and it wasn't him.

The machine fires. Neither of them looks at it.

CHAD

Sixty a day since I was nine. It's not a skill,

it's just the sixty.

He goes back under them. Owen folds the programme and puts it in the bag with the other one and carries a bucket back across a field.

Blackout.

Friday night. He has Victor's dice tin, which he was given on Wednesday and has not given back. A corner is a one, a two, or a three.

#'act2.s2-in-season/corners
#'act2.s2-in-season/halfway

Start in the middle. Take half of what is left. Look again. He rolls the die thirty times and types in what it says, and it is a way of not thinking about a locker.

#'act2.s2-in-season/rolls
#'act2.s2-in-season/dots-from-rolls
31

Thirty dots is a mess with no shape in it, which is what thirty of anything looks like.

So he asks the page for the die instead, and gives it a number, so that he can put in as many as he likes and see what happens at each size.

#'act2.s2-in-season/dots
#'act2.s2-in-season/draw

Two hundred. Nothing yet, or nearly nothing.

Four thousand, and there it is, and there is no drawing of any kind anywhere in it. Nobody told it to make triangles. It was told to take half of what was left and look again, four thousand times, and the shape is what is left when you do that for long enough.

The first version had four dots in the middle where the middle is supposed to be empty, and he sat with that for most of an hour before working out that they were the first four, from before it had got where it was going. He throws away the first dozen. He does not throw away the hour.

CHAOS.CLJS100 × 86.6
FEDORA SOCIETY#general

Owen11:58 PM

got the dots one

Miles11:59 PM

what was it

Owen12:00 AM

you go half way to a corner. then half way to another corner

Derek12:01 AM

and that makes a shape?

Owen12:01 AM

yeah

Derek12:02 AM

why

Owen12:09 AM

idk

Owen12:14 AM

does anyone know a Bell. football. number 30

Miles12:31 AM

no

Derek12:33 AM

no

Simon1:02 AM

no but i know what youre doing

Simon1:02 AM

ive got two of them

VictorPRESIDENT8:00 AM

Order is what is left when you stop interfering. It's the

oldest result there is and they don't teach it because of

what it implies.

Well done. Bring it Thursday.