Scene 3 — Breakout

The Fedora Handbook, Rule #23

“There is no such thing as a private opinion. There is only a public opinion you have not said yet.”

Since the assessment there have been four. He has counted them the way you count anything you have decided not to tell anybody about: badly, and only afterwards.

They come the same way every time and the order does not change. The smell first, which is a coin held too long. Then a stretch he is not there for, which was seconds in September and is not seconds now. Then the nose, which is the part other people see, and which is therefore the part that has to be managed.

Two of the four were in the basement. He has not put those two next to the other two, because to put them next to each other he would have to write them down.

INT. STERLING CENTER — AN INNER OFFICE — FRIDAY 6 FEBRUARY, 3:00 P.M.

One window, one desk, a chair on each side of it, and a screen turned away.

VICE DEAN PARR. He gives his name at the start and it is the only thing about him that is not a form.

PARR

The schedule came back on the sixteenth.

Owen

Came back where?

PARR

Here.

He does not turn the screen round.

PARR

Question three-a. A hundred and forty hours below

ground level.

Owen

It's a service assignment. They sent me.

PARR

Yes. It's ended.

Owen

Ended how?

PARR

The whole line's been contracted out. It isn't

about you and I'd rather you didn't take it as

though it were.

He scrolls.

PARR

Question four. You said no.

Owen

I did.

PARR

Yes.

He goes on scrolling.

PARR

That's the whole of question four.

Owen does not say anything.

PARR

Your standing is Provisional. Provisional gets

looked at in March, ahead of the rest of it,

because it's the one that costs money.

Owen

Looked at by who?

PARR

It's looked at.

He turns a card over on the desk and does not read it.

PARR

Meridian takes four from here a year. It isn't a

component of review. It replaces review.

Owen

What is it?

PARR

A placement.

Owen

Doing what?

He looks at the card properly for the first time.

PARR

It doesn't say.

Owen

Where is it?

PARR

It doesn't say that either.

There is nothing in his face that suggests he is holding anything back. He has read the whole card.

PARR

And if it isn't for you there's an array. There's

always an array. There's a seat on one the week

after March and a submanager who'd know your name

by the Friday.

The smell arrives while he is saying it.

It is a coin held too long.

PARR

I'd not have you think of that as a failure. It's

honest, it's well paid, and people are proud of

it.

Owen is looking at the edge of the desk.

PARR

Are you with me?

Two seconds.

Owen

Yes.

PARR

Say the last thing I said.

Owen

The array. The week after March.

It is the right answer and it is not the last thing he said.

Parr looks at him for a moment, and then does not pursue it, and afterwards Owen will not be able to decide which of those two things was the kindness.

PARR

Right.

He scrolls once more and stops.

PARR

You've nominated nobody.

Owen

No.

PARR

That isn't a criticism. It's a field on a page and

it's blank and I'm obliged to ask whether that's

current.

Owen

It's current.

PARR

So there's nobody who'd need to be told.

He says it the way you would note that a room has no window.

PARR

You've until the end of term. Say yes and March

doesn't happen to you.

He puts the card in a drawer.

PARR

One more thing and it isn't a condition. There's

no assignment for you below ground any more and

there's no reason for you to be down there. That's

advice.

Owen

Is advice recorded?

PARR

Everything's recorded.

Cut to:

It stops on the stairs. He asks his Help about the array on the way down, because everyone asks their Help, and because it is the only part of the conversation that had a name in it.

HELP · personal · v9

USER

whats an array placement actually like

ASSISTANT

You are given a desk, a seat and a feed line. Aftercall is

the interval between one contact and the next and is the

figure your submanager will discuss with you.

Sessions are four hours. Most placements are two sessions.

Hours accrue against your name and may be balloted.

USER

for how long

ASSISTANT

Placements are open-ended. The median placement on the

arrays is thirty-one years.

USER

thirty one years

ASSISTANT

Yes.

USER

is that a long time for a job

ASSISTANT

It is the median. Longer placements are common and are

recognised.

USER

recognised where

ASSISTANT

At the desk, by the array, and in the programme.

USER

what programme

ASSISTANT

THE FLOOR. Fourteen seasons. Approved.

Would you like me to add you to a list?

Thirty-one years is the median, which means half of them are longer, and it says so pleasantly, and the last thing it says is an offer.

INT. PLANT SERVICES — 5:40 P.M.

The waders are off the wall and folded on the bench, which is the first thing Owen notices and he could not say why.

HOLLIS is sitting on a stack of buckets with a mug. He has been drinking since about four and he is not loud with it.

HOLLIS

They've contracted it.

Owen

Contracted what?

HOLLIS

It.

He puts the mug down on the bench, misses the edge by an inch, and catches it.

HOLLIS

Eighty a year I asked for. I had forty, once, and

it's in the book, and you've read the book.

Owen

I have.

Hollis looks up.

HOLLIS

Have you.

He does not follow it up. Then he looks a moment longer than he has looked at him all term.

HOLLIS

You're getting the nose.

Owen does not answer, which is an answer.

HOLLIS

Fenner had them.

Owen

Had them how often?

HOLLIS

Not to start with.

He drinks.

HOLLIS

Don't dig.

Owen

You said that in September.

HOLLIS

I did.

HOLLIS

It's not advice. It's what I was told to say.

First morning, stood where you are.

Owen

Told by who?

HOLLIS

Fenner.

Owen

Where's Fenner?

HOLLIS

Dead.

Neither of them puts those two answers next to each other out loud.

Owen looks at the map on the wall, at the ink on the south sheet that stops two thirds of the way down in the middle of nothing.

HOLLIS

Forty-one years. I have never been past the second

junction box.

Owen

Why not?

Hollis thinks about it, which is the part that is hard to watch.

HOLLIS

Nobody stopped me.

There is one ring on the hooks by the door and there has always been one ring on the hooks by the door.

Owen takes it. Hollis watches him do it and does not put the mug down.

HOLLIS

The long one's the stair. The one with the tape on

it is the grate at the bottom, and it wants

lifting, not turning.

Owen

Right.

He is at the door before Hollis says the last of it.

HOLLIS

It got worse for him at the end.

Blackout.

A bat, a ball, and a wall between them.

#'act3.s3-breakout/wall
#'act3.s3-breakout/brick-at
#'act3.s3-breakout/step
#'act3.s3-breakout/start
30

Thirty bricks, and a bat that does not move, and four thousand moments.

{:broken 30, :left 0, :lost 15}

It takes the whole wall down without anybody touching it, and drops the ball fifteen times doing it.

#'act3.s3-breakout/when-each-fell
{:first-twenty-six 1504, :all-thirty 1520}

Twenty-six of them take one thousand five hundred and four moments. The last four take sixteen.

Somewhere around the fifteen hundredth the ball goes up through a gap it made itself and gets above the wall, and there is nothing up there for it to lose to, and it comes down through the bricks and goes back up through them and there is nothing left to do.

He watches that happen with his hands off the keyboard and does not think about it again for four months.

BREAKOUT.CLJS · as handed in100 × 70

INT. HALLORAN UNION — THE PRINT SHOP — THE FOLLOWING WEEK

He has it open on the counter because Lena asked what he had been doing and he did not have a better answer.

ELI plays it for four minutes and loses eleven times.

ELI

I can't steer it.

Owen

You move the bat.

ELI

I move the bat and it comes off the bat the same

way every time. That's not a bat, that's a wall.

That is the best note anybody gives him all year and it takes eleven minutes to do.

Where it lands on the bat now decides where it goes, and the game becomes a game, and Eli plays it for forty minutes and clears it and is insufferable.

Cut to:

INT. HALLORAN UNION — ROOM 3C — WEDNESDAY, BEFORE

Four of them have played it now, on the machine, before Victor starts.

ELI

It's still too hard.

Owen

You cleared it.

ELI

Once. Make the bat bigger and I'd clear it every

time and I'd enjoy myself, which is what it's for.

DEREK

What if there were two balls?

Owen

Then you'd lose both of them.

DEREK

No, that's the point. Two balls is more of the

good thing.

MILES

I'd want to be able to hold it and aim. Not react.

Hold it, look at what's left, and put it where I

want it.

VICTOR

It ends.

Owen

It's meant to end.

VICTOR

Everything on that sheet ends. This is the one you

did because you wanted to. It shouldn't be able to

end.

Nobody argues with him and afterwards nobody can say why not.

MAYA plays it once, on the Thursday, at the bench, between readings.

MAYA

How many did I get?

Owen

It says on the—

MAYA

It says how many are out of thirty. I want how

many I got, and how many I lost getting them, and

I want it after, not while.

That is the only request anybody makes that is not a feature.

SIMON plays it on the Wednesday for about ten minutes and does not ask for anything.

SIMON

That's good, that.

Owen

What would you change?

SIMON

Nothing.

It is the only note he cannot act on and it is the only one he thinks about afterwards.

Blackout.

He does all of them. He does them over about a fortnight, in the order they were asked for, and he does not take any of them out, because taking one out would be taking a thing off somebody who asked for it.

Here it is with all of them in it. The list is at the top and it is the only part of the program that is not the program.

Take things out of it and find out which one it was.

BRICKS.CLJS · move to aim · click or space to servepress Run
breakout_settings.cljscljs

Press Run.

No brick in here knows about any other brick.

It has a wide bat and three balls and you can hold it and aim it and the wall comes back and there is a running count of everything, and every one of those was asked for by somebody who plays it.

It is not a game.

He cannot say which one did it. He has gone back through them and taken them out one at a time and put each one back, and there is no single one of them that is the problem, and every one of them was reasonable, and the list has never once got shorter.

FEDORA SOCIETY#general

Derek6 Feb, 7:04 PM

film in 3c. its the rooms one again

Miles6 Feb, 7:22 PM

wheres the ranger

Derek6 Feb, 7:40 PM

no idea

Simon6 Feb, 9:15 PM

hes fine. hes in his room

Miles6 Feb, 9:16 PM

how do you know

Simon6 Feb, 9:31 PM

because i went and looked

VictorPRESIDENT6 Feb, 11:58 PM

Attendance Friday four of five.

Absence is given before the day, in words. That is Article

Seven and it has not been amended.

VictorPRESIDENT6 Feb, 11:59 PM

Nothing further.

Simon7 Feb, 1:14 AM

random question does anyone else get nosebleeds

Simon7 Feb, 2:40 AM

ignore that

Nobody answers Simon, because it is a quarter past one in the morning, and because it is a question about a nosebleed.

INT. PRENTISS SCIENCE CENTER — THE BENCH ROOM — 11:00 P.M.

MAYA has a run on and a column of the same number going back to six o'clock.

She looks up when he comes in and then looks at him for about a second longer than looking up takes.

MAYA

How many is that now?

He had not decided whether he was going to tell her and now does not have to.

Owen

Five.

MAYA

Since when?

Owen

Since the assessment.

MAYA

Since January.

Owen

Yes.

She writes the flask reading down, and the time next to it, and then turns to a clean page at the back of the notebook and writes something that is not a flask reading.

MAYA

Tonight's one. Time and length.

Owen

Thirteen minutes.

Her hand stops.

MAYA

Thirteen.

Owen

It was seconds in September.

She writes it down. She does not say any of the four things that a person says here, and afterwards he will think that was the single kindest thing anybody did to him all year.

MAYA

What else.

He tells her all of it, in about four minutes, badly, and she does not interrupt once.

MAYA

Twelve cards in one drawer say a building that

isn't on the map, and every one of them says held.

Owen

Yes.

MAYA

And two of your five were in that basement, and

you've worked that out and you've been sitting on

it.

Owen

Yes.

MAYA

Then going down there tonight is the stupidest

available thing and I want that in the book before

I get my coat.

She writes that down too, and dates it, and gets her coat.

Cut to:

INT. HALLORAN UNION — THE PRINT SHOP — 11:20 P.M.

LENA is trimming a run with a steel rule and a scalpel, because the machine that does it lives behind a door that shuts at ten.

LENA

Is there a way back up that isn't the way down?

Owen

I don't know.

LENA

No. All right.

She puts the scalpel in her pocket, and the rule, and turns the light off with her elbow.

LENA

Three institutions. I've never been under one.

That is the only reason she gives and it is the true one.

At the door she stops.

LENA

When it happens down there. What do you want done?

Nobody has asked him that.

Owen

Nothing. Wait for it.

LENA

Right.

She does not ask him anything else about it, that night or at any point afterwards, and it is the reason he tells her things first for the rest of the year.

Cut to:

EXT. THE QUAD — 11:30 P.M.

ELI is coming back from the Guild with a tube of posters under his arm and hears about forty seconds of it.

ELI

Is it on the list?

Owen

No.

ELI

Then yes.

He puts the tube down against a bin and leaves it there.

ELI

I'd like to see a thing first and judge it

afterwards.

Owen

That's a thing people say.

ELI

It is. I've been waiting two terms to say it to

somebody.

Cut to:

EXT. MERIDIAN HALL — 11:44 P.M.

Four of them at a door with one torch and a ring of keys that is not his.

Owen opens the nomination field, which he has not looked at since the gymnasium in August.

It takes one name.

He looks at it for a moment and closes it, and unlocks the door, and holds it for the other three.

Cut to: