CONGRESS HEADQUARTERS LOG

Assembly Room

Year Five, Day Two Hundred

 

STRANGLE paces near TRANSLATOR’s coffin, speaks inaudibly.

 

MERCURIAL:           What’d you say?

 

STRANGLE:              I said, “We need a response.”

 

MARKER:                  Is now really the best time?

 

STRANGLE:              We have to strike back while we can.

 

APEXIATE:               Temper leads down a path that burns.

 

STRANGLE:              You seem pretty damn calm for someone whose wife is in that box.

 

APEXIATE:               Yes! My wife! If I, who loved Lexie like none of you could, can put my anger aside, we all can. Rage accomplishes nothing.

 

STRANGLE:              It accomplishes everything.

 

STEADFAST:            Enough.

 

Momentary silence.

 

STEADFAST:            How would you solve this crisis, Strangle?

 

STRANGLE:              It’s a matter of power. Power we need to face what’s coming.

 

MERCURIAL:           What’s coming?

 

STRANGLE:              Marcus – you heard Translator’s last words.

 

MARKER:                  “We will reap what we have sown. Our reward comes. Harrowing.”

 

MERCURIAL:           Dear God. What’s a Harrowing?

 

FLIGHT:                     A breaker of planets.

 

STEADFAST:            Flight, you have experience with this Harrowing?

 

FLIGHT:                     It is something for which none of you is prepared.

 

STRANGLE:              Not yet.

 

STEADFAST:            Seems you two are hiding something from the rest of the team.

 

STRANGLE:              Like I said: power. I know where we can get it.

 

MERCURIAL:           Where?

 

STRANGLE:              Through the Blue Portal.

 

APEXIATE:               You’re insane. The cost for such a thing would be —

 

STRANGLE:              Worth it.

 

MERCURIAL:           But Angela destroyed The Key.

 

STEADFAST:            Unless she didn’t.

 

FLIGHT pulls THE KEY from her belt, opens a BLUE PORTAL.

 

STRANGLE:              We’re going. Come if you want.

 

MERCURIAL:           It sounds to me like the only way. You coming, Marshall?

 

APEXIATE:               I refuse to risk the humanity my wife so adored in such a gamble.

 

STRANGLE:              Marcus?

 

MARKER:                  I go where the boss goes.

 

STRANGLE:              Claire?

 

STEADFAST:            What you plan to do is evil. I beg you to reconsider.

 

STRANGLE:              You’ll thank us. See you on the other side.

 

FLIGHT, STRANGLE, and MERCURIAL enter the BLUE PORTAL. BLUE PORTAL closes.

 

APEXIATE:               This has been a day full of that sound. The sound of something beautiful breaking.

 

STEADFAST places a hand on APEXIATE’s shoulder.

 

MARKER:                  Hey, look. Translator’s recorder is still working. Huh.

 

STEADFAST:            Turn it off. We’ll never feel nostalgic about today.

 

End Recording.