The Eye of the Pacific

The following is an excerpt for a video game narrative class I took at UCLA,  We were given the title and basic plot for a game called "Infinite Sleep"  This is the opening cutscene I envisioned

EXT, Interpol Precinct, London (University of London union building in Bloomsbury)

It is a rainy morning in the heart of modern noire London.  The streets are busy as people try to get to their work.  Focus on the Interpol building, a tall U-shaped building with a single tower standing right next to the Thames.  Two armed guards are posted outside each constantly darting around.

Focus on two characters, man and woman walking up the stairs of the building.  The guards give them a nod and allow them inside.  Neither speaks to the other.

INT, Interpol HQ, London

    The interior of the room is a chaotic scene.  Double the amount of people that should be in the main room are there.  It is laid out very much like a police precinct would be, save for a small jail cell in the back.  There are close to a dozen desks where different men and women are doubled up on phones trying desperately to get a hold of other agencies and other people.

The couple are immediately waved down by a man on a small balcony in the far back corner.  His tie is half undone, and it seems like hes been there since late last night or early this morning.  (JAMES MCNAMERA; Head of Interpol London Division)

JANE FOSTER: Jesus James, what the hell is going on?  You called in the entire goddamn force, reserves and all.

JAMES:        Thats cause we’re trying to keep it quiet.   

    Pulls them into his office and shuts the door

                Look we’ve made sure that the public hasn’t heard yet and they CANNOT know, do you understand?  The amount of panic this will cause will be apocalyptic.

    JANE and RICHARD both nod and wait for JAMES to continue. JAMES runs his fingers through his hair and turns to the desk

JAMES:      Around twelve o’clock, local time, the entire population of Trenton, New Jersey fell asleep. Every single person did.  Didn’t matter what they were doing, driving, shopping, working.  They all fell asleep.

    Jane frowns, and nods.  

JANE:          How many casualties?

JAMES:      None.  They got lucky. It seems that people had a sense that they were going to fall asleep.  Most of them got their cars to the sides of the road and for those at stoves or in showers, well it seems they turned off all gas, electricity, water, you name it.  

RICHARD:      How did they get them awake?

    James shakes his head.

JAMES:        As far as we can tell every citizen in that town is still comatose.  They went in with a team of doctors but they too seemed to get sleepy, and then weren’t heard from since.  We believe that they are somewhere inside there. 

    JAMES leans on his desk and pauses for a long while, until JANE looks at him

JANE:             This is awful but what does it have to do with us?  We are part of the artifact task force, not the regular forces you’ve got here.  Whats going on James?  Come on we aren’t dumb.  You called us in because there’s something else going on didn’t you?

JAMES:          We got a video by the person claiming responsibility for this attack and that she plans to do it again.  The video claims that in order for these attacks to stop we need to hand over the Eye of the Pacific, or they will release a gas that has the capacity to permanently make every one in the world sleep.  And never wake up again.

RICHARD:         I don’t think we’ve ever encountered the Eye.  I mean we’ve heard about sure, but its not in lockup

JAMES:        No its still in Mu.  They basically said they were going into Mu and if we stopped them then they’d make good on their threat.

JANE:            But like, what are we really doing.  Cause we aren’t just gonna give over a carte blance to a terrorist right?

JAMES:        No, luckily and probably foolishly, terrorists have told us the cure for this gas and how to mitigate it.  If we can reconstruct the music box of Pandora then we can lul these people from their sleep.

RICHARD:        Now that’s an artifact we know.  It was smuggled out of Mu and given to several governments right?  
JAMES nods

JAMES:        While we are on damage control, it’ll be your job to collect the pieces, take them to Mu and if needed destroy the Eye of the Pacific.