Fireball

Pilot

3nd Draft 8/1 - 8/29/12
Revised 10/16/12, 10/28/12
Minor revisions for portfolio 6/12/14

C.S. Jones
sea.ess.jones@gmail.com

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PAGE 1

Panel 1

STEVE STEINMAN, a graying man with glasses, an expensive suit, and a
practiced friendly manner, stands before a press conference, delivering a
prepared speech.

STEINMAN
1. Mistakes were made.
2. Ill be the first to admit that.
3. But contrary to some of the accusations leveled against us, our
companys practices are not at fault.

Panel 2

PULL BACK to reveal the speech is part of a newscast playing on a wall-
mounted TV. Its sunset, and the wall around it is lit a brilliant orange.

STEINMAN
1. We believe the responsibility for the incident lies with the engineers
who maintained the prototype, and Ill see that any possible negligence
on their part is investigated.

Panel 3

Were looking from directly above at an Intensive Care Unit module. In the
bed lies ARI, a tan woman, 26, with short black hair and empty eyes, wide
open and staring right up at us. Shes hooked up to several IV tubes and an
oxygen mask is taped over her mouth.
Note: For the vast majority of the story, her name is just Ari. Her full name
wont be revealed until much later.

CAPTION
1. Im not supposed to be here.
2. I always thought Id go on to a hundred-k a year job and a big house in
the suburbs, like my parents wanted.

STEINMAN
(fainter, off panel)
1. We still hope to release the VX-3 by the scheduled date, although major
changes in the design will be required...

Panel 4

PULL IN on Aris face, which begins to subtly twitch as her eyes contract
into a glare.

CAPTION
1. But while I was in the hospital, I realized nothing would be the same.

Panel 5

CLOSE ON her left arm. Two IVs are fixed to it with tape, one going into her
hand and one further up in the forearm. She grips the two of them together
hard in her right hand and begins to pull.

ARI
1. No.

Panel 6

CLOSE ON her bare feet as she lowers them to the floor and shakily puts one
in front of the other. Blood splatters on the floor around her.

ARI
1. No...
2. No...
3. No...

Panel 7

NOTE: This can either be the last panel of page 1, or a page of its own, if
this ever gets written in an expanded format. This would probably also be the
best place to put the title and credits, whatever those end up looking like.

Delirious from her medication, Ari stumbles wildly down the hallway of the
ICU, blood spurting from both her arms and murder in her eyes. Her breath
comes out in rasps. We get our first good look at her in this panel. Shes
56 and brown, with a girlish face, but the lean, muscular body of a
servicewoman.

ARI
1. LIAR.

CAPTION
1. ...And I realized what I had to do.

PAGE 2

Panel 1

LOW AERIAL on a factory complex in the Sonora desert - a two-story office
building connected to a few warehouses and a high-tech manufacturing plant of
some sort. Its surrounded by an 8-foot concertina fence and huge amounts of
nothing else.

CAPTION
1. Actually, lets start earlier.
2. After I left the Air Force two years ago, I took a job with a small
aerospace company called Stratus.

Panel 2

SLIGHT HIGH ANGLE on a large room filled with cubicles. Ari, several months
before the last scene, walks down a hallway through the middle of the room, a
bundle of plans in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. With dress
clothes and a conservative haircut, she looks the part of a white collar
worker, almost stereotypically so.

CAPTION
1. The pay wasnt great and my boss was kind of a tool, but it was still
an entry into the field, so I couldnt complain.

Panel 3

She sits at a desk cluttered with papers and thick books on design programs
and aerodynamics, staring at a complex set of blueprints on a set of dual
computer monitors.

CAPTION
1. The first thing they had me work on was called Project VX.
2. Basically, we were trying to build a better jetpack.

Panel 4

She zooms out and we PULL IN on the monitors, revealing the entire design
schematic. Its a maze of wires, hoses, and electrical components, but its
overall shape makes it easy to tell what it is.

CAPTION
1. See, your average pack only lasts about thirty seconds.
2. You want any more airtime, you have to either drop it from a plane, or
go with one of those huge, bulky... mini-helicopter... things you cant
even call a real pack.
3. But our goal was a full five minutes, and we were going to do it with
rockets.

Panel 5

In another room, a few chemists wearing protective suits light a Bunsen
burner under a small tube filled with a pale blue liquid. Theyre surrounded
on all sides by shelves full of beakers and liquid storage containers.

CAPTION
1. Now, in order to squeeze out more gas mileage, we had to work with
lighter but less sturdy alloys and a type of propellant we found
amazingly effective, but just as volatile.
2. You dont want to hear me nerd out about fuel mixtures, so well leave
it at that.
3. Some of us were worried about it, but unmanned tests all went fine, so
no one listened to them. Nothing seemed wrong.

PAGE 3

Panel 1

In front of a large sign reading Stratus Aerospace, smiling businessmen
pose for photos with a beaming young man in a flight suit. A large pack with
extendable wings and the words Stratus VX-2 emblazoned on it, sits on a
pedestal in front of them.

CAPTION
1. But on the day of our first manned flight, something was.

Panel 2

The test pilot, jetpack and flight helmet now strapped on, stands in the
middle of a large clearing in the desert outside the complex. Ari and another
employee look the VX-2 over, making their last-minute checks. Seven more
people stand in a loose half-circle around them, at what they think is a safe
distance.

The wings are extended from the sides of the pack, sticking out three feet in
both directions.

CAPTION
1. There was a hairline crack in the injector nozzle.
2. Too small for any of us to notice, but just big enough for the vapor to
leak out.

Panel 3

Ari walks away from the launch site towards the gathered people, smiling
proudly to herself.

CAPTION
1. I remember making sure everything looked good, then, as they started
the countdown, turning to walk towards the audience.

Panel 4

The area where the test pilot stood is instantly consumed by a massive gas
explosion. Flaming shrapnel shoots out from the center in all directions,
leaving trails of smoke in its wake.

CAPTION
1. I didnt get far, though.

Panel 5

Were looking at Ari from straight above. She lies face-down on the desert
floor, hair sprawled out, clothes burnt, and blood flowing from a puncture
wound in the back of her neck.

CAPTION
1. There were nine people watching. Two survived.
2. My doctors said theyd never seen anyone so lucky.

PAGE 4

Panel 1

Same shot, same angle as the last panel, but zoomed in. Aris now lying in a
hospital, in the middle of receiving spinal surgery. The skin on her neck is
pulled back, and a pair of gloved hands make careful incisions with a
scalpel.

CAPTION
1. 1. It took four operations and five months to recover.

2. 2. See... Right before I blacked out, something hit me.
3. 3. They think it was a screw fragment, or maybe a sliver of alloy - the
same stuff that killed six of the people watching.
4. 4. But whatever it was, it cut right through part of my brain stem.

Panel 2

A profile-view X-ray. A small but clearly visible foreign object is lodged in
the lower occipital.

Panel 3

CAPTION
1. But just a small part.
2. Heres where it gets interesting: The only nerve bundle it completely
severed was in my spinothalamic tract - the one that transmits physical
sensations.
3. So as a result, I dont... Feel much.

PAGE 5

Panel 1

Were looking down an ordinary suburban street somewhere near Phoenix, lined
with small tract houses on neatly manicured lawns. Its midday, during the
armpit of summer, so no ones out. The only sign of life is a lone taxi
making its way down the street.

CAPTION
1. Pain is entirely gone. Physical pleasure, too.
2. Heat and cold are still there... But just a little bit.

Panel 2

Were looking into the cab through the windshield. Ari sits in the
passengers seat. In the drivers, an exasperated Mexican in his late
fifties.

DRIVER
1. So, youre saying you cant feel pain... Because of a jetpack
explosion.

Panel 3

CLOSE ON ARI who, hearing it put that way, cant help but smile. Shes only a
year older than in the flashback sequence, but stress, sleep deprivation, and
heavy drinking have made her look like death warmed up. Shes still pretty in
a disheveled way, though.

Despite the brutal heat, shes wearing a coat.

ARI
1. Yeah.
2. Can you believe that?

Panel 4
The driver takes his eyes off the road just long enough to look at her like
shes lost it.

Panel 5

She laughs to herself.

ARI
1. I guess not.

PAGE 6

Panel 1

Were back in the hospital, just a few minutes after the prologue. This panel
is almost a duplicate of Page 1, Panel 3, with us looking straight down at
Ari lying in her ICU bed with a ton of wires and tubes hooked up to her...
Except this time her eyes are closed, and a doctor and are at her bedside.

CAPTION
1. I dont blame you. Anyway...

Panel 2

NURSE
1. 1. We found her wandering around the halls, still delirious from the
anesthetic. She was repeating the same several names over and over,
and, uh... She seemed really angry at someone named Steinman.
2. 2. If we hadnt gotten her re-attached to the ventilator and IVs in ten
minutes, wed probably be talking about this in the morgue.

CAPTION
1. Steinman was my boss. Steve Steinman. I was one of the engineers he
blamed for the explosion.

Panel 3

Ari sits at a kitchen table in a suburban house, head buried in her hands. A
mess of letters and paperwork sprawls out in front of her. Although we cant
read any of them, the narration says enough.

CAPTION
1. On top of that, when I got home, I found out the insurance they gave me
wouldnt cover the surgeries. Apparently, they were a little too
experimental.
2. So lets just say you could buy a mansion for what I owe now. Maybe
two.

Panel 4

Ari sits at a work bench in a dim garage, tinkering with some mechanical
parts.
As an aside to the artist, shes building a flamethrower, so make sure
whatever shes working on looks like it could be a piece of that, even though
the reader cant tell what it is yet.

ARI
1. So... With no job, no hope of escaping a lifetime of debt, and nowhere
to go, I had a lot of time to think about what to do next.
2. So I figured Id take my life in a more... Interesting direction.

Panel 5

Were back in the cab, looking at Ari, whos trying to suppress an ear-to-ear
grin. The outline of what appears to be a gun bulges under her coat.

ARI
1. By the way, do you have any idea what you can build with a modified
caulking gun, a welding regulator, a little argon, some flexible metal
hose, and two oversized novelty flasks?

Panel 6

The driver sighs. Ari just smiles to herself.

DRIVER
1. No.

ARI
2. Youd be amazed.

DRIVER
3. Thats nice.

PAGE 7

Panel 1

The cab pulls up in front of Stratuss headquarters. Its on the outskirts of
the outskirts of town, almost in the middle of nowhere, with only the skyline
of the city in the background letting us know civilizations somewhere
nearby. The guard station is empty, but the gate is open.
The speech balloons come from inside the cab, but we can tell whos saying
what through context.

DRIVER
1. They look closed. Its after six, anyway.

ARI
2. Well, regular staff leaves at five.
3. ...But on the first Tuesday of the month, they leave the gate open for
half an hour later so the crew that cleans the manufacturing plant
floor can get in.

DRIVER
4. ...What are you doing here, anyway?

ARI
5. Mmm... Filing a complaint.

Panel 2

Ari steps out of the taxi, wearing an improvised proto-version of what will
later become her trademark outfit: A red and black fireproof racer suit under
a black trenchcoat. We only see her from the waist up here, but for future
reference, shes also wearing military surplus boots. She holds a black
motorcycle helmet under her arm.

Panel 3

We see her from behind as she approaches the building, putting on the helmet
with one hand and waving the cab off with the other.

ARI
(thinking)
1. Good thing Steinman always works late.

Panel 4

We still see her from behind as she silently walks through the automatic
double doors and into the office lobby. As she passes, a GUARD barks at her.

GUARD
1. Sir? Sir! Were closed!

Panel 5

For the first time, we get a clear view of Ari in her complete costume,
with helmet, from the front. She reaches into one of her inside pockets...

(As a side note, her gender should be very hard to tell, so its obvious why
the guards calling her sir.)

Panel 6

...Whips out a pistol-sized homemade flamethrower - a modified caulking gun
connected to a tube that leads into her coat - and shoots a dramatic plume of
fire several feet into the air, filling the lobby with orange light.

PAGE 8

Panel 1

A reaction shot from everyone in the room - two front desk receptionists,
another security guard, and an engineer - staring gapey-eyed and slack-jawed
at the camera.

Panel 2

The guard backs off and lets her pass, stunned.

Panel 3

WIDE SHOT on Ari, from behind. She coolly walks up to an elevator and hits
the up button. In the foreground, everyone else drops what theyre doing and
runs.
Panel 4

Cut to the companys executive office - a big room, done mostly in white,
that looks like it was ripped out of a modern design magazine. The focal
point is a huge picture window at the back of the room. The desk is right in
the center, and Steinman sits at it, busily typing on a laptop.

Panel 5

The front door opens. He pauses, then looks up in the same way anyone would
look at someone breaking into their office in a helmet and trenchcoat.

STEINMAN
1. Who the hell are you?

Panel 6

Ari shoves the tip of her flamethrower into his face. He jerks back in his
chair.

ARI
1. Heres all you need to know.

Panel 7

Steinman rolls backwards away from her in his chair. She leans in closer to
him.

STEINMAN
1. H... Howd you get in here?

ARI
2. The front door.
3. Its good to see you, Steve.
4. Ive been reading a lot about you since that day.

PAGE 9

Panel 1

Steinmans trying not to look intimidated, but failing. Ari paces around the
room.

STEINMAN
1. ...What are you talking about?

ARI
1. Dodgy wiring... Third-rate parts... Maintenance reports full of lies...
2. You knew the VX-2 was a time bomb, and you covered it up.

Panel 2
ARI
1. Then, you hid some waivers and gag clauses in our contracts, so when
the shit inevitably hit the fan, we couldnt do anything about it.
2. And now youre going to release this time bomb to the world, right?

Panel 3

A look of shocked recognition comes to Steinmans face.

STEINMAN
1. My God... Ari...

ARI (O.C.)
2. Now you remember me.
3. Sorry we had to meet this way, but you wouldnt return my calls.

Panel 4

Steinman lays a hand on the receiver of his desk phone.

STEINMAN
1. If youre trying to blackmail me, Im calling security.

PAGE 10

Panel 1

Ari leans over the desk and drives her fist downward into the back of his
hand. He yells out in pain, but we dont need a dialog balloon to show it.
His expression makes it clear enough.

ARI
1. No. Im here because your companys practices killed my friends.

Panel 2

She pushes her flamethrower even closer to his face, just inches away from
his nose. He grabs his swelling hand and tries to fight back the pain as he
talks.

STEINMAN
1. OK... Calm down. W...We can talk this out.

ARI
2. Youve got one minute.

Panel 3

Steinman, probably involuntarily, puts his hands are up and smiles nervously.

STEINMAN
1. F...first of all, while you were out, I made sure most of... those
problems were fixed for our next release. Id hardly call the new VX-3
a time bomb.
2. Secondly... Y...You were one of the people doing last-minute checks,
werent you? Legally, we couldve said youre the one who missed the
crack.

Panel 4

Were looking at Aris tinted visor, through which we can see just enough of
her eyes to tell theyre narrowing into the same death glare seen on the
first page.

STEINMAN (O.C.)
1. 1. In fact, I... I was trying to help you. Do you know what a favor I
did you by deciding not to press charges?
2. 2. See... I understand that accidents happen in a field like this, and
thats just the cost of progress. All I want in return is just a little
of that understanding from y...

Panel 5

Furious, she grabs Steinman by the collar and pulls him an inch from her
face.
ARI
(screaming)
1. YOU ASSHOLE! PEOPLE DIED!

Panel 6

CLOSE ON the two of them, in profile. Steinmans dropped the cool act, and is
desperately trying to save himself.

STEINMAN
1. INSURANCE PAID THEIR FAMILIES!

It doesnt work.

ARI
2. AND THATS SUPPOSED TO MAKE UP FOR IT?!

PAGE 10

Panel 1

She drops him to the floor.

ARI
1. No.

Panel 2

Were looking at her from a LOW ANGLE as she points her improvised
flamethrower straight down at the camera.

ARI
1. Your minutes up.

Steinman lies on the floor, doing his best to speak rationally despite the
fear.

STEINMAN
1. Look, I just did what I had to! Were making history here, and thats
what comes first!
2. I wouldve loved to avoid all that, but if this got out, the lawsuits
wouldve killed us!
3. ...And the thing with your bills wasnt me either! The insurance
company said the procedures werent necessary!

Panel 3
Were seeing them both in silhouette now. Aris still pointing the
flamethrower at his head, but she pulls back a little.

STEINMAN
1. Im so sorry.
2. Please... You have to believe me.
3. Dont do this.

PAGE 11

Panel 1

The color scheme changes. A squadron of police cars has showed up, and every
panel from now until Ari makes her escape will be lit in alternating red or
blue.

Panel 2

She turns towards the window and removes her helmet.

ARI
1. You lucky bastard.

Panel 3

She hesitates, taking a minute to look back over her shoulder at him one last
time...

ARI
1. But Im warning you...
2. All theyre doing is buying you some time.

Panel 4

Before she grips the helmets strap in her fist and uses it like a glove to
partially shatter the window with a punch...

Panel 5

Then leaps out and falls one floor to the ground, landing hard.

PAGE 12

Panel 1

Were looking at her from behind as she runs toward the storage wing of the
Stratus facility, one of the large warehouses behind the office building.

Panel 2

CLOSE ON her hand as she pulls a key from her coat pocket - one she was smart
enough to keep from her days as an employee - and frantically jams it into
the lock.

Panel 3


A minute later, she exits out the same door, with her helmet back on and a
VX-3 strapped to her back, the wings already extended for takeoff.

Panel 4

PULL OUT to reveal a squadron of police slowly advancing towards her, guns
drawn.

POLICE OFFICER
3. HANDS IN THE AIR, WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM!
4. NOW!

Panel 5

She shakes her head slowly.

Panels 6 & 7

Two side-by side panels. At the same split second, ARI reaches for a red
button on the handle of the jetpack, and the police tighten their grip on
their guns.

PAGE 13

Splash Panel

...And with a deafening shriek and a plume of white smoke, the VX-3 rockets
upward into the sky.

CAPTION
1. To be continued.