Act 1
Quick note: Here it is, Act 1, sooner than I expected. To Dan and middkidash, thanks so much for the feedback. Hopefully, this will satisfy. Don't let my pseudoscientific stuff give you a headache. Remember, it's make believe, which is a nice way of saying BS!
With that in mind, here we go…
Ginger and Brigitte are sitting next to each other in the van. The seats face into the interior of the van, and sitting opposite of them are Danielle and the shorter handsome man. Danielle is looking at Brigitte with undisguised hatred. Ginger leans forward until she is in front of Danielle's line of sight. Danielle immediately looks away.
"You can't protect me forever," Brigitte whispers to Ginger.
"Maybe not," Ginger says. "But I've done all right so far."
Flashback
We return to the scene at the end of Ginger Snaps Unleashed. Ghost is looking at her comic book illustration of her holding a smoking gun, and a werewolf on a leash. The doorbell rings, she smiles and gets up and goes to the door. Underneath the cellar trap door, something immense growls and slams against the door, obviously trying to get out.
Ghost runs down the stairs, practically skipping. She opens the door, revealing her heavily bandaged grandmother "Barbara" in a wheelchair and a nurse holding the wheelchair from behind. We don't see the nurse' face.
"Come in!" Ghost says, stepping aside. "Welcome home, Barbara!!!"
As Ghost steps aside and turns to look in the direction of the trap door, the nurse pushes her bandaged charge into the house and closes the door. The nurse and the grandmother are blurred and indistinct. We see the grandmother in the wheelchair start to get to her feet.
Our viewpoint changes to behind Ghost, who is looking in the direction of the interior of the house.
"Hey!" we hear a familiar voice say.
Ghost turns, and a bandaged left hand darts out and grabs her by the throat and lifts her up into the air. Our view changes again so that we are looking at "Barbara" as she tears off the bandages from her face with her right hand, revealing the features of Ginger Fitzgerald. We pan back and see the nurse is Danielle.
"So where's my sister, you little fuckbait?" Ginger asks.
Ghost gasps, obviously finding it difficult to talk with Ginger's hand on her throat.
"The wolf told her that the sister was dead," Ghost says.
"Yeah, well," Ginger says. "I got better. Go figure."
Coming through the back of the house, dressed in black and armed with futuristic looking rifles, are James Munroe and the other handsome man. The other man jumps aside as the trap door rattles upward with a loud thump, and a deep growl comes from below.
"Ginger, I think we've found your sister," the man says.
Ginger, still carrying Ghost's futilely kicking form by the throat, walks into the hallway. She sniffs.
"Yeah, Claude," Ginger says. "That's my B."
James sniffs and makes a face.
"There's another wolf down there," he says. "Or what's left of one. And your sister's in chrysalis."
Ginger sits Ghost down hard on the floor.
"Stay there like a good little fuckbait," she says to Ghost. Ginger then reaches behind her back and pulls out a pistol. "Well, we kind of figured that."
"So who unlocks the cellar door?" Claude asks. Ginger and James both look at him. Claude looks back, and then looks away and shakes his head.
"Shit," he says.
Ginger turns to look at Ghost.
"So where's the key, fuckbait?" she asks.
At that moment, the cellar door shatters upward and the huge wolf creature Brigitte has become struggles through the opening with a snarl. The Brigitte beast immediately starts towards Ginger.
Ginger fires her pistol at Brigitte over and over. Claude and James fire their rifles at Brigitte as well, until she is literally pin cushioned with tranq darts. Brigitte collapses at Ginger's feet.
"Never mind," Ginger says.
James looks into the cellar and makes a face.
"Man, it stinks down there," he says.
"Anything left of the other wolf?" Ginger asks.
Claude, making a face, jumps down into the cellar. A second later, he speaks.
"No," Claude says from the cellar. "Just bones, chrysalis and wolf. He was probably too far gone to salvage anyway."
As Ginger, Danielle, and James all gather around the trap door, Ghost takes that moment to run out of the house. As she runs into the front yard, however, Ghost slows when she hears the sound of approaching police sirens. Suddenly, a hand drops on Ghost's shoulder.
"Funny thing, fuckbait," Ginger says. "The police tend to investigate the disappearance of three people from the same treatment facility. Tyler, Alice, my sister. They look around, and they interview all available witnesses. Including your grandmother."
"Barbara can't talk," Ghost says. "She keeps Ghost's secrets."
"Not when the cops get a speech therapist who can figure out other ways for people to talk other than with their mouths. And Barbara ended up having lots of interesting things to say about you. Our problem was talking the cops into letting us come by and do our little pickup before they come to take you away. I bet you'll be real popular where you are going. There's a reason why I've been calling you 'fuckbait', fuckbait."
Ghost looks at Ginger.
"Where is the wolf going?" she asks Ginger in a whisper.
"Home," Ginger says. "To live with the other wolves."
We return to the interior of the black van.
"I saved your ass two years ago from the little psycho," Ginger says to Brigitte. "Don't count me out now. Rowlands and I are still tight, and I won't let anything happen to you. You're my sister, B. We're blood, now in more ways than one."
Brigitte nods slightly, but when Ginger turns away, the look on her face is clearly skeptical.
Our view switches to outside the van. We see the van is on a rural highway. It pulls into a driveway with a gate. The gate opens. The sign by the gate says The Canadian Center for Exotic Disease Control.
The scene switches again to a large, sterile looking reception room. In the middle of the room, seated behind a large, circular desk, are two security guards, big men in blue uniforms. Entering through glass double doors are Ginger, Brigitte, Claude, and Danielle.
Ginger takes off her black trench coat and puts it over her shoulder.
"If I never see a black trench coat or black leather again, I'll fucking die happy," Ginger says.
Brigitte keeps her trench coat on.
"Let's go to bed, Ginger," she says.
At that moment, James Munroe enters.
"You're not going anywhere, bitch, until you've been debriefed," he says to Brigitte. "You screwed up our best chance to take out Roskoff, and thanks to you he won't be showing his fucking face for years."
With that, he walks up to Brigitte and grabs her by the hair and throws her to the floor.
"On second thought," he says. "I'll just kill your screw-up little ass right here."
The security guards, in response to the altercation, don't even look up.
Ginger steps between James and Brigitte with a growl.
"You gonna fight me for your sister, baby?" James asks. "You really think you'd have a chance?"
Ginger interrupts James' tirade by kissing him hard on the mouth.
James at first seems to accept the kiss, but then pushes her away.
"Ow, you crazy bitch!" he says, his lips bleeding. "Have you looked at yourself lately? You and your sister have both started to change."
"Thought you liked things wild," Ginger replies tauntingly. "You going all domesticated, James? Being a nice company boy? Like Rowlands?"
James immediately flinches.
"Jesus Christ, you don't want him to hear you say that," James says to Ginger quietly. "He's not domesticated. He's scarier than you and I combined."
Ginger shrugs.
"Just messing with you, James," she says.
"Well don't," James says. "He likes you, and he lets you get away with shit. But you don't ever want him to change his mind about you."
He turns to look at Brigitte.
"That's why your sister's royally fucked," he says. "She'd be better off if you let me kill her, or if you kill her yourself."
Ginger puts her arms around James' shoulders.
"I've made enough war tonight," Ginger says. "Let's make screw."
Again James pushes Ginger away.
"Get treated first, and we'll see about tomorrow night," James says. "I don't feel like fucking the dog faced girl tonight."
Ginger looks at James.
"Fuck you, Munroe," she says.
Sure," James says. "But later."
Ginger looks at Brigitte.
"C'mon, B," she says. "Let's go get our shots and go to bed."
As Ginger leaves and Brigitte follows, James shouts after them.
"Hey, B," he says, clearly mocking Ginger's nickname for her sister. "Did you forget how Roskoff makes his money? He sells girls. Ships 'em in from overseas and sells 'em to be raped. And thanks to you, his fat ass is free to keep on keepin' on."
The scene switches to Ginger and Brigitte walking down a long, sterile hallway.
"He's right, Ginger," Brigitte says. "He's a bastard little better than Roskoff himself, but he's right. I let him get away."
"It's not your fault, B," Ginger says, not sounding at all convinced herself. "Things just went south."
"Yeah, it is my fault," Brigitte says. "But then again, it's Rowlands' too. I told him I didn't want to be a fucking spy and assassin. I told him I wasn't cut out for that shit."
"Your choices were be a killer spy, or be dead," Ginger says. "And you can't leave me. You can't leave me alone again."
Flashback 2
At first there is blackness and silence.
Then, we hear muffled voices, very quiet and distorted. We can't make out what the voices are saying. Then, very loudly, there is a liquid cutting sound, like a scalpel cutting through flesh and letting blood and guts spill out. A line of bright light appears in the darkness.
Now we hear a voice that is recognizably Ginger's.
"Are you sure about this, Murphy?" Ginger says. "Maybe it's too soon."
"The chrysalis has just died, Miss Fitzgerald," an older male voice replies with irritation. "We can't bring it back now. Your sister's either ready to come out, or she's dead."
With a liquid tearing sound, the light now becomes much brighter. So bright it is blinding.
"Ah, there she is," Murphy says.
"Man, is that what I looked like when you pulled me out?" Ginger asks with disgust.
"No, Miss Fitzgerald," Murphy replies. "You looked worse."
Shapes begin to resolve in the brightness.
"Turn off the lights, Miss Fitzgerald," Murphy says. "They're hurting your sister's new eyes."
The lights go off, but there still appears to be plenty of ambient light. We see an elderly man, short and heavyset, obviously Murphy, and Ginger, her hair much shorter, as if her hair had been shaved maybe three months or so before.
Ginger leans over and makes a slight face.
"B," she says. "Is that you?"
Our view then switches as we look down over Ginger's shoulder. We see the body of the wolf creature, cut open from sternum to well past the belly. The wolf creature's skin is peeled back, and looking up from inside in a pool of blood and guts is the face of Brigitte Fitzgerald, her eyes wide, her head hairless. Her arms and legs are painfully thin, she looks like a famine victim. Brigitte moves her thin arms instinctively to cover herself, but because they are so thin she only partially succeeds. Her body is as thin as the arms and legs, and her head looks correspondingly huge.
"Welcome back, B," Ginger says.
……………………………………………………………………………………….
Now we see Brigitte in a wheelchair. She is wearing a terrycloth robe and slippers, and she has been cleaned up considerably. Ginger is gently wiping Brigitte around her ears with a washcloth. They are in what appears to be an examination room. Brigitte looks shell shocked and very lost.
"Ginger…am I dead?" she finally asks.
Ginger laughs as if Brigitte said the most clever thing in the world..
"You have no idea how good a question that actually is, B," Ginger says. "The answer is, both yes and no."
"What?" Brigitte says. "I…I don't…"
"Doc Murphy and Colonel Rowlands can explain it a lot better than I can," Ginger says. "The quick and dumb version is, your original body died, but it gave birth to this one."
Ginger pats Brigitte on the shoulder as she finishes speaking.
"Is that what happened to you?" Brigitte asks.
"Yeah, it is," Ginger says. "Do you remember stabbing me to death?"
"Do I remember? Are you kidding me?" Brigitte says, showing much more animation. "When I forget everything else, I will still remember that!"
Ginger laughs again, but this time softly and gently.
"Gotta say, B," Ginger says. "A butcher's knife. That was hard core."
Ginger tosses the washcloth into a sink.
"Next question," Ginger continues. "Do you remember what happened afterwards?"
"I woke up in the hospital," Brigitte says.
"So you don't remember the ninja team in black coming downstairs," Ginger says. "From what Rowlands says, his team arrived almost immediately after my chrysalis stopped breathing. You had passed out. They resuscitated me, or at least my chrysalis, and got me out of there. Gave you a blood test but didn't find any sign of infection. Rowlands figures the monkshood hid it. I assume you injected yourself with some after stabbing me?"
"I don't remember," Brigitte says.
"Anyway, they sent you to the hospital. The official story was that the Beast of Bailey Downs killed both me and Sam, and that you had killed the beast."
"I remember that," Brigitte says. "The press wanted to interview me."
"And you ran away before your first interview," Ginger says.
"I ran away the night after I got home from the hospital," Brigitte says.
Ginger's face turns serious.
"B, I'm really sorry about what happened to Sam."
"You weren't yourself, Ginger," Brigitte says.
"With Sam, maybe. I don't remember that too well. But I was very much myself with Trina, with Mr. Wayne, and with the janitor," Ginger says. "There's no excuse for the shit I did, to them and to you."
"Ginger, you were going through something huge," Brigitte says.
"And I liked it," Ginger replies. "It gave me an excuse to do things, and I took full advantage of it. You didn't go on a fucking killing spree when you started to change. You tried to save a little girl. It wasn't your fault that she was a more deranged killer than I am."
"Am?" Brigitte says.
Ginger bends down before Brigitte in her wheelchair and gently strokes her cheek.
"We'll talk about that later," Ginger says. "Right now, it's time for you to see the white coats They can explain this shit a lot better than I can."
Ginger gets up and starts to push Brigitte's wheelchair.
"I can't tell you how relieved I am to see you again, B," Ginger says. "We're back. You and me, we're back together."
Ginger pushes Brigitte into a large laboratory.
"We're here!" announces Ginger.
In response, a short man in a lab coat stands up from behind some computer monitors.
"That's Doc Murphy," Ginger says to Brigitte. "He's the guy who took you out of your chrysalis."
"I remember," Brigitte says.
After a moment, Brigitte continues.
"What the fuck is a 'chrysalis'?" she asks.
"The Colonel will explain that to you," Doc says to Brigitte. Doc Murphy appears to be in his mid sixties, with disheveled grey hair. It looks like he hasn't shaved in a week, and his face is covered with uneven grey stubble. His glasses sit low on his nose and he is looking over them at Brigitte and Ginger.
At that moment, another man enters the laboratory from the same door Ginger and Brigitte entered. This man is handsome, with his brown hair cut in a short military style haircut and a very well trimmed pencil mustache. His bearing is as military as his haircut, even though he is also wearing a lab coat.
"Hello, Ginger," he says.
"Hello, Colonel," Ginger says. The tone in Ginger's voice contains such deference that Brigitte turns to look at her sister as if not quite believing what she heard.
Colonel Wallace Rowlands drops to a knee in front of Brigitte and takes her hand.
"I am very honored to meet you, Brigitte," Rowlands says. "You are the only person I've ever heard Ginger speak well of, so you must really be something."
Brigitte responds with a strained, extremely uncomfortable look. She is clearly uncomfortable with being complemented by a stranger.
Rowlands nods as if he understands, then stands up and starts to walk across the lab, obviously expecting Ginger to follow him with Brigitte's wheelchair. Ginger, Brigitte, and Doc all follow Rowlands through the lab until they reach a giant flat screen monitor the size of a picture window. Rowlands picks up a remote, pushes a button, and a split screen appears, depicting magnified sets of skin cells.
"The cells on the left come from Doctor Murphy," Rowlands says. "The cells on the right come from me."
He turns towards Brigitte.
"Do you notice any differences?"
Brigitte looks at the screen, then nods slowly.
"The cells on the left have one nucleus each," Brigitte says. "The cells on the right have two nucleuses each. Or is that nuclei?"
"Either one is fine, actually," Rowlands says.
"Well," says Brigitte. "I wasn't sure. I'm a high school dropout."
Rowlands chuckles.
"You still did considerably better than your older sister," Rowlands says. "She still calls them 'black blobs'."
"Well, Ginger's a high school drop out too," Brigitte says.
"I am not," Ginger says. "Got my diploma right here."
"That's correct," Rowlands says. "I insisted that Ginger finish her education. In fact, she's now taking a couple of college classes, via correspondence under an assumed name of course."
Rowlands clears his throat.
"Back to the subject at hand," Rowlands says. "You are correct, Brigitte. Each of my skin cells has two nuclei. One nucleus holds my human genome. The other nucleus holds a very different genome, a lupine genome. This is true for every cell in my body, and if we were to look at any of your cells, or you sister's, we would see the same thing we see in mine. Cells with two nuclei."
"So what causes this?" Brigitte asks. "Some kind of virus?"
"At least two hundred kinds of virus, plus at least eight varieties of bacteria that appear to act primarily as repositories for lupine DNA. The lycanthrope pathogen is in fact an extremely complex community of organisms designed to 'hack' into the DNA of their human victim, causing the nucleus to divide without dividing the cell, then reshaping the DNA in the second nucleus from Homo sapiens to Canis lupus."
"In other words, a wolf," Brigitte says.
"Correct," Rowands replies.
"That…doesn't seem natural," Brigitte says.
"It isn't," Doc Murphy says.
"He's right," Rowlands says. "This is truly an 'irreducibly complex' disease. It was intentionally designed."
"So who?" Brigitte says. "The Russians…?"
"Not the Russians," Doc says. "This thing is…at least centuries ahead of anything we can do. It's extremely advanced."
"So who?" Brigitte says again. "Aliens?"
"We don't know," Rowlands replies with a shrug. "What we do know is that as the lupine genome takes shape in the new nucleus, the lycanthrope pathogen also starts to inhibit the expression of the human genome. The human is slowly reshaped into a wolf creature, first internally, then externally. The full moon appears to act as a visual trigger to start a more rapid transformation into a 'werewolf' beast."
"Yeah, I've seen that," Brigitte says. "And I've experienced it."
"Me too," Rowlands says. "The werewolf beast is really nothing more than a killing and eating machine designed to move the transformation on to the next step."
"The next step?" Brigitte asks.
"Yes," Rowlands says. "The werewolf beast is really just an incubator, a chrysalis inside which the final transformation from human to wolf occurs. Two to three months after turning into a werewolf, the beast literally consumes itself from within to shape an intelligent, giant wolf. The chrysalis then 'dies', and the fully developed 'super wolf' tears its way out. The human that the creature was is now for all practical purposes dead and gone, replaced by the wolf."
"So how come I hatched out human?" Brigitte asks.
"The lycanthrope pathogen is, in the end, an extremely complex biological machine," Rowlands says. "Much more complex than anything we can come up with. However, sometimes the more complex and advanced the machine, the easier it is to gum up the works. Using aggressive gene therapy, we are able to prevent the inhibition of the human genome and inhibit the expression of the lupine genome, at least in part. Even during the chrysalis stage, we can use heavy gene therapy treatments to reverse the creation of a wolf, and instead create a new human body inside the chrysalis. What we've found when we do this is that the human emerges whole, without any of the defects that he had in his previous life. However, the human also emerges, at least most of the time, with the full complement of memories that she had before transformation."
Brigitte is silent for a moment.
"So you've come up with a cure for lycanthropy," she finally says.
"Not a cure," says Rowlands. "A treatment. A very crude treatment in comparison to the sublime machinery that is the lycanthrope pathogen. If the treatments stop, the disease reasserts itself, and the progression from human to werewolf to wolf is reinitiated, and in fact progresses faster than before. Every time treatment is interrupted and reinitiated, it takes longer to reverse the symptoms. In a couple of cases, we were unable to reverse the symptoms at all."
Rowlands looks at Brigitte, his gaze intense.
"But if the treatment remains continuous," he says. "Then the subject remains human, but with some of the physical and sensory edges that come from being part wolf."
Brigitte is again silent for a moment. Then she nods.
"I don't pretend to understand half of what you told me," she says. "But I have one more question, and I think I know the answer already."
Brigitte looks at Rowlands, her expression very serious.
"Now that I'm here, I can't ever leave, can I?"
Ginger is strapped to a bed. Between her teeth is a plastic bit, and she is screaming into it and trying to tear free of the straps. She is in obvious agony. Her hair, wet with sweat, is plastered to her face.
A nurse, an attractive blond woman who appears to be in her early thirties, walks away from Ginger and places a hypodermic in a sharpie container. She looks over to another bed, where Brigitte is strapped down. Brigitte is also in obvious pain, and sweat has also plastered her hair to her head. But there is no bit between her teeth, and even though she is thrashing about slightly, she seems to be very much in control.
"Are you sure there is nothing I can get you?" the nurse asks Brigitte.
Brigitte shakes her head.
The nurse goes to a stool and sits down to watch both sisters and take notes. Our view moves up and we see a small video camera. Then, our view switches and we are in Rowlands' office. Rowlands is sitting at his desk and Doc is standing beside him. Both are watching the screen.
"It's common knowledge that Ginger is the strong one," Doc says. "But when you see them get the treatment, Brigitte always seems to handle it better."
"That's because Ginger's not the strong one," Rowlands says. "Except for me, Brigitte's the strongest one here."
Doc looks at Rowlands with obvious disbelief.
"I know," Rowlands says. "You find this hard to believe. Brigitte does seem to be at the bottom of the pack. She's not as physically strong as the others, and she is not nearly as aggressive. But mentally, and in strength of will, she is clearly superior to the others. And eventually, that is what is required to master one's lycanthropy."
Doc turns back to watch the screen, obviously still not convinced.
"I have big plans for Miss Brigitte Fitzgerald," Rowlands says.
They continue to watch Brigitte and Ginger though the monitor, until the intercom on Rowlands' desk buzzes.
"Yes, Mr. Henshaw," Rowlands answers.
"Sir, there's some word on Roskoff."
"Who…? Oh yes, the Russian criminal. I don't really care about Roskoff anymore. He was a test for my pack, particularly for the younger Miss Fitzgerald. Nothing more."
"Sir," Henshaw replies. "This word comes from the Director. She's very concerned."
Rowlands' entire attitude shifts. He becomes alert and interested.
"Is she on the line?" Rowlands' asks.
"No sir," Henshaw says. "But she's e-mailed something to you. She says you would know what it means."
Rowlands pushes a key on his computer, then briefly operates the mouse. Our perspective shifts to a view of his computer screen.
"It just looks like a surveillance picture of Roskoff," Doc says.
"Wait…" Rowlands says.
We see a picture of Roskoff taken from a distance. He is behind a window on what looks to be a penthouse apartment. Rowlands outlines Roskoff's picture, and then clicks to get a closeup. We now see a bandage on Roskoff's right hand. Rowlands outlines Roskoff's right hand, and then clicks to get a closeup of it. Sticking out from underneath the bandage are tufts of hair.
"Son of a bitch," Doc whispers. "He's been infected."
"Yes," Rowlands says. "Well now. This changes everything, doesn't it?"
Flashback 3
Ginger and Brigitte are walking around a large indoor track. Brigitte's head now has a covering of very short black hair, and Ginger's hair has grown long enough to frame her face.
"'Outings'?" Brigitte says, making quotation marks with her hands. "What the fuck are 'outings'?"
Ginger shrugs.
"Once in a while the pack goes out and we do a job," Ginger says.
"A 'job'?" Brigitte asks. "What kind of 'job' would Rowlands send a bunch of werewolves out for? You guys go out and kill somebody?"
Ginger shrugs again.
"Jesus Christ, that's it isn't it?" Brigitte says. "We're the newest weapons for the Department of fucking Defense, aren't we? That's fucked, Ginger!"
Ginger turns suddenly and grabs Brigitte's arm hard.
"Ow!" Brigitte yells.
"It may be fucked, B, but that'sthe way things are here," Ginger whispers harshly. "You do what they say and you continue to get the treatment. You don't do what they say and you don't get the treatment, and they kill you before they let the wolf have you."
"But Ginger," Brigitte says. "Don't you see we're being used?"
"Sure," Ginger says. "But being used means being useful. And being useful is the only thing that keeps anyone alive. We're alive and we're together, and that's all that counts, B. That's all that counts!"
Brigitte shakes her head.
"So much for 'Out by sixteen or dead in this scene', huh?" Brigitte says.
"We did get out by sixteen, didn't we?" Ginger says. "So we told the truth. Besides, as far as Bailey Downs and the rest of the outside world are concerned, we are dead."
"I'm dead?" Brigitte says.
"Yeah," Ginger says. "Just the final victim of a teenaged psycho."
"That sucks," Brigitte says. "Fucking Ghost."
"Somebody probably is by now," Ginger says dryly.
Brigitte is lying awake in her bed. We hear sounds; human voices, the rustling of other people in their sleep, the sound of furnaces going off and on, the dripping of a faucet, and the buzz of florescent lights in hallways. This, of course, is how Brigitte hears the world with her amplified lupine senses. Brigitte closes her eyes in concentration, and most of the sounds fade away until we only hear the distant but clear rhythmic creaking of two people having sex.
"Fucking ow!" we hear Ginger's faint voice exclaim.
"That's what you get for waiting too long to start your next treatment," James replies, his voice also faint and distant but clear.
There is some more rhythmic creaking before we hear Ginger's voice again.
"It does pull a few muscles," she says. It sounds like she is speaking between her teeth.
The creaking becomes louder and more intense. Then we hear James make the universal wordless exclamation announcing that he is finished. Then there is silence except for some faint heavy breathing.
"Jesus Christ," Brigitte whispers to herself. "He could at least have the decency to try to hold out a little bit."
We then hear Ginger's voice, still distant but a little louder.
"Mind your own business, B!" Ginger says.
Brigitte closes her eyes.
"Shit," she says.
"You really should consider letting me kill her," James says. "It'll be kinder than what Rowlands will do to her for screwing up again."
"Fuck you, Munroe," Ginger replies.
"You just did," James says. "You need to come up with something new to say to me."
"How about, you touch my sister again, I'll kill you?" Ginger says.
"That's better," James says. "Demented and delusional, but better."
We hear the sound of someone getting out of the bed, and then of someone getting dressed.
"Going so soon?" James asks.
"Fu-," Ginger starts to say. "Go to hell, Munroe."
"There you go," James says. "Variety is the spice of life."
There is the sound of a slamming door, and then approaching footsteps. Then, the door to Brigitte's room is opened, and light floods in. Brigitte squeezes her eyes shut and turns her head. Our view pans out to see that the room is like a college dorm room, with a bed on each end. Brigitte's in the left bed.
"I told you to watch your mouth, B," Ginger says. "You're not the only one here with really good hearing."
"How can you…?" Brigitte says. "You hate him."
"The human in me hates him," Ginger says. "The wolf in me finds him really, really hot."
Ginger takes off her shoes and sits on the right bed, facing Brigitte.
"Besides which," Ginger says. "If I didn't screw him, he'd have killed you long ago."
"Danielle tells me that you were screwing him before I came," Brigitte says.
"Well, yeah," Ginger says. "Alphas screw alphas, and Danielle never could deal with me kicking her butt down the totem pole."
At that moment, there is an annoying buzzing sound, and then we hear Rowlands' voice over an intercom.
"Emergency pack meeting in the conference room," Rowlands says. His voice sounds very serious.
"If alphas screw alphas," Brigitte says. "Why aren't you screwing him?"
Ginger shrugs.
"I've tried," she says. "He seems to have somebody else in mind."
"Now,people!" Rowlands' voice says.
Ginger looks at Brigitte. Her expression is tense.
"He doesn't sound happy, B," Ginger says.
"Shit," Brigitte says, quietly.
The pack, Ginger, Brigitte, Danielle, Claude, James, and Colonel Wallace Rowlands, are all sitting around a large round conference table. Rowlands is on one side, the other members of the pack are all on the other. Rowlands' gaze rests on Brigitte, and it is a harsh gaze. Ginger looks very worried, her gaze alternating between Brigitte and Rowlands.
"So, Brigitte," Rowlands says in a tight, controlled voice. "Is there something you want to tell the rest of us about the mission last night?"
Brigitte slumps in her chair, but doesn't turn away from Rowlands gaze.
"I screwed up," she says with a shrug. "Again. I let Roskoff get away."
"And that's all?" Rowlands says, his voice containing a dangerous edge.
Brigitte looks startled, and Ginger now looks even more worried than she did before.
"Well, yeah," Brigitte says. "I mean, there are some details about what happened, but that's the gist of it."
Rowlands moves away from the table and pulls down a small movie screen.
"Claude," Rowlands says. "Go turn down the lights a little."
Claude complies, and the room darkens, although we can still see everyone clearly.
Rowlands picks up a remote off of the table, and clicks it. The close up picture of Roskoff's hand appears on the screen.
"Recognize this anyone?" Rowlands asks.
James shrugs with exaggerated indifference.
"It's a hand," he says. "Bandaged."
"Wait," Ginger says. "There's hair growing underneath the bandage. Whoever that is…just got…infected."
Ginger looks at Brigitte, her expression becoming horrified.
"B?" she says.
Rowlands pushes on the remote, and the picture moves back to reveal the hand's owner.
"Jesus Christ!" James shouts. "Ginger, your idiot sister bit Roskoff!"
"No!!!" says Brigitte loudly. "I swear I didn't bite him. I didn't. I wouldn't!!!"
Brigitte turns to look at Ginger, who is looking back at her as if seeing her in a new way, and not liking what she sees.
"I swear,Ginger!"
"Then can you please tell us just what the hell did happen?" Rowlands says, his voice trembling with controlled fury.
Brigitte closes her eyes.
Roskoff literally squeals in terror, and hits Brigitte hard in the mouth with his right fist.
"Oh shit," Brigitte says. "Oh…oh shit."
"B?" Ginger says.
Brigitte opens her eyes and looks at Rowlands.
"He…he hit me," Brigitte says. "In the mouth. I thought he knocked a tooth loose."
"Which tooth?" Rowlands asks quietly.
"This one," Brigitte points to her upper left canine tooth, which now looks quite human.
"You were in the early stages of transformation," Rowlands says. "That tooth would have been projecting. Do you think he cut his hand on it?"
"He…he could have," Brigitte says.
Rowlands sits down at the conference table and clasps his hands on the table and looks at Brigitte. His gaze is not friendly.
"Mr. Roskoff has already been well known for his sexual sadism," Rowlands says. "He made his fortune trafficking in sexual slavery and when he samples his own product, he tends to damage it.
"This man is now a werewolf. You all know that an increased and more violent sexual appetite is an early symptom of lycanthropy infection. In a man like Roskoff, such an increase in appetite is likely to lead to unthinkable consequences. This must be dealt with. Now."
Rowlands looks at Brigitte.
"You created this mess," Rowlands says coldly. "You can clean up this mess. Alone. You are to find Mr. Roskoff, kill him, and dispose of him in such a way that he can not pass on the infection you gave him. Is that understood?"
"Yes," Brigitte says, not flinching from Rowlands' gaze. "Yes, I understand."
"Colonel Rowlands, sir," Ginger says, standing up, her voice on the edge of panic. "With all due respect, this is crazy. B isn't trained for a solo mission. Roskoff is a major figure in the Russian mob. He's insanely rich, and after last night he'll be more paranoid than ever. He'll have an army guarding him. She won't stand a chance by herself.
"Let me go with her. Please!"
"No," Rowlands says. "You have protected your little sister long enough. Far too long in fact. You've sheltered her from the consequences of her mistakes."
"Damn straight," James says.
"Shut the fuck up, Munroe!" Ginger says without turning around. "Colonel, please. The consequence is that you're sending her out to die. And if she dies out there, all alone, she might spread her infection. Please let me go out with her. I'll make sure she does the job on Roskoff herself, but someone has to run interference for her, and if she does fail, you'd probably send me next anyway."
Rowlands brings his hands to his chin, appearing to think about what Ginger said. Then he nods.
"Very well," Rowlands says. "But you both go out unarmed."
"Unarmed?" Ginger says, as if she can't believe what she just heard.
"Yes," Rowlands says. "Either Brigitte goes out by herself, fully armed, or you go with her, and you are both unarmed."
Ginger closes her eyes and shakes her head.
"Shit," she says quietly.
Then she looks up at Rowlands.
"You've got a deal," she says.
"Very well," Rowlands says. "You leave at 0700. Both of you."
"Ginger…" Brigitte starts to say.
"It's decided, B," Ginger says.
"And you're fucking crazy, Ginger," says James. "Covering for your idiot sister isn't going to save her, it will just get you killed too."
"Fuck you, Munroe," Ginger says.
The scene is now somewhere in downtown Toronto. The black van pulls up, and this time both Fitzgerald sisters are pushed out onto the sidewalk. The sisters are dressed identically, wearing blue jeans, white Nikes, and grey sweatshirts.
As the van pulls away, Ginger says, "Well, here we are."
End Act 1