✅ The Last New Start [NaNoWriMo2021]

147. The Main Feature

This chapter is dedicated to babysofia, with many thanks for all your support. Thank you!

The movie started with a slow pan over what looked like a watercolour painting of a desolate cityscape. Derelict warehouses, fires in the streets. A cluster of indistinct figures standing around what looked like an oilcan fire. It wasn't clear if this was a city torn apart by some natural disaster, or just buildings no longer maintained when the money left the area. The music was slow and mournful; and started out so low that you might have mistaken it for the wind whistling through broken windows.

Tess found herself wondering if this was how the opening was supposed to go, with all these paintings, or if they were just a picture that somebody would be working from to build models, or a CGI city. Maybe even a replica of this city built on a studio lot somewhere, so they could zoom in on the characters. From this video, there was no way to know. But when the images focused on the outside of a bookstore, Tess and Spike turned their heads in response to a gasp from Ffrances. They hadn't recognised the name on the worn signage, but apparently she did. Now everybody knew what they were watching.

"Oh wow," Ffrances mumbled as the scene slowly moved closer. "This is another Millhouse movie! You've... you got a copy of Tags 2? I didn't know they even started filming!"

"You know more than most people," Spike laughed. "They've not even announced that they're thinking about a second one. It's going to hit cinemas with just the title and a synopsis to go on. Imagine you're watching this, not knowing it's going to be a sequel." They both sounded just as excited as each other.

"Prequel, actually," Gabby corrected. "The title's Striker. No doubt you're the one person in a million who can actually deduce the plot from that."

"Oh, hell," Ffrances laughed. "You've read the books this is based on, haven't you? I saw you going through Biker the last few weeks, and thought that was a pretty obscure storyline for you to follow. But if the Strikers Guild is in this story..."

"I didn't know for sure," Gabby said. "You remember we talked about that photo from the auction? We knew there was going to be some connection to Canon Flash if that was relevant, and Isaac put it on display, to draw people's attention to it. And when Kernigan saw it, he recommended displaying The Biker, The Don, and The Pope next to it. Didn't say if it was related to the movie, or just he thought they'd go well together. But now... Well, you still know more than I do."

"Wait," Tess interrupted. "I didn't catch what he said. Is that supposed to be Beckman?"

Ffrances picked up the remote, and skipped the movie back to the start of the scene. She was interested to see that there were a lot more chapters than on any commercial DVD, allowing her to jump to every cut or scene change. But a second later they were focused intently on the screen again, and this time paying attention to what the characters were actually saying.

It was easy to get hooked on the movie, even when characters occasionally showed up out of costume, or one of the actors seemed to gain a hangover in the middle of a scene, and spent the next couple of minutes repeating dialogue with his eyes closed. The writing was excellent; and in the moments where the effects were incomplete, it was easy to imagine how good it was going to look when finished. The sudden disappearance of a gloomy room full of dust and cobwebs, leaving a pretty spartan set, showed off just how good the post-production stuff was getting now. They hadn't even realised that all those visual elements weren't real until they reached the part where they weren't yet rendered.

Tess barely paid attention to anything other than the movie for the next hour. After spending so much time making lunch for everyone, she would probably have forgotten to eat if she hadn't had to find a space amidst the various canapés to put her glass down every time she took a drink. And while she was feeding herself, she felt obligated to put a couple on a little plate for Spike as well; it seemed that both of them were paying too much attention to the screen, and not enough to the delicious treats close at hand.