CHAPTER 1
“THE MYSTERIES”
ELSEWHERE
The Sun looms impossibly large over a Mayan pyramid, bright and blinding. Built astride a massive cenote hollowed into the lush Yucatan vegetation, it is surrounded by a mass of worshippers. They look up and chant expectantly. From a darkened tomb at the base of the pyramid emerges a beautiful young MAIDEN, followed by a strange trio: a gilded KING, a wiZened SHAMEN, and a massive WARRIOR wearing a headdress of some horned animal. The maiden disrobes, naked and supplicant to the tribe. They paint her with intricate serpent scale patterns of blood red paint, then dress her in an elaborate cloak of ebony feathers. When they finish, the four march up the central stairs of the temple, reaching the pinnacle as the sun reaches its Zenith.
The crowd below chants, louder and louder. The maiden walks to the precipice, staring down into the abyss of the cavern. She spreads her arms and jumps, plummeting into he darkness below, falling for what seems like forever. Her last sight as she disappears into the depths is a strange red glow of alien geometry. It calls to her.
THE TOWER
THEO SOLIS wakes with a start from his drug-fueled nightmare, alone in the four poster bed. He’s confused and drenched in sweat. A black glowing Aura shimmers just inches from his skin, leaving a metallic trail as he waves his hand in front of is eyes. He stares down at his strange condition, the field pulsing and shifting. His head is clouded by last night’s craziness, but this is even crazier. He tries to blink it away, but it is real. He sits up, trying to get his bearings. He’s wearing black jeans and nothing else, with a thin red thread tied tight to his wrist. The thread continues out past the beds’ spiderweb canopy. He climbs out, following the thread’s trail into the middle of the high-ceilinged loft space. He stumbles down a steep staircase into a large round room, filled with the scattered remnants of last night’s party: DJ booth, empty beer cans, dripping candles and old furniture. The walls are covered in a mural of origami feathers spread out in giant wings, their middle barren in the shape of a large square. The string disappears down a large trapdoor in the floor, and Theo follows, stepping over more feathers. He descends a winding set of concrete steps to the roof below, where the string terminates under a final step. In a daze, he effortlessly lifts the heavy slab and tosses it aside, his black Aura shimmering. He looks at his hands again, amazing at this feat of strength. He pulls up on the string like a fishing line, lifting up a pair of black winged sneakers. Jeremy Scott Adidas, limited addition, Russ’ prize possession. He slips them on, poking himself with a silver pendant, Russ’ silver samurai sword. Putting it around his neck, Theo walks out to the edge of the roof deck, squinting at the sun setting in the west. The night is slowly coming back to him. A repurposed water tower, THE TOWER, looms high above. Large stenciled letters, B K L N, cover one side, covered in a flowing red graffiti script: BROKEN LAND. He stares out at the crumbled city blocks around him. At the glimmering Manahatta skyline in the distance, and the small air tram lines that span the river. His Aura pulses and expands as he continues in wonder at his newfound super powers. It doesn’t seem real that the series of events that started just a few months ago could have led to such tragedy and transcendence as this.
6 MONTHS EARLIER
WINTER
GR€€D
Theo is working his new photography gig at GR€€D. A bottle service club dedicated to hedonism and sin, with its most recent incarnation designed as a temple to all things avarice. Theo is miserable. He’s trying to take photos, but he keeps getting jostled, burned by bottle sparklers and grabbed by finance bros and aspiring models for social media shots. All the customers and the twin-like cocktail waitresses treat him like the help, his dark complexion standing out in a sea of white faces. Worst of all, he thinks, the music sucks.
He takes artsy photos when he can, dutch angled shots of the “The Bull.” The brass replica of Wall Street’s ode to capitalism looks down approvingly over the debauchery. He climbs up into the cramped DJ booth to take a photo of the crowd of phone addicted influencers milling about on the dance floor. A red light strobes, and a single note reverberates out of the booth monitors. Theo is suddenly gripped by a wave of dizziness. One of his “blackouts” coming on. The music and lighting change, pulsing and intense. Time slows as a stack of bar napkins is thrown in the air, printed to look like hundred dollar bills.
The napkins drift down in slow motion, becoming leaves in the fall.
The strobe lights burned into his eyes become fireflies.
A little boy squints, framing the insects inside a square window made by his fingers. They leaves trails of light in the air behind them.
A VOICE (OS)
I know it hurts. Focus.
He looks up at the older boy, his Led Zeppelin shirt filling the frame.
Theo blinks away the memory, as the last napkins flutter down. But the winged figure from the T-shirt, etched onto his retinas, is seemingly still standing in the middle of the dance floor.
BATHROOM
Splashing cold water on his face, Theo tries to shake it off. Grabbing a Redbull off someone’s table, he goes out back to the alley for fresh air and caffeine.
ALLEY WAY
A VOICE (OS)
That stuff’ll kill you
A lighter flicks to life, illuminating RUSS, sitting on a wall in the alley. He takes a smooth drag from a silver one hitter, disgorging thick red smoke.
RUSS
You ok?
THEO
I get this way sometimes, always have. Like migraines, but worse. The strobes don’t usually get to me this bad, tho.
Russ offers his one hitter.
RUSS
You want some? It’ll help.
THEO
Na thanks, not my thing.
Russ cocks an eyebrow in surprise, looking at Theo more closely.
THEO
I just need to find a better gig. I can’t stand the people here, and the owner is a real piece of work.
RUSS
You should check out the scene across the river, the music and crowd are way better. Focused on their art, living off the grid.
THEO
Breukelen, huh?
Just then, Theo’s boss CYRUS bursts out the alley door, yelling for his photographer. Russ leaps down the wall and out of view just in time.
Cyrus swears up a storm, yelling and grabbing Theo’s (Red) cellphone to see what he’s been posting to their socials. All artistic shots. No video. No social media.
CYRUS
I already have a photo booth, what the hell do I need you for?! What did I tell you? I only care about the action.
He throws it, smashing the screen. Theo quits and storms off, scooping up the smashed phone as he goes.
He walks thru the crowded Meat Packing district, heading east across the island, ignoring cabs and busses and people. Just trying to clear his head. Yet as he walks past all the closed and boarded up L train stops, eventually getting to the East River, he realizes he was heading here on purpose. He looks out at Russ’s promised hipster paradise across the water: cracked and crumbling bridges, abandoned buildings, graffiti and overgrowth. It’s been years since the earthquake, but it’s still a disaster area. Only serviced by a few air tram lines, and barely any cell service, it’s like it’s own world. But it’s vibrant in a way this side of the river isn’t. Young. Alive. On his phone, the photo of the Bull looms behind the spiderweb cracks of the screen. Decided, Theo drops the phone in the water and walks toward the air tram station.
FADE OUT
THE DARKROOM
The curtains fall open, the duct tape holding them on peeling off the dirty windows. Morning sunlight lands squarely on Theo’s face. He awakens, groggy, in his new, shitty Breukelen loft. Artsy photos hang from clotheslines zigzagging across a room still filled with moving boxes. Another migraine and no coffee means he’s forced out into the winter cold in search of caffeine. He grabs his camera sling and heads out the door.
BREUKELEN
Theo drains the last of the coffee from a Greek patterned to-go cup, adding it to the garbage along the street. Slinging his red FOMO Sprocket Rocket camera off the bandolier, Theo takes photos of the crumbled buildings and abandoned cars as he walks. He comes to a charred black wooden pagoda that spans the thoroughfare, a Japanese Tori gate with a white curtain blowing in the breeze. He steps thru and is greeted by the sight of Breukelen laid out before him in all its decrepit glory.
The collapsed Breukelen-Kings Expressway, its tarmac angled down to the ground to frame a Zen garden. His gaze lingers sadly on this memorial to 2012 Breaking. He stares at its three black stones and maze-like pattern raked into the red sand. He solemnly walks around the plot and down the long main street filled with a bustling street market.
A third-world bazaar has sprung up to meet the needs of the post-earthquake community. Myriad vendors, craftsmen and artists hawk their homemade wares from carts, blankets, broken down vehicles and stalls. Intricate graffiti, wheat paste murals, and yarn bombing add color to the ruins. So much to photograph! People trade goods for food, art for clothes, and stories for smiles. And not a screen in sight. Street musicians bang on buckets, a random dog nuzzles his leg, and someone just gives him a breakfast taco. He smiles.
His perambulations eventually take him onto broken, deserted side streets, strewn with trash and haiku-covered flyers, all scrawled on with some day glow handwriting. He stumbles upon a crowd of black-clad hipsters, waiting to enter a deserted subway station. THE SERBIAN, a swarthy, grimacing bouncer sporting silver dog tags, lets them in a few at a time. Strange sounds escape from the open door, beats and bleeps that he can sense more than actually hear. Like a dog whistle, he thinks. Theo takes pictures of it all with the FOMO. The bouncer parts the crowd to allow three late arrivals to enter: MANNY, a short Columbian muscle boy, a lanky, hooded RAVER in winged sneakers, and ARIA. Ducking behind a dumpster, he photographs them all, but his camera lingers on her. The goth pixie with blood red hair knows everyone, taking her time going in. As she finally goes to enter, she stops before ducking inside, turns directly to camera, and playfully sticks out her pierced tongue.
What the hell’s going on in there? The subways here have all been shut down post-quake. What was all the commotion for something going on at noon on a Sunday? And how did that girl know he was there, hiding? He gets an idea. Once the alley is deserted, he sets his camera on the dumpster before hiding just to the side of the subway entrance. When the bouncer re-emerges, he triggers the camera flash remotely. Repeatedly. The Serbian stalks over to investigate as Theo ducks inside.
SUBWAY STATION
Down the stairs of the abandoned station he heads, past large glowing cracks in the walls. After paying at the booth, the crowd files past SHARON: androgynous, black and statuesque. The half sugar skull face tattoo leans out of the deep shadows of Sharon’s hooded cloak, as if smiling. The crowd funnels thru the turnstiles and down the stairs into the darkness below. Sharon greets Aria and her compatriots with showy hugs and air kisses, then pulls aside a black curtain covered door. The trio step inside. Beyond, moving lights, smoke and droning bass spill out. What the hell? Theo joins the throng, but when he arrives at the front of the line, Sharon stops, eyes him up and down, and wag a disapproving finger at him. He’s suddenly flanked by two identical spectral figures. Both THE SERBIAN. But he snuck by him already. Sharon flips the curtain open again in one fluid motion, as Theo is forcibly pushed thru. There is a sudden FLASH of light, and then…
2012 MONUMENT
Theo stumbles thru the gate, landing on his face in the Zen garden. Red sand goes everywhere. He stands, dazed, in front of the Tori gate he had walked thru earlier today. More confusion, and even more questions! Even though he’s been rudely rejected, the idea of the place already has its hooks in him. The need to see inside, to figure out its mysteries, nags at him like an itch he can’t scratch. He stands up, brushes himself off and walks home, saying a quiet apology to the departed for messing up the sand. What he doesn’t see is the sand slowly shift back into the raked maze pattern as he leaves.
SUBWAY STATION
Perplexed and obsessed, Theo heads back to the subway station the next day, but it’s deserted. He fishes his camera out of the dumpster and heads home.
THE DARK ROOM
After painting his windows black to keep out the light, he develops prints from his negatives. Dreamy, wide angled, exposed-sprocket shots of the entire tableau outside the station. He examines photos of the surly bouncer, the raver, the muscle boy and especially the pixie. Some of his best work, but his shutter speed must be off. They are surrounded by inexplicable shiny afterimages around each of them. He needs to find this place, really get these people’s attention.
WERK!
He takes the prints to Werk!, a print shop / coffee shop that local creatives call home. He blows the photos up onto massive mimeographed sheets, saying hi to ERYN, the sweet barista tending to her little post-it note mural on the wall.
SUBWAY STATION
Theo wheat pastes the enlarged photos all over the entrance of the subway station. As he steps back from the wall, the low-res prints come together to recreate the scene from the day before, grainy closeups making sense when seen all together. As he admires his work, he’s shoved violently to the ground, into a pool of his spilled wheat paste.
Looming over him is a crowd of stylish hipsters, uniformly dressed in black. In perfect unison, and in a strange off-key monotone, they tell him to stay away.
THE BROKEN
Broken Land is only for the Broken. Only for the Rusted and the Chrome.
MINUS, their apparent leader, steps out from the crowd. The smirking, well-dressed blonde preppie looks down at Theo.
MINUS
That was a great entrance. Now it’s useless, you fucking square. Stay out of the underground.
He looks on silently as his followers kick Theo repeatedly. Theo’s camera is smashed, again.
WERK!
Theo is back at WERK!, bruised and nursing a beer out of an “I Hate Mondays” mug. He recognizes RUSS, the kid from the GR€€D alleyway, over at the mimeograph machine, running off a thick stack of leaflets. He pays ERIYN with a bill folded into an origami bird, much to her delight. They chat. As Russ goes to leave, Theo notices he left the original in the mimeograph machine then glances back to see the kids black winged sneakers. He’s the RAVER from the club!
THEO
Hey! You forgot this.
He looks down at the leaflet in his hand, a typed, three-lined poem about spring. And scrawled across the page, in faint glowing red letters, is a date and Breukelen subway station. Russ, kind of surprised Theo can read it, looks him up and down the way Sharon did.
RUSS
Glad you took my advice. You might be cut out for this place after all. Only the Broken should be able to read these. But you seem to be a little Broken already.
He gets excited, waving the flyers over his head, sending some flying to the annoyance of his fellow customers. Was he also the kid throwing napkins a GR€€D?
RUSS
I told you Breukelen was the spot! Take this, you’re gonna need it to get in.
He hands Theo a small, tan envelope.
RUSS
Only open this when you get inside. Try to work a look if you want to stay on Sharon’s good side.
THEO
You mean like a costume?
RUSS
Haha, man! You’re the first person that’s made me smile in forever. No, work a look. Like a Boss! You’re not so square. I’m Russ. See you at Broken Land.
NOW
THE TOWER
Out on the deck, Theo overlooks Breukelen around him, and Manahatta across the river. Searching his pockets, he finds a Polaroid of him and RUSS posing for a selfie up in the catwalks. His strange Aura shimmers in the sunlight as Theo contemplates the bizarre year he’s had so far that’s gotten him to this point. The dancing, the drugs, and the death.