Prologue/Transcript

*[The game starts with James Derettas in his apartment, writing a letter to Vanessa. The letter reads, “Dear Vanessa, things are going better than they seem. I’ve been thinking about this for many hours now, and I want you to meet me at the Elvediner tomorrow at 3, where we can discuss things. Love, James."]*

*[The scene fades out and switches to a street-level view of BioLynk, the tallest building in Interface City. Then a shot of inside the building, on the top floor, is shown. This is where James and the rest of the scientists are working at their lab stations. The room is big, with giant windows.]*

*[James is working with Erik Baying, his lab partner, at his lab station. They are both working separately. We can hear some scientists talking in the background.]*

**SCIENTIST 1:** Hey, you hear about that fight at the laundromat yesterday?

**SCIENTIST 2:** Yeah! It was over a bar of soap! That other guy got socked!

*[Just then, James’s phone vibrates as he’s working with chemicals inside a jar. He picks up his phone to answer it when the gloves he has on start making the phone disintegrate due to the chemicals. James gets scared when the phone starts emitting sparks and drops it in the chemical jar, only for it to disintegrate completely.]*

**JAMES:** Dang it. There goes my contacts and my high score on Earth Defenders.

**ERIK:** Dropped your phone in the jar again, James?

**JAMES:** Yup.

**ERIK:** That’s the third time this week!

**JAMES:** I know.

*[All of a sudden, James starts seeing smoke coming from Erik’s experiment.]*

**JAMES:** Hey, you’re working on that experiment of yours again? I told you, it doesn’t look safe…

**ERIK:** Yes it is!!

*[Erik holds up a paper with arrows and equations on it, to James.]*

**ERIK:** See? I cross referenced all the possible vectors and they all lead to the same thing: success!

**JAMES:** OK, Erik, if you say so.

*[All of a sudden, Erik adds another chemical to his experiment and the table slowly starts shaking. James notices and starts to panic, and then everyone else notices and starts to panic. The experiment explodes, sending high pulses and an aura stasis field of energy through the room, and the floor collapses, causing everyone to fall through. After the floor collapses, James wakes up on the floor below and sees that everyone else is dead. He was the only survivor, although Erik is nowhere in sight. He notices the building is on fire and is shaking. Realizing that the building may collapse, he needs to get up and out of there, FAST. This is where the player takes control of James.]*

**JAMES:** Oh, man, man! Where’s Erik? Erik! Nope, no sign of him. Everyone else is dead… but me. *[Grunts]* Ugh, I need to get out of here, FAST!

*[The player controls James through the collapsing rooms and the sirens are going off. After traveling down a corridor and through a few rooms, James sees the elevators are down, and so heads toward the stairwell. James reaches the stairwell door, but it’s locked, and there’s a color code passcode. The player must remember the color pattern and then repeat it to get past the door.]*

*[The color pattern initiates but after a second or two, all the colors turn green.]*

**JAMES:** Dang! Forgot I was colorblind!

*[Every time the player punches in the wrong code, they lose health. When James is up to two health points, he says, “That’s enough!” and hits the door three, slow times. On the third hit, the door swings open and the color mechanism explodes in James’s face, bringing him down to one health point. On the stairwell, there are many people trapped.]*

**JAMES:** Calm down, everybody! I’m gonna get you guys outta here!

**PERSON:** What makes you the leader of gettin’ everyone out safely, huh?

**JAMES:** I don’t see anyone else here man enough to take charge!

*[The stairwell above cracks and collapses onto the staircase below, and crushes some people and blocks the stairway, and people are screaming now. James, furious, punches and breaks the large window in the room, and jumps out. Other people follow.]*

**JAMES [INNER MONOLOGUE]:** Oh, man, don’t die!

*[James lands in a dumpster in an alleyway across the street from BioLynk.]*

**JAMES:** Aw, man, the most clichéd place to land! Also, OW!!

*[James looks up at BioLynk, covered in smoke and fire at this point and can collapse at any minute.]*

**JAMES:** How am I even alive? *[Grunting]*

*[James hears a voice calling his name from the dumpster.]*

**VANESSA:** James! JAMES!!

**JAMES:** Vanessa! What are you doing here? You know this place is like a war zone right now!

**VANESSA:** I needed to see how you were! You work at BioLynk! How the hell did you even get down here? And in a dumpster! Wait a minute… you didn’t JUMP OUT, did you?

**JAMES:** I had to…

**VANESSA:** Are you crazy?! How are you even ALIVE right now?!?

**JAMES:** Hey, don’t yell at me! It could have been these ultra-soft diapers in here.

**VANESSA:** James!

**JAMES:** Hey, don’t “James” me. You know what they say on the commercials, “Ultra-Soft saves lives”. Now I’m gonna be an “Ultra-Soft Diaper” activist.

**VANESSA:** James, that’s irrelevant!

**JAMES:** Hey, I’m just trying to lighten the mood a bit here! Now help me out of this dumpster. I’m pretty sure a rat crawled into my pants.

*[Vanessa helps James out of the dumpster.]*

**VANESSA:** Now, James, we gotta get outta here. There’s a secret I’ve been meaning to tell you, and I don’t wanna…

*[All of a sudden, their conversation is cut short due to loud rumbling. They look up and notice the building crumbling down. A shot of the building collapsing from a few blocks away is shown, and then a close-up. James and Vanessa start running for their lives when Vanessa falls but James keeps running. James doesn't realize that Vanessa has fallen, but by the time he turns around and notices, it is too late. He feels severe guilt, but the building collapses on both of them and the screen goes black.]*

*[A few hours later, James wakes up, buried underneath tons and tons of debris and ash. He breaks out, though, and sees the streets, block after block, covered in ash, debris and rubble. Vanessa is gone, along with everyone else, and James kneels down, and cries.]*

*[James stumbles out of the area and into the Elvediner, the diner down the block from the wreckage. He sits down at the bar and orders a drink to calm himself down.]*

**JAMES:** Waitress!

**WAITRESS:** Whoa! Were you just at the site? Are you okay? Do you need any help with anything?

**JAMES:** Just get me an N2Fizzle and some alcohol.

**WAITRESS:** Coming right up. Hey, *[puts hand on James’s shoulder]* you need ANYTHING, just holler, ok?

**JAMES:** Thank you, but I’m fine.

*[James starts to reminisce his past: about Vanessa, about BioLynk... about Erik. Meanwhile, we can hear the waitress yelling in the background.]*

**WAITRESS:** ¡José, poción un N2Fizzle y un poco de alcohol, en seguida! *[pause]* ¡No, esto es Elvediner! ¡Por tanto si quiere servir de un nozzlejockey entonces por supuesto cerrado y ser tranquilo, y hacer ese pedido! ¡Ahora! *[throws dish]*

*[The waitress approaches James with his order.]*

**WAITRESS:** Here you go.

**JAMES:** Thanks.

*[After this point, the second mission, Defending Joey, immediately starts.]*