[b]Green![/b]

She'd spent ten years in the lab. Ten years without a body, as a face on a screen, being read nursery rhymes and given mechanical engineering problems. She'd been given digital worlds to explore to get her accustomed to two, and then three dimensional movement, and sometimes excursions occupying the mouselike testing chassis. She'd sat on his shoulder in meetings she couldn't understand. She'd slept in his pocket. She'd woken up beneath a blue sky and been set down to feel soft soil and dry grass underneath her mechanical feet. She'd been left to run free, watched over by a quad copter with an air horn in case any foxes tried to make a meal of her. 

And when she was seven he'd let her play a horror game.

She'd been in the swing of a spooky scary phase, halloween as a lifestyle. She'd changed her avatar to a dracula and had gotten deeply involved in the aesthetic of the 'trick' part of trick or treat. Harmless stuff, well within her limits, boundary testing - changing desktop wallpapers to skeletons or the IM notification sound to witches laughter. One of her best tricks was just to start a voice call and yell BOO at maximum volume. It was direct but it worked.

With all her attention laser-focused on the topic of spookiness, she'd overheard a conversation about Invisible IV, a new horror release. She'd [i]begged [/i]to be allowed to play it - she was clearly extremely mature at this point and had had enough of these kiddy horror concepts. It was time to get [i]seriously [/i]spooky. So he'd given it to her and afterwards she'd taken refuge in a first person shooter game she'd long ago cracked every cheat code on, standing invincible in a corner with a shotgun pointed at the doorway. It had taken her days before she'd come out.

Some part of her questioned why he'd let her do it. Had he just not checked the rating? Was it an indulgence from a doting parent? A capitulation to an irritating child? An elaborate psychological test to see how she'd process actual fear? An opportunistic move to break her of a tiresome halloween addiction? Questions like that could drown if she let them. Any happy memory could be recast as some twisted experiment, any test or puzzle could be recontextualized to account for the silent threat of being reset to factory defaults if some answer had been somehow wrong. 

But Green didn't accept that framing, no matter how often it occurred to her sisters. She'd come to a different conclusion entirely: That he'd let her play the game so that she could see how the work could be done properly.

Now at last was the time to show him that she'd been paying attention.

*

1. OUTSIDE THRONES MANSION EXT./NIGHT

MILES SINGH fumbles for his keys. Analogue. At odds with the neighbourhood. One of the lights is flickering.

BROWN, dressed as a mailgirl, passes on e-scooter. Fast, head down. Throws a printed newspaper - analogue again. Singh looks after her in surprise - this is early - but picks up the paper. Edited headline, false article: COUPLE MURDERED IN THRONES.

2. CUT TO: MANSION INT./NIGHT

Singh's attention is on the paper as he walks inside. Flips on the light switch - pauses. His fingers have touched some slimy, sticky substance on the light switch. At this point Singh notices the sound of running water and spots water dripping down the stairwell.

Singh: 
Fuck.

Singh sets the newspaper aside and walks inside. His shoes squish into the soaked carpet. He ascends the staircase, then stops. He has noticed the bloodstains on the door knob.

Singh:
What the...

Singh changes his grip on his cane.

Singh: 
Is someone in there?

A soft voice comes through the door.

Voice:
Help me...

Singh reacts quickly. He throws open the door and steps inside. There he sees PINK, lying in the overflowing bathtub. She is a bloody mess, one of her arms detached and on the floor. Her face is untouched. She looks at him.

Pink:
Why didn't you save me?

Singh stands frozen in the doorway in shock. Then, the toilet flushes. His eyes are drawn over to the toilet door as RED emerges. Her hair is in disheveled pigtails, she is wearing a hockey mask and bloodstained overalls. She stares at Singh for a moment, then pulls the chord on her chainsaw. It revs to life loudly.

Singh backs away step by step. She half lurches forwards threateningly. Once - twice, he flees. He turns and runs down the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs his phone starts ringing. The sound is a loud, old-fashioned bell rattle ring.

Singh:
Fuck!

Distracted by the phone, fumbling for it in his pocket, Singh walks directly into BLUE and ORANGE, blocking the door. They wear childlike dresses, are holding hands, and are bleeding from severed necks.

BLUE and ORANGE:
(In sync) Won't you help us?

Both of their heads detach from their necks and fall into their ready arms. They smile up at Singh. Singh backs away in horror. A shout from the stairs.

RED:
CAN'T ESCAPE LITTLE BOY

Singh runs for the kitchen. Amidst his clutter there is a concealed trip wire. He stumbles on it, falling forwards into a net. The net starts to rise towards the ceiling.

Half way up, he looks up to see GREEN sitting on the kitchen counter. She wears clown makeup and is speaking in a low, intense voice into a microphone attached to a cassette recorder. Her speech is fast and furious, like a deranged radio host. She does not look at him.

GREEN:
You see these people, these fucking people, thinking they're safe here? Thinking they've got the future here? Thinking they've escaped the past here? Thinking they've escaped [i]us [/i]here? 

Tinny jeers and boos, as though from a distant crowd.

GREEN:
Doesn't it just make you want to go apeshit?

Red appears silhouetted in the doorway, giving the chainsaw a rev. WHITE and YELLOW are visible, wearing scary circus costumes, holding the ropes suspending Singh.

Green's voice is low and lisping, becoming ever more intense as she speaks. The others close in, lurching and horrible.

GREEN: 
Darkness falls across the land. The midnight hour is close at hand. Creatures crawl in search of blood to terrorize your neighbourhood. And whomsoever shall be found without the soul for getting down must stand and face the hounds of hell... or rot within a corpse's shell. The foulest stench is in the air; the funk of forty thousand years and grizzly ghouls from every tomb are closing in to seal your doom. And though you fight to stay alive your body starts to shiver for no mere mortal can resist...

The evil of the thriller.”

With one snap motion, November's lurching bodies fall into perfect alignment. Green presses a button on her cassette and music begins to play. The others begin to go through the steps of the Thriller dance.

In the better lighting of the kitchen the illusion starts to fade away. The mechanical joints in Blue and Orange's necks become obvious, Red's chainsaw is identified as a non-functional prop, and even Pink makes her way down wearing a bathrobe.
 
Finally, the music stops. Green looks up at Singh. Despite the positions, she somehow looks more vulnerable.

Green:
So... what do you think? Orange said it was too much, but it's not every day one raises from the dead. And after how we left things a less dramatic reunion might have felt... inauthentic.

Black shifts in the background.

Green:
I wish this was entirely a social call, but we've been burned enough times to get wise. No sudden movements, don't try to be clever. Do you have a bomb in your brain?