Dez doesn’t know who she can ask about this. She has no one to confide in yet at Acheron. Not about something so strange.
Next to Moriah, Zarlengo hasn’t varied his Old West undertaker style. There’s a third faculty member with them today, a man Dez hasn’t yet met. He’s in his seventies, wiry, with a three-piece houndstooth suit, a white handlebar mustache, and inquisitive eyes behind round spectacles.
He’s watching her as she and Simon take their seats. Dez feels oddly formal in her Acheron-issued black slacks, whose label reads 100% vicuna wool, and the crisp white button-down shirt that seems like it was tailored for her. She may look the part of a film student at a fancy school, but she still doesn’t feel like one. At least there’s a desk for her today.
When she sits, she notices there’s an envelope on the desktop. It has her name on it, like someone knew she would find herself here. She flashes it at Simon. He shows her a corresponding envelope from his desk with his name written on it.
Dez stares at her envelope, tuning Moriah out as she rehashes the story Yael told them last night.
Something about it still doesn’t ring true, but Dez feels powerless to challenge it, especially coming from Acheron’s director. Dez is still raw from the conversation with her mother, still wound tight from last night in her bedroom with Rafe. Which she dreamt about, of course. Which she cannot stop replaying in graphic detail in her mind.
It’s embarrassing to admit, even to herself, that Rafe’s kiss was the best sex Dez has ever had. That his mouth on hers alone had brought her deeper pleasure than any man’s whole body has before.
Imagine what more Rafe could make her feel.
What had happened to change his mind so suddenly? Dez can’t find any explanation when she recalls the scene.
At some point, she’s going to have to face him. And it’s going to suck. Because she needs more of what they did in her bedroom. Whereas he couldn’t run away from her fast enough.
“Our sadness aside,” Moriah says, visibly lifting her shoulders as the cobra flicks its tongue, “today is an exciting day. We’ve rescheduled your introduction to the Vault for this morning. You’ll soon begin your first assignment. But first each of you will receive your genre designations from Dr. Zarlengo, as well as your security clearances—”
“Mind’s-eye access,”the stranger on the stage corrects Moriah, and Dez leans forward, intrigued by the sound of this.
“Excuse me, your mind’s-eye access,” Moriah says, “courtesy of our Dr. Ezekiel.” Her gaze travels around the room. “Your mentors will be waiting to escort you through today’s events, to see that you are all well settled in your Lenses in the Vault. I look forward to reviewing the work each of you will soon begin.”
With that, Moriah, her snake, and Dr. Ezekiel exit the lecture hall, leaving Zarlengo to bellow:
“Genre! Inside your envelopes, each of you will find the genre for your first assignment. Knowing which genre you’ll be working in will help you determine how to structure your film. Genre sets our expectations: What kind of experience are we going to have when we engage with a film, as filmmakers, and as the audience?” he says. “Open your envelopes.”
Dez opens hers, pulling out the white card where she finds the wordDRAMAin large calligraphed letters.
She flashes her card at Simon, who shows her his:COMEDY.
In the row in front of her, Dez glances at the card Alice Quinn, Yael’s protégé, pulls out:HORROR.
Alice gasps and pushes the card back inside, tucking the envelope between the pages of her bullet journal. Dez watches Alice, who seems to fit in here even less than Dez. She wonders how Alice feels about being paired with Yael.
“Every genre has its trappings!” Zarlengo shouts, launching into a lecture. “Your task is to fine-tune the viewer’s experience according toyour designated genre. Those working in Tragedy: tear the viewer’s heart out. Horror, keep them up at night in abject fear. Comedy, lie to them that the world can be made whole and right. And Drama, you must show your viewer just enough nuance to make them think their lives have meaning. Better yet, that they’re in charge of their destinies.”
Dez and Simon share a look.
“But they are not in charge,” Zarlengo says in a bone-chillingly low voice. “No, they never are.Weare in charge of how the story’s remembered. What a magnificent responsibility.”
“Is he actually bananas?” Simon asks out of the corner of his mouth.
But in a way, Dez is feeling Zarlengo’s lecture. They are at the dawn of their careers, at a crossroads with their artistic souls on the line. And some of them—or maybe just Dez—are also at a crossroads with their literal souls on the line. She’s fucked up the rest of her life. She cannot fuck up here.
“Later today in the Vault,” Zarlengo says, “you’ll receive your first film subject. For every subject, there will be one Scribe and one Visionary assigned. Scribes, you’ll begin by researching your subjects, listening to their voices using the archives in the Vault, until you can hear them more clearly than you can hear your own thoughts. You’ll write a script to pass along to your corresponding Visionary, but it won’t be like any script you’re familiar with. These are thought-scripts, the inner world of your subject put into the clearest words you can find.”
Simon and Dez trade glances, and she senses that he’s as lost as she is.
“Visionaries!” Zarlengo shouts. “Using the scripts that arrive from your scribes, you will marry the inner world of your subject with the visual outer world of scene. And before any of you start vision boarding your precious opening images or your tonal comps, you must locatethe wound.”
“Did you say, thewound?” Paul Rowan asks from the front row, furiously scribbling notes. “Or the womb?”
“For an artist, there is no difference,” Zarlengo says. “The wound is where art is born. Seek the rawest, most vulnerable place within your subject. Press on the bruise. Then begin.”
Dez thinks about this. She once read that every child carries the wound of its parents’ unlived lives. It’s an idea Dez doesn’t like to think about, which tells her it’s a good one.
