SCRIPT TITLE

Written by Name of First Writer

Based on, If Any

Address Phone Number

BLACK SCREEN. In the darkness, a phone rings, twice. A WOMAN answers. WOMAN Hello? OPENING TITLES. C.U. On bad TV., channel hopping rhythmically through garish, sometimes violent images. CCTV footage of savage attacks, riots, war, pornography, nature shows, anime. Sperm cells struggle for biological supremacy. Rescue teams pick through the wreckage of a crashed train. Interspersed are the films TITLES. Crash to static. INT. RINGOS APARTMENT - DAY A squalid apartment, littered with DVD cases, newspapers and takeaway cartons. Taking up the entirety of one wall is a huge bank of mismatched television screens, precariously balanced on top of one another, each flicking between channels at random. We focus on a singular screen, showing a daytime talk show. A scholarly gentleman is being interviewed. MAN ON TELEVISION I believe that everyone, yourself included, has some inherent degree of latent psychic ability, that can manifest itself in strange and terrifying ways. Consider, a person who hears voices in their head. Doctors, psychologists, society itself may deem them mad, unfit for everyday living. Now consider, those voices are not manifestations of their own thoughts, but the thoughts of other people... RINGO sits in a battered easy chair, asleep, a black cross of electrical tape secured over each eye, holding them closed. He is 30ish, gaunt and pale, subsisting on junk food, television, and this strange ritual, the closest to sleep he ever comes. His fingers twitch rhythmically in time to the changing channels. On his computer desk sits a lucky waving cat, the kind you see in Chinese restaurants, the multitude of flickering screens reflected in its ceramic eyes. Old Mondo movie posters adorn the walls. Ringo stirs and wakes up, peeling the tape away from his eyes. Leaning over, he picks a half-smoked cigarette from the ashtray and lights it, then sits back and watches the screens for a while.

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INT. RINGOS APARTMENT - LATER Ringo paces in front of the screens, which are all now switched to dead air. He is on the telephone, an oldfashioned rotary dial, talking to his boss, GODOLKIN. He swings the base in one hand, trailing the wire along behind him. RINGO Its the twenty-first century, God. Why are we using a land line? I forgot I even had the fucking thing. Godolkins voice is audible through the receiver. GODOLKIN Because you dont answer your damn emails. Ringo rubs his eyes with the back of his arm. RINGO Ive been hiding from them. GODOLKIN Why? Ive been trying to reach you for days. RINGO Because Marcia keeps sending me photos of her new boyfriends genitalia, and I find it repulsively compelling. Listen, Im serious about this. I want these murders. GODOLKIN Everybody and their questionablyaged girlfriends are covering the murders. Its strictly tabloid stuff, Ringo. RINGO True, but they dont see the connection. GODOLKIN What fucking connection?

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RINGO Exactly. Twelve incidents of mass murder in the last six months, nothing linking the perps except the fact that theyre all under fifty and have no history of mental illness. A lady pushing the menopause cruised along the pavement in her four by four, seven dead. A fourteen year old boy goes stab-happy in a shopping centre, five dead, et cetera. Fifty-seven dead in all. Theres a connection here, whether its zombie movies or fucking bath salts, I just dont see it yet. But give me time and I will. GODOLKIN I dont think its exactly what our readers have in mind when they pick up our magazine. Porn movie reviews, yes, children raised by hyenas, definitely. But murder sprees? Its too real, too close to the bone. RINGO If I can find some angle to this, maybe the killer wore an Evil Dead shirt or quoted Steven King, those bastardsll eat it up like popcorn. Listen, you pay me to hold my nose and lower myself into the prolapsed arsehole of modern culture, throw me a life ring here, God. Ive got an angle to work. GODOLKIN For fucks sake, Ringo. Alright, Ill trust you with this. Ringo sits down in his battered old armchair. RINGO Damn right you will. And Ill write you the Godzilla vs. King Kong of progressive pop culture slash true crime articles. GODOLKIN You said that last time. It was more like Kramer vs. Kramer. RINGO Hey, she left me for a guy with a babys arm for a penis. (MORE)

4. RINGO (CONT'D) I cant be blamed for any impact it may have had on my work.

GODOLKIN Whatever. Any special reason you want this? Ringo picks a VHS tape from the top of a small pile and reads the hand-written label. It reads YOU DIDNT GET THIS FROM ME - L RINGO Its just a hunch, is all. And a challenge. I like a challenge. INT. RINGOS APARTMENT Ringo slots the first of the VHS tapes into an old tape player and sits back in his chair to watch, Dictaphone and cigarette poised near his mouth. CCTV footage plays across the multiple screens in perfect synchrony, a grainy high angle showing shoppers on a quiet street. RINGO Thursday, March the seventeenth, A.M. Quiet street, innocent people. Theres nothing in the air, no tension, no signs to suggest that six people will soon be dead, among them a child of four. Its just an ordinary day. The man they later identify as David Lawrence Roth is talking on his phone, looking through the window of an electrical goods store. They identify him from dental records, his fingerprints arent on the database. He slashed his left wrist so deeply that his hand was hanging by a thread. He pockets his phone calmly, and smashes his bare hand through the shop window. Picking up a fragment of glass, he uses it to stab a fifty-four year old man through the -- Christ, this is terrible. Never mind, Ill rework it later. Ringo ejects the tape, and inserts the next one. RINGO (CONTD) Tuesday, April eleventh, just after noon. Quiet street, innocent people blah blah blah. The girls name is... Ringo checks his notes, shorthand scribbles in a Moleskine notebook.

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RINGO (CONTD) ...Emma Townsend, no middle name. Shes waiting for her friends outside a restaurant, talking on her phone. Ringo pauses. RINGO (CONTD) What the fuck? Ringo ejects the tape, puts in another, and fast forwards to the relevant place. A man is on his phone, waiting in line at a clothes shop. He hangs up, then leaps over the shop counter and begins to mercilessly beat the proprietor to a bloody pulp with the cash register. Ringo puts in the next tape. A middle-aged lady, waiting at the gates of a school, answers, then hangs up her phone. She gets in her car and drives off. Ringo fast-forwards the tape. Her car pulls up outside the school again, and the lady gets out, a shotgun gripped in her hands, and enters the school. Ringo leans back in his chair, smiling. RINGO (CONTD) And theres your fucking connection. Ringo picks up his telephone, and dials a number. RINGO (CONTD) Hi, Lorenzo? Ringo. I need another favour from you, mate. EXT. A STREET - NIGHT. Ringo stands on a street, dressed warmly against the cold. He stares in through the window of a television shop at the display of flickering monitors inside. On one of the screens is the news, and on the news is a report about a new mass killing, a shooting in a bar. Ringo watches intently. The body of the shooter is shown, covered by a bloodstained white sheet. A close up of a gun on the ground next to it, and next to that, a mobile phone. Ringos eyes narrow. A lady, mid to late twenties approaches Ringo, an unlit cigarette dangling from her mouth. Her name is LAURA. LAURA Hi. You have a light? RINGO Uh, somewhere. Ringo fishes around in his pocket, eyes not leaving the screen.

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RINGO (CONTD) Here. LAURA (Lighting her cigarette) You waiting for somebody? RINGO Yeah. LAURA A friend? Ringo looks at her for the first time, and smiles. RINGO No. No. More like a resource. A contact. LAURA Dont tell me youre a spy or something. RINGO Nothing that exciting. A writer. Journalist. LAURA Oh, thats quite disappointing. RINGO Sorry. LAURA Anything Ive read? RINGO I should fucking hope not. Fringe culture mostly, very peripheral stuff. The casual pursuits of some extremely fucked up people. Ringo, by the way. LAURA Huh? RINGO My names Ringo. LAURA Oh. Laura. There is a pause as Laura smokes. LAURA (CONTD) You know, you should turn around sometime. (MORE)

7. LAURA (CONTD) There's a very beautiful world behind you. One that isn't projected onto a screen.

RINGO Theyre LCD screens now, they dont really project any more. Besides, television tells me far more about the human condition than a mountain or a river. This is the real world, the one I wanna live in anyway. Laura looks at the screens. LAURA That one? With all the rape and murder? RINGO A lot more interesting than a fucking tree. Who are you waiting for? LAURA Friends. Probably not a concept youre familiar with, they're these other people that I sometimes hang around with, we share common interests and talk about stuff together. You should check them out sometime, I think you'd probably like them. RINGO Never heard of them. Laura motions to a group of people on the far side of the screen. LAURA Ah, here they are. See you later, Square Eyes. Laura walks away, waving to the group. Ringo watches her go, then turns back to the screen. RINGO Square Eyes. Huh. Ringo puts a cigarette in his mouth and pats his pockets. RINGO (CONTD) Stole my fucking lighter. There is a sharp WHISTLE from off-screen and Ringo turns around. LORENZO, Ringos contact, a tall spindly man in his early thirties, is standing near the steps to an underground club. A garish neon sign above reads SIGNAL TO NOISE.

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Lorenzo beckons to Ringo, and then points down the steps toward the door before disappearing inside. Ringo walks over to meet him. INT. SIGNAL TO NOISE CLUB The club is dingy and decorated in sickly ultraviolet paint. Ringo shoulders his way through the heaving crowd, all gyrating to pounding techno music. He finds Lorenzo sitting at a booth near the back, and sits down opposite him. Two bottles of beer sit on the table. LORENZO Ringo, mi amigo. RINGO Hey, Lorenzo. Hell of a place. LORENZO Beers cheap, you learn to live with the rest. Heres yours. Lorenzo slides the beer over. LORENZO (CONTD) Whos the belle fille you were chatting to up there? RINGO Christ knows, probably none of your business anyway. Thanks for those tapes, by the way. They were gold. LORENZO You have no idea how many back alley encounters I had to endure to get those for you. You dont pay me enough. RINGO Well, thats about to change. Had a little windfall. Thesell be right up your street, you dirty little bastard. Ringo removes a manila envelope from his pocket and passes it to Lorenzo. Lorenzo removes some photographs from the envelope and looks at them, wide eyed and smiling. LORENZO By the punctured hands of Christ, where did you get these? RINGO Same place you get your stuff, the land of Im-not-fucking-tellingyou.

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LORENZO Jesus, never imagined hed be into illicit Nazi-themed orgies, not after that Holocaust movie he was in. Look, theres his Oscar statue in the background. Is that the lass who played the Queen? Mon Dieu, shes got some experience behind her. RINGO Happy? LORENZO Muy. My customers will be, too. Thanks, Ringo. RINGO Anything for a pal. Now wheres my fucking stuff? LORENZO Alright, Jesus. Lorenzo hands Ringo a small package. Ringo peeks inside to see it contains a mobile phone. LORENZO (CONTD) That came from Scotland Yards mobile forensics unit, youve got about twenty-four hours before they notice its gone, so Ill need it in my dropbox before then. Ringo? You listening? Ringo is staring past Lorenzo at the crowd. He sees Laura, drinking and laughing with her friends. RINGO Uh huh, sure. Listen, Ive gotta shoot. Thanks for the beer. Ringo gets up and walks off. Lorenzo goes back to his photographs, smiling gleefully. LORENZO Whatever, man. Shit. Ringo approaches Laura, who turns and smiles when she notices him. LAURA Hey, Square Eyes. RINGO Hi. You stole my lighter.

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LAURA Was it worth chasing me in here for? RINGO My wife gave it to me. Ex-wife. LAURA Im sorry. What happened? RINGO Its a long story. Actually, no it isnt, she left me for a man with a fleshy baseball bat for a penis. She emails me pictures. LAURA Ouch. RINGO The things a fucking leviathan. One picture filled up my entire hard drive. LAURA OK, I suppose if it offers you some consolation, you should have it back. I feel like shit now. By the way, whos your friend? Ringo turns. Lorenzo is waving from his booth, smiling cheerily. RINGO Oh, hes a lot of things, my friend not being one of them. Hes an underground pornographer to whom I trade exclusive pictures of aged celebrities in return for information. LAURA He sounds like a fun guy. RINGO Well, he isnt. He pretends to be Spanish. Laura pauses, looking at him. RINGO (CONTD) What? LAURA Are you happy? You dont seem happy.

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RINGO What, right now, or generally? LAURA Either. Both. RINGO Yes. LAURA To which one? RINGO Look, I dont know. What kind of question is that? Are you happy? LAURA More so than you. I think you have a lot of problems, numero uno being the creepy people you associate with, the second being your hopeless devotion to the cathode ray. RINGO Listen, I told you its all LCD now. Im getting out of here-LAURA Hey, hey. Im teasing. I just think you need some positive energy inside of you. You seem like someone whos not an arsehole and I want you to be happy. Here, close your eyes and open your mouth. RINGO Why? LAURA Trust me. Ringo does as he is told. Laura gently places an ecstacy tablet on his tongue. Ringo smiles, opening his eyes, and swallows. LAURA (CONTD) Not a complete arsehole, anyway. RINGO Bad girl. INT. SIGNAL TO NOISE CLUB RINGOs POV as Laura leads him by his hand into the throng of revellers, flickering and pulsing between the clubs strobe lights. Ringo and Laura begin to dance together.

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From Ringos POV, the flash frames of the strobe lights are intercut with fluttering glimpses of television signals, static and intense bursts of imagery reminiscent of the films opening titles. Ringo smiles broadly. EXT. THE STREET - NIGHT. Ringo and Laura skip down the street like children, shouting at passing cars and laughing. It has been snowing and they drag their feet through it like autumn leaves, all in EXTREME SLOW MOTION. A conversation that they had, or will have, plays non-diagetically over the image. LAURA (V.O.) What kind of things do you write about? RINGO (V.O.) Oh, you know, the usual. Extreme body modification. Devil worship. Three-eyed children. Vatican sex parties. LAURA It sounds like a lot of fun. Do you enjoy it? RINGO Yeah, I mean, its always what I wanted to do. Actually, originally I wanted to be Raphael from Ninja Turtles, but that stopped when I was about six. LAURA You always wanted to write about that sort of thing? I mean, usually writers want to change the world, you know, they wanna win awards and make people cry and all that shit. RINGO Well, last year The Times offered me a job as a staff writer, but...yknow. War and politics, it depresses me. This is what I wanna do. What did you wanna do when you were a kid? LAURA Always wanted to be a police officer.

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RINGO Really? Youd be a fucking lousy cop. INT. RINGOS APARTMENT - NIGHT. The door bursts open and Ringo and Laura fall inside, arm in arm, laughing together and thoroughly wasted. RINGO Hey, thanks for this evening. Had a lot of fun. When youre a reporter, people presume you only wanna be around them because you wanna know their secrets, but this was different. I had fun. LAURA How can you be a reporter when you talk about yourself all the time? You havent once asked me what I do. RINGO You want anything to eat or drink? LAURA You are an arsehole. You seriously have food in this place? RINGO Sure, I grow it in petri dishes on the windowsill. Ringo sits on his bed, trying to take off his shoes. LAURA I think Ill pass, thanks. Catch me when Im not thoroughly fucked sometime and I will make you the canneloni of Christ. Whos this? Laura points at a poster on the wall, a print of an old painting of a man in robes. RINGO That, is Isidore of Seville, patron saint of the internet. LAURA Get out. Youre kidding. RINGO Shit you not. I worship at his altar everyday. I hope when I die they make me patron saint of something.

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LAURA Patron Saint of Vatican sex parties. RINGO Huh? Laura turns and notices Ringos wall of television screen. LAURA My God, what is all this? RINGO My televisual shrine. Dont touch it, it might fall on you. Do you like it? LAURA Its...beautiful. And youre a lot madder than you seem from the outside. Whats it for? RINGO Its like a compound eye that shows me the world in its fucked up entirety. Look at this, each display is timed to jump channels at random intervals, it gives you fifteen seconds of each channel at the most. Ive got a huge aerial array on the roof, sometimes I pick up pirate channels, even satellite images, just for a second and then theyre gone again. I never know the context of whatever Im watching, Im forced to imagine the rest. LAURA Thats amazing. What the hell do you with it? RINGO It gives me inspiration, you know, for my writing. A lot of the time I just close my eyes and listen to t Shamanic he sounds, and meditate, like a pop culture trance. You wanna try it? INT. RINGOS APARTMENT Ringo and Laura sit on large cushions in front of the television. Ringo tapes the crosses over Lauras eyes. LAURA Whats the tape for?

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RINGO All part of the mystique, my dear. Ringo tapes his own eyes shut. RINGO (CONTD) There. Now listen. LAURA I dont get it. RINGO Let it find its rhythm in your head. Let the needle find its groove. The murmuring from the various channels begin to blend into one, forming a strange rhythmic sound collage constructed of canned laughter, gunfire, both real and fabricated, and gameshow buzzers. Laura and Ringo sit side by side, taking it in. Lauras hand finds Ringos and she leans in close. They kiss, before bringing their bodies together and having sex with their eyes crossed out under the watchful gaze of the multitude television screens. INT. RINGOS APARTMENT - MORNING. Ringo wakes up in his bed, alone, and smiles. He pulls himself up out of bed, massaging his temples, and finding a fresh cigarette to smoke. On his desk, next the his waving cat, is his cigarette lighter, beneath it a hand-written note that reads: MY WORK NUMBER - CALL ME, LAURA. Ringo picks up his mobile phone and dials the number, it rings, and an operator answers. OPERATOR Hello, youre through to the Metropolitan Police Department. How may I help you? Ringo laughs. RINGO Shit. INT. RINGOS APARTMENT - DAY Close in on Ringos wall of televisions, flitting between channels. SOMETHING SOMETHING SOMETHING

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Ringo connects the mobile phone he procured from Lorenzo to his desktop computer via a series of complicated jury-rigged wires and routers. He sets it down on the desk, next to the screen, and types a series of commands. On the screen, the telephones digital guts are laid bare; sections pop up headed TEXT MESSAGES, AUDIO MESSAGES, OUTGOING, INCOMING, INTERNET ACCESS, et cetera. Ringo cycles through them. The text messages and outgoing calls tell him nothing. He accesses the AUDIO MESSAGES file. A RECORDED MESSAGE chimes in over Ringos computer speakers, followed by a FEMALE VOICE. Ringo adjusts the volume. RECORDED MESSAGE Hi, its Brian, leave me a message, unless its you again Jessica, in which case piss off. FEMALE VOICE Brian, its me, for fucks sake, I know youre there. I never thought you could be so fucking immature, Ive got your two sons here-Ringo stops the playback. He accesses the file headed INCOMING. It mostly contains the same number, calling within minutes of each other, but there is one anomaly. A number that consists of a long string of Prime Numbers: 2 3 5 7 11 13 17 19 23 29 31 37 41 43 47 53 59 61 67 71 73 79 83 89 97 101 103 107 109 113. Ringo chews on his pen thoughtfully. Isolating the number, he checks three boxes marked ENCRYPT, TRIANGULATE and RECORD, and clicks the button marked CALL. The number rings once and then Ringos computer speakers emit a piercing digital screech of sudden and brutal intensity. Ringo falls backward off his chair, lashing out with his foot at the speakers. His computer display warps and distorts into a sickening muddle of colours. Ringo lies on the floor, desperately covering his hands with his ears, gritting his teeth against the pain. As abruptly as it began, the noise stops, as the monitor goes dead and the mobile phone emits a small puff of smoke. Ringo lies, panting, on the ground, before standing up suddenly, covering his mouth and running to the bathroom. We hear him being violently sick. Unnoticed by him, a thick secretion not unlike rancid oatmeal begins to leak from the grille in the back of his computers tower unit and onto the floor. Ringo comes back into the room, wiping his mouth. He picks up the mobile phone and inspects it. It is partially melted around its sockets. He notices the organic matter seeping from his computer and touches it, rubbing it between thumb and forefinger.

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INT. A RAILWAY TERMINUS - DAY. Ringo walks among the crowds, hands in his pocket. He approaches a row of lockers, one of which he unlocks using the combination padlock. He takes a clear plastic bag out of his pocket which contains the partially-melted mobile phone, and drops it inside. He locks the door again and walks away. INT. GODOLKINS OFFICE - DAY. Godolkin sits in his office chair, smoking a cigarette. A sign on his desk reads J. GODOLKIN - EDITOR. The walls are adorned with blown-up reproductions of magazine covers in frames. Ringo is standing in a corner, flicking through a stack of photographs of a young female model who appears to be tearing long strips of flesh from her body.