Clark's Logs, Session 12

ECU of CLARK’s eyes, pupils dilated.  Heavy breathing can be heard as the camera zooms out on CLARK’s face, covered with sweat and specks of dried blood.  He sits with his back to a low stone wall, plumes of smoke rising up from behind it.  The sounds of shouting and gunfire can be heard, but their quality is muted and dreamlike, showing them to be in CLARK’s head.  As the view zooms out to a CU, CLARK is holding a hand clamped over his bleeding left arm.  The ComGuard are climbing over the wall to secure the convoy as CLARK casts a panicked look around the forest’s edge.  His eyes fall on a GARTER SNAKE curled up in a crevice at the base of the wall - the only animal not to have fled the recent battle.

CLARK

Well, hello there.

SNAKE

…

CLARK

You must still be cold from last night, huh?  I guess it’s

still early in the day.  I’ve never done so much so early.

SNAKE

…

CLARK

Well, don’t worry.  You’ll have time to warm up, yet.  We

won’t hurt you. Not like...what happened to those guys.

CLARK jerks his head back over his shoulder.  The SNAKE twitches a bit, but otherwise seems to only just be rising out of torpor.  CLARK shakes his head.

CLARK

That was insane.  Honest and truly.  Never been through

anything like that before.  I can’t believe I’m still alive.  I

thought running afoul of TerraSec was bad, but that giant gun...

CLARK shudders and clutches his injured arm more tightly.  His perforated left hand is elevated on a jutting stone.

CLARK

I hope I never have to do something like that again.  And yet, it

was kind of...exhilarating.  At first it was just loud and terrifying,

and then I got shot and it was loud and terrifying and painful, but

I could hear Alex yelling for me to get up and pull myself together.

I don’t know how I did it, but I did.  I got back up.  I shouldered

that giant damn machine.

The SNAKE catches a stray ray of sunlight and moves its head feebly, trying to soak up the warmth.  CLARK seems to take this as a sign of rapt interest.

CLARK

And, you know what?  We blew that armored vehicle to pieces.

Punched in its rear armor like a bullet collapses a lung.  And

damn if I didn’t feel a rush!  I whooped, I screamed, and in that

second, I understood how anybody could be a soldier.  There’s

something primal about combat.  But I guess I don’t have to tell

YOU that.

SNAKE

…

CLARK

Is it wrong, though?  I mean, of course killing people is wrong.

But the Word has done that, and much worse, and they’re not

going to stop until they’ve strangled the life out of my beloved

Terra and crushed the whole universe underfoot.  They’re

maniacs.  No doubt they say the same things about us.

CLARK shifts a bit and hisses a bit, breathing in sharply as he jostles his injured arm unintentionally.

CLARK

I can’t get philosophical now.  I can’t afford it.  People are

counting on me.  When I saw Alex go down, my training took

over.  It’s because of that he’s still alive.  Maybe I can still

save a few more lives today.  Alex doesn’t seem happy with

poor Simon for running off.  Can’t say I wasn’t tempted to

do the very same thing.  Shin got shot when he was taking that

truck, and our Resistance allies...it sounds like they really

took some casualties.  But with my arm like this, I don’t know

how much I can do.

SHIN MAGNUSSON, huge and hulking, returns from securing the cargo truck, and wordlessly hands CLARK a single singed piece of paper.  CLARK’s eyes dart over the page, his eyebrows raising.  OSS to the document, clearly showing the Word of Blake’s citation of CLARK’s post-doctoral dissertation.  A low growl escapes the veterinarian’s lips, and he stands up without flinching.

CLARK

They cited me here.  They took my research and used it to

create an incubator for the most deadly biological weapons

that Terra has ever seen.  I was doing that research to preserve

the Branth species, expand its opportunities for colonization

outside its native range on Lopez in case a catastrophe

destabilized its home ecosystem.  They took that and they

twisted it, and now, everyone who dies from one of these

infections is my responsibility.  They won’t get away

with it.

The SNAKE begins to move sluggishly, uncoiling itself and slithering slowly across the leaf litter in search of a better place to bask.  CLARK nods.

CLARK

Good.  You’re awake.  I’m awake, now, too.  It’s time

for me to make good.  Before, this was about right

and wrong.  Important, but abstract.  Now, it’s personal.

And I’ll be damned if the Word of Blake is going to use

MY research to take more innocent lives.  I’ll stop them, and

they’ll rue the name they ever heard the name Clark

Cameron.

CLARK looks around, hearing the moans of the wounded, and seeing his injured teammates scrambling.

CLARK

I’ve got a job to do.