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Taylor walking alone across the Gnosis campus.  It is dusk.  There is no snow on the ground, but it clearly cold, as he is wearing a jacket and a hat, and is walking somewhat hunched over, with his hands jammed into his jacket pockets.

CAPTION: “You might want to take some time to think it over,” was what Iris ended with.

Extreme close-up view of a tabletop.  There are some polyhedral dice (four-siders, eight-siders, twenty-siders) and some sheets with what look like crudely-drawn maps visible.

CAPTION: When I was in high school, I did a lot of fantasy role-playing.

View of a knight in badly scratched and dented armor, swinging a battered sword at an ogre.  They are fighting in the midst of some sort of hellish landscape.

CAPTION: In games, your characters would keep going, enduring all sorts of things that no ordinary person would do.

View of the same knight, sitting in front of a fire, with a wizard and a roguish-looking fellow, plus a female elf in a chainmail bikini.

CAPTION: Stay up all night, live in your armor, go charging into battle as long as you had one hit point left. A player-character was nothing like any real human being.

View of two figures, set against an abstract landscape.  One is the knight in armor, now bright and shining, holding his sword and striking a heroic post.  The other is Taylor, in his jacket, cowering.

CAPTION: That’s the difference between fiction and reality.

Taylor standing under a tree (very small), facing away from us.  The tree is large, dark, ominous; its branches are bare.

CAPTION: Reality sucks without you in it, Marie.  I’d rather be a fictional character.

Professor Waite standing in her laboratory, adjusting the X-ray like device over the bed.  Jill is leaning against the wall in the background.  Little Michiko sits on a stool next to her.

WAITE: I can’t believe you actually talked that boy into this.

JILL: It wasn’t that hard.

Close up on Waite, peering into a cavity in her machine.

WAITE: Yes, well, if I were him, I’d be wondering why someone who wasn’t already a woman wouldn’t be volunteering.  Are you sure he’s smart enough?

View of Jill and Little Michiko.  Little Michiko is looking ahead, sternly.  Jill is casting her a sideways glance.

JILL: Not a question of smart.  He’s nineteen, and a boy, and in love.  In short, the kind of hopeless romantic who wouldn’t think to ask.

Close up view of one of Waite’s hands, turning a dial on a control panel.

CAPTION: I just hope you can make him pretty enough.

View of Little Michiko and Jill.  Little Michiko has a wry expression, while Jill has turned to her and looks slightly shocked.

LITTLE MICHIKO: I think he’s rather pretty already.

JILL: Michiko!

Close up on Little Michiko, who looks somewhat irritated.

LITTLE MICHIKO: I hope you haven’t forgotten that I’m not really an eight year-old.

Taylor is standing next to Professor Waite and her apparatus.

TAYLOR: I’m ready.

WAITE: Excellent, Mr. Chase.  Please disrobe completely and lie down on the table.

Taylor in profile in part of the panel, looking nervous.  In the back of the panel we see Little Michiko, still on her stool resting her chin on her palms (elbows on knees, little-girl like).  Jill is standing, also grinning.

TAYLOR: Uh, in front of…them?

Close up on Jill’s face.  She has an eyebrow raised.

JILL: If you have trouble being naked in front of people, Taylor, you’re going to have a hard time on this mission.

View from above.  He is lying naked on he table (his genitals obscured by the apparatus above.  He is strapped down at his ankles and head and one of his wrists.  Waite is fastening the straps on another of his wrists.

CAPTION: Now might be a good time to get used to being tied up, too.

View of Taylor, now standing by the side of the bed.  He is in the process of putting a bathrobe on.

TAYLOR: Committed to what?

View of Taylor standing next to Waite.  She is pointing out a large machine, sort of like an X-Ray machine, that points down at a table, large enough for a human subject to lie on.  The background of the room in which this takes place should be full of cables, wires, computer monitors, and so on.

CAPTION: In a few minutes, in another lab room, Professor Waite explains just what it is that I would be committing to.

Close up of Taylor’s face, wearing an astonished expression.  The background of the panel should be the same collection of techno-stuff we saw in the previous panel.

CAPTION: She says she has the technology for making a woman out of me.  Not just a hormones and surgery sex-change.  A fully biological woman, down to the cellular level.

Micrographic view of of a human cell.

CAPTION: She claims you change the very cells with very precisely managed radiation, making the change complete and undetectable.

View of an oriental slave market, similar to the sorts painted by orientalist painters like Gerome.

CAPTION: You have to admit, there’s nothing like a would-be slave for seeing what slavers are up to.

View of EDITH STERLING, from Teuthology, suspended on her cruciform gurney, mid-way in her transformation from woman to octopus.

It sounds insane, but Professor Waite insists that the technology has been successful in much more radical applications.

View “from the rear” of Jill and Taylor sitting in the back seat of Jill’s car.  It is dark, except for illumination coming from the screen of a netbook computer which is sitting between the two front seats of the car.  Taylor and Jill’s faces are looking at the screen (we should be able to see some of their features becasue they’re 3/4 tunred away).  On the screen we see the words ENCRYPTED CONNECTION ESTABLISHED.

TAYLOR: You don’t think this looks suspicious?

JILL: Why?  High school kids are totally into video chat these days.

Close up view of the screen.  We see IRIS BROCKMAN, conservatively attired in a business suit.  She’s in some sort of high-rise office, and it’s clearly daytime where she is.

IRIS (radio balloon): Greetings Comrade Keeney.  I see you brought the new recruit.

View of Jill’s face, illuminated by the screen of the netbook.  She is wearing a serious expression.

JILL: Can you explain to Taylor here how it’s supposed to work?

IRIS (out-of-panel radio balloon): Sure.

Close up on Taylor’s face, illuminated like Jill’s by the netbook screen.  He is wearing a concerned expression.

IRIS (out-of-panel radio balloon): We’re taking a shot based on our belief that many of Kupler’s clients are orgiasts.  They like group scenes, swapping their slave girls around, and so on.

View of Iris on the netbook screen.  She is leaning forward, looking severe.

IRIS (radio balloon): The organization I work for has a…commercial rivalry with Kupler’s, so we’ve been studying their methods for some time.

View of Iris, in the same position in the panel as the previous panel, except that here we see her swimming underwater, in the cool blue of one of the tanks at the Club Cuisine (from the Study Abroad quasi-screenplay).  She looks happy and serene.

CAPTION: Your organization?

CAPTION: There are some obscenely rich people in the world, kid.  And you would be amazed at the weird kinks vast wealth liberates.

Extreme close-up, showing a tiny transmitter attached to the skin behind a young woman’s ear.

CAPTION: Kupler’s org developed a communications network for keeping track of its…workers.

.View of a large number of very-similar looking young Japanese women, all facing computer monitors, typing (inspired by the data center in Ghost in the Shell as inspiration).

CAPTION: But we’ve hacked their network, and we could track someone on the inside of it, with our proprietary technology.

Frontal view of a naked girl, bound in a frame by her wrists above her and her ankles spread apart.  She has an expression of crying out in pain.  A man behind her in Moorish costume is whipping her.

CAPTION: We have reason to believe that much of what goes on on the inside isn’t very pretty.

View of Iris, in her severe suit, standing in front of a giant glowing board, filled with information.   Se is pointing at something on the board. A JAPANESE BUSINESSMAN stands next to her, observing.

CAPTION: With enough intelligence, we could manage to redeem a few captives while we play merry hell with Kupler’s org.

View back inside the car.  Taylor is seen in profile, looking down at the netbook screen.  Jill’s face, more dimly lit, is in the background.  We see her full on.  She is looking at Taylor with a concerned expression.

TAYLOR: Of course, something pretty terrible might happen to any agent you send in.

View of Iris in her office on the netbook screen.

IRIS (radio balloon): I won’t say it’s not terribly risky.

IRIS (radio balloon): But do you know of any other way to get your girlfriend back?

Close up showing only one of Taylor’s hands.  It is clutching at the ground in a futile attempt to prevent Taylor from being dragged back.

TAYLOR (out-of-panel balloon): No…no…no…

View of Taylor scrabbling at the edge of the open grave, his face frozen in mute horror.

This panel is a P.O.V. of Taylor’s.  Most of it is black, but there is a rectangle in the middle, showing some sky or other feature, which is what Taylor can see out of the open grave he has been dragged into.

CAPTION: There is no fear like this.

Same view as previous panel, except that the rectangle is smaller, as if Taylor has been dragged still deeper into the grave.

CAPTION: I love you, Marie.

This panel is solid black.

Taylor’s P.O.V., except that he his now looking up at the ceiling of Professor Waite’s lab.

A view inside another part of Professor Waite’s laboratory.  This is a room filled with monitors and computers of various kinds.  We see LITTLE WILLIE in profile sitting on a high stool, looking at a computer monitor.

LITTLE WILLIE: Wow. Kid really hangs tough.

A view back inside the laboratory bedroom.  Taylor is sitting up on the side of the bed.  He is naked, but is covering his lap with the sheets.  Jill sits beside him.

TAYLOR: Was that really necessary?

JILL: Let me tell you something, Taylor.

This panel depicts a flashback (to the quasi-screenplay Invisible Girl, Heroine).  The panel is divided by a “cutaway” of a wall.”  Part of the wall is a bondage-like device similar to the “stocks” through which Jill’s (Jill-Prime’s technically) head and hands project.  In a room on this side of the wall sits DR. STRANGEWAYS, who is sitting in a rocking chair and smiling sardonically.  Jill’s face registers a look of shock and pain.  On the other side of the wall is the rest of Jill, on her knees and bent over.  She is bound by her ankles, and naked.  CONGRESSMAN THROTTLEBOTTOM, his pants down, is pentetrating her anally from behind.

CAPTION: The outside Gnosis College is a surpassingly cruel and dangerous place.  I know this from experience.

This panel is also a flashback, showing the murder of Jill (Jill-Prime, technically) from Gnosis Dreamscapes.  We see only her bound hands in the air, and the main rope (from which the rest of Jill is hanging).

JILL: Getting killed is a real possibility too. And believe me, you don’t want to know how well I understand this either.

This page should recap the large orgy scene from the “Odalisque” segment of Study Abroad.  It should be set in some sort of grand Moorish space full of cushions, divans, fountains, etc.  Looming over the panel should be the crucified girl LUDMILLA, while in the foreground we should see both BRIDGET O’BRIAN and DONNA in double rear-entry/performing fellatio poses.  Around the rest of the panel, various other naked people engaged in sex acts and debauchery.

CAPTION: Bridget was involved in stuff with the Kupler organization before.  The tales were not for the faint of heart.

CAPTION: We need someone who’s really tough…

CAPTION: …and committed.

Taylor is in the graveyard, walking among the tombstones, carrying a flashlight.

CAPTION: And yet here I am.  I’m looking for something.

Close-up on Taylor’s face.  He is looking over his shoulder, fearful.

CAPTION: I can sense that damn whispering again right now and…

TAYLOR: What the…

View of a grave.  A great mass of tentacles is erupting from one of the graves.

CAPTION: Oh, SHIT!

Front view of Taylor, front view, in the act of running.

CAPTION: I try to run.  But it’s all a dream.  So it’s like trying to run at the bottom of a swimming pool.

Taylor is seized.  Both of his arms have tentacles wrapped around them.  Another has ensnared his legs, tripping him and pulling him to the ground.

CAPTION: I remember looking at a lot of tentacle porn when I was a high-school geek with an Internet connection.

View of Taylor, suspended in mid-air over the graveyard by the tentacles.  (But most of his head is out of the panel — focus fetishistically on his torso and groin). His shirt has already been torn away.  Other tentacles are tearing away his pants, exposing his cock.

CAPTION: Somehow it’s not nearly as cool when it’s something that’s actually happening to you, rather than some buxom anime babe.

Close-up on Taylor’s bare buttocks.  A penile tentacle is probing and about the penetrate him anally.

CAPTION: I know what…

Same view as before, but the tentacle has penetrated him.

SFX: Schlorrrp!

TAYLOR (jagged, out-of-panel balloon): Arrrgh!

Close up on Taylor’s face, his mouth is open, and he is grimacing in pain.  Another penile tentacle is hovering near his mouth.

CAPTION: I could wake up at any time but..

TAYLOR: Ahhh….

Another close-up on Taylor’s face.  The tentacle has thrust into his mouth.  His eyes are wide, practically bugging out.

CAPTION: “The longer you stick with it, the better you’ll do.”

TAYLOR: Ulp.

Close up on Taylor’s abdomen.  There’s a moving lump (indicate with motion lines) distending the flesh in it.

CAPTION: They just keep thrusting and thrusting.  One keeps moving up…

Taylor’s head an neck.  His head is thrust back, his throat swollen by the tentacle thrusting down into it.

CAPTION: …the other down.

CAPTION: I would vomit if I could...

Taylor in full view, suspended by two tentacles with his arms, held upright, legs pulled apart by two other long tentacles, penetrated by long tentacles orally and anally.

CAPTION: …but I can’t even do that.

Taylor trapped in the same pose as before, except that this time viewed from behind.

CAPTION: I feel like they’re linking up somewhere in my stomach.

Close-up on Taylor’s face in profile.  He’s visible eye is closed, squeezing out a tear.

CAPTION: I could wake up…

CAPTION: “The longer you stick with it, the better you’ll do.”

Same profile view as before, except that in this one the tentacle has just pulled out of Taylor’s mouth, and Taylor’s eye is wide open.

TAYLOR (jagged balloon): Huuukh…uhhk!

View of Taylor from the front. We see his head, chest, and forearms (which are presumably still suspended, so he is hanging in a crucified position).  His head is slumped forward on his chest.

CAPTION: Is that it? Did I pass?

Taylor in the same position as before, except that he has now raised his head and is looking down with horrified expression.

TAYLOR (jagged balloon, large lettering): HOLY LIVING FUCK!

Close up on Taylor’s groin.  A tentacle with a “mouth” on the end is about to bite his cock off.

TAYLOR (out-of-panel balloon): Nooooo…

Taylor’s cock has been bitten off.  He is bleeding copiously from the resulting wound.

TAYLOR (jagged balloon and lettering): Ahhh!!!

Close-up on Taylor’s face, contorted in horrible pain.

CAPTION: Only a dream, only a dream, only a dream

Taylor lying on the ground in the graveyard in a fetal position, his hands over his wound.  He is grimacing in agony.  A pair of fat tentacles are wrapped around his ankles.

CAPTION: “The longer you stick with it, the better you’ll do.”

Taylor is partially up from his fetal position, a look of shock on his face as he looks down at his legs, which are straightening out (indicating that the tentacles are pulling on them).

TAYLOR: Wha?

View of Taylor, now flat on his stomach, looking up.  We see the tentacles dragging him backward toward an open grave.

TAYLOR: NO!

View of Jill and Taylor from the side.  Jill has placed her hand on Taylor’s crotch, and we can see that he is obviously erect.

CAPTION: I have sort of a hard time concentrating…I mean, it’s been weeks since I’ve been this close to a girl and, well…

Same view as before, except that now Jill has clearly grabbed Taylor by the balls and is squeezing, because he has a look of fear and pain on his face.  Jill’s face is wearing an icy smile.

JILL: Of course, if you tell anyone what I’ve just told you…it won’t be at all pretty.

Close up on Taylor’s face.  Beads of sweat have appeared on it.

TAYLOR: Why tell me any of this at all, then?

Close up on Jill and Taylor’s faces.  Jill has let go of Taylor’s balls and is now encircling his head with her arms, and nibbling at his ear again.

JILL: Let me ask you this, Taylor.  How much do you love Marie?  What would you be willing to give up for her?

TAYLOR: Everything.

Close up on Taylor’s crotch.  He’s erect again, and Jill’s fingertips are lightly brushing his trousers against the erection.

JILL (out-of-panel balloon): Everything?

TAYLOR (out-of-panel balloon): Yes, but why ask?

Same view as before, except in this one Jill’s hand has reached for the tab on Taylor’s fly zipper and is beginning to open his fly.

JILL (out of panel balloon): Because you certainly won’t be able to penetrate Frau Kupler’s organization with one of these…

Drawing back from Jill’s car.  We can’t see inside the windows.

CAPTION: It gets more fantastic than that.

Panel from Taylor’s P.O.V.  He is reaching across a desk in a factlty office shaking hands with PROFESSOR REBECCA WAITE.

CAPTION: The next day Jill takes me to the psychology department and introduces me to a Professor Waite.

WAITE: How do you do, young man.

Cutaway view of Waite’s office.  Taylor and Waite are in the act of sitting down.  Jill is leaning against a bookcase further in the background of the panel.

TAYLOR: So why am I here?

WAITE: We’re going to put you through a little…test.

TAYLOR: A test?

Close-up on Jill’s face.  She loooks rather grim.

JILL: We’re going to find out if you really love Marie as much as you say you do.

View from above inside something that looks rather like a hospital room.  There is a narrow bed, which Taylor is lying on, underneath a sheet.  He has apparently disrobed, because we see his bare shoulders a his left arm, extended.  Waite is standing by him, checking a syringe of some kind that she has just filled.

TAYLOR: So what happens now?

WAITE: We shall be inducing a sort of dream state in you…your arm, please.

Close up on Taylor’s arm.  We see his arm, Waite’s hands, and the syringe, with which she is injecting something into his arm.

WAITE (out-of-panel balloon): I’m afraid you might not find what you dream very pleasant.  You can wake up at any time, but the longer you stick with it, the better you’ll do.

Taylor’s P.O.V.  He is lying on his back, so he is looking up at the tiles on the ceiling.

CAPTION: Professor Waite tells me to lie back and just let things happen.  For a little while nothing does.

Another Taylor P.O.V.  He has turned his head to the side, and is looking out in the lab.  LITTLE MICHIKO is standing there, looking at him.

CAPTION: Out of nowhere, this little Asian girl appears.  And stares at me.

Close up on Little Michiko’s face.

CAPTION: She can’t be more than eight years old.  But she’s looking at me like she’s sizing me up.  It’s creepy…

Little Michiko’s face again, this time visible through “ovals,” which black out the borders of the panels (symbolic of Taylor’s falling asleep).

CAPTION: Maybe this little girl is where dreams begin.

Night view of an old graveyard.  There is no moon.  The gravestones are badly weathered and some are leaning.  Illumination comes from a sodium vapor lamp off the street.

CAPTION: The graveyard…

CAPTION: It’s in my hometown.  It’s old.  If you look at the headstones you’ll see the names of people streets and schools are named after in my dying hometown.

Close up on an old tombstone.  Engraved on the tombstone is the legend SYLVANUS MORRIS 1821-1888.

CAPTION: When I was a boy I hated and feared this place, especially at night.

CAPTION: In my imagination I could hear the dead whispering to me, just below the threshold of hearing and yet still there somehow, saying “come join us.”

The lights on, we see JILL KEENEY (well, Jill-Prime, actually, but she’s the successor to the role of Jill Keeney) holding Taylor against the wall with one of his arms held in a hammerlock.

CAPTION: Our of the corner of my eye, I think I recognize this woman.

JILL: What do you think you’re doing, perv?

View of the floor.  We see Taylor’s and Jill’s feet.  Also, the bottle of shampoo, which is spilled where Taylor dropped it.  It is making some ominous bubbles…

CAPTION: I’ve seen her picture in the Illuminator.  She’s Jill Something-or-Other.  Star senior athlete.  Could probably kick my ass without even breathing hard.

TAYLOR (out-of-panel balloon): Please…my name is Taylor Chase…Marie was my girlfriend…

Close up on Taylor and Jill’s faces.  Out of the panel, Jill is twisting Taylor’s arm and Taylor’s face is registering pain and perhaps a degree of panic.  Jill’s face is close by.  She is looking at him with a steely glare.

TAYLOR: No one’s heard of her for weeks…and no one seemed to be doing anything…I’m just trying to find out…

Same pose as before, but both Taylor’s and Jill’s features have relaxed a little bit.

TAYLOR (smaller -lettered balloon): …someone had to try…

Another view from above.  Jill has turned Taylor around and is facing.  She has her hands on his shoulders.

JILL: Maybe you’d better come and talk to me.

Taylor and Jill sitting in the front seat of a small passenger car.  We see them in parallel, in profile.  Jill is driving.  Their faces are illuminated by the lights from the dash.  It is night.

CAPTION: Jill makes us get in her car.  She talks, but only about trivia.  I wonder what’s going on.

View from overhead.  Jill’s car is pulling up in a small parking area, it’s lights on.  There are a few other cars.

CAPTION: We don’t drive far.  Just to the edge of Pleasant Prairie, where there’s a lake.

Front view of Taylor and Jill sitting in the front seat of her car.  Jill is leaning forward to turn on the radio.  Taylor has his head turned, looking at her.

JILL: Get in back.

TAYLOR: Why?

JILL: This is a make-out spot for PP high school kids.  That’s what we’re going to pretend to be doing.

Extreme close-up of Jill and Taylor in low light.  Jill is nibbling at Taylor’s earlobe.

JILL: This is a good way to get close, talk low while playing the radio, and not look…suspicious.  Do you understand.

TAYLOR: Well, yes, but…

Close-up, but not quite as close as the previous panel, showing Jill and Taylor in the back seat of Jill’s car.  Jill has placed her index finger across Taylor’s lips.

JILL: Shut up and listen carefully.

“Helicopter view” of the make-out area, including Jill’s car.  We see that a full moon is shining down.

CAPTION: And so I listen.  I hear a really frightening story.

CAPTION: Jill and some of her friends think they have a lead on some sort of international high-class white-slavery ring.

Close up of COLONEL JEREMIAH MADDER, sitting at a lectern in full dress uniform, lecturing.

CAPTION: In the middle of all the excitement, some spy-guy named Colonel Madder got arrested near Gnosis.

CAPTION: He was mixed up in capturing girls from Gnosis somehow.  Jill refuses to tell me how she could possibly know this.

Close up of BRIDGET O’BRIAN.  We see her head and shoulders, which are bare.  She is floating inside some sort of fluid-filled tube.

CAPTION: Apparently it goes back to something one of Jill’s friends got mixed up when she was doing study abroad.

A view of a naked girl, bound and bent over some sort of hobby-horse.  FRAU KUPLER, clad from head to toe in black leather, is in the process of flogging the naked girl.

CAPTION: Some sort of creepy madam runs an organization dedicated to making girls into sex slaves.

The lobby of the Periclea (an auditorium/theater).  We see Taylor and PAMELA in profile, talking.  Between them a poster advertising VERDI REQUIEM:  STUDENT PERFORMANCE.

TAYLOR: Hey, Pamela…have you seen Marie?  We were supposed to attend together.

PAMELA: Sorry, Taylor.  She slipped away at the gym last night I haven’t seen her since.

Taylor sitting in an Periclea seat.  He’s putting his hand on an adjacent seat waving off another approaching student.

CAPTION: Wonder where she could be?

TAYLOR: Sorry…I’m saving this for someone.

Close up on Taylor’s face, now in the darkened auditorium.  He looks worried.

SFX: Swirling musical score, marked with lyrics “…in die illa tremenda.”

CAPTION: She’s never stood me up before.

Close-up on Taylor, who is rising out of his seat, looking shocked.

TAYLOR: Jesus…

View of the stage in the Periclea.  Chorus and orchestra members are looking around in fear and confusion.  TANYA YIP is holding CONNIE MORTON (the soprano solosit) who has just fallen dead on stage.

CAPTION: Looks like bad times are coming at Gnosis.

Taylor sitting on the edge of his bed, holding a phone.

TAYLOR (into phone): Marie?  Sweetie?  I know everyone’s really shaken up by what happened tonight and I’m really worried and I really need you to call me, okay?

Taylor lies in bed in the dark, alone.

CAPTION: No call ever comes.

An outdoor scene at Gnosis. The campus is covered in snow.  A pair of detectives and a student are standing on a path.  One detective is asking the student questions, while another is writing something down on a a notepad.  In the background, Taylor walks by, his hands jammed into the pockets of a winter coat.

CAPTION: There’s a lot of activity on campus.  People asking questions everywhere

Taylor is standing in the Gadget (the student cafe).  He is holding open a copy of the Gnosis Illuminator (the student newspaper).  One headline on the paper is visible, reading POSSIBLE LEAD IN MORTON DEATH.  In the background we can see a coffee bar with a barista taking someone’s order.  Another male student is looking over Taylor’s shoulder.

CAPTION: One poor girl is dead.  Some other students seem to have disappeared.

Taylor trudging through the snow, alone under a streetlight.  The light illuminates the part of the panel containing Taylor,  The rest is dark.

CAPTION: A week goes by, the two, then three.  In the chaos of events, no one seems to have that much attention for one freshman girl.

Two women walking down a snow-cleared path.  It daylight.  They are looking over their shoulders at Taylor, who is behind them, raising a finger.

CAPTION: But my attention is undivided.

TAYLOR: Hey, can I talk to you women a minute?

Taylor sitting across the table from Pamela in the Gadget.  Both have hot drinks of some kind.  Pamela appears to be talking, and Taylor is leaning forward across the table, listening intently.

TAYLOR: The last person I know to have seen Marie turns out to be her friend Pamela.  They were working out late in the gym.  She says she heard something suspicious shortly after she last saw Marie.

Taylor stands with one hand on a pair of double doors labeled WOMEN’S LOCKER ROOM.  He is looking around rather nervously.

CAPTION: For some reason, I think that playing CSI will help, somehow.

View “from above” as Taylor enters the locker room.  It is dark.  He is illuminating the path in front of himself with a flashlight.

CAPTION: I really, really hope that no one is in here.

Someone in quick sequence turned on the lights in the room (SFX:  CLICK!), grabbed Taylor from behind (we see this person hands pushing Taylor hard forward) and shoved him up against the lockers (SFX, large letters:  SLAM!).  The bottle of shampoo that Taylor was smelling before is spilling out of his hand.

TAYLOR: Fuck!

A view inside a locker, which Taylor has just opened.  There is a towel, some toiletries.

CAPTION: Marie’s locker.  Didn’t Pamela say she told her she was going to the showers?

Reverse view of the previous panel.  Taylor’s face is illuminated by the glow of his flashlight, which he has set down.  He has taken a bottle from the locker, opened it, and is smelling it with an enraptured expression. In the ground (unseen by Taylor) a vague outline of a face can be seen.

CAPTION: I remember this smell…her hair…and yet it’s off a little somehow…

Close up view of Taylor and Marie’s hands, which are clasped together (a continuation of the action from the previous panel, they are still walking along but are now holding hands).

CAPTION: Her name was Marie.

Taylor and Marie sitting side-by-side in an auditorium.  They are watching a movie, their faces illuminated with a ghostly glow from the screen.  Marie’s head is on Taylor’s shoulder.

Taylor and Marie in the Gadget, sitting across from each other over coffee, gazing into each other’s eyes.

Same panel as before, except that they are leaning across the table at one another, kissing.  One of their coffee mugs has been knocked over and spilled.

Taylor and Marie are together on a bed.  Both are kneeling, with Taylor behind Marie.  Both are still wearing underpants, and Marie’s bra has come unhooked and fallen around her waist.  Taylor is reaching around, feeling Marie’s breasts.  He is leaning forward to kiss her, while Marie has turned her head around to meet his kiss, her mouth open in anticipation.

CAPTION: There was a moment where I feel like the luckiest guy ever born.

Taylor and Marie under the sheets, copulating in the missionary position.  We see them in profile, heads and shoulders visible above the sheets.  Taylor’s face wears an appropriate expression of climax, while Marie is smiling blissfully.

CAPTION: You’d have to be a pretty unlucky guy not to have at least one moment like that in your life.

An elegant, high-rise cityscape.

CAPTION: Marie wasn’t like me at all.  She was a big-city girl, with a trust fund…and indifferent parents.

Border of the panel should be somewhat puffy (indicating that it is Taylor dreaming or fantasizing).  Taylor’s head, eyes closed, should appear in the lower-right part of the panel.  Inside the panel, a riot of images indicating Marie in a variety of interesting sexual adventures.  This can be largely artist’s choice, but should include at least one multi-partner scene, one with bondage, and one lesbian encounter.

CAPTION: A lot of guys might have been made jealous at hearing about all the stuff Marie had tried.

CAPTION: Not me, though.  I found it amazing to hear about all the things she said she’d been through.  It was a real turn-on.

Marie in a swanky gown, sitting at a tiny table in what looks like a stylish nightclub.  Her hair has been made up, and she is looking out of the panel at the viewer with an appraising expression on her face.

CAPTION: She might have been only a freshman like me, but she already had…some adventures in her life.

Taylor and Marie, seen from the head up, lying in bed (their heads on on a pillow).  Taylor is looking up with an amazed expression on his face.  Marie is lying with her face in profile, her lips near Taylor’s ear, whispering something in it.

CAPTION: And Marie liked to share

Taylor tied naked to a bed (the P.O.V. involves looking down at him, as if we were a fly watching from the ceiling).  We see Marie from behind.  She is naked except for a pair of high, black-leather …books and is holding a riding crop.

CAPTION: I suppose she could have been making some of it up, but she sure had lots of interesting ideas.

A view of a wrought-iron gate, with MOTHER SUPERIOR EUPHEMIA (from the script Progress in Research) behind it, frowning.

CAPTION: Sometimes I thought Marie was lucky not to have been sent next door to Mary Magdalene College.

Portion of a campus map, showing Gnosis and Magdalene right next door to one another.

CAPTION: Where (rumor has it) a lot of problematical girls get sent by their rich families.  It’s right next door to Gnosis…

CAPTION: …but just try getting in there without permission!

A frat-house party.  Marie is standing on a table, somewhat scantily dressed, dancing.  A bunch of disheveled, intoxicated-looking frat guys are watching her.

CAPTION: Not that any walls would ever have been likely to hold Marie.  She was a real free spirit.

This panel reproduces the scene in Gnosis Dreamscapes, with Marie having sex with JOHN SAMSON in front of her three amazed friends.

CAPTION: I know sometimes she did stuff with other guys.  She even told me about it.

Taylor sitting on the side of a bed, holding Marie crosswise on his lap.  She is kissing him,

CAPTION: But really, I could cope with the hijinks and the open relationship stuff.  I felt blessed for every minute we had together.

A teen-aged TAYLOR CHASE is walking down a corridor in a high school.  He is alone, walking head-down, stoop-shouldered.  Behind him a big athletic guy is surrounded by admiring high-school girls.

CAPTION: I didn’t really amount to much in high school…

Taylor sitting around a table with a couple of other teen-aged guys in what looks like a den in one of their parents’ basements.  They shouldn’t be good looking guys — at least one should be overweight, one should have glasses, and another a bad case of acne.  Books and dice sit on the table.  In the background on the wall, some sort of poster from a Japanese anime series

CAPTION: The closest I ever got to girls were in role-playing fantasies…

Long view of a shabby-looking main street of a small town.  Taylor is walking along it, a tiny figure.

CAPTION: Pickings would have been a little slim in they dying town I grew up in.

Taylor, surrounded by other students (he’s mid-panel) taking the SAT.

CAPTION: But I had an aptitude for tests, and there was a college that wanted people from “non-traditional” backgrounds.

A title panel page.   A long view of Gnosis College, looking idyllic.  “Old Bricks,” the central building, is in view.  Title reads:  GNOSIS QUEST, CHAPTER TWO:  TIRESIAS

CAPTION: And so I got a scholarship to go somewhere really cool.

A long view down a seminar table.  The table is covered with books and notebooks and surrounded by students.  At the head of the table sits a PROFESSOR, while around the table sit various STUDENTS.  Taylor is sitting just to the Professor’s left, and appears to be in the act of speaking, gesticulating to make a point.  Everyone appears to be listening to what Taylor has to say.

CAPTION: It was so cool to be around people who actually seem to care about ideas.  No one at home was like that.

Taylor with about half a dozen other students, sitting around a table in a Gnosis cafeteria.  Trays with various people’s lunches are sitting on the table. The students are laughing, apparently having shared a really funny joke.

CAPTION: And people here are fun. You can actually talk to them and enjoy yourself.

A party scene.  Lots of students standing around talking, holding cups of beer.  Taylor is in the center of the panel.  He is looking away from us, catching in a corner of the panel a glimpse of MARIE OLDEN, who appears to be winking at him.

CAPTION: But the one thing that was really special here…

Taylor and Marie are walking side-by-side along a slated path.  It is autumn, made clear by fallen leaves in the breeze and on the ground around them.  Taylor is looking at Marie, somewhat rapt.  Marie is smiling, in the act of saying something.

CAPTION: …was just one person.