Proud is a sci-fi story about Jaime, a enlisted young medical transport pilot who just underwent great trauma and distress, and her way to rediscover faith and trust. Don't want to spoil any plot here, please continue to read!
“PROUD”
By
Dan Qiao
FADE IN:
INT. MILIATRY RESIDENTIAL CHAMBER IN ASTROID SED876 – NIGHT
JAIME, a mid-20ish female, steps into her room—-it is a well-lit, tiny, sparsely adorned room. A door leading to bathroom, a retracted bed, and a small metal table all are what we can see now. There are no personal belongings, or at least we are not seeing any, yet.
Jaime takes off her coat and places it on the hanger behind the door. She presses her palm in a mini console mounted on the wall near her. Several hologram interfaces appear on the wall, and then floats off from it. She walks towards the bed, the interface following her.
She sits on the bed, the light around her dims down. We are in complete darkness for a few seconds. And then, when the light comes up again, we see the room again, but it is now populated with projected holograms, not real, but real enough to fool human eyes. We see a window being projected onto the wall where Jaime is facing. Outside the window, it is a very simple, yet comforting looping street view video, shot somewhere on earth -- the used-to-be home.
There are more traces of personal belongings everywhere now —— books, photo frames, little decoration, etc. But they are not real, just data represented in skeuomorph way. If we watch closely and carefully, we will see a lot of stuffs in the room has a name "Nick Shaw" on them. Jaime grabs the fake photo frame in the fake nightstand. Zoom in, we see a younger version of her standing right next to a man. He is much older than Jaime, wearing full body armors, a three-star insignia on his sleeve. They are among people —— new military recruits, we can tell that from their clothing. The similar facial features of Jaime and the man suggests that they are closely related. She is smiling, unfazed. He is not.
She stares at the photo, and then puts it away quickly as if she couldn't bring herself to look at it anymore. She turns, faces the interface, plays around. She selects the “projection” option in the interface, and then chooses one random hologram projection file from the “earth“ folder.
The room changes again. We are still in the room, but feels like we are not anymore, because of the hologram projection. We are now clearly high above, somewhere in a tall building’s rooftop. The view presented in front of us is an almost infinite span of a futuristic city landscape. Earth, beautiful, missable, but we can get a feeling that crisis is creeping under its peaceful shell.
Not satisfied, Jaime clicks the ”civilian” option in the interface. And now we are among people, or below them, dwarfed because of those out-of-proportion figures. Jaime sizes the projected hologram figures around her, making sure they are of correct proportion. She plays around with projection options, until it feels she is among people, a lot of them. Some hologram figures clip through her body while she is playing around with the floating hologram interface, reminding us that all those things around her are fake, merely a visual sensation.
She stands with those fake civilian for a while, lost in her own thought. Until a pop-up ruins the moment.
It is a call. From GINA. All the hologram projection goes static. Jaime blinks, hesitating. Finally, she accepts the call. The hologram projection around her starts to play, again. The only difference is that now Gina’s hologram image is among them. She is probably at her early 30s, short, lean, but aggressive.
GINA
(In a sarcastic tone)
Having fun with your little toy again? Pardon me for ruining the R&R time.
Gina lets out a cruel, mocking laugh.
GINA
Huh, never seen anyone missing the old life so much as you do.
Jaime tilts her head a bit, remains silent.
GINA
I need a favor from you.
Jaime just shakes her head. The smile on Gina’s face flickers away. Strangely, she looks less threatening when she is not smiling.
GINA
I will take that as a yes. Meet you at the old spot.
JAIME
I can’t keep doing it, Gina. They are going to find out... I will definitely get kicked out if...
Her voice catching hard, pleading.
GINA
But that’s none of my business.
The call ends. Gina’s hologram disappears. Jaime sighs. She turns off all the hologram projection around her. We are back to the simple, depressing, sparsely adorned room we see in the beginning.
INT. HANGAR IN MEDICAL CENTER – NIGHT
Jaime walks out of elevator into the hangar in a greenish medi-tech outfit. The name tag on her chest reads ”J Shaw, EMT, pilot”. She brushes past several ground crews standing in front of the elevator door. Her face straight, lip pressed as a thin line. In front of her we see nothing but a mess. Small medivac vessels lining up waiting to take off, medical technicians running around with stretcher bots, cleaning bots buzzing, cleaning the blood traces on the ground. We hear people's voice and on-air war report, they are loud, and unrecognizable. Jaime keeps walking, expressions hard to read. Someone behind Jaime calls her name. She turns and looks at where the voice comes from. It is CONOR. In his name tag we read "C.L.Mack, EMT, paramedic". He is wearing a similar uniform. He is weathered, older, but clearly more vivacious.
CONOR
Hi, partner.
Jaime gives him a simple nod and keeps walking. Conor follows her, stares at the dark circles under her eyes.
CONOR
Still baffle me how you generation manages to function without enough sleep.
JAIME
I am not in the mood, Conor.
Conor eyes Jaime, traces of genuine concern on his face.
CONOR
Is there something bugging you?
Jaime stops, her expression softens a bit. And then she starts to walk again.
JAIME(RELAP)
Let’s save the talk for later.
INT. MEDEVAC VESSEL - NIGHT
They walk together towards a vessel, a rather small one. Jaime enters first, slams herself in the pilot seat. Conor follows her, sits down on the sidewalk seat and put on the safety restraint. The vessel roars with throttling sound when it takes off. They keep silent for a while. Until Conor speaks again.
CONOR
It’s a long ride. We can talk.
Jaime sighs, puts the vehicle on auto-pilot mode and pushes her seat back a bit. She relaxes into the seat, staring at the infinite sky unfurled around her.
JAIME
Gina is asking for it again.
Conor shakes his head slightly.
CONOR
I am not helping you this time.
JAIME
You know her. It doesn’t seem that we have a choice.
Conor sighs. He turns behind and stares at the locked translucent medical supply shelf on the rear part of vessel.
CONOR
I just don’t understand. Why she needs medical supplies?
JAIME
Not only her wants the drugs. Sell them, on them, or both. I don’t know. I don’t care. Just give her what she need and get this over with. I don’t want to get roughed up by her or other assholes again.
Conor holds silent.
EXT. SPACE – NIGHT
The vessel streaks above darkness. And then we spot something glowing in a distance. The vessel is slowly approaching it.
Camera cuts back to the interior of the vessel, Jaime switches the mode of vessel from autopilot to manual control. We see her maneuvering the vessel towards something that's glowing in a distance. As we get closer and closer, we start to get a better look of the glowing thing – it is a giant carrier. The temporary waystation for medical transfer. Their destination.
JAIME
Station, RT78 requests permission to land.
FEMALE VOICE (V.O., PRELAP)
Copy. RT78, Go for runway 3-B. You are clear to land.
EXT. HANGAR OF MEDEVAC WAYSTATION CARRIER – NIGHT
Jaime lowers the vessel and taxis it to the runway. The vessel slows down.
INT. HANGAR OF MEDEVAC WAYSTATION CARRIER – NIGHT
The vessel enters the hangar, and stops precisely at the reserved parking lot. Jaime pulls off the safety restraints, climbs out of her seats. Conor stands up as well. He picks up two helmets, hands one to Jaime. They take a few minutes to put on their helmet before exiting the sliding stern door.
They are met by a female medi-tech who wears similar helmet and outfit.
JAIME
What do we get today?
MEDI-TECH
Soldiers injured in TG 819, and several civilians.
JAIME
Rebellion fleets?
MEDI-TECH
Yeah.
CONOR
But area starts with TG is not warzone.
MEDI-TECH
It is now.
CONOR
Damn, those fucking rats never get tired...
While they are talking, four stretcher bots with injured soldier on it shows up and moves towards them. Jaime, Conor and the medi-tech stops talking. Jaime opens the stern door, and moves out of the way so the bots can get into the vessel.
Jaime gets back to her pilot seat, starts the engine.
EXT. SPACE – NIGHT
We see Jaime walks towards the rear part of the vessel, where Conor and the injured soldier are.
She stands there, staring at Conor while he is tending the wounded. Her gaze moves from Conor to a soldier near her. His gear is broken and ragged, face and exposed arm covered in half-transparent bandages, we can clearly see bullet holes, scars, and burnt, ruined flesh under it. Jaime turns her face away, she doesn't like the sight.
Jaime walks to the locked medical supply shelf, trying to unlock it by putting her thumbs on the small touch pads. It beeps, but nothing happens.
JAIME
I need to borrow your finger for a moment.
CONOR
No, not this time.
Conor is still tending the soldiers. He is trying to clean and patch up smaller wounds of those soldiers, and giving them injection. A tedious work, but he is doing it seriously. Jaime points at the infusion monitor on the wall.
JAIME
Just tell the base we need more doses. People are getting hurt every day. No one will ever notice.
CONOR
No.
He finally deflects his attention from his work and faces Jaime. He is determined.
JAIME
Come on. You don't want to piss her off. You don't want our next mission ends up being a trip to the warzone, would you?
CONOR
These are war supplies, Jaime.
Jaime stares at him, speechless. She lowers her head, glimpse at several small injection bottles in the stand. She grabs them quickly.
JAIME
Then I am taking these, better than nothing.
Conor stares at her, surprised, clearly disappointed at the same time. He opens his mouth, as if he wants to say something and hesitates. Finally, he utters.
CONOR
Lt.Shaw wouldn’t want to see you like that.
This works. Jaime stares at Conor, broken, distressed.
JAIME
If my brother is there, he would never let anyone pick on me.
Her shoulder trembles.
JAIME
You joined the army voluntarily, Conor. You are up for the shit.
JAIME(CONT'D)
But I am here for my brother. He is dead!
JAIME(CONT'D)
Fucking war never ends...I just want to go home now...
Conor stares at her, not sure what to say or do. He approaches her, trying to take the bottle from her hand gently. She struggles，but finally let go of the bottles.
CONOR
Nick would be proud to see you stand up for yourself.
Jaime turns away from Conor and returns to her pilot seat. We couldn’t see her expression, but from the sound she makes we could tell she is sobbing, but very, very softly.
FADE OUT