The ongoing adventures of the last three twenty-year-olds on Earth paying for movies.
Alan: Gave up on step 60 of building the Lego Death Star to play Minecraft.
Byron: Built a horse! Look guys, a horse!
Cammy: Made a man-sized Vitruvian Man in blue Lego bricks.
Others rotate in and out.
Byron and Cammie emerge from the William Matarle theater. Byron free-throws a freshly devoured tub of popcorn into a nearby dumpster, where it takes its place beside generations of fallen brothers-in-arms.
BYRON
(Entranced)
Must. Buy. Colored. Blocks.
CAMMY
Wow, I guess tie-in advertising really works. Though that probably isn’t the term when a product’s the main focus of the film. Personally, I’m looking forward to the Play-Doh movie.
BYRON
Advertising can be great! That movie was way better than it had any right to be.
CAMMY
I wouldn’t expect less from the Clone High team.
BYRON
Never heard of it.
CAMMY
Essential viewing for anyone with taste, so you might like it. It was a teen comedy riff starring clones of Abraham Lincoln, Joan of Arc, and Gandhi.
BYRON
That sounds sort of offensive.
CAMMY
That’s because I’m the only thing keeping you from melting into Middle America. You see, I’m playfully teasing you. Because you’re not smart. Get it?
BYRON
Nope.
CAMMY
Want to go to Scurvy Burger?
BYRON
Some other time. I’ve got an odd feeling.
CAMMY
How about Giga Burger?
BYRON
Not right now. Something’s definitely off.
CAMMY
Veggie Burger? I’ll cover it.
BYRON
Never. Burgers without beef are a sin. Right Alan?
The parking lot falls silent. The snark expected never materializes.
BYRON
Oh.
CAMMY
He must have gone home after his “bathroom break.” It wouldn’t be the first time he’s ditched us.
BYRON
Would he leave after seeing Will Arnett’s Batman? The guy has a Nightwing tattoo on his back.
CAMMY
That was the most positive movie we’ve seen in months. His constitution probably couldn’t handle it.
BYRON
I don’t buy that. If he’ll force himself through Batman vs. Dracula, he’ll sit through anything. I think something terrible has happened to him.
CAMMY
Alan views life as something terrible that happened to him.
BYRON
(Sternly)
This calls for extreme measures.
CAMMY
Please don’t.
Undeterred, Byron begins ruffling through his backpack.
BYRON
It’s time for-
CAMMY
Are we doing this in public?
Byron withdraws a corncob pipe and brown longcoat. Both are covered in a thin film of dust predating World War I.
BYRON
Detective Byron!
CAMMY
(Embarrassed to be alive)
If you really want to be Sherlock Holmes, I have some snow at home.
DETECTIVE BYRON
No time. I’m applying the reductive method.
CAMMY
It’s called deductive-never mind. I’m calling Elena. I never should have given you that Sherlock Holmes book, it damaged a delicate ecosystem of illiteracy. Give me a call tomorrow.
DETECTIVE BYRON
But then who’ll be Watson?
CAMMY
Alan can do it after you find him in his room playing “Underdressed Anime Maids.”
DETECTIVE BYRON
That sounds like a lead! I was going to investigate inside the bathroom he disappeared in, but Irene locks up after twelve and I don’t feel like dealing with her. She thinks we’re weird for some reason.
CAMMY
I need Alan here to say something hurtful.
DETECTIVE BYRON
See, you do care!
CAMMY
Deuces.
Cammy heads home, planning to drink half her weight in tequila while browsing animated gifs. Detective Byron enters a brown sedan borrowed from Commissioner Byron’s Dad. Every minute counts. After amusing himself doing donuts in the theater parking lot for an hour, Detective Byron weaves through late night traffic. He stops before the sleepy Atkin’s household, deftly destroying only one mailbox.
DETECTIVE BYRON
Stupid stickshift.
Detective Byron lays out his lockpicking kit before the front door: two bobby pins, a bent credit card, and a stick of gum. As his catlike fingers begin the delicate process, the unlocked front door slides open. There, Alan’s younger sister sits before a Lego recreation of a city skyline.
KAYLA
(Ecstatic)
Auntie Byron!
DETECTIVE BYRON
Your brother is in grave danger.
KAYLA
Want to play blocks?
DETECTIVE BYRON
Not today. I have to focus on my mission. Did you catch the part about your brother? I worked hard on saying that correctly.
KAYLA
Lego bombers sneak into the Lego tower! Boom!
Kayla knocks over her meticulous recreation of the Empire State Building.
DETECTIVE BYRON
Aww.
KAYLA
The Lego mayor gets emergency powers! Everyone out after curfew goes bye-bye!
Kayla adds several dozen Lego policemen and Stormtroopers to the playset. She puts half the civilian population back in the box.
KAYLA
Secret: the Lego Mayor hired the Lego Bombers. Now there aren’t any dumb elections.
DETECTIVE BYRON
…Aww?
KAYLA
The Lego Mayor puts all the Legos in silly blue hats in a fun camp. Nobody leaves the fun camp.
Kayla points towards a black Lego building removed from the rest of the city. It uses several pieces from the Lego Mordor playset.
DETECTIVE BYRON
That’s the line! I’m building a resistance movement.
Byron kneels down and starts giving Lego civilians plastic lightsabers.
KAYLA
They’ll just end up in the fun camps, silly. Nobody crosses the Lego Dictator and lives.
DETECTIVE BYRON
We’ll see.
EXT. CAMMY’S PORCH
Cammy and Elena drink in the former’s front yard. They’re completing the universal human friendship ritual of complaining about the opposite sex.
ELENA
(Incredulous)
Detective Byron?
CAMMY
He’s got a bad case of arrested development.
ELENA
Clearly. Both of those guys do. Alan’s just paranoid, Jeanette has always been full of hot air.
CAMMY
Jean-who-now?
ELENA
Alan kept whining about her last week. And you kept whining about that.
CAMMY
My memory of last week is divided into mushrooms and mushroom hangovers. By the way, you have a terrible dealer.
ELENA
Moochers don’t get to complain. Anyway, I know the girl. Jeanette has been bullshitting about her ‘mob connections’ since high school. She took credit every time someone in town disappeared or got beaten.
CAMMY
Classic attention-seeking behavior.
ELENA
Tell me about it. Two big guys in suits used to follow her around, but she was probably just special ed. She almost had me the time someone wrote “No one jilts Jeanette Sangrovich” in blood before the ashes of her ex-boyfriend’s home. But I know costume blood when I see it. As an actress-
Cammy puts down her shot glass and thinks while Elena describes her rapidly failing career.
CAMMY
…We might have to do something about this.
ELENA
No, just you. I’m not a part of any mishaps, adventures, journeys, hijinks, or crises.
CAMMY
Alan would go after you.
ELENA
Alan would stand in the back and make wisecracks while someone else did the work.
CAMMY
That’s all any of us expect. It’s the modern social contract. Anyone can sit in their yard and laugh at the world. It takes courage to get up and do it from a safe distance, standing behind two large male friends. Coward.
Cammy drives off while Elena shrugs. Several minutes later, Elena realizes Cammy’s taken her car.