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.Escape from Land of the Giants Season 3	By : keithcompany Category: G through L > Land of the Giants Views: 1785 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the Land of the Giants show, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 10
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- 12
Episode 3-11: Good Luck Vertag.

(Open in Vertag's office. He's at his desk. Stogga knocks on the door. Vertag waves him in)

Vertag: Stogga! Come in, come in.

Stogga: (enters and sits across from Vertag) You wanted to see me, sir?

Vertag: Yes. I have your eval, here. (slides a piece of paper across the desk. Stogga picks it up and glances over it.)

Stogga: Sir? This is a transfer eval?

Vertag: It's an end-of-tour evaluation. I'm very impressed with your abilities and I noted-

Stogga: Sir? Am I transferring?

Vertag: Probably. It seems likely.

Stogga: Why is that?

Vertag: Well, we've very likely gathered up all the Earthlings we're going to. There are a very few in custody that... Well, Dordell's people are undercover to find them. I'm not going to need as many agents if we're just going to be hosting the skirries patients.

Stogga: But if I haven't gotten transfer orders, why am I getting a transfer eval?

Vertag: I just want to make sure everything I wanted to say is written down, in case something...happens.

Stogga: Something?

Vertag: Well, we've also found a record number of rebels. If we get awarded for that, people might get transferred rather suddenly. If you or I get yanked for another special assignment (he gestures at the eval), then there's no chance that the important paperwork gets lost in the scramble.

Stogga: Oh. Well, that makes sense, sir. Thank you, sir. It's just...

Vertag: What?

Stogga: (looks around room suspiciously) Well...

Vertag: You did hear that Dordell pulled all his agents off surveillance, right? He's got so many prisoners to transfer, guard, interrogate, counter interrogate and he needs people to monitor the interrogations. Plus the forensics at the morgue and running down leads.

Stogga: Oh. Well, then, there are rumors. (lowers voice) That the Directorate is not happy with you.

Vertag: I know. I'm waiting for them to decide just how unhappy they are, and whether they need me to keep the Earthlings happy.

Stogga: Sir! I want you to know that if-

Vertag: And I want YOU to know that if you're ordered to do something, you are to obey those orders. Okay?

Stogga: But sir...

Vertag: I may have stepped on some political toes. I may even have been chosen for this post exactly because of my political history. You were not chosen to become tainted by my example. Are you loyal to SID, Agent Stogga?

Stogga: Well if they're about to arrest you for doing-

Vertag: Are you loyal to SID, Agent Stogga? (gestures around his ear, people are listening)

Stogga: (nods, shoulders slump, voice rises) Of course I am, Agent Vertag. It may seem unnecessary or counter to policy to arrest you... But if the Directorate orders it, I will assume that they have a good reason for it.

Vertag: And you will....?

Stogga: Obey my orders, sir.

(Cut to a dark room where Dordell sits next to a tape recorder. Vertag's voice is heard as Dordell picks up a clipboard. A closeup shows that there is a sheet of paper with the names of the minions assigned to the Exchange. Next to Stogga, he writes: Loyal)

Vertag(voice): Good man. Look those over, sign them, then have Lessala messenger them over to Dordell.

Stogga (voice): Yes, sir.

(Cut back to Vertag's office. Stogga shakes Vertag's hand and walks out. Vertag calls to his back)

Vertag: Send Gulldo in here, will you? (pulls out another folder and sets it on the desk)

(Cut to the Security Tent. Brown and Adams listen as we hear Vertag's voice)

Vertag (voice): Gulldo! Come in, come in.

Gulldo (voice): (enters and sits across from Vertag) You wanted to see me, sir?

Vertag (voice): Yes. I have your eval, here

Brown: Does he really think we'd pick the cancer cure over him?

Adams: Don't you?

Brown: Sir?

Adams: No matter how many lives he saves, no matter how many humans here like him or trust him, if it's a choice between our sick children or the career of a secret police force giant cop in the service of a tyrannical...

Brown: Okay, okay. I see what you're saying.

Gulldo (voice): Sir? Are you transferring?

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Roll Titles

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(Open in Lessala's office. She's crumpling up pages of the newspaper and tossing them in the wastebasket. There's a large pile in the basket, a larger number of paper balls spread around it Vertag steps out of his office as she tosses one that misses.)

Vertag: Wow. You are horrible at that.

Lessala: Good news is, I have nothing but time to practice.

Vertag: Well, I can't help. Janet says she wants me to look at something. I may be out of the office for a while.

Lessala: Can I come? (another shot. Makes it) Not much to do between administering the skirries tank doses.. (shot, misses. Vertag steps over to pick up a handful of balls.)

Vertag: I think they'll be changing that soon. (steps back to where she sits. Tosses four balls, all four go in.)

Lessala: But changing to what, though?

Vertag: Probably taking away all my minions, transferring me to headquarters for debriefing, and giving you some healthy severance pay. (tosses one more, Lessala whips out a knife and throws it. Ball is caught in mid-air and stuck to the wall.)

Lessala: I get severance pay? When has the Directorate done that?

Vertag: It's what the Earthlings will expect. They're going to want to keep the Earthling's happy about you getting fired. And tell them I'm getting promoted. (another ball, another knife, another skewered moving target)

Lessala: Are you?

Vertag: Anything's possible. (another ball, another successful knifing) Now, why can't you do that with well with the paper?

Lessala: It's hard to convince my hand that a paper ball is a weapon.

Vertag: What if they were names of Directors? And that's an assassin's inbox?

(Close up of the wastebasket. Seven paper balls fly rapidly into the mouth, perfectly tossed)

Lessala: (voice) Coooooool. (fade out)

(Fade in inside one of the Marine tents. Janet spreads some (human scale) cards on a table in front of most of the officers.)

Janet: So, the various figures in the margin are a puzzle, telling us which CARDS are important. Then the melted club signs line up to tell us which parts of the card's symbology are important.

(Peterson leans way over to squint at the cards.)

Peterson: I can't...

Brown: That's how hard it would be for the giants to see on their cards.

Perez: Without a Seeing Eye human to show it to them.

Janet: Exactly.

Brown: But the team on Earth sent us this. (Clicks a remote. A projector in the overhead shines an image down on the table. The tarrat spread has red dots here and there, which spread out into circles. Those are projected on a map of the giants' planet. Dotted lines show up here and there, and a big star on the southern continent. One of the circles on the spread is aligned to the star.)

Brown: And that is the city Vertag's book identifies as the first city. That's the reference. So starting from that, the Order can be found...

(Cut to a forested ravine, Vertag walking through it. Sheer rock walls are visible between/beyond the trees. He checks his hand held from time to time.)

Vertag: Here?

Janet: (in the holster, with her own electronic display.) Yeah. Here.

(He spins around. The camera does too. Rocks, trees, more trees, unrelieved undergrowth (no stamped path) rocks again, and back to a curious looking Vertag)

Vertag: Huh. Well, look at...that.

Janet: What were you expecting? A lobby?

Vertag: At least an information kiosk.

Janet: You guys have information kiosks?

Vertag: Sure. And as long as you're okay with Directorate Security knowing what you're asking questions about, they're very useful.

Janet: Of course. Well, what now?

Vertag: (still looking around) Well...(pauses) Does that rock look familiar to you? (Points. Cut to a rock face that might have a certain bas relief outline of the Tower.)

Janet: It's a rock. We've been walking by rocks all morning. And part of last night. Ever since we snuck out of Coastal City, really.

Vertag: I think it's a tarrat card. (walks over and feels along the sides of the tower shape. )

Janet: (hanging before the rock face, sees a small indentation) Hey! What's that?

Vertag: A window in the Tower? (he lifts her up to it. She finds a small button in the rock. Shrugs and presses it. The rock face opens up, moving silently and smoothly, revealing a dark cave)

Janet: Ooooh. Spooky.

Vertag: (shakes his head) The Chaplain showed me some ghost stories. If the door had creaked that'd be spooky. (he walks in. Just as he steps inside the door swings shut. It creaks as it does, classic horror movie sound)

Janet (voice): Vertag?

Vertag (voice): Not a word, Janet. Not a word.

(Cut to inside the cave. Vertag turns on a flashlight. It's a narrow passage carved through the stone, dingy in the light of his flashlight.)

Janet: This is the home of the smartest people on two planets?

Vertag: Obviously, humans are in charge of the mood lighting.

Janet: Har, dee, har, har.

(He steps slowly through the cave. Kneels to sweep the floor with his fingers)

Vertag: Dusty. No one's been through here in a while.

Janet: Like, no one since breakfast or since the Excelsior started to orbit?

Vertag: Can't really tell. Depends on how sealed the place is, how ventilated. (stands and continues down the passage. There's a doorway on one side of the wall. He pokes his head and flashlight around the corner carefully, then steps into the doorway)

Janet: Was this on purpose?

(The room has a number of wooden desks, all shoved to one side, some on their sides. A large pile of paper and wood lumps in the middle. The wood is splintered and the paper torn. Vertag steps in, light spreading to cover the corners. He picks up a piece of the paper. There is some lettering on it.)

Janet: What is it?

Vertag: A scroll. In a language I don't recognize.

Janet: Our computers could-

Vertag: Uh...let's not plan how we're going to loot the place until we find the owners.

Janet: Okay. What's that?

(Vertag scans a table in the corner. There are more desks on the table, all scaled for human occupancy)

Vertag: Well, they always did say it was a two-scaled operation.

Janet: Was?

(he scans the flashlight around and finds another door, on the wall of the side that leads into the ground (in the same direction as the passageway they came up))

Vertag: I think I wanna see what's behind there.

Janet: And if the door creaks?

Vertag: Hush, you. (he steps over)

Janet: Oh? What are you going to do about me?

Vertag: Put you in a red, skintight suit, with a tail and horns, then carry you on my shoulder and say you're my conscience.

Janet: You-!

(before she can protest too much, he throws the door open and waves his flashlight around. There's nothing but another hallway, stretching farther than the light will shine.)

Vertag: This may take a while. (fade out)

(Fade in to another spot in a dark passage. Vertag steps into an intersection. He notes that some of the passage walls have chalk marks)

Vertag: Okay. Been there, let's try this one. (marks a wall and starts to go down it)

Janet: I just hope there's something different down here.

Vertag: Be careful what you ask for.

Janet: What? Rooms and halls, smashed scrolls, torn paper and other signs of careful destruction. It's getting boring.

Vertag: I think it's an enticing mystery.

Janet: You just wanna decode the place. (Vertag grunts an affirmative. There is a click. Vertag pauses to see if he hears it again. His hand lowers and the flashlight shines near the floor.)

Janet: Hey!

Vertag: What?

Janet: What's that? (She points down. There's a human sized door on the wall. Vertag looks at it, then shines his flashlight up and down the passage, back to the door)

Vertag: You wanna go through that, don't you?

Janet: It's got to be more interesting than watching you not find anything.

(He grunts again, lowers her to the ground and watches her open the door. She shines her flashlight through, nods to him and walks on.)

Vertag: (hand to his ear) Radio check. (silence) Janet? Radio Check! (he bends down to shine the flashlight into the human door)

Janet: (voice) I'm fine, you big baby! I think this is a barracks.

Vertag: For humans?

Janet: (voice) No, for SID agents. Just ones without great big egos so they fit through the door.

Vertag: Alright. (stands and sees another door further down the tunnel. This one is his size) Hey? There's a giant ego door just down the way.

Janet: (voice) Check it out, I'll be here a while.

Vertag: I don't want to leave you alone.

(Cut to inside the room. Janet stands at the foot of a line of bunks stretching off into the darkness)

Janet: It's just a lot of beds, Vertag. I'm guessing the same thing's in that next room. Go find out.

Vertag: (voice) If you're sure...?

Janet: The only thing more boring than counting bunks is sitting in your pocket as you do it. GO!

Vertag: (voice) Yes, ma'am. (light from his flashlight stops shining through the door. Giant footsteps recede)

Janet: Well, okay then. (she starts walking along the row of beds. They're all bare mattresses. She opens one or two footlockers to find them empty.)

Vertag: (voice over her earpiece) Yep. Bunks. Room for people. Lots of people.

Janet: (taps her ear) Here, too. I wonder where the people went to. (The room has an elbow. In the middle of the passage at the bend of the angle is another pile of torn scrolls and shattered wood. This pile is half-burned. She pokes through it a bit, them moves around it. She's still kind of looking at it as she moves on) Vertag, there's a pile of torn scrolls in here, too. But-

Vertag: (voice) But it's partially burned? Because my pile is.

Janet: Yeah, it- (she sees something in another bed. She turns her face and the flashlight to find a desiccated corpse laying there in repose) EEEEEEEEK!

Vertag: (voice) And now you found the bodies.

(Cut to Vertag in the giant bunkroom. The layout is like the one Janet's in, but fewer bunks. The ones next to the pile of trash has giant corpses. The bodies wear monastic robes and lay as if they'd just lay down to die) Here too.

Janet: (tremulous voice) What the Hell? I mean really WHAT the HELL?

Vertag: Are you okay? Do you need me to come find you?

(cut to Janet. She is crouched in a corner, light shining on the nearest dead body)

Janet: I, I....(swallows) No. No, I don't need you. (stands, shakes her head) It was just the dark and the surprise. I'm fine.

Vertag: (voice) Okay. You wanna count the bodies?

Janet: No... Why would we care?

Vertag: (voice) Oh. Well, force of habit.

Janet: Vertag? Why are they dead? Why are they all dead? (she moves slowly on, down the exact center of the aisle, as far as possible from the bodies.)

Vertag: (voice) The Order was created to understand the wormhole, hoping to control it. They feared that the Directorate would use Earth technology to find them, then pool the Order's knowledge to get complete control of both of our planets. So they destroyed the Order, including their members, to keep that information from being misused by either planet.

Janet: (blinks) Vertag, you're reading a LOT into the situation.

Vertag: (voice) No.. (cut to Vertag. He stands at the last bunk, holding a piece of paper) I'm reading the last body's suicide note.

(cut back to Janet. She turns and steps quickly down the aisle. At the last body she finds a sheet of paper clasped in the hands. Eases it out of the dead man's fingers and holds up her light.)

Janet: (reading) "The Order was created to understand..."

(cut to Vertag. Janet's voice repeats the message Vertag found as he reaches down to pull a waterproof document protector from atop the body. There's a tarrat card taped to the outside, the Five of Axes. The outcome card from the 'spread' he made in 3-5. He opens the protector, pulls out a stack of paper and scans through it. His eyes get wide. He slides it back in, adds the card, seals the protector shut and slips it under his shirt, out of sight. Janet gets to the end of the note and reads aloud)

Janet: (voice) "... being misused. Good luck, Miss Crane."

(cut to Janet. She stares at the note.)

Vertag: (voice) What was that last bit, Janet?

Janet: Um... Um... (her hands shake and the paper rattles)

Vertag: (voice) Hey, is there anything under the suicide note?

Janet: (she glances down to see another waterproof protector, human scale. A human-scale tarrat card, the Seven of Axes, sits on it. That was HER outcome card in her spread.) Um... Why?

Vertag: Oh, uh, well, no reason.

Janet: (opens the protector, sees a stack of paper.)

(Close up of the top sheet. In Janet's flashlight beam, we see "CANCER CURES 1-4")

(cut to Vertag. He's working his way down the aisle back to the hallway)

Janet: (voice) No. No, there's nothing here. What made you ask?

Vertag: I thought I saw something, but it was just a shadow in the flashlight. (he steps out of the room and walks to the human door Janet steps out. She is not visibly carrying a document protector)

Janet: That's pretty gruesome. (she holds out her arms and he lifts her in his hand)

Vertag: Yeah. Be glad we didn't find the place earlier. While the corpses were still...juicy.

Janet: Eugh. (Vertag walks down the hallway, past the giant door and on. He comes to an intersection. Two of the halls are blazed with chalk, the others are not. He freezes and leans against one wall. Janet is raised to his pocket.)

Vertag: (softly) In.

Janet: (softly) What is it? (she slips down into the pocket)

Vertag: Someone erased one of my chalk marks (he pulls out his pistol)

Janet: How do you know?

Vertag: Because these are the marks I use for 1, 3 and 4. I would have marked 2 before 3.

Janet: Someone's in here?

Vertag: And they want me to go down the unmarked hall. I'm guessing there's an ambush there.

Janet: Then let's go somewhere else.

Vertag: This might be the only way to find out who it is and what they want.

Janet: By springing their trap?

Vertag: Pretty straightforward.

Janet: You can't do that! That's insane to- (she pauses, visibly restraining herself) Vertag? If you go where they expect you to, you'll make it easy for them. Let's go somewhere else. If the person wants to trap you, they'll have to try something else.

Vertag: Make the bastard work for it?

Janet: Yeah.

Vertag: Oh, that makes sense. Okay. We'll go back to the last intersection; see what's down the last passage.

Janet: Great. (she relaxes into the pocket. Her back brushes against a corner of the protector hidden under his shirt. She reaches back and probes the shape with her hand. Her other hand reaches to rub at the front of her shirt. Her eyes widen, then go flinty as she realizes he found a protector as well) (fade out)

(Fade in as Vertag finds another room. This one has a light that's working. He puts his flashlight in his pocket and steps inside, gun first.)

(Cut to the inside of the room. There are a few empty bookshelves, a pile of minced scrolls and a body. Desiccated as the others, but not laying in repose. It curls on the floor, holding its forearm. Vertag steps into the room quickly, then moves to where he can see the door. He glances there frequently while scanning the room.)

Vertag: Doesn't look like a suicide.

Janet: Looks like a heart attack.

Vertag: (moves to a panel with a button. There is a tarrat card there, leaning on a shelf by the button, the Six of Axes)

Janet: Six of Axes? That's the Embassy card.

Vertag: Yeah, that makes sense. Quick, run to the back room and press the button to summon a liaison? A diplomat?

Janet: Well, what else could it be?

(Vertag turns around the room and points. There's a large steel door, heavy rivets showing. A small trickle of water leaks down the edges and drips to the floor. There's a drain there, rusty and showing signs of long usage)

Vertag: Well, if there's an underwater river through there, then the 'journey by water' card may be there to tell us it's the self destruct button.

Janet: You think it's for us?

Vertag: I don't think a monastic order of geniuses needs a visual clue about the self-destruct button.

Janet: So... What happened? He tried to hit the button and died? Wouldn't they have foreseen that?

Vertag: What makes you think the Order can foresee the future?

Janet: Well, did your note have your name on it?

Vertag: Note?

Janet: Uh, never mind. Hey! This card is out of the fortune. How'd they know that?

Vertag: The fortune is the map that led us here, Janet. If we're here, we had to have figured out that spread.

Janet: Oh.

(Millious steps through the doorway, pistol drawn and aimed at Vertag)

Millious: Well, that's one way to find your way here.

Vertag: Milly-you! I wondered where you'd gotten to.

Millious: MilliOUS, you dolt!

(to be continued)

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.Escape from Land of the Giants Season 3