3

Along the eastern banks of the Colorado River, Chipper Ridge holds the wealthier inhabitants of the Greater Nightfall area. In the 70s, Nathaniel Milford took bundles of his father's money and developed a community of overpriced houses, mostly in the hopes the entire venture would fail, allowing him to be freed of the family business. So outrageously designed and expensive, the community garnered attention among the upper class, who overlooked the structural shortcomings and bought out each property instantly, creating even greater demand for more properties. More communities sprung up, along with high-priced stores and commercial enterprises catering to the rich and vain.

You sit in the back of a silver Lincoln Town Car and peer through the window at the busy side streets on your way to Chipper Ridge Cinema. Patrick was overjoyed by your agreement to attend the screening, as it is your first studio film in nearly four years. Danger: Threat Zone marks your comeback piece after a string of mediocre box-office disappointments. At the turn of the millennium, you left a top-rated TV show, Forensic Experts: Philadelphia, in which you had played the role of rising-star detective Chase Patton, in order to turn your attention to motion pictures. You starred in the ensemble comedy franchise Cruise Crazy, leading to one of the highest-grossing series in movie history. During your downtime from filming those, you co-starred in Deadly Settlement, where your role as a fresh-out-of-law-school attorney working for the Russian Mob earned you Golden Globe and Oscar nominations.

Disillusioned by Hollywood and the lack of new scripts to test your acting talents, you elected for smaller, independent projects, often working for scale or back-end cuts that never materialized. In 2008, your agent convinced you to star in Omega Dark, a science-fiction horror movie about a physicist who discovers a portal to the 4th dimension. After changing directors mid-shoot and a host of technical delays, the movie went vastly over-budget and lost fifty million dollars. But you followed it up with a bit-role as a quirky Southern high school baseball coach in Out Three Strikes from up-and-coming director Demetrious Castellano. The film won Best Picture at Cannes, and the role rejuvenated interest in your work. Scripts flooded your agent's inbox, but it was a call from famed Australian director Tug Noble that led to your lead role in Danger: Threat Zone.

You yawn and stretch as the car stops at a red light, and you catch sight of a movie poster displayed on the glass cover of a bus stop, featuring you jumping from the top-story window of an exploding building. From your flask, you take a sip of whiskey, almost missing your mouth and spilling a splash. You take out a cigarette and crack the window to let the smoke drift out into the cold air. You drive and soon pass an avenue where a mob of people fill the area. Police cruisers block entry. Groups of people stand in the street, and from their exaggerated motions, you can tell that they're involved in a heated argument, surrounding one man who seems drunk or injured in his staggered walk. The car lurches past the intersection, and you lose sight of the activity.

"Hey, you okay back there?" the driver says. He looks over his shoulder at you, eyeing you up and down. His jacket is too large but shirt collar too tight, so he looks like a child dressing in his father's business suit. He peers back at another red light, then rotates his torso with his arm over the front seat. His head tilts, and he squints—he just caught a spark of recognition.

"Hey, let me ask you something. It's you," he says and points his finger like he's ringing a doorbell impatiently. "You're that movie star, right? Tavon Agosto .."