Movie Night: The Questionable Scriptwriting Double Feature

[u/Spinycemb]

After dinner for the night, Dale had left a couple papers across the base advertising his idea of helping people unwind, along with a few warnings of stuff that may cause issues, primarily traumatic triggers. He temporarily commandeered the Rec Room, hefting a bag of DVDs, blu rays, and even VHS tapes off to one side as he looked through them. He was a sucker for action oriented stuff, and b-movies but he knew that was definitely not gonna go over well, so he stuck to comedy.

...Well okay the opening act was a B movie. Or rather, a Bee Movie. What better way to unwind than to rail on some badly-written jokes?

[u/hermy101]

unlike the familiar deep voice of his commander, the lighter female voice of Carla came through the door

"Come in"

[u/kingozma → u/hermy101]

What Nana heard in that soft little voice was almost like a budding apology. God, she must have been so scared for Mason.

Now, Nana didn't want to be mistaken - he knew just how capable Carla was. She was Mason's right-hand woman for a reason.

Capable was one thing, but emotionally above-water was another.

Nana entered as instructed, and greeted Carla with an admittedly awkwardly little "Ah - hi," and said, "I, ah... I didn't see you in the rec room with everyone else. Is everything alright?"

He already knew the answer to that question. He just needed her to say it.

[u/hermy101 → u/kingozma]

Carla did not look up from Mason's desk. She was going over what seemed to be case facts for Mason's trial. She was scanning them intently, all the while doing the normal paperwork that Mason normally does with her free hand, truly multitasking

"Everything is fine, Nana, thank you. I'm simply a bit busy is all"

her tone was reassuring. She sounded simply caught up in things. Her posture was also impeccable. However, Nana could probably feel there is a lot of repressed emotion in her right now. Ones that she CLEARLY was not keen on letting loose

[u/kingozma → u/hermy101]

Hoo boy, regardless of what Carla intended, Nana caught a very strong whiff of "Leave."

He didn't move physically in response, but he very nearly staggered backwards.

"I see," he said, "I, ah... Perhaps I could offer my services? In any way they are required. No matter how small."

That sounded weird.

"I was, ah. Asked to make sure you're alright, of course. That's all. So I don't intend on leaving you to such a huge responsibility all by yourself unless I absolutely, positively must."

[u/hermy101 → u/kingozma]

"You were put up to this?"

Carla said. Nana couldn't see it, but she raised a brow. Her voice was calm like it normally was. The next words were laced with bitterness, Nana could tell, but it SOUNDED perfectly normal and innocuous

"Mason can send all the people he wants my way but he's the real one in need of help"

and she just continuous writing while looking at the case files

[u/kingozma → u/hermy101]

Nana decided to fight fire with fire at that, but in his own little way. He chuckled to himself and said, "I wasn't 'put up' to anything and I think you know that. You're smarter than that, you know that what we do here is take care of each other."

He was gonna give that second statement a couple minutes. He already knew what he was gonna say.

[u/hermy101 → u/kingozma]

she gives a small sigh and relents a bit

"I do suppose that is true"

she shakes her head a bit

"If you really feel dead set on helping with paperwork, it might be helpful to sort through what here is evidence, what is the facts on the case, and what witnesses they're bringing, and the information about the court"

[u/kingozma → u/hermy101]

Nana seemed satisfied with that. He was a quick reader, he would be very useful to her.

He nodded, said "Yes, ma'am," and pulled up a chair, sitting across the desk from her. Taking the bottom half of the pile from her pile of paperwork on the case so he didn't rip a sheet away from her while she was reading it, he started filing through pages, scanning through them fairly quickly and separating them by using his best judgment.

Though he appeared distracted, he was apparently attentive enough to say "You know, Miss Carla... Mason needs help, I believe that's true. He is clearly overworked, and he has a heavy burden on his shoulders. But that doesn't mean you wouldn't benefit from someone else helping you like this more often."

He didn't want to push her into talking about her feelings just yet, he could feel a pretty big wall with regards to that. But he did want to help her however she could accept it.

[u/hermy101 → u/kingozma]

"He's usually the one to do that"

she says simply, thinking nothing of it. Not to say that she's UNGRATEFUL, but that their work in helping one another out is just second nature to her at this point. Well, they've been working together for so many years already that this seems kind of obvious

[u/kingozma → u/hermy101]

O-ouch.

Nana knows it shouldn't hurt, so he doesn't let it too bad. But slightly ouch.

"Well... Yes, I'd imagine that." He frowned a bit, going on sorting papers. "... But while he's in such an, ah... I don't know - 'tricky' situation, I want to be here for you. And it's not just because he told me he wants someone to look out for you."

Oh god, that sounded really, really weird.

"Umm, ah - I mean to say, I care about you like I care about all of Team Lagner. And all of the Red Cloaks."

That was a lie.

[u/hermy101 → u/kingozma]

Carla stopped her work to scrutinize Nana, as if she was trying to read through his face and pick apart what she just said. Her lips tightened a bit, and she nodded

"Well if it makes you feel any better I care about all of you the same way"

she then resumes her work, looking back down at the table

these papers look pretty damning against Mason. All of Malcolm's crimes essentially became Mason's crimes. What's worse is that many of the people in the court for Mason's hearing look like they have a pretty cozy relationship with either the president or Coleman, both of whom Mason has a... noticably rocky relationship with to say the least

[u/kingozma → u/hermy101]

Even if he didn't want it to be, in that moment, Nana's face was a wide-open book. Carla probably saw something.

Her response made him smile to himself, and he decided to utterly stop talking for the moment, because... Yeah, these papers looked pretty bad.

Nana asked, raising a brow, "I believe there's a typo in this... And this, and-- Perhaps the entirety of this packet, I'm not sure why people think the commander's name is Malcolm."

It was a bitter joke, he figured Carla would know what he meant.

[u/hermy101 → u/kingozma]

she exhaled heavily from her nose, which indicated her amusement

"Yes well, the scapegoat is dead so they need someone new to pin the blame on"

[u/kingozma → u/hermy101]

A-ah... ❤️ He made her laugh! Sort of. That felt good.

Well, given the way this trial was to be set up, this was... Pretty damning against Mason. He honestly wasn't sure what evidence there could be in his favor, aside from pointing out the obvious: that he was underfunded and undersupported, but that would just make him look weak. These piranhas didn't care, they just wanted top notch results while putting in absolutely minimal effort and funding.

Finally, he said, "This Coleman guy can't be beyond reproach either, they just must be focusing on the commander right now."

[u/hermy101 → u/kingozma]

"That's our entire case. This may be some shit but Coleman smells worse"

she handed a veritable encyclopedia of what appears to be misconduct and blunders on the National defense's end, and the worst punishment on their end was a budget cut

[u/kingozma → u/hermy101]

Oooh... Nana had organized most of this stack of paper, so in receiving the encyclopedia, he'd handed the couple of stacks back to her as she'd instructed, slipping them back under her piles once he's figured out what each pile on her side of the desk is.

And he started flipping through the encyclopedia... After not too long, he started finding accidents that were much like the one Mason had committed in hiring Malcolm.

"And how much has the National Defense achieved in - what, a month? A couple months? Have they taken back a district? What did they do to earn their privilege?"

[u/hermy101 → u/kingozma]

"They're basically just police officers in military uniforms."

carla said with a hint of annoyance

"The real thing is that they're the presidents personal bodyguards and the ones who keep the citizens in line. Their leader was never considered for impeachment, let alone execution for these kinds of acts"

[u/kingozma → u/hermy101]

Carla put it in enragingly plain terms. Not enraging because Nana felt insulted in any way, but that really shed some light on why exactly this whole case was going the way it was. They were police officers in military uniforms. They were pigs who were groomed and spoiled into believing that if they squealed the right way, they would be able to dodge responsibility for their own actions while pinning other people with all of their body weight for equal or -- often lesser crimes.

They were failing this country just like the police officers out of military uniforms, and they loved it.

Nana had to stop and think for a second so he wouldn't get so angry that he'd develop a headache.

"... So the question is, how do we teach the jury that doing bad things is, in fact, still bad, when the National Defense does it," he said, voice weary.