Lair of The Abyss OR "Are we done yet? My feet really hurt."

"Oh, you can't be serious. I am the star of this production, you know."

"Cut!"

Matte Lorrie—as is clearly stated in his email signature—Assistant Product Development Manager at Razr Wyre Studios and erstwhile director of the above referenced production, the soon to be released Lair of The Abyss, second installment in the Abyssian Chronicles series of video games, turned to his co-worker and assistant for the day, Lissa Andrelio, and sighed. "Lissa, I can't. I mean I just can't."

"Matte, I get it," she said, holding her iPad close to her chest like a favorite toy. "This guy's a pain, big time. But we've got to use him. No choice."

The wizened old man in the wizard costume pushed back his conical hat and looked with disgust at Mr. Lorrie. Holding a folded sheet of paper he stalked across the driveway toward the pair.

"Why? Why can't we just let him go," said Matte to Lissa. "Heck, I could do his part."

"We have a contract with him."

"So, we break it. That happens all the time." Matte resisted the urge to call his boss, the Senior Product Development Manager, and cancel the whole thing.

"Look, we have to use him," she said. "He used to be some big name actor and he's an old friend of the CEO's family or something like that." The CEO being one Gavel Mackerelroy who, along with Matte and an unnamed investor (in this story anyway), was a founder of Razr Wyre.

"CEO, hah!" said Matte. "I was with Gav when we were three guys in a coffee shop. He always was a tool."

"Mr. Lorrie, I need to have a word with you," said the big time pain, family friend, wizard costume wearer and once well known actor, Briarly Tavisc.

"These lines are impossible. Just impossible," he said.

Matte tried to regain his composure as Lissa walked across the driveway to a small table with various bottles of soda, partially empty pizza boxes, a tray of donuts, a bag of pita bread, and a large bowl of fruit salad. A few feet behind the table sat a man with a laptop, focused on work of some kind.

"Listen to this" said Mr. Tavisc.

"'My plan worked! That meddling Koblivious is gone and now I am Master of the Abyss he says with a raised fist'."

"This is simply a ridiculous line. My character has already been established as the master of the abyss. Saying it again is simply gratuitous. And that extra, Darren or whatever his name is, why am I throwing him into the abyss in the first place? Let's get a rewrite, hmm? I'll be in my trailer." He crumpled the paper and walked to an aging, dented airstream trailer that had two (not one) flat tires parked at one edge of the driveway. A small posterboard sign hung on its door bearing the words Briarly Tavisc surrounded by a dozen iridescent stickers—stars.

"Oh, for eff's sake!" Matted walked to the food table and snatched a stale donut from the tray.

"All ok?" said Lissa.

"He wants a god damn rewrite. A rewrite! He's got no clue what we're doing here. This isn't a damn Netflix production! We only have this weekend to get this shit done. The equipment rental is for two days only and they charge out the ass for delays. And we already put a $1000 deposit on it. Who hires a writer for a game clip anyway? We should have just used CGI. Or hell, AI. What a royal pain in the—".

"Calm down," said Lissa talking a bite of pizza. "We'll get it done. It's only a few more scenes and they're all really small."

"This one is really small and we've been here for hours. We got here at 9 a.m. and its now nearly 3!" said Matte.

"Mr. Mackerelroy said he wanted authenticity," said Lissa. Matte heaved another sigh (at least the 20th one of the day) and continued recounting Mr. Tavisc's sins.

"It didn't help that he wanted to stop for lunch or that he wouldn't eat normal food. I mean, who thought we'd even be here for lunch?"

"Sorry. I really thought everybody liked pizza." Lissa squeezed her tablet closer.

"Pita bread and fruit salad? I mean, what the hell?" Matte tossed his half eaten donut back on the tray. A man wearing a body mounted camera rig walked past him and said, "Are we done yet? This thing is heavy and my feet really hurt." He took off the camera rig and placed it behind the table, sharing words with the seated man and his laptop.

"How about this?" said Lissa. "We tell him this is like a practice scene like a dress rehearsal and we'll get the final version later when we have a rewrite. We can say we don't want to lose the light or something like that. They say that, right?"

"That might work. He probably thinks it's a rehearsal anyway since it's just the body motion sensors." Matte grabbed a piece of pizza, devoured most of it in one bite and held the crust out like a weapon.

"And that's another thing," he said, pointing it at Lissa. "Nobody asked him to wear a wizard costume. When he called me yesterday asking about a wardrobe department I just said wear whatever makes you comfortable. It's just the sensors are all we need. And he wanted a trailer too! Thank god my brother has that old crapass thing." Matte pointed at the immobile yet still gleaming trailer and its star festooned door. "Do you know how long it took me to clean it?""

"Gonna see if he's ready," said Lissa, stepping to the airstream. She rapped on the door; two sharp knocks. "Brian, sir. We're ready whenever you are." She heard some rummaging inside the trailer and presently the door flew open.

"There is no one named Brian here. My name is Briarly, Briar Lee, but you may address me as Mr. Tavisc as it says on my door. And can we get someone to check the suspension of this trailer? It lists like some nautical amusement ride." Lissa looked at its flat tires and decided to ignore the comment.

"Where are the new lines?" he said, stepping from the trailer and crabbing his hand with impatience.

"Ok. Well, yeah that's the thing, Mr. Tavisc. The writer is not exactly, well, here and we thought it might be best to continue to the scene as is and we can go for the final version maybe tommorow." She blinked her eyes and after a heartbeart added, "We don't want to lose the light."

"Dear lady, you are filming this scene in a garage using some kind of magnetoscopic colorama to add special effects. I hardly think that light enters into the equation." He pointed at the nodules and wires that covered his robe and looked at her with a face of such magnificent disgust that it could only have been created by an old wizened actor.

Within that garage a man adorned with similar wires was repeatedly throwing himself backwards on a surpisingly clean mattress behind which was a makeshift green screen, presumably some aspect of the magnetoscopic colorama system.

"Hey, there's the star of the show!" said Matte with hands raised in celebration, waving at Mr. Tavisc (or to fend off an attack; it was hard to tell.)

"Very well," said Briarly to both of them and to neither and padded over to the food table. "But reshooting tomorrow means another days wages. I can't believe these studios still expect us to work for free." Lissa frowned. She and Matte followed him.

Mr. Tavisc took a piece of the pita bread, ladled a generous amount of fruit salad on top and turned to Matte. "Mr. Lorrie, I have some thoughts about your current filming schedule vis-a-vis this scene."

"Yeah. But right now let's just do it like it's written and it'll be great. I mean you're great anyway." Matte tapped his hip with a fist and attempted to maintain his painted on smile.

"Yes. I do understand your dilemma and I sympathise," Briarly said holding his delicacy with care. "No doubt your writer is at some seedy bar or doing whatever unsavory things they do when they're not working, which is indeed most of the time. But wouldn't it better to wait until the lout is back on set? Or, when you have found a more reliable one. There must be some available."

"I really—ok." Matte bent over and looked at the oily pavement of the driveway. Heaving a big sigh he rose back up. "Well, yeah, good idea, I mean. But we want to get this down anyway as a kind of a practice run. And we don't want to lose the light." He looked at the garage and yelled "Hey Dirk! We're going again."

The erstwhile stuntman who'd been practicing his falling—into—the—abyss skills sauntered over to the group. He wore the same forest of sensors as his aging counterpart but no costume as such, save for his designer sandals, bespoke shorts & shirt, and perfectly coiffed hair ('Just like a wave in the ocean' were his particular instructions to the stylist earlier that day.)

"If this just a rehearsal then I won't need these annoying buttons," said Mr. Tavisc and began to remove the electronica from his person.

The man with the laptop had been speaking with the camera man throughout these proceedings, occasionally pointing to the screen and scanning the garage. Suddenly he stood up and said, "Hey, I am not getting any signal from the motion sensors. He needs to put them back on!"

"No! You complete mor—" began Matte.

"Mr. Tavisc," said Lissa, pulling the buttons from his hands and reattaching them. "We still need these on. They'll help us, um, help us to make sure, yeah, make sure the others are in sync with you. We need them to match your movements."

He thought for a moment and said "In that case wouldn't they only be necessary for the extra here, Danny is it?"

"Extra?" said Dirk, known as man who falls on matress in the script. If there were a script. Which there was not. Except in Matte's head. Where Dirk was indeed known by that exact moniker.

"If we got an extra here it's you old man," he said. "I won Fear Factor: Regional Terror at the high school last year buddy and I was a volunteer technical consultant at skateboarding tryouts for the X-games. What have you done? I'm the star of this thing."

Briarly sighed. "Being an understudy in a high school play is of no consequence. And ex gaming? Whatever tawdry affairs you have should be kept well away from your duties here, young man."

"Ok. Let's all just take a breather," said Matte. "Dirk, remember in this scene you're falling backward onto a mattress. Practice that or get a donut or do something."

"It's not a mattress. It's the Eternal Abyss of Lost Souls. And I am Koblivious The Marauder. Sheesh" Dirk stalked back to the garage adding, "And I have been practicing," under his breath. He poked the mattress with his foot a twice and stared at the wall absently for a moment. Suddenly his eyes lit up. The rear wheels of a well-used but serviceable skateboard were poking out from under an old lawnmower.

"Mr. Tavisc," said Lissa. "We understand this is not up to your, well, it's not like the work you have, you know, in the past what you did. But we are very low budget and we just really need to get this scene done. We've got a full day tomorrow."

"Well, you may have but I expect to be done by mid morning. Perhaps earlier," he said. "Unless I've been misled I believe my contract stipulates 8 hours of work over a period of two days."

Lissa tapped her screen several times and said, "Right. Eight hours a day for two days. "And it's going to be a busy 8 hours I tell you."

"Hey, are we filming or what?" said the camera man in full rigalia as he clomped back to his station in the middle of the driveway.

"I am afraid there has been some misunderstanding," said Briarly. The 8 hours is cumulative and we have already been hammering out the defects in this scene for nigh on 6 hours. There are only 2 hours left and it would require a director of superlative skill to render anything of value in a scant two hours. And to state the obvious, whatever skills our friend Mr. Lorrie may have, directorial acumen is not among them."

"Wait. What?" Lissa began pouring through data in her tablet; scrolling, scanning, tapping, and eventually settling on a particular screen.

"Ok, I found it," she said her words slowing. "Mr. Tavisc, sir. Um, who told you about the hours situation? I mean that it's a total, like you said."

"Well, my agent of course. He handles all my affairs. Due to a momentary interruption in my finances I have been forced to relieve my regular agent of his duties—temporarily mind you. But I have engaged a highly competent replacement who simply happens to be my brother-in-law."

"Ok. Well, um, did he write this contract?"

"How in blazes should I know? Prior to our recent arrangement his title was Customer Acquisition Specialist at some automotive firm and I am sure his official duties gave him substantial legal and contractual experience. He told me so himself."

"Hey Dirk! Stop playing around!" said Matte. "This ain't a skate park! You'll wreck the equipment." Dirk slid across the pavement on his wheeled airfoil, flying up on the trailer's fender and then back down again lightly bouncing off of the stair step, all while gesturing to Matte with his middle finger. He had found his calling.

"Ok," said Lissa "Well, it's just that I think the contract does in fact, actually say you work for two days." She read: Sir Tavisc shall make himself available to provide acting services for a period no more than eight hours per day on November 22nd and if required on November 23rd of this present year.

"What?! This is impossible." Sir Tavisc yanked the tablet out of her hand, looked at the screen, and tossed it on the table as if it were a viper (perhaps from the Lair of The Abyss even.) "You will hear from my lawyer!" he said and stalked off with a defiant fist raised high.

Dirk, who had been careening in ever wider circles around the driveway between trailer, food table and various parts of the garage promptly let out a belly laugh and fell with a crash on the garage floor missing the mattress by only a few inches, the skateboard scurrying back under that old lawnmower.

"Ok," said the man at the laptop, getting up from his seat and closing his computer. "We got it."

"What do you mean?" said Matte.

"We got it," he said. Matte stared at him as the camera man walked by with rig in hand and in a monotone said, "We finally got it." He placed the camera on the driveway, said "later," and sauntered down the street.

"Wait. What do you mean?" said Matte to anyone and everyone as his latest fluster began.

Laptop man looked at him as if to a child and said, "Ok. That old guy yelled and raised his fist and the skater dude fell. Scream was a nice touch too. That's all we needed. It'll be great."

"What about the lines?" said Matte.

"Words don't matter. We can fix that later," he said walking to the food table. Putting some scattered remains of pizza in a single box, he grabbed a two-liter of soda and with a wave headed to a nearby car.

"Looks like we really are done," said Lissa to Matte as Dirk approached them, his bespoke shirt and shirt now besmeared and betorn.

"What do you mean done?" Dirk said. "That was totally messed up. We need to take that shot over. I was skating for god's sake."

"Dirk," said Matte, his voice calm for the first time since the previous day, "I think we're done."

"Oh, you can't be serious. I am the star of this production, you know."