Created By by Richard Matheson Page A

opens.
    Inside, a man dressed in deep-water scuba lunges at underwater half-speed toward Barek! The man clutches an upraised knife; struggles to cut Barek’s air hose.
    Now Barek gets it. “They sent down a diver to kill whoever survived … sons of
bitches.
”
    Barek pulls at the man’s mask. Manages to get his own knife gripped, cutting the man’s suit.
    Frantic bubbles.
    Then, blood, as the knife razors open rubber and flesh. The man leaks red into the sunken carrier as they fight.
    Barek holds the terrorist’s forearm and cutting hard, sinks the blade into wrist, sawing through meat and bone. As the man’s face contorts, mouth screaming inaudibly, the hand separates, floating away, fingers still jerking in spasm; a macabre wave.
    Barek waves back in deadly parody, stares into the man’s suffering face, and immediately plunges the knifeinto the man’s ear, twisting the upturned tip deeper, cutting cartilege, piercing eardrum.
    The man’s mouth stretches in agony.
    Bubbles chain.
    Barek isn’t done.
    He pulls the knife out. Watches reaction, as the man’s hand clamps over the useless ear and more crimson fluid escapes, thins in water.
    Barek opens an automated fuselage hatch; the generator still alive. It slides up two feet and Barek forces the terrorist into the opening, halfway through.
    As the man struggles, Barek brings the door down until it meets pliant skin under thick wet suit. The man’s eyes roll into his skull as his ribs are crushed. Barek watches as the door sections the terrorist into grisly book-ends.
    The torso and screaming head float away outside. The bottom half remains trapped; bleeding Wicked Witch legs, under a fallen house.
    A.E. Barek swims on through the horror-gloom, expressionless faces watching him go.
    Alan leaned back, sipping at espresso. Reread the pages.
    Would Andy Singer abide by any of this expense and carnage, he wondered. A man who emotionally responded to Cher albums. This sequence and what came after would come as a major shock.
    Alan reread it, again.
    It felt like the right tone for the opening sequence in the pilot. Jim Cameron meets de Sade.
    But still … a fucking Catholic priest dying in close-up. Children with slashed throats. Waving goodbye to thehand, as it moved off, a five-fingered man-o-war. Then, poking out the guy’s eardrum. Pretty fucking cold, folks. But it was exactly what he’d promised the network, bless their massive fear zones.
    A. E. Barek.
    The independent agent. The warrior for hire.
    There were holes you could use for a landfill but the network wanted it lurid; violent. Bigger than life, however illogical. Alan had asked them about why the terrorists or the government would send a diver when the people couldn’t have survived.
    Because it was entertaining, they said.
    Why make the priest live? Why a priest?
    To add ethical presence, they said.
    Plus, as Andy Singer reasoned, on the phone, when Alan told him some of the moves from the opening, “… people love religious figures who die heroically. Whole Joseph Campbell thing. Have you seen the tapes? You know what to do. And make some of the stewardesses attractive. Even if they’re dead, don’t make them look sickening.”
    As usual, Andy’s advice was impeccably worthless.
    Alan finished the espresso and walked to his kitchen, which overlooked La Cosa Beach Club. Fat children rode waves like vulgar pool floats and teenage girls gathered in gossiping squads, stuck to towels.
    Alan rinsed out his baby mug. Chuckled a bit. It was strange writing this stuff. Odd how easily it came. He just stared at the sand-blasted ceiling and watched the parade of gore fuming from his mind; then wrote it down.
    Cutting a guy in half. Sawing off a guy’s hand.
Christ.
He was amused by it, yet it all struck him as perverse. For aguy who never raised his voice, or beat any kind of drum you could hear, this pilot was a torture chamber in thousand-point Helvetica.
    But A.E. Barek didn’t fucking