"If we introduce each of the four main characters and present their story I think we'll have a lot of background to film, and that's always a problem," Mark said. "For instance, if Michael's father is middle-aged then how do you show his early years? The actor can't play that part, and finding a younger version of Hank Dobbs ... ? I don't know the answer to that."

"I'm sure we can handle some of that in dialogue, but we don't need a long narrative putting the audience to sleep either," Ted said. "But I'm in favor of writing the story before worrying about that. Let's write the book and then adapt it into a script. You ought to be good at that."

Mark smiled. "You have a lot of faith in me. Okay, I get your point. We need to hash out the whole story first and then worry about the script. We do need to reason out why Michael's father ended up the way he is when Danny arrives on the scene. And don't forget, we need to establish a reason for their collaboration. It has to be something beyond the budding friendship with Michael."

"I have an idea," Ted said. "Let's go back and examine Danny's father in more detail ... "

Mark could now understand why Jim had chosen Ted to be a part of this re-write. The boy was fearless when it came to juggling plot lines. Ted would have been a good asset to have around when they were writing Adam Conquers Earth. That group of writers always seemed to kowtow to Mark's image of the show when what he needed was a foil to argue the finer points.

Jim was no fool. He had seen past Ted's age to the mind that had produced half this story so far. Mark had been only sixteen as the television show evolved into a hit series. Writing script for that show was much different, the pressures immediate and very demanding with a weekly deadline to meet. This was very different.

The production process for Redemption had already begun, and that was a little scary. Here were two teenage boys nailing together a multi-million dollar film story while elsewhere in town other people were starting to look at them for a product. Hell, Steve was already taking voice lessons for a role without one written line of dialogue.

Processing a story from book to film was not always a straight line. Background on a character in a book could always be presented as a flashback. It was an easy plot device for an author, but not a scriptwriter. Things like that would work in a film if done carefully, but there was the pitfall. How many flashbacks could you give an audience? The fewer the better seemed a good point to keep in mind.

A reader always had the luxury of turning back a few pages to check on something, not so the theater audience. If they lost their train of thought during a film it was gone, and nothing after that would make much sense. There were dozens of films out there that were guilty of doing that to the viewer. Jim would not tolerate his name on something like that.

It was a little strange, and yet familiar, for Mark to be writing a story that would essentially be about a character he was going to play in the film. Michael Keene was the proverbial 'every-man' character. His life was filled with difficulty and yet he had aspirations that everyone in an audience could understand. They had to write him into a believable and endearing character. Mark wasn't fooling himself, this would be the hardest role he had ever played and he was looking forward to it.

Everyone had family problems. The issues that made Michael's image seem larger than life would garner empathy, and leave the audience believing in him. He was the good son, the best friend with a kind heart, and eventually he would become the hero of the story.

Mark would be glad to play that part. Like Jim, he understood the art of immersion in a character. He would have to believe in Michael to do the character justice all the way to whatever they concluded.

Like Ted, Mark had avoided discussing how the story ought to end. Even if the story had a tragic ending Mark knew they would have to write it. Perhaps that was why Jim and Hank had avoided this task. But Ted would write what had to be written, and in that respect Mark knew he had an ally.

They had the basis of a good book here, although there were certainly a few questions unanswered about its beginnings with that preacher. Mark thought they ought to publish it. Brian had read through what they had so far and agreed, they had the makings of a good novel.

"I like Clarence's character," Ted said. "Should we give him a bigger part?"

"He's an aggravation to Michael and might come in handy later on," Mark replied.

"Now about Michael's mother, how are we going to handle that?" Ted asked.

"Let me think about what Michael would say ... "

There he goes again, Ted thought. Mark's ability to think like a character had always astounded him, but it had certainly helped them get this far. Re-writing this story had led them far afield from the original plot line and yet they still had the same objectives. They also had to consider that something they did would lead them to the proverbial dead end, the author's worst nightmare.

But Mark had kept true to what he saw as Michael's reason for being heroic in the story. Ted would enjoy watching the push/pull nature of the relationship between Danny, the singer, and Michael, the janitor. The dynamic between Mark and Steve as such close friends would help play out the nature of their characters in the film.

Danny was hardly a mindless little pop star. His skill in dealing with Michael's father would surprise the audience. The singing was important to Danny, and he was good at it. Steve's vocal coaching would last several months to prepare him for the role. Not that Steve didn't have a good voice, but he was about to push the limits of that ability.

Ted and Dennis had already accepted the fact that any visit to Lake Tahoe was off this year. It wasn't just Betty's death, although that would dampen the brightest spirits in any gathering. The filming schedule for Come Next Tuesday ran right over Christmas, both Jim and Mickey had pushed that through.

Redemption had a tentative start date in the spring, although Ted didn't see how that was possible. What if they weren't finished with the script? Ted pushed those thoughts aside and immediately replaced them with Dennis. At least he was still involved in the filming and Ted hoped he was having fun.

They were several weeks into December, with Thanksgiving just a distant memory. Ted and Mark were feeling the pressure, knowing that the roughed out Redemption story was due by the end of the month. It would take another few weeks after that to polish up and present it to Jim. But they had hammered out an ending that pleased them both and that major concern was behind them.

The story would then need to be turned into a script, perhaps something better suited to Mark's abilities, but Ted wanted to work on that as well. Jim would be too busy finalizing Come Next Tuesday, but perhaps he would assign someone else to work with them. Ted was beginning to believe that this was the hardest thing he had ever attempted, and for that reason he didn't want it to fail.

Filming continued, keeping Dennis busy as Mickey worked through some of the more difficult parts. The man might still be considered a bit weird but Dennis had to admire his ability as a director. Mickey was everywhere, attacking the problems from all angles and getting things done his way. Jim must have seen something he wanted in Mickey from the very beginning, and that faith was paying off now.

The scenes filmed at the real live TechMills had been fun and given Steve a chance to interact with the adult character actors instead of just the teenage set. The fictitious TechFirst Company was the key to discovering the nefarious activities of Arty D, while the hushed computer rooms at TechMills provided the perfect background.

Ken Nakamura was cast in the role of the computer genius at TechFirst who would solve the puzzle of the worm's attack. A forty year old character actor, Ken played the studious professorial type, right down to the pocket full of pens that left ink spots on his shirt. The viewers would know that Nicky's father had built the computer security and assessment firm from the ground floor up, but it was clear that this man kept it running.

The dialogue was innocuous and filled with computer terms the average person might not understand, but Ken, as Doctor Matsu, filled in the blanks as he explained things to Nicky. The characters were old friends since Matsu realized that the boy was eventually going to equal his father in mental capacity. There was that link, and the fact that Matsu was the pitcher on the company baseball team which gave them something to talk about.

Matsu declared the code Nicky showed him to be very devious, and then explained that it made the user's actions perpetrate the destruction. Once someone's password had been overridden the worm's program didn't stop there. It searched high and low for other links to the same user and attacked horizontally into every contact it found.

"We will now build a trap and capture the little devil," Matsu said.

"How? It drove me right out of the system at school and then vanished," Nicky said.

"It only appears to vanish, but it lies dormant in the utilities section of your school's system. It will use that link to access any further contact information it might have on you. I would suggest you immediately change your passwords and profiles on any of your personal devices and warn your friends to do the same."

"Already did that," Nicky said. "So how do we catch this thing? I assume you want to analyze it."

"I do, but first we need to build a box to keep it in, something without code it can access. Have you ever seen a Chinese puzzle box?"

"That thing with all the parts that slide around until you go crazy trying to open it? Yeah, I have one of those," Nicky said.

"I will construct the cyber version of one, and you will lure it inside," Matsu said.

"With my school password."

"Yes, exactly."

"Cut," Mickey said.

Steve and Ken had been sitting at a console cobbled together by the props department. In the background was the TechMills data room lined with the latest in computer hardware. The room was a chilly sixty some degrees to manage the heat thrown off by all these flashing lights and humming drives. Mickey had managed to catch some of the service techs on camera as they opened cabinet doors and made notations on their electronic notepads.

Unaware of Nicky's full intentions, Matsu had hacked his way into the school system's computer database, and the boy remembered every step it would take to repeat that process. Matsu was never told that Doyle was involved. He just saw a problem and solved it. Nicky had his own plans of revenge for Doyle.

Dennis had watched with fascination as Mickey orchestrated the filming of what was a static situation. Two characters sitting at a desk could have been boring to an audience, but Mickey laid the camera angles out creatively. Left and right profiles would be mixed with frontal shots of their faces lit by the monitor screen in the dimmed atmosphere of the data room.

There was a camera boom overhead which Dennis didn't understand until he saw Ken typing away at the keyboard and realized they were filming his hands. Steve was shown sitting on the left, and then the right, standing behind Ken and finally pacing back and forth. All these shots would be edited to show time passing as Matsu built his little puzzle box for the worm.

"Action," Mickey said.

"Finally, that ought to do it," Matsu said, sitting back in his chair. "Okay, you switch places with me."

Nicky sat at the keyboard and stared at the lines of code on the screen. "This looks simple enough."

Matsu laughed. "No, it's complicated, at least for the worm. Many ways in, only one way out, which I will close once it is inside."

Matsu leaned over Nicky's shoulder and tapped one key. "Now you enter your school password and we await the penetration."

Nicky typed in twelve characters, shown only as dots on the screen, and then he hit enter. The image on the monitor switched to a colored waterfall of lines and Matsu nodded.

"This will take some time. I must take a personal break, would you like refreshment?"

"Water if you have it," Nicky said.

"We have, I will be right back." Matsu walked out of the shot and Nicky looked up to watch him go. With slow subtle moves Nicky removed a flash drive from his shirt pocket and plugged it into the USB port on the tower.

A window opened on the monitor and Nicky typed in a few dozen keystrokes. A light on the flash drive unit started blinking and continued to do so for almost thirty seconds before going out. Nicky pulled the drive out and pocketed it. The little window closed, leaving the waterfall in motion.

The audience would know what Nicky had done, he had copied Matsu's coded program and all the information he would need to access the school's system. The tension of the story line had been ramped up a bit with this little bit of subterfuge, and it would leave the viewer wondering what Nicky was going to do. Matsu walked back into the shot and handed Nicky a bottle of spring water.

"Anything yet? No, it must pass through the servers of the county school system which I imagine are old and filled with junk." Matsu smiled. "You were right to bring this to me, it could have been very damaging if it spread. Has the school restored everything properly?"

"Restored? Doc, they don't even know its there."

"Oh, then you will have to kill it. I will build you a program ... "

The waterfall had been in motion on the screen in front of them, and then suddenly several of the colored threads vanished. Matsu smiled and nodded.

"The worm is sniffing around the opening it has found."

The display changed, zooming in to an open box sitting at the bottom of the waterfall effect. A new line moved down the screen and right into the box where a small flashing dot appeared.

"Ah ha, we have captured it. Please type in the word 'close.'"

Nicky did that and the sides of the box became solid, and slowly another box surrounded the first until the screen was filled with boxes surrounding that small flashing dot.

"Cool graphics," Nicky said.

"I have my fun," Matsu replied. "And now we have the worm in a box from which it cannot escape. I will take it apart carefully and deconstruct the coding. Perhaps we will learn the source of such a despicable attack, and then I will turn this information over to the police."

"The police? What can they do?" Nicky asked.

"Should the hacker reside in this state he will be arrested, we have computer crimes laws now. The State Bureau of Investigation has a computer crimes squad and they will be very interested in this."

"And if they find the guy who did this?"

"Adios, jail time. Not to mention the civil penalties from any damage this worm has caused to private and business interests. You don't think this is only working on your school's computer, do you?"

Nicky shook his head. "I suppose not, it's built to go much further, isn't it?"

Matsu nodded. "Any program that requires password access would be vulnerable, that means just about everything. Your father's business is about protecting us from things like this. I'll tell him to raise your allowance."

Nicky laughed and slapped Matsu's hand. "You do that."

"See you Saturday?" Matsu asked.

"I'll be in the dugout," Nicky said.

"Cut," Mickey yelled.

The die was cast at this point in the plot. The Chips would now have the means to bring down Doyle's scheme ... or so they thought. What Nicky had loaded on that flash drive was a piece of very complicated data constructed by Matsu. But the only thing they had managed to capture was the bait Doyle had thrown them. They would soon discover the worm was alive and well.

Dennis had looked at the schedule ahead and was please to discover that Vince Delaney and Mike Stone were due in the first part of the afternoon. This would be the detective's initial confrontation with Nicky, and in this pivotal scene the audience would learn what the boy was up to.

Jim had already returned to the office, and Dennis contemplated a dreadful lunch from the caterer back at Studio Six. He had arrived in the studio shuttle for the filming and would have to return to the office to pick up the little electric car, or perhaps not. Steve was sitting in the lobby waiting for his ride.

"Waiting for Tim?" Dennis asked.

"I told him I only had two hours, but he seems to be running late," Steve replied. "Hey, what are you guys doing for Christmas?"

"We only have the day, not enough time to go see the family," Dennis replied.

"Yeah, mine won't be here anyway. My parents are taking the kids back east to see the relatives. Tim has this big party at the club to attend, would you like to come with us?"

"I don't want to intrude on your private time."

"Private? There will be dozens of people there, and Mark is attending. Ask Ted and come along, you guys will have fun," Steve said.

Dennis had been to Tim's nightclub once during the summer. 'Club Outrageous' was a gay establishment so neither Mark nor Steve could appear there in the public space, but the private dining room was quite comfortable.

"I'll ask," Dennis said.

Tim arrived and whisked Steve off for the lunch period. Dennis was still pondering his own need for food when Barry came wandering by and motioned him over.

"If I buy you lunch will you give me your opinion on something?" Barry asked.

Dennis nodded. "Anything you need."

Lunch turned out to be a combination plate at a little hole-in-the-wall Mexican place Dennis had never heard of before. The food was so hot as to be barely edible, and Dennis knew his stomach would pay for this later. Barry ate with relish as if the spices didn't bother him.

"So ... Mickey is giving me the second unit this afternoon," Barry said.

"Great, it's about time," Dennis said. "What are you filming?"

"The detectives, a big scene."

"You can do it. Vince and Mike are professionals, and you know how well Steve works."

"I'm feeling pressure," Barry said. "This is a big responsibility."

"Barry, it's a five minute scene," Dennis said.

"Okay, I get that. I'm just surprised Mickey wants me to do this. I think it's a test."

Dennis smiled. "We get tested every day, Barry. But you have a good cast to work with and I know Vince and Mike are looking forward to this."

"You know them, I forgot that. Good, that helps. Look, just stay close, will you? Moral support if nothing else."

"I may ask you to do the same thing when my turn comes," Dennis said.

"You got a deal," Barry replied. "Are you going to eat that taco?"

Mike Stone arrived first, all decked out in surfer duds. A bright Hawaiian shirt, board shorts, mirrored sunglasses and a Hobe bandana completed the look. It made him stand out like a sore thumb amidst the working men of the crew. If he was attempting to be incognito it failed miserably. His was the best known face in town and all he did was amuse the studio crowd.

"Dennis ... hey there," Mike said.

"My goodness, where did you park your surf board?" Dennis laughed.

"That's at the house down in Huntington Beach," Mike said. "Did Vince make it in yet?"

"You're early and the first to arrive."

Dennis waved Barry over and was making the introductions when Vince walked in wearing an Armani suit. The contrast between the two was startling, but then Vince had just come from a wedding. He shook hands with Mike and Barry, and then gave Dennis a hug.

Barry looked a little stunned as if suddenly realizing that he would be directing two of the hottest stars around, but Dennis chatted with the two men and volunteered to show them to the trailer outside the studio. Barry looked at his watch and said they had plenty of time to get outfitted and made up. Mike was polite and waited until they were outside before asking what was on his mind.

"I thought Mickey Talon was directing us," He said.

"Barry is the second unit director for this film, he's very competent," Dennis said. "Mickey is stuck with Jim this afternoon."

"Okay, no problem. How's it going so far," Vince asked.

"Insane ... Jim is just superb," Dennis replied. "He ran ten minutes over in a scene this morning and left us all speechless."

Mike smiled. "That's our Jim. One of these days I'm going to make a film with just him and a camera locked in a room for eight hours."

They had reached the trailer and mounted the steps to find Laura already there hanging clothes on the rack.

"Laura, this is Mike and Vince," Dennis said.

Laura smiled sweetly and patted Dennis' cheek. "Thank you, dear ... but we've met."

First Vince and then Mike have her hugs, and Vince laughed at Dennis' expression. "Dennis needs to understand how long you've been designing costumes."

"Moses was my first customer. Not Charlie Heston, but the original," Laura said with a laugh.

Mike rubbed his hands together. "So what have you got for us?"

Laura took in the surfer clothing and shook her head. "You really need an assistant to control your clothing urges. The older detective wears a nice wrinkled polyester suit and a bad tie." She reached onto the rack and pulled off a tan outfit that matched the description.

"So much for style," Mike said.

"What about me?" Vince asked.

"The younger detective wears designer jeans, an Italian silk shirt and matching tie."

"Aw, sweet," Vince said.

"Figures," Mike said.

"Laura has you for a while," Dennis said. "I'll go alert makeup."

Dennis left them all chatting about past films and went into the next trailer in line looking for Steve. The boy was reading his script for the upcoming scene when Dennis knocked on the door.

"Vince and Mike are here," Dennis announced.

"Cool," Steve said. "When does Mickey need us on the set?"

"Barry has the job for this scene, so be nice to him," Dennis said.

"I like Barry, no problem."

The scene would reveal the joint efforts Nicky and the other Chips had made in re-engineering the worm. With the codes Nicky had copied they had gained access to the TechFirst mainframe computers to solve the equations and deconstruct Doyle's nightmarish little toy. Not knowing who was doing this, and thinking it was a revenge strike, Matsu had glimpsed the intrusion and called in the cops. Detectives Morrison and Daley follow the footprints back to the source which was Nicky's home computer.

The actors gathered on the set for a blocking rehearsal and Barry showed them what he wanted to see. The scene would be played out in the front hallway and living room of Nicky's house following a knock on the front door:

"Detective Daley," Vince announces when Nicky answers the door.

This is followed by a moment of silence. "That would work," Mike says, "except I'm Daley and you're Morrison."

"Oh crap," Vince says. "Sorry."

"No problem ... keep going," Barry calls out.

"Okay ... Detective Morrison," Vince says, flashing a badge at Nicky's astonished face. "State Bureau of Investigation ... may we come in?"

"Please," Nicky says, standing back and holding the door open.

"Are your parents home?" Daley asks.

"Uh, my father is probably at work and Mom is over at the hospital visiting a friend. What's this all about?" Nicky asks.

"I think we need to speak to your father," Daley says. "We have a tip ... no, a lead ... what do I mean? What's the line?"

"We have a lead," Steve said.

"Thank you," Mike said.

"Keep going," Barry said.

"I think we need to speak to your father. We have a lead on the intrusion he reported."

"Uh ... intrusion, at TechFirst?" Nicky says.

"Yes," Daley says.

"Oh, that would be me. I accessed the mainframe," Nicky says.

Silence followed that statement and Vince looked at Mike. "I forget, whose line is it?"

"Okay, let's stop there," Barry said. "Perhaps we should start with a line rehearsal."

Dennis was surprised at the outcome. Mike and Vince were professionals and it seems they had come unprepared to film the scene. Steve stood by, a slight smile on his lips. Barry was the epitome of patience, talking the men through their lines with Steve's help. It was an important scene, not just for the plot of the story but for Barry's reputation.

They walked through the lines a second time with the blocking and everything went well, now they could settle down and shoot the scene. Dennis could only wonder what had gone wrong, but then Jim had chosen these guys for the parts. Perhaps they were just too busy with other things to fully concentrate.

Dennis stood behind Barry and watched the monitor as they filmed, and he sighed with relief when the scene ended. They shot the entrances and exits one more time, and some reaction shots of Nicky to edit in later. By four o'clock they were done.

Mike and Vince said their good-byes and went back to the trailer to change. They would be back in two weeks for their final scenes with the Chips and Doyle. Steve checked out the schedule for the rest of the week and then left to meet Tim. Dennis found Barry doing paperwork at one of the snack tables.

"All in all, that wasn't such a disaster," Barry said. "I've seen worse."

"Huh, I was surprised," Dennis said.

"Don't be. They walked into this cold, cameo roles are such shitty work to just pick up out of nowhere like that. I know they're pros because we dealt with it. Imagine Mickey ... he would have lost his cool."

"You remained pretty cool yourself," Dennis said.

Barry smiled. "Someone has to, besides I know something Jim doesn't. I just finished the scene tally ... we've reached eighty percent as of this afternoon."

"Eighty percent done?" Dennis said.

"Yup, isn't that grand?"

"Damn, I didn't think we were that far along."

"Mickey is a pusher, probably because he has other things lined up for the future. But he's been gaining small percentages every day. Bob knows, the cameramen always know where we are." Barry laughed. "Not that the remaining twenty percent is going to be easy, but Jim will work it out."

To Dennis the remaining scenes of the film were the most exciting. The major moment comes when the Chips and the Computer Crimes Squad join forces and Arty D is confronted in an online battle which he looses. The arrest, and subsequent conviction, leaves Doyle locked in a prison cell without any access to electronics of any kind.

Jim would have the time of his life with that scene as the madness leaves Doyle and he returns to sanity only to discover he will be locked up for a long time. The final moments of the film will be the Chips having lunch in the cafeteria as their world goes back to normal and life goes on. After all the turmoil developed in the film it seemed like a good idea to show the young audience that after the chaos things can get better.

The ending of the film had been re-written three times. The first two had left unresolved issues that could have lead the audience into believing there might be a sequel, but Jim was against the idea. This ending would leave the Chips kids being absorbed back into school life, except Doyle was gone.

"So you think we'll be done by next month?" Dennis asked.

"Close to it, at least for filming. Then the graphics guys can have it. Have you seen what they've done so far?" Barry asked. "Amazing stuff."

Dennis smiled. What he thought amazing was the way Barry handled himself around Mickey. The two of them had become closer under the pressures of the production. Mickey was the artist and his imaging gave the film a rare quality that would grab an audience. But Barry was the organizer. He made it all happen on time and within budget.

The meetings of the production staff were now relaxed and almost social in nature. Rather than hashing out problems they were now talking about success and progress, a far cry from where this had all begun. Even the usually dour Karen Perkins was happy because her budget estimates were on target.

"Let's talk about marketing," Karen said at their last meeting. She nodded at Barry and Dennis. "This is your fault since you started all this media attention."

She was right. The media had never lost focus on the film and what they were doing with it. The website was still awash with fan comments and suggestions, and that attention had grown into the millions as kids across the world responded.

Jim had announced several weeks before that Weston Films would distribute the final product. Ted had never heard of them until Barry explained they were a subsidiary of a subsidiary and the trail led back to a joint venture of the three major film studios. Weston would give them worldwide distribution in a matter of weeks from the release date.

There would be a Hollywood opening, followed by one in Chicago and New York, but then that was only the beginning. Jim and the kids in the cast would travel extensively to openings in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Paris and London. Mickey wouldn't have time to travel along to all these places, but Barry would.

Life in and around Curry Productions became a whirlwind of activity, and then it was Christmas. Ted and Dennis had FedEx'd their presents north to Sacramento and received boxes of their own from the family. It would be the first Christmas either of them had spent away from home.

"Where is home now?" Ted asked.

"Perhaps here, I don't really know yet," Dennis replied.

It was a warm Christmas Eve and they were standing barefoot in the sand at the waterline on Venice Beach. The sun was setting, casting a warm glow on the cloud bank that spread across the horizon. All along the shore the Christmas lights were coming on, giving the town of Venice a festive air. It seems a lot of people had chosen to come down here for a walk this evening, and many of them were gay.

Dennis held Ted's hand as they walked and received knowing glances from the other couples they passed. The weeks had worn them both down, they needed this time together.

"Home won't always be the house where I grew up with my parents," Dennis said. "We will have to choose our own place and make it home."

Ted pushed his head into Dennis' shoulder and laughed. "You have such romantic notions. Do you think we should buy a house?"

"Not like we can't afford one, but I'd say we should wait. The University campus is only five miles from the office."

Ted sighed. "I know ... school ... .again."

"Oh don't think like that, I have a feeling that college might seem a whole lot easier by the time we get there. Besides, I imagine your idea of a major has changed ... mine sure has."

Ted gripped Dennis' hand tighter. "Writing for this film is a good and bad thing. Good because I'll get some credits, bad because it will only increase the pressure to perform. I'll be the only freshman with screenplay credits."

Dennis laughed. "By the time we graduate I expect you'll have a few more credits under your belt. If we keep working it may take more than four years to get a degree, but I don't think so. I'm going to see the dean ... I mean we're going to see the dean at the film school during the first break we get."

"Yeah, break ... when do you suppose that will be?" Ted asked.

"Not soon. Mark will be busy acting in your film so you'll have to do all the work on the scripting once they start shooting."

"And how do you know all this?" Ted asked.

"Barry, he's a wealth of information," Dennis replied. "He's looking for that full unit assistant director's position and I think Jim is going to give it to him. Michael Kane is new to directing and I think Barry will be quite an asset. He won Mickey over pretty fast."

"And what will you do?" Ted asked.

"Me ... I'm going to get my first assistant to the director credits, how's that?"

"Wonderful, we'll finally be working as a team."

Dennis stopped walking and pulled Ted in close for a kiss, ignoring the other people walking along the beach. The work for Curry had brought them differing roles to play and they had spent months crossing paths here and there. It would be good to work on the same film in somewhat equal positions, and then down the road they would see their names in the credits of the film.

For the first time Ted's name would appear in the opening credits, but Dennis knew it would not be the last time that would happen. The day would come, Dennis was sure of that now, the day would come when they would both be in the opening credits. Screenplay by Ted Cavanaugh, and directed by Dennis King.

That would happen ... and when it did this town would really start to feel like home.


On to Chapter Fifteen

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Exit Hollywood is © 2010 by Chris James.
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