Welcome to the Queue

Script

INT. BRIXLEY MUNICIPAL CALL CENTER - MORNING

A fluorescent oubliette. Cubicles. Cold coffee. A motivational poster: **“LISTENING IS FREE!”** Someone has taped over it: **“SO ARE COMPLAINTS.”**

JAX MALLORY, headset on, dead-eyed, stares at a phone console labeled in Sharpie: **CIVIC PANIC HOTLINE (DO NOT TOUCH).**

The phone light BLINKS like a heartbeat.

JAX
(into headset, monotone)
Brixley Civic Panic Hotline. If this is an emergency, hang up and reconsider your life choices.

The line instantly EXPLODES—every button on the console lights up. It’s a Christmas tree of doom.

JAX
Oh cool. It’s sentient now.

A wall-mounted TV clicks on. MAYOR TILDA GRUME appears mid-smile in a press conference, hair shellacked into a weapon. A banner behind her: **“ONE NUMBER. ONE TOWN. ONE DREAM.”**

MAYOR GRUME (ON TV)
Today, Brixley leads the nation with an innovation called— and I’m thrilled to say this slowly— the Civic Panic Hotline.

JAX looks up, horror dawning.

JAX
No. No, no, no— that’s my line. That’s my— you can’t rebrand a phone.

The phone BEEPS. Another line breaks in without waiting.

CALLER #1 (V.O.)
I’m in Tampa and my neighbor’s iguana is judging me.

JAX
That’s not a—

CALLER #2 (V.O.)
My lasagna is still cold in the middle and I’m furious at the concept of heat.

CALLER #3 (V.O.)
I saw a cloud shaped like my ex and I want it cited.

JAX’s eye twitches. He toggles between lines like a doomed air-traffic controller.

JAX
Okay. Great. America found us.

The TV continues. Grume points like she’s launching a missile.

MAYOR GRUME (ON TV)
Any problem. Big or small. Panic is now streamlined.

JAX
Panic… is not… a service.

A door SLAMS open. SABLE ORTIZ strides in wearing a tactical vest that says **FIELD RESPONDER** in duct tape. She carries a clipboard like a weapon.

SABLE
I heard we got upgraded.

JAX
We got cursed.

SABLE
Same thing. Where’s the first target?

JAX gestures to the console—lights flashing, alarms chirping, a tiny fan wheezing like it’s also calli