Missing Cat, Missing Budget

Script

INT. CIVIC PANIC HOTLINE OFFICE - MORNING

A cramped municipal call center. Fluorescent lights. A banner droops: “CIVIC PANIC HOTLINE: ONE NUMBER. INFINITE REGRET.”

JAX MALLORY, headset on, stares into the middle distance like it owes him money. DEPUTY HANK LORR wrestles a printer jam labeled “URGENT: PAPER.”

The phone line BLARES.

JAX
Civic Panic Hotline. If it’s on fire, say “fire.” If it’s emotional, say “therapist.”

INTERCUT WITH:

INT. SUBURBAN KITCHEN - MORNING

A WOMAN, 40s, furious, points through a window at a neighbor using a LEAF BLOWER like it’s a jet engine.

WOMAN
My neighbor’s leaf blower is screaming at my hydrangeas. It’s a hate crime against peace.

JAX
Ma’am, that’s… noise. Like, legally.

WOMAN
Also my cat is missing.

JAX
(beat)
And you led with… the leaf blower.

WOMAN
Priorities. The cat can fend for itself. The hydrangeas cannot.

HANK slides a form toward Jax: “FORM 19-B: SEASONAL NOISE (NON-TRAUMATIC).” He’s sweating like it’s surgery.

HANK
Just check “Seasonal.” It’s seasonal.

JAX
Leaf blowers are a season now?

HANK
Everything’s a season if you stop enforcing laws.

JAX
(into phone)
Okay. Address?

WOMAN
Brixley Heights. House with the “Live Laugh Litigation” sign.

JAX clicks a button.

JAX
Dispatching… someone. Please don’t weaponize your HOA.

He hits an intercom.

JAX
Sable. We got a leaf blower… and maybe a cat.

A chair SPINS into frame. SABLE ORTIZ lounges in tactical gear that’s too serious for municipal work. Night-vision goggles on her forehead. She sips from a coffee cup labeled “EVIDENCE.”

SABLE
A leaf blower’s a gateway noise. Today it’s leaves. Tomorrow it’s dissent.

JAX
It’s… a lawn.

SABLE
All insurgencies start with landscaping.

HANK
(pleading)
Can you just… tell him to be quieter?

SABLE snaps on a vest: “FIELD RESPONDER.”

SABLE
I’ll neutralize the acoustic threat and extract the feline asset.

JAX
We don’t have feline assets.

SABLE
Not with that attitude.

CUTAWAY - EXT. DRAMATIC ACTION MOVIE ROOFTOP - NIGHT