Truth Be Told Episode #1.01

 

(Dark, Sydney, with red hair and heavy eye make-up, has her head forced under water. We see her eyes bulging, silently screaming underwater. Someone pulls her up. Two armed men throw her on the ground. Sydney coughs, soaked. They walk up to her and yell at her in Chinese. She answers back, still coughing, her head pressed to the ground.. She speaks Chinese. They pick her up by her flaming red hair and throw her on a chair. They speak to her in Chinese again. They slap her. They take her arms and handcuff her to the back of the chair. She stares at the door ahead knowing someone's coming. She breathes heavily, soaking wet. )

 

(Cut to the same door...but an elderly professor enters. He look sat the crowd of students. Three are left, among them is Sydney. Dressed normally, brown hair. She's quickly writing. The professor walks down the aisle as the two other students give him their papers. He walks up to Sydney. She's still writing.)

PROFESSOR: Sydney. Times up.

SYDNEY: Okay, then. (Still writing) I'll...just...finish...my little...essay. Thank you.

(She finishes and gives it to him)

 

(Outside. Afternoon, sunny out. Sydney and a guy - Danny, dressed in a doctor/lab coat – walk together across campus.)

 

SYDNEY: So, I'm pretty sure I got a “D.”

DANNY: You didn't get a “D.”

SYDNEY: I think I got, like, a sixty-four.

DANNY: You've never gotten a “D.”

SYDNEY: I've gotten a “D”!

DANNY: (amused) when?

SYDNEY: High school. Home ec.

DANNY: What did you do? Oh, did you embroider something on a T-shirt...?

SYDNEY: Sweatshirt. It was the assignment.

DANNY: What, it was obscene? Something with the teacher.

SYDNEY: He was a sexist pig. I deserved a scholarship for that.

DANNY: (rifling through his bag) hold on a sec.

(They stop walking)

SYDNEY: This time I deserved a “D.” I didn't prepare. I didn't have enough time.

(Danny is crouched on the ground, going through his bag.)

DANNY: We've had this conversation. Quit the bank, the part time thing isn't working.

SYDNEY: What are you doing?

DANNY: I've got a double shift again...

SYDNEY: (crouches beside him) Did you get the Dave Matthews Band tickets?

DANNY: (smiling) Would you stand up, please?

(She does)

DANNY: I wanted to wait. Maybe do it on the weekend, but I couldn't.

SYDNEY: What's going on?

DANNY: Remember our first date? The bowling alley? The loud guy?

SYDNEY: Oh, God...

DANNY: (starts singing) build me up buttercup baby, then you bring me down! And mess me around, and then worst of all! You never call, baby, when you say you will! But I love you still, I need you! More than anyone darling! I know I'm yours from the start...so build me up buttercup, don't break my heart! (The bells ring in the background)