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TRANSCRIPT:
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[Open. Ext. Overview shot of DC. The camera pans overhead to show different shots of DC as if you are in a helicopter. News anchors talk while this is going on.]

Man Anchor: Seven thirty right now, coming up a recap of a disturbing story from last night.

Man Anchor #2: Skeletal remains discovered by a group of sixth grade students in Anacosta.

Woman Anchor #1: The remains have not yet been identified according to police and there’s no word as to whether foul play is suspected.

[CUT TO: A news van. Day. There is a guy inside watching a woman reported on a small TV. The camera then pans outside on a close up of the same reporter speaking.]

Woman Anchor #2: Dale, the word most repeated by the young witnesses we spoke to, horror. As in it looked like a horror movie. Now…

[CUT TO: Cullen and Booth are on the crime scene making their way to the body.]

Cullen: I hate press cases.

Booth: Yes sir.

Cullen: More then three cameras show up and some homicide detective kicks it to up to his captain who kicks it up to the chief who kicks it to the FBI.

Booth: Bang! And kick it down to me, which I thank you sir for the opportunity.

Cullen: Booth, I want this closed.  I don’t want to look at next Sundays Post and read church kids find mystery corpse dressed for Halloween. FBI remains clueless.

Booth: I guarantee you won’t read that sir. Okay, I’m on it.

(Cullen walks away and Booth notices Bones and Zack walking up.  He lifts the crime scene tape for them.)

Booth: Bones.

Bones: I got here as soon as I could.

Booth: Yeah, thanks for coming. Did I pull you away from anything important?

Bones: A ninety-six hundred year old cocazoid female skeleton was found in the Kunlun Mountains in China last month an international investigation is underway. I’m contributing stress marker analysis.

(Booth enters an alleyway and Zack and Bones follow.)

Booth: I think you’re going to find this uh, very interesting too.

(There’s a body in the alleyway that is starting to decompose.  The body has a weird suit on.)

Booth: Ooh.

Bones: (kneels down and looks at the body.) What the hell is he wearing? It’s light weight. (she taps on the chest part of the suit) Composite.

Booth: I think it was some kind of sexual bondage suit and there’s that bag.  That’s full of maggots.

Bones: It looks like cellulose in there. Degraded from bodily tissues and decomposing fat.

Booth: And maggots.

(Zack snaps a few pictures of the body and the bag.)

Zack: Tibial plateau fractures and ground disturbance suggest total body impact.

Booth: (looks up) Okay so did he jump or was he pushed Bones?

Bones: That’s what we have to figure out.  We can take the skeleton in.  Give you a report maybe after next week.

Booth: Oh no, you don’t have to solve the whole case just tell me if I’m looking at a murder maybe you know, pull a quick ID?

Bones: (looks up at him and smiles) Don’t use your charm smile on me.

Booth: What? (laughs) It’s a mark of respect. That’s all.

[CUT TO: Lab. Platform area. Zack is standing over the body on a table and Bones is with him.]

Zack: Hip physio union with diaphysis on the wrists, knees, and ankles suggest the victim was between fourteen and eighteen years old, 1.6 meters tall, a very slight build suggesting he was at the younger end of the scale.

(Hodgins walks up.)

Hodgins:  I detracted the bag.  The degraded cellulose we found is a graphic novel.

Bones: A what?

Hodgins: It’s a comic book.

Zack: I never read comic books.

Hodgins: Really? I had you pegged for a graphic novel nut.

Zack: The uh, face and cranial vault are badly fractured. Blows to the parietal have sent radiating fracture lines to the mid frontal and anterior temple buttresses. (to Hodgins) Why?

Hodgins: Star wars, Star Trek, Star Gate, Battlestar Galactica…

Bones: Focusing gentleman.

Zack: Conclusion, brutal assault killed him.

Bones: He was dropped after he was already dead.

Hodgins: His killer wanted it to look like a suicide.

Bones: Let’s get his dentals into the NCIC see if we can find a match. Zack, call Stockholm and Beijing our research data on the other thing is going to be delayed.

[CUT TO: Booth’s SUV. Day. Interior shot of Booth driving with Bones in the passenger seat looking at a file.]

Booth: It’s Warren Granger age seventeen.

Bones: Seventeen, small for his age.

Booth: Yeah well he was home schooled, GED obtained last summer. His mother and step father reported him missing from this very block two months ago. Hey listen, Bones, you know, if you want to uh, sit this part out. Hey I know you got some ancient Chinese bones waiting…

Bones: No, I’m on this now.

(They pull into a driveway next to a two story white house.)

Bones: Looks like every other house in the neighborhood.

Booth: Every family has its secrets, Bones.

[CUT TO: Granger’s house. Warren’s room. The walls are covered with comic books posters. There is a computer desk in the room.]

Helen: This is Warren’s room. No one’s been up here since the detective first looked it over.

Stepfather: The news said there was hardly anything left of him.

(The mother picks up his picture looks at it and leaves the room crying.)

Booth: Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to have harm Warren in anyway?

Stepfather: He was always by himself. No friends, no enemies.  He would spend all his time up here with his comic books and toys.  He was a lonely kid, died before he even had a life. I really thought he had just run away. (he starts to leave the room and stops in the doorway and turns.) We tried, tried to get him out of this place into some kind of real life. I even got him a job at the bowling alley but he just spent all of his money on this stuff. (he leaves)

Booth: Unbelievable. (sighs and goes over to pick up some comic books) This is quite the collection of comic books.

Bones: Hodgins said that the cellulose mass was graphic novel. He sent it to Angela for analysis and recovery.

Booth: Sweet.

Bones: Sweet?

Booth: Ah he has Batman number 127 featuring The Hammer of the Thor.  This is worth about three hundred bucks.

Bones: Booth, are you a nerd?

Booth: First of all you mean geek and no I’m not okay. It’s quite normal for an American male to read comic books.

Bones: I find it hard to believe you have anything in common with Warren Granger.

Booth: Oh, you mean isolated with an inner secret life? No, okay. I’d say you were more like Warren.

(Bones phone vibrates and she picks it up and looks at it.)

Bones: (to Booth) Zack discovered some significant hairline peri fractures on the right and left ulnae. It’s his arms.

Booth: I know ulna means forearm. I pay attention.  I also know that peri fracture means that the kid fought back, Bones.

Bones: Small stature, a geek, and he fought back.

Booth: Yeah and he also got thrown from a roof.

(Bones sits at Warren’s computer desk and starts up his computer.)

Bones: There’s nothing but games on here.  There’s no journal, there’s no documents, nothing personal. What did he do at his desk? I mean there’s a light, the rugs worn.  He used this area for something.  (sits at the writing desk) What was it?

Booth: Probably where he read his comic books.

(Bones leafs through a draw and pulls out a yellow pad of paper.  She takes a pencil and rubs it over the surface to see what he wrote.)

Bones: I think Warren sat here and wrote long hand with a ball point pen.

Booth: That’s pretty retro for a geek. (picks up a comic off the floor.)  At least we know where he got the idea for a costume, Citizen 14.

Bones: A super hero.

[Intro. Rolls]

[CUT TO: Lab. Angela is looking at a computer with Bones next to her. Booth is standing behind them with Dr. Goodman.]

Angela: Hodgins dried and separated the pages.  I digitized them and adjusted for frame seepage.

Bones: Was this printed commercially?

Angela: No it’s a prototype, It’s hand made.

Bones: That’s what he was writing at his desk.

Booth: A comic book staring himself.

Dr. Goodman: A shy adolescent young man renders himself as a super hero.

Booth: Alone in that room all the time, maybe Warren got consumed by his own fantasy.

Bones: You think he was actually out fighting crime?

Booth: Well the boy got beaten to a pulp while wearing his super hero outfit in the heaviest crime area of DC, Bones.

Dr. Goodman: As you know being a writer yourself, Dr. Brennan, Warren Granger’s comic book could be infused with his real life fears and conflicts.

Bones: Especially in the case of an adolescent writer.

Booth: Can you retrieve anymore of this?

Angela: Yeah sure.

Bones: Fine.  What’s our next step?

Booth: Oh, well go see if Warren had any friends his mother didn’t know about.

[CUT TO: Karma Comics. Night. Booth and Bones are talking to a clerk, Stew Ellis, inside the comic store.]

Ellis: Wait a minute Warren Granger was the skeleton corpse those kids found?

Booth: Yeah, sounds like you were close.

Ellis: How long was he laying there all dead like that?

Bones: Well for awhile.

Booth: How well did you know Warren, Mr. Ellis?

Ellis: He came in here all the time. You know he uh, knew his stuff. He was a nice kid, a really nice guy.

Booth: Is there something you’re not telling us?

Ellis: What do you mean?

Booth: You seem a little nervous.

Ellis: You just told me that someone I know is this rotting skeleton corpse that’s been all over the news. What do you expect?

(Bones looks towards the ceiling where she hears noise.)

Bones: Is there a party upstairs?

Ellis: Oh it’s the uh, Doomsday group. I rent it out on Thursday nights. (Bones begins to walk away.) Hey wait um; Warren was actually one of them.

Booth: Oh, well you know that’s a handy thing to remember. Anything else you forget to mention to me?

Ellis: No, that’s it I think.

[CUT TO: Top floor of Comic store.  There are five teenagers hanging around looking at comic books and listening to music. Some of them have died hair. Bones walks up on them with Booth and Ellis behind her. One of the teenagers notices her.]

Kuznetsky: Excuse me this is a private function so goodbye.

Bones: Go ahead don’t let me stop you. What are you doing exactly?

Booth: Guys this is actually a real live woman something you don’t see often.

Kuznetsky: And like I said this is a private function so…

Ellis: It’s the FBI.  Alright  just turn it off for a minute. Please. FBI.

(A girl with short blue hair turns off the music.)

Kuznetsky: I’m Yasutani the Terrible.  I speak for this clan.

Booth: Okay, well we’d like to ask you a few questions if you’re not too uh, busy.

Bones: The costumes, the social awkwardness, the active fantasy life.  The victim would fit right into the sub grouping.

Booth: Okay Mr. Yakatori the horrible. What’s your real name?

Kuznetsky: Jeremy Kuznetsky.

Bones: Do any of you people know Warren Granger?

Abigail: Something happened to Warren didn’t it?

Ellis: Warren’s dead.  He was murdered.

Booth: No, I never said anything about him being murdered.  Neither did the press.

Kuznetsky: Yeah well obviously if you’re the FBI, he was murdered. You guys don’t investigate people getting hit by a bus.

Booth: Hey great.  When was the last time anyone of you seen Warren?

Kuznetsky: A couple of months ago when he left.

Bones: Left?

Kuznetsky: Citizen 14 was one of us until he went psycho and bugged out.  He called us all posers.

Guy: Pathetic fantasist.

Bones: Was he wearing his um, outfit?

Kuznetsky: His identity, yeah.

Bones: Why do you wear these identities?

Guy: For the game.

Booth: How serious did he take the game?

Kuznetsky: It’s only fun if you take it seriously.

Bones: You always play here?

Guy 2: You know play is not exactly the right verb.

Abigail: (yells) Shut up! Shut up!

Kuznetsky: You really want to try to explain it to them?

Abigail: Didn’t you hear!? Warren is dead.

Guy 2: It’s okay Minnow.

Booth: (walks over to the girl and she sits.) What’s your name?

Abigail: Blue Minnow.

Booth: Okay guys when I ask your names I want the ones that your parents gave you.

Abigail: Abigail Zeeley. Citizen 14 was my partner.

Bones: Is that what you call Warren, Citizen 14?

Abigail: Citizen 14 was my partner.  Warren was my friend.

Kuznetsky: He was a little more then that.

(Abigail looks at Kuznetsky then gets up and runs to leave the room. )

Abigail: I have to…

(Ellis grabs her by the arm and stops her.)

Ellis: Hey, hey, hey.

[CUT TO: Booth’s SUV, Night, Booth is driving and Bones is in the passenger’s seat.]

Bones: I don’t like to judge an entire sub culture but those people gave me the creeps.

Booth: That’s because they are creepy. What I mean is those kids at the store are not a bunch of old good to you tutor you in math geeks.  They were the uh, you know set the school on fire geeks…Dark nerds…Columbine nerds.

Bones: Columbine? You think Yasutani the Terrible is actually capable of murder?

Booth: I think they get high, you know.   You know, they play these games.  They loose their grip on reality and you know they start to believe that they are these characters.

Bones: You mean like Warren out fighting crime.

Booth: You know maybe hey Warren and that guy the leader…Yasuhama…something.

Bones: Yasutani the Terrible.

Booth: Yeah, Yasutani the Terrible. Maybe him and that guy they got into this uh, you know  magic fight and it became real.

Bones: So you’re saying it wasn’t Warren who was murdered it was his character, Citizen 14.

Booth: They’re so delusional they don’t even know they have committed a crime.

Bones: I’ll get Hodgins to see if there is signs of drug use in Warren’s hair.

[Lab. Angela’s office.  Angela is showing Dr. Goodman    the computer screen with more of the comic books straightened out.]

Angela: Well I managed to get some of the text back from this panel, cheerful little tyke.

Dr. Goodman: The writer was in pain and I don’t think it was the purely adolescent angst of the outsider. In fact I would go as far as to say it wasn’t mere psychological pain. He’s afraid of actual physical death.

Angela: Can you really pull out that information from a comic book?

(Booth and Bones enter)

Dr. Goodman: Absolutely.  All writers reveal more of themselves then they intend on their page.

Booth: You know I’ve gotta tell you I never bought all that English 101 stuff.  Sometimes a river is just a river.

Bones: (to Goodman) With all due respect but my writing for example is pure fiction.

Dr. Goodman: Dr. Brennan, I fear you reveal much more of your world view in your writing then you realize.

Bones: Such as?

Dr. Goodman: Such as Archeologists make good administrators because they enjoy tedium.

Angela: Such as artists are doomed to a life of loneliness because they are unable to think beyond instant gratification.

Booth: Such as, you know, FBI guys are hot and Angela here wants to have sex with me.

Angela: Yeah.

Bones: Well all I’m suggesting is that while Dr. Goodman goes through Warren’s writing we should concentrate on the hypotheses that are congruent with forensic evidence. I’m going to take another look at Warren Grangers remains. (she leaves)

[CUT TO: Lab. Bones is standing over the skeletal remains of Warren’s body while Zack is sitting on a stool across from where she is standing.]

Zack: In the last twenty-four hours, I’ve read several dozen comic books and graphic novels. 

Bones: Did Hodgins find any sign of drug use?

Zack: No.  They’re quite interesting, the graphic novels especially.

Bones: After you have cleaned the bones look for scoring on the occipital condyle and the inferior nuclein.

Zack: They are basically the retelling of the Greek myths with all superhero’s standing in for Hercules, half god, half human.

Bones: Okay be very careful here.  X-rays shows fragmentation of the cervical vertebrae consistent with sharp force trauma.

Zack: Invulnerability, super strength, heightened senses, telekinesis….I’d love to have some of those powers.

Bones: Why?

Zack: I…I don’t really know. Is it not desired?

Bones: Why fantasize? You’re smart.

Zack: In some ways my intelligence is a handicap. For one thing I’m weird. For another I tend to make people feel stupid and they resent me for it.

Bones: I suspect it’s the same for super powers. The victim was stabbed here at the base of the spine.  The spinal cord was severed.  That’s what killed him.

Zack: I’ll clean the bones and try to match a weapon to the damage done.

Bones: Which will make you a real hero in the real world.

[CUT TO: Angela’s office.  Angela is looking at the computer screen with the comic book page on it. Dr. Goodman

Dr. Goodman: In this restored panel from the second and final volume of Citizen 14 you begin to see a female presence, beautiful, ethereal which he calls the Opalescence.

(The page shows Citizen 14 character on his knees reaching up to a woman with a blue glow around her.  The text box on the page reads: Citizen 14’s very core cries out in anguish upon seeing such a radiantly pure being. There is a dialog box next to Citizen 14’s head that reads: She’s beautiful!)

Angela: The girl he literally can’t approach. What if Warren was only you know, supplying his own masturbatory materials.

Dr. Goodman: Yes, lonely adolescent boy but the story moves on beyond that dimension. (selects another page for the computer to display and points at it.) Here we see the idolized female, Opalescence, cowering before a dark male figure referred to only as the Twisted.

Angela: So Citizen 14 wants to rescue the Opalescence from the Twisted. Could this be Warren’s mother and step-father?

Dr. Goodman: Hm, no elements of a romantic love.  This girl surrounded by blue.

Angela: You know, they did mention one of those comic book geeks was a blue girl.

Dr. Goodman: I’d say she’s definitely worth questioning.

[CUT TO: Booth’s Office. Day. He is sitting at his desk. Bones is standing off to the side and Abigail is sitting across from them.]

Booth: Blue Minnow that’s your alter ego.

Abigail: Abigail Zeeley is my alter ego.

Booth: Did you Abigail have a relationship with Warren Granger or did the Blue Minnow have a relationship with Citizen 14?

Bones: Or any combination thereof?

Abigail: (looking at the comic book Angela restored) Neither, Warren had a girlfriend at Capital Bowl.

Booth: What’s the girlfriend’s name Abby?

Abigail: He never told us her name.  It was just a physical thing and it was almost over.  Warren and I had a connection.  He couldn’t deny that.  Before he disappeared he gave me his entire Nue gaming collection, his favorite work besides his own.

Bones: In his own work he describes a woman known as the Opalescence. (Booth holds up the page it’s on and points to it.) Do you believe that’s supposed to be you?

Abigail: What do you think?

Bones: We think it’s another girl entirely.

Booth: Does that bother you?

Abigail: Okay maybe the others told you I’m obsessed I know, because they never got Warren like I did.  He was right they are posers.

Booth: But Warren wasn’t?

Abigail: Warren believed.  He believed in truth. He believed in doing what was right.  He was Citizen 14.  Citizen 14 is real.

Bones: Warren didn’t fit in with the others?

Abigail: (getting upset and loud) I just said, Warren was better.  He was a really nice guy.

Booth: (gets up) Are you aware that uh, Jeremy Kuznetsky and uh, Kenneth Bert had police records? (hands papers to Abigail)

Abigail: Yeah. It’s nothing interesting though.  It’s like vandalism and trespassing. You can’t take them seriously.

Bones: What as criminals?

Abigail: As anything.

Bones: Okay well what would be interesting as a crime?

Abigail: Something that took courage, something that meant something.

Booth: Like murder?

Abigail: Yeah, like murder.

[CUT TO: Hologram room.  Angela is entering data while Booth and Bones look on.]

Angela: Warren Granger on the night he died wearing his costume.

Bones:  Okay start the sequence.

(The holograph displays a miniature scene.  It shows Warren in his costume fighting with the Twisted character from his comic book.)

Bones: Cause of death was a severed spinal cord. (The display shows Twisted grabbing Warren, pulling him forward, and reaching around stabbing his neck.)  Well we can rule out Abigail Zeeley as the killer.

Booth: How do you figure?

Bones: Abigail doesn’t have enough strength to sever Warren’s spinal cord with one blow.

Booth: What about his step dad or the uh, other kids at the comic shop?

Bones: Well if the physicality of the murderer is between five ten and six one, I’d say yes to them all depending on the weapon.

Angela: What could he have done to make somebody so angry at him?

Bones: Zack’s cleaning the bones now; maybe we will find something that we’ve missed.

[CUT TO: Lab. Bone cleaning area. Zack is sitting in a chair reading a comic book waiting on the bones to be cleaned and Hodgins walks in.]

Hodgins: What are you reading?

Zack: I’m doing research.

(The beeper goes off on the cleaning machine and Zack gets up)

Hodgins: By reading a comic book?

Zack: Intensely allegorical modern myths.

Hodgins: (picks up the comic book) You’re reading bugs bunny, man.

Zack: On the surface yes but if you dig deeper the subtext becomes apparent. (puts gloves on and lifts the lid to the machine.) The conflict is representative of the Darwinian struggle between avians and mammals for dominance.

Hodgins: Based on Bugs giving Daffy Duck a cigar made out of dynamite?

Zack: Yeah. (uses tongs to remove the bones and place them on a nearby table.) And then here (points to comic book) he explodes but not really.

Hodgins: You have a problem my man.

Zack: What?

Hodgins: (bends over and looks at bone) Looks like you degraded the bones.

Zack: Impossible.  It’s only a four percent peroxide solution.

Hodgins: Then what’s that bubbling and pitting on the periosteum?

Zack: Four percent solution wouldn’t cause that.

Hodgins: So what some kind of systemic deterioration?

(Zack picks up the tray the bone is on and brings it over to a magnifying glass to look at it more closely)

Zack:  Interochanteric crest is almost totally eaten away.

Hodgins: What do you think it is?

Zack: This kid was sick.

[CUT TO: Capital Bowl. Booth is there with a bowling shirt on and a ball.  Bones is with him but not dressed for bowling.  They are standing with their backs to the service desk looking at other people bowl]

Booth: Do you smell that?

Bones: Yes I do.

Booth: You know what that is Bones?

Bones: Wax…popcorn…feet…deodorant.

Booth: That is America, Bones.

Bones: (smiles) You keep your bowling ball in the car?

Booth: Oh you know I figured we ask a few questions about Warren Granger, maybe bowl a few frames.  You know nothing like a little sport to uh, take the edge off.

Bones: This is not a sport.

Booth: How do you figure?

Bones: There’s no physical benefit so it’s really like golf.  It’s not a sport.  It’s an activity.

Booth: You know could you please; Bones, maybe just for once try not to piss everyone off around you?

Bones: Yeah sorry.  Are you good at this sport?

Booth: Ah well my average is over 200 less then two opens per game one match I had 211 strikes out of 431 shots. Twenty-nine opens, thirty-nine games.

Bones: What does that mean?

Booth: It means I won some bowling awards.

Bones: I won the Marshall A. Sixon award for my paper on Giorgio Romanus and physiological selection.

Booth: My God, it’s like we lead parallel lives.

(They walk up to the shoe counter.)

Ted: Need shoes?

Booth: Yeah uh, (flashes a badge) looking for the manager.

Ted: (points to his name tag) Ted McGruder.  FBI huh?

Booth: Yeah we’re uh, investigating the death of one of your employees.

Bones: Warren Granger?

Ted: Warren? When he didn’t show up for his last paycheck I thought he just found another job and didn’t want to give notice. He’s weird like that.  Good kid though.

(Booth hears some kids horsing around and they all look over at them. They are the group of kids from the comic shop. A blonde woman walks up behind the counter.)

Lucy: Ted I talked to them but they just keep giving me lip.

Ted: Luce these people are with the FBI. They’re here about Warren Granger.

Lucy: Warren? What about him?

Bones: He’s deceased.

Lucy: Oh my God. (to Ted)  I told you he didn’t quit.

Ted: I was wrong.  This is my wife Lucy.

Lucy: Sorry.

Booth: That’s okay. How often do those kids come in here?

(Bones steps away from the counter and looks at the kids.  Jeremy Kuznetsky glares back at her.)

Ted: Those jokers, weekends mostly but they used to come in a lot more in these crazy costumes. I told them I’d allow it on Halloween but that’s it.

Booth: Warren’s girlfriend here? We were informed that Warren’s girlfriend worked here.

Ted: If you ever met Warren you would know his not the girlfriend type of kid.

Lucy: There was a girl who came by to see him sometimes.

(Booth pulls out a picture of Abigail and slides it across the counter to them.)

Lucy: Yeah, yeah that’s her. I don’t know her name but I don’t think Warren was all that glad to see her. If she called he’d ask me to tell her that he wasn’t here.

(Bones cell phone rings and she answers it.)

Bones: (in cell) Brennan.

Ted: Maybe he was just trying to dodge her.

(Booth notices Bones on the phone.)

Booth: Excuse me just one moment please. Thanks.

(He picks his bag off the counter and walks over to Bones)

Bones: Okay slow down Zack and repeat that.

Zack: (in phone) Hypercellularity with total effacement of the marrow space, osteoblasts at twenty-six percent.

Bones: Okay good work, Zack. Keep working on the weapon ID. (hangs up)

Booth: I take it were not going to be getting in any bowling tonight huh?

Bones: Zack said that if Warren hadn’t been murdered two months ago, he’d be dead by now.

[CUT TO: FBI conference room.  Booth and Bones are there. Booth is questioning the parent’s of Warren.]

Booth: When you said Warren was sick as a child you meant Leukemia?

Helen: Yes, but by the time he was eleven he was in remission.

Bones: The hypercellular activity I saw is only present in advanced cancer cases. He must have been very ill.  You didn’t notice?

Stepfather: We tried to be there for Warren but he wouldn’t let us in.  Right when you thought you built a bridge of trust he’d quit on you.  He quit trying to face reality.

Booth: Maybe your son didn’t want you to have to face it.  I mean he knew his situation was dire and he decided to tough it out on his own.

Helen: Yes, he saw what it did to me the first time.  It’s not that he quit.  It’s that he didn’t want me to suffer.

[CUT TO: Lab. Booth and Bones are walking through it talking.]

Bones: You told her that her son didn’t tell her about being sick to make her feel better.

Booth: Mm. Hm.

 

Bones: You don’t really believe that?

Booth: Well people don’t actually do that.

Bones: So you just told her that to make her feel better?

Booth: Right.

Bones: So you just did what you said people don’t do. I wonder why he didn’t tell his mother.

Booth: Well maybe he was all caught up in the romance of being a dying superhero.  You know, adolescent angst all that.

Bones: What do you really think?

Booth: (exhales) The truth is I think the boy was looking at how to be a man all on his own without any help. He was doing the best that he could.

Bones: Heroes don’t whine about being sick.

Booth: Something like that, poor kid.

(Hodgins, Angela, Dr. Goodman walk up to them.)

Hodgins: Did they know about the Leukemia?

Bones: No, he kept it a secret.

Hodgins: Tough guy, huh?

Booth: You were right on before knowing he was facing imminent death. This changes motivation.

Hodgins: The killer’s motivation?

Booth: No, Warren Grangers.

Dr. Goodman: You think he was emboldened by the knowledge he was going to die?

Hodgins: He went looking for a fight.

Angela: He went looking for the Twisted.

Bones: Wait. No wait. We are allowing the comic book story to generate too many hypotheses.

Hodgins: I only heard the go get the bad guy hypothesis.

Dr. Goodman: It’s too general.

Bones: Yes, perhaps the Opalescence represented Warren’s better nature and the Twisted was a reflection of his darker sexual impulses.  A theme I assume is common in teenage fiction and the drawings…

Booth: Bones, Bones.

Bones: The drawings.  Warren wrote the comics but there was no evidence in his room that he knew how to draw.

(Zack runs up.)

Zack: Dr. Brennan, I found an extra piece of bone I can’t account for.

Bones: Someone else drew the comic. (she runs up to Zack)

Angela: Stew Ellis.

Booth: What about him?

Angela: (walks over to him with the comic.) Look, Warren Granger wrote this comic book but it was drawn by Stew Ellis.

[CUT TO: Comic Shop. Booth is talking to Ellis.]

Ellis: Look I told you I knew Warren from the store okay.  He was a serious investor.

Booth: He owe you money Stew?

Ellis: What?

Booth: Was it creative difference or was it you just didn’t  get enough credit? (hands book to Ellis.)

Ellis: No,  It was none of that.

Booth: Look why didn’t you tell me that you were partners when I asked you earlier?

Ellis: Cause we had a big argument and I didn’t want you to think I had a motive.

Booth: Okay, what’d you argue about?  Abigail Zeeley?

Ellis: No man just merchandising.

Booth: You argued about merchandising?

Ellis: Yeah Warren thought he deserved seventy percent for the concept but I think since I did the actual drawings…I think…

Booth: Did you have a publisher?

Ellis: No and now we never will.  Look, if you think that I killed Warren, I’m not that stupid, man.

Booth: So who do you think killed Warren?

Ellis: I don’t know man…D..d…definitely not me, okay.

Booth: Well you know Stew, as of this moment you are the prime suspect in Warren’s murder.

Ellis: (exhales) Why?

Booth: Why? Because you lied about your relationship with Warren.  So if I were you I would think really really hard if there’s anything else you haven’t told me.

Ellis: Alright, Abby.

Booth: Abby? Triangle.

Ellis: I hooked up with her a few times but she was obsessed with Warren.

Booth: So you did argue about her?

Ellis: No man. Warren never wanted Abby.

Booth: Okay maybe it made you jealous that she wanted him?

Ellis: Dude, Abby’s cute in a chick geek kind of way but she’s definitely not that kind of baddy you go to the death chamber for.

Booth: Okay Stew. You know what?  You’re just one of those guys who is just way way too good at lying.

Ellis: Dude I’m an artist what do you want?

[CUT TO: Lab. Zack is looking at bone fragments on a computer screen. Bones is with him looking at what he found.  Warren’s skeleton is laid out on a table by them.  His bones are all clean.]

Zack: I found the extra piece of bone lodged here in the odontoid processes of C2. I…I went through all the chipping and damage again but I can’t find where it came from.

(Bones takes it to a microscope to look at it.)

Bones: It’s not from the cervical vertebrae.

Zack: It’s not?

Bones: It’s from a long bone probably the deltoid processes of the humerus.

Zack: Arm bone?

Bones: I need you to set up the microtone and get me paraffin and an embedding mold.

Zack: Are you going to prep your own bone slide?

Bones: Yes.

Zack: Usually I do that for you.

Bones: This is a tough one Zack. The piece is small and I need to make sure there is enough left for a DNA sample.

Zack: Wait, Warren Granger’s arm bones are complete.  This extra bone fragment didn’t come from Warren Granger.

Bones: Warren Granger was the victim of a violent attack.  He fought back.  It’s possible that during that struggle he struck his attacker with the same weapon that was later used to kill him.

Zack: Which means that piece of bone could have come from his murderer.

(Bones nods her head yes.)

[CUT TO: Lab. Box area. Bones is leaning over a machine blowing very carefully on it. Booth walks in.]

Booth: What are you doing?

(She glances up at him without moving her head.)

Bones: Breathing on the sample dissipates static electricity and makes it easier to cut.

Booth: You seem nervous.

Bones:  If I get this right I’ll be able to tell you the age, sex, and race of Warren Granger’s killer.

Booth: (leans in closer to her.) Stew was the artist.

Bones: Really? You think he killed Warren over artistic differences?

Booth: He also had a thing for Abby.

Bones: Wow.

Booth: Yeah for a recluse, Warren Granger, he had his thumb in a lot of pies.

Bones: You said before that Warren reminded you of me. You think I’m just like him that he hid from life by immersing himself in a fantasy world where he fought crime and I do the same thing only I don’t have super powers. I (pause) have science.

Booth: C’mon Bones you do fight crime.  It’s not a fantasy.  As far as any normal person is concerned you do have super powers.

Bones: (shaves the bone) You’re just saying that to me.

Booth: No I don’t do that.

Bones: Yes you do. You lied to Warren Granger’s mother to make her feel better.  That seems to be your super power.

(Bones grabs the slice of bone out of the machine with some tweezers and places it on a glass slide.)

Booth: Look this piece of bone you’re analyzing.  How did it get lodged in Warren Granger’s neck?

Bones: It was deposited by the same weapon that severed his spinal cord.

Booth: Doesn’t make it the killer’s bone.

Bones: You’re thinking a separate murder victim?

Booth: Opalescence uh, the woman he loved.

Bones: I don’t think she’s dead.

Booth: Why?

Bones: This is an arm bone. Has anyone we have seen on this case been favoring her arm?

Booth: Not that I noticed.

Bones: That’s because you’re not an Anthropologist with super powers.

Booth: Ha. That’s good. Ha. Ha.

[CUT TO: Capital Bowl.  Lucy is coming up some stairs to the rental desk carrying a bowling ball in her right arm.  Ted is walking out to join her as she sees Booth and Bones standing to her left looking at her.]

Lucy: Oh hello.

Ted: Any news about Warren?

Booth: We’re still in the initial phase of our investigation. Listen Mr. McGruder, you didn’t happen to keep that uh, last payroll check for Warren Granger that you told me about?

Ted: By law I have to, yeah.

Booth: You mind digging that up for us? I apologize for the inconvenience.

Ted: I guess. It’s probably in the file somewhere. (he leaves to get it.)

Lucy: What do you need the paycheck for?

Booth: Ah, it’s technical.

Bones: Mrs. McGruder, what’s wrong with your left side?

Lucy: Why would you ask me that?

Bones: I noticed how you held yourself the last time I was here.  I didn’t think anything of it though viewed through the current context…

Lucy: What is she talking about?

Booth: She wants to know how you hurt yourself.

Bones: You walk as though your left ribs are cracked also you favor your left arm.

Lucy. Oh, I um, I…I fell on the lanes they’re very slippery.

Bones: Falling would bruise a number of ribs; you’re favoring only one or two.

Booth: The type of damage done by a fist. (Lucy looks shocked and upset.) Look, were you and Warren close?

Lucy: He was a nice kid, a really nice kid.

(Ted returns with Warren’s last paycheck.)

Ted: (hands paycheck to Booth) Here it is. You two wanna bowl a few frames? Got some empty lanes.

Bones: I’ll see you in the comic books, buster.

Ted: What?

Booth: Thanks I’ll get this back to you. (he escorts Bones away from them towards the door.) It’s “See you in the funny pages”.

Bones: Okay I took a liberty!  Her husband beats her.

Booth: Bones! Talk about multiple hypotheses.

(They stop walking near the door and talk.)

Bones: It’s a leap, yes but it was bound to happen, me spending so much time with you.  I mean that as a compliment.

Booth: Okay so Warren’s former boss is the Twisted and the boss’s wife is the Opalescence.

Bones: Go back and arrest him. (she starts to go towards Ted and Booth grabs her arm.)

Booth: It’s not enough. Okay, for that we need something just a little bit  more real.

Bones: Evidence.

Booth: Cold hard facts, baby.

(Bones looks at Lucy and she looks back then looks down.)

[CUT TO: Lab. Zack, Bones, and Booth are at the top of the stairs to the balcony area above the lab.]

Zack: Dr. Brennan based on your histology and DNA, the bone chip found in Warren Granger’s neck came from a Caucasian male mid thirties.

Booth: McGruder, Oh what, can you get anymore specific?

Bones: We need the weapon.

Booth: Well I mean I can get a warrant and search the McGruder house for whatever you want.

Bones: That’s the trouble.  We don’t know exactly what we are looking for.

Zack: We hit a dead end trying to reverse engineer it from the mark on the neck, too much damage and fragmentation.

Bones: Wait. You said that in books you could find the real world version.

Booth: Yeah well, I mean if you know you, it’s pretty obvious.

Bones: Well, give me an example.

Booth: Okay well in your box your partner is a former Olympic boxer who graduated from Harvard and spoke six different languages.  In real life, you got me Ha.

Bones: So what you’re saying is that reality falls far, far short of fictional.

Booth: Yeah thanks a lot, Bones.

[CUT TO: Holograph lab.  Angela is entering data while Booth and Bones watch.  There is a holograph of Warren in his costume displayed.]

Angela: Warren Granger’s spinal cord was severed by something sharp but not a knife.

(The image shifts to just show the skull and spinal column.)

Booth: Okay if it wasn’t a knife, what was it?

Angela: The closest match I could find would be a cork screw or a Tibetan skull knife but neither of them explain how foreign bone was left lodged in the vertebrae.

Bones: Pull up Citizen 14’s weapon thing.

Booth: There was a Boomerang thing like a sonic gun.

Angela: A laser cutlass, that thing that allowed that him to hear through walls.

(Angela enters some data and the sonic laser Citizen 14 had shows up.)

Bones: We’re looking for something that has a drabber more banal version then the real world.

Angela: Well why would he be killed by his own weapon?

Booth: Well because he probably had it on him the night he decided to confront Ted McGruder.

Angela: Citizen 14’s arsenal. (the holograph shows all his weapons.)

Bones: (points to a weapon) What’s that?

Angela: That’s his main weapon.  It’s a three sided throwing knife that returns to him but none of them make the wound that resemble the one that severed Warren’s spinal cord.

Bones: (sighs) It was just an idea.

Booth: Bones.

Bones: No I…I fell into the exact thing that I warned you about, developing too many hypotheses not grounded in fact.

Booth: No Bones.  I know exactly which drab real world thing was used to murder Warren Granger.

[CUT TO: Booth’s SUV. Night. Booth of course is driving and Bones is in the passenger’s seat.]

Booth: All this kid wants is to feel like a hero.  Suddenly he’s facing the damsel in distress.

Bones: Lucy McGruder is ten years older.

Booth: No, it’s not the damsel part that matters. It’s the distress that appealed to the kid.  You know, I mean it look, it wasn’t about the sex or the romance.  It never was.

Bones: He wanted to make a difference in the world before he died. (Booth looks at her.) I told you he was more like you then me.

Radio: Twenty-two seven O five dispatch.

(Booth picks up the handset.)

Booth: (into radio) Twenty-two seven o five.

Radio: Units entered suspect residence reports the domicile is empty.

Booth: (into radio) Alright, no ones there? What about the wife?

Radio: Negative, search team is inside the house, it’s empty…signs of flight.

Booth: (in radio) Ah affirmative uh, dispatch. (hangs up handset.)

Bones: Wait he beats her but she takes off with him anyway?

Booth: Spousal abuse syndrome. (picks up handset) Dispatch, twenty-two seven 0 five.

Radio: Dispatch.

Booth: (into radio) Can you send a backup unit to uh, Capital Bowl, 1123 Seabolt?

[CUT TO: Capital Bowl. Night. Booth and Bones walk in quietly]

Booth: (whispering to Bones) Domestic disturbances are always weird okay?

A woman gets beat up by her husband the cavalry runs in to save her you know, you’d think she would be on the same side as the rescuers but sometimes…

Bones: You’re saying watch out for the wife.

(They hear a door squeaking in back.)

Booth: All I’m saying is just stay alert. Okay, Bones?

Bones: (whispers) Okay, Okay.

(They hear Lucy and Ted arguing and walk up on them.  The notice Ted is taking money out of his safe and Lucy is standing above him.)

Lucy: Ted why are we doing this?

Ted: Shut up.

Lucy: You didn’t do anything.

Ted: Lucy, I swear to God if you don’t shut up.

Lucy: I know you wouldn’t hurt Warren.

Booth: Of course he would.  You see that’s what he does.  He likes to beat up people weaker then him.

Ted: We are closed.

Bones: Well you left your door unlocked, probably an oversight due to your state of panic.

Booth: Yeah the lights were on we you see we suspected a robbery.  Say do you have a bevel knife?

Lucy: A what?

Bones: It’s a triangular three sided knife.

Booth: You know to clean out bowling balls. Say I used to have one back in the day.  You wouldn’t happen to have one around here would you now?

Ted: You need a warrant.  You need a warrant to take any of my stuff.

Bones: Lucy, we need a bevel knife.

(Lucy goes to a drawer in the counter.)

Lucy: We keep one in here.

Ted: Shut up Lucy!

Booth: Why don’t you smack her around a little bit there Ted huh, keep your woman in line?

(Lucy pulls out the drawer with the knife in it and sets it in front of Bones.  Bones picks it up with rubber gloves and looks at it.)

Bones: Yeah, this could have done it.

Booth: Say Bones that uh, bone chip uh, is that from the victim or the murderer?

Bones: Well for Warren’s sake I hope it was the murderer.

Booth: Me too.

Ted: What are you talking about? Just get out of here.

Bones: It would be his left arm.

Lucy: What?

Bones: Well Warren was right handed so the wound would be on your husbands left arm.

Lucy: Oh my God.

(Bones walks up to Ted with the knife in her hand.)

Booth: Bones!

(She takes the handle of the knife and hits Ted in his left arm causing him to holler out and grab his arm. Blood seeps through his shirt. Lucy screams.)

Bones: Right there.

(Ted goes to punch Bones and she deflects it grabbing his arm and throwing him down on a table top on his back.)

Booth: (comes over to him with handcuffs) I got him.  I got him. I got him. I got him. Alright! (pulls him up with the handcuffs on him.) Oh hell Bones, it looks like you opened up an old wound there. Yeah, alright, let’s go. You know what you’re under arrest.  I really hate a wife beater. I really do almost as much as I hate someone who kills a dying kid.

[CUT TO: FBI questioning room.  Booth is showing Lucy his file. Bones is seated next to Booth.]

Booth: Warren knew what Ted did to you?

(Lucy shakes her head yes.)

Bones: Did you tell him?

Lucy: I didn’t have to. He saw one night. Ted hit me and Warren…Warren ran away.

Bones: Why didn’t you go to the police?

Lucy: Because it’s not all the time and it’s just when things go bad and he’s under a lot of strain. Ted has a bad temper.

Bones: Warren wanted to rescue you.

Lucy: (cries) Oh my God.

Booth: He probably just wanted to intimidate your husband, stop him from attacking you.

Bones: Warren stabbed your husband in the arm with a bevel knife.

Booth: Ted took the knife away from Warren.

Bones: It wouldn’t have been hard.  The boy was very ill.

Booth: After that it’s like you said, your husband has a bad temper.

(Lucy cries)

[CUT TO: Angela’s office.  She’s finishing Warren’s comic book by coloring in the sketches.]

[CUT TO: Cemetery. Warren’s funeral. Booth, Bones and Angela is there.  Booth walks up and puts his sharpshooter medal on his casket. He walks back to Bones and they turn and see Blue Minnow behind them crying.  Angela hands Bones the finished comic book.  Bones hands it to Lucy who sees Opalescence.]

[CUT TO: Warren’s casket with things people have left for him on it.  The last thing the camera pans to is the comic book with the last page open.  The page has Opalescence on it with a dialog box next to her face that reads: Thank you!]

FADE TO BLACK.

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Transcribed by VERONICA for http://www.twiztv.com
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