Figment Daily Theme: The Button

I've decided that what I need to do is add a more consistent creative aspect of my life, and to that end I am going to start trying really hard to do a daily writing exercise based on the theme randomly sent to me by a service called Figment. 

Today's writing prompt seemed to play directly into my particular inclinations, and because I'm insane there was no way I was going to write a short story or poem – it was going to be a screenplay.

Hint: a lot of the upcoming content will be screenplays. 

Regardless, here's today's prompt and the results. Enjoy!
Dialogue

"So, what happens if I press this button?" I asked.
"Nothing," she replied.
I pushed the button, grinning.
"It's when you let go that things get nasty." 
Use these lines as inspiration for a short story or poem.


INT. INDUSTRIAL HALLWAY - NIGHT
Windows on one side keep the night out of the high-tech blank whiteness along with the yellow sodium BUZZ. The camera PUSHES FORWARD, hearing muffled thumps and wheezes behind each carefully-numbered otherwise blank-white door.
A conversation eases its way into our space.
MAN
(muffled)
So, what happens if I press this button?
WOMAN
(muffled)
Nothing.
MAN
(muffled)
I pushed the button.
WOMAN
(muffled)
It's when you let go that things get messy.
INT. INDUSTRIAL HALLWAY (REVERSE) - NIGHT
A brushed steel elevator like something from an 80's corporate office stolidly sits at the end of the hall we were just watching from.
ROOM 664 bursts open, a middle-aged MAN in a white lab coat cradling a dull silver box topped with a single red, candy-like BUTTON staggers out hard enough to shoulder-check the opposite wall. The one thing he doesn't do is take his palm off the button.
A WOMAN in a similar labcoat slides out to lean on the doorpost, chuckling. Late 40's, laugh-lines, and brunette hair pulled lightly back in a bun. A crisp ID BADGE names her "MORIAN" and the company Transtech.
MORIAN
What, you don't want to see what it does after all this work?
The man just begins backing up along the wall toward the elevator, shoulder dragging as he tries to keep maximum distance from her. His ID BADGE reads "CARAL" and under that in barely-smaller letters "Management 6.
CARAL
You're crazy. You're absolutely batshit, Morian.
I know what you were doing on the project.
MORIAN follows CARAL out into the hall, shrugging nonchalantly.
MORIAN
Just doing what I was told, Caral. You know how that goes, don't you? I mean, the samples were just sitting there, begging to be taken. Right?
Caral continues pulling back along the hall toward the elevator. The fingers clutching the box are starting to whiten at the knuckles.
MORIAN
If I'm not wrong, you actually ate it, or injected yourself with the stuff to get it out of the building, right? Pretty inactive bits. Bits and bobs of snips from various animal samples that I was tying together.
INT. HIGH TECH GENETICS LAB
Caral slips in, looking at the BANKS OF SEQUENCERS and GLASS CASES OF TUBES. He consults a bit on his TABLET which calls out a few numbers and cases. He nods, moving deeper into the lab.
A CLOCK ON THE WALL reads 4:17am.
A CAMERA tucked into the overhead corner of the room stares down, lit by a single red LED.
"Samples 350-475: Biological, inert, chimeric" is where Caral stops. Looks around nervously, opens the door with a heavy tug, and pulls the vials. Then he just looks at them stupidly a moment before looking back at the tablet.
CLOSE ON TABLET:
Samples are biologically inert and can be ingested or injected for biological entanglement with a carrier for recovery after the extraction.
Caral freezes a moment.
CARAL
(softly)
No fucking way. Fuck.
(louder)
FUCK!
He looks around, near terrified for a moment, before his fingers brush a PRESSURE HYPODERMIC. Hesitantly, fingers shaking, he opens the breech with a muted HISS, slips a sample tube into the gun, CLACKS it closed, then closes his eyes.
CARAL
(to himself)
Twenty million. Twenty million. Twenty million. Twenty -- fuck, they'll never find it here, right?
He jerks the front of his coat open then jabs the hypodermic gun into his armpit where it kliks and lets out a slow hiss.
CARAL
Fuck! Jesus, damn.
He disinterestedly drops the hypo back on the desk and rubs at his armpit before closing the case and walking out.
The camera in the corner pans to follow. Then the LED blinks out.
INT. INDUSTRIAL HALLWAY - NIGHT
Caral has almost reached the ELEVATOR now. The floor display shows the car at the lobby.
CARAL
The fucking cameras.
Morian nods.
MORIAN
The fucking cameras. You don't work for Transtrech at all do you? Just a hired thief, come to take a few things and get out.
I know you didn't eat them, Caran. Just put them right down the ol' gulliver.
Caral backs into the elevator edge with a surprised bump, Morian keeping her distance. He fumbles for the down button and stabs it repeatedly until it lights up and a few times for good measure. Then he looks down at both hands full of the box and the button and scowls.
MORIAN
Just lean over. The RFID'll brush the sensor close enough. Morning coffee would be impossible otherwise.
INT. DOCTOR MORIAN'S OFFICE
Spartan. No windows. No pictures of family, no thing out of place, everything on the DESK arranged in a hyper-efficient 45 degree arc in front of the chair, including two TABLETS and a two-foot-high HOLO-DISPLAY. There's a DOOR in the back of the room to the side, unmarked, a couple of beat-up leather CHAIRS facing the desk, and a glass TABLE.
A silvery BOX with a shiny red BUTTON on top sits on the table.
Caran slides into the office from the front door and carefully closes it behind him with barely a click.
Muffled VOICES can be heard coming closer, then receeding. Apparently the big sports thing last night was quite sporty but also foregone.
Caran visibly sighs and looks around. Puzzled.
CARAN
Whose office is this?
Morian. The project head. Must be a psycho, working like this. Nothing.
Except this thing.
Caran listens to be sure the voices are still going away, but they seem Hell-bent on lingering just too close.
then gingerly picks up the box.
It's seamless, edgeless, just a radiused machined-metal cubic surface with an almost embarassingly simple plastic red button on top. No lights, no levers, no glows. Just metal and a plastic button.
The door opens and Caran wheels around to face a bemused-looking Morian only a foot or so away. The glow of surveilance cameras and lab machiners oozes out around her before it gasses shut.
MORIAN
It's a little early for visitors.
CARAL
I was just cleaning up --
MORIAN
No you weren't. Let's not lie to each other - Caral, is it? I'm betting not.
CARAL
I was just leaving.
MORIAN
Not just with my box, right? Which you probably want to put down. Now.
CARAL
Important then? Maybe I'll just keep it.
So, what happens if I press this button?
INT. INDUSTRIAL HALLWAY - NIGHT
CARAL
I injected 'em.
MORIAN
What?
CARAL
The samples. I injected 'em. Seemed the easiest way to get the stuff out of the building.
Morian sighs. Shakes her head while rubbing the bridge of her nose.
MORIAN
Of course you did. Well, you weren't going to get off with a stomach pumping, anyway. Probably for the best you didn't get sent for the good stuff, you idiot.
CARAL
What?
The elevator softly dings. The doors slide open.
Caral steps back into the elevator box, cradling the other box like a baby, palm pressed firmly over the button.
MORIAN
How do you think you extract aggressively integrating chimeric DNA samples, Caral? Little scraping, bit of blood drawn?
Caral is pushing repeatedly at the LOBBY BUTTON. Aggressively.
MORIAN
They sequence you. And by "you," I mean all the little slices of you that'll fit in a six inch by six inch machine.
The doors close slowly.
CARAL?
What?
MORIAN
I hope the money was worth it.
INT. ELEVATOR
A SILVER BOX with very muted recessed overhead lighting. An LCD FLOOR LISTING, touch-sensitive. Caran standing there holding another featureless silver box with his palm on the red button.
He takes his hand off the button.
A CHIME. The voice that comes out of the box is sweet and light.
BOX
Mobile decontamination unit activated. All genetic contaminants will be removed in ten seconds.
Carol stares at the box, then throws it on the floor with a CLATTER.
BOX
Please do not use in a ventilated area. Inorganic surface materials nearby may retain some residue.
The elevator chimes FLOOR 23 while the box flips open some gas ports with a barely audible click.
CARAL
No, no, fuck, no. All of it no!
BOX
Decontamination complete. No genetic inclusions should remain.
FLASHBACK TO:
INT. ELEVATOR
Caran stares at Morian's lips as they are obscured by the closing doors.

MORIAN
They'll never believe that you aren't carrying it.
Location: Lawrenceville, GA 30046, USA

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