Alternate Takes: Troy Goes Mnemomic (Patreon)

To celebrate cracking 150 patrons and finally getting our buffer back, here's a little peek at what could have been...

Anybody who clocks my monthly creator commentary knows D&W's scenes can swing pretty dramatically in tone and content from draft to draft. Sometimes we rewrite things because we're chasing a particular feel, or looking for better, more dramatic staging. Other times it's a necessary evil because the story's shot off in a far different direction than originally anticipated. 

Dan's second visit to the Icebox is a prime example of the latter. This is something we'd been sitting on for almost the entire length of the comic, and because I'd penned this sequence when were barely gettting a handle on Troy as a character, none of it quite gelled any more. Original Recipe Troy was a little sharper, a little more cutthroat - and an awful lot like other characters in Dan's orbit, which made her kinda-sorta redundant from a story view. 

At some point, though, I hit on the idea of treating her more as a cracked mirror (or whole, depending on perspective) to Dan, somebody who'd echo some of his struggles and personality traits. That sanded down a lot of Troy's rough edges... and ultimately meant ditching a (possibly?) loving homage to one of the most aggressively terrible displays of overacting in cyberpunk movie history:

PAGE 15

Later that evening, the crew settles down at the Icebox. For the first time, we see that the bar stools are stubby, frost-encrusted cylinders attached to liquid nitrogen canisters. Troy wipes her seat down, and is rewarded with a human face peering up at her behind ice-caked glass.

Jack sidles over to the group, all smiles.

JACK

Ladies! 

JACK

(smaller font) Dan. (/smaller font) 

JACK

What can I get you on this fine day?

**

LIN

Heeeey. Local Port, extra gin.

TROY

...I don't know. Something alcoholic that wasn't brewed anywhere in the vicinity of this godforsaken country.

JACK

You want the good stuff. I get you, sister. How's about a nice American beer?

He pops open a cryogenic chamber whose occupant is currently hugging a good dozen beer .cans in a frosty, disturbing embrace. He extracts one and slides it over.

Troy looks at the can, which is labelled "BUTTWISER". She then sets the can back on the counter, picks up her jacket, and walks out.

 PAGE 16

Some time later. Dan eventually finds Troy sitting on a burned-out car behind the Icebox.

DAN

Hey, uh, is everything OK? You know, if you don’t like beer, we could spring for some Kettle One, or-

TROY (not making eye contact)

You know, my whole life I've kept my head down and focused on just doing my job. Hitting sales targets. Pushing product. No complications. Now, suddenly I'm stuck in a raging mental trash heap of nuclear waste and inbreeding, and if I'm _really_ lucky, Synacon might get a chance to fire me if- if I don't get killed and dumped in a gutter first. 

DAN

Troy...

TROY (snapping)

Listen. Just listen to me! This city? This giant, crazy mess of rabid dogs and bad decisions and uglier architecture? I'm not supposed to be here. I'm supposed to be somewhere over there, on the other side of the ocean, where they understand concepts like "democracy" and "decency" and, and, and- "sanitation". I've had it. I've had it with this place, I've had with it you, I- I want CIVILIZATION! I want buildings that aren't a crime against humanity. I want drinking water you don't have to boil four times. I want food that isn't made of cow's assholes and wood pulp. I want... a spa. Maybe a mud wrap. 

She sinks down, defeated. 

TROY

And a fucking Appletini for afters. 

 PAGE 17

Troy and Dan sit at the canal bank, illuminated by the lights of the city.

TROY

Sorry, but how on earth do you stand it? How can you get out of bed every morning, knowing all day long, you're just going to be ground down by every single thing around you?

**

Dan says nothing for a moment. Then he pulls a little baggie of pills from his jacket pocket. The label reads "FEELGOOD INC."

**

DAN

These tend to help.

Troy stares at them. Then she shrugs, pops the bag open, and swallows two at once.

TROY

Thanks.

DAN (almost smiling)

Sure.

The two sit back as a pixelated happy moon shines down on them.

You can see the very faintest traces of this version in the finished scene, but what's in the final cut hits a lot different now. Johnny will just have to get his another time...