"VINCENT:" "This is where the wealthy and the powerful rule." "It is her world." "A world apart from mine." "Her name is Catherine." "From the moment I saw her, she captured my heart with her beauty, her warmth and her courage." "I knew then, as I know now, she would change my life forever." "CATHERINE:" "He comes from a secret place, far below the city streets." "Hiding his face from strangers, safe from hate and harm." "He brought me there to save my life." "And now, wherever I go, he is with me in spirit." "For we have a bond stronger than friendship or love." "And although we cannot be together, we will never, ever be apart." "(train wheels clacking)" "(newspaper rustling)" "(brakes squealing)" "(train doors open)" "(train door squeaks open, slams shut)" "(train motor accelerating)" "Ain't you got no pride?" "Who you looking at?" "Hey, lady, we're talking to you." "Got a match, lady?" "No." "Please." "Bet you got a match in the bag, lady." "Why don't you give it to me?" "No matches." "Leave me alone." "Let's have a look." "(screams)" "Oh, baby." "(laughs)" "Nineteen dollars?" "!" "She's got $19!" "That's bad." "(cries):" "No!" "(laughs)" "No, don't hurt me, please." "Please, don't hurt me." "What was that?" "Oh, God... (screams)" "(grunting)" "(screams)" "REPORTER:" "The Subway Slasher struck again last night, killing two armed men who allegedly assaulted an elderly woman." "The D.A.'s Office has issued a statement saying they're working with Transit Authority Police on a number of leads." "I have a horrible suspicion these are for me." "Bingo, Radcliffe." "And it's your own fault." "First thing I learned in the Army:" "never volunteer." "And this is an ugly one." "Take a good look." "17 and 16." "They look like they tried to go a round with a tiger." "Only this animal walks around on two feet and half this city thinks he's a hero." "(ferocious growling)" "Hey..." "You look a little green." "You sure you've got the stomach for this?" "I'm sure." "What do you want me to do?" "Our Subway Slasher knows how to take care of himself." "So, what you got here?" "You got your karate schools, kung fu instructors, self-defense classes." "Be the first deb on your block to collect the whole set." "Now you know the profile we're looking for." "Recent crime victim, maybe someone who's lost a family." "Flag anything subway-related." "Oh, um... you have heard of the subways, right?" "(echoing):" "Isaac?" "You can come out, Isaac." "I know you're there." "(laughing)" "Can't fool you anymore." "I had a good teacher." "Hi." "So... you come for the refresher course, or is this a social call?" "Neither, I'm afraid." "I need to ask you some questions." "Anything makes you sound that serious got to be pretty heavy." "We talking baseball, money, or love here?" "We're talking the Subway Slasher." "Who am I talking to here, a friend or a DA?" "Me." "Wrong answer." "He's killing people, Isaac." "That so?" "I notice you don't say... innocent people." "Innocence or guilt is for the courts to decide." "If you know something..." "I don't know nothing." "And if I did..." "I wouldn't tell no DA." "Whose side are you on?" "You give me ten minutes to shower and change," "I'll show you." "ISAAC:" "Here it is." "CATHERINE:" "The Protectors?" "The nuts in the white hats who ride around on the subways looking for trouble, right?" "Right." "Come on." "ISAAC:" "Look around." "And these people ain't crazed vigilantes in training camp here." "Just ordinary people trying to take care of each other." "And you wanted to know whose side I was on?" "I'm on their side." "Is that responsible?" "A woman that age could get hurt trying to resist a mugger." "She didn't resist last time." "She couldn't get her wedding ring off her finger." "The mugger figured he'd make it easy for her by cutting off the finger." "One of our people stopped him." "This is the man who put this whole place together." "Cathy Chandler, Jason Walker." "Jace, please." "I've seen you on TV." "None of it's true, I swear." "Stubbs, how does someone as ugly as you happen to know so many beautiful women?" "Cathy was one of my students." "You mean you actually paid this man money?" "ISAAC:" "She's with the DA now." "Oh... are we in trouble again?" "I don't know." "Have you done anything?" "Not as much as we'd like to." "JASON:" "If a transit cop rescued that lady, he'd get a commendation." "This guy is minus a badge, so that makes him a psychopathic monster." "No." "Ripping two teenagers to pieces makes him a psychopathic monster." "A traffic cop would have arrested them." "Right, right." "And, uh... seeing as how they were juveniles, they would've had to serve a little soft time, then they would've been back on the subway, kicking another old lady to death." "Great system you got there, Ms. DA." "It's not perfect." "Tell me about it." "This is where they come, Cathy." "The old people who have steel bars on their windows and still can't sleep at night." "The woman who can't understand why the boy who killed her son walked free." "The rape victims who scream when their husbands touch them." "This is where they come when the plea bargaining is over." "Believe me, they know the system isn't perfect." "I don't know a better one." "Do you?" "Of course you can find failures to point at, but... most of the time, the system works." "It's all we've got." "No, we have ourselves." "Our courage, our..." "our strength, our compassion-- we have each other." "And now we've got him." "Whoever the hell he is." "You gave me a lot to think about." "That was the whole point." "Isaac, if you thought... if you even suspected that this vigilante was someone you knew-- a friend-- what would you do?" "Talk to him." "Ask him." "Go to where the man lives" "I'd look him dead in the eye-- but, first, I'd be real sure about one thing:" "I'd be real sure I wanted to know." "(rhythmic clanking echoing from distance)" "(clanking)" "* *" "* *" "* *" "You came." "(sighs)" "You have no idea how much I needed to see you." "Vincent?" "What's wrong?" "(snarls)" "Vincent." "(gasps)" "No, Vincent, no!" "(screams)" "(birds chirping)" "You look sadder than my last date." "Anything I can do?" "I need to see the file on a Mrs. Beatrice Dalby." "That's the cleaning lady saved by the slasher, right?" "Right." "I didn't know you were supposed to question her." "I'm not." "Then why?" "Let's just say I have a very dirty apartment." "Mrs. Dalby?" "I'm Catherine Chandler, with the District Attorney's Office." "When are you people going to leave me alone?" "I got work to do." "I've already told the police everything I know." "This won't take long, I promise." "You say you never got a good look at the slasher." "Don't call him that." "That man saved me, and all you people want to do is hunt him down like some animal." "Where were all you people when those boys were kicking on me?" "I didn't see him." "I told you people that-- I told you and told you." "The lights were going on and off." "What kind of a subway is that, we can't even keep the lights on?" "Oh, surely, when the lights came on, you saw something, if only for a second." "I was on the floor, hurting." "I still have bruises where those boys kicked me." "I didn't see no part of that man." "You're protecting him, aren't you?" "Mrs. Dalby," "I'm not even supposed to be here." "This is personal for me." "I have a friend..." "I think... (sighs)" "I don't know what to think," "I'm afraid that he was involved." "If you could tell me what you saw-- anything-- his face, his hands..." "His face..." "His hands..." "He didn't have hands-- just claws." "And his face..." "I'll never forget that face." "He wasn't a man." "He wasn't a human man at all." "He was like, like an angel." "A terrible angel... come to save me." "A terrible angel." "Thank you." "You won't tell them, will you?" "No." "I got to ride that same train tonight, Ms. Chandler." "VINCENT:" "It's a good thing we found you, Catherine." "CATHERINE:" "I thought I'd remember." "I must have gotten turned around somehow." "Everything seems so different." "Strange." "The ways change, Catherine." "For every safe road, there are a hundred paths that lead only to darkness." "I had to come." "I had to see you." "I was afraid." "I know." "You didn't come." "I called, I banged on the pipes, you never came." "I could feel your fear, Catherine." "Even now." "I frighten you." "(rhythmic tapping echoes from distance)" "You taught me to face my fears always, Vincent." "Tell me." "What should I tell you?" "That I am not this shadow, this man-monster, that you hunt?" "(subway train passing in distance)" "Must you hear the words before you trust?" "Hear them, then." "It is not me." "Catherine," "I would never hurt you." "No, Vincent, no." "I'm sorry, I didn't mean..." "To pull away?" "I know." "(raspy inhale, exhale)" "I know your heart, Catherine." "But sometimes the words that are not spoken are the truest words of all, however much they hurt." "What are you saying?" "We both know what these hands can do... have done." "Catherine, if your heart does not trust, then no words I speak could help." "It's time for you to go home." "(indistinct, overlapping whispers echoing from distance)" "(subway train passing in distance)" "Vincent?" "Are you all right?" "I've heard the children talk of this place." "It was our secret place, when I was a child." "I used to come down here with my friends." "(quiet, wry laugh)" "We thought it was magic." "Magic?" "All the tunnels." "If you stand in just the right place, you can hear sounds... whispers from the world above." "People on the subway, children playing in their homes, lovers walking in the park." "Sounds of a thousand different lives, if you know just where to stand-- the magic places, we called them." "It's Catherine, isn't it?" "I can hear her fears whispering to me, no matter where I stand." "She cannot help being afraid, Vincent." "Her world is built on fear." "It's all they know." "With the lives they're forced to lead, if they weren't afraid... they might be insane." "And us?" "We have something they only dream of:" "A safe place." "A secret place, beyond their madness and their fear." "Sometimes I would run down here when we played hide-and-seek but before the game was over, Father, they always found me." "Even here." "* *" "(roaring ferociously)" "(echoing):" "It is not me." "(echoing):" "A terrible angel." "CATHERINE (echoing):" "Have you done anything?" "(echoing):" "Not as much as we'd like to." "Not as much as we'd like to." "Not as much as we'd like to." "Not as much as we'd like to." "(police siren blares in distance)" "Yo." "(men laughing, talking indistinctly)" "(door shuts)" "Well..." "I hadn't expected to see you again so soon." "You come to sign up?" "I'd look really silly in one of those white hats." "I disagree." "Besides, the guys in the white hats always win." "Do they?" "Well, at least in fairy tales." "You know, the city has its own myths." "We're all so rational, so sophisticated and cynical, but we still need our gods and demons, our heroes and villains." "I... knew a man used to work the IRT." "He swore he saw a monster down there once, when he was troubleshooting some track." "You hear the street people talk about it, too." "Some terrible, fierce creature who haunts the dark places, some... thing with the face of a demon and the soul of an angel." "You can't possibly believe that, can you?" "But they believe it, don't you see?" "Because they need to believe." "Inside, we're all children, scared of the dark, wishing there really was a Batman." "But Batman was never half as formidable as you, was he?" "I can take care of myself." "But I tell you, all the fighting techniques in the world don't equal what I learned from Isaac Stubbs in one afternoon." "You remember his first rule?" "On the street, there are no rules." "That's the problem with doing things your way." "You believe in rules;" "the predators don't." "So we throw away the rules?" "Then what's the difference, the color of our hats?" "I don't have to tell you the difference." "You know it already, or you wouldn't be here." "Isaac tells me you were a star pupil." "Isaac exaggerates." "I still have a lot to learn." "These weapons, for instance." "Can you really use all of them?" "Some." "I wouldn't touch that sword." "The samurai kept their blades razor-sharp." "Does that make you a samurai, Jace?" "(sighs)" "What are these?" "Those are throwing stars." "I can see you don't make it to many ninja movies." "* *" "We should move on Jason Walker." "This is the same Jason Walker who heads the Protectors, right?" "Heavily into karate, aikido, jujitsu, ninjitsu." "Who's been sued maybe a half a dozen times by perps he's brought in on citizen's arrests;" "collects secret ninja death toys." "Pops up on TV and says how the Subway Slasher is a hero and not a nut case, and isn't it too bad we don't have a dozen guys just like him." "We talking about the same Jason Walker here?" "I have a sinking feeling you're ahead of me." "Don't be fooled by the gravy stains on their ties, Radcliffe." "Cops aren't as dumb as they look." "Well, he has the right skills, the right attitudes..." "Yeah, well, there's only one problem with that." "He's also got an alibi." "Well, then, someone's covering for him." "Who, the cops?" "Jason Walker has been under 24-hour police surveillance since this investigation began." "I'm not wrong about this, Joe." "MAN:" "Hey, baby, that's a real nice dress." "WOMAN:" "Stop bothering me." "Okay." "Leave me alone." "Come on, baby." "Don't be so mean to me." "Oh..." "Give me a kiss, sweetie, come on." "(guffaws) Don't touch me." "Let me go." "No!" "You hurt me." "Please, please let me go." "Please." "You let her be!" "You keep out of this, grandpa, if you know what's good for you." "There's a police officer on this train." "Don't..." "Yeah, I'm scared." "MAN:" "Okay, baby, let's have some fun." "WOMAN:" "No!" "No!" "Please don't leave me!" "Come on!" "Come on!" "WOMAN:" "Help me!" "Please don't leave me." "Don't be afraid." "I'm going to get the police officer." "I'm going to get him." "No, don't leave me!" "Please help me!" "Stop!" "(both grunting)" "(claws slice)" "(man moaning)" "All right, hold it right there." "(transit officer grunts)" "(claws slice, officer screams) No!" "(door thuds)" "* *" "(tapping echoes from distance)" "Father!" "Lana saw him." "Go and find Vincent." "I'll get Lana to show him where." "Now, go quickly, quickly, there's no time to lose." "REPORTER:" "As the city awaits the next attack of the Subway Slasher, many New Yorkers are hailing him as a hero, the savior of the subways." "According to the young woman who was rescued by him last night, the mysterious beast-like creature with claws, wearing a black cloak, appeared out of nowhere, slashed her assailant to death, critically wounding a transit policeman..." "VINCENT:" "Catherine." "...then escaped out the window of the moving train." "In a joint news conference," "Police Chief Riordan and District Attorney Moreno confirmed they are following several leads, but declined to comment further." "And now, more news from the metro scene..." "I thought I might never see you again." "You have enough fear in your world." "I could never bring you more." "Vincent, forgive me for doubting you." "Catherine." "You were right to be afraid." "My heart knows how gentle you are." "Even the gentlest man has a demon locked inside of him." "Not you." "Not a demon." "We've seen your vigilante." "He has a secret door from your subways to the older tunnels-- the secret tunnels." "Vincent, if you can show me, I'll go to the police." "They'll stake it out." "Catherine, there are a thousand miles of tunnels beneath this city, all of them connected." "If the police find his door, they'll search through all of them." "Then we'll do it another way." "From above, not below." "I promise you, Vincent, I won't betray your world." "They hunt for this man as they might hunt for me, if they dreamed of my existence." "You have your laws and your courts to tell right from wrong, your police to protect you." "We have only ourselves." "By what right do I condemn him?" "Am I so very different?" "Yes, Vincent, you are." "Bring me a map." "* *" "Why is it whenever you're paying for lunch," "I wind up here?" "If you found out about that building, we'll have lunch at Four Seasons." "(scoffs) That's all right." "The pleasure of your company and a microwave cheeseburger is more than enough." "(sighing):" "Push-button food, push-button job." "Soon as they come out with push-button men..." "I'm set, babe." "(laughs)" "The place was built in 1887." "I can tell you right now, if the city has plans on it, it ain't in nobody's computer." "Could you find out anything about its history?" "It was a seedy rooming house for 50 years before the Protectors turned it into Kung Fu Central." "Originally, it was a cheap hotel for sailors." ""Seaman's Safe Haven."" "I found mentions in a couple of old newspaper indexes." "Just the name." "Even still, the stories aren't on computer yet." "(scoffs)" "Don't look at me, girlfriend." "I don't go looking through those musty old files." "You know dust makes my eyes water." "Edie," "I love you." "Hey, who's going to pay for my dessert?" "!" "* *" "* *" "CATHERINE:" ""Through secret tunnels."" "(taxi engine starting)" "DA's Office on 64th." "Don't even think about it, Ms. Chandler." "I know you're good, but you don't want to go up against the two of us." "Just take it easy and nobody will get hurt." "Jace just wants to talk." "(siren wailing in distance)" "You didn't have to go to all this trouble." "Really." "You don't scare easy, do you?" "Please, sit down." "Don't make this difficult, Cathy." "There's no need for melodrama." "I'm not going to hurt you." "The sailor murders." "I'm innocent, I swear." "My granddaddy was a sharecropper in Alabama when all this went down." "Did you know when you bought the building?" "No, no, we had been doing renovations in the basement, and we stumbled on the tunnels." "They had been sealed up for almost a century." "At the time, we had no idea why they were there." "You know, it's like a... like a regular maze down there, you know, side tunnels and dead ends." "It's so old, you can't imagine." "Can't I?" "The story, the..." "the demon protector, the angel from below." "The city needed him." "Frightened people need symbols to make them feel safe." "So many people hurting, and frightened-- more every day, day after day, year after year." "I began to doubt, to question whether one man could make a difference." "But no longer." "You call that making a difference?" "Killing a few muggers?" "The deaths weren't important." "The legend was." "It's time for them to be afraid now." "What about the policeman?" "He's still in critical condition." "Legends never make mistakes." "They never miss, or stumble, or strike out in panic." "And they never hurt those who don't deserve to be hurt." "The problem is, men do all those things." "It's too bad your legend doesn't really exist." "Oh, but he does." "And you're going to tell me all about him... aren't you?" "(overlapping, indistinct whispering echoes from distance)" "(subway train passing in distance)" "(orchestra playing Beethoven's "Fifth Symphony" in distance)" "How many times have I told you," "I don't know what you're talking about." "Cathy, you're trying to protect him-- fine." "I admire that." "But it's pointless." "Red saw you together." "He watched you for more than 20 minutes." "Red needs a reality check." "Hey, I know what I saw." "Catherine, whoever he is, he has nothing to fear from me." "And we're alike, he and I." "We're mirror images, twins." "We're the same." "I've had enough of this." "Am I going to be allowed to leave?" "If you insist." "After you." "(overlapping, indistinct whispering)" "(Beethoven's "Fifth Symphony" plays, nearing its conclusion)" "Cozy, isn't it?" "Not the word I'd choose." "Watch her." "So..." "How 'bout those Mets?" "(Beethoven's "Fifth Symphony" concludes)" "(applause swells, then fades into distance)" "CATHERINE:" "Talk to him." "He'll listen to you." "If he doesn't, he'll destroy himself and all the good he's done." "He'll betray the trust of the people who believe in him-- good people like Isaac." "This has gone too far!" "You've got to help me reason with him!" "Jace?" "Jason... (deep, raspy):" "Tell me." "No." "Jace... you promised no one would get hurt." "Jace would never have hurt you." "Don't be stupid." "Tell him!" "(loud gasp)" "(ferocious roar)" "(yells)" "(moans)" "(martial arts yell)" "(deep growling, snarling)" "* *" "(electrical crackling)" "(indistinct, overlapping whispering)" "(Vincent growls)" "(roars)" "(grunts)" "(roaring)" "(snarling)" "(Vincent snarls, Jason gasps)" "(growls)" "(martial arts yell)" "(rope creaking)" "(rope snaps)" "(Jason screaming)" "(scream fades under overlapping, indistinct whispering)" "CATHERINE:" "So you never found a body." "The children say that abyss goes down forever." "Too deep and dangerous for us to plumb." "He's dead, Catherine." "And his shadow has lifted from your heart." "The killings will stop... but they'll never know never know if he's dead or gone or just waiting down there until he's needed again." "Like King Arthur." "I think Jace would like that." "CATHERINE:" "How can one man have so much courage and empathy and passion and so little mercy?" "Perhaps he lost it somewhere." "But he found it again, in the end."