Hollywood: Lights, Ink, Entertainment!

Chapter 415 415: The Beast in the Garage

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[LIE Studios | Sub-Level Garage]

It had been a week since Keanu pulled off the 'movie that redefines action cinema' stunt, and by now there was barely any backlash left either.

…and the body aches had finally, mercifully, retreated.

Now, here he was, walking through the heavily restricted sub-level corridors of LIE Studios in the early morning.

The reason? Regal had said Batmobile.

As a lifelong gearhead and dedicated motorcycle obsessive, Keanu's curiosity had completely overridden every remaining instinct for rest.

He had been in the car before the sun was fully up.

As of now he followed the corridor to the point where a heavy steel door marked the entrance to the restricted garage bay.

A pneumatic hiss announced that someone had just exited.

The two guards posted on either side, both of whom had the quiet, straight-backed stillness of men who hadn't come up through standard studio security, stepped forward in unison.

"Sir." One of them placed a hand out, not aggressive, just certain. "This area requires cleared access. Do you have a pass?"

Keanu stopped, and blinked once, then had the grace to look genuinely apologetic rather than offended.

Regal had mentioned none of this, but that tracked, Regal considered logistics someone else's department until they became his problem.

"My fault entirely." Keanu said, already reaching for his phone. "Give me one second."

He was pulling up Samantha's contact when the low sound of heels on concrete behind him made him turn.

Her phone was still ringing in her hand, presumably his call, not yet answered.

She looked at the phone, at Keanu and ended the call.

"You two." she said; not loudly, but with a specific exhausted precision. "Are you both trying to get me fired by Regal's before lunch? Do you realize who you're asking a pass for?"

Neither of them reacted much. They simply stared at her with the same unreadable expressions.

Samantha recognized that look instantly. If it wasn't obvious already, the two men were apparently former colleagues of Rock.

…colleagues from where? Nobody asked.

If Rock trusted someone, people generally stopped questioning the details after that. The security around the place had turned out to be excellent, almost excessively so.

Without wasting more words, Samantha reached into her jacket pocket and produced a laminated all-access badge without another word.

"Thank you." Keanu said.

Samantha was already walking back the way she came, and her job here was done.

Keanu turned back to the two guards, holding the badge up. They examined it with the measured attention of men who were not performing diligence.

After a moment, the shorter of the two gave a single nod and stepped aside.

"Appreciate you both." Keanu said as the door opened.

They didn't react, not while he could see them.

The door sealed shut with a pressurized click, a beat of silence and the two guards looked at each other.

A slow, mutual nod.

….

The smell hit him before the visual did.

Not the sterile, climate-controlled scent of a Hollywood soundstage.

This was something rawer, hot metal and vulcanized rubber, high-octane fuel and the sharp, ionized bite of recent welding. It smelled, unambiguously, like a place where real things were built.

Then his eyes adjusted to the flood-lit space, and he stopped walking.

In the center of the sprawling concrete floor, ringed by toolboxes, diagnostic terminals, and a team of engineers moving with the focused efficiency of people who had been at this for hours, sat something that defied easy categorization.

It was low and wide, draped in matte black armor plating that absorbed the light rather than reflecting it.

The front end rode on precision racing slicks, and the rear sat on four forty-four-inch off-road mud tires that looked borrowed from something designed for terrain that didn't have a name yet.

Viewed from the front, it looked less like a vehicle and more like a geometric argument about what a weapon was allowed to be.

Keanu was stupefied. He became aware that his mouth was open approximately the same moment Regal's voice cut through the ambient hum of the garage.

"Close your jaw, K. You're letting the AC out."

Regal stepped out from behind the rear axle, wiping grease from his hands with a blue shop towel.

Dark jeans, plain gray t-shirt, entirely at home in the mechanical aura around him.

Beside him stood a slightly older man; dark hair, sharp eyes, and the specific restless energy of a director who had been staring at schematics since before dawn.

He held a tablet in one hand and was using the other to gesture emphatically at the front suspension geometry.

Keanu remembered how to use his legs and walked toward the vehicle slowly, his eyes tracing the interlocking armor panels, the massive suspension coils, and a jet exhaust port at the rear that he genuinely hoped was decorative.

He reached out and knocked a knuckle against the front fender.

It did not sound like fiberglass or composite, but like a door being knocked on in a bank vault.

"Regal." He said it quietly, the way you said something when you were trying to stay composed. "This really isn't just a shell?"

"Obviously." Regal tossed the towel onto a workbench. "It's a Custom-fabricated chassis with 5.7-litre Chevy V8, and five hundred horsepower."

The man beside him stepped forward with barely contained intensity.

"And it weighs five thousand pounds. Two and a half tons of functional artillery." His accent was South American and his delivery had the rhythm of a man who had been awake too long and was running on technical joy. "And despite that, it still does zero to sixty in 5.6 seconds. We ran the acceleration test yesterday. Honestly, 'terrifying' is probably the most accurate description for it."

Regal gestured to him. "This is Fede Álvarez, and as you already know, he will be directing the first half of the film."

Keanu blinked, and then the full context of that sentence assembled itself.

The industry had been buzzing about it for weeks.

Regal had split directorial duties on [The Dark Knight]; taking the second half for himself and running a global open submission for the first.

Over four hundred entries, one winner: a Uruguayan filmmaker known for a single micro-budget short that had made the horror community briefly lose its collective mind.

"The Panic Attack guy." Keanu Reeves said with a grin as he extended his hand. "Congratulations. I heard the competition for this was brutal."

"Thank you." Fede Álvarez replied, shaking it firmly. "And yeah, brutal's the right word, but when the script is this layered, you don't really complain about the process, you just try to survive it without getting crushed."

His eyes drifted back toward the Tumbler, lingering there with something close to admiration.

"This thing was already half-built by the time I joined the production." he continued. "But it basically carries the entire physical identity of the first act."

Keanu looked at the monstrous rear tires. "Racing slicks up front, mud runners in the back. The handling geometry on something like this must've been a complete nightmare."

"It was." Regal admitted. "No existing steering system could handle the weight distribution while still giving me the turning radius, so we ended up building the entire thing from scratch… though most of the credit goes to Simon and the rest of the engineering team."

Keanu Reeves almost asked why.

Why go through this level of trouble when most of it could probably be recreated with VFX, clever camera work, and a few practical shots stitched together in post?

But the question died before it reached his mouth.

Because trying to apply normal logic to Regal Seraphsail was usually pointless when he got obsessed with something.

And honestly, Keanu wasn't complaining.

Why would he?

That same madness was the reason he was standing in front of this impossible machine in the first place, a monstrous, almost unreal vehicle that looked like it had escaped from another world instead of a production garage.

So no.

Absolutely no complaints.

"I appreciate what it took to build this." he said instead, and meant it completely.

The far door opened and the energy in the room shifted.

Christian Isaac moved the way very few people moved.

He crossed the garage floor quietly, his eyes moving over the Tumbler with an expression somewhere between assessment and reverence.

"Christian." Regal greeted him with a nod.

"Regal." Christian stopped beside Keanu and offered his hand. "Good to finally meet you in person. I have been a fan for a long time, and honestly, I can't wait to see [John Wick], a film that's going to 'redefine' the action genre."

The line should have sounded mocking, maybe even arrogant.

Instead, it came across as dry amusement mixed with genuine curiosity.

"Thanks, man." Keanu shook it. "Though I am not sure what I am supposed to say in return other than 'I love your work'; which is actually an understatement, so I am stuck."

Christian laughed, then his gaze settled on the Tumbler, and the laugh faded into something quieter and more focused.

He stepped to the driver's side door, running a hand along the armor plating.

"So this is my ride."

"One of them." Regal said, nodding toward a privacy screen at the far end of the garage. "The Batpod is over there. Jean-Pierre Goy is almost getting the hang of taking turns without sacrificing his collarbone in the process, so we'll start your driver training with the Tumbler first."

"The flamethrower on the back is real…" Álvarez added, with the cheerful warning of a man who had already had this particular experience. "So wear ear protection, and I am being completely serious about that."

Christian nodded once, the easy warmth that had accompanied his entrance had been quietly set aside.

What remained was something more interior, the particular focused gravity of a man already beginning the process of becoming someone else.

"I am ready." he said.

Keanu, for his part, was looking at the Tumbler with the expression of a man experiencing a specific and very personal form of suffering.

"When?" he said, with the measured restraint of someone attempting patience. "Do I actually get to sit in this thing? Because standing here just learning more about it is becoming genuinely painful."

This was not entirely selfless curiosity.

He was aware of the broader strategy at work, the promotional groundwork already being laid. By the time [John Wick] was in theaters, Regal intended to use the wave of that release to begin building toward [The Dark Knight].

Keanu would be among the first of a long list. He was, by his own assessment, probably the mildest entry on that list.

"Hold your horses met." Regal said.

Then, tone shifting into the register he used for briefings: "Christian. Driver fitting in ten minutes, tactical choreography with Fede and the stunt team follows; first-act infiltration blocking, full sequence, and as planned the principal photography starts in a week."

Christian gave a short, precise nod, and the actor was entirely gone now.

"Good." Regal glanced at Keanu. "And you can stay as long as you want. The engineers won't mind the audience."

"Staying here with no keys." Keanu said, already moving toward the exit. "Is just a very refined form of torture for someone who builds motorcycles in his spare time." He raised his coffee in a loose farewell. "I will leave you all to play with the billion-dollar toys. Try not to break Gotham on the first day."

He heard Fede Álvarez laugh behind him.

As the door sealed shut at his back, Regal turned to watch Christian Isaac and Fede fall immediately into the kind of focused, low-voiced conversation that preceded real work.

The physical blocking of Bruce Wayne's first night in the tactical suit, a man discovering, for the first time, exactly what he was capable of and what that would cost him.

Tomorrow, they will begin.

….

.

[To be continued…]

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