Perpetual Motion

In the middle of the night, two SUVs speed into an industrial wasteland, stopping at the one well-lit building on the block. A team of men break into the warehouse where they find a strange magnetic device with a heavy spinning bar on top. The demolition men go to work on the machine and, moments later, the SUVs take off as an explosion rocks the building.

A PI, “Cynical Jones,” is riding out a hurricane in the Caribbean when he gets a call to find a young man named Michael Dexter. Since he seems to be on the run from a wealthy investor (Mancuso), Cynical assumes he’s dealing with some sort of con man. Borrowing Michael’s identity, he locates the kid cheating at roulette in Las Vegas, only confirming his initial suspicions that he’s dealing with a swindler.

In his penthouse suite, Michael tells a different story. He says he’s on the run because someone is trying to kill him, and he only came to Vegas to make some fast money so he can disappear with his girlfriend who is waiting for him in LA. Michael agrees to go with the PI; however, as they are leaving the hotel, they are jumped by a professional abduction team. A former boxer, Cynical is able to fight back, allowing Michael time to escape.

At LAX, the PI is summoned to a private jet to meet his employer, Mr. Mancuso. After signing a confidentiality agreement, Mancuso tells him he believes Michael invented some kind of a perpetual motion machine that can produce more energy than it uses. Mancuso wants to hire the PI to continue to look for his investment. Smelling money, Cynical negotiates a huge bonus if he can deliver the kid.

Cynical tracks down Michael’s girlfriend who is crashing with Desmond, a friend and former employee of Michael. Desmond explains that while they were testing their self-generating machine they were visited by men from the Department of Energy. A few days later, their prototype was blown up and the three frightened employees split up. Cynical goes to check on the third member of their little company (Fernando) and discovers that he’s been murdered in his house.
Their best chance to find Michael is for Karen to return to her apartment. Cynical is approached by two FBI agents who are looking for Michael too, although they deny planting any bugs in the apartment, much less murdering Fernando. When Cynical is informed that Michael has called Karen with his whereabouts, he rushes over to her but, along the way, he gets word that the apartment is under attack. Going to the underground garage, he manages to take a transmitter he found on his car a few days ago (courtesy of the FBI) and place it one of the abductor’s SUVs.

The abduction team has nabbed Karen, so Cynical takes Desmond and they flee the scene. Cynical and Desmond end up at an abandoned old oil refinery, where they find Karen being tortured for Michael’s whereabouts. When the FBI agents arrive, they create a stand-off, until Desmond cuts the power, throwing everyone into darkness. A blind shoot-out ensues and a wounded Cynical and Agent McCobb make it out with Karen and Desmond.

Desmond and McCobb get out at a truck stop, leaving Cynical and Karen to continue on to a small desert town, Borrego Springs. Unfortunately, the hit squad also knows Michael’s whereabouts. Once they get to the town, Karen directs them to a gas station, finally reuniting with Michael. When the hit squad (now known as Black Star) come to the gas station, Michael has a trap waiting on them.

It will come down to a chase through the desert between the fossil fuel based combustion engine and the technology of the future. Even if Cynical is able to deliver the goods, not everyone is who they say they are and the future is far from guaranteed. There is always more work to be done and an even more cynical ex-detective must decide if he wants to return to work or hide-away in Caribbean.