Virtue

First Scene: A gruesome crime scene in Hong Kong. Four henchmen of the Wo Che Pong crime family lie dead on the warehouse floor of a downtown clothing manufacturing plant. Their assassin is Chen Lim, son of the owners of the plant. When he refused to allow the crime lords to use his parents’ business as a front to smuggle their drugs to the underboss Mr. Wang in New York City, they tried to torture him. That was their last mistake. Lim is shot during the melee and leaves the crime scene bleeding profusely. Hours later, the corrupt Hong Kong police, who are on the payroll with the Pong crime family, arrest Lim for the murders and throw him into prison. Th e police release a false statement to the media that the murderer was killed during an attempt by the police to apprehend him. Everyone, including his parents and family in the United State believes that Lim is dead.

Second Scene: Summertime 2010. New York City. Mount Saint Mary High School. Peter Wong, Divine Ice Williams, Christian Snow, Jose Cruz, and James Robertson are sitting in science class. Th e boys come from wealthy families and are very popular amongst their peers. They enjoy their teacher Mr. Jackson, an ex-football player from the NFL who loves kids. The 6’ 3”, 250 lb. science teacher is still in good physical shape. They love his approach to teaching science because he often talks about his past experiences from the NFL and how he overcame the obstacles that he faced in his journey to the NFL along with the challenges he faced as a player. James, who thinks he is the next Mark Zuckerberg, says to Mr. Jackson, “Man, one day I’m going to invent a way to prevent any type of computer virus by using a chip attachment.” Mr. Jackson replies, “I believe you. If you have faith and perfect your talent, anything is possible.” The kids admired the way Mr. Jackson talked with them because it seemed like he made everything he said a life-learning message. He really cared for them. Th e lunch bell rang at 12:00pm and the boys exited the classroom hastily to head towards the cafeteria. In the hallway, they saw Mr. Jackson, their favorite science teacher, talking to the hated school security guard Mr. Swartz, who bullied the boys and made their lives miserable every single day. It looked like he was giving Mr. Jackson a hard time. As soon as Swartz noticed the boys watching his conversation with Mr. Jackson, his demeanor quickly changed, and he smiled at them. The boys were very uncertain about what kind of trouble their teacher might be in. During lunch they all sat at the same table. At that time, they weren’t the best of friends since they only really knew each other because their families reside in the same well-to-do neighborhood. They were, by far, the wealthiest kids in the school. While talking at the lunch table, they discovered that Swartz was harassing all of them. They agreed that this was strange. While the boys were discussing these strange circumstances in the cafeteria, the mean-spirited Swartz used his keys to open Christian’s locker and stashed some weed to set him up. Swartz dislikes Christian’s father, the powerful Miami Dolphin owner Steven Snow, who happens to own a successful number of hotel chains, resorts, and casinos, because of Mr. Snow’s business ties with organized crime boss Jimmy “Th e Fox” Marchetti. Swartz is really an FBI agent working undercover as a security guard at the private school as part of an FBI task force running surveillance on Christian Snow and anyone connected to Mr. Snow. However, Swartz is a corrupt FBI agent who is on Jimmy “The Fox” Marchetti’s payroll. Swartz is hungry for more money and power, and he is convinced he can gain both by forcing Mr. Snow to do business with him. He devises a blackmail scheme to harass Mr. Snow to the point where he will either have to work with Swartz or be turned into the FBI.