Scene 1.04 - Second Stage
EST: INT. Sickbay, Warship Eliza
LS: Eliza cruising-over a newly-terraformed, gas-planet
TRANSITION MUSIC UP
VERNE V.O.
Captain's Personal Log, I-D key, Bova One. The ship has awakened Dr. Wells to handle a medical emergency in patient Azalea 1165, a woman being transported by our ship to pleasure-planet Halceron, and I have been summoned to the sick bay, due to the complicated nature of the injury. Legally dead and precariously held in a quantum-comatose state, Ms. Azalea hasn't responded to any medical procedures so far, and being a physician myself, I feel her death may be imminent.
CUT TO: Int. Sick Bay -- lots of beepy sounds and spaceworthy beakers.
(VERNE enters, the doors swish open and close behind him. WELLS' mask is lowered. No blood, he has only examined her. The link from lab to corpse is inter-dimensional. WELLS is a thin, delicate man with a face of a teenager, a full-head of hair and a slight lightening of his sideburns, suggesting hidden age. WELLS is rugged and sturdy like and old country doctor of Irish or British decent with a red-neck accent. His blue eyes could pierce diamonds.)
VERNE
(He walks behind a white line, and moves to an area by the door.) What's her condition?
WELLS
Her body is waking up. Involuntarily. There isn't sufficient brain mass to sustain her. The system thinks she's still alive. It's running a resuscitation protocol.
VERNE
(He opens a closet door and places his side-arm in a lit alcove. He strips and bathes in light.) Why does it keep doing that?
WELLS
Well, if a only piece of her arm had been severed, the computer would have replicated the arm and she would be fine, hardly noticing a thing. As I’m sure you’ve gathered, when you lose a piece of your head, there are some things a computer cannot do, like breathe the spirit back into a person. What we have is a living, healthy shell of a woman who is already quite dead. The cells are there and growing, but there's no spirit that ties it all together as one.
VERNE
(He exits the closet, steam rising from his shoulders and head, holding his holstered weapon barrel-up. A surgical gown is quickly stitched about him by unseen hands. He effortlessly-lashes the gun-belt around his waist:) Is the sick bay’s generator active?
WELLS
Yes, I’ve been warming-up my quantum-spanner. Nothing’s pre-set. I was preparing to open her up when I called you. A mercy killing, perhaps. Shock will surely get her if the internal cranial pressure doesn't. Her pain receptors are active and her mind has nowhere to run.
VERNE
What's waking her up? What physical event is causing it? What's the trigger?
WELLS
The system. It must be an anomaly. Otherwise, it would have taken a nearby supernova, or a quantum sphere to-
VERNE
Last night, I created a wide-spectrum application of the field generator. A routine terraformation of a gas-planet.
WELLS
(Snorts. He pauses helping with gloves:) Well, that's what did it. She's technically conscious, Julie. It created a possibility.
VERNE
A possibility? What do you mean?
WELLS
It means something in her head still did have some spark. Somewhere. We've slowed the dying process, but the system sees it as an attempt to revive her. It means the quantum field gave a jump-start to her engine, but the engine hasn't any power. Nature abhors a vacuum, and there’s nothing left to fill in. Julie, she's going to go off the road again, this time, she's going off a cliff. I know dead is dead, all the same. She's lost forty-eight percent of her brain -- if she would have lost a little more, we wouldn't even be having this discussion. (Pause, looks over to her projected image.) You know-
VERNE
(He is prepped for neurosurgery.) I'll need the spanner, the scalpel, the little deavers, the curved kellies-
WELLS
There isn't time-
VERNE
(Curt, to the point:) Lieutenant Commander Wells- (He pauses, leans in, wide-eyed:) Doc; how long?
WELLS
Minutes, fifteen... maybe. The system can't hold her. She's already beyond what I can do. She was dead when we locked her into the coffin. That hasn't changed. Julie, there's nothing we can do. The system's just starting to figure out what we already know. (He looks at holographic projections of vital signs and maps of her neurons firing randomly. Pause.) Well, by the time you get back to the bridge, your jettison button outta be working. She's dying, Julie. She's almost gone already. What spark there was is dying off...
VERNE
It's so close to- (Suddenly decided:) Yes, if I could just reconstruct a few million of her brain cells, maybe more-
WELLS
Julie, let it go. She's already dead. Those few sparks that seem like life are just... smoldering embers of a flame long gone. It's too late.
VERNE
No! It's like the Piper case. Computer: Pull the academic files concerning the dressing of cadaver Piper, H.B.; U.S.S.S. Nightingale; Attending doctors, Dr. Sickle, Dr. Wells, -er, Doctor-
WELLS
(Horrified, remembering, yet curious:) Romero.
FEMALE COMPUTER
File found.
WELLS
What is it, Julie? What's she got to do with-
VERNE
(He dons his mask.) Non-replicating cells coupled with a reaction to quantum stimuli -- somewhere, the pattern memory of her psyche is intact! At least a part of her is in there, and she’s in agony! I have to help her!
WELLS
You're reaching, Julie. Let her go. It’s merciful. I shouldn't have given you hope.
VERNE
If I find just one good cell, maybe a good memory, a dominant cell, an old cell. A survivor. One who just won't die. It would have her complete pattern, and could be replicate-
WELLS
It won't work, Julie. The spanner can't pick and choose from an array-
VERNE
But the red room can!
WELLS
Now you're talking insanity. It isn't designed for-
VERNE
No! (Immediate, haunted; like he was suddenly reminded of a bad dream, one perhaps more horrific than WELLS' recollection of the Piper case. He slams the quantum medical tools in his hands onto the surgical cart:) Don't tell me what it isn't designed to do, Doctor, I built the cursed (cur'-sehd") thing. That's why you called me. You saw this possibility already and wanted my opinion. Your spanner couldn't help you, and you knew I was on-hand. (Pause. In control:) I’ll be using the red room, Doctor.
(VERNE retreives a medical bone-saw, places it on the cart with the other surgical tools. He moves it to another doorway.)
WELLS
I'm chief surgeon, I can take complete responsib-
VERNE
I'm the neurosurgeon, and she's my patient. You may attend me outside, Doctor.
WELLS
You don't need to play God to prove you were right about Rhea XIV. You were right, Julie, okay? Just let it go. Let this go.
VERNE
I'm not playing God if I keep her alive. It's what nature wants, what nature demands. You, of all, Doctor Wells, should agree.
WELLS
There's too much risk. Don't confuse doing what God does with doing what God wants. The computer can't help. It will be like hocus-pocus. Like a bad dream out of your control-
VERNE
I'm resetting the scale parameters.
(VERNE starts to do it, and moves the dial over an inch, then WELLS touches him. VERNE pauses.)
WELLS
(Calm, concerned:) Julie, I was a forensic technician for the grey rooms during my medical training. I’m the one who had to clean-up the mess when things went wrong. (Pause. VERNE drops hand, WELLS does likewise.) It’s hideous. There's ghosts in there. Bad ones. I've seen what nightmares can do to a man. Souls trapped in paradox, repeating the same mistakes over and over. Julie, there’s a reason for the protocol. You won’t be opening Pandora’s box, you’ll be tearing the lid from its hinges. Don't do it. Let her go.
VERNE
Doctor, I know what's in there. I didn’t choose to be a neurosurgeon just for the Wednesdays. There's a chance to save her, and I'm taking it. (Pause. A moment’s hesitation, then:) Ghosts do not frighten me, Doctor. The bogeyman isn't real. (Starts setting other switches and dials, neglecting to go back to the scale parameter dial.) It'll work. The opportunity wouldn't knock unless I was meant to answer. Check for energy displacement across the quantum-field when I close her up.
WELLS
(Quick:) If you want to test a man's character, give him power. If you won't listen to reason, listen to age. She's lived a long time, she's had a full life. She’s dead, Julie. We all must die sometime.
VERNE
No! That's not an answer. That’s never the answer. (Distractedly looks at her holographic, full-body x-ray, showing a diagonal, white line across the skull:) She's still very young. (Sudden:) There's no time to negotiate. I've made-up my mind. (Moves to room, the doctor physically tries to block the doorway.) Step aside, Doctor. (Puts his hand on holster.) That's an order.
(WELLS steps aside and watches VERNE enter the red room. WELLS immediately goes to monitor holographs of AZALEA, who is on the bridge, slowly dying in her high-tech coffin. A red, ghost-like image of VERNE phases-in over her, gently holding the scalpel; his other hand lightly-touching her head with soft, tender, careful fingers.)
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