Scene 1.05 - The Red Room
EST: INT. Sick Bay, Red Room
(VERNE stands in a void, with a distant door, surrounded by phantasmic, mental constructs -- one closely resembling the Monster Of The Id in Forbidden Planet... A phantom apparition appears near him -- a true ghost. AZALEA’S voice, altered somehow. His voice echoes throughout and low grumblings and moans are heard; suggesting that the monstrous constructs stretch to infinity.)
VERNE
What's happened, am I dead?
VIOLET
No, but you need to wake-up.
VERNE
Am I in my body? I can't feel my legs. Or my hands.
VIOLET
You're in the red room. Please, wake-up.
VERNE
Success?
VIOLET
Maybe, maybe not. You still need to wake-up.
VERNE
Am I suspended in time? Am I talking to myself?
VIOLET
Yes. I'm the part of you that never goes to sleep. Wake-up.
VERNE
This is so relaxing.
VIOLET
You can’t stay here. The quantum sphere is still expanding. Awaken!
VERNE
Expanding. I don't understand, it's like I'm asleep.
VIOLET
Wake-up. If we remain here, then we will die.
VERNE
How long?
VIOLET
If we stay here, we will die. You need to wake-up.
VERNE
I'm trying. What happens if I dream just a little bit longer?
VIOLET
We won't ever come back. Wake-up.
VERNE
The scale parameters.
VIOLET
Please, wake-up.
VERNE
Wha?
AZALEA V.O.
(Altered, tin-can voice, voiced by RAMONA:) You need to wake-up. Now.
VERNE
It’s- Azalea?
VIOLET
(Ironically, the actual voice of AZALEA says:) Yes, it's Azalea.
VERNE
But she's-
(He awakens from a still trance. Only a moment has passed since he created the quantum sphere, although to him, it has been many hours; and the time-space distortion from the sphere has spread beyond the red-room. VERNE hits an emergency kill-switch. All goes from less than a still to twenty-four fps. The noisy machines suddenly-stop and all goes quiet, dynamos wind down and high-pitched hums become low-pitched creaks -- like how pulling a moon-sized cord from a planet-sized socket might sound, and how dissolves converted into cuts look when ending and starting a new chapter on some old, time-constrained format like DVD.)
WELLS
Julie! The field wasn't contained! How long-
VERNE
(He looks:) Long enough. Seven-point-seven-three-four seconds.
WELLS
The- The planet?
VERNE
No. Or we'd be dead. We'd be ripped apart or crushed. One or the other, depending on how the inverse-
WELLS
Us? The ship?
VERNE
I don't know. (Deep in thought on other matters and ramifications of the accident. Abstractly shrugs:) Possibly.
WELLS
Possibly?!
VERNE
I don't know, Doc! It was still set for-
WELLS
Forget I said I told you so... Captain. (Sighs, starts away. Knows he’s stung his best friend, but what demeanor should VERNE expect?) I'll wake the others. You can either tell them the truth or blame it on the ghosts in the machine, I don’t care. Obviously, my opinion means zilch around here. (Kind; seeing he’s stung him twice now.) I’ll go along with whatever you say, Julie.
VERNE
(He momentarily stops him, gentle:) Doc; crew only. The cargo stays on-ice. Period. Have the men meet me in my ready room.
TRANSITION MUSIC
DISSOLVE TO:
INT. Bridge, ready room.
(The crew is assembled. Strack and polished, they could be mistaken for a national monument's honor guard, except for the fact that they wear wide-belted, hip-hugging, bell-bottomed high-waters with tight-fitting, primary-color, long-sleeve pull-overs and calf-high, comfortable, soft leather marching boots. A crest of a golden, slightly-ambiguous, seven-leaved plant with thirteen silver stars denoting their ship’s insignia is positioned over the left breast of each of the crewmen’s respective, colored shirts. The men are standing at ease. VERNE clears his throat, tokes.)
VERNE (Cont'd)
Approximately thirty minutes ago, the ship's system began to terminate the life of cargo-unit Azalea. I'm aware we all said our good-byes to her at the memorial service, and we all know she’s really been dead since the planetary laser on Rhea XIV cut the Mental Floss in two, but the computer somehow sees it differently, and perhaps blind ethics or false hope compelled me to make the medical decision to use our military-grade, red room technology to possibly delay, or to counteract her inevitable, agonizing demise, and according to Doctor Wells, I have at least partially succeeded in that Ms. Azalea 1-1-6-5 is nearly as dead as ever, and she still precariously sits on the brink of death and is hopelessly comatose. No improvements in her condition have been noted and it is likely I won’t have to recind her Death Certificate after all. I’ll only need to change the T-O-D -- which should be sometime this month -- before Thanksgiving, at least -- as she’s still slipping away as usual, only much, much more quickly. Doc assures me that, being unconscious, she does not feel her pain and will remain in her vegetative state until she finally slips away completely, and as of this briefing, no further red-room attempts will be made to revive or to further prolong the life of Ms. Azalea until we reach Halceron, if any are to be made at all. From this moment on, The Bradbury Protocol is in effect, we will travel to Halceron using blue-room or white-room technology only. All of you: Is this understood?
ALL
Yessir.
VERNE
Then we are done here. Until arrival at Halceron, I am to be kept under armed guard in the ship's brig until a quorum of commanding officers are present -- so a preliminary hearing for court-martial proceedings may convene with all expedience. (Passes joint.) Lieutenant Commander Clarke will be in command of The Eliza during the interim. Carry on.
(Pause. Reactions. Swish! Sher-shlop! VERNE went out the door of the ready room to the bridge without missing a beat. The crew looks at one another, and a beat later they follow him.)
HEINLEIN
(HEINLEIN is a tall, strong and verile African-American man with a late,1960s’-black-is-beautiful, quasi-regulation-military afro. Later, he sports the bald look, but that happens when he changes his name and after all kinds of crazy stuff, which is a ways away, so forget about it for now. Again, good readers don’t read ahead.) Sir, I don't understand. What happened?
VERNE
(He hands HEINLEIN his sidearm.) Protocol Orders call for my arrest and questioning, Lieutenant. You're first watch.
WELLS
(At the ready room’s door, last out:) We can’t have you cooped up in the brig at a time like this! That’s nonsense!
SIMAK
(SIMAK is a stocky, Scottish Asian. He looks like a cross between Charlie Chan and The Fantastic Four's Mr. Fantastic. He's in red. He gets away with sporting the primary red look without biting it the first time a threat is present. He looks the oldest, but he isn’t. One level where VERNE and SIMAK see eye-to-eye: Knowing that people age like spaceships -- it’s not the years, it’s the miles. At the turbolift, blocking him:) It takes more than sim old rule in a protocol book to tell me you’re not the captain, sir.
ASIMOV
(In one way, ASIMOV is like That '70's Show's Fez. His origin is unknown. We know he’s from Earth, where he was cloned and quantum-assembled in a communist bloc country and “traded” for a former communist defector. The annuls of history on the matter reflect that somehow America got the raw end of the deal. Perhaps so. Perhaps not. Pertaining to the crew's opinion, the jury’s still out. He has no discernable accent that relates to any particular country or clan of people anywhere, although he claims to be “Wussian.” No one disagrees. He falls into his ill-spoken Ukrainian when convenient and tops a few lines with Balkan humor under his breath quite often -- the crew merely thinks he's grumbling ad libs to himself, which is exactly what he’s doing. He thinks he’s in Sober-ia. He’s really in I-Stone-Ya. He sits at his station, looking at the forward panel. Gravity readings are altered.) Kiptin, how deed ze ixsihdint hippen?
VERNE
Unknown to me while performing the neurosurgery, the scale parameters of the quantum generator were still resetting from the terraformation of a planetary system to that of microsurgery. This created what Q-P's call an inverse flux of displaced energy, and without scale parameters in place, it manifested a reversed, quantum sphere with no boundaries and infinite potential. Any quantum physicist worth half their salt will tell you that what I did could have blown up The Universe, and I had no right or authority to use the red room in such a manner. In Washington, charges are probably being filed against me as we speak, and breaking quantum protocol is a serious matter to command. So serious, it is the only offense still on the books that allows the option for capital punishment in high space. Now, considering I did all this while over budget, you’re probably looking at a dead man.
(HEINLEIN goes to stand by his seat, putting VERNE’S blaster in the station console. He begins powering-up his panels.)
ASIMOV
Bit Kiptin, are you shear zat something wint wrung? Peehips a sifty chick kipt ze sphvere conteened.
VERNE
A fair question, Ensign. I don't know what really happened. There was a pre-existing paradox somewhere. Of course, Washington won't care either way. I broke protocol. As the red room's core designer, I can unconsciously get past all the safety checks. I know all the equations. I can’t fool myself. It’s my id. It has a survival instinct that doesn’t conform to our modern ethics, it knows all my tricks and it won't believe any of my lies. Although I know quantum physics isn't some walk in the park like rocket science or genetic engineering, all of you, please try to understand it from my viewpoint. We're not dead, so nothing really went wrong, even if something happened that usually doesn't happen naturally, like in a bad movie or something.
(Who farted? CLARKE valiantly steps to the plate to break the tension even if he didn’t break the wind. He is strong, virile, sexy, lanky, intelligent, impeccably clean-cut and sensitive all at the same time. His logical prowess and his strong, resilient mind shows a depth and a mystery that secretly and unconsciously entrances women of all ages. He’s a role model for all pedantic bookworms who work out regularly and read Cosmopolitan occasionally. He seems quite stoic, yet is the most humanly-involved character in the scene at any time he is present and conscious. He’d seem familiar somehow if his ears were -- somehow -- more pointy-looking. Strangely, the connection eludes us, yet it perches like death, or like a nuclear holocaust, or even that mythical greenhouse effect...)
CLARKE
Then surely your id would not create a problem that would cause you or this ship any harm. The planet was not replicated by the quantum sphere, we have not trans-spatially ventured beyond the walls of this craft, nor do any of us seem any worse for the wear. All this, because unconsciously, you knew any untoward quantum action would surely destroy the ship. It would be logical to assume that whatever may have happened, as with all red-room endeavors, it would be to our collective benefit.
VERNE
I appreciate your words of encouragement, Clarke, but we’ve got plenty of quantum casualties to prove that assumption doesn’t always hold true. A person doesn't always know what's best for them. There's meaning to the adage: Careful what you wish for.
CLARKE
True. But none of those casualties involved the red room, nor did those individuals share in your responsibility to ensure the safety and comfort of others. I know you, Captain. It would be against every fiber of your being to do anything that would put this ship, or this crew, in jeopardy.
VERNE
It’s more complicated than my motives, my desires. That’s not it.
WELLS
Well, confound it, Julie! What is it, then?
ECU: ASIMOV
ASIMOV
(To us:) Oy vey! He had to ask!
MS: CREW, ASIMOV LOOKS TO VERNE; DEEP BREATH, HERE IT COMES...
VERNE
Let's say I was supposed to play an inning of a T-ball game from inside a tea cup and instead, I played a major-league double-header in a baseball diamond the size of China. Now, if I only hit a home run, then it doesn't matter what size the field was or how long the game went, only the score. If there was a strike or a few errors made, it may make a difference on the board, but it means the game didn’t get called for rain. But the real question is, if there was a foul ball that went over the fence, was a kid out there waiting to catch it? Then, anything could be possible. Until we know for sure what those possibilities were and if any have been realized, I am prohibited from using or administrating use of either of the quantum generators. In addition, if there is a problem, whatever the problem may be, Protocol General Orders and the Bradbury Prohibition forbid use of any quantum field generator, by anyone, to remedy it. Being the designer of the red room, I see the complete wisdom of such a restriction. I- (Momentary pause.) A life. I don't regret breaking quantum protocol if it preserved a human life, no matter what The Universe looks like out there.
HEINLEIN
Captain, no channels receiving or sending. I can't bring up the white room. We are cut off from the outside. Nothing.
VERNE
Clarke, could the quantum sphere have caused that?
CLARKE
No, Captain. Permission to speak freely. (Pause.) I don't think that your decision to sustain the life of Ms. Azalea was a wrong one, nor do I think that the brig is the best place for you. Until we know what the circumstances are, your logical place is on the bridge and in command, where you can do your crew the most good. A preliminary hearing for court-martial proceedings concerning an administrative violation surely can wait. Right now, your crew needs you.
HEINLEIN
Sir, I've exhausted all standard procedures toward re-establishing sensory communication. Any suggestions, sir?
VERNE
(He sits. Pushes white button next to the lit grey button. The light goes off.) Try the old radio band, who knows?
(Instant feedback. It blows the system. Smoke puffs from HEINLEIN’S panel. SIMAK puts out the fire with a pocket pen. CLARKE flips a switch and a spherical grid lights across the ship's holographic viewscreen. They are at the center of the sphere. Nearby, is a scale-model of the planet, and also close is a scale-model of the nearby star, encompassing a portion of the sphere. The dots exponentially-expand from the center, signifying other ships. The scale represented is overwhelming, so CLARKE focuses and magnifies the center portion.)
CLARKE
I believe I've discovered the source of our problem, Captain. The computer reads it as an echo, but nothing can register an echo in this way. There are massive power readings across this parsec of space in all directions. Each reading has an identical beacon signature of our ship, The Eliza.
WELLS
Oh no.
(VERNE is in his element when doing one of five things, in no particular order: One, sleeping. Two, commanding his ship. Three, neurosurgery. Four, getting stoned. Five, discussing his immense knowledge of Applied Quantum Physics. In every way, this is up his alley:)
VERNE
Phantasms; a division of ourselves? A message. From ourselves, later. The future. Or Metaphysical... At the same time, but in a different dimensional corridor -- (An unconscious brow crease. It’s easy, yet confusing...) -- This reeks of the Academy. Dumas’ Protocol On Sub-spatial Phantasmic Sentience Within A Paradox -- Our job is obvious. I’m sure every one of us had a clone sit through a boring lecture or two in Dille Hall at the Academy. (Pause. Apparently, he was the only one who dared try that. He lights a smoke, we get a glimpse of his younger, Academy demeanor. The men also relax, standing at-ease.) Well, either way, we need to start wasting these illusions post-haste, before they try to go back outside the Quantum Sphere Of Immediate Influence, or we’re all gonna be AWOL. These phantasms are either from us, or a parallel dimension, and either way, that near-matter belongs to us, and is intended for us, and it’s our quantum responsibility to assimilate it. We’ll never be free of this paradox until we do. There is no doubt in my mind how this works. (Lightly points.) Stern, Aft, Port and Starboard -- you all know how these cards lie: If it appears red, it’s the enemy; if it looks green, it could be a friend. I ain’t giving yellow or brown the benefit of a doubt, they’re goners if they think they can reach Earth or Halceron from here. Nothing moves away from here, to include us; to do so is quantum suicide, phantasmic disassimilation, or the black room for sure. It’s complete chaos out there. We gotta keep our heads. We firmly stay put in the Q-S-I-2 and reassimilate, nothing else. We also don’t need to fix anything or go and make another paradox on top of this one, so forget what your temporal dials say and ignore all tachyon data. (Pause. The men look at each other. They all got the “We firmly stay put” part.) Perhaps a grey-room setting from the neural-hub could join the entire-
CLARKE
Sir, these readings have substantial physical properties. This is unlike the distortions noted during a routine non-dimensional quantum division. There is massive feedback emanating from billions of other ships, all like our own, with crew members just like us, trying to do the same things we are in this moment of time. Pure deduction will eventually cause each of us to choose an alternate path, do nothing, or to simply perish.
SIMAK
Completely cloned? The ship? You mean all of us, laddie?
CLARKE
Perfectly replicated, which calls for further study. Billions of times, laid across space, (Gestures:) like the cells in a human brain. Some seem lost, a parsec away and drifiting aimlessly, some, perhaps dead inside the bowels of the planet below. It exceeds the parameters of a replication, yet by all appearances seems to be one. We must give this more study. Each ship appears to be an identical copy of us, the same ambitions and questions-
VERNE
Incredible. (He resigns a sigh.) Clarke, has anything like this ever happened before?
CLARKE
Once. In the early days of quantum technology, before your escape from D-S-99-66-99-
VERNE
(After waiting an eternity for CLARKE to spit-it-out: Direct:) I don’t like hearing that number, Mr. Clarke.
CLARKE
Noted. Well, certainly-before our modern, full-prismatic applications, there were ancient 83rd-Century records that mentioned a scientist who accidentally replicated himself to infinity. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how one may look at it, he was on Earth at the time and most of the replications that manifested were formed in the vacuum of space, which caused a rounding when applied to Tolkien’s Law of Infinity Factors, and subsequently, the replications were limited to a mere hundred-odd copies, stretched from a few meters away from ground zero to nearly a thousand miles into space. The survivors ranged from the first replicant, partially materializing from inside an adjacent building, to the famous Phantasm Seventeen, falling hundreds of feet from the sky, comprised completely of near-matter. Those seventeen surviving replicants authored protocol doctrine and authored the ethical models that determine our computer-enhanced guidance of all room technology today.
VERNE
Yes, The Lovecraftian Doctrine. Of course, I've read it. I marveled at the insight and compassion of the text, but I had no idea it was based from tragic experience.
CLARKE
Wisdom usually comes from surviving one's own ignorance.
(VERNE nods, as if he’s got a perfect example in mind.)
HEINLEIN
Captain, should we set a course? What should we do?
SIMAK
I say we should just chill-out, lad. Blaze a wee one, put our feet up, get back to gettin’ around to fixin’ the ol' Mental Floss -- reel her in from that neighboring parsec now. Let the lot of ’em go on their merry way. (He hit his pipe and winces one eye with his pipe in his mouth like Popeye.) As my grand-pappy would say in the old country: "You can't crash yourself against the reef if you're in drydock." Ay yug yug yug yug yug.
WELLS
Well, I, for one, am not content with all this talk about sittin' around and waiting! I'm not in any mood for fishing -- I know what's at the end of that hook -- more of our useless junk, only split in two. There's people out there? You say they're just like us? Well, I say we should go out and talk to them!
VERNE
Doc's right, and so is Smokey. Until we know who or what is really out there, I don't want this ship to move an inch from its current orbit. Mr. Heinlein, note any changes in the gravitational forces affecting this ship and make any corrections necessary to keep our present course and feel free to un-hitch the Mental Floss if you need to quickly maneuver. That ship's a goner anyhow, we'll retreive the rest of the cargo only if its feasible. If anything gets in your way, don't hesitate, flush the remaining Ellisonium and blast it with a full prismatic array of quantum-modified, paradimensional mines. Protocols be damned, you have full-authorization to use room technology to ensure the survival and integrity of this ship against any hostile force. Understood?
HEINLEIN
Yessir. Unfortunately, sir, your operation seems to have depleted all our stores of Ellisonium.
VERNE
What!? Empty? All of it? How am I out? We just topped off back in the Rhean Sys- Naw! How can a little brain surgery deplete the whole load? (To himself, walking to the camera:) Maybe that's why the operation failed, I musta run out of fuel...
CLARKE
If we truly are in a paradox, sir, physical laws are like fluid. We might find that a routine operation may use more Ellisonium than, say, a planetary terraformation.
VERNE
Yes. It's possible, but puzzling, though. When Washington gave us our pastel package of plastic-covered princesses instead of the Ellisonium I asked for, I knew I had to do things my way in order to get anything done. I got plenty on the black market; and got a pretty darn good deal on it too, trading only half, er- most of our stash of Soggoth seeds and some crappy, antique cannons for a tankful of love. Naw! It couldn’t have been a shoddy batch -- watered down a touch... maybe. Naw! It was solid enough -- I’d bet my pension on it, or my name isn't... Physics aside, I was sure we had enough. We still had plenty even after terraforming New Trinity. (Pause.) Wait, Clarke, if I didn't have enough fuel, how could a paradox occur on such an inverse scale as this?
CLARKE
We're not sure of anything, sir. We should be very cautious if we indeed, are in a paradox.
VERNE
Noted. This quandary has got all the markings of a bump in the road, but has the results of hitting a land mine. Ellisonium or not, if it matches our orbit, Mr. Heinlein, make it wish that it didn't. Use whatever you got.
HEINLEIN
One way or another, nothing's going to hit us, sir.
VERNE
Mr. Clarke, you and Doc shall accompany me in The Archimedes. Smokey, I want you to change the codes of this ship. All of them. Also, alter these phase adapters. Make up some code you normally wouldn't make up, but something you can remember. Whether they're really a part of us or not, I don't want anyone to just walk in here.
SIMAK
Consider it done. Captain, when you get back, how are we gonna know it's you and not a copy?
CU: VERNE
VERNE
Look for the fire in my eyes.
CU: SIMAK
SIMAK
Aye.
VERNE
While I’m confident they may share our good intentions, they will certainly share our suspicions. I'll bet you a dollar to a doughnut that we're the only ones who can use our quantum generators in here, or we would have felt the effects of theirs by now. And I bet all their room technology is worthless to boot. You can't copy a copier without losing something in the process, and rooms are made so you can never copy a copy with a copy. Mr. Asimov: Reveiw the ships' log tapes after the sphere expanded. I entered a hold code in the red room after surgery. If I can't transmit you that precise code without the slightest bit of hesitation, you have full permission to blast me out of the sky. As a last resort, you may use the ship's self-destruct sequence if it appears that you will be taken by hostile means. It’s an understatement to say we are seriously outnumbered.
ASIMOV
Yessir.
VERNE
All of you, go about your duties as normally as you can. Do not disturb the cargo. You've all been in hibernation for nearly five months, so I'm sure you can find a few corners around the ship where I've neglected to dust the cobwebs. Eat, and get some exercise. Mr. Simak, you're in charge while we're away. Are we clear as mud?
ALL STAYING ON BOARD
Yessir.
VERNE
Good. (To the men leaving with him. He’s in good humor, considering...) Gentlemen, leave your side-arms. I don't want to invoke hostilities. After all, if they're thinking along the lines that I'm thinking, then I'm sure we're about to deal with the most reasonable men imaginable.
SOUND: Light musical segue and theme
FTB