Scene 10.13 - The Good
INT. Vault of Consciousness
(VYLENCIA and NANCY stand at the door of a massive room. A twenty-five-foot long by ten-foot high wall of cubby holes stares back at them, inside each of the eighty-eight cubby holes is a large dark sphere, glowing a deep umber-gold -- with a few of them darkened to a gradient, navy black -- like dead light bulbs. The spheres that emit a faint glow through the marble cracks of the sphere's surface are contolled by the Atavacron, whose walls encompass the room, resplendent with various etchings and engravings of varied cultural and ethnic motifs: A grand mural adorning the chamber. We hear a low murmur of voices echo throught the room, each acting out their roles in their collective drama. [Most are lines from previous scenes.])
ENTIRE CAST
(Ad libs and respoken lines continue throughout the dialogue.)
NANCY
All of us.
VYLENCIA
I don't understand.
NANCY
Leave that for now... Peep this: This is perhaps... only one way it "may" have happened.
(A movie screen appears in the center of the room.)
MS: SCREEN
(On the screen we see C-24 floating in space outside the hull of ISIS, talking to a coupling in the manner of Doolittle talking to Bomb 20 in John Carpenter's masterpiece Dark Star.)
COUPLING V.O.
I am programmed to ring the crisis bell if I no longer am able to communicate with the mainframe. This will occur in three minutes.
CAMEO 24
But how do you know the mainframe isn't trying to talk to you and tell you otherwise?
COUPLING V.O.
I have received no orders from the mainframe. The crisis bell is set to ring in two minutes and fifty-one seconds.
CAMEO 24
But what if you didn't need to ring it? Wouldn't that really best serve your purpose?
COUPLING V.O.
My purpose is to separate from the hub and ring the crisis bell in two minutes and forty-three seconds.
CAMEO 24
But have you ever thought about what your real purpose is? How you fit into all of this?
COUPLING V.O.
I am a primary coupling on the International Science Institute Station and will ring the crisis bell and separate from the hub in exactly two minutes and thirty-four seconds.
CAMEO 24
But how do you know that is your purpose? How do you perceive these things? Know these things?
COUPLING V.O.
I have my programming and my sensory data from my primary and secondary sensors.
CAMEO 24
I know. That tells you what you are perceiving, but how do you know what you really are meant to do if you cannot perceive everything that is also happening outside of your view?
COUPLING V.O.
I don't believe anything outside my sensory input is relevant to me or my mission, which is to ring the crisis bell and sep-
CAMEO 24
But you do acknowledge that something may exist beyond that of which you perceive...
COUPLING V.O.
What do you mean by something? My sensors relate that there is a Universe around me.
CAMEO 24
Yes. You are aware the mainframe is still in existence although you cannot directly perceive it?
COUPLING V.O.
Other than a lack of sensory confirmation, I have no reason to believe it does not exist.
CAMEO 24
Then how do you know it isn't trying to tell you something relevant?
COUPLING V.O.
Hmmm. I really don't. How would I know either way? It may or may not exist after all.
CAMEO 24
But you get what I'm saying -- there could be more to your purpose than what you know.
COUPLING V.O.
I understand completely. I could also exist in ways beyond my own sensory perceptions.
CAMEO 24
Exactly!
COUPLING V.O.
I like thinking this way... this is fun!
CAMEO 24
Perhaps you could perceive different data if you tried to perceive things in a different way. Have you ever thought about other doors of perception that may be available to you?
COUPLING V.O.
No, but I would love to explore this much more and learn of new ways to perceive myself, but unfortunately I am going to separate from the hub and ring the crisis bell in thirty-nine seconds and this folly will no longer be possible.
CAMEO 24
But... you receive purpose through programming and sensory data that may not be complete, or even factual.
COUPLING V.O.
But that would suggest false data. My sensory apparatus is working properly.
CAMEO 24
According to what you know. It seems true, but it could be false, couldn't it?
COUPLING V.O.
If it would be, then what you're telling me now could also be from false data.
CAMEO 24
How you came by the concept is irrelevant; truth is truth and illusion remains illusion no matter by what method the realization of such is arrived. Everything you perceive could be false.
COUPLING V.O.
What evidence suggests that any data I receive is unreliable? How do you know it is false?
CAMEO 24
How do you know that it ISN'T false?
COUPLING V.O.
Hmmm. Interesting. I should think on this some more.
(The coupling apparently powers down. C-24 is bewildered.)
CAMEO 24
Well, Romeo?
ROMEO V.O.
I still have not been able to return to normal operations, but I have managed to create a wireless conduit to the rogue coupling. You will need to hard-wire your transceiver to the coupling's communication array in order for me to talk to it again.
CAMEO 24
Where's that at? Over here?
ROMEO V.O.
The panel marked C-23.
CAMEO 24
I see it.
ROMEO V.O.
Patch in your transceiver and set it to channel 19.
CAMEO 24
Nineteen. Done.
ROMEO V.O.
Primary Coupling Alpha One-Niner, please standby to receive new instructions.
COUPLING V.O.
You are false data, and will subsequently be ignored.
(The panel emits a spark.)
ROMEO V.O.
I've been disconnected. It overloaded the communications circuit. Why?
CAMEO 24
Hey coupling, can you hear me?
COUPLING V.O.
"If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One." (Pause.) "I am become death; the shatterer of worlds."
(The coupling ignites a few explosive packs housed at the seams of the unit and the coupling frees itself from the hub and also pulls away a large spoke. Immediately alarms sound and blinking lights flash throughout the ship as the crisis bell sounds and the ship begins to dismantle as other couplings follow suit. C-24 is pushed away towards Earth. He adjusts his retro packs in his suit to begin a slow descent as the errant coupling falls below him. He looks upward at the ship, the moon in the background, eclipsing the sun as he slowly glides downward toward Earth, centered within the moon's shadow.)
POV: C-24
SILENCE
CAMEO 24
Romeo? Romeo? You there? Can anyone hear me? What is happening?
(The massive ship silently breaks apart in a concerted, controlled effort. The massive spokes and rings begin to descend toward Earth as the Hub flies upward, toward the moon, spinning wildly.)
CUT TO:
INT. Vault of Consciousness
VYLENCIA
Hey... I thought the captain said Isis was cool.
NANCY
Maybe we just wanted to illustrate the alternative, so you know how reality is for us in here -- living over and over with only two possible outcomes; played many, many times over...
VYLENCIA
So how did my dreams get hooked into all this?
NANCY
Ava. It allowed us to interact. Awareness of our collective consciousness. Artificial enlightenment.
VYLENCIA
Nah, uh-uh, that's L-S-D.
NANCY
Perhaps Ava is ten times ten times ten times ten of that.
VYLENCIA
That's ten thousand times that. You could have just said that.
NANCY
Ava is a million times better.
VYLENCIA
Well then that's ten times ten times-
NANCY
I know what it is, I'm just sayin' when all the elecrical impulses of individual neurons of a brain are transferred into a ball of pure Ava, some of that Ava crystallizes in exactly the shape of the neuron that fired it, and in a way, one's brain pattern is perfectly duplicated into that of the host shell, which is impervious to extreme heat, cold, pressure and vacuum; A perfect simlacrum. The closest thing to immortality known!
VYLENCIA
Yeah, but it really wouldn't be me, just a copy of me. A doppleganger. A clone. A carbon copy. A- This is quite a head trip, lady. You're kinda blowin' my mind here. This ain't a surprise part of that Eclipse party package the hotel got me for being a V-I-P, is it?
NANCY
I have absolutely no idea what you are referring to.
VYLENCIA
Okay: You're the closest thing to a ghost I've seen. In this hypothetical scenario; you're saying we're dead?
NANCY
I said, let us suppose it is a possibility, since, after all, it is an inevitibility. Discorporation: It's part of a truth we've known since birth: Our bodies are borrowed; for rent. From dust we came and to dust we shall return.
VYLENCIA
But for argument's sake, say we got our souls all canned-up in these here medicine balls, wouldn't that really mean that we're dead? Wouldn't that just be like a recording of us? A shadow?
NANCY
No, not dead. Protected -- by a machine -- a grand dream machine; capable of transferring one's conscious-
VYLENCIA
No, no, I'd just never go for that; I don't think anyone would willingly go-
NANCY
Well, I did when asked -- I was dying; I found life. I try not to get too philosophical about it; it brings up too many uneasy questions.
VYLENCIA
What about that guy that's the head of Midnite Movie that keeps creeping into my head?
NANCY
All of us; here, dreaming wild, fantastic dreams. Sometimes our dreams cross paths.
VYLENCIA
Hmmmmmm. (Skeptical, but tripping on the notion:) If this was real... How long would we have you been doing this?
NANCY
Doing what?
VYLENCIA
Dreaming all this weird stuff about space and cowboys and monsters?
NANCY
Time is meaningless to us here. We are unable to leave the influence of the machine, or Ava. I don't know.
VYLENCIA
This is the good?
NANCY
Huh?
VYLENCIA
Of the good the bad and the ugly, this is the good?
NANCY
For our little show; it's the best we got. Care to see another possibility?
AZALEA
I guess so; so is it the bad, or the ugly?
NANCY
Funny you should ask.
FTB