Scene 3.23 - First Wave
Guardian Island - Mid-afternoon
(The water-slider crashes on a small island. WELLS gets up and stumbles out of the craft. The craft is playing a holographic message from WELLS ONE to WELLS over and over again, but he doesn’t notice. He's still peaking on the drug; he removes his helmet. He eventually begins unpacking and setting camp. His disheveled manner isn't insane, however, only a more-acute awareness of reality, giving him a more-than-mild paranoia. Reference: Star Trek: The City On The Edge Of Forever.)
WELLS
Assassins! Murderers! You won’t get me! (Looks to the skyscraper in the center of the small island.) You! What planet is this?
GUARDIAN
(Surprised and impressed that someone assumed sentience within itself. Glows with every syllable:) A question. Since before your sun burned hot in space and before your race was born, I have awaited... a question.
CU: WELLS
WELLS
Is this Trantor VII? No, no the stars are all wrong. You! Who are you? Where am I?
POV: WELLS
(The walls are psychedelic and melting and dripping back closer each time. The clouds are time-lapse and neon-colored. The thin blue, star-lit sky shows a variety of colors. A portion of New Trinity’s reflection in the GUARDIAN even makes it more trippy. The stars are moving, showing the rotation above.)
GUARDIAN
I am the Guardian Of Infinity. You are at the epicenter of Nevermore -- the threshhold of what your race calls The Phantom World.
WELLS
Can you conjure me up a cup of coffee? Man, my head is pounding. I’m peaking, dude.
GUARDIAN
I can do much more than that, Dr. Wells, I can take you back to that prom night when Saffron 12-33 wouldn’t let you get past second-base, and this time, instead-
WELLS
(Drunkenly pointing at it.) Heh, heh, heh... that thing’s telepathic.
GUARDIAN
Behold!
(We witness the stream of time on the face of the skyscraper, from the beginning of The Universe to the dawn of Earth to the twentieth century, until THE BARON crashes The Mental Floss into it. This sequence is also played again later.)
WELLS
Oh, wow! Like can you back that up? Was that like, the Big Bang?
GUARDIAN
I am made to operate in this way, I cannot change.
WELLS
Oh, wow! Oh, man, cosmic! Lemme get closer so I feel like I’m like there! Oh, wow!
(The Mental Floss is seen on the horizon as WELLS is lying on his back in the shade looking up at the skyscraper above him.)
WELLS
Can you like, key-stone that so it looks like-
POV: WELLS
(Flying through space, the image is key-stoned so that from WELLS’ perspective, he feels like he’s flying through melting space and fireworks.)
GURADIAN
Is this better?
WELLS
Oh cool! Oh, man, that is so cool! Wow! Oh, man, like what was that? Fireworks?
GUARDIAN
A supernova cluster.
WELLS
Wow. If Julie could only see this, it like our neurons, only bigger. Wells to Verne.
VERNE V.O.
(Audio only, crystal clear:) Doc, where are you? The ship has been compromised.
WELLS
Oh, don’t worry about me, I’m outside in the clean, country air.
VERNE V.O.
(Audio only:) Doc, where are you?
WELLS
Like I feel like I’m flying towards Earth, but like I’m lying under this like, silver skyscraper that’s all cosmic and-
CUT TO: VERNE
(He sees the GUARDIAN via ATAVACHRON, who is still a big box. VERNE’S looking at the side that WELLS isn’t lying under. A transparent blip outlines the water-slider and WELLS on the other side, like X-ray vision. There is another blip on the horizon, but VERNE doesn’t notice it.)
VERNE
Sit tight. I’ve got a reading on you. I’ll meet you there soon. You’re at the Guardian Of Infinity. Listen, there isn’t much time. A whole platoon of clones made up of my-less-than admirable personality traits is on its way there to open up a portal back to Earth to forever enslave The Universe in a time paradox, and they plan to forever alter our history and possibly our very existence, you follow me?
CUT TO: WELLS, lying back, propped up with elbows, ship on horizon, approaching.
WELLS
No, but that sounds awful, Julie. Anything I can do? Ooooh! (Whispered:) Wow.
VERNE
If you see anything that looks like The Mental Floss, you have my permission to blast it out of the sky. Just set your quantum pistol to grey thrity-four, and they won’t get away. They’re just rogue phantasms of me, and the Bradbury Protocol gives us full authorization to dispose of errant replicants any way we see fit.
POV: Wells, looking up at skyscraper.
(At the conclusion of the first sentence, a low roar of a spaceship that measures one third of the size of The Eliza, is heard above, flying directly over WELLS and by the time VERNE gets past “Bradbury Protocol”, the roar is deafening, it collides with the skyscraper, and all the flame and light is actually sucked-back-into the skyscraper and it looks like nothing has happened. In fact, there is no more light show, only the calm reflection of blue skies, stars and gentle ocean waves. Silence for the most part and we clearly hear: “any way we see fit.”)
WELLS
Yeah, Julie, The Mental Floss just flew into the skyscraper. It’s gone.
VERNE
Gone! (Seeing reverse-angle, slow-motion replay on ATAVACHRON, seeing it for the first time from the other side. A slow, grey, nearly-undetectable energy wave, representing the grey-room quantum sphere that VERNE created in the shelter, reaches the area of the planet shown on the monitor, distorting the world for only a second, just missing THE BARON’S ship by moments. Everything in the world is momentarily distorted except The Guardian Of Infinity.) I see. I’ll be there in an hour. Hold tight.
WELLS
(Puts hands behind head, looks up, stretches out.) I ain’t going nowhere, man.
CUT TO: Bridge, Eliza.
(The entire crew of The Eliza are huddled around the open channel that AZALEA left on for VERNE. None have made a sound. The flowers are positioned all over the bridge, near duty stations. We hear these lines come through the speaker.)
VERNE V.O.
(Audio only:) Atavachron, disengage tachyon vapor pulse. We missed him. He got away. Just hang tight, Doc, that Guardian is at least one way out of this Phantom World, and my guess is that The Baron used it to get back to Earth. I’m coming to you in The Archimedes and we’ll go take back The Eliza and go after this madman ourselves!
WELLS V.O.
No problemo. I’ll just kick back and wait for you here.
VERNE V.O.
An hour, tops. I’m just around the corner from you. Verne out.
(ASIMOV snaps off the intercom and walks over to the captain’s chair. He sits and gets a hit from the adjecent flower. LEAH sits in the helmsman’s chair. HEINLEIN is at his bridge duty station. SIMAK sits at the communication duty station. CLARKE is at his science station. The remaining eight pair up near CLARKE and SIMAK. The crew periodically takes hits from their flowers.)
ASIMOV
Meece Leah, sit a cuss for ze source of ze dicked-her’s transmisson.
LEAH
Aye, aye sir. It’s on the other side of the planet. It would be easier to fly into space and decend back into it; without the tail section, I can’t make quick maneuvers. It might take us a little longer, but we’ll be sure to get there if we go into orbit.
ASIMOV
Meek it so.
CLARKE
Ship records do not tell of the anomoly. However, I detected a grey-room-tachyon-vapor pulse in the vicinity of the transmission. The Mental Floss’ inhabitants were phantasms; instead of escaping, they may have only been assimilated by Captain Verne.
ASIMOV
You herd vaht hippined. Ze got zemsilves out of ze Phantom World. It may teek us a leetle longer to get zere, bit we’re ging to git bick te Earth, von vay or ze nudder.
SOFT WIPE TO: