Scene 3.26 - A New Course
EST: EXT. Guardian Isle - Mid-Afternoon
(WELLS is coming down hard. He’s lying down. He lights a joint.)
WELLS
So you’re like saying that I am really just like a phantasm in like a quandry where life and death doesn’t really exist, but what we do affects everything else and we keep doing all this over and over because we don’t know what else to do? Doesn't anybody have a better idea?
GUARDIAN
All that you have known, all that you would become, all that would ever be, is gone.
WELLS
Gone? So what like happened, man? Five minutes ago you were the psychedelic trip-master, now you’re playing-out like a lame Phish Reunion Album. Can you show me on the screen what happened?
GUARDIAN
First, you must understand time. (Replays Big-Bang video.) Time is fluid, it has currents, eddies, back-wash-
WELLS
(Feeling stomach:) Uh! Didja have to go there?
GUARDIAN
Can I continue?
WELLS
(Having just hit the joint:) I dunno, CAN you?
GUARDIAN
May I continue?
WELLS
Sure, go ahead, but if I start puking, don’t worry about it, relax, it ain’t you.
GUARDIAN
Well, okay. (Illustrates:) Some have foolishly made devices, like this Atavachron, to distill my paranormal energies and to grant frail beings para-phantasmic powers. Their limited understanding of my nature is crude, and even the few powers they have gleaned from me remain largely untapped. They have barely scratched the surface. Hah! They can take all their machines and theories and money and work it, I don’t need them. My power stretches beyond the boundaries of time and space!
WELLS
Yeah, man, but all those powers are all illusions, like saving for a rainy day that doesn’t come like until you’re like almost dead or something, man. Be here, be now.
GUARDIAN
Anyway, many have used such devices to unlock my doorway and pass into another age.
WELLS
So is that how this other-Verne-guy managed to get to Earth? I thought we were all stuck here.
GUARDIAN
I am the key. Many may use me to venture into time-streams that seem forever lost.
WELLS
And where did he go?
GUARDIAN
He was not prepared, he cannot return. He is gone.
WELLS
Prepared?
GUARDIAN
To travel time and again return to this world, one must be tethered and prepared. It was why I was created.
WELLS
Created? By who?
GUARDIAN
I am my own ending and my own beginning. I am the Guardian Of Infinity.
WELLS
We’ve gone over all this. You’re one big riddle, lah-dee-dah. So you’re really saying you’re the way out of the Phantom World; into another time?
GUARDIAN
If properly prepared, yes.
WELLS
Back to that again, what do you mean, prepared?
GUARDIAN
One must be altered to conform with the time currents of the age. I can alter you in such a way.
WELLS
Let’s not talk about altering me, okay? So you’re saying that that other Verne and his clones weren’t prepared?
GUARDIAN
They were not fully prepared. They may have taken steps to conform to the time-stream of the era they journeyed to, but they did not use me to tether themselves. They are forever lost between the currents of time. They may never return.
WELLS
Man, this is one heavy discussion. So, if you’re not tethered-
GUARDIAN
Up the creek without a paddle, unable to return to the world from which you came.
WELLS
And you say you’re-you’re going to tether us? Alter us?
GUARDIAN
Yes. All who inhabit this world are tethered to it and will be altered as they pass through the time-portal and fall back into the time-stream.
WELLS
Whoa! Time-portal? I’m not going through any time-portal.
GUARDIAN
I know the future, and yes, you will.
WELLS
Well, what if I say I won’t?
GUARDIAN
Then circumstances you create trying to avoid it will make it so. It is pre-destined. You will all travel time.
WELLS
Well, what if I kill myself? I couldn’t very well travel back in time then, could I?
GUARDIAN
I only said you would travel time, I didn’t say you’d be alive when you did it.
WELLS
Back to Verne, if we do go back in time and stop everybody trying to tinker with our future-
GUARDIAN
Then it will be as if none of you have left, and you will be able to leave this realm and return to normal space once more.
WELLS
That doesn’t sound too bad. So are we successful?
GUARDIAN
Mmmmm. Difficult to see.
WELLS
What do you mean, "Difficult to see?"
GUARDIAN
Much clouded with emotion, the future is.
WELLS
What kind of load is that? Either you see the future or you don’t. If you can tell me about how someone will never be able to come back, you can tell me if we make it or not.
GUARDIAN
No I can’t.
WELLS
Why not?
GUARDIAN
Because I’m not really here. I’m not really saying all this.
WELLS
Huh?
GUARDIAN
You’re just coming down from a really heavy trip on quartrazine and you’re unconscious. You’re telepathically communicating with the future in your sleep.
(WELLS wakes up, he was catching a nap.)
WELLS
Wha! Huh? What happened? Hey Guardian, I was having a wicked dream about you.
GUARDIAN
Hmmm. Sounds fascinating.
WELLS
It’s kinda hazy, but I think you said I was going to travel time or something.
GUARDIAN
Oh, really?
WELLS
Yeah, you said you knew the future.
GUARDIAN
Hah, I wish. I didn’t happen to tell you anything useful did I? You know, like what planes might crash or winning lottery numbers or how about the Cassiopeia Cubcats, do they ever win the World Series or do they sacrifice the goat or what? I like long-shots, you know.
WELLS
I dunno, it was just a dream. I don’t remember.
GUARDIAN
Then why should I even bother to care?
WELLS
I don’t know, I just thought it was weird, that’s all. (Pause, pulls pocket video-game from utility belt.) Hey Guardian, can you hook-up to a video-game?
GUARDIAN
No.
WELLS
Hmmm. (Lights a joint, starts playing game on mini-console.) Wanna hit?
GUARDIAN
Now how would I smoke that even if I wanted to?
WELLS
(Doesn’t look up.) I dunno, if you can be a doorway to the past, tether us to the Phantom World and physically alter us to conform to another time-stream, I figger you’d know a way to toke it up.
GUARDIAN
I don’t smoke.
WELLS
(Shrugs, both hands on game, lit joint still in mouth:) Well, more for me, I guess. What else can a person do when they got a half-hour to kill?
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