Scene 4.07 - Detection
INT. Submarine, Offshore, Rixhoft, Poland
FADE IN
(Ever wonder what happens when you throw a group of rebellious clones who have been alive for millions of virtual years back into the Nazi-Era? These near-matter phantasms have been under the radar all along, unknown by VERNE, VERNE 1, THE BARON, and everybody else since the terraformation of New Trinity. They look much like the Borg from Star Trek: The Next Generation, and have a definite plan on how to take over Ze Universe. They've been to Germany plenty, and must have been very popular in Berlin, and they're in command of their very own customized U-boat, dolled-up with strange technology from the future, yet made of materials of the past. They are certainly the most exaggerated and insane of all Verne clones.)
COWINKYDINK
(Face in modified periscope:) At last! Ve have found ze original, herr Commandant!
SOUP OF THE MARMALADE
(Looking at radar-looking-thing:) It iss ze udder Verne; loaded with ved-voom paradox!
SLAP-HAPPY
(From tube:) Ze quantum generators, machine-a heist! Ve are vunning too hot, sir!
JULIE-BOY
(At quantum cannon:) Got him in ze crosshairs now, sir... Vaht? He used ze tachyon vapor, herr Commandant! Izzownlianeko! He vas shrouded by ze quantum spvere and izz gone!
JOCKO
(Looks around see-through tactical map:) Vaht? Gone! Ve had him! Vaht happened?
RAINBOW STEELE
(Naturally, the only one without an accent. From viewscreen:) Somehow, he assimilated himself with a modified red-room tachyon pulse, sir.
TOADSTOOL
(Pops up from floor hatch:) Zatt's not possible! No von can do zatt! You are lying!
ABRACADOOKIE
(Pops head in from aft hatch:) Ze machines are running hot, sir! Vaht should ve do?
(SIX OF NINE sits in his captain's chair, with cyborg eye and plenty of nervous ticks, as if one of the ladies from Absolutely Fabulous had a child by mating with a food-processor.)
SIX OF NINE
Ve must remain calm! Abracadookie, call up ze reserves! Ve are going to green-voom!
ABRACADOOKIE
Aye, aye, herr Commandant!
(Man, this ship looks so cool and goth when they're getting all-tactical. SIX OF NINE tokes up.)
SIX OF NINE
Toadstool, zatt- zatt stabilizer's broken looze again, zee if you kin lick it down.
TOADSTOOL
(The machine parts of him whistle like R2-D2, then:) Aye, aye sir!
(VERNE is relaxed, and leaning against the inside of the hull near the forward viewscreen, smoking a cigarette. He's not invisible, just subtle. He has a faint, red glow that matches the cherry of his smoke. He's curious. He watches with great interest and doesn't interrupt them.)
SIX OF NINE
Rainbow Steele, prepare a quantum relay beacon. Ve will track his trace pattern!
RAINBOW STEELE
Locking into green-mode, sir.
SIX OF NINE
Jocko, plot a course to ze camp! Ve may have lost ze original, but zere is anuzzer!
JOCKO
Gotz him. A blue signature, sir. Ve got ziss so calt Baron on ze scope now. Eighty-six, mark-
JULIE-BOY
Sir!
SIX OF NINE
Vaht is it, (as in Zsa Zsa Gabor:) Julie-boy?
JULIE-BOY
I have the trace pattern of ze udder; ze ved-voom Verne! Ve have ze original again!
SIX OF NINE
Vere is he, Julie-Boy?
JULIE-BOY
(Looks to RAINBOW STEELE:) Herr Commandant! He's on ziss vessel!
RAINBOW STEELE
He's here, sir!
SIX OF NINE
(Yells into tube:) Slap-happy!
SLAP-HAPPY
Aye sir! Ve needing to stop! I don't know if ze ship can-a take any more o' this!
SIX OF NINE
Roger zat. Emergency stop. Soup Of The Marmalade, go to white-room.
SOUP OF THE MARMALADE
Aye-aye, sir!
(The crew is suddenly thrown forward as the ship comes to an emergency stop. VERNE, his aura and his smoke are completely unaffected, being at-one with nature and all.)
SIX OF THE NINE
Cowinkydink, zair-za clone on our ship. Use ze phase-inducers to rat-out ze rat!
(Room becomes green; VERNE, with faint, red glow, now looks quite grey in the shadows.)
VERNE
Okay, okay, you got me. Let's be cool, ok? Now I've got to know more about YOU guys...
SIX OF THE NINE
(As in Zsa Zsa Gabor:) Julie-boy! Prepare intermittent, tachyon, phase-pulse inducers!
JULIE-BOY
Aye, aye, sir!
VERNE
You don't need to prepare the intermittent, tachyon, phase-pulse inducers.
JULIE-BOY
I don't need to prepare ze intermittent, tachyon, phase-pulse inducers.
VERNE
You just need to sit there.
JULIE-BOY
I just needs to sittin-ze-here.
VERNE
You all need to just sit there.
RAINBOW STEELE
(Over next line:) We all need to just sit here.
ALL BUT VERNE AND RAINBOW STEELE
Ve all need to just sittin-ze-here.
VERNE
And you all will only speak when spoken to.
RAINBOW STEELE
(Over next line:) And I will only speak when spoken to.
ALL BUT VERNE AND RAINBOW STEELE
And I vill sprekken ven sprekken to.
VERNE
Or if you got something important to say- (Pause, silence.) -or when I need an amen from my amen-corner. Can I get an amen?
ALL BUT VERNE
Amen!
VERNE
(Snaps fingers, points:) Right-o!
SIX OF NINE
Vaht iz going on? Vaht are you doing, Herr Ved-Voom Verne?
VERNE
As far as you all are concerned, I'm the original. So everyone keep cool and no one gets assimilated out-of-turn, okay?
SIX OF NINE
If you are ze original, you have broken ze Lovecraftian Lawz and are moving avay from us.
JULIE-BOY
Yiss, you must be blue-room to escape ziss paradox.
RAINBOW STEELE
You’ve got to be moving toward us, you’re not. You’re the Verne that lost.
VERNE
(Certain:) No I’m not.
TOADSTOOL
Then vy are you in red-emanation zen? Nein, you can’t be in ze blue-room, Doctor Verne.
VERNE
Did all of you guys split at the same time?
RAINBOW STEELE
No.
ALL BUT VERNE AND RAINBOW STEELE
Nein. Veal split vehn ve operated on ze keer-go yinnit.
SIX OF NINE
Red or blue, it means nothing -- Dumbkopf: you discorporated before our re-assimilation. Vy?
JOCKO
You broke Lovecraftian Law!
VERNE
Nah, I didn't break it, just bent it... back; sort-a; The Baron had bent it to get to me from somewhere else.
SIX OF NINE
Aaaaah!!! I see! Ze Baron vants you! Ve hivv bean vatching heem for minny yearz now. He’s bean looking-for you, vaiting. He sinks he can assimilate you vith a blue-room procedure, but nein! Impossible! He dissint know enough avout ze protocol and ze Roanoke paradox!!! It kinnot be undone, nein! (Pause.) Ann ziss, till me Kap-i-tawn, how vill VEE assimilate if'n you are in zatt-zair ghostly frame?
VERNE
I really like you, man. Care to share? (They pass their joints to each other with limited corporeal contact, amazing the rest of the crew.) How did you manage to stay under the radar from all the others all this time and avoid getting waxed on the way out of the Q-S-I-2? Level with me, bro.
SIX OF THE NINE
Ze quantum spvere of ze immediate influence? Heh, heh, heh! Ve are very clever ven vee needs to be, Herr Ursprunlich.
VERNE
Hmmm. My ship became a plane when it came through the portal. (Confused:) This is The Eliza?
SIX OF THE NINE
(Wide-eyed, smiling, his eye-piece zooming out:) Nein, nein! Ziss is Der Archemedes!
VERNE
Well, I'll be! (Turns, admires ship.) How- That means you- Wha- How long have you been here?
SIX OF THE NINE
Ve vere ze villy first to goinze through ze portal!
TOADSTOOL
(Popping up:) First-in, first-out!
SLAP-HAPPY
("Fie-foe" from tube:) FIFO!
VERNE
(Into tube, waving hand and fingers over the tube's opening:) You will come to me from wherever you are.
SLAP-HAPPY
I vill come into ze bridge.
VERNE
Right. (Back to SIX OF NINE:) How long?
SIX OF THE NINE
Ve have been here since ze operation-
VERNE
Ze operation?
SIX OF THE NINE
Ja! (Plain German accent; clear:) Yes, on cargo-unit Azalea-
VERNE
Yes! I wasn't alone in the red room, I could feel it! I knew I wasn't alone! The operation, I, "we" created a paradox -- fixing something that shouldn't have been broken to begin with. (Measured:) Your individual operations, respectively-- were ANY of them successful?
SIX OF NINE
Of kiss!!! Ve ALL vere suck-
VERNE
(Jumping up and down, pointing to the ground, almost doing a backflip:) I knew it! I knew it! Hell yeah! Hell yeah! I fricking knew it!!! Clarke shot it down, but Clarke don't frickin' know, see? I'M the Q-P expert, see?
RAINBOW STEELE
(Over next line:) We are the Q-P experts.
ALL BUT VERNE AND RAINBOW STEELE
Ve are ze Q-P experts.
VERNE
Right! You're the guys who followed protocol! You solved it! (To the heavens:) If only WE had!
JULIE-BOY
Butt off courz it is still possible for you, all if youse, ze Bradbury Prohibition is still in effect!
RAINBOW STEELE
(Over next line:) Posse's in the house.
ALL BUT VERNE AND RAINBOW STEELE
Posse's in ze house.
VERNE
Well, I'll be! What a great captain you are! My man! What's your personality trait?
SIX OF NINE
Trait? Vaht is zatt you speak?
VERNE
Of course you don't know, you weren't even involved in THAT paradox! You are a Godsend!!! You’re the perspective I need at as time like this. You're my ticket out of this nightmare! The crew, are they awake?
SIX OF NINE
Vaht? Are you crazy? They're on ze ice, on zair vay to Halceron, like zey should be!
VERNE
Even the doctor?
SIX OF NINE
Butt off courz!
VERNE
When did you put him back on ice?
SIX OF NINE
As zoon azz he voke me up. I told him to go back to ze bed and I took care of ze operation myself in Ze Archemedes from outside of ze Q-S-I-2. Ve all did, didn't chew?
VERNE
Uh... not exactly. That's were we separated. Dr. Wells assisted me on The Eliza. How did your operation go?
SIX OF NINE
Routine. It vas like I thought, ze Piper Case, only much easier, much less bloody. It vas perfect. Our crew and cargo are vaiting on Halceron. Ve’re ze only vons in quarantine, us clones of YOU. Ziss paradox has done MUCH to our collective psyche.
(There goes those nervous ticks again.)
VERNE
Gotcha. Now here me out, see? I've got it figured from every angle, see? Now you, what's your name?
SIX OF NINE
I am called Six of Nein.
VERNE
Right! So you, Six of the Nine, had a perfect operation, kept Azalea on ice and then did what?
SIX OF NINE
After I read ze paradox in yellow, I orbited New Trinity. I plotted ze course to Halceron for Ze Eliza remotely from Ze Archemedes...
VERNE
All by yourself? How'd you get that past Washington?
SIX OF NINE
Vaht do you mean? I don't understand.
VERNE
The Bradbury Protocol Notification Beacon activates the lock-out sequence on our collars, so how?
SIX OF NINE
Vaht are you talking about?
VERNE
Hey, you don't have conditioning collars.
SIX OF NINE
Vaht? I'm not sure vaht you're driving at, herr Verne.
VERNE
Do dogs run the planet where you're from?
SIX OF NINE
Run za planet? Are you trying to be funny? I don't gets ze (as in Zsa Zsa Gabor:) joke.
VERNE
Never mind.
(SLAP-HAPPY enters.)
SLAP-HAPPY
So, Das Originell, are you going to assimilate us now so we can get back to ze reality or vaht?
VERNE
Get the rest of them in here.
SIX OF NINE
Crew! Come in ze here!
VERNE
With you guys, I figure if you set it for white-room 69, there should be at least one, dominant persona left. Look, I thought I had it figured out, but maybe Clarke is right, maybe I am looking at this with a bunch of shallow equations.
SIX OF NINE
Nein! Nein! You are onto somezing zere! Ve have been testing similar theories in our tactical scenarios. Soup of ze Marmalade, show him whatchoo got!
VERNE
Okay, a grey-room simulation with a complete white-out contained by a modified red should bring you all into the fold as one person. I'll join you all... later.
SIX OF NINE
Make it so!
(The crew all dart to panels and switches furiously -- as in quickly.)
VERNE
I'd still like to know who you all really are.
SIX OF NINE
Crew, roll call, report by rank!
RAINBOW STEELE
Rainbow Steele!
COWINKYDINK
Cowinkydink!
SLAP-HAPPY
Slap-happy!
SOUP OF THE MARMALADE
Soup Of The Marmalade!
ABRACADOOKIE
Abracadookie!
JOCKO
(As in Zsa Zsa Gabor:) Jocko!
JULIE-BOY
(As in Zsa Zsa Gabor:) Julie-boy!
TOADSTOOL
Toadstool!
SIX OF NINE
All present and accounted for.
VERNE
You all used the red room. You all saved Azalea.
SIX OF NINE
Ja. Ze cargo-unit Azalea is all assimilated into von; merging OUR personas hasn't been as easy.
VERNE
That's about to change. While I got you all as a squad, go below deck and get Azalea's coffin and bring it up here. You guys look like you could use the work-out.
SIX OF NINE
Er, she is kept aft, sir.
VERNE
Well, go get her.
SIX OF NINE
Detail, move!
VERNE
How did you travel time?
SIX OF NINE
On our vay to Halceron, ve vere taken in by a large anomaly on ze planet Telluzia and merged vith ze Board.
VERNE
The Guardian of Infinity -- The Board too -- figures. The Guardian's a seriously wacked-out portal. 'Nuff said.
SIX OF NINE
Ve have been here for many years, ve have seen much of ziss verled.
VERNE
And the time-currents have brought us all together again.
SIX OF NINE
Ve thought killing you would return us to ze future; ve thought YOU vere ze paradox. Ve thought ziss time anomaly vas due to a phantasmic replication; a division.
VERNE
Well, there's more to it than that, but you're sure cutting a lot of corners for me. Tell me, did you try a mass-assimilation with a grey-room?
SIX OF NINE
Nein, ve didn't vant to risk breaking ze protocol. Ve only monitor vith ze grey rooms, nuhssing else.
VERNE
Excellent.
SIX OF NINE
Zatt iss vy it hazz taken so long for all of us to come in ze all together?
VERNE
Well, I'm sure your adventures without me would have made a great spin-off reality show or something, but I'm afraid the days of our being separate have come to a close.
SIX OF NINE
So vaht now?
VERNE
You just sit tight in that captain's chair. That's good. Put her there.
SIX OF NINE
Vill it hurt?
VERNE
Nah, it feels good. It just looks like it hurts, that's all.
SIX OF NINE
Vill I be in control of-
VERNE
Just do it already!
SIX OF NINE
Activate tachyon vapor pulse.
SOUP OF THE MARMALADE
Activating now, sir!
(Everybody vanishes in a puff of smoke except VERNE, SIX OF NINE and AZALEA in her coffin.)
SIX OF NINE
It verked! Vere all here inside me. Now vaht?
VERNE
I sense we're about to have a visitor.
SIX OF NINE
A visitor?
VERNE
Yes, a very special lady. Do you believe in ghosts?
SIX OF NINE
Poltergeists? Hah! Nein.
VERNE
(A wave of the hand, all smooth:) Then go to sleep.
(VERNE hits the magic button on SIX OF NINE'S chair and the chair reclines and vibrates as SIX OF NINE drifts peacefully to sleep. A blue aura overtakes the ship momentarily as LEAH floats in through the hull. They enter a time-vortex created by the buzz. We see some of Volume Two, Chapter Eight, abstractly.)
LEAH
What are you doing? You killed yourself!
(The ship also grants a red aura, making it maroon in places. It swirls and looks trippy. VERNE lashes a red collar about LEAH.)
VERNE
Did I? Whoops! How careless of me! I see you've noticed the conditioning collar. Yes, I'm glad I finally got your attention. Now Azalea, I want to have a talk and I don't want you interrupting or trying to get away. I want you to understand so we can all go back to reality for a minute. What you are doing is thinking outside the box in an infinite quantum sphere, and that's dicey stuff best-left for the Q-P experts of the world, which are few and far between. Namely, I'm only talking about Sleeping Beauty over there and me, the guy who's got your leash. Understand?
LEAH
You figured out why it's like this, but that doesn't matter. I don't know how to stop it, and I don't want to, I love it like this, I can do anything, anything I want. I'm perfect here.
VERNE
You know I really didn't get a fair introduction earlier. I'm Dr. Verne, the guy who, in some other dimension, is, at this moment, actually operating on your brain, Azalea. He wants to finish up and get us all to another time-zone and back to our happy lives in the future. Lemme see, my hobbies are neurosurgical experimentation and quantum physics. In my spare time I enjoy visiting art museums and reading. I play virtual golf on Wednesdays, and on weekends I play starship captain and get to take my warship across The Universe to fight in our perpetual war with ourselves. Did I leave anything out? I guess you could say I'm just a weekend warrior, but as you know, sometimes those weekends can last a very long time. (Pause.) Now tell me something about you, Azalea.
LEAH
The name's Leah now. Leah is a name of action.
VERNE
You've successfully thrown us through the Phantom World, across a quantum quarantine area and trapped us in a time-paradox eight thousand years into our past. I've still got at least one remaining aspect of my own psyche left to assimilate, two of my vessels are destroyed and one is M-I-A along with its pilot, not to mention the rest of my crew is high on Tellusian crack and think they're in charge somehow through some floral, Deus-Ex-Machina. Additionally, I got a ghost of a patient still arguing with me whether she should allow me to save her life, while, all near-matter morality aside, one for whom I broke Lovecraftian Law to summon, and I'm still shopping for another body to inhabit so I can celebrate saving forementioned damsel-in-distress by getting back to my most-favorite hobby: smoking pot! I'd say we've seen PLENTY of action, Leah. I'd also say you've done quite enough, young lady. Do you want to get someone killed? (Points to coffin.) It's time to get back into your body and start acting like a grown-up.
LEAH
It's pointless. It's too late, I messed everything up. I didn't know; I saw my head cut in two. I thought I was dead.
VERNE
I know, you kinda were ; I messed up, too; You were dead and I kinda had the notion of making you alive again.
LEAH
I've condemned all of us to-
VERNE
No, it's okay, believe me, I've seen a lot worse than this before. Nobody's gotten hurt... (Touches jawline; even discorporated, it's still tender.) ...much. The Universe will never be what it was, and we'll probably never make it back to our own time again, but, thanks to my Renaissance education, I know we can at least jump into the waterfall of the future with a maroon room and give it the ol’ college-try. Doesn't that sound fun, Azalea?
LEAH
Leah.
VERNE
Call yourself what you want, I don't care, Leah, but can't we all just put the toys away and go home now? This game's been called for rain. We're ghosts, but it doesn't have to be that way. I know how to finish the procedure, trust me.
LEAH
I still have one more thing to take care of-
(Slight-of-hand. VERNE'S distracted. The collar breaks. A blue collar goes around VERNE'S neck. She's got the leash.)
LEAH (Cont'd)
My turn. I'm Azalea, but I like just being called Leah, even though people who know me on the street, they just call me Zale. I tried singing, acting, being a model and I was Miss Nevada when I was eighteen. I have no tattoos and lately, I got killed while going on vacation. I should have known that this would happen. It's what you get when you book a flight to some dog's party on Halceron with friends who you know on the strip who service some servicemen and next thing you know, I'm put to sleep dreaming I'd meet Ms. Right and win a pageant. If it sounds too good to be true, it is too good to be true. There's no such thing as a free lunch, and you can't cheat Karma. Thanks for snapping me out of my fairy tale. I know life isn't fantasy, Dr. Verne, it's a bunch of pulp fiction that lands you belly-up the first time you think you have it made.
VERNE
It's my fault you're dead, Leah. I have the power to save you. Understand, I thought you were at a safe distance from the battle and you weren't, and I can make up for that. Let me fix it.
LEAH
How I died doesn't concern me, Dr. Verne. This paradox does. It's like I'm trying to watch a family flick in a crowded, porno theatre filled with randy old men wearing horrible masks. Solve that. Your clones are totally out-of-control.
VERNE
They're not exactly my clones.
LEAH
Speaking of control, where was I before I was so rudely interrupted? I was searching the stars for Princess Charming and instead I wake up in a red room in the backwaters of space and I see myself on an operating table with my head cut in half. I think I'm dead, and while checking out the surrounding space, I find out what latent aspects of you are doing to my phantasms. I'm not holding you accountable for that, although some of what I saw was really sick, you know? It doesn't take long for me to assimilate others, but there's this part of me that got woke up before I could get to her and she's got us all stuck in a time-loop and we can't leave without her approval, because she freed me from my insanity. I think that's what made me go crazy; I know I'm conscious forever.
VERNE
This is reality, but it's also a quantum dream, we can cope, Leah. Understand; there's a more-real space and time, and for all effects and purposes, we're still in the red room; I'm still operating on you. Let me finish.
LEAH
Maybe. I know you’re the one who chose to save me; you talk so much differently than all the others who didn't even try. And you did kill yourself for me. Tell you what, I'll give it some thought.
VERNE
Good.
(VERNE'S collar breaks as well.)
LEAH
A girl can still change her mind.
VERNE
I'm hoping you don't. That's another reason we're stuck here, you know.
LEAH
There's something you should know about me, Verne.
VERNE
(Using Red-Eye telepathy, confused aura:) Hmmmm... You're my sister?
LEAH
No, silly. I am a sister.
VERNE
(Ala SPECKLES:) Hmm?
LEAH
I'm a family girl. A lesbian. I'm even still a virgin. With a man, anyway.
VERNE
Really? No wonder the four-twenty in me doesn't want to recall all those honeymoon nights...
LEAH
So what's he supposed to be for? (Goes to SIX OF NINE, uses as a prop later.) A threesome?
VERNE
My insurance.
LEAH
This is my world, my mind. I don't get it tho, even reality isn't really real; why go back?
VERNE
Because I'm not the kind of doctor that lets my patients die just because they wanna, not on my table, you don't.
LEAH
I'm already dead!
VERNE
That's a matter of perspective, Leah, you're still alive in my book.
LEAH
Even you're not alive in your book. Why all this traffic? Why are the others awake?
VERNE
Nature's answer to all of our tomfoolery. We all share the same consciousness, essentially.
LEAH
Hmmm. I've had a long time to come up with some questions. What's with time and evolution?
VERNE
Oh yeah, I got your answers, Baby, plain as day. I need you to live. My ego can't handle having a failed operation, and my heart can't handle giving you a second funeral this year.
LEAH
Your heart? Awww, have you fallen in love with some latent aspect of my more-innocent psyche? We're hookers, Captain Verne, we're not nice girls. Prostitutes, ladies of the evening, tramps, Janes, aspiring-actresses- I'm sure you and your buddies got a few names for us as well. You're a sailor, you know; we don't go to bed in pajamas, we go to bed in high-heels.
VERNE
Without a real body, you're not going to bed in anything.
LEAH
I can do just fine the way I am. Do you want to be one with me, is that it? Oneness?
VERNE
Nope. But, you know, I think I just figured you out.
LEAH
(Stops playing and talking to the sleeping SIX OF NINE, hops off of his lap.) You did, huh?
VERNE
Yep. I got you.
LEAH
You think so?
VERNE
(Adds mesmerizing, yet subtle hand gesture to her face:) I know you want to live.
LEAH
Analyze me any way you want, but I'm outta here. I got things to do.
VERNE
(Repeats it:) No you don't.
LEAH
Cool it with the mind-games, this is my crib, space-boy. I've been at this longer than you.
VERNE
Yes, but I know some quantum short-cuts you haven't even thought possible.
(He assimilates into the body of SIX OF NINE. His leash is gone. He gets close, picks up a crude quantum pistol.)
VERNE (Cont'd)
Now, shall we discuss the finer aspects of the Piper Case, or shall we go immediately to Vonnegut's Law Of Inevitability? Where's the safety on this thing?
LEAH
I'm outta here. I need to check on YOUR Azalea. I sense strong emotions coming from her.
VERNE
Then why aren't you going? See? You ARE my Azalea, she's a phan. Resistance is futile.
LEAH
(Furious, trapped, bluffing, her face gaining color beyond her light blue hue:) Put a lid on it, I'm history.
VERNE
(Offers weapon, bows head; humble:) I know it is futile to point a gun at you, because you are a psycho, and a woman, and superior to me, and with your powers, you would have somehow prevented my firing it, and I would have surely been killed. Forgive my impudence, Mistress.
LEAH
(Grabs gun from him and pockets it in the only part of her costume that will accomodate it.) That's the first intelligent thing you've said, man-animal! Now you go on and see your friends at the show, and I'll go back and tie-up a few loose ends that keep trying to escape me.
VERNE
You can run, Mistress, but you can't hide.
LEAH
(Dissolving away:) Oh, I'll be back, you can count on it.
(VERNE expertly sets the craft to surface, knowing the sub as if it were his. It is his.)
VERNE
(Aloud, popping eye piece off:) Now there goes a girl who needs some serious bedside manner...
PEDESTAL UP
DISSOLVE TO: