Scene 7.04 - Bad Wells
EST: EXT. Guardian Island, Tellusia
(It’s later. Night has fallen. Like a drive-in movie, except no cars around, only palm trees -- behind a particular palm WELLS 1 is patiently hiding, watching the events of the scene. WELLS and NANCY are half-under a sleeping bag, sitting up. A small bonfire is lit and it looks like they have smoked a boat-load of grass and have feasted-on several smores and a gallon of rum-punch. They’re kissing like two lovebirds who are still experimenting with kissing with their tongues and are lightly caressing one another and holding hands and cuddling while hugging and whispering sexy things to one another in the dark. B-T-W, they’re still dressed. Their upper bodies are intertwined but other than casually-stroking her lats and her belly, WELLS hasn’t taken it too far past first base yet -- not that NANCY isn’t trying to get there, she has a general idea of what should be next, but doesn’t want to seem too aggressive. WELLS is taking his time, savoring every moment, for he has truly found a woman he can love, one who may love him one day if he only allows it to unfold naturally -- he doesn’t want it to be a mere one-paradox-stand. THE GUARDIAN clears his throat.)
GUARDIAN
Here’s the important part. The part you need to watch.
MS: GUARDIAN
(The German Shepard from earlier is conducting a lab course. He’s obviously the teacher. ROMEO stands near him, in a lieutenant’s uniform at the head of the class. Unseen by us until he speaks is VERNE in surgical dress. Next to him is WELLS, also in surgical dress. The class blackboard reads “Interdimensional Surgery 501.” ROMEO is standing at ease. VERNE is standing over a cadaver. WELLS stands over a different corpse. Next to VERNE and WELLS are dozens of dogs in canine surgical dress -- covered head-to-toe, paws shaved and gloved, each hovering over a human cadaver. Eventually, the German Shepard, DR. DEXTER, rings a bell all Pavlov-style and gets the room’s attention. His lips don’t move; he has aura.)
WELLS
You owe me a double... a Jackson.
VERNE
It wasn't my fault...
WELLS
I've seen the hard side of the Chief Resident's office more times than I've seen the galley because of you. It's Saturday morning -- Right now I could be eating ham and eggs and a Belgium waffle -- instead I'm in remedial surgery 101 -- all because of you; you. You, turning a simple contraband-locker-raid into Dog Day Afternoon.
VERNE
I'd cut the wires, killed the cameras -- I had the meat; I didn't know the Commandant's guard dog was vegan. Did you know he was vegan? Plus, my spanner didn't work right -- we should have slipped into my secret time-closet and been invisible when the guards came-in -- it should have dialed green but it dialed yellow... Something's not right with my spanner... Something's off...
(Begins fiddling with the spanner, setting it at "0" and the "maroon" setting. He twiddles with the second dial, absently... Ring-a-ling-a-ling!)
DR. DEXTER
(CAMEO TWENTY-EIGHT V.O.:) Today, doctors, you’ll be working on human cadavers. Today’s exercise is purely exploratory. It’s to re-familiarize yourself with working interdimensionally with your spanner and taking future and past readings from the corpse from the blue-room and the orange room while operating white from a maroon-
REX
(CAMEO SIXTEEN V.O.:) Sir? Why white? Why not green?
VERNE
Blimey! This is worse than clinic duty...
DR. DEXTER
Dr. Verne, speak out of turn again and you will be excluded from this exercise. (VERNE nods.) The reason we’re operating white, Dr. Rex, is so others may examine your work and evaluate it without any of your mistakes actually reaching the corpse, and to prevent any of you prankster bozos from throwing your corpse or your classmates into the black room -- there’s no coming back from there, ya know. No screwing around. We need to save these precious subjects throughout the semester, you’ll need them intact later. Which brings me to why I’ve asked Colonel Romero to join us today. Colonel Romero is our Operations Officer and the school's highest ranking human surgical monitor; and outside of being an integral part of our cadre, he is also responsible for the daily operations of the ship as a whole, and we naval officers all need to afford him all the courtesies our bearing allows -- he's one of us -- even if he is Army scum. (Chuckles.) He’s officially here today at my request to participate in our part of the Nightingale's "chirp" program -- C-H-R-P, canine-human-relations-program -- and this is our school’s contribution; a joint canine-sapien effort to overcome the stigmas of operating on a specie other than your own. I understand it’s a requirement for you pups to be qualified to hold such monitoring positions here at the school to even be allowed into this class, but room duty is no substitute for actual human interaction and collaboration. On The Nightingale, we ensure that human cadavers are always treated with the same respect as our canine corpses, and for the next seven weeks, we'll be fortunate enough to also have two human doctors in the classroom who have volunteered their time to demonstrate their skills and brush-up on the changes in surgical technique that have been made over the last few exciting months. (Paws.) We are the greatest surgical hospital in The Universe, bar none. We set for maroon and operate white and fully monitored until I’m sure everyone here understands that these were people. They’re not playthings. Dr. Romero?
ROMERO
(Much younger looking; hair; no scar:) Thank you, Dr. Dexter. (Unconsciously, he caters much of his focus toward VERNE and WELLS, since they are the only other humans in the room. The dogs are stretched-out across a grid with a walkway inbetween -- aisles for the mentors to examine the work of their students. The students stand on small platforms over metal tables with nude human cadavers on them.) Today’s gonna be real easy. You all know how to dress a corpse, and we’ll expound on that later. We’re gonna take some pre-mortem vitals from the echoes in the blue room and pull the pattern from the orange room to come up with an after-death prognosis -- eventually, you’re gonna tell me the T-O-D, C-O-D, and the E-F-I of your corpse.
REX
Sir?
ROMERO
Entropy Factors, Doctor. Inclusive.
WELLS
You gotta tell him when he died, why he died and which parts of your stiff are gonna rot first and how fast.
DR. DEXTER
(Exiting:) I’m leaving the class to you, Dr. Romero. Next class we’re covering chapters six and seven from your digital text. Reveiw slides 618-978 before next Saturday. (Groans.) There will be a test. (More groans.) All yours, Doctor.
ROMEO
Thank you, Doctor. Okay class, today we’re gonna be working with alotta urine.
(Groans.)
ROMEO (Cont’d)
Okay, does everyone have their spanners warm? Okay, slowly dip your spanner in the dimensional pool. (Pause.) Your surgical basin, the basin. Put your spanners in the basin to degauss-
VERNE
Sir, I dropped mine.
ROMEO
Well, pick it up, Lieutenant Commander!
VERNE
I did, sir, and yet it’s still there.
ROMEO
What?!? That could be a parallel- Hold that thought, don’t do anything, I’ll be right there. (Back to the plan:) Class, look at your primary maroon reading on your spanner. Today we’re gonna know first-hand the three processes of the nephron and you will reconstruct a calyx from a pattern established in the blue room and create it out of near matter in the orange room, according to those primary calibrations of the master spanner which should operate fully white in the Q-S-I-2 very soon. Now, everyone but the human who dropped his spanner in his pool dial grey and find the subject’s Juxtamedullary Nephron -- focus on the glomerulus and set your Q-S-I-2 for thirteen centemeters.
SPOT
(CAMEO FIFTEEN V.O.:) Which kidney, sir?
ROMEO
Either one.
REX
I can’t get my spanner to dial grey.
ROVER
(CAMEO NINETEEN V.O.:) I can see her loop of Henle, but I can’t dial grey either.
(Reactions abound. It seems that’s the case with everyone -- no grey.)
ROMEO
What’s with this class? What do you mean you can’t dial grey? You can always dial grey... Any- hey, you, clumsy- when you dropped your spanner, was it set for grey?
VERNE
No. It was still maroon -- just fiddling with it, keeping it warm, like you said to do. It flew out of my hand, but I caught it-
ROMEO
(Crosses to him, looks into a little basin filled with water:) Okay, where is it, where’d you drop it?
VERNE
(Holds it up.) It’s right here. It felt like it was pulled from me -- I reached in and pulled it back out. I caught it, see?
ROMEO
But- (Sees the spanner falling far, far, far, below inside the dark tank.) I see it, there!
VERNE
That’s just it. I caught it, but it’s still falling.
ROMEO
Apparently. (Reads it.) It's establishing space. What- What equation did you use?
VERNE
I don’t know, I was playing with it -- a random division of zero, I guess.
ROMEO
Random? Division of zero? It can't divide by- Lemme see that spanner. (Turns it on. The basin turns red.)
WELLS
3.141592653... this is a serious problem, Doctors... we could discorporate... (Frightened:) we could evolve!
VERNE
It’s operating red until it reaches zero.
ROMEO
Red!?! That’s impossible! There is no red room!
WELLS
Well, apparently anything's possible until that spanner finally reaches a singularity. Think pleasant thoughts, men, while that spanner is still functioning in the basin, our minds are physically unhindered...
VERNE
Of course! Why not red? What creates Time? It's kinda what got me out of...
ROMEO
What about... [points to corpse.] ...him?
VERNE
(They all look to the subject in union, fascinated, suspenseful.) I dunno, you’re the teacher, Doctor.
ROMEO
This is something new. (Turns the spanner's dial a touch. The cadaver’s heart starts beating. Blood squirts and pools about the corpse. Hands the spanner back to VERNE. A la Three Men And A Baby:) We need to record this, we may only have minutes. We’re covering new ground. A red room!
WELLS
I concur. Dogs: Out, all of you -- we're going all-white in here and you don't want to be here when it does...
(The dog docs file-out, sniffing each others' behinds and stopping off to mark territory in the communal hall urinal.)
VERNE
I agree with you, Doc. We're probably evolving right now; so is he, apparently... Anything is possible, anything we can dream. Look -- conscious response to quantum stimuli -- it's trying to find equilibrium in a vacuum. It's conforming to our auras... we're influencing the nature of a new Universe... another state of consciousness...
WELLS
We're peeking through a keyhole of a door that God locked for a reason. Leave it alone, Julie.
VERNE
I've been here... before... there's someone inside, reaching out to us -- a new color in the spectrum -- infinite space possible; matter based from pure consciousness... and yet... I feel that I'm also there, too...
ROMEO
Computer, go to white room: Fully record the events in this classroom to include all black room activity of this spanner and note any acute brain activity.
(Their collars temporarily vanish. The men do not notice the sudden absence.)
FEMALE COMPUTER V.O.
( CAMEO FIVE-POINT-TWO:) Recording... No spanner detected, sir.
ROMEO
(Looks at spanner:) What? Computer, what do you call this?
FEMALE COMPUTER V.O.
That particular object does not truly exist in this dimension, sir.
(A curious look from all men to one another. They look to the spanner, it glows maroon-red reciting pi, setting zero. It's on its umpteenth digit...All three men are covered in blood and bile from a dissected man's body's fluids that are instinctively-attempting to circulate. The fluid has only managed to circulate on the men's pristine surgical gowns.)
WELLS
(Horrified:) What is this, a dream?
FEMALE COMPUTER V.O.
Reference previous question of paradox type one: Doctor, agreement of an answer will be determined based on the subjective-
VERNE
Computer, cancel request for discourse. Reset que.
FEMALE COMPUTER V.O.
System reset. Working. Degauss complete. Recording.
ROMEO
Patient, Mr. Piper, male, 54 years old... hmmmm. Colonel Romero, Commander Verne, Lieutenant Wells attending. Huh. Note, computer, that he is, in fact, a corpse -- yet life functions respond to stimulation from spanner coexisting in both white, black, maroon and... perhaps... red. During an academic labratory procedure exploring the Loop of Henle, Lieutenant Commander Verne-
VERNE
Verne 117.
ROMEO
Dr. Verne 117 dropped his spanner into a dimensional pool while his spanner was set to an unknown frequency and it somehow contained a second, unknown equation -- a derivative of pi, giving properties to-
VERNE
He’s going into cardiac arrest-
ROMEO
No he isn't, he’s already dead!
WELLS
Tell him that. I think you woke him up.
ROMEO
That’s impossible!
VERNE
(Gets it for a brief moment. He understands life's nature; its basis.) No it isn’t; I get it -- it isn't him -- not this guy's soul, anyway -- there's another spirit that was locked in that closet -- the one inside this room, someone, someone alive somewhere else; where this spanner truly is heading -- it's animating the body to reach us, reach our minds -- to communicate -- yes...
(VERNE turns the spanner’s dial. The basin glows a brighter red and the water overflows. Ectoplasm also oozes from the basin. The corpse sits up, open his eyes, blinks and tries to breathe and speak but is unable. The corpse is self aware. A few dogs, watching from observation rooms outside, react. Only VERNE doesn’t seem surprised; it’s exactly what he thought would happen. The corpse turns his head, gazes at VERNE as if VERNE were a familiar face. The slackened face smiles a little, nods, and mimes blowing VERNE a kiss -- and then suddenly drops dead once again. The spanner in VERNE’S hand shatters and dissolves as if it were truly in Oblivion, finally shattering against its hard floor -- reaching zero. The spanner in VERNE’S hand becomes dust, then less than dust -- being only near matter -- then nothing at all.)
ROMEO
Doctor! What... did you do?
VERNE
I - I’m not sure. I think somewhere in his head, there was a pattern memory and the near matter conduit allowed the quantum spectre an avenue to manif-
ROMEO
This class is over. (To the dogs in the other room, plastered to the glass like they were on a car ride.) All of you, dismissed, report to your duty station for the remainder of the day. Whoa! Not you two. Accident or not, we’re all going to see the Commandant -- right now -- don’t touch anything else and we all may just scrape by with a scolding. Although I'll suffer much worse for not stopping this sooner. Go! I'll see you there presently,
WELLS
(Exiting, not noticing their conditioning collars materializing as they cross the threshold:) We're up to a Grant now, and if we get to a Benjamin, we'll part ways and I'll write this off as a hard lesson. (Once outside the door, explosive. Stops, puts hand to VERNE'S shoulder to get him to face him and drops hand immediately to gesture with both arms:) Now, I don't know how, how you did that, but no more extreme stunts or I’ll be the next guy lying on that table -- I just can’t take seeing any more corpses sitting upright and looking around with wide eyes. (Widens eyes.) Too creepy! Listen and listen good, Julie: No more quantum-stunts like that while I'm around. I’m a doctor, not Evel Knievel.
(They turn and slowly walk down a long hallway of the ship. VERNE puts a gore-covered arm about and changes the subject.)
MS: GUARDIAN
GUARDIAN
You see.
WELLS
Okay, we’ve all covered our sordid pasts on the Nightingale, mine and Verne's. What’s this gotta do with what’s happening now?
GUARDIAN
If you will watch the next episode, you will see.
WELLS
Another one? (NANCY'S half-asleep, slightly-too-drunk head is resting squarely on WELLS’ bladder.) Well put a commercial on, cuz I gotta go. (Pats NANCY.) I’ll be right back, honey.
(WELLS crosses to the palm trees and we hear a commercial for Mrs. Prune’s all-natual laxitive with 10-percent real castor oil. We see his smiling face. WELLS is obviously enjoying his urination. As he shakes off the final drops, we see a looming figure approach from behind. WELLS zips up, sighs, turns around and gets two quick karate-chop blows -- one to the stomach, one to the neck. He’s out cold. Reference: Star Trek: The City On The Edge Of Forever. We now see WELLS 1 drag the body OFF. Then, WELLS 1 steps over to the beach encampment where NANCY lies prone and passed-out.)
GUARDIAN
I did everything you told me to do. I kept him occupied.
WELLS 1
You’ve done really well, Guardian. Now, you’ve just got to send the three of us to the maroon room.
(He picks up NANCY. She nuzzles him, unaware it is a different man than the one she last nuzzled.)
GUARDIAN
Wh- why are you taking her?
WELLS 1
Well, once I am out of this little paradox, I’ll have nothing on you, no way of stopping you from getting crazy ideas. Ideas of your own on how to fix this mess. I've seen what you've done already. I gotta make sure you won’t send me to the black room. She’s gonna be my insurance policy. Do your thing, Guardian.
GUARDIAN
She's not- She’s innocent, leave her alone.
WELLS 1
She’ll stay innocent if you do what I ask. (Puts NANCY on golf-cart-looking thing that has WELLS already loaded in back, still unconscious.) Avogadro's number, Guardian.
GUARDIAN
Please, there’s got to be another way-
WELLS 1
There isn’t. Now bring up the maroon room and don’t try to track me -- I'll know it if you are, she'll know. When everyone’s back to normal, I’ll let Nancy come back to you, safe and sound.
GUARDIAN
You’d better.
(THE GUARDIAN turns maroon.)
WELLS 1
That’s what I like about you, Guardian. You know when you gotta play ball.
( WELLS drives the cart into THE GUARDIAN and disappears.)
FTB