Scene 7.07 - Golden Slumbers
ANIMATION STYLE 1
EST: INT. Observation Deck, U.S.S.S. Roanoke, January 3rd, 7079, 16:20 (Ship's Time)
(VERNE is within the confines of the quantum generator. The interior is brightly lit, yet the small room looks as if it is enclosed in dark tinted glass only at the opening, facing the door, do we see the brightness inside. VERNE is busy looking through a microscope and doesn't notice Chewy's entrance. VERNE has two not-so-mindless clones assisting him. One is deep in thought, busy running and interacting with a sophisticated, computerized-analyzing machine; the other is smoking pot and making pizza with lotsa extra fixin's while drinking an Orion's Beer and snacking-on some of the unbaked fixin's. The oven is obviously still absent, as machines are materialized as they are needed.)
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
Dr. Sickle! What have you done?
VERNE
(Looks up, jovial:) Chewy! I think I may have made a breakthrough! I've isolated the-
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
You made a white room and cloned yourself?
VERNE
Yeah, I know a white room like the back of- (Sees he's aghast, reassuring:) Just two latent aspects, since time is of the essence, I thought I'd-
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
(Slows approach.) Oh no! No! Aw, nah. (Pause.) You two! Clones! Get in those coffins; now!
(They look to him, confused. VERNE nods to them as if they were relieved of their duties and nods toward the hibernation chambers outside the room. There are two, makeshift coffins nearby, spaced apart with "C" and "S" respectively on the "headboards" (a la "Bert and Ernie") Ready to be sealed, the coffins open with an air-tight gasp. The two step in, close the hatch. A brief silence, two clicks as the coffins lock and pressurize -- then poof! A sudden burst of dry ice and the two men are frozen, no ice crystals or any residue of any sort -- the two prone clones stare vacantly upward, unblinking.)
VERNE
You want to tell me what in Betelgeuse's Backdoor Bordello is going on? You were supposed to use that chamber. It's all molded to me now; it's worthless. We gotta make you another post-haste or the plan falls apart. Why'd you put them on ice?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
(Breaks out the Symolea Spacia, the cribbage board and the stash box.) Come on out here, sit down.
VERNE
I've just made a breakthrough; I'm close to a cure! What is it?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
I'd have the computer break the news to you if it could. Sit down. There's a blue room already operating below deck, even now. Captain Abraxas is trying to take a quantum short-cut. There isn't one. He went back to get the decom chairs -- he thinks he needs them again and that not having them is the reason he can't sleep right. He's mad. He kicked me off the bridge this morning when I argued with him. I cut my losses, I'm still here. (Drinks. Lights a Marley.) I've been having to make statements and file reports on an incident that occurred this morning just to keep suspicion from what we're doing here...
VERNE
What- What is... What happened?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
After picking up the chairs, navigation refused to comply with the captain's order -- his course correction. They brought me in to navigate since it required quantum expertise. I reluctantly complied; scientifically, I had to agree with the navigator -- the course the captain set means certain death. Militarily, I had to follow the captain's order to the letter. (Drinks.) I think I've killed us all...
VERNE
Huh?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
Certain death, for me, and everyone else on this ship.
VERNE
What's he trying to do?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
He's trying to use the blue-room to skirt the odds and skip-off the Einstein ring of the hole to send us somewhere else. It simply can't be done -- it's like putting a square peg in a round hole instead of a round peg in a square hole -- it only creates another paradox and puts us farther in.
VERNE
I don't understand.
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
He's trying to suspend time and space and gravitational effects without playing by the rules; you gotta know the rules. Sure, you can stop it all, but once you disrupt inertia with your own quantum force, you get a reaction directly proportionate to the action itself -- he just wouldn't listen to me; it's rudimentary and everyone on the bridge knew I was right as rain. (Pause.) Ensign Fargo was executed this afternoon.
VERNE
What?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
I told you -- everybody's crazy. The captain had him executed for refusing to obey his order. You see the position I was in -- I had to do it, I knew he wasn't playing games so I set our course for damnation. He thought he was right. He thought he was making a course correction to clear the asteroid field, but instead it put us through the event horizon of the hole. (Deflated, out of hope.) Doomed; and nobody even noticed.
VERNE
(Not busy working, looks up for once. Notices the opaque canopy is grey-beige and lit from below.) Why's the curtain drawn?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
The computer has sealed all the portholes since Wednesday, when we went back to get the chairs -- he's certainly not gonna open them now. I've got this one rigged, cuz this whole pad listens to me and I got a little computer of my own running this room -- plus, the captain knows I know already -- he'll leave me alone to while away up here until he's got another question.
(C-23 effortlessly waves a hand and the ceiling becomes transparent again. The ceiling is black; a basketball-sized dot of light sits in the center, directly above. The light ball is filled with smoky-grey and blackness while thousands [Millions? Billions and billions?] of pin-prick dots of radiant light stare out from the ball -- dimly contrasting the immense wash of blackness about it. It looks like a weird dart-board with a black bull's eye and looks oddly-two dimensional, like a paper cut-out.)
VERNE
Where are we? Why is it stuck there, off-center like that? Not perfectly round, either. What's is that? What is that thing?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
(Chuckles at VERNE'S particular reaction to seeing "Everything.") That? That's The Universe.
VERNE
What?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
That's everything else, man. The whole kit-and-kaboodle. You're looking at everything that exists outside of you and me and the ship and the hole and yeah, it looks like a paper-mache' disco ball slapped-up on a black wall that seems just a foot away from us, but that's our home, and it's far, far away -- I assure you. And that disco ball is slowly dissolving. All the light around us is falling to the dark star and it isn't reflected -- it's bent, like a lens -- a big lens. That little ball is gonna even get smaller and even smaller and more faint until it seems like it's just a little tea-lamp about to sputter-out and then all bright and then too bright all of a sudden and before you can even think about that -- your feet will weigh fifty times more that what your head does and you, me and the rest of this ship will get stretched like no piece of taffy's ever been stretched before and never will be again for at least the next hundred billion years or so. Luckily, we'll be dead in the first second of the nightmare. I'm telling you, outside of using that quantum generator, there's no escape.
VERNE
Can the generator save us?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
(Pause; considers VERNE.) Possibly. Hey, we've been drinkin' and smokin' and we haven't even cut for deal. Two of Spades.
VERNE
Ace of Hearts. My deal. In the week we've been working on it, we've come a long way.
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
Yeah, we have. We're almost done. It's mostly operational -- as you probably have gathered.
VERNE
How long before the ship bites it? Really bites it?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
To us? A few days, maybe more. Maybe two weeks if he doesn't change our course and make another paradox. Your crib?
VERNE
Yep. Another paradox? What's that about?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
We're under the illusion that we're as good as out of here -- soon, maybe in a few minutes, maybe in a few hours, the captain's gonna see an anomaly form ahead of us -- something he can't fly away from and something that stays smack in front of him no matter which way he turns. Guess what? The thing in front of us will look exactly like the star behind us. Why? Because if we're seeing anything, it's what's gonna happen or by all accounts, has already happened for most of the future of The Universe. It's a reflection of our ship's demise and he thinks it's a certain way out. Pretty soon the Captain's gonna figure out that he's not as good as out of here as he thought he was and he's goin' to call me up and ask me to explain it all to him in layman's terms and all. After a few drinks, or maybe not even that long, he's gonna start getting frustrated and start blaming me for not warning him about the paradox, or he will possibly start blaming me for the whole matter altogether. Then he'll either shoot me like Fargo or he'll put me on ice while he cools off and loses more sleep. Either way, I'm screwed. I hope he doesn't notice the anomaly right away so maybe it will just get to us first.
VERNE
An anomaly? (The top card is a Jack of Hearts.) Nibs for two.
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
A time-space anomaly. He'll read it, try to avoid it, it will only get closer and then he'll call his navigator. His new navigator. Ensign Burnstorff. That might give me an hour, enough time to make another coffin for me. We'll be in the Q-S-I-2 of the quantum aftershock. We'll need those coffins if the maroon room loses its stability. Eight.
VERNE
We can remodify yours to fit you again after I reassimilate the clones. That will save forty minutes. Thirteen. Then what?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
Either Burnstorff will tell the captain the truth or he will simply pretend that he doesn't know.
VERNE
And the truth is?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
We're in a paradox. A tricky one. The second I used the blue room to fix the other paradox, I created a bigger one. You can't stretch space without it taking longer to get somewhere else and if you increase the acceleration to shorten the time, you draw from the first quantum irregularity. (Pause, drink, toke, small snort. VERNE plays it cool and pretends he didn't notice the snort of powder. After all, it does help Chewy stay alert...) I'm surprised they let'chall fly ships around in space using blue rooms at all -- you pilots don't know did-lee about the Bradbury Protocol.
VERNE
What's the Bradbury Protocol?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
(Drinks. Offers bottle.) See? (Trailing pause. It dawns on him how much VERNE will see soon enough. Like before you tell someone really bad news. Somber:) Let's finish this hand first. Fifteen for two.
VERNE
Twenty.
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
Twenty-six.
VERNE
Thirty-one for two.
(Pegs. Lights a joint.)
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
Four.
VERNE
Nine, last card for one.
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
I got nineteen. (Blows nose -- dry for a change. Must be the powder.) What else is new?
VERNE
It goes away, you know.
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
What does?
VERNE
Anthromycis Genoplexia.
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
What?
VERNE
The virus. Insanefluenza?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
You know what it is?
VERNE
Yes. I've isolated it. It isn't alien; it's Earth-borne. It's supposed to be an extinct strain of a relative of the common flu virus. The only known samples are frozen in a vault on Earth. It's a brain-bug, all right. How it got out here, I'll never really know.
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
It came on a rock that struck the ship's hull? Where did this virus orginate? On Earth, I mean.
VERNE
In Europe, in the Twentieth Century, more than three thousand people were afflicted over a period of five winters across ancient states with strange names like "Poland" and "Germany" with no other reported outbreaks known. Uncanny. It's a great read, I should show it to you.
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
Is it fatal?
VERNE
Nope. Symptoms in humans may lead to homicide; it's been documented that its gotten almost that bad. Victims become extremely paranoid and psychotic, like an injured person in shock. There was one local woman afflicted by narcolepsy who was immune to the symptoms -- the doctors didn't know why then and I sure don't know why now. The symptoms are the worst of it -- certainly no friend to firearms or cabin fever. The madness lasts about three weeks, you've got a week to go most likely, and you'll be low on natural melatonin and seratonin, but I've developed an antibiotic that boosts those levels while targeting the-
COMPUTER
(OFF:) Dr. Chill-You-Eye, please report to the sick bay immediately.
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
That's it; they're gonna put me on ice!
VERNE
You're being paranoid.
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
No, I'm not. I don't want to be the next sick call patient -- or to go the way of our Chief Navigator.
VERNE
You gotta. Go! They'll look for you.
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
It will take them a half-hour to notice I'm really missing and even longer to find me. Then it will take them thirty minutes to crack the wall-code.
VERNE
They got the codes. You can't hole-up here; they'll shoot you.
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
Nah, he knows I'm sick. I'll just say I fell asleep up here. It may save me from -- it might preserve our little project...
VERNE
Yeah, yeah, but that doesn't exactly explain a doctor being present. Why didn't I wake you or call?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
You didn't; you were asleep, you'll be just out of your coffin, all groggy, confused, talking nonsense anyway. I'll tell them I put you on ice and only just woke you up to look me over.
VERNE
The clone! Smart! But he isn't mindless, you know; he might spill the beans -- he'll have a mind of his own. Twelve.
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
We got another problem we need to talk about. That's fifteen sixteen and twelve is twenty-eight. (Looks at his crib for him, unexcited.) I dropped you a Ten of Hearts and a King of Hearts. Yep. Straight flush.
(A hailing whistle sounds within the room.)
COMPUTER
(OFF:) Dr. Chill-You-Eye, please report to the sick bay.
VERNE
Why would they want you to report to the sick bay?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
Why indeed, Doctor? Isn't that your department?
VERNE
They're not lookin' for me; I'm still off-duty.
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
I might as well tell you. When you made the white room in the generator and cloned yourself, you did it within a standing paradox.
VERNE
What does that mean?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
Until that paradox is unravelled, you can't reassimilate.
VERNE
When does that happen? (Silence. A little afraid, not understanding:) What does this mean?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
When you're operating blue, and it isn't true and you cleanly clone white, and it seems all right, it's to the Phantom World that you will be hurled, or to Oblivion instead, for it means red or dead.
VERNE
What?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
It's a little rhyme from college. There is no red room. It's a play on words. The red room is the hypothetical conduit from Oblivion -- a reverse energy wave that supposedly-exists in everything yet that nothing can detect it or utilize it easily -- Phantom Power -- the only energy signature outside of blue, yet it truly doesn't exist -- it can't; it's only theoretical. You're nested in a type-four paradox now. You would have to solve it from the outside and that can't happen anyway until shortly before the anomaly hits and we all become a big soda straw. Yet it's always before, never after, which gives us some hope. You've got those few precious moments to assimilate or away you will go.
VERNE
Me?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
Most certainly. You're drifting toward there now, you just don't feel it yet.
VERNE
Where?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
Oblivion.
(Long pause.)
VERNE
I don't know what to say.
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
There isn't much to say. What's done is done. The Bradbury Protocol is based on an event that happened some time ago. Numbers don't lie.
VERNE
I made a couple of clones and sent myself to Oblivion?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
Positive and negative selves -- Not exactly clones; more your good self and bad self with you being the soul of the meat in the twain...
VERNE
There's no way out? I've sent myself the way of the trash? (Creased face, inward tears of realization.) I'm a goner?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
If those parts of you and I could get in a pod and escape this ship, and work from outside the Q-S-I-2, we could easily assimilate you back from Oblivion, since you are the actual "soul" of yourself. The others are -- only -- reflections. It's a simple equation from the outside. It's simple, really. On Earth, I would have already have fixed it for you.
VERNE
What are we waiting for? Let's get them off this boat!
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
You forget, we're on top of a black hole. We jump in a pod, we'd drop like a pebble -- the only thing a pod could do is find a way out and cart us there. We wouldn't be able to stick around and solve your problem. We gotta get that maroon room up-and-running and completely displace the deck from the Q-S-I-2 - that will solve it for you, so keep your head and good spirits. It might take an hour or two to calibrate to diminish the effect of -- we'll have to get the whole ship to embark at both ends at the same time, or she'll crack like a peanut.
VERNE
You at one end, me at the other -- we'd be saving everyone, right?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
Yeah, we would -- the whole ship will go. Everyone aboard -- it's not mutiny; you're the only sane man aboard -- you're in command by default. Remember regulation 910-13. You are mandated to use the most expedient means to return to base and receive further orders. Use the maroon-room equation and we'll do just that -- we'll be a few thousand miles from Earth -- no power, no thrusters, minimal life support -- and no paradox -- my green applications bear out the equation -- it should work. That is, if we can kill the other generator's power; we can't add to the paradox ourselves or we're screwed -- I got separate lines tapped from sub-conduits...
VERNE
Let's get busy. If we were floating above Earth, I'm sure the captain would be more likely to get on board with our way of-
COMPUTER
(OFF:) Dr. Chill-You-Eye, please report to the nearest telephote terminal immediately and acknowledge. If you are injured or are otherwise unable to respond, please activate your personal homing beacon and a security detail will locate you.
VERNE
How am I going to-?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
Get into the generator, set for grey thirty-four. (Tokes.) That will keep you invisible to anyone not in a white room with you. You can move freely, but watch it -- they can't see or be able to touch you, but they can hear you -- the computer will detect you, but with its fixed logic it won't recognize you as anything other than normal ship sounds and will discount you completely -- but remember people will hear you just fine, all the way up to- it's weird, but it's the nature of the beast -- this has happened before, once, on Earth. (Quick:) Map the maroon-room equation like I've been showing you -- just set it for Earth, nothing fancy; ignore all the echoes, don't add any power when you think you might be falling, that's really the key -- it's all full of yellow-room paradox that will just cloud-up your course if you mess with it. Tinker with the setting until you read pi.
VERNE
What are you doing?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
If I don't respond soon, they'll come looking for me -- if they find this, there won't be time to explain our good intentions. You get that course locked in and fix my coffin and we'll all get back to Earth together and you'll be one person again. For now, I need a decoy to help -- you. It will buy both of us time if I can get a clone of you and me in the sick bay -- under the pretense you are bringing me in for a flu shot -- it risks being put on ice, but it makes a good lie and beats a sure-fire execution. Which guy was the one making the pizza?
VERNE
(Stepping in, turns the dial. We see him inside as usual and he points.) That one.
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
Which one? I can't see you.
POV: CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
(We see the interior of a darkened, dusty, empty box with nothing within.)
VERNE V.O.
The one sleeping in my bed. I'm really invisible?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
(Waking up clone.) You, the white room, everything in that box -- you're in another dimension, man.
VERNE
(Frightened:) What? What does that mean?
GENEVIEVE
([CAMEO NINE-POINT-TWO] Custom computer console for the Observation Deck. A perfectly female voice.) Manual override, activating arousal sequence.
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
Nothing. Look, don't let on to the clone that you're here. When he wakes up, I need him to think he's you -- all of you. If he doesn't, he'll be spending every moment trying to find you to get reassimilated. It's in their nature. Stay in the box and keep quiet and set the equations like we were planning all along and as soon as I get back with Heckle we'll wake up Jeckle and put you back together and jump in the coffins and wake up orbiting Earth. Then this little Lovecraftian mistake you've made won't seem so terrible anymore and you'll be yourself again. Then you walk out as one guy, the guy I like picking on.
VERNE
When should I set the course?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
Start with it now, it will take hours to correctly equate the fractions. The bridge won't know what you're doing, I've seen to that-
VERNE
And then?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
And then we set it for maroon-pi and wait for the anomaly to hit and then pull the pin and wait for the fireworks.
VERNE
And if this doesn't work and we're all still here and the ship's not floating back home?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
Linguine. Except for you. You'll be sent to Oblivion with no one to come get you.
VERNE
At least we're both being optimistic.
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
What choice we got?
VERNE
I'm glad we're friends, Chewy.
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
Me too. I hope we get through this and can laugh about it over a beer sometime.
VERNE
I never got to tell you how much I-
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
(Sees digital display on coffin.) Tell me later, he's waking up.
GENEVIEVE
Status: Normal. Arousal Sequence Complete.
(The coffin door opens. A groggy VERNE CLONE sits up. VERNE silently watches from within the cube.)
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
Sorry, we've run into a few snags, I had to get you reassimilated right away.
VERNE CLONE
How long was I out? I've been reassimilated? That's weird, I feel like there's more to me left...
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
Just that other clone of yours, over there. The bad part of you, you know, the disposable part. He'll want to be a part of you more than you'll want to be a part of him. (Ironically true.) Let's just keep him on ice until later and head to sick bay.
VERNE CLONE
What's in sick bay? I've got the cure right inside-
(He almost walks inside the room where VERNE watches stoicly.)
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
No! No need for that right now. The captain's gotta see me and you gotta be my alibi.
VERNE CLONE
Alabi? What happened while I was under?
COMPUTER
(OFF:) Dr. Chill-You-Eye, please report to any duty station aboard if able. If unable to respond, please activate your personal homing beacon and a security detail will locate you.
VERNE CLONE
What's up?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
The captain's real paranoid and put us off course. He wants to talk to me about a quantum anomaly. I need you to take me to the sickbay to look me over.
VERNE CLONE
Cuz you're sick, right?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
Right.
VERNE CLONE
Part of this doctor-patient confidentiality thing, right?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
Right.
(The Observation Deck's Door sounds with a few key-punch squelches and immediately opens to CAMEO SIXTEEN, CAMEO FIFTEEN, CAMEO SEVENTEEN and CAMEO TWENTY-TWO as guards accompanying CAMEO TWENTY-FIVE.)
CAMEO TWENTY-FIVE
Thereeyistoldja.
(Armed men approach the two.)
VERNE CLONE
Turnkey! What's this about?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
Dr. Sickle was just about to take me to sick bay; I was asleep. What's up?
CAMEO TWENTY-FIVE
Whatchoobeendoininear?
VERNE CLONE
Nothing! Cryogenic research! What's it to you?
CAMEO TWENTY-FIVE
Eyelikeyooeynuffzickobutdecumpannyookeepleevsmuchtoobeedeezyerd.
VERNE CLONE
What's Chewy ever done to you?
CAMEO SIXTEEN
He set us on a course straight to the black hole!
CAMEO SEVENTEEN
Look! (Looks up at the canopy. Enraged ad-libs from the men.) The captain was right! He's a madman!
CAMEO TWENTY-TWO
(Metaphorically spits at him:) We're all dead-ducks because of you! Why did you do it?
VERNE CLONE
He's sick-
CAMEO SIXTEEN
You've killed us! Sick or not, you need the plank!
(So agreeable is the suggestion, that the men nearly echo the chant: "The plank! Yes, the plank!")
CAMEO SEVENTEEN
What about Sicko?
CAMEO TWENTY-FIVE
Bindizandsandbreengimalongeemiteknowsumthinaboutdebug.
VERNE CLONE
He's sick, Turnkey, you're all sick! The captain, the crew, all of you -- I can make you better, I found a cure -- I fixed the bug! I fixed the bug!
CAMEO SIXTEEN
Hold his arms...
FIGHT SEQUENCE
MUSIC UP
(They try to bind him and VERNE CLONE gets a few licks in good and he and CAMEO TWENTY-THREE fight good enough until CAMEO-TWENTY-TWO, having been thrown, hits the recently-opened coffin, [wisps of cold smoke still trailing outward] and manages to produce a blaster. To draw attention, he casually fires a blaster-round downward to the nearby coffin. The men stop their fighting and look. The first coffin completely dissolves, the second, still containing a clone, cracks, darkens and sputters and sparks as smoke fills the interior and is illuminated with a blinking red light within. The power in the apparatus winds down and we hear a haunting, echoing groan from within the generator as it powers down and VERNE, inside, hiding in the white room, is pulled completely from this dimension. The dying-yet-undying groan is certainly a spine chiller, and is the same groan heard when the crew was cast to Oblivion. The box darkens and reveals a simple skeleton of a cube with a black box attached, nothing more. The men look to one another -- that dying groan sounded quite unnatural and certainly was disconcerting to the men, who have learned to fear the magic of quantum generators. CAMEO TWENTY-THREE, alone in his understanding, deflates and looks to the fearful clone next to him and tries to appear resolute. CAMEO-TWENTY-TWO levels the blaster at the men and instead of binding them, escorts them out with a firm, polite nod. Yet, just before they exit:)
CAMEO TWENTY-FIVE
(In Chewie's face:) Whaddeeeverdootoomee? He... called... me... Turkey.
FTB