Scene 7.09 - Bits and Bytes
INT. Communications Room/Console, Forward Sub-Deck, U.S.S.S. Roanoke, January 4th, 7079
(You can skip this scene if pointless torture ain't your cup of tea. Nobody finds-out anything here. This scene adds little to the plot, but it is an inherent part of the sequence of events and it would be unjust to omit it out of mere respect to the sensibilities and sensitivities of the reader. [Why start now?] So this scene kinda starts like that one scene in Lethal Weapon just before Martin's about to be interrogated via electroshock. Just before Riggs is alone, Murdock, his partner, is tied to a chair, all sweaty and bloody. It's messed-up and all real-lookin' like that, except that CAMEO TWENTY-THREE is Murdock and VERNE CLONE is Riggs. Things sure aren't gonna get better before they're gonna get worse. We're in a bloodied, bridge sub-deck and many corpses litter the room. Cameo Twenty-five is alive, however. Both VERNE CLONE and CAMEO TWENTY-THREE are both locked into de-com chairs. [Older, more medieval, Iron-Maiden-lookin' versions of the one WELLS created in Oblivion.] VERNE CLONE is slipping into and out of consciousness, so we get to share from many perspectives as we finally get this scene underway... VERNE [The invisible one still in the white room] stoicly-watches the action, unseen by all but us and he freely walks about the room, not speaking; only reacting.)
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
It's impossible!
CAMEO TWENTY-TWO
It's not impossible! They wouldn't have tried it if it wasn't possible!
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
It would take a red room; you can't do it...
CAMEO TWENTY-TWO
How do I do that? Huh? (CAMEO TWENTY-THREE loses consciousness. Turns to VERNE CLONE:) You! Doctor Sicko, wake up! How can we skirt the hole? Hey! Wake up!
VERNE CLONE
You've got to make a clone of the ship, with reverse energy...
CAMEO TWENTY-TWO
How do I do that? Hey!
CAMEO SIXTEEN
I've got pod five ready, where'd Turnkey go?
CAMEO TWENTY-TWO
Who cares? He was scored by a blaster round, he might die... You see what he did? While in handcuffs?
CAMEO SIXTEEN
(Looks at blood splatter on his uniform.) Yeah. We'd both be dead if he didn't stop them from- (Looks to the men in the chairs.) They say anything new?
CAMEO TWENTY-TWO
No. Nothing the captain didn't say before- (Looks at corpses.) So were the officers right?
COMPUTER
(Chime:) Attention: The ship will lose its structrual integrity in fifteen hours and thirty minutes, (As "gay" as possible:) Mark!
CAMEO SIXTEEN
A yellow equation -- with a time-stop in the blue room. The computer cannot verify itself, but it says it is a possibility. A guess based on science, anyway. It says it should be a clear path.
CAMEO TWENTY-TWO
They were gonna use us to scout it -- It's gotta work.
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
It won't.
CAMEO TWENTY-TWO
You awake again? Tell me, why won't it work? They've tried everything else, we were the last.
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
Nothing is gonna work.
VERNE CLONE
Maroon room...
CAMEO TWENTY-TWO
What?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
It won't work. Nothing will...
CAMEO TWENTY-TWO
So what is it, Doctor? A maroon room? Set for what?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
It can't-
CAMEO TWENTY-TWO
You shut up! We've heard plenty from you! You got us into this mess!
VERNE CLONE
A maroon room. (Spits a little blood.) Set for pi. Don't accelerate until clear...
(VERNE CLONE goes out...)
CAMEO TWENTY-TWO
What? What does he mean, don't accelerate?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
I don't know, he's... he don't know what he's saying...
CAMEO TWENTY-TWO
I'll bet.
CAMEO SIXTEEN
Is he telling the truth?
CAMEO TWENTY-TWO
(Huffing something:) One way to know: I'll try it.
CAMEO SIXTEEN
Oh no, my number's up and it's my turn to try.
CAMEO TWENTY-TWO
We don't know what he's saying. You try the blue room-
CAMEO SIXTEEN
I'm not trying the blue room, that computer don't know nothin'. (Turns on screen:) Look out there! They tried the blue room.
(Outside the viewscreen, dozens of human bodies are in dead posture, with the sides facing the hole all funneling to one, long thin strand and going off-screen. Four escape pods are a little father away, but they also sit frozen in space-time with equally-long funnels of metal stretching far, far below. )
CAMEO TWENTY-TWO
We're dead if we stay aboard.
CAMEO SIXTEEN
(Looking at corpses.) If we weren't busy rounding up these two for Turnkey, we'd be here, with our brains fried, like them. Or out there with the others. (Zooms-in on small group of colorful pasta strands.) Look at this.
CAMEO TWENTY-TWO
Somebody musta pushed them out; problee the Captain -- look how they're all shaded a different color.
CAMEO SIXTEEN
Trial and error? Why didn't he use chairs?
(No doubt. A seated VERNE gives his chair another glance while watching the men.)
CAMEO TWENTY-TWO
Those two chairs were hard enough to retrieve. (Huff.) I was on that detail, if I'd have known them officers were planning to use 'em on us to... Look, blue didn't work for the escape pods. (Points to the two, docked pods seen clearly through the nearby window.) The computer's wrong. Looks like it isn't blue...
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
It isn't.
CAMEO SIXTEEN
He said for you to shut-up! You want another adventure?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
(Also aware that he's in the chair of chairs. Horrified:) No!
CAMEO SIXTEEN
Then keep your yap shut! Now he was saying something about a maroon room... There's no maroon out there. White, brown, blue, green, yellow -- no maroon.
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
It's a red-room you need; it's imposs-
(CAMEO TWENTY-TWO activates CAMEO TWENTY-THREE'S chair. A weird hum. Pain and mental anguish.)
CAMEO SIXTEEN
That's enough. I said, that's enough!
(CAMEO TWENTY-TWO, who was beginning to enjoy the umpteenth round of his sick game of not-so-musical chairs, eyes CAMEO SIXTEEN briefly and flips-off the switch, flipping-off CAMEO SIXTEEN with the same finger. CAMEO SIXTEEN didn't see the stink-eye directed toward him, but VERNE CLONE and VERNE did. CAMEO TWENTY-THREE loses consciousness.)
CAMEO SIXTEEN (Cont'd)
There's more important things to deal with -- here. The computer likes the maroon suggestion and is running the simulations.
CAMEO TWENTY-TWO
Let's reset the pod and see if it will take the equation.
VERNE CLONE
Don't accelerate...
CAMEO SIXTEEN
What is he saying? What are you saying, man?
VERNE CLONE
Let the hole take you, you've got to go around it... like riding a wave without it taking you under... surfing... end of the wave like the end of a whip... surfing...
CAMEO TWENTY-TWO
Surfing? He's talking crazy again. Should we get the Keymaster?
CAMEO SIXTEEN
Even Turnkey don't understand half of what he says. He's crazy-talking, like the others. Hey! It is maroon, he's right! Let's try it out, be sure, send the escape pod's probe. If it clears the hole, we'll call Turnkey.
(Schwoom! Out of a tube, a little white dot, like a beacon light, turns maroon as it sails away, arcing toward the tea light above...)
CAMEO TWENTY-TWO
You think it's gonna work?
CAMEO SIXTEEN
I haven't finished cross-checking the equations, but it seems he's right about the maroon room and a blue variable in yellow. Yes! The probe cleared the event horizon -- ah, it's dropping again, it needed more speed -- it made it out, though, out the envelope! I'll set it for the pods and see what the computer says...
VERNE CLONE
Chewy? You awake?
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
Hmm.
VERNE CLONE
Chewy, they're wrong. You gotta ride it, like a wave. I see it. I see it all now. No nineteen hands. A loaded crib -- imagination. I can imagine a red room while in a maroon room. I can create an impossibility. I can find the wave there. Chewy?
(VERNE [standing, unseen] takes particular note of this revelation.)
CAMEO TWENTY-TWO
(Huff.) Stop hitting those keys so fast, you're gonna break it.
CAMEO SIXTEEN
I'm not gonna break it...
VERNE CLONE
Chewy? They won't make it all the way. Chewy -- We got to get out of here...
CAMEO TWENTY-THREE
Hmmm.
VERNE CLONE
Chewy? Chewy?
(A bright green line appears on the viewscreen with a word.)
CG: OPTIMAL
CAMEO TWENTY-TWO
Optimal? What's that mean?
CAMEO SIXTEEN
(Smiling:) It looks like we gotta path to Earth!
CAMEO TWENTY-TWO
What's the setting?
CAMEO SIXTEEN
(Reading:) Thirty-four pi in blue, Sixteen pi in yellow and nine against zero in maroon.
LOSE CG
CAMEO TWENTY-TWO
(Reaching for blaster:) That setting is a path home?
CAMEO SIXTEEN
Yes! It's a way out! Yes! The computer verifies it! It's-
(CAMEO SEVEN is decapitated from behind by a shock of energy that dissolves his head completely.)
CAMEO TWENTY-TWO
(Huffs. Flips on the de-com chairs.) Thanks, boys. I'd like to say it's been fun hanging-out with you officers, but all you guys have gone completely crazy anyway so there's no point in taking you back with me to come up with your own stories on how you didn't put us inside a black hole. (Huff.) No, nah. Good luck trying to find another way out, cuz there ain't one -- it's merciful, really. It will be over before you know it. You guys are stuck here, either way. (Huff. Points outside.) There's only gonna be one other escape pod left and that's gonna be for Turnkey, if he ever shows up again. I'm sure not messing with him. He's crazy. "Loony." Loony as the captain was. He killed the captain with his bare hands, d'janodat? Sure hope he ain't mad at you fellas. (Checks flight plan status: Optimal. Starts for door.) Back home, I'm gonna be a hero. (Huff.) Thanks for the way out, Sicko... Sweet dreams, fellas...
VERNE CLONE
(Mumbles:) Listen, you're sick... don't... no... please... please... come... back...
(The devices make a weird hum and the waffle-irons glow red-hot. Both are aroused, awake and experiencing internal pain. VERNE looks to the screen, struggling not to succumb under the chair's effects.)
MS: VIEWSCREEN
CAMEO TWENTY-TWO
(Off:) Don't worry, boys, it will all be over before you even know it!
(We hear a vault door slam shut, lock. A small pop and a dull roar. The roar sends vibrations into the room and then the roar dies-off and suddenly goes silent as it clears the ship and we see a large escape pod fill the screen. It flies past the bodies and even clears the other escape pods, frozen in space-time.)
VERNE CLONE
Don't- accelerate... find the wave... the red wave...
(The engines from the pod spit-out an additional white-hot burst of plasmic flame as the pod lifts and moves faster from it's green-line trajectory, toward the tea lamp above that is The Universe. It seems to be working, but as the top part of the pod lifts, the bottom part drops and the pod is pulled apart by the force. Remaining inertial forces spill the contents of the pod across the void as the top flies past the rest of the broken craft, spinning and slowing as the hole's gravity overpowers its inertial path toward home. The pod's bottom, CAMEO TWENTY-TWO and a fair amount of debris all slow to a stop and then begin stretching like taffy until nearly unseen strands of spaghetti-thin lines of flesh and metal form, looking much like a collection of thin, maroon-colored rods. The canopy of the pod finally stops miles away and follows suit, turning a deeper maroon until the screen looks like a collection of bundled, colored, unwashed pasta. The image freezes in time, like the rest of the picture. VERNE CLONE finally succumbs and loses consciousness.)
FTB