Scene 9.03 - The Conclave
EST: MS: EXT. New York City -- 9941
(Dogs and men are dressed in the Deco style of Early 1940s. There are occasional punk holdouts in the classic hippie-style of the sixtieth millenia, but the over-all trend of 20th-Century Deco is evident. All humans have collars and all dogs radiate an aura. It is pouring rain by the barrel in the dark city and a cult of well-dressed women walk behind a mixed trio. GLADIOLA and FERN are arm-in-arm with VERNE, who all share an umbrella. LILY, POPPY and IRIS are walking behind along with other female cameo actresses who all appear to be a different generation of clones of themselves, also utilizing rainwear and parasols. Occasionally, a VERNE model walks briskly by the group along with many others walking the other way, seldom-acknowledging our beloved VERNE, and never for who he truly is: The Original. The group has recently seen an amusing musical [OccupyBroadway!] and are walking toward an upscale coffee shop.)
GLADIOLA
I don't understand it, you're being selfish. Why can't you just stay with us? Why can't we all stay here?
VERNE
I don't want any of you girls here when the defecation strikes the oscillation. This all could get wasted; you girls need to be safe.
FERN
You are a kind and fantastic man, with deep ambitions and lofty goals and we have achieved so much. Please, stay with us, be with us.
VERNE
Flattery gets you everywhere, but it won't change my mind. I'm aboard a shuttle tomorrow, I will follow you all to Base Station Rand for fuel. Beyond that, what I gotta do is Top Secret, ladies.
GLADIOLA
You don't have to go to war -- we could all go away together. (Near tears.) You selfish pig. We love you; I love you.
VERNE
(Unmoved.) Which one of you is pregnant?
(Long, long silence in the pouring rain; the neon glimmers through the Deco, dystopian darkness and the waterfall continues -- almost to the point where you think you're going to start hearing some Tangerine Dream or something.)
VERNE (Cont'd)
Look, ladies, I already gave you my D-N-A; bucket-loads. (He flicks a cigarette toward a wet gutter and nearly-bumps into a clone of himself. The clone tips his hat to the ladies, gives VERNE a soured-yogurt version of the Nemo look and steps aside.) Private practice didn't work for me at all, I'm a corpsman; anyone who can use the skills of a guy like me isn't livin' in a rat-hole like this-
POPPY
Rattole!?! (Stops. The girls huddling under the parasol huddle with her.) Aywhathafugsronwhenyorksitee?
VERNE
(Opens door for the ladies. To POPPY:) Not the city itself -- I meant the planet in general, like in that funky, wack-ass musical we just saw: Not enough farms. Lousy air. Smelly. (Sings as the last ladies enter the shop and he enters afterward:) "Keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside..."
(They walk into the busy-and-trendy coffee shop and are allowed to ascend stairs to a private loft. They sit.)
VERNE (Cont'd)
Large coffee; black. Anything they want.
(Ad libs. The VERNE CLONE WAITER gets the ladies' drink orders and departs, attempting to hide his own unenthusiastic Nemo expression and unknowingly gives it away by overcompensating and topping it off with a double take and upward eyeball roll. VERNE CLONE WAITER's overworked self was probably thinking something along the lines of, "Oh great, Me myself and I with Mean, Miserly and I-don't-understand-this-tipping-thing to well..." Not all aspiring stars who wait tables in 9941 are very good actors. Unfortunately, not many of them are good very waiters, either.)
VERNE
It's final. I've made plans to take care of all of you. The settlement from my dropped patent-infringement suit didn't give me jack for coinage, but it did give me a way to get you all off this rock -- On your own salvage ship.
IRIS
Salvage? There's no way we're gonna make it on our own.
ROSE
To earn money how, as pirates, perhaps?
VERNE
As quantum merchants. Dream Merchants. You'll do fine. You get all of my green; that's for sure.
(His reply gets a large, friendly laugh from all. VERNE sparks some of his other green.)
FERN
This economy is no better than it was in your day; (VERNE cringes a little; still touchy about his age) if it's just that; we can support you and you won't have to work for another dog again. (Beat.) If this little breakup is only because you want us out of your life-
VERNE
It ain't a break-up; I want all of you off of the planet, that's all. I need to be elsewhere, and so do you. Bad things are gonna happen here; I know it.
FERN
P'shaw. Good times come and go, and things couldn't be better. There was the rise in the stock market last week and they're cloning mutated ovaries now -- that just might take -- Julian, please, be with us.
VERNE
I know where I'm truly needed, not just wanted.
LILY
We need you. We could also help you with your discoveries, elsewhere.
IRIS
Yeah, yeah -- I hear the Junket Brothers are going to try to develop your time-box idear. We could help-
VERNE
Nyet; not for you ladies, none of youse. Those places contain mad, mad ghosts and I made it my special way just so I could slam the door shut and lock it and I did it for good.
FERN
Ay- What about that one keyhole-thing you made...
VERNE
Uh, that was just a little, careless, bedroom talk, Holly...
FERN
That's Holly Fern Freesia Amaryllis The 443rd-
VERNE
Ho- Holly Fern Freesia Amaryllis The 443rd-
FERN
Ya, that's my name, don't wear it out. (Tokes.) Still... Why not? I mean, it's ours, too, right? What's yours is ours and the other way around mostly -- Surely, I don't mean to presume anything, Jules Achilles Sierra Oberon Nighthorse Tiberius Verne The 117th, but-
VERNE
I love you, Fern, I love all of you. I only wish I hadn't skewered the Whole Damn Universe with my addle-headed theory that a person can make a dream come true just by hoping for it long enough. I've robbed the Universe of hope. My penance is to try to restore it.
GLADIOLA
Ya think? I think you're just being this way because you think failing to get us pregnant makes you less of a man. Get over it. ALL men fail to impregnate. That's why we're clones. Well, not you, but please understand how it is. No man's seed has worked for a thousand years, you're not alone in this. You have us. We don't just want you for your sperm, ya know. You need faith, Tubby - have faith, in us. We can take care of you.
VERNE
I do have faith, I most certainly do. I know a while back I said living under you all was like being shackled for work-camp duty but it ain't -- really -- it isn't really like slavery at all, ladies; I give it up to you freely -- if you perceive you can believe to conceive, I'm all for it. (Tokes. Bogarts.) Look, I'll spell it out now so I don't have to repeat myself -- there is, in fact, a little keyhole in my equation, but I shore as hell ain't gonna use it cuz something ugly's lookin' at us through it and it's apparently trying to pry the door from it's hinges -- from the other side -- I just can't ignore that, ladies; duty comes first.
DAISY
Duty? Like our sacred vows to the Church? You sure as hell haven't been saying any vows to anyone.
VERNE
I've said all the vows I'm ever gonna say. (Tokes. Passes, for once. Picks up stein of hot java.) Look, girls... Perhaps I would marry all of you if I wasn't married first to this maddening sense of duty already -- I'm talking about a higher duty, a duty to all of humanity, like your religion and your sacred vows of promiscuity in the face of your more-chaste desires. Our world demands offspring and all of you lesbos- (The women react and look to one another, hearing a term from History plates actually spoken from an old-timer's mouth: "LESBOS?) I mean you ladies, always do your best to increase the odds of making it happen despite the fact that none of youse really wantsta ride my pink-and-purple python in the first place, you choose to cuz ya know your chances of conception by riding my 71st-Century quill are better than from some frozen yogurt from a Petri dish -- that's the kind of duty I mean -- transcendent; from an intangible higher power, a sense of cosmic unity- Cph! - Uh, GAWD no- no, this coffee's got friggin' sugar in it! Hell no! What kinda clone are youse? We ALL take it black; all of us -- donchoo know?
WAITER VERNE CLONE
It is served black, sir. (A bit 'foppy'; where'd he pick up a lisp?) The coffee bean is simply genetically presweetened with a sugar-free artificial sweetener, sir.
VERNE
Nononono! Tell you what; champ. Run back there, grab the pot of the blackest, un-genetically-modified, burnin'-on-the-burner, first-shift made Columbian sludge ya got back there and bring it back to me in a carafe' I can drink from, and you'll be braggin' to your much-uglier co-workers that you were lucky enough to serve the real deal tonight. Julian Sickle, Numero Uno. None of them clone-faced yahoos can ever claim that, can they?
WAITER VERNE CLONE
Yash-hittin' me! Eesh-hittin' me? You're Julian Sickle? THE Julian Sickle? For real?
VERNE
Ya know I don't go by Sickle any more -- I'm one of you now. (Beat.) No lie -- ask them -- they're all nuns with the Church. You know they can't lie. Not about things like this, anyway.
(VERNE rapidly wags a finger between himself and the clone, to denote "you and me" and the waiter looks around the table. The girls all nod. The waiter takes a small breath, regards the nuns and slowly begins to believe what he knows must somehow be true.)
WAITER VERNE CLONE
Wow, you're not as good-lookin' as the statue at the Marcy. Wow, so -- so much I'd like to ask about my latent memories... At the convention-
VERNE
We have conventions?
WAITER VERNE CLONE
Yeah, and I got my own theory and explanation about them ghosts on the 'Roke, 'n all them alien stories; but the Regula, now what was that really about? (Beat.) You belong to any of the clone clubs?
VERNE
Clone cl- (Beat.) First of all, none of you remember jack about ghosts, cuz there weren't any, and as for as far as The Regula goes ... (Stern.) I'll fill you in over COFFEE. (Beat. The waiter departs.) Aliens. Aliens? Where in Haley's Hailstorm do they get this stuff? You girls wanna hear about aliens? (No dissent.) It's kinda why I gotta move-out now and go and save the galaxy again and all. (Beat.) Ai't, therez this new Department of War Branch all tucked into the Space Exploration branch of The Navy and it is forming-up as we speak. It hasn't even been paid-for yet by the War Department, but Congress is all over it and I got my paycheck in advance-
IRIS
What's the point here, Verne?
POPPY
Yeah, what's this all got to do with us being out there in space without a- supply?
VERNE
Ha! Like you'd all go without. Go get those spunk-sicles you all drag from the D-N-A deep-freeze on all those pagan holidays when you shore don't want none from me none.
FERN
Nah, nah, this is about you. What's this about you leaving Earth "for awhile, at least?" What in the hell was that interview on Fifteen Hundred Minutes supposed to really say?
VERNE
(To us:) "You're only famous for fifteen hundred minutes." It was just fluff, that's all.
GLADIOLA
Fluff? What gives; Mr. Dinosaur, Mr. "I Ain't Got No Bitches Keeping Me Down" Man?
VERNE
That was a reference to THE man, you know, society and our female dog... President... and... all that... Patience, ladies, patience. All of you. We got all night; this dive don't close til' long past the witching hour, there's a lounge chair behind that screen if ya get tired, or horny, (he laughs, but they don't) and one thing is sure -- that rain ain't gonna let up and we got the good seats here -- the point is; There really ARE aliens out there that look like us, or are pretending to look like us and now I got a new job where they're gonna give me really big guns and that's why tonight's gotta be the night that stars are going to shine extra bright, before I go off to war tomorrow for my country and send them soul-less curs back to their tribble-filled hell...
(He gets his coffee and sips; very pleased.)
VERNE (Cont'd)
...In spades.
MUSIC UP
POV: VERNE
ZOOM OUT
TILT DOWN
PEDESTAL UP
DOLLY IN
ZOOM IN
ECU: TOP-DOWN VIEW OF VERNE'S FRESH, HOT, PERFECTLY UNSWEETENED STEAMY STEIN OF COFFEE
(Dissolve from the black of the coffee to the black of BAD VERNE'S corneas.)
DISSOLVE TO:
ANIMATION STYLE 7
BLACK AND WHITE FILM WITH SELECT COLORIZATION CREATED IN POST
ECU: CENTER OF CORNEA OF BAD VERNE'S MADDENED, WEATHERED, WHOLLY-BLOODSHOT OCULAR SINISTER.
ZOOM OUT
MS: OBLIVION
MS: VERNE; IN GRAYS, LOOKING AT A FROSTY, MOVING SNOWGLOBE
VERNE
(Drops the globe.) Rosebud...
(A grand series of nuclear explosions make a trail from the horizon toward VERNE. The final one only a few feet away. Never to pass up a grand entrance, we know JYNX is in the building. Oblivion and VERNE remain unaffected, although the colorful Hubert Robert scenery about has weathered the mini-apocalypse with abundant atrophy and has converted to sepia tone. As the energy and roar cools and diminishes, a glowing JYNX stands before us in full technocolor-panorama; pale and unmarred. They shape-shift.)
MS: JYNX; PSYCHEDELIC
JYNX
(A la Lurch:) ...You rang?
VERNE
(A la Morticia Frump Addams:) I've experienced a waking dream -- a premonition, if you will.
JYNX
(A la Uncle Fester Frump:) Do tell.
VERNE
(A la Gomez Addams:) I believe... That is, I think... We're not alone anymore.
JYNX
(A la Grand Ma-Ma Addams:) Balderdash.
VERNE
(A la Pugsly Addams:) No... I'm sure of it... (Looks about.) There! Look! Behind you.
(JYNX turns.)
POV: JYNX
SUPRA-INTELLIGENCE
ALTRUISM
IMMORTALITY
MELANCHOLY
ANXIETY
INSANITY
JYNX
You lie! (A la Cousin Itt:) Nothing there! I don't see anyth-
WHIP ZOOM TO:
(A lone grotto featuring varied blooms of azaleas carpet a remote area; the sole foliage found on the indestructible, black floor.)
MS: VIOLET SLEEPING ON BED OF BLACK, WHITE AND VARIOUS SHADES OF GRAY-AND-VIOLET AZALEAS
JYNX (Cont'd)
(A la Granny Hester Frump:) Well, I'll be damned!
ANTHROPOMORPHISIS
(JYNX morphs into a less-godlike model of his former self at Pohl University.)
JYNX (Cont'd)
Leah, Leah!
VERNE
Who?
JYNX
The girl I told you 'bout... The hot-ass intern I was bangin' my last night on Earth... she's here! Let's go!
CUT TO: Azalea's Grotto
(VIOLET, Zebra-striped head to toe with thousands of small, black claw slashes across her gray [purple] body. She awakens.)
MS: VIOLET & DUDES
VIOLET
Where am I?
JYNX
(A la Wednesday Addams:) Leah, it's me, Hugo. We're caught between dimensions, Baby. Everything's gonna be okay, tho. I'm here, Baby...
VIOLET
My name isn't Leah, and I ain't 'Baby' to anyone. I'm A"-zay'-lee"-a. Whodafuggaryou? Wahisziss? A dream?
JYNX
(Offers her a hand. A la Thing Addams:) 'Jynx'. My apologies... Azalea, you resemble someone I knew once...
VIOLET
(Looks at "Verndolf The White," who has a mane of long gray-and-white hair. VERNE, who faces the wind and wears flowing, white, desert robes which flow beyond toward the horizon.) Have I died?
VERNE
(Hands her a soft robe that materialized into his hand the moment he thought of it. She dons it, feeling less modesty than most.) Maybe dreaming between lives. Or perhaps we're dreaming you, or you're dreaming us. We can do anything you can imagine here -- Yeah, I suppose that, by most accounts, you're dead, lady.
FILM: TECHNOPLASMAPRISMACOLOR
VERNE (Cont'd)
(Waves and produces a lit joint and allows the ground to sprout a large, horseshoe bench.) But it ain't all that bad. (Sits. Offers joint.) High, my name is Julian. Julian Sickle.
VIOLET
Weed! A dream of Heaven, it is! I ain't dead yet! (Tokes. Pause.) Jynx? Julian?
JYNX
Yeah. I gotta weird last name. Jynx is easier to say. I ain't dead, either; I got put here.
VERNE
Jules to my friends, and I'm not really dead either; there's been a huge mistake. Long story.
VIOLET
(Sigh. Abstract:) Really? Phantasmic? No kidding! I'm a clone, too. Azalea 1165.
VERNE
(Beat.) Wow. A full-bodied clone. Like that "Baron" fellow... this has to be a pocket interdimensional paradox or something... I dunno squat about Quantum Physics, but I remember hearing at the Academy that pips can only exist where time means something, which, here, it means nothing, or does it? This is really, really new...
VIOLET
Does he always talk like that?
JYNX
Endlessly...
VERNE
You're one to talk... Let's not rile anyone -- let's mollify our new friend; put her at ease...
JYNX
Are you from Earth, Azalea?
VIOLET
Yes... I live in Las Vegas. Well, 'lived' there once...
VERNE
Yeah, I grew up in Oklahoma. He's from Plano, Texas... Hmmmm... I never considered that this non-space realm could have its own paradox by assuming the paradox itsel- A star-fart! Maybe a way out!
VIOLET
You do always talk like that. Weird-o. And you, you don't sound like a Texan at all...
JYNX
I've lost my accent from hearing him talk endlessly. We've been here a while. (Breath.) A long while.
VIOLET
Oh yeah? How long?
JYNX
Let's just say a very long while.
VERNE
Uh, in a relatively-short amount of time; you'll kinda feel what we're sayin'. Let's drop it, for now.
JYNX
What happened to mollify? Tell me, Azalea, was Las Vegas the last place you were before you were sent here? 'Cause that's where I was, too -- before the... aliens put me here...
VIOLET
Aliens? Nah... I was put into a messed-up coffin and pumped full of N-O-2 and happy gas, and maybe that's what all this is. I'll probably laugh about this when I get to Halceron.
VERNE
(Maybe she IS dead.) "Hotel Halceron?"
VIOLET
The Very One! I'm gonna go win a beauty pageant in New Portland! But... this purple skin tells me that perhaps all that really isn't that important right now.
JYNX
You can look any way you like here, we ain't judgin' no one. (Creating a gazebo, more flora, a table and a tea set. He serves.) What year are you from, Ms. Azalea?
VIOLET
Year? This is like that damn play.. what... NO EXIT. Why you all asking me all these weird questions? What do you mean what year am I from?
JYNX
What was the date on Earth that you last remember?
VIOLET
Geesh, I dunno! How long have I been here already? This is like a dream where I'm having deja vu all the time but I feel like I'm only half-awake. I- I don't rememb- I was... I was put under on March 13th, 9969. The pageant-
VERNE
9969? You said ninety-nine?
VIOLET
...Sixty-nine. (Bogarts.) Yeah. What about you two guys?
VERNE
I'm from... 7080-ish, maybe... later. Time was all jacked-up back there.
JYNX
April Fourteenth, Twenty-six, Twenty-six.
VIOLET
Whoa... y'all Medieval! (Nods to JYNX:) Hell, your ass is Prehistoric!
VERNE
Hmmmm. I suppose we seem like ancient demi-gods; from your perspective.
VIOLET
More like "Primitives" -- over-developed monkeys. Hey -- You all know about electricity and gunpowder and space travel and stuff, right? Or did you all still use firewood and swords and horses to get around?
JYNX
(To VERNE:) Was that a serious question?
VIOLET
I could show you a better way, ya know...
VERNE
(Clasps an arm across her shoulders, like a vet welcoming a rookie:) Seems like you'll do okay 'round here, Azalea 1165. You'll fit right in.
VIOLET
(Shrugs off Mr. "Hands." She steps away.) Like I have a choice. (Beat.) So, what do we do here?
VERNE
Do? I dunno. Think, dream, sleep, create, destroy. Discuss what we all have in common.
JYNX
And try to respect each other's differences. It's a big world, if we want it to be.
VERNE
And a mite bit small if you let it...
VIOLET
Weird... (Long pause.) No way out of here?
VERNE
None that we've found. We'll show you all we know about this place and will certainly welcome any new ideas that you may have.
VIOLET
Uh, one other thing...
VERNE
Whazzat?
JYNX
Yes?
VIOLET
You're both really guys, right?
BOTH MEN
Yeah.
VIOLET
And I assume you're both heterosexual.
BOTH MEN
Oh, yeah!
VIOLET
Hmm. Hopefully this won't be a problem. No offense, but whether you have blue-balls-to-the-power-of-ten or not, it's only fair to tell both you pole-jockeys up front that I'm a die-hard lesbian and I sure as hell ain't no Nun Of Fertility cuz I won't EVER have sex with ANY man...
(The men both give a Nemo-ey look to one another.)
WIPE TO: