Scene 9.06 - Confrontation, Confession And Compromise
ANIMATION STYLE 2
EST: INT. Enrapture - 1620 hrs.
(VERNE is sitting in his counterpart's ready room, listening to the computer memory tapes. A door whistle hails the Captain-)
COMPUTER V.O.
([Sickle:]) Captain's Log, supplemental. Although I've isolated the source of this Board to this one sole anomaly, and we have apparently locked them out with Clark's worm-hole beam generator doo-dad, I can't help but suspect that we've swept these nasty alien dudes under someone else's carpet. Perhaps they've used this quantum gateway worm-hole thingy to escape to another world, another place, perhaps another dimension, all due to the strange quantum thing that brought them to us. Banishing them in a way-
(Door chime.)
VERNE
Pause playback- Enter!
(CLARK enters, phaser drawn.)
VERNE
Clarke... Is that a phaser in your hand or are you just happy to see me?
CLARK
Er... Both, Captain. I would like you to answer a few pointed questions, sir.
VERNE
Sure. (Blazes a well-crafted blunt; painstakingly created by modifying the ready-room's quantum replicator with spare parts from the ready-room latrine's smoke detector:) Lemme guess -- this little mutiny of yours has something to do with the fact that I'm not really Captain Sickle; at least not the Captain Sickle that you know.
CLARK
(Raised eyebrow.) Affirmative. Just who are you, sir?
VERNE
(Tokes. Relaxes in chair; molded to his butt perfectly.) I suppose you truly grew suspicious when I casually reminded you and the Ensign that I'm the Q-P dolls of Q-P dolls, and you easily remembered that the Captain Sickle that you know and love wouldn't know his quantum ass from a quantum hole-in-the-ground.
CLARK
That is also an affirmative, sir. Our Captain Sickle is fairly ignorant in the field of quantum physics. His bulk of knowledge is concentrated on command and the science of Neurosurgery. Indeed, only an imposter would show prowess in a field where Captain Sickle was notoriously lacking skill and proficiency. Outside of quantum microsurgury and warship tactics, the Captain Sickle that I know is mostly oblivious to other quantum applications, particularly in areas where you seem well versed. Also, there were other peculiarities about your vernacular and behavior that were brought to my acute attention-
(VERNE exhales a beautiful cloud of Simolea Spacia. He takes another deep toke and doesn't exhale until the end of his line when he finally passes.)
VERNE
Yeah, yeah, yeah, so you poured over the transporter log tapes and realized that while attempting to retrieve your captain, you instead hauled-in two entities from elsewhere; and naturally, since the science of this dimension that we're in doesn't readily acknowledge the existence of other, parallel dimensional beings in the first place, much less bringing two aboard for the price of one, you've grown quite paranoid in the meantime. Luckily for you, I got a home-grown remedy of my own that will help clear the air, as it were.
(He offers the blunt. CLARK accepts, lowers phaser, tokes and eventually and sits down in a chair.)
VERNE (Cont'd)
Sit! Sit! Look man, I'm not sinister. (Beat.) Well, not any more here than your Captain Sickle is; wherever he's at now. I wanna get back to my world as bad as you want your old captain back. My guess is that he is in my dimension, sleeping this off or something.
CLARK
Or perhaps he is in a brig aboard a ship in your twin reality. Any suggestion from either of us is pure speculation-
VERNE
Ye- yeah, yeah. He could also be somewhere else; I don't know. All I do know is that I don't belong here and most likely, the chick sleeping upstairs belongs somewhere else altogether. She ain't like the concubine I know from my world. Mine had her head blasted in two. And that's only my side of it; when we consider yours -- whew! Most of your crew is gone someplace they shouldn't be and you all are ignorant of parallel worlds. Clark, we need each other. I only want to help. Let's solve this together, Mr. Clark.
CLARK
It is logical to combine our efforts and perhaps learn from one another. (Toking:) Once I have determined you are no longer a threat to this ship, I may relax my position further.
VERNE
Understandable. All right, good enough... I've reviewed some of the more pertinent historical differences in our two worlds and actually, I've isolated quite a few commonalities-
CLARK
Really? (Eyebrow lift.) I would love to know your initial findings, Captain.
VERNE
For one, you all got... aliens. Lots of them. So weird! In my world, you ain't an alien, -- you're human -- and we've only found one thing that may have been alien, but it wasn't, but it did prove to be hostile.
CLARK
Yes?
VERNE
In both worlds, they're known to us as The Board. They entered my home dimension through the Red Room long ago, perhaps from this dimension, or perhaps even from Oblivion itself -- who really knows? All we do know is that they're the enemy in both our worlds -- That much is common between us. As to the red room, my discovery is unknown here, y'all clueless! Yet the dimensions seem to balance one another occassionally when something is seriously lacking in one -- I'm callin' it the "Verne Hypothesis..." Anyway, I had to escape a black hole, and your captain didn't. Ergo, half of your crew suddenly gets moved elsewhere, the other half of the crew all merged with their counterparts, making recollections of another world hazy and dreamy at best. Nature makes up for all the things we skip over, and she deals us all an equal share of paradox. This suggests that all dimensions are somehow congruent; interwoven; overlapping; like a dream.
CLARK
Fascinating.
VERNE
What's more, I think I've got this fixing-reality thing down to a science. I really didn't think I would have a knack for it until I patched-up a small paradox I created once; one where the Universe was completely run by dogs-
CLARK
Dogs, Captain?
VERNE
Hard to explain, but we're way past that part -- I hope. (Smooth then hesitant-yet-honest.) I fixed it all the best I could the first instance... I... (Beat.) traveled time.
(Pause. Breif Nemo. CLARK reacts. "There he goes, sounding like a madman again.")
CLARK
Captain?
VERNE
(Takes, tokes, bogarts-) Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah -- I made a few paradoxes and patched them up plenty good and made it back to tell everyone about it and my Universe didn't believe in time travel either until I showed them how to do it a couple of times and I'll never betray that little secret but if you want to know how to do it, all you gotta do is watch me -- it was just like how I showed them how to get out of a black hole, except they didn't take notes then either-
CLARK
Are you all right, Captain?
VERNE
The red room's inception -- The Roanoke! Of course... Even that paradox would have to exist in a congruent dimension. Could that be our link? A timestorm?
CLARK
Timestorm? (Crosses brow.) What is a red room? Can you show me this "red room?"
VERNE
Clark, I think I might know where your Captain is; or at the very least, where he went from here- Had to be; star-farts don't lie...
CLARK
Star-farts?
VERNE
Computer-
COMPUTER V.O.
(Sickle:) -that perhaps allowed their mutated forms and hideous aims to be more fully-explored upon an unsuspecting populace, perhaps in another dimension-thingy or quantum place that all them other-world sci-fi-entologists like to rant about all-too-frequently-
VERNE
Computer, terminate echo. Bring up the files on the U.S.S.S. Roanoke. Give me the cool stuff-
COMPUTER
(NANCY'S voice:) The U.S.S.S. Roanoke, commissioned 7069, decommissioned 8138 after returning from an exploratory mission to Dark Star E-V September-
CLARK
A female voice? How did you-
COMPUTER
(Uner the men:) Nine-Nine, Six-Six, Nine-Nine...
VERNE
I fixed it. Hey, chick, that's the cool stuff? Yo! Homegirl, hibernation protocol niner-
COMPUTER
(Unaffected, continuing:) -in the Xoiox (Zoy-ox) dark-cluster system; t It was decommissioned by the Spacetime Naval Command in year Eight One Three Eight. Today, the craft is housed at The-
VERNE
Lady, that's enough. (The computer stops reciting its monologue.) The Roanoke in my Universe went mad and ventured past an event horizon and I lost a thousand years or so through a time dilation or something; but in this Universe, your Roanoke made it home in record time -- yet -- your captain also lost a thousand years or so in hyper-sleep during a subsequent patrol that went awry. In my Universe -- I never went on that fated patrol cuz I was still in the dog-house career-wise because I once thought I could lift an Admiral's star-car for a few hours without anyone noticing. Somehow events in both dimensions seem to lead to congruency, like two winding rivers trying to stay parallel with each other. That said, there's an obvious difference between our worlds; a philosophy in ours that doesn't show up here at all.
CLARK
(Tokes:) What is that?
VERNE
In my world, the population of the Universe has dwindled to a small collection of immortal forms of juvenile, phantasmic energy divisions, I being one of those beings. In my world, you, me, and just about everyone we know are all inhabiting the bodies of clones made from the D-N-A of our former selves. In my world, quantum physics doesn't just kinda play a part in reality, we know it creates it.
CLARK
I'm afraid you've lost me again. Where's the captain? My captain. Where is he now?
VERNE
Don't know about now, but I know where he eventually will have to be: In the red room.
CLARK
Again, this red room... Where? How? Perhaps a computer simulation could-
VERNE
Look, Clark. We need each other. You may not know me, but you know the essence of my cosmic twin. In either world, I'm no certified genius, but in my world, I'm the Q-P expert. I'm not asking you to compromise safety or break any regulations, just see me for who I am and let me help. I am not hostile, Clark. Let me fly this ship -- my ship.
(Pause. CLARK tokes.)
VERNE (Cont'd)
Very well, I understand. Emotions run pretty deep around here. I'll pack up a few things here and see myself to the brig. (Turns away, sly:) Perhaps using logic and calculations and maximizing a mind by controlling those deep emotions may not be all that in this universe, but it is in mine. (Beat.) I know what the Clarke in my universe would do.
CLARK
If I were to allow you to temporarily hold the position of chief advisor to the Acting Capt-
VERNE
Done.
(CLARK holsters his weapon.)
CLARK
(Tokes mightily.) This "red" room, what is it? Does it represent an unreal equation?
VERNE
Sort of. It's the physical nexus of the internexus. It's the source of our imagination. Sometimes she's invisible or doesn't exist at all. Depends on what you're on, I guess.
CLARK
She? You've lost me completely, Captain.
VERNE
We gotta see the Titans. They kinda live in there, see? They're always trippin'.
CLARK
Titans? Who are the Titans?
VERNE
The spiritual collective of you and me and everyone else; mythical religious icons. Like Santy Claws and Leper-Cons, sort of. ...I'm sure they'll be surprised to see us show up.
CLARK
Undoubtedly. Are you sure you know how to get there from here?
VERNE
I've been to a the heart of a black hole and back; I've been to the Phantom World and back; I've even been to Oblivion and back -- twice so far -- so in as much as my name is Jules Achilles Sierra Oberon Nighthorse Tiberius Verne The 117th, I assure you, I'm gonna make this right. The Guardian owes me one.
CLARK
Guardian?
VERNE
The Guardian Of Infinity -- a sentient time portal or something really wack like that.
CLARK
Captain... Verne One Seventeen-
VERNE
Jules-
CLARK
Jules. Never mind, I appreciate your candor. This promises to be a strange journey, indeed.
VERNE
(Summons a glass of Saurian brandy and a honey-rolled blunt out of thin air. It floats into his hand and the blunt lights itself as VERNE sips the brandy, levitates, and monitors his now-visible aura while CLARK'S jaw drops, literally speechless for once.) That, my friend, is quite an understatement.
DISSOLVE TO: