Scene 9.14 - Bits And Pieces
EST: INT. Red Room, Night.
(A hoarde of clones surround VERNE, THE BARON and TK-420. They all look at the mess of human flesh on the operating table. VERNE wipes his bloody gloves on his even-bloodier gown and pulls down his mask, letting it rest below his chin, against his neck.)
VERNE
Nothing?
THE BARON
(Using stethescope:) If she wasn't dead before, she sure is now. I applaud you.
(Applause.)
TK-420
You call that a procedure? She looks like a you went at her head with an axe.
VERNE
It was a hatchet. Just a few chops, nothing more.
THE BARON
Apparently mutilation is part of his plan. Tell me, Zero, you thought it would wake her up?
VERNE
(The level-headed, surgically-dressed among them, he removes his gloves.) Something's off... She shouldn't be dead; she should be recovering.
THE BARON
(The hat-wearing, unshaven cowboy among them, he rolls and lights a cigarette.) You gave it your best shot.
TK-420
(The goat-tee-and-beret-wearing beatnik among them, he licks a clove cigarette and puts it into a cigarette holder.) The old college try.
SIX-OF-NINE
(The German-accented, metal-appendage-wearing, cyborg-stoner-Nazi among them puts a custom pipe in his mouth, packed with bud; packed tighter than a group of renegade war criminals hiding out in the Yucatan.) Ja! Ja! Maybe she's not veally dead, ja?
VERNE
(The original among them, lights a blunt of moderate Angorian Blue Tooth, leaving his Simolean Spice blunt nestled in the breast pocket of his white lab coat, under his bloodied teal butcher's apron with matching teal gloves and hairnet. He is, after all, still performing brain surgery on a healthy corpse and still wants to be able to function. He tokes, and considers that since it's stinky Blue Tooth, there is no harm in bogarting it. Can't overdo it, apparently.) I don't understand it. I've lost patients before, but... this one... she...
(Immediately, everyone seems to have something to add. The clones engage in conversation, seemingly to the ends of the horizons of time and space. VERNE puts his fingers to his mouth and whistles loudly and annoyingly, nearly dropping his blunt.)
VERNE
Hey! Everyone think together for a second. (Beat.) Outside of the same birthmark, what do all we really have in common? (Doesn't let them answer.) We messed up, or got messed up in the time stream -- the very same anomaly that let us find this meeting place. This improbable commonality cannot be ignored. It's no coincidence that in every circumstance, our issue seems to be against the laws of time, when my original issue is only veiled as such, and it alone should concern us; a collective; spiritually connected.
TK-420
What, you The Pope now?
THE BARON
Hey, can I have some of what you're smokin'?
SIX-OF-NINE
Ve all gots our own problemz, yours does not concernzus...
VERNE
(Tokes, passes to THE BARON.) I'm sayin', once we assimilate, who exactly, we gonna be?
THE BARON
I'm betting it's me -- I say we find out if you're latent right now.
VERNE
Chill, chill! That's just a hypothetical... scenario... I mean, maybe this chick is already dead somewhere else, and needs to be revived there in order for this one to go her merry way... anyone pondered an alternate universe yet? Like maybe we have a negative twin?
TK-420
P'shaw! For that to be true, it would have to be pre-existing to this dilemma. What could have caused that? When could that have ever happened before to bring about those odds?
VERNE
Maybe on... the Roanoke.
THE BARON
Possibly... It was crazy when you and I originally split, anything could have happened...
TK-420
Sure... It was before we made a white room inside a paradox -- which of you is the clone?
(THE BARON and VERNE look to one another. No hands are raised.)
VERNE
Finding the original space is the only way we're gonna ever really get back together...
THE BARON
Thanks for putting the final piece in a puzzle I was already close to solving; peace, I'm out.
VERNE
Wait!
(THE BARON blinks out.)
TK-420
Yeah, thanks Zero. A little green-room speed bump. I'm sure I can wait this out. Laterz!
VERNE
No, wait! It's not about that! Guys! It's about this chick! She is alive somewhere!
(TK-420 blinks out.)
VERNE (Cont'd)
Hey guys! Don't y'all go nowhere until we finish up! (Clones begin blinking out, slowly, like popcorn popping in the microwave, then quickly, then slowly again as the last few dozen decide to bounce toward the end of the passage:) We need to stay congruent in this red-room dimension so we can sort the various discrepancies and determine just exactly how the time stream is being affected. Guys, wait! You can't solve it there -- you can't wait it out in a place where time isn't moving in the right way! We need to work together! Here! If you go back now, you won't be aware of- you guys just can't see it right -- you think it can be solved, but- wait! Come on, doesn't even one of you want to try it from here? Guys! We can solve this here! Guys! You two! Wait! Don't go! (Pause.) Shitze.
(Alone, he tokes hard from his lit blunt and scrubs once again. He dons a fresh mask and gloves, hits the blunt again, shrugs and proceeds to resume his work on the bloody-and-fluid-covered, nude corpse of AZALEA; her head split in half and splayed open, revealing a perfectly-unequally, bi-sected brain. He jabs two metal probes hooked-up to opposite ends of a car battery in each half of her brain matter and picks up a staple gun and a pair of dykes and goes to town like nobody's business on a midnight train bound for nowhere.)
VERNE V.O. (Cont'd)
(Inner thought:) Now where did I leave that blowtorch? It was right here. They didn't take it, did they? I'll need that; and where did all my steel wool go-off to? Double-shitze.
DISSOLVE TO:
MS: Titans Lair, Night
(The Titans are dressed in 1930's dust-bowl attire and are having yet another seance. They are all seated about a round table with a large lace tablecloth, holding hands. They are seated boy-girl-boy-girl-boy-girl and TITAN SIX acts as the Medium and an odd steel cone familiar to those purveying paranormal pursuits sits upright in the center of the table. The lair looks like a typical fin-de-siecle bunko bungalow -- a Midwest throwback sodhouse from an earlier century converted to the wonders of Victorian Archetecture to accomodate such miracle marvels as electricity and ~gasp!~ radio. It's the kind of hocus-pocus parlor where fellas like Harry Houdini were nortorious for exposing as a sham. There are curtains and gas lamps and turn-of-the century house furnishings, old photographs, small closets and the like about the large, furnished parlor. TITAN ONE is dressed as an old farmer, suspenders and all; like the guy seen pushing the plow on the Kansas state flag. Ad astra per aspira and all that. TITAN TWO is dressed as a hobo drifter snake-oil salesman type. A confidence man, a grifter, a faith healer, an evangelical preacher, a diviner, a douser, a rainmaker -- or perhaps a plant within the circle to assist the mood and direction of the seance -- no matter what his ire, something is definitely a bit shady with the small lad with the pencil-thin moustache who sits talks and dresses as one much older than his meager prepubescent appearance of say... ten years? TITAN THREE, as young-looking as the previous two, is as much at odds with youth in dress and manner as well. He is dressed like a flashy city-slicker. A banker, a sweatshop owner, a slumlord, a proprietor, or perhaps, simply a businessman who doesn't have to take no for an answer. A mark. A sucker for the psilosybic-psychosibilant who moans and chants and bobs and speaks with the emissaries of the ethereal and swims the estuaries of the ectoplasmic. An easy wellspring of fortune for those who promise contact and commitment from the Other Side... for a price. TITAN FOUR is the Ingenue -- the observant, agnostic reporter struggling to maintain an objective perspective. Unassuming, yet bold and collected. Businesslike, yet slightly casual. Open-minded, yet firmly grounded in her beliefs. A Thoughoughly Modern Millie, a Lois Lane and an Annie Oakley all rolled into one -- sans six-shooter, Superman and bob-cut, respectively. TITAN FIVE is dressed as the old skeptic. Perhaps an old maid as well, her anachronistic Victorian attire puts her more in time with the wallpaper and the various antiques about the room than with the contemporary fashions of the others. Her cameo of a rose and hair in a bun and granny glasses make one wonder if she is keeping a pair of knitting needles handy in that oversized carpet bag of hers, nestled tightly at her side. ...Old Mother Hubbard, eat your heart out. Last, but not least, right out of Blithe Spirit -- TITAN SIX, the medium, adorned in a turban of shiny colors. Electric Sunshine: A goth she is not -- her flowing Turkish-styled wraps fit tightly at the wrists; creating plenty of flowing cuff-folds to garner the possibilities of something odd; indeed, being up her sleeve. Her garish, multi-colored shades of makeup dramaticizes her general etherealness and ephasizes the overall mood that the dim bastard-amber lights meekly provide. She begins chanting to the winds...)
TITAN SIX
Spirits, hear us! We call upon...
TITAN THREE
Hugo Genaistaenex.
TITAN SIX
...Hugo, we call to you, hear us!
(Suddenly the cone begins to totter -- at first, only slightly...)
TITAN SIX
Hugo... Is that you?
(The cone totters even more and eventually falls. The table produces one knock.)
TITAN SIX (Cont'd)
The spirits answer. Hugo... will you speak with us?
(There is one knock.)
TITAN SIX (Cont'd)
Are you here with us?
(The cone flies across the room. ALL but the medium are startled. Ad libs. JYNX enters, USC, spectral, middle-aged, wearing a robe and silk pajamas that somehow look oddly familiar to us.)
JYNX IN PJ'S
My God, it's full of stars...
TITAN FIVE
Look!
(Yet another semi-transparent JYNX enters DSL, in a long white gown. He appears to be very, very old and frail as he shuffles in toward the table.)
TITAN THREE
This is getting us nowhere...
TITAN TWO
Spirit... what's going to happen?
JYNX IN ANCIENT BAG OF SKIN
Something wonderful!!!
TITAN ONE
I told you this was a waste of time...
TITAN SIX
Don't break the circle! There is yet another...
(A third JYNX enters, wearing a space helmet and the space garb reminiscent of 2001: A Space Odyssey. He removes his helmet...)
JYNX IN ORANGE
You rang?
TITAN SIX
Tell us Jynx, what is causing discord in the Universe?
JYNX IN ORANGE
Well, if you must know... fellas... and ladies... (Beat.) First, tell me what YOU know...
(The two other JYNX'S cross over and morph with JYNX IN ORANGE to reveal a relaxed, tobacco-pipe-smoking Jynx in an olive green 1960's unzipped sweater over a mustard yellow button-up shirt with brown-and-black-small-checkered slacks and brown leather belt with matching brown leather loafers with dark beige socks. He sports a pair of turtle-shell horn-rimmed glasses circa 1962 and blows a smoke ring as the TITANS morph into their natural-toned body-suit wearing appearances and the small farmhouse is revealed to be what it truly is: A large, expansive, Art-Deco cave with several pools or water, a large fountain in the center and several vacuous doorways leading into varied darkened chambers. Their voices echo as their eyes glow with multi-colored fire of various hues.)
CU: TITAN TWO
TITAN TWO
(Like the other TITANS, his skin appears as rough, black marble, only smooth at the lips, teeth, toungue and eyeballs. The glowing orange corneas emphasize his mood.) We have found lapses, intrusions and have seen the stream of consciousness take several bends.
JYNX
Hey, when that starts making sense, I'll let you know... anyone got anything real to add?
TITAN FIVE
Yes. We have something to add, all right... We believe we need an addition to our group.
TITAN FOUR
One more could enable us to see the problem more clearly; and to provide a solution...
JYNX
...Or it might confuse you much more than you are now... who did you have in mind? Candy? Nancy?
ECU: TITAN ONE
TITAN ONE
(We can see his breath in front of his glowing, ice-blue eyes:) We want... Azalea.
(Pause.)
JYNX
(Like a mother saying no; matter-of-fact:) Wellyoucan'thaveher. Pick someone else.
TITAN THREE
We believe that she is the reason The Universe is in discord and that she may hold the solution to-
JYNX
You guys haven't got a damn bit smarter than when I thought you all up. Know it now and for all time: She's off limits. She's mine. You all shouldn't even know she exists, anyway. Who let the cat out of the bag? (Looks at TITAN SIX.) Was it you? I bet it was, you shifty, pig-in-a-poke smellin'-
TITAN ONE
(Less white and glow in the eyes:) It was me. Remember, I was the one who handled her cryorythyms for the first procedure. I have to agree with the others, she must be the key.
JYNX
Then you're just as clueless as they are. She's not your answer.
TITAN FOUR
(Her maroon corneas flare up to mauve:) There's no need for insults. Think of where you are -- who do you think is making this reality you're in?
JYNX
Hold up! Who do you think made YOU?
(There is a long, protracted silence. The prism of eye colors dampens all around the circle.)
JYNX (Cont'd)
(Rhetorical:) Am I just talking to myself?
(All eyes brighten to intense luminosity. The TITANS ad lib assurances that he is not.)
JYNX (Cont'd)
Good, good. Let me allay your fears; none of us is going anywhere -- let's figure this out together... You may be right, I may be crazy... "Azalea" may be the key, but I don't think moving her right now is such a good idea... she's kinda sick, you know... actually, very sick. Leave her to me... Listen philophiles, here's what I think we all need to do...
TILT DOWN, PEDESTAL UP
(The group huddles as JYNX sparks a blunt and whispers to them the master plan to save The Universe.)
DISSOLVE TO: