Journey

• Early draft. March 17, 1995.

	O'BRIEN
	I've been thinking about you a lot
	all these years, locked up in my
	cell.  I'd tear through every issue
	of the Midwest Science Journal
	looking for your latest findings,
	watching as you slowly worked your
	polymerization experiments up
	through single celled organisms to
	that holiest of holies, the fruit
	fly.  Exciting stuff.  I got to tell
	you, it really kept me going.

		SUSAN
	I guess I should be flattered.

		O'BRIEN
	I remember you said, nanotechnology
	was going to change the world.

		SUSAN
	It already is.

		O'BRIEN
	I've read they're using it to repair
	cancer cells.

		SUSAN
	And for cleaning up oil spills.

		O'BRIEN
	Right.  You predicted it.


There are piles of nondescript scientific journals and
reference texts everywhere.  The walls around him are
covered with clipped articles and we repeatedly glimpse
the words nanotechnology, molecular engineering,
assemblers and replicators.

FLASHBACK - INT.  GROCERY STORE

It is the 1970s.  O'Brien is a granola hippie activist
type, extra crunchy.  Susan still loves Oreo cookies.

		SUSAN
	Nanotechnology is going to change
	the world, Danny.  I'm telling you
	in ten maybe twenty years, life is
	going to be a totally new kind of
	experience.

		SUSAN
	And what I love about molecular
	science is the way it revolutionizes
	how we have to think.  It unifies
	the entire world on a single level.
	Everything is completely connected.
	Sometimes I can really feel it,
	everything around us, just a small
	part of a whole.  It's really
	wonderful.

		O'BRIEN
	Yeah, we'll see.

		SUSAN
	We'll see?  What does that mean?

		O'BRIEN
	We'll see how wonderful it is after
	you spend the next twenty years
	making Agent Orange.

		SUSAN
	God, Daniel, I'm not going to make
	Agent Orange.

		O'BRIEN
	You think the chemists that invented
	Agent Orange twenty years ago were
	in school saying, 'Boy, I really got
	some good ideas for a highly toxic
	incendiary defoliant.'  You think
	Oppenheimer was dreaming about
	mushroom clouds before the war?

She tries to ignore him.

		SUSAN
	We've had this conversation already,
	Daniel.

		O'BRIEN
	All I'm saying is that the companies
	that have money for the kind of
	research you're interested in, have
	money because that's what they're
	interested in!  Money!



INT.  BASEMENT LAB

It is in this poorly-lit basement that Dr. Bright does
most of her work.

		SUSAN
	To put is simply, the nanobot inside
	you is a microscopic machine encoded
	with information like a strand of
	messenger R.N.A. that is programmed
	to synthesize your molecules with
	the polyisoprenes of the assembler
	fluid, rebuilding your entire
	organic system on a molecular level.

		O'BRIEN
	That was 'simple'?

She sighs.

		SUSAN
	The nanobot combined your molecules
	with the plastic molecules in the
	white assembler fluid, so that on a
	molecular level you now have more in
	common with a Good Year tire than a
	human being.

		O'BRIEN
	Got it.

		SUSAN
	The problem is the by-product
	created by the process.

		O'BRIEN
	The waste.

As they talk, we MOVE ALONG a stainless steel table where
Susan is conducting a series of tests with the waste.

These tests reveal the stages of molecular deterioration
caused by the waste.

		SUSAN
	Only part of the molecule from the
	assembler fluid bonds to your
	molecules.  The part left over is a
	highly charged unstable molecule we
	call a replicator.

She puts on a pair of protective gloves and grabs one of
the test cylinders.

		SUSAN
	The effect these replicators have on
	any matter, organic or inorganic, is
	similar to the molecular
	deterioration caused by nuclear
	radiation.

The PRESSURIZED SEAL SIGHS open and she pours the contents
out.

		SUSAN
	I've been measuring the levels of
	deterioration.  As with radiation,
	the more exposure, the more damage
	it does.

A white egg rolls into her gloved palm.

		SUSAN
	I dropped a single replicator in
	with this egg two days ago.

She hurls the egg at the ground and quite naturally at
this point, it bounces back.

He catches it.  It squishes between his fingers like a
racquetball.  He pulls at it.  It stretches like Silly-
Putty.

		O'BRIEN
	It's polymerized like me?

She takes the egg back.

		SUSAN
	The replicators start off like
	assemblers, but the replicators
	never stabilize.

		O'BRIEN
	What happens?

She opens another cylinder and pours it out.  And oval-
shaped wad of gray SLUDGE SPLATS onto the lid.

		O'BRIEN
	That was an egg?

		SUSAN
	Three days ago it was.

		O'BRIEN
	What do these replicators do to
	people?

		SUSAN
	With enough exposure, the same thing
	they do to everything else.

He swallows hard, watching the egg-wad cling like snot
from the lid, as she reseals the cylinder.



EXT.  MAIN GATE - DAY

Spencer Lamm is on the scene which continues to escalate.

		SPENCER
	Here in Calumet City, a bomb has
	just dropped.  Through anonymous
	sources, we have learned that Argon
	Labs may have been the victim of an
	attack by a radical environmentalist
	group.  No such group has yet to
	claim responsibility but we are
	expecting confirmation of these
	rumors at a press conference
	scheduled this afternoon.


INT.  LAB

Susan puts the cylinder of slime back into a large freezer
unit filled with similar cylinders.

		O'BRIEN
	So right now there's little
	replicators spreading throughout
	Argon's lab?

		SUSAN
	That's right.

		O'BRIEN
	Isn't it already too late then?

She shakes her head, opening a final cylinder.

		SUSAN
	There is a forty-eight hour period
	during which the waste can be
	stabilized.

The contents slide into her hand.

		SUSAN
	The nanobot will start a chain
	reaction and transform the
	replicators through a double
	hydrogen bond, creating an ionic
	solid instead of a polymer.

The egg seems fossilized, half way to becoming the wad of
slime.  She hands it to O'Brien.  It is as fragile as a
glass spider web.

		O'BRIEN
	Yet another miracle of modern
	science.

She ignores the sarcasm laced in that comment.

		SUSAN
	I think while we're waiting, we had
	better run some basic diagnostics on
	you.

		O'BRIEN
	You're the doctor.



		SUSAN
	That theory is the reason Argon has
	been pushing me to test the second
	nanobot.  He believes it's the only
	thing that will save him.

She picks up a hypodermic needle.

		SUSAN
	I'd like to run a few sample blood
	tests to get an idea of how stable
	your condition is.


		ARGON
	... plastic.

		O'BRIEN
	Wow, that is one moving story.  Take
	it easy on my heart strings.  Now I
	really feel guilty complaining about
	you shooting me up with your poison.

		ARGON
	Poison?  I'm surprised at you.  You
	lack vision, Mr. O'Brien.

		O'BRIEN
	You're lacking a few things too:
	ethics, morals, common decency and,
	oh yeah, deodorant.

Argon smiles.  His coolness irritates O'Brien.

		ARGON
	Look at me, Mr. O'Brien.  I once
	competed for Mr. Universe but now I
	am reduced to this, a withered
	shell.  A prison of rot.

He leans into O'Brien.

		ARGON
	People ask me what I did to myself.
	I answer, what didn't I do?!  I
	treat me body like I treat the rest
	of the world, as a force to be
	controlled.  Most people believe
	there is something sacred about the
	human body, about nature.  They are
	the same fools who thought the
	world was flat.

O'Brien smirks.

		ARGON
	The body is just another part of
	nature and ever since we gave up
	trees for central air, there has
	been nothing sacred about nature.
	Nature is the enemy, Mr. O'Brien,
	and science is our greatest weapon
	against her.

		O'BRIEN
	You egomaniacs make me laugh.
	Nature's going to bury you like she
	buries everyone else.

Argon laughs.

		ARGON
	Not anymore, Mr. O'Brien.  The
	nanobot has changed that.

		SUSAN
	If you think I would ever give you
	the nanobot after this, you are
	deluding yourself.

		ARGON
	You don't have to give it to us
	because Dr. Nebbleman can just cut
	it out of him.

		O'BRIEN
	Ha!  Morons.  It's not even in me
	anymore.

Everyone reacts.

		ARGON
	What?

Before O'Brien can say anything else, Susan slaps her hand
over his mouth.

		NEBBLEMAN
	She could have given him something
	to stimulate his kidneys.

		ARGON
	Dr. Nebbleman, take care of them.

Argon grabs the car phone while Nebbleman removes a loaded
syringe from a black case.

		ARGON
	Mr. Sim I want you to return to Dr.
	Bright's.  I believe she is hiding
	something of ours there.