Scanners Page #4

and rotting my successes.

Cameron...

Poor Cameron.

I have a way with you, Cameron.

It mustn't happen again.

RIPE. Ripe, indeed.

The RIPE programme... must be stopped!

This isn't the same thing, you understand.

Not the same thing at all.

It's different.

The first time was an accident.

Fortunate for some.

Unfortunate for others.

The RIPE programme is cold and cruel.

Very...

Very cold...

Very cruel...

- What happened?

- Keller tried to kill me.

Keller? Then he's the one.

Oh, my God...

Mom, what are you doing here?

I'm sorry, Mom.

Mom...

I didn't...

I didn't mean...

Mom...

I didn't mean it, Mom. Please...

There's blood on my hand.

Secure the computer room!

Blood on my hand...

What's going on?

What the hell is going on?

It's the scanners, sir. They're out.

Is this the only way we can do it?

If we don't plug into the computer now,

they're going to reprogramme it.

What does that mean?

It means

someone has reprogrammed the computer

so that the RIPE programme

is locked away inside.

He threw away the key

and plugged the keyhole.

Try it again. Try it again.

OK.

That's as deep into it as we're going to get.

Hey, Lee, punch up your internal monitor.

- Access is IM 863.

- Why, what is it?

Someone's inside this thing right now,

getting the RIPE programme.

How can this happen?

This room is max security.

We're plugged into the telephone system.

Anybody who has the proper access codes

could get in here long-distance.

- Someone's getting in there right now?

- Yeah.

Damn!

It's him.

It's Vale. He's inside.

- Is that possible?

- It's got to be.

It's got to be. I want to hurt him.

- How can we hurt him before he gets out?

- Hurt him? I don't understand.

Vale's nervous system and the computer's

nervous system are joined.

He's scanning it.

I want to cripple them both.

Or maybe kill them both. How?

Well, I don't know if it's what you want,

but I could override

the max security self-destruct.

It blows all the circuits, in case data is taken

by unauthorized and unfriendly forces.

- Do it now.

- That would entail a total loss

of all programmes in the ConSec system.

I'd need written authorization

from ConSec Leader.

Mister, this is your authorization.

Sit down!

Do it now or I'll kill you.

Yes, sir, I'm doing it now.

Sir, I have to finish it over there.

- Sir, this is the last step. Are you sure?

- Do it!

There's no need for that. It's all very quiet.

It's just internal switching.

Really? No one's ever switched off

a scanner before.

Oh, sh*t!

See? I told you,

no fireworks.

- I'll go find the doctor.

- All right, I'll keep an eye on the door.

Excuse me.

Is the receptionist coming back soon?

- Erm, yeah, I guess so.

- Thanks.

- Please. I'll be with you in a moment.

- I have to talk to you right now.

Would you please get out of here?

It's about this drug, Dr. Frane.

I understand

you've been prescribing it to some patients.

Excuse me. I'll be back in just a moment.

Just relax. Read a magazine.

Where did you get this?

What do you want with me? Who are you?

What happened?

I was scanned.

The woman in the... in the waiting room...

She scanned you?

No, not her.

Her child.

Her unborn child scanned me.

That's what the RIPE programme is.

The doctors on the computer list are giving

Ephemerol to their pregnant patients.

- I don't understand!

- Ephemerol!

Ephemerol is creating new scanners!

- Hold still!

- Ow! God...

- Hold still!

- Oh, God... Ow!

OK. OK.

- Oh, God...

- Come on, let's get out of here!

Come on.

Come on, you can make it! Come on!

Kim... Kim...

Vale.

Kim...

Sleeping beauty awakes.

Where is Kim?

The next room.

She'll be awake in a few hours.

We don't want anyone in here with us.

This is just between you and me.

Where's your partner, Keller?

He should be here.

Keller? It seems he died

when you blew up his computer.

By the way, that was very impressive.

Keller murdered Dr. Ruth.

He deserved to die.

You shouldn't mourn the doctor's death.

Celebrate it with me.

Dr. Ruth was a great man.

He tried to help us. He helped me.

Great man! There's only one person on

earth who tried to help you, and that's me!

You?! You sent your soldiers out to kill me.

Never. Never you.

I've spent years looking for you.

Then when Keller told me Ruth had dressed

you up and sent you out as an amateur spy,

I tried to take care of you,

look after you, guide you to me.

Now, why would you try to do that?

Who's your mother?

I don't know.

- Who's your father?

- I don't know.

What was your first childhood memory?

I don't have any.

No, you don't.

And it's no accident that you don't.

You were kept on ice.

It wasn't till ConSec had trouble putting

me away that they thawed you out.

You've been monitored all your life,

allowed to live like garbage.

Scum. He knew where you were

but it wasn't till he needed you

- that he hauled you out of the slime.

- Who?

Your father.

Dr. Paul Ruth.

Our father.

No...

You're my brother, Cameron.

My kid brother.

No...

Sit down. I want to show you something.

This was a test campaign

used in 1947 to market a new product.

The product was a drug,

a tranquillizer called Ephemerol.

It was aimed at pregnant women.

If it had worked,

it would have been marketed

all over North America.

But the campaign failed and the drug failed.

It had a side effect on the unborn children.

An invisible side effect.

- It created scanners.

- Yes.

The man who invented Ephemerol was very

excited by this weird mutation it caused,

and so was ConSec.

They offered to finance his experiments,

so he sold them his company and himself.

And that man was Dr. Ruth?

That was Daddy.

I said the side effects of Ephemerol were

invisible but that's not completely true.

Daddy could see them.

He could see them in us.

He had given the prototype of Ephemerol

to his pregnant wife, our mother,

four years before it hit the market,

and then again a year later.

His children turned out to be difficult,

till he realized that the only thing that would

calm them down was his drug, Ephemerol.

That's why we're older than all the others.

Not only older, more powerful.

The rest of them,

they're nothing compared to us.

Then what did you need Keller for?

ConSec had hardware, it had contacts.

Keller could see the future.

The future?!

You murdered the future!

That's negative, Cam. Defeatist.

It disappoints me to hear you talk that way.

You're starting to sound like them.

A generation of scanner soldiers is a few

months from being born. We'll find them,

train them to be like us,

not like Obrist and her band of cripples,

bring the world of normals to their knees.

Build an empire so brilliant, so glorious,

we'll be the envy of the whole planet.

You sound just like him.

Like Ruth.

No, not like him. Like...

Revok! Darryl Revok!

No... Like him.

It's as though he's been reincarnated in you.

You're not listening to me.

You're not cooperating, Cam.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes