The Omega Man Page #14

RICHIE:

(weakly)

Hey...

LISA:

Easy, baby. Its all right...

RICHIE:

Where are we? Did they get us...?

LISA:

Nobody’s got us, Richie. You remember that place where there was light? The place where the creeps all came at night trying to bring it down?

RICHIE:

Yeah, sure...

LISA:

This is it. This is Neville. He's ...the landlord, I guess.

(slyly)

Richie eases back, somewhat reassured.

RICHIE:

How sick is he?

Lisa smiles sardonically at Neville.

LISA:

He isn’t hardly sick at all, honey. Maybe just a little spooked once in a while.

He's going to get you well.

RICHIE:

Well, hell. You know there ain’t no way...

NEVILLE:

I'm going to try. What have you got-to loose?

Richie smiles up at him.

RICHIE:

Nothin' man. Not a thing. You go it, hear?

LISA:

He will, baby. He will.

VERY CLOSE SHOT - MICROSCOPIC SLIDE

on the slide we SEE CELLS being attached and destroyed by other cells.

NEVILLE (O.S.),

I don’t know how much it will take. I’ll draw blood as often as I can. Well just have to keep pumping it to him.

LISA (O S.)

(tired)

How long do you think it will take?

NEVILLE (O.S.),

How do I know? Maybe it wont work at all...

Who do you think I am, Louis Pasteur?

VERY CLOSE SHOT - LISAS FACE

WE NOTICE that she is a little lighter than in past scenes. Streaking in her hair should now be somewhat noticeable.

LISA:

But its a chance...

MED. CLOSE - NEVILLE

He looks up from microscope.

NEVILLE:

Yeah, and it ought to be your chance. You need this stuff, too.

TWO-SHOT

LISA:

Not as bad as he does. And anyhow, he's my brother...

Neville studies her a moment.

NEVILLE:

That's why he is getting it first.

(beat)

And if it works, you understand what that should mean, don't you?

Lisa looks puzzled.

LISA:

What?

NEVILLE:

Hell be the source of more antibodies. The more people we can inject, the more we'll have serum for...the others. And when that’s done, we'll pull out. We'll take what we need, and head for the mountains and the valleys ... think of what's out there...

MED. SHOT - LISA

She is listening, but her expression shows that she is preoccupied with other thoughts. Neville has left workbench and walks across apartment. Lisa walks with him. They stop near liquor cabinet.

NEVILLE (O.S.),

A whole world. Vines, fields that will grow anything we want to plant. Streams

full of fish again. Stands of timber...

LISA:

You sound almost...

NEVILLE:

Almost what?

LISA:

Almost glad that it ... happened.

CAMERA PULLS OUT TO TWO SHOT

Neville pours a drink, mixes one for Lisa. He looks up coldly, almost angrily.

NEVILLE:

I'm not glad, but I’m not moaning, either. I told them in Biowar, you people are crazy. This kind of research...

(breaks off)

...Ah, why do you think I was a colonel instead of a lieutenant general?

LISA:

Now they know.

NEVILLE:

No, they don’t know a goddamned thing. They're dead. We know.

(beat)

Forget it. Its not worth our time.

He takes off lab coat, climbs into coveralls, gets stun gun, belt with flashlight, grenades, etc. He c*cks stun gun, checks pouch for ammo, checks flashlight.

CLOSE - LISA

LISA:

Where are you 'going? Don’t you need some rest?

CLOSE - NEVILLE

NEVILLE:

This is the way I rest...I’ll be back before sundown. Don’t worry.

LISA:

Robert...

NEVILLE:

Later...

CLOSE SHOT - NEVILLE WAVING FROM ELEVATOR - LISA'S POV

REVERSE SHOT - LISA

She looks sad, subdued tears in her eyes.

EXT. PLAZA - DAY

empty and the fountain splashes untended. We SEE a small FIGURE on a bicycle pedaling across the far side of the open space. It is the child we met in the house with Al and Richie and the Others. She conceals her bicycle at the edge of the plaza and scurries fearfully across the open space to the fountain. On the edge of its lowest basin, she lays out a pitiful array of flowers and an apple or two from a paper shopping bag she carries. She crouches, kneeling with her hands clasped, hardly daring to look up at Neville's tower.

GIRL:

Please...I brought you this stuff. Don't let them take me either, and put me in a bag. Please.

She HEARS the SOUND of an ENGINE roaring closer and races terror-struck, for her bicycle. As she DISAPPEARS, Neville's car crosses the plaza at speed, slowing only enough for the garage doors to open and ENTER. The girl's offering lies unheeded on the fountain.

VERY CLOSE HAND WITH HYPODERMIC NEEDLE

CAMERA PULLS OUT TO MED. CLOSE - NEVILLE is injecting Richie with serum. The boy is unconscious, mumbling deliriously.

RICHIE:

...got to move fast, keep on moving. That Matthias, he wants you. All the cops want' I you. They gonna get you, boy, they gonna make you come over, you hear?

This dialogue in background while Neville and Lisa (who is O.S. in dressing room) talk.

CAMERA PULLS:

OUT.TO MED. SHOT. INTERCUT CLOSE SHOT - LISA, looking in mirror at a streak of silver in her hair.

LISA:

What do you think...?

MED. SHOT - NEVILLE

NEVILLE:

I don't. We'll have to see.

CLOSE - LISA

she uses mascara to cover the light streak in her hair. Stares at herself in mirror.

LISA:

He's all the brother I’ve got, all the family...in this world.

NEVILLE:

Don't sweat. This is his best chance.

MED. SHOT - NEVILLE WALKING INTO MAIN APT.

NEVILLE:

If there were time, I'd have trapped one of Matthias' things and tried the serum on it.

Lisa bristles at this.

LISA:

What do you mean "things” Aren’t they human, too?

NEVILLE:

Yeah ... I guess you could call them that. How many are there? Forty? ... Fifty? The last of those four billion steamy bodies that were crawling around last time somebody took a count. They were a dandy bunch weren't they?

LISA:

They did the best they could. Who the hell are you to put down the human race?

NEVILLE:

Me? I'm nobody, baby ... but at least I know it. I was just part of the crowd, and I didn't think much of it.

LISA:

Well I do! They made the world...that's what it was all about.

NEVILLE:

No, honey...they RUINED it ... we're living in what they made of it, and God help us. Pretty soon those sick animals out there'll be gone, and then we will be too and all that'll be left is this

(points to his collection of cultural artifacts)

That one Rembrandt's worth more than everyone left alive in this stinking city! Maybe in a hundred years or so God’ll get around to kicking through the ashes down here and read Shakespeare and say, "Well ... maybe it was worth it."

LISA:

I've heard that kind of talk before, you uppity, honky pig...and I HATE IT!

NEVILLE:

Ohhh, lovely! Yeah ... I've heard THAT kind of talk before, too, and that got everybody a hell of a long way, didn't it? There're just about enough of us here to go through all that again, right?

(more)

NEVILLE (CON'T)

You can found a Panther cell, and I can start up a White Citizens Council! Or shall I be the SDS and you can be the whole damn Harvard faculty?! Too bad we don't have enough folks around to do the United Nations over, isn't it!

CLOSE - LISA

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