Total Recall Page #27

primate. Light crosses the meadow as the louvers open overhead, beyond

the geodesics. Artificial dawn. BIRDS begins to sing. Quiet before the

storm...

EXT. RODINA

No sign of movement.

Dimly lit. Clutter of spacesuits, machinery. The Vietnamese commando

seated on the floor, back to the wall, cradling her gun. The corpse of

her partner is sprawled on the deck beside her, face hideously burned,

his armor fretworked with acid. Her face is blank, eyes straight

ahead.

DISSOLVE TO:

EXT. ANCHORPOINT

The station.

INT. ANCHORPOINT -- MEDLAB -- CORRIDOR

Hicks, still in his fighting gear, walking purposefully. MedLab staff

in hospital whites dubiously note his passage.

INT. MED LAB -- RIPLEY'S ROOM

Ripley comatose, still hooked up to assorted biomonitors, the only

movement in the room the restless flicker of a bank of colored diodes.

Hicks enters, crosses to the bed, seems about to speak, makes a

helpless little gesture with his hands -- then yanks the biomonitor

leads from the bedside console. The diodes go out; a buzzer begins to

SOUND. The bed is mounted on casters. He starts to pull it out of the

room. Stops. Looks up at Newt's map on the wall.

He rips the map from the wall and stuffs it into her hospital gown.

INT. MEDLAB -- CORRIDOR

Hicks hustles Ripley through MedLab, not about to stop for anyone;

startled staff jump out of the way.

INT. ANCHORPOINT -- ANOTHER CORRIDOR -- ENTRANCE TO A LIFEBOAT

Signs and notices detailing lifeboat launch procedures. Hicks lifts

Ripley from the bed, carries her through hatch into lifeboat. Places

her in a hypersleep capsule, presses a button. The lid comes down.

Silent moment as he looks down at her through the lid, his palm on the

smooth plastic in a gesture of farewell, resignation. Then back

through the hatch, where he activates controls that seal the boat,

setting the launch-procedure in motion.

ANGLE on the blunt prows of the lifeboat receding around the curve of

the

station's hull.

INT. LIFEBOAT BAY

Hicks watching digital countdown. Muted WHUMP of explosive bolts --

EXT. LIFEBOAT

Flash of the bolts as Ripley's boat is launched into the sweep of

night.

INT. LIFEBOAT BAY

Bishop enters behind Hicks.

BISHOP But can you be certain she hasn't been infected?

HICKS I'll take the chance.

BISHOP Why?

HICKS I owe her one.

INT. OPS ROOM

Jackson at her screens; display as before, the tunnels near the air-

scrubber -- with three screens dark. CLOSEUP on one tunnel-view as an

open, six-wheeled personnel carrier rolls past the video camera, Hick

looking up. Five Marines in full battle dress ride with him: ALSOP,

GREENFIELD, BRICE, COSTELLO, WALLACE.

JACKSON Next junction, hang a right...

INT. TUNNEL

Dim; light spaced far apart along tunnel. The carrier takes a right.

JACKSON (V.O.) Left at the fork and you wanna take it slow. Fifty

meters to whatever's in front of that camera...

Hicks gestures to Wallace, the driver. The carrier halts. SOUND of the

air- scrubbers from down the tunnel. The Marines shift their weapons,

uneasily eye the tunnel ahead. These are young recruits, not the hard-

case vets of "ALIENS."

HICKS Now listen up. We don't do this by the book, we don't pair off.

Stay together, tight. Greenfield up front with me; anything moves, you

torch it. The rest of you, if it moves, kill it. You gotta get the

f***ers before they get close. You know about the acid; you know they

don't show on infrared. And you know you don't let them take you

alive. You might have to do a friend a favor... Ready? Move out.

He climbs down from the carrier, heavily burdened with gear. The others

follow. Greenfield has a flamethrower. They move forward. Toward the

next light; beyond it, the tunnel curves out of sight.

JACKSON (V.O.) You're right up on it, Hicks. Right around the corner...

HICKS Affirmative...

They round the turn, weapons ready. And stop, stunned.

GREENFIELD Wha' 'th...?

The tunnel, which widens here as it approaches the massive air-

scrubber, has been transformed; its lights are dimly visible through

shrouds of resin. Vast ribs of the stuff sweep up from a dim and

monstrous shape that covers the deck at the base of the scrubber;

we're looking into an Alien grotto, black and pearlescent, and obscene

fairyland. The shape's symmetry suggest function. Patient DRUMMING of

the air-scrubber's giant fans.

HICKS Scan it. Motion?

COSTELLO (consulting tracker, adjusting knob) Negative.

HICKS Alsop, gimme the flood...

Alsop passes Hicks a portable halogen-flood. Hicks thumbs it on...

WALLACE Holy Christ.

The central shape is revealed as an enormous mutant queen. The thing is

splayed on its back, mortared into the mass of resin, its vestigial

head toward Hicks and the Marines. Its abdomen is arched like an

inverted scorpion-tail, tipped with a swollen, semi-translucent sac

that ripples and pulses in the glare of Hick's lamp. A biomechanical

birth-factory.

HICKS (passing the flood to Brice) Hold it... steady.

He kneels, unslings one of his gear cases, open it, revealing a squat

tube.

HICKS Moving. Something's moving...

Hicks is working on the tube-thing, snapping components into place.

Brice suddenly swings the beam away from the queen, revealing half a

dozen new-model Aliens twisting out of recesses in the grotto walls...

INT. OPS ROOM

Jackson and Bishop hear SCREAMS and FIRING over the comm-link.

HICK (V.O.) The light! The goddamn light! (garble)

The Aliens tear into the Marines like living chainsaws. Wallace and

Costello go down immediately; the Aliens begin to drag them away. Hicks

has gotten hold of the light, struggles to keep it on the queen as he

props the tube against his thigh. SCREAMS. Blue stutter of pulse-

rifles. A tongue of fire from Greenfield's flamethrower, but an Alien

jumps him; the napalm-stream arcs wildly, splashing the resin

structure -- and the Queen wakes. The huge tail extends, lifts in the

floodlight beam...

Hicks is still trying to assemble his mortar.

As the swollen, podlike tail-tip splits open with a sickly, tearing

SOUND, releasing a puffball cloud of dark mist -- we've seen it before,

in miniature, with Tully in the lab -- which begins to rise, drawn up

toward the giant fans above the air-scrubber...

INT. OPS ROOM

HICKS (V.O.) Stop the fans!

Bishop is instantly on the case, leaning over Jackson's shoulder to

punch the right button, but...

INT. SCRUBBER-TUNNEL

Too late. The cloud of spores is sucked into the fans -- as Hicks drop

a shell into the mortar. It bucks against his thigh and the queen is

blown to shred in an EXPLOSION that rips out the side of the scrubber.

HICKS The vents! Seal the vents!

INT. OPS ROOM

Bishop's fingers fly as he punches another sequence.

INT. VENT

Straight down the pipe, a long way, to the whirling fans. Huge hermetic

barriers SLAM across the vent in sequence -- one, two, three.

INT. SCRUBBER-TUNNEL

Hicks scramble to his feet.

HICKS Out! Out of here! Now!

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