Total Recall Page #28

The Marine beside him begins to spasm and quake as the Change comes.

Hicks SHOOTS him in the chest at close range and sprints for the

carrier.

DISSOLVE TO:

INT. RODINA -- HUB

The Vietnamese commando nears the station's hub. The walls, in one

large chamber, are decorated with official U.P.P. art, like a blend of

Mexican Socialists agitprop murals and Syd Mead techo-fantasy. She

passes evidence of brief violent struggle: a wall splashed with dried

blood, a single shoe, smashed equipment, ragged acid-scars in the

deck.

She looks like a child now, moving through all this, small and alone.

But not helpless: she still moves with a cat's wariness, her gun

ready.

Three face-huggers scuttle across at an intersection of corridors,

tails thrashing...

She comes to a door that opens onto Rodina's central hub, a large

cylindrical space surrounding a core of equipment. The door is ajar;

she edges through...

Virtually the station's entire crew, perhaps a hundreds people, have

been

cocooned along the multi-storey column, a bas-relief of human bodies

and glittering resin.

She stares from a railing, appalled, then slips through the door.

INT. ACHORPOINT -- OPS ROOM

Rosetti, Jackson, Bishop

JACKSON I don't know what they did down there, but it's screwed up

internal comm-link for the whole area; I can't raise 'em...

One of Jackson's consoles CHIMES; her central screen suddenly glows

with a hi-rez simulation of Rodina.

JACKSON (continuing) Rodina's got company...

EXT. SPACE

Silent approach of the U.P.P. cruiser Nikolai Stoiko, a vicious-looking

mile- long slab of armament. Stoiko slows, comes to an ominous halt.

INT. RODINA

The commando bolts down a corridor. Total desperation. She's lost her

gun. A CRASH behind her. The beast's shrill RAGE. She throws herself

through the first available door -- and sees the interceptor waiting.

She scrambles up a ladder, through the hatch, and frantically begins

to activate systems. Sirens begin to SOUND in the launch bay. The

interceptor's hatch closes as the twin gates of the bay begin to swing

open -- and the beast is on her, striking at the view-port in the

hatch, inches from her face. She flips open a safety- override on the

interceptor's joystick and thumbs a red button.

EXT. RODINA

Total overdrive:
the interceptor BLASTS out through the half open gates

in a fireball of exhaust gases, the beast and the service ladder

tumbling after it...

EXT. SPACE -- STOIKO

Something streak from the bow of the cruiser...

INT. ANCHORPOINT -- OPS ROOM

Jackson huddled over her screen.

JACKSON Missile!

EXT. SPACE -- RODINA -- INTERCEPTOR IN F.G.

The U.P.P. missile takes out the station. Whiteout of nuclear

EXPLOSION; the interceptor is a black blot tumbling toward us like a

singed leaf in a whirlwind...

INT. OPS ROOM

The simulation of Rodina on Jackson's screen is surrounded by an

expanding blue sphere. The sphere stops expanding. The simulation blurs

into digital static, fades as the sphere begins to contract...

JACKSON Nuked 'em! Twenty megs! That coded transmission...

ROSETTI Send Mayday.

JACKSON I don't believe it! They send for help, their own people nuked

'em!

HICKS (quietly) Maybe they asked for it...

ROSETTI That's an order, Jackson!

Bishop looks at Rosetti as though he's about to offer an opinion, but

doesn't.

JACKSON Maybe they'll nuke us too...

BISHOP No. They're leaving...

EXT. SPACE -- STOIKO

The cruiser begins to move, accelerates, is gone.

INT. OPS ROOM

ROSETTI Bastards!

JACKSON Yeah. And they violated the f***ing arms treaty, too, didn't

they? Well, Colonel Rosetti, how about a situation update? We got,

lessee, fifty- six missing crew members as of fifteen hundred hours...

DISSOLVE TO:

INT. THE MALL

Deserted. The only SOUNDS are Muzak and the trickles of an artificial

waterfall. Some signs of trouble: an overturned trash canister,

someone's red nylon baseball cap on the polished concrete.

Walker strolls around a corner beside the bar with a pulse-rifle,

grenades, and assorted gadgetry slung across his chest. Goes to the bar

entrance, nudges the door open with the barrel of the rifle. Nobody

there. Same soccer game on the big screen, but the sound is off.

Silent cheering crowd rising to its feet, the flicker of the holo-game

consoles. He glances around the mall, enters. Crosses to the bar,

checks behind it, then fishes up a big plastic jug of liquor. Opens

it, drink from the jug.

Behind him, a mug topples, CLATTERS on the floor. He slowly lowers the

liquor to the counter; just as slowly, he turns. A beast is there,

waiting, beyond the Glimmer of the holo-games.

Walker and the beast move simultaneously. But he doesn't go for his gun

-- he grabs the control unit hanging on his chest.

An unmanned power-loader walks straight through the glass facade,

plowing tables and chairs out of its way, big vise-grip claws

extended. The Alien SCREAMS, leaps for it, but the steel claws close

and grip.

Walker twiddles the controls; the power-loader responds, pinning the

Alien against the wall. The Alien writhes and HISSES, striking

furiously at the

hydraulic arm. Walker tightens the grip, locks the loader in place.

Picks up the jug of liquor and has another swallow.

WALLACE F*** you. Beat. As his satisfied grin is replaced by something

else. The Change...

INT. ECO-MODULE

Artificial dusk. Spence is crossing the mirco-meadow with a wire basket

of food the module's population of small primates. Moths flutter

through narrowing beams of sunlight as the louvers gradually close

overhead. CRICKETS in the long grass.

She enters the scaled-down forest, ducking branches, and Spanish moss.

Begins to make Tk-tk-tk sound, calling the lemur, the monkeys...

And stops. Suddenly aware of a stillness, an absolute silence. Even the

crickets...

She turns -- gasps. The primates have been cocooned in the branches of

a tree. And screams as something pounces on her from above, the

transformed lemur: a very small Alien. She bats the thing away with

the strength of desperation. It hits the ground HISSING; she hurls the

basket of food at it and bolts from the forest, sobbing.

DISSOLVE TO:

INT. A TUNNEL

WHINE of an approaching engine. The six-wheeled carrier come INTO VIEW,

Hicks driving, alone. His face is fixed, white. The carrier slews

against the tunnel wall, strikes sparks, bounces off. He hardly seems

to notice. He plows into a row of big plastic crates, tumbling them

like a child's blocks, bringing the vehicle to a halt. Beat. He look

up from the controls: the doors of a freight elevator.

INT. A CORRIDOR OFF THE MALL

Automatic CHIME as elevator doors open, revealing Hicks and his gun.

INT. THE MALL

Hicks warily crosses the Mall. SOUND of perpetual Muzak. He eyes the

wreckage of the bar, but keeps moving. Into stuttering neon light from

one of the shops. HISS and CRACKLE of bad wiring. He move toward the

shop, gun ready.

Rate this script:4.0 / 2 votes