"SCANNERS" (1981)

As the trio leave the lecture hall, two more security men with guns drawn start to approach them. Security One waves them

The guards nod and back off, taking up their former positions halfway down the hall. Security One muscles Revok into the stairwell: and waves the doctor in after him.

The trio ascend the stairwell which is long, dark and eerie.

3- CONT'D

Move!

Revok does as h2:is told. Dr. Gatineau watches wide-eyed.

€

SECURITY ONE

Doctor, give him a shot of Ephemerol:

Gatineau fumbles around in his lab coat pocket and finally comes up with a small, disposable syringe. He holds it up. Revok reaches the other end of the room and turns around. Security One's gun is still levelled unwaveringly at him.

SECURITY ONE

On your stomach.

Revok lies face down an the cold floor.

The doctor approaches Revok warily. On the floor, Revok's eyes are focused insanely, glaringly, on nothing. ‘The doctor kneels beside Revok, his back to Security One. As he slips the cap off the needle, his nose begins to bleed. He seems not to netice, and with an air of brisk professionalism, jabs the needle into’ his own wrist. The doctor watches with de- tachment as the pale blue fluid is forced into his bloodstream by the syringe'’s plunger.

The doctor removes the needle and stands up to face Security One, sniffing the blood that has begun to run out of his nose back up as he does so.

GATINEAU

It's done.

A dark American sedan blasts down a deserted street.

In the back seat of the car, Security One keeps his gun pointed at the head of Darryl Revok, who lies on the back seat floor. Two other security men are in the front seat, Security Two driving, Security Three riding shotgun. SECURITY ONE Take it easy. All we need is for a cop to stop us. SECURITY TWO Would serve ‘em right. Why the hell wouldn't they come and get us? SECURITY THREE If this guy's a Scanner, they don't want him down at Central. They're afraid of him. Why don't we just blow him away?

He's a Scanner?

SECURITY TWO

Hey, where's our escort car gone to?

SECURITY THREE

He's pulling up on our right side.

5. CONT'D

Security Two glances to his right. A maroon American car, their escort, pulls up beside them. The driver motions that he wants to lead their car rather than follow.

DA. INT. NIGHT. SECURITY #1 CAR

-~n the darkness of the back seat footwell that his face is jammed into, Revok is staring intently into space, his upper lip trembling, his face shiny with sweat.

The driver of.the escort car turns away from the Security One car and pulls anead. His partner sitting beside him notices that the driver has gone very pale and is gagging slightly. PARTNER Hey, you all right? Want me to

take over?

The driver doesn't say anything. Instead, he steps on the gas and shoots the escort car far ahead of the Security One car.

Security Two watches his escort blast away from him.

SECURITY THREE

Procedure says follow him. He must have spotted something...

Security Two steps on the gas and attempts to catch the escort

7. CONT'D

car which is rapidly receding into the distance. As the car lurches ahead, Security One takes a harder look at Revok in

the pulsing light of the overhead street lamps flashing.by.

What if Revok can still scan?

B. INT. NIGHT. ESCORT CAR

In the escort car, the partner has drawn his automatic and is training it on his driver, whose eyes stare blankly ahead as he drives like a maniac, sweating and gasping for air.

PARTNER

Rick: I'm going to kill you if you don't stop: I don’t want to, man, but I'm gonna blow you away if you don't stop this rig right now:

Without hesitation, Rick hooks the steering wheel to the left and drives the escort car straight into the concrete block wall of the nearest building. The car explodes in flame.

The three sécurity men look on in horror as the escort car starts to burn zhead of them. Security Two starts to slow down. _

SECURITY ONE

Don‘t stop! Put your foot down!

SECURITY THREE

Nol We've gotta see if we can drag them outa there.

4Q

rey ® CONT'D

Security Two pulls up at the curb near the flaming escort car. Security Two and Security Three jump out and run over to the wreck, leaving Security One alone with Revok. As his partners try vainly to get near the front of the escort car, Security One lifts his gun to Revok's face. He is going to shoot his prisoner.

The other two men can see that there's no possibie way they can get near the escort car. The heat rolling away from it is too intense.

SECURITY TWO

Let's go. They're gone.

The two men run back to their car. As they approach their car, Security One steps out of it and leans against the door with a be

Dizarrely inappropriate casualness.

SECURITY THREE

Get back in the car! We're leaving.

Security One raises his automatic and fires at his partners,

who stumble and fall as they run, hardly having time to register surprise. Security One walks over to their fallen bodies and fires one more assurance bullet into each head. He then calmly sticks the barrel of his gun to his temple and pulls the trigger.

Establishing shot of ConSec Central, the largest building in

a suburban industrial complex in the middle of nowhere. The building has a fortress-like aspect, having very few windows and those being horizontal slits. A stainless steel logs declares the buiiding for Continental Security Ine., and names it ConSec Central.

INT

CONSEC BOARDROOM

TREVELLYAN

Last night, we at ConSec chose to reveal to the outside world our work with those telepathic curiosities known as Scanners. The result was six corpses and a substan-~ tial loss of credibility for our organi-~ zation. This morning, we have a new Chief of Internal Security, Mr. Braedon Keller. Mr. Keller?

KELLER

Gentlemen...we are in the business of international security. We deal in weaponry and private armies. We do

not trade in fantasy and pipe dreams.

Let us leave the develooment of dolpnins and freaks as weapons of espionage to others. With all due respect to Dr. Paul Ruth, I recommend that we drop our Scanner program immediately.

TREVELLYAN

Dr. Ruth? Your response, please?

RUTH

Mr. Keller...who composed our audience last night?

RUTH

Were these VIPs carefully screened?

id

FRONT OF HIM) And yet an assassin managed to infiltrate this group?

KELLER

RUTH

He killed six of our pecple?

KELLER

Yes.

RUTH

How did he kill them?

KELLER

We have reason to believe he used scanning techniques.

RUTH

You mean to say that this very skilful, very deadly assassin who embarrassed us in front of the very community we wished to impress...was himself a Scanner?

KELLER

We believe so, yes.

The weapons capability of these "telepathic curiosities" is obvious.

Doctor, your program is based on a list of 236 known Scanners, is it not? RUTH

It is.

KELLER

Of that number, how many are now working with us?

RUTH

As of last night, none.

KELLER

Well then, we don't even have a pregram to drop. It shouldn't be very painful for anyone.

RUTH

Gentlemen, I submit that it is no accident that ConSec surveillance has gradually lost contact with all the names on our list. We have lost them to another program which is far in advance of ours.

There 1s general hubbub in the room at this statement.

More hubbub.

TREVELLYAN

Elaborate for us please, Doctor.

RUTH

My study of the situation has led me to conclude that a Scanner underground has developed in North America. It is organized, it is highly motivated, and it has a leader.

KELLER

This is total fiction...

TREVELLYAN

Mr. Keller, please. What do you suggest, Doctor?

12. CONT'D

RUTH

Bl suggest we eliminate the competition.

TREVELLYAN

Eow?

RUTH

We contact a Scanner who is as yet unknown to the underground. We convert him to our cause. We send him out to infiltrate this underground...

ROTH

Only because their unique gifts are not properly understood, Mx. Keller.

TREVELLYAN

Gentlemen, the one point about which there is no doubt at all is that ConSec has been attacked. For our own peace of mind, we must retaliate in some way. I think Dr. Ruth's suggestion is an interesting one.

KELLER

But we don't have any Scanners left - to send into the field.

12. CONT'D

I know of one who is still...unaffili- ated. A very special one. I'11 tell you where to find him, Mr. Keller.

A young man saunters into the cafeteria section of the mall.

It is CAMERON VALE, about 35, who seems little more than an unusually young down-and-outer, his basic good looks twisted into ugliness by his general condition - unshaven, foul-smelling, filthy old coat, torn pants, shaky from malnutrition, hands

and face bruised and scabby from countless unremembered falls and brawls.

He walks between the tables picking up leftovers from the various trays. He sits down at one of the tables and begins

tO eat a cold hot dog.

We notice two attractive, middle-aged matrons chatting over hot Danishes at an adjoining table. They see him and seem to make derogatory remarks about his appearance.

Vale, now focuses his attention on the more attractive woman. The sharpness of his gaze is strangely acute for such a wreck of aman, and it is not lost on the woman. She goes to great lengths to avoid eye-contact with Vale yet is strongly drawn

to his gaze.

Vale is not only the only one whose gaze is intent: two large men in Overcoats and hats are both watching him from across the cafeteria. They do nothing to disguise their interest in Vale, who is, nonetheless, oblivious to their presence.

Vale's head rolls back and forth lightly. His eyes narrow

down to slits as he focuses some sort of energy on the woman opposite him. Vale's pupils dilate; his heart starts to pound; his breathing becomes deep and regular.

Without warning, the woman's head suddenly snaps back. Her eyes close, her mouth opens as she slides to the floor.

One of the men watching Vale nudges the other, who stiffens slightly when he sees the woman going into her fit.

The woman begins to writhe in a tortured frenzy as people

begin to stare. A bespectacled man in his 20's, a medical student, jumps up and runs over to the woman as those closest to her get up and move away. The medical student kneels beside her and begins to jam one of his leather gloves between her teeth.

MEDICAL STUDENT

She's having a fit. She's an epileptic. Help me hold her down, somebody. It's nothing to be afraid of. We've just got to keep her from hurting herself until it's over,

ed in his corner, Vale himself goes through a more and private version of the woman's agonized rapture, ing, twitching, all the muscies in his face working.

1 student is having trouble holding the woman down. t the three people who have been curious enough to +

C'mon: Yes, you! It's epilepsy.

It won't last long. C'mon. Just

hold her legs so she doesn't knock her own teeth out.

A girl gives her boyfriend a shove towards the medical student and he shrugs, then kneels beside the woman and tries to grab one of her thrashing legs.

MEDICAL STUDENT

That's it. Good. Don't let her bite her tongue off.

Vale tenses, his body goes rigid for.a moment, his head trembling from the tension in his neck muscles. The woman begins to do the same thing on the floor.

132 CONT*D

MEDICAL STUDENT

t's all right. It's all right. I think it‘s gonna be over soon.

Vale suddenly goes limp; his breath comes deep and fast. He has reached some sort of bizarre climax. At the same instant, the woman on the floor suddenly lapses into unconsciousness. The men who are holding her draw back slightly, then let go of her.

The two large men in overcoats now move towards Vale. Coming cout of his daze, he notices them for the first time, rises to his feet and staggers over to the stairs. The first large

man pulls a short rifle from his coat and the two follow in hot pursuit. The rifle is a compressed-air dart gun, the kind that are used to tranquilize wild animals. Vale now begins to run up the stairs to a landing. As No. 1 races behind hin,

Oo. 2 dashes up the adjoining stairs to head him off. Vale, seeing he is trapped, jumps over the railing, hoping to make the escalator. His aim is off and he manages barely to grab tne escalator hand-rail. Hanging there desperately, he is puiled on board by a man riding the escalator. As he catches his breath, No. 1 takes aim and fires. We see a dart puncture Vale’s hend. Vale, staring at the dart incredulously, still tries to escape. As he tries to run, his energy drains out

of him ard he slumps to the ground.

<i

Vale wakes up. He is lying on a bed in the middle of a vast, sunlit warehouse floor. The distant walls of the room have been whitewashed. The cavernous place is empty except for his bed, two tables, three wooden chairs near the bed, and fifty metal folding chairs all set up in neat rows, as if for a performance. The light comes from skylights.

Vale tries to rise but finds that he is strapped into his bed by nylon-web straps. There is a man sitting next to his bed ~ Dr. Paul Ruth. Ruth is wearing a suit and tie.

Ruth bends close to Vale when he sees that Vale is now more or less sentient. Vale has been cleaned up considerably. He has been shaved, washed, and dressed pants and a shirt. There are secks on his feet.

14. CONT'D

RUTH

You are only 35 years old, Mr. Vale. Why do you suppose you have become such a derelict? Such a piece of human junk?

Vale tries to make sense out of his new surroundings, but soon gives up. His surroundings have not made sense to him for years ~ why impose on them now?

RUTH

The answer is simple: you're a Scanner and you don't know it. That has been the source of all your agony. I'm going to show you that it can be the source of great power.

Ruth gets up and walks to the door. He opens it and speaks to someone.

Let them in, hurry up.

Ruth stands by the door as fifty people trail in and occupy the metal folding chairs. They have the demeanor of middle- class people waiting patiently at an airport for their flight to go. Some of ‘them have brought magazines and books to read. Others knit or sew. The differences are that there are no children amongst them - everybody is over twenty-one ~- and there is no talking. Finally, they are like some strange, mute audience waiting for a non-existent curtain to go up.

Once everyone has settled, Ruth:smiles at Vale and leaves. ~ Vale settles back on his pillow after he has had a good Look".

around. What else can he do?

DISSOLVE TO

Vale is sweating. There are fifty muted voices grinding

away incessantly in the back of Vale's mind. There are endless inane images flashing through Vale's head, layer upon layer, the lamination of imagery - faces, incidents, objects ~ is fifty translucent levels deep, all levels shifting through

and over each other.

The minds of the fifty people in Vale's room are all alive directly in Vale's brain. Their presence increases until there is no room for any mind of Vale's own: he is a scrambled composite of everyone else in the room. Their faces super- impose over his face, faster and faster, until Vale has no

face of his own.

i6. INT. MORNING. VALE'S APARTMENT AT THE FACTORY

Vale's beard has grown. So has the intensity of all the voices and all the imagery. Vale is shaking, twitching, shuddering, pouring sweat. The voices and the images clamour for attention in his skull. His brain is porridge.

In the midst of the chaos floats Dr. Ruth, closer and closer. Ruth smiles and gives Vale an injection of Ephemerol. Vale stiffens as the drug hits his bloodstream. With each heartbeat the voices and images recede further and further, until there is only a large room full of people who are very quiet and, mercifully, very distant. Vale is still shaking, but his own mind now has room in his skull again.

Ruth bends close to Vale and mops Vale's brow with a cloth.

talk.

DISSOLVE TO

The fifty spectators dissolve away, leaving Vale - cleaned up once again - and Ruth alone in the room. They both sit in

chairs. Vale sits with his legs crossed and his arms folded. He looks unnatural being comfortable, like an orang-utan pretending to be human.

RUTH

I don't suppose you speak much?

VALE

No.

you possibly hear your own voice?

(VALE SHRUGS) How could you develop a self, a personality?

(VALE SHRUGS AGAIN) How do you feel?

VALE

I feel erystal clear.

RUTH

Do you like it? (VALE IS CONFUSED) The clarity?

VALE

I'm not sure. I think I'm afraid. RUTH Why?

VALE

I feel very...exposed. I can hear myself.

RUTH

You hear your own voice?

VALE

Yes.

RUTH

A freak of nature born with a certain form of ESP. A derangement of the synapses which we call tele- pathy. A disease, possibly. Or the result of radiation. We don't know why.

VALE

This is an insane asylum. You're just another inmate. (LAUGHS)

VALE

You're a madman.

@ iv. CONT'D

RUTH

No, I‘m not. And neither are you.

VALE

Oh, but IT am. I've always been mad.

t was her. She was forcing me... or

ch bed

RUTH

Toa do what?

VALE

To..-think about her.

RUTH

19 Saag tc; @ Lé/. CONT'D

ee

VALE

They stopped.

sCan suppressant. It does nothing to ordinary human beings. When given to a Scanner, it prevents the flow of telepathy. It stops the voices.

VALE

How do you know these things?

RUTH

There have been over two hundred like you. And I know the names of every

one of them. 34 committed suicide before they reached the age of ten. Another 80 died violent deaths in

their teens. Some of the others I've been able to help. I want to help you.

@ , VALE

Why?

+

“J

bet

» CONT'D

Vale finds himself in a vast room which is almost identical to his own, except that it sports quite a bit of electronic equipment which surrounds a large square formed by a series of tumbling mats in the center of the floor.

There are four technicians working this floor, all of them busy. Two of them are attaching electrodes to a man sitting cross-legged on the tumbling mats.

Ruth takes Vale over to the-man on the mats. They are silently attended by one of the other technicians, a gaunt man named CORTNEY. Vale seems to be hanging on all right. Ruth casually introduces him to the mat man.

RUTH

Welcome to our little psychic Gymnasium. Cameron Vale, please meet yoga master, Dieter Tautz.

Tautz smiles slightiy and nods a courtly nod in Vale's direction. Vale manages a nod in return. Tautz is wearing a tweed suit and shoes. He is very Germanic and wears a well-controlled Van Dyke beard. A technician has attached electrodes to his chest, having opened Tautz's shirt and jacket only just slightly, and is in

the process of securing the last of four more, two to each temple.

RUTH

Mr. Tautz has kindly consented to be your psychic sparring partner, Cameron. He has demonstrated in public on many eccasions that he is able to control at will his heart rate, his Alpha-wave rhythm, and many other ,supposedly uncontrollable bodily functions...

i8. CONT'D

ROTH {cont'd)

(TO TECHNICIAN)

Are we ready?

(THE TECHNICIAN NODS)

Very good. If you will just face Mr. Tautz on the mat, right over there...

A technician leads Vale around the wires attaching Yautz to two oscilloscopes and helps him settle in front of Tautz. Another technician brings Ruth one of the ubiquitous metal folding chairs, which Ruth organizes so that he can sit to cne side and see both men in profile, like a net judge in a tennis match.

The technician who attached the electrodes turns on the oscilloscopes, which immediately register two sets of normal sine waves. The upper screen is marked HEART, the lower ALPHA~WAVE.

ROTH

Cameron, I want you to siowly release your scan, slowly, and with focus. I want it to touch Dieter Tautz's heart, and not his brain. Do you understand? Telepathy is not mind-reading. It is the direct linking together of two ..- nervous systems separated by space.

I’ want you to link your brain to his heart, and I want your brain to make his heart beat faster. Do you under- stand?

Vale barely nods. He is staring at Tautz's chest. Tautz has closed his eyes and assumed a general posture of controlled serenity.

wet cane natame om natn

18. CONT'D

The heart monitor starts to register a slightly guickening pulse rate. Vale sweats and concentrates. Tautz’s heart rate increases jerkily, like a puppet in the hands of an unskilled Operator. :

RUTH

Faster, faster, faster, faster.

Tautz's heart rate levels off at a rate higher than normal, then suddenly accelerates madly. Tautz hreaks into a sweat. He tries to bring his heart rate down. It sinks slightly, then accelerates upwards at an insane rate again. Tautz starts gasping open~mouthed and licking his lips. He opens his eyes. They are bulging with fear. He is losing the tug of war. He looks at Vale. Vale's eyes are blank and hard with power.

RUTH

Cameron! End your scan! End it now!

But Vale can not end his scan, or perhaps does not want to. Suddenly Tautz's Alpha-wave monitor starts to go berserk as well. Tautz jerks violently backwards on the mats clutching his chest, and then goes into a totally uneentrolled epileptic spasm, its grotesque rhythms registering on the monitors.

Ruth jumps from his chair, pulling a syringe from his pocket. A technician makes a move to grab Vale, while Ruth jabs the needle into Vale's arm.

Suddenly, almost casually, Vale releases Tautz from his scan. Tautz is left gasping on the floor as two technicians rush to his side, smashing his chest to get his heart working again and trying to force open Tautz's mouth so he won't bite off his congves Vale stands up and ‘smiles at the approaching Ruth, the scent of power still in his nostrils.

ok NY Ma HIN na Re Aah se ANNO I eRe ae Bama item ee

18. CONT'D

VALE

You were right, Dr. Ruth. It waS easy.

Vale and Ruth sit in Vale's apartment. Ruth operates a 16mm projector, which splashes its image on a small screen on a tripod. There is a fiim leader countdown, then the titles:

CRANE PSYCHIATRIC INSTITUTE, REF: #32407, January 4, 1967. SUBJECT: Darryl Revok, Age 22.

20, INT. DAY. INTERROGATION ROOM. CRANE PSYCHIATRIC

the titles, the face of Darryl Revok, 22, suddenly appears.

After The face is the same one we saw in the opening scenes - Revok, the Scanner infiltrator - only younger. The difference between

the two faces is not as great as one would expect, however: at 22, Darryl Revok has already been through the wringer, and his face shows it.

The camera shooting him is behind a one-way mirror in a small interrogation room. it zooms in and out at times, showing us Gcetails of hand positicns, eyes, and anything else the camera- man thought was significant. There are jump cuts in the film, but the camera engle is always the same, though not necessarily tne frame size.

The young Darryl Revok has a haunted face. He is very hyper and distracted in his speech and mannerisms. On his forehead is stuck a rectangular piece of Elastoplast, upon which is drawn an eye complete with eyelashes. The off~camera voice

of a woman psychiatrist tries to guide Revok through a certain amount of self-revelation. Her name is LILIANE.

LILIANE (OC)

Tell us what you did, please, Darryl.

REVOK

I drilled a hole in my head.

LILIANE (OC)

Where?

REVOK .

Uh huh.

~

20. CONT'D

LILIANE (OC)

what?

people in my head. Not enough room for Darryl.

LILIANE (OC)

You mean voices?

REVOK

No. Whole people. Hands,

feet, everything.

LILIANE (OC)

What's that you've put over the hole?

REVOK

A door. I put an eye on it so the

people would think the door was just another eyelid. Then they won't try

to get back in. LILIANE (0C)

Yqu think that'll fool them?

LI“LIANE (Cc)

I mean, is that the only way they can get back in? .

20. CONT'D

don't believe me. I'11l show you how they get in.

Revok picks up a glass of water and pours the water out. He turns his back to the camera. LILIANE (OC) (SUDDENLY ANXIOUS) What are you doing, Darryl? REVOKE

Are you watching?

Liliane gets up and runs out of the room just as Revok whirls around and shatters the one-way glass with the tumbler.

People run back and forth in the dark room on the camera side of the one-way glass. Two attendants come in and drag Revok away screaming.

Vale sits back, shaken by a sense of recognition both comforting and disturbing. ; .

VALE . —

That's me, isn't it?

Is he still like that?

RUTH .

He's worse.

VALE

How could he be?

RUTH

At the age of 22, Darryl Revok was extremely self-destructive. Now,

at the age of 35, he is simply... destructive. In many ways, Cameron, he's your enemy. And mine.

.

VALE

But I don't even know him.

RUTH

He knows you. Somehow, Revok has acquired the master list of all Scanners ever known to be born. He has sought them out, one by one, and asked them to join him in an insane crusade against the society that created him. ,

VALE

And me?

lad ho

RUTH

He's looking for you. But I found you first, and that‘s why you can help me.

VALE

I don't understand.

All Scanners who have refused to join Revok have been murdered.

These murders represent the loss

to mankind of the most spectacular human beings who have ever walked this planet. You, Cameron, and

your brothers and sisters, can bring a glory and brilliance to our society that has never been seen before. But we must stop Revok now.

VALE

But what could I possibly do?

Ruth smiles.

In the psychic gym, Ruth shows Vale photos and documents relating. to his first lead into the Scanner underground - Benjamin Pierce. ©

These include photes of Pierce in prison, photos of him from high school, prison documents, clippings about his attempt at murder from the newspaper. 3 ;

Throughout this scene, Ruth helps fit Vale with several changes of expensive clothes in keeping with his new social. respectability - including rings, keys, and credit cards.

RUTH

{SORTING OUT PHOTOS FOR VALE)

This man is Benjamin Pierce. These are the last known photos of him.

They were taken at a prison for the criminally insane.

(SINGLING OUT A PHOTO OF A SCULPTURE) This is also Benjamin Pierce. It's a Plaster cast of him which is on display at the Crostic Art Gallery. Pierce is the only lead we have: a known Scanner who may or may not be part of Revok's underground.

VALE

Why was he in prison?

RUTH

He tried to kill his entire family... father, mother, sister...when he was ten years old. That was 1958. He

was released two years ago..."Rehabili- tated through art" it says here,

VALE

Through art?

RUTH

He was discovered at a prison art show by an international promoter. What began as art therapy ended up a small industry. Art-critics all over the world began to demand his- release. And they got it. I have a few lithographs myself. They're very good. .

Vale turns to face Ruth, faltering under the enormity of it all.

VALE

Paul...I don't think I can do this.

RUTH

You're the only one who can do it. Listen to me. You find Pierce. You tell him you're lost. You tell him you want to join Darryl Revok. And when you find Revok, you join him,

All you have tc do then is to tell

me where Darryl Revok is. That's all. And then you can come home.

Establishing shot of the Arno Crostic Gallery, a private art gallery housed in a renovated Victorian townhouse in a fashion- able section of downtown Toronto.

A sign in the bay window of the gallery says "Benjamin Pierce ~ Recent Works", and beyond the window it is apparent that an opening night party is in progress. A crowd of people in

extreme but calculated evening dress carry drinks, hors d'oeuvre, and catalogues as they mill about amongst the works of modern © sculptor Benjamin Pierce.

In the midst of the opening night action stands Cameron Vale, transfixed by one of Pierce's sculptures. Vale has cbviously’ been worked over by the people at the Factory. His hair is

very coiffed, his black velvet suit ane loose white shirt open

at the throat fit him perfectly. At a glance you would definitely say he belongs at this party.

But at the moment Vale is oblivious to the trendy swirl around him. All he can see is the plaster cast sculpture in front of him which is basically a man in a glass room strapped to a chair, screaming. The terrified face of the man in the chair is the face of Ben Pierce. ,

26. CONT'D

A man who has been working his way through the crowd, introducing himself to everyone but concentratine on wealthy-looking pctential buyers, approaches Vale. The man, AFENO CROSTIC, slight, effete, dressed very similarly to Vale, finally spots Vale and stands beside him, communing in front of Pierce's work. After an appropriately respectful beat of silence, Crostic turns to Vale.

CROSTIC

The man has incredible power, doesn't he?

Power? Oh. Yes. He does. CROSTIC

I'm Arno Crostic. I'm pleased you could come to my gallery. (EXTENDING HIS HAND)

I'm sure I know you.

I don't think so. I'm Cameron Vale. I flew in from Montreal just to be here tonight.

years. I thought it was time I met him. Is he here tonight?

CROSTIC

Surely you must know that Benjamin Pierce never appears in public.

You know, I am his agent as well

as his exhibitor, and I have never met him. He is a genuinely mysterious person,

VALE

I'm interested in buying this... (INDICATES SCULPTURE) ...for my apartment in Paris. But...I don't know. I get the feeling it wouldn't work out unless I could meet the artist first.

CROSTIC

I understand. It takes a very special person to live with something like this. We rarely make private sales of Pierce's works.

VALE

Can you arrange it?

Tim afraid not. I hope it won't prejudice you against acquiring this piece, but...I would lose Benjamin Pierce for good if I even approach him with the idea. It's part of our agreement.- He will not meet his public.

he lives. I could approach him myself. You wouldn't be involved.

26. CONT'D

CrROSTIC

I'm sorry. I can't. (LAUGHS) - I mean, whatever would you think . of me if I did?

Vale smiles sympathetically. A small trickle of blood appears out of Crostic's left nostril and runs down his upper lip. Vale is scanning his right hemisphere and the pressure is hurting. Crostic feels the blood and lifts his hand to wipe it away. His hand is shaking. He smears the blood but does not manage to remove it. He looks sick.

VALE

Then maybe you could just... just think about where he lives,

CROSTIC

{(SHAKILY) Excuse me, I...I don't feel well, suddenly. Excuse me.

Crostic turns away and starts to make his way through the crowd towards a washroom. Several pecple who turn to talk to him notice that he has blood on his face. They put their arms around him and help him across the room. -

Vale turns back to the glass room. He has the name he needs. Vale takes one last look at the screaming man with the exposed brain. Suddenly, Vale realized that his own nose is bleeding.

Vale whirls around. The people in the room seem as before, .— the group around Crostic almost out of sight now, the rest still socializing enthusiastically. Vale takes his napkin and wipes his nose. His hand is shaking. A woman we are to know as KIM ROTHBERG watches Vale. .

Vale has dialed a number from his hotel room. He is inhaling. @ deep snorts of Ephemerol, anxiously waiting for an answer.

_Pinally, someone answers the phone.

Dr. Ruth sits at a table with a drink in hand.

RUTH

How does it feei to be cut in the world again?

VALE

Good, but strange....I know where to find Pierce now.

RUTH (VO)

Taat's good Cameron. Tell me when you make contact.

RUTH (VO)

What's wrong, Cameron?

(PAUSE) I've been scanned.

Apne a eet

Vale pulls up the driveway of Pierce's farmhouse and stops. He gets cut of his rented car and looks around.

The farmhouse is deserted, full of mice and birds' nests, its windows broken.

Across a rutted, scraggly field stands an immense barn of stone and board. Vaie takes one last look around and starts off across the field towards the barn.

About half a mile from the farmhouse, a group of four men and one woman lounge around a black van. One of the men sits on the hood of the machine, watching Vale with binoculars as Vale heads towards the barn. Satisfied, the man puts away his binoculars and gets off the hood.

The five reach into the jeeps and take out oblong objects wrapped in blankets, one blanket per person.

Vale enters Pierce's large, high-ceilinged studio. Works in progress are everywhere. Vale walks through the place looking for signs of life. There is a half empty glass of wine and a bottle on a work table cluttered with sculpting tools. A short cigar is still burning in an unfired clay ashtray.

Vale notices an cpen door, leading to a den, and sees an immense fiber glass sculpture of a human head, He enters.

Vale hears a voice and sees a man sitting on a platform above and behind him.

It is PIERCE, 32, heavyset, dark~bearded, work-booted and plaid- shirted. The plastic shapes around him, glistening like living

organs, are vaguely spleen and kidney-like, and the lighting is. blood red and dramatic: a strange womblike retreat for a strange and disturbed character.

a matic nents 6 pa ae

31. CONT!

iw)

PIERCE

Why don't you leave me alone?

VALE

Benjamin Pierce?

PIERCE

Why don't you leave me alone?

VALE

I need help. Youtre the only one who can give it to me.

The only one?2

VALE

PIERCE

Tien I think you're in big troable, chum,

road

Vale climbs a ladder up onto the platform. VALE ~

I was told you know a man named Darryl Revok,.

31A. CONT'D

VALE

My name‘s Cameron Vale.

Vale extends his hand for a shake and Pierce turns away going down another set cf steps to the lower level.

PIERCE

An admirer of mine. With an apartment in Paris.

How did you know that?

PIERCE

I have friends. I don't want them, but I have them.

"4 VALE

Scanner friends? *

PIERCE

What do you mean by. that?

VALE

I'm one of you. I want to join you.

They enter the head through the neck, and simulated veins, sinus = cavities and brains are evident.

aL

A.

CONT'D

calling me crazy for years and I'm

not crazy. They've been telling me

that people can't live in my head

and they can live in my head. They

wipe their feet in my head. They

cut their throats in my head. They

do those things in your head too, don't they? PIERCE (CALMLY) They used to. I don't let them anymore. VALE

How do you stop them?

PIERCE

With my art. It's my art that keeps me sane.

about me? I don't have anythin like that to stop them. moss

31A. CONT'D

PIERCE

I don't know what you're talking about.

like myself.

Are you a killer? ;

PIERCE

Then you won't find others like yourself with Darryl Revok.

VALE

I don't understand.....

PIERCE

You're a madman and a liar. Get out!

. Sune wae

314A. CONT'D

VALE

I won't leave until you tell me where I can find Darryl Revok.

PIERCE

Then Ifll get out.

SCENES 32A —- 43

ACTION AND SPECIAL EFFECTS SEQUENCE

Pierce gets up and walks out into the studio. He is met by

the shotgun fire of the five killers. Pierce tries to protect his sculptures from the blasts and goes down with them. When the killers discover Vale, they blow the giant fiber glass head apart. Vale, mustering his courage, stuns them all with his scan, then rushes to the dying Pierce. Pierce can't talk but Vale scans him for information about where to go next. Vale makes his way out through the carnage, gets into his car, and, still very shaky, drives off down the road.

44, INT. DAY. VALE'S HOTEL LOBBY

Vale enters his hotel and, shaky, checks for messages. There are none. He gets a parcel and goes up to his room,

Vale takes a hot bath, and gives himself an injection of Ephemerol to shut out the voices around him in the hotel.

Vale watches tv mindlessly. He finally gets up and goes to the window. It is night. He goes out.

Vale walks down a dark street and stops in front of a large

old building. It is the place that he has learned about from Pierce just moments before Pierce died.

Vale tries the door. It is lecked. He knocks. Someone peeks out from the end of a hallway, disappears, and then is replaced

by another man = JACK. Jack comes down the hallway and unlocks the door.

43. IN?T. NIGHT. HALFWAY HOUSE

Jack pusnes Vala against the wall.

JACK

Jack raises one hand and immediately begins to scan Vale. Vale

does not resist, but thinks about Ben Pierce and his death. Jack suddenly breaks off his scan with a short sob.

Pierce is dead. . (TO VALE) Come upstairs.

49. OMIT

Bx oy

Jack and Vale climb the stairs and waik along the second floor hallway until they come to the open door of the lounge. Jack tells Vaile to wait and enters the lounge. From the hallway, fale sees into the lounge.

Sl. INT. NIGHT. HALFWAY HOUSE. LOUNGE

In the lounge, ere KIM and JIM. Jim is goine through some kind of painful withdrawal on the couch, and is being helped through 1t by Kim.

KIM

Yes, you can. You can. We've all done it. You can do it too...

Jack walks over to Kim and whispers in her ear, obviously telling her about Pierce's death. She turns around and looks at Vale, reeling from the news. fter a pause, she gets up and approaches Vale, leaving Jack to take her place at Jim's side.

Kim comes over to Vale, fighting back tears. The look she gives Vale is very hard. KIM

I know you. You were at the Gallery. You were looking for Pierce. Why?

é

VALE

I wanted to find Tony Gaudi. I need help.”

KIM

Who sent you to Pierce? VALE

(LYING) His scultures, when I saw them I knew I had to find him.

Vale finds himself sitting around a living room table with Kim and TONY GAUDI. Gaudi is dark and intense, with a bitter edge to everything he says. KIM (WITH QUIET ANGER) How did Pierce die? VALE

They used shotguns. Four of them.

KIM

Then it was Revok.

VALE

Butz it couldn't be. I scanned them. They didn't block me. They couldn't have been Scanners, .

Ephemerol. They can't scan. That's why they use guns.

GAUDI

Pierce didn't use Ephemerol. And neither do we. It's a dependency we can't afford. It's hard to find, and when you do find it, it makes you weak. Very weak.

VALE

Then why does Revok let his people take it?

KIM

Let us tell you about Darryl Revok. The first we know of him was his escape from a mental institution when he was 23. That was just after he invented the word "Scanner". He used it to define himselr, and it gave him strength.

GAUDI

Then he came looking for us, for all the others like himself. Somehow he knew where we were hidden, the insane garbage, the trash. And we thought he.was a saint. The first Scanner Saint. He told us we were valuable when we had been taught to believe

we were worthless, and we loved him for it. ,

~ but the earth would live in wonder forever because we had lived on it.

52A. CONT'D

There is a long pause.

VALE

And then?

KIM

Cameron... have you ever sat ina room with other Scanners before?

VALE

Not until today.

KIM

If you do, and if you all scan together...your minds begin to

Flow into each other until they become one mind, one nervous system, one soul...iIt's an incredibly beautiful and frightening experience.

52A.

CONT'D

un o

VALE

Why frightening?

GAUDI

Because you lose yourself in the group self. You lose your will to the group will.

The power that a small number of us can generate when we focus our scan together is fantastic...but it can't be controlled by any single person.

KIM

We wanted to explore that communal experience, but Revok's ego was too strong. He wouldn't join us. He couldn't allow himself to dissolve into uS. He wanted to control us. That‘s when we left.

GAUDI

Ben Pierce stayed with Revok. de refused ta believe that Revok was beginning to go mad again, madder than the worst of us has ever been. But then, even Pierce had to leave, and that's when Revok started to kill us,

KIM

We wanted Pierce to stay with us, but he wouldn't. He couldn't stand living with anyone. He denied he was a Scanner. He rejected both Revok and Tony.

ut

Kh

KIM

No, then we're as bad as he is.

KIM

What?

It's my art that keeps me sane, My art. Sane.

GAUDI

What are you saying?

uy bo

S52A. CONT'D

Gaudi and Kim look at each other. If they get Vale to participate in @ group scan, they can share what's left of Pierce.

wn

In the attic of the halfway house, Vale takes part in a group scan with Gaudi, Kim, Meryl, Craig, and two other Scanners. They sit in a circle on pillows. A scan tone begins to revolve around the room from one to the other.

The black van we saw at Pierce's farm pulls up to the curb and Grops off Braid and Patch, two of the four killers who murdered Pierce. The two men carry guitar cases into the halfway house

as the van puils away.

Braid and Patch go up the stairs to the second floor.

The scan tone accelerates around the room from person to person, mind to mind, spine to spine, gathering momentum as it goes.

Random images beaqin to flash, contributions from each mind pre- sent. The scan tone revolves faster and faster, skewering the images and collecting them like beads on a string. Vale's head starts to loll as his mind begins to dissolve into the bubbling cauldron which is melting everyone elsé's mind as well. Hearts are pumping, chests are heaving as all the voices and all the images coalesce into one clear voice, one clear succession of images. The minds and nervous systems of six Scanners have combined to form one common mind, one nervous system.

Vale rolls his head back and forth against the wall behind him, his eyes bright though unseeing, a smile of insane ecstasy on his face. He is at peace. He belongs.

Braid and Patch stop in the hailway of the second floor to open their guitar cases. Inside each case is a shotgun. They remove the guns and start up the stairway leading to the attic. Jack suddenly walks out of a room and almost bumps into them. Before he can scan them, they smash him across the face with the barrels of their guns and throw him over the bannister. Jack crashes onto the stairs, unconscious. Braid and Patch run up the attic stairs.

The imagery of Vale's recent past is starting to bleed into the pool of the group mind when the door smashes open and Braid and Patch burst into the room.

fore anyone has a chance to react, Braid blows Meryl away with last of his shotgun. Patch tries to catch Gaudi but misses blows cut the attic window instead. The remaining Scanners tomatically turn on the intruders, hands still linked, and

cus their single group scan on the intruders. Vaie has no choice but to focus himself along with the others: he can't

cell whicn part of it is him and which is the others in any case.

h@ tf Gi bs a cr Oa oi rh

be "Ono

Braid swings his shotgun around as a screaming, whirling scan pegins to hit him. His movements slow down, his brain processes congealing until he can barely function.

Patch too seems to be caught in some invisible tar pit, his muscles straining to re-direct his weapon. Suddenly, Braid screams. Flames shoot out of his mouth and torch the wall- paper, the rugs, the pamphlets and mounds of old newspapers. The walls burst into flame, engulfing the paralysed Patch. ~

Gaudi releases Vale and grabs Flavia hustling her out the door before the flames have blocked it. Craig and Jim try to drag

Meryl out the door after them, but Gaudi screams at them to leave her.

Gaudi then grabs the stunned Vale and shoves him out the door too, leaving Patch and Braid to disappear in the flame~filled attic room,

S9. INT. NIGHT. STAIRWAY

Kim, Vale, Craig and Jim stumble madly down the stairs as smoke pours down after them. The place is in a panic, devotees scat~ tering everywhere.

Gaudi leads the others out a side entrance and into the back lot of the Institute, where an old school bus van is parked. Craig and Jim jump into the two front seats, while Vale, Gaudi, and Kim get into the back. The van screeches away from the Institute, lit by the flames which are pouring cut of the attic window and licking up onto the roof.

KIM

Now I know what it feels like to die.

VALE

{ALSO IN A STATE OF SHOCK) I'm...i'm a scanner.

ConSec found me.

GAUDI

ConSec? What did those fascists want you for?

But they didn’t tell me anything about you...

The black van pulls alcngside. GAUDI

Everybody down! Get down!

The van cruises along a crowded city street. An unmarked and immaculately glistening black van suddenly jerks out of traffic behind it and squeals its tires as it pulls up alongside.

A row of métal panels along the side of the black van slide back to reveal a line of six shotgun muzzles. Without hesitation, the shotguns begin a withering random fire at the Materiology van, like one pirate ship opening fire broadside on another.

Both tires blow immediately on the Materiology van and its side starts to be dismantled like a sardine can. The surrounding traffic goes crazy.

The two men in the front seats are taken out by the withering shotgun fire. The trio in the back seat hit the floor as metal and thick pile carpeting shreds shower over their heads. The van swerves violently.

The van leaps the curb and smashes into the immense plate glass window of a record store, taking out a fire hydrant as it goes. The van blasts right through the window frame and into the depths of the store. The black van screeches off into the night. ~

The van plows down the length of the record store ~- fortunately closed for the night - smashing endless counters and racks of records to smithereens. The van finally comes to a stop after it clips the bottom out of a support pillar and slides up against a wall on its side.

The fire hydrant sprays water in a huge, gushing fountain as

cars screech to a halt and passersby gawk in amazement at the carnage. A few brave souls peek through the gaping hole left

by the van in the store front. The broken window has set off

a theft alarm which is now ringing madly. A man with a moustache emerges from the shadows to watch.

Vale crawls in a bloodied daze through the front window of the van. He stumbles over to the side door of the van, whicn is now horizontal, and pulls furicusly on it until it cpens. Flames lick out of the van's interior and crackle skyward. When the flames hit the store's sprinkler system triggers, the sprinklers jet on all over the store.

Vale drags himself up the side of the van and peers down inside the box, shielding his face from the flames with his hand.

Inside the box Vale sees Kim cradling Gaudi's head with her hands. Gaudi is dead.

Kim has tears in her eyes. She concentrates until her head begins to shake.

KIM

Tony ~ wake up - get up ~-

VALE

He's dead.

68. CONT'D

Kim accelerates her scan until she's sucking a torrent of sounds and images from his mind inte hers. A buzz saw is cutting through Gaudi's brain; he goes into an epileptic fit; but still Kim slices her scan through his brain, picking up every vestige of what memories and experiences made up Tony Gaudi. Suddenly, Gaudi stops shaking, then a spasm or two and he is gone.

Kim bursts into tears, sobbing uncontrollably. Vale leaps into the box and lifts her out as police sirens begin to wail.

KIM

VALE

We've got to get out}? {KIM RESISTS) Cimon...It'll blow. Let's go.

Vale drags Kim out of the van box and hustles her down towards the back of the store as a platoon of firemen come in the front.

As Vale and Kim pull open a door into the record stere's base- ment, two cops who have come in with the firemen see them. They immediately start to sprint after them.

Kim is in a daze. Vale shoves her down the hasement stairs and slams the door behind them.

70. j%XINT. NIGHT. RECORD STORE

Vale and Kim stumble down the stairs and slip among the aisle of records in boxes until they find a corner to hide. Sirens and crowd sounds filter in from outside.’ They don't realise that Flick (one of Revok's agents} is following them down and stalking them with a shotgun throughout their dialogue.

CONT'D

VALE

We'll be all right here for a while.

VALE

What is?

VALE

It can still happen.

You? You're barely human.

VALE

That's very cruel.

alone. So hopeless.....

Vale hugs her. Flick fires his shotgun and misses. Vale’s scan instantly brings Flick to his knees. Fiick begins to cry - Vale has somehow routed Kim's despair through Flick‘s nervous

system.

Vale goes over to Flick, lifts his head, starts to scan him, to search his brain for information. Kim comes over to Vale.

SCENE 70 PICK UP

Flick has dropped his shotgun and fallen to his knees under the power of Vale's scan. Vale and Kim stand over him. Flick takes out a bottle and holds it up to them. It is a bottle of Ephemerol, and it bears a symbol we haven't seen before.

KIM

What are you doing?

VALE

He must have something that can lead us to Revok.

KIM

No, not me.

ror tf: sy

@ 70. CONT'D

VALE

Look, there it is. That's it.

RIM

Didn't you hear me? I said I don't care anymore ~

Hide out in some suburb for ten years, trying to pretend you're a normal, just waiting for Revok to find you and kill

you? KIM @ TI don't nave te wait. There have been sO many Suicides already.

VALE

But you'll betray them all, betray the dead.

KIM

{IN TEARS) But what can I do? What can anybody do?

VALE

Together we can scan this man, this zombie, We can find out from him where Revok gets his Ephemeroil. We can go there...together, Follow it all the way back i Revok himself.

BIOCARBON-AMALGAMATE LABORATORY - SEQUENCE SCENE SUMMARIES

Establishing shot of the B-A Lab building, which is big, poured concrete, ultra-modern efficient.

72. j|$INT. MORNING. B~-A LAB. MANY AREAS OF THE LAB

Vale takes Flick's place working in this space-ship-like lab. Everybody wears space suits to protect them from inhaling the dust of the drug they are producing. Vale soon realizes that the drug is Ephemerol. He lets Flick's neurons guide him like an automaton through the many areas of the lab. All through these scenes there is a very dense drug smog in the air. Suddenly, Vale sees Darryl Revok through the glass ef the control room high above the lab floor. Vale climbs a ladder and tries to reach him but by the time he gets there Revok is gone. Alone in the control room Vale reads a computer monitor. He learns that the production cf Ephemerol is controlled by something called the RIPE program and that it is run by ConsSec.

73. §EXT. NIGHT. DOWNTOWN GREASY SPOON RESTAURANT

Vale makes a call from a phone booth. Kim sits, nervously watching the odd car that cruises by.

74. .INT, RACQUET CLUB

Vale listens to the phone ringing at the other end of the line. Ruth finally answers, in the oak-panelled trophy room of the Racquet Club. : .

74. CONT'D

VALE

OK. Goodbye... Dr. Ruth.

RUTH

Gecodbye, Cameron. Ruth hangs up. Vale hangs up and steps out cf the booth.

KIM

All set?

75. j.$.IN. MORNING. PRIVATE HELICOPTER

Vale and Kim sit behind the pilot.

The helicopter is making its first approach over the ConSec grounds. ;

Vale and Kim anxiously look out their windows. There is a tense

circle of 100 men awaiting them on the grass below. wear Overcoats and carry automatic rifles.

76. j%EXT. MORNING. CONSEC H.Q.

The helicopter lands and a guard runs up to help Vale and Kim down.

A man in a white lab coat walks over to Vale and hands him a

The men all ’

walkie-talkie. Vale hears Ruth's voice squawk out of the device's

speaker. As he listens, he looks around the field for Ruth.

RUTH {VO} Good morning, Cameron. I'm going to have to ask both you and your companion to allow our man to inject you with Ephemerol. ConSec insists on it for security reasons. I'm sure you can understand that.

RUTH (VO)

Thank you. See you soon.

Vale hands the walkie-talkie back,

Roth and Keller stand in a corridor looking out a window at Vale and Kim stepping out of their helicopter far below.

Ruth holds a walkie-talkie. A uniformed ConSec guard stands nearby. ROUTH

(INTO W-T} Good morning, Cameron.

I'm going to have to ask both you

and your companion to allow our man

to inject you with Ephemerol. ConSec

insists on it for security reasons.

I'm sure you uncerstand.

VALE (VO)

All right. No problem.

Thank you. See you soon.

Ruth hands the W-T back to the guard, who leaves. Ruth and Keller turn and walk together down the corridor. RUTH Well, Braedon? No apologies? No vote af confidence? My man cane back with the goods. KELLER Let's save the party until we've unwrapped the presents, OK? RUTH

Tt wonft take me long. I have a way with these creatures,

ene ee ne = ceaegeiaeinnny ee ae cm er gee PR Ate ane nes eer

ar uy

768 - 80 CONT'D

KELLER

tT know. And so does Trevellyan. That's why he's asked me to take the informant. You can do what

you like with Vale. RUTH os (SHAKEN) But it won't work.

Police-state tactics simply will not work.

Keller stops at a door marked NO ADMITTANCE. He puts a plastic card into a slotted panel beside the door and pushes some numbered buttons on the same panel.

KELLER

a letter about it. I'm sure they'd love to hear from you.

Really? Why don't you send the board

Keller opens the door, steps inside the room beyond, and shuts it, leaving Ruth alone in the corridor.

86, 88. INT. DAY. CONSEC INTERROGATION ROOM #1

ae

80, 82, 8

¢

Vale is ushered into Interrogation Room #1 by two uniformed ConSec guards. Ruth is waiting for him. The guards leave.

success. I'm glad to have you back home.

VALE

Where's the woman? They said she'd be here.

ony on

VALE

I thought it would be you.

VALE

why did you do that?

VALE

Not even the RIPE program?

RUTH

The....wnat?

RUTH

Of course. founded it in 1942,

86, 88. CONT'D

You?

VALE

Do you know what that lab does?

RUTH

I haven't had anything to do with it ¥

for some time but...I believe it produces chemical weaponry, among other things.

VALE

It. makes Ephemerol for Darryl Fevok.

RUTH

What?

VALE

It may even be run by Derryl Revok.

RUTH

Impossible.

VALE

I was there. I took the place of one

of Revok's men. I saw Revok in the control room. The production of Ephemerol is computerized. It's being manufactured and sent out in huge tankers,

80, B2, 84, 86, 88. CONT'D

out? Sent out where?

VALE

The answer's in your own computer.

The program that controls everything

is called RIPE. It's a ConSec program. Doesn't that mean that there's a traitor right here at ConSec? Someone who's working with Revok?

I want you to access the RIPE program for me, I don't have ConSec computer clearance.

VALE

Neither do I.

RUTH

But you so have a nervous system and so-does a computer. You can scan a computer the way you would another human being. Come with me,

Dr. Ruth hustles Vale out the door and past a pair of confused ConSec guards.

81, 83, 85, 87, 89. INT. DAY.. INTERROGATION ROOM #2

Kim sits waiting. Keller enters and closes the door behind him.

é

KELLER

Hello.

cry \O

formal way. Your name?

Kim Obrist. Your name?

KELLER

Not relevant. Teil me about Darryl Revok's organization.

KIM

Before I tell you anything, I want

to know how you intend to protect me. When Revok realizes that I've come to you, he'll try to kill me.

we need to know. As soon as you do, Revok will cease to be-a threat to anyone.

cane mee nine ete seagate amy canine

co be “ CS tas a cy Un ~ o3

ene you should be afraid of is me.

Keller goes to a panel in the wall, unlocks it, and turns off the video monitors. KIM Why should I be? I've come here of my own free will. KELLER (RETURNING TO KIM) Because I know you’re not what you say you are, KIM (RISING) I don't have to listen to

this. I want to talk to somebody else.

Keller. slaps Kim. She slams back into her chair. Keller takes out his automatic.

Since you left with Tony Gaudi. Why are you here?

Kim doesn't answer. Keller cocks his gun and points it at her.

Bl, 83, 85, 87, 89. CONT'D

Bye, Kim.

Keller is about to pull the trigger when Kim hits him with a sharp scan. Keller is knocked off his feet. A trickle of blood runs from nis nose. Kim runs out of the room. Keller gets to his feet, goes to the panel in the wall and presses the

alarm button.

Keller comes out, calls the guards. KELLER

The Scanners. Find them and kill them. Put it on the air.

Ruth and Vale walk down the hallway towards the computer room. They are startled when a loud alarm goes off.

VALE

It must be Kim ~ where is she?

RUTH

This is more important.

Dr. Ruth walks back after Vale.

$1. INT. DAY. CONSEC HALLWAY.

Ruth walks down the corridor towards the interrogation room.

ROUTH

It mustn’t happen again. It's always been there, hiding, sucking out my joy, rotting away my successes from the in- side. Cameron...I have a way with you, Cajieron...But it doesn't have to happen again. Ripe indeed. Stop the RIPE program. The RIPE program is not, is not really the same thing, you understand. Ne. Not the same thing.

The first time was an accident, fortu- nate for some, perhaps, unfortunate for others. But the RIPE program is very cold and cruel, very cruel...The RIPE program is very cold, very cruel...

Halfway through his confused monologue, Keller enters behind him, raises his gun to Ruth's head, and fires.

Vale comes down a corridor near the computer room and senses that Ruth is dead - He stops during the perception, then exits frame right.

$4. INT. DAY. CONSEC HALLWAY

Kim comes running down the corridor. She meets Vale who was looking for her. They stop. VALE

What happened?

KIM

é

Keller tried to kill me.

VALE

Then he is the one.

KIM

What about Ruth?

(DOESN'T ANSWER)

They both exit.

\O e3)

Kim and Vale waik quickly down another hallway. At the end of the hallway, a barricade is being set up by three guards, one

of them carrying a rifle with telescopic sights. Their strategy iS apparent: use the long, straight hallways to shoot the Scanners before they can get within scanning range. But they haven't accounted for the increased scan field that two Scanners merging their scans together can generate.

es

Zz es

s and Vale approach the three guards who have Ruddled down behi h

j nd an overturned couch, the man with the rifle takes aim

When the rifleman sights through his scope, he is confused to

see - not the two Scanners, but a sixtyish white-haired old

lady walking a large dog in the crosshairs. The woman is smiling warmly at the rifleman, Looking him right in the eye. She says something ~ the rifleman's name ~ although he has to lipread

Over the wail of the alert siren.

The third and fourth guards watch their companion's finger tighten on the trigger, then relax. Vale and Kim keep coming, hand in hand. -

They're getting too close!

The second guard tries again.

Ao

This time the old lady is blowing kisses and waving. The dog is frisking around excitedly.

@ $9. INT. DAY. HALLWAY BARRICADE

The second guard looks away from the scope, trembling and sweating. FOURTH GUARD

(FRANTIC) What's the matter?

SECOND GUARD

I can't shoot. It's my mother!

range already. They're fucking his head.

The fourth guard grabs the gun and sights down the scope, determined to £176.

CONT'S

a a

(SOBBING) Mommy, Mommy...I miss you so much..:

When the fourth guard looks through the scope, he sees the planet Earth as seen from outer space through a telescope.

101. jINT. DAY. HALLWAY BARRICADE

The fourth guard looks up from the scope. Vale and Kim are still coming. He licks his lips and looks back through the scope. The fourth guard pulls the trigger.

The planet Earth explodes in the crosshairs. But it seems to be a very organic planet because it explodes in a shower of blood and guts, all of it heading straight for the scope. The scope jiggles with the impact of the planet-flesh hitting its front lens.

The fourth guard recoils away from the scope, horrified. When he looks down the hallway, he is further stunned to see that it is dripping with blood and churning with smoke and lava:

he has just destroyed the world.

mad a

ee TTT EF CONT *D

he oO to cS

i104. INT. DAY. HALLWAY

Guards are running every-

There is confusion in the hallways. where, trying to raise barricade parties on their walkie-talkies One guard is helping another one along the

without success. He walks

hallway. It is the Fourth Guard who is being helped. in a daze, shaking his head, tears running down his face.

I destroyed our beautiful planet, the most beautiful planet in the universe. Its blood is on my hands,

bicod on my hands...

Keller appears around a4 corner.

The ConSec limo pulls up to the pumps at a gas station in the wastelanée of a suburban industrial strip. The driver, a ConSec guard we have not seen before, gets ;out and cpens the rear door, Because the windows are smoked, we carnot see who it is until Vale and Kim step out. The driver has a stoned, blissed-out

expression on his face.

VALE

Fill it up and then wait for us.

| oon o ui O QO ved ee u

Do we have to do it this way?

VALE

T£ we don't plug into the computer, they'll reprogram it.

Vale gets into the phone booth and picks up the receiver. There is a dial tone. Vale closes his eyes and rests his head against the glass of the booth. He concentrates. A scan tone begins to rise and revolve, then breaks up into intricate patterns of tones. The telephone circuits respond to the tones. The dial tone is replaced with another tone, then another as Vale's scan tone

plays like some bizarre instrument through the telephone system.

i107. INT. DAY. TELEPHONE SYSTEM

A series of shots showing telephone circuits responding to Vale's scan tones.

In the elaborate ConSec computer room, Keller is anxiously ; overseeing three computer programmers as they work their terminals. KELLER What's the problem? It can't be too

difficult to change a program's access eodé .

PROGRAMMER 1

Look for yourself.

Keller looks at the printout now travelling across the terminal monitor's screen. It reads: RIPE PROGRAM INACCESSIBLE.

KELLER

What does that mean?

KELLER

Try it again.

PROGRAMMER 1

'

108. CONT'D

The programmer types REQUEST: PROGRAM ACCESS The computer answers NAME OF PROGRAM? rogrammer types RIPE PROGRAME . Computer answers RIPE PROGRAM INACCESSIBLE. : PROGRAMMER 1 That's as deep into it as we're going to get. KELLER How could this happen? This room is max security. PROGRAMMER 1 We're plugged into the telephone system. Anybody who knows the proper series of access codes could get in here long distance. KELLER You mean someone’s getting that right now?

Programmer 2 looks up from his terminal across the room.

up your internal monitor. Access code is IM 863.

PROGRAMMER 1

Why? What is it?

$

PROGRAMMER 2

Somebody's inside this thing right now, getting the RIPE program.

108. CONT'D

Programmer 1 punches up REQUEST: INTERNAL. MONITOR. The computer replies IM CODE PLEASE? Programmer 1 answers IM 663. The computer responds by displaying a scrolling list of names and

addresses. The names are arranged in three columns. The first column consists of names of doctors. The second names of female patients, one per doctor. The third is the name of a small town

in North America, one per doctor.

PROGRAMMER 1

Yeah, but I don't understand how. He's somehow got inside the no-access barrier.

It's him. It's Vale. He got the code and now he's inside.

I want to hurt him. How can we hurt him before he gets out?

PROGRAMMER 1

Hurt him? I don’t understand.

KELLER

Right now, Vale's nervous system and the computer's nervous system are joined together. I want to cripple them both, or maybe.....maybe kill them both.

PROGRAMMER 1

Well, I could over-ride the Max Security Self-Destruct and blow all the circuits.

KELLER

Do it. Now.

PROGRAMMER 1

But sir, ft'm afraid I couldn't do that without written authorization of ConSec Leader.

Keller draws his automatic and jams it against the head of Programmer 1. The other two programmers half-rise in their seats.

The cther two programmers sit down.

I'll kili you.

i now.

Programmer 1 starts typing furiously at his key board. Red lights start te flash at various terminals and consoles around the room.

Vale is receiving a flood of information in the phone booth. It is not just the list of names and figures that compose the RIPE program, but subsidiary information as well: electrical Synapses opening and closing, neurons firing in the computer

nd by sympathy in his brain as well. Vale's face contorts in

in as he mind rushes at impossible speeds through the circuits the computer, like a train travelling along through an immense t r

Gorm

chyard at the speed of light, with the feeling that an edible collision is imminent.

Bu OT &

a nc

Vale reaches out a hand to Kim. He can't separate the printout information from the computer process information. Kim grabs his nand and starts to wind har scan tone into the phone system. The speed of the circuit travel immediately slows Gown. The printout informa*ion starts to separate clearly out of ail the other purely mechanical-electrical information.

lid. INT. DAY. CONSEC CENTRAL. COMPUTER ROOM

rogrammer 1 unlocks a panel in the computer console and flips a switch under Keller's alert but cold eye.

are you Sure...

Tem

i:

Programmer 1 now punches in his last request to the computer: REQUEST: MAX SECURITY SELF-DESTRUCT IMMEDIATELY. The computer

ie

replies with a countdown: MAX SECURITY SELF-SESTRUCT IN 10, 9, Gp Paws KELLER

Let's get out.

PROGRAMMER 1

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

i106. CONT'D

Keller backs away from the console to the farthest corner of the room.

Keller flinches. All that happens is that every console light and every monitor screen in the room goes off.

lll. EXT. DAY. SUBURBAN PHONE BOOTHE

Vale and Kim are dying together in the pnone booth. Their eyes roll back in their heads, their breathing is ragged and shallow, their pulse slows. But they fight back. Their scan tones, which have Gwindled to almost nothing within the computer's dying circuits, start to pulse and energize. The Scanner pair start to pump their own life back into the computer.

Suddenly the computer's circuits are filled with blazing strings f light, pure energy overloading its chips and circuit boards,

rushing back from the brains of Vale and Kim and flowing like a

tidal wave back through the phone lines to ConSec Central.

Keller straightens up and smiles. He puts his gun away.

PROGRAMMER 1

See? I told you. No fireworks.

Without warning, the computer terminals explode, blowing the three programmers off their feet and into oblivion. Keller is smashed back against the computer room door and blown right through it. He dies as the whole room goes up in a series of furious fireballs.

Vaie anad Kim are flowing their energy back madly through the phone system, their eyes wide and burning, their faces sleek with sweat. The phone receiver starts to melt in Vale's hand. The receiver cable starts to smoke and burn and smoke dribbles out of the coin slots.

Vale drops the receiver. The spell is broken. Vale and Kim are left panting with the effort they have just expended. Transistors start to explode inside the phone box. Vale grabs Kim who is deep in her trance still, and pulls her away from the phone booth. :

When Vale and Kim are fifty feet away, and watched with some anxiety by the gas station attendant, the phone booth explodes, the rolling flames billowing cut towards the gas pumps.

The gas station attendant runs for his life. He manages to get haliway to the next lot when the pumps explode, blowing him to the ground. The limo and its driver, still smiling,

disappear in flame.

Vale and Kim make their way across the street as the gas pump Start to catcn and plow as well.

1i6. EXT. MORNING. DR. FRANE'S HOUSE/OPFICE

A rented car pulls up outside a small town dector's office which is also his house. The house is a well- -kept white Victorian three-storey brick building with a turret and a curved verandah. A sign on the front lawn which lights up at night proclaims that the office belongs to Dr. L. Frane, General Practitioner; Use Side Entrance Please.

Vale and Kim get out of the car and walk up the side entrance toa the office part of the house.

@ 117. IW

MORNING. DR. FRANE'S OFFICE

Vale and Kim enter Dr. Frane's waiting room where several people are seated.

VALE

I'll go find the doctor.

KIM

I'll keep an eye on the door.

YOUNG WOMAN

Uk, yeah, I guess so.

KIM

You're having a baby. That's wonderful.

YOUNG WOMAN

Is' it?

KIM

Oh, I think so. I've always wanted one of my own.

YOUNG WOMAN

Yeah? Well, IT'11 tell ya somethin’. You can have mine if you like. TI sure as hell don’t plan to keep this kid. Once it’s been born, it's on its own.

oxy a

a 2 MART PTS ae poe LIA

Kim is suddenly and painfully scanned.

L7A. INT. MORNING. DR. FRANE'S EXAMINATION ROOM

fe

Vale runs in as the doctor is examining a patient.

VALE

T have to talk to you now, Dr.

FRANE

Will you please get out of here?

Excuse me. I'll be right back. Just relax. Read a magazine.

L178. INT. MORNING. DR. FRANE'S OFFICE

Vale and Dr. Frane step into the dector's private office.

{ g this? Who are you?

I don't believe you.

VALE

Your name is on a list of doctors receiving test batches of *phemerol from B.A. Were you aware that this 13 a controlled drug? hat its use on human beings is still illegal?

VALE

What kind of test?

FRANE

Now, look.....

VALE

What kind of test?

PRANE

I give the drug only to specified patients and I keep a record of their names and how they react to the drug.

are women.

VALE

RANE

ty

That's what it's for. A tranquilizer specifically designed to be safe during pregnancy....Are you telling me you don't know what..... 4

Vale finds Kim with tears in her eyes. A thin line of blood is running from one nostril.

VALE

What's wrong? What happened?

KIM

IT was scanned. The woman in the waiting room.

VALE

She scanned you?

118. CONT'D

KiM

No, not. her. Her child. Her unborn child scanned me.

Glass breaks as a dart comes through the window. Vale pulls

the dart out of Kim but she's losing consciousness. He helps the staggering Kim outside trying to get as far away as possible but Kim collapses on the lawn. Vale tries to awaken her but Darryl Revok is standing nearby and shocts another dart at Vale.

Vale wakes up on a couch in the corner of Revok's posh office at BeA. Revok is pouring himself a drink of Scotch when he notices Vale stirring.

(GROGGY) Kim? Where's Kim?

his computer. By the way, that was very impressive.

a1

CONT'D

death. You should celebrate his déeatn with me.

on earth who has really tried to help you, Cameron - and that's me. VALE

You? You sent your soldiers out to kill me.

VALE

Why would you do that?

REVOK

Because you're my brother, Cam. My kid brother,

VALE

No. That's impossible.

REVOK

Is it? Teli me: who's your mother?

VALE

T don't know.

REVOK

Who's your father?

VALE

I don't know.

REVOK

Wrat‘'s your first childhood memory?

VALE

I...I don't have any.

REVOK

No, you don't, And it's not an accident that you don't. You've been kept on ice. It wes only when ConSec had trouble putting me away that you were thawed out.

VALE

Keep talking.

A bet

@ 119. CONT’

REVOK

You were monitored every day of your - life, but you were allowed to live

like garbage. He knew where you were;

but he never reached out to haul you

up out of the slime until he needed

you.

VALE

Who?

REVOK

Our father, Cam. Dr. Paul Ruth. You're my brother, Cam, my kid Drother.

© VALE

(SHAKING HIS HEAD IN DISBELIEF) Oh, no...no...c'mon...

REVOK

Here...look at this.

Revok picks up an old LIFE magazine and opens it to a well-thumbed page. He drops it on Vale's lap. Vale looks at it. The date -.

at the top of the page is June, 1947. The page is a full-page ad featuring an innocuous bottle of gelatin capsules labelled Ephemerol, Behind the bottle, sailing in some ad man's version of a tropical sea, is a sailboat with huge, full, pregnant sails. The catch

line at the top of the page reads, SMOOTH SAILING WITH EPHEMEROL.

In a little blurry-edged circle of light at the bottom right of

the page, is a woman holding her child up to, presumably, the sun. Mother and child are both smiling dazzling smiles.

he copy in the lower left corner reads, “When you're a mother-to-be, the sea of life is often stermy. You can smooth that sea with phemerol ~- safe, eifective, soothing. EPHEMEROL - for anyone,

ny time that storm clouds threaten." .

+3

fe OF ¢t

®@ lid». CONT =D

While Vale reads the copy, Revok continues talking.

REVOK

This was a test campaign used in 1947 to market a new product. The Product was a drug, a tranquilizer called Ephemerol. It was aimed at pregnant women. If it had worked, the drug would have been marketed all over North America. The campaign Gidn't work. And the drug Ephemerol didn't work either. It had a side effect on unborn children, a side effect that nobody knew about because it was invisible.

REVOK

Yes. The man who invented Ephemerol wasn't too disappointed by the failure oz his tranquilizer. He was much more excited about the weird mutation caused by his drug...and so was ConSec. They offered to finance his experiments, and so’'he sold them his comoany and himself.

VALE

That was Paul Ruth.

REVOK

That was Daddy. . Now, I said the side

effect of Ephemerol was invisible, but

that was not completely true. Daddy

saw it...he saw it in us. He had given

the prototype of Ephemerol to his pregnant @ wife four years before it went on the

market, and then again one year later.

{cont'd}

119. CONT'D

REVOK (cont'd)

His children turned out to be "difficult", until he discovered that the only thing that would calm them down was...nis tranquilizer, Ephemeroi.

VALE

Then what did you need Keller for?

REVOK

That was different. ConSec had a lot of hardware, a lot of contacts. And Keller...he could see where the future was.

VALE

Future! But you've killed our future.

REVOK.

So negative, so defeatist, Cam. You sound like they did. There's a whole generation of Scanner soldiers just a few months away from being born. You and I will find them, Cam. We'll txain

{cont'd}

oa t ive] i.) OQ Pa ty" a

Vale tries to glancing blow.

REVOR (cont'd)

them to be like us, not like Gaudi and his band of cripples. We'll bring the world of normals to their knees. Together we'll rule an empire cf such glory and brilliance that the entire world will envy us.

VALE

You sound like kim. Like Ruth.

Darryl Revok.

VALE

No. You're just like him. [It's as though he's been reincarnated in you.

Operative, Cam. I've been counting

on you all these years. Are you going to betray me like everyone else? Tell me you're not, Cam. Tell me...

hit Revok with something hard, but only manages a Revok smashes Vale back with a quick scan.

REVOK

All vight. We'll do it the other way,

the Scanner way. I'm gaing to suck

your brain out the way & vampire sucks blood. Everything you-are...will become me. We'll be together no matter what,

Cam. After all...brothers should be close, Gon't you think?

Act On

Revok sticks his mind intc Vale's like an ice-pick. He begins to suck sounds and images out of Vale's mind.

Vale goes into a frightening epileptic fit. His heart races, sweat pours off his face, he gasps for breath. Smoke begins ; to pour out of Vale's mouth, ears, nose, Revok is in a shuddering trance with the effort of draining Vale. Vale's body suddenly bursts into flame. As it burns, Revok starts to scream.

DISSOLVE TO

e:

Kim regains consciousness painfully. Morning light streams into the warehouse office from the warehouse skylights. Kim feels ied blood on her nose and mouth, makes a feeble attempt

e it away. It doesn't come off.

ct

(0)

zi

ke ‘Oo

ds up, shaky. Suddenly, she gasps. Revok is sitting . on the floor in the corner, staring off into space. In front of him lies a charred human-sized shape, almost nothing but ashes that have been so hot that they've charred the wood of

the floor under them. Kim falls on her knees beside the asnes. She reaches out toa touch them. , KIM (STUNNED) Cameron? Oh, no, Cameron...

Revok looks at her, dreamy~eyed. He smiles a very enigmatic smile. When he speaks, his voice is Vale's voice,

REVOK

I'm nere, Kim. I'm ..-I'm right here.

4éz ETS othe