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The main characters are introduced, also hard science, political and religious intrigue. |
| FADE IN: INT. MIKE’S LIVING ROOM HOUSE COMPUTER Sir, President Forest is on the phone. MIKE ANGEL (grumbling and shrugging) Ehhh, put him on. Mike rolls his eyes. We see on his face he isn't terribly happy. He takes several lamb chops out of the refrigerator and has them in a pan and is seasoning them. MIKE ANGEL What can I do you for this evening, Mr. President? PRESIDENT FOREST (OS) (sourly) You could try surrendering and lowering your shield, for one thing. MIKE ANGEL I don't think so, and neither do you, hopefully. I have a bit more faith in your contact with reality than I do that of your people outside. Mike moves the meat into a baking pan and covers it with a special mint sauce of his own invention. MIKE ANGEL (CONT'D) Right now I'm in the process of putting my dinner in the oven, so we have about 30 minutes to discuss something meaningful and doable. PRESIDENT FOREST (OS) I hope you realize that you cost your country 30-million dollars today when you destroyed that laser. I think you owe your fellow American taxpayers something in return. On what terms would you be willing to discuss sharing your technology with the government? MIKE ANGEL Mr. President, I didn't put that thing across the street, your people did. You might be interested to know that I built my 'technology' for well under a million dollars. Mike finishes preparing dinner and puts it in the oven after setting the timer. He pulls another Guinness from the refrigerator and opens it as he sits in a large sixties style basket chair suspended from the ceiling. MIKE ANGEL (CONT'D) I know that Marine helicopter you fly around in cost us about five times that amount, and it would be hard-pressed to land on Pike's Peak. Now as I said, how may I be of service tonight? PRESIDENT FOREST (OS) I have assembled the Joint Chiefs and the entire cabinet with me this evening. We've discussed the current situation as it concerns you and the weapons you are holding. Mike's eyebrows raise and his eyes search the ceiling. MIKE ANGEL (frustrated) Oye vey! One last time for the record, Mr. President, I am not holding weapons, only potential weapons. That's the major reason I'm not terribly interested in discussing them with you or anyone else. I'd much prefer if you and your troops go away and just leave me to my dinner and experiments. PRESIDENT FOREST (OS) I really don't think that's an option for either of us at this point. Since you've made it rather difficult to come and get you, we'd rather you came to us and around to your country's viewpoint. MIKE ANGEL Oh, I understand your point of view, totally. I could call Gallup and get the country's opinion, but, somehow, I don't think that appropriate at the moment. You seem to fail to see mine and the rest of the free world's. It's the same as Einstein saying in 1943 'Yes, I can do that but you can't have it'. He regretted for the rest of his life the fact that it was his equations and knowledge that participated in the Manhattan Project and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I don't really want that kind of guilt trip. MIKE ANGEL (CONT'D) I'm telling you up front, that I have developed a vehicular drive that belongs to me and nobody else. There is a potential danger for major misuse of what I see as a peaceful application. In case you're not aware yet, I have 18 other satellites in orbit that can detect any research that would potentially infringe on my patents. Please believe me sir that I don't mean this as a threat, but I have zero intention of allowing that to happen. PRESIDENT FOREST (OS) What do you mean? CUT TO: INT. CONFERENCE ROOM Forest looks for understanding in the faces of those around the conference table. Receiving none, he adds, PRESIDENT FOREST (CONT'D) We have had a dozen research projects covering the same ground that you say you are using. Those amounted to nothing. MIKE (OS) What I mean is that no one, including the US government, may conduct research in areas covered by my patents for the next 18 years until they expire. At the end of that time, all proprietary specs associated with those patents will be available to the US government and other select countries. I'm sick of seeing my tax dollars wasted by your administration and many previous ones on dead-end projects in the hands of narrow-minded, mediocre scientists who couldn't free think if you paid them...which you did quite liberally, actually. I just took their quickly- discarded ideas and stopped thinking inside the box. 42. Forest again looks around the table at the blank faces of his advisors. PRESIDENT FOREST I'm sorry, but you've lost me on that. The government looks forward to seeing the details of those patents, but in the 18 year interval, what assurances do I have that you won't use your technology against your government or possibly other foreign governments? MIKE ANGEL (OS) The assurance is that I don't want your job! I concur with Will Rogers that anyone who wants to be President should be prevented from running. I'm more than content to sit here conversing with my computers, tinkering with neat stuff in my workshop, and having an occasional Guinness. I don't need the pain in the butt that leading several million people would present. There is a slight pause and the sound of a man swallowing comes through the telephone. MIKE ANGEL (OS, CONT'D) Now my ship that you're so hot to get your hands on, is based on the research of a Russian kid, Eugene Podkletnov, in Finland in the nineties crossed with a motion converting device by Dean from the fifties and findings by geeks playing with 'lifters' in this century. Mix that with a couple of Tesla's ideas on resonance from the last century thrown in for good measure. You had a girl, Ning Li if I remember, who worked on something similar in Huntsville for a while, but she hit the wall and you pulled her funding - which, by the way, was about four times what it cost me to build the entire prototype that's in orbit right now. MIKE ANGEL (OS, CONT'D) None of your people in the 'established' world of physics have a clue how to innovate or think! This isn't anything new. I just mixed several old established ideas together and voila. Not rocket science...well, I guess maybe it is. The President presses the mute button on his desk and turns to his science advisor. PRESIDENT FOREST Is what he says possible, Jim? SCIENCE ADVISOR (sheepishly) No chance in hell, Mr. President. We thoroughly investigated the Russian's experiments and were never able to verify anything. A 5-million dollar fiasco, if you ask me. As for 'lifters' and Tesla, well many crackpots out there actually believe in that pseudo-science. NASA looked at lifters for a while, but never could get anything out of it that could push a 10-pound weight, much less a shuttle. We've toyed with Tesla's notes for the better part of half a century and never got anywhere with them. My gut reaction is that this person's lying through his teeth and hiding something; at very least, he's not saying what that really is. We need some more time to thoroughly check out his claims. SECDEF Lying or not, he's put up something into orbit yesterday from his back yard. NASA and NSA both confirm that there is a new object in a low static orbit above Georgia. Besides the reports from the local police, several other eyewitnesses reported seeing his flying saucer take off with no smoke, fire, or noise. SECDEF (CONT'D) (beat) The NSA also reports that several of their surveillance satellites have detected new synchronous satellites in their areas. No other country has claimed to launch anything for months, so I have to assume they're his as he said. We have no idea how he did it, but we know there's new junk in space that we didn't put there or even detect going up. The French, Chinese, Russians-- nobody's launched anything except missions to the ISA, and I, for one, want to know just how he did that. I also want to know how he managed to build a spacecraft in his backyard with no red flags going up in the intel community and nobody else noticing! The President presses mute again and Mike's laughter from the speaker cuts him off abruptly. MIKE (OS) First off, tell Jim I accomplished it by using my head, not the deep pockets of some bureaucracy. Secondly, I'm not really a crackpot. Third, it's not pseudo-science and fourth, I'm being entirely truthful. Your people are just incompetent because they happen to believe the textbooks. PRESIDENT FOREST (shouting angrily) I had you on hold, Mr. Angelskov. Forest looks to the wide screen television in one wall. The sound is off, but Forest knows that CNN has tapped into Mike's web cam feed and are carrying this "live". The scene just shows Mike sitting in a suspended wicker chair with a can of Guinness in his hand. MIKE (OS) (correcting) Angel. (beat) The White House is wired with a digital phone system, Mr. President. Your 'hold' and 'mute' tell the computer to lift the microphone circuit, but don't actually cut the circuit like the old mechanical systems used to. You also have Internet connections running through the same switchboard. Esads, my house computer, likes to surf the net and make friends in his spare time. Your computer likes my computer, so it didn't cut the line. The President reddens and looks pointedly at his security people. PRESIDENT FOREST You could be charged for hacking through White House security, Mr. Angel. MIKE (OS) Not really; my computer did it. Rather handy at times, I must admit. You can also tell the SecDef that he's correct. Besides the ship, I have 18 other satellites up for communication and detection. They are all equipped with the same type of drive and enough artificial intelligence to defend themselves against anything that comes within 100 kilometers. Even though they are primarily there for communications, they can also detect any research on the ground that could potentially violate any of my patents. I assume you've already gotten the patent report back from the FBI. The FBI Director gives Forrest an affirmative nod. PRESIDENT FOREST I haven't had a chance to study it yet. What does that have to do with anything? MIKE (OS) Because I have no intention of licensing any of this stuff to anyone else on the planet. I can detect any research that would infringe on my patents and I have the means to prevent its development. Why should I give this away to the competition? Besides, the chances that it will be misused by somebody are close to 99 and 44 one-hundredths percent assured. PRESIDENT FOREST What will it take, then, to convince you? MIKE ANGEL (OS) Oh, I'd say about 100 years of honorable behavior and not picking fights with your neighbors. I don't mean to imply that you're wrong, but you're not always right, either. Quite frankly, I put every government on this planet within your 'Evil Empire'. SECDEF Everybody has a price, what's yours? MIKE ANGEL (OS) Let's see now, the annual interest on the national debt is running about $600-billion. I'll take that in a lump-sum cash payment fully tax exempt. PRESIDENT FOREST (quietly) All right, you've made yourself clear, Mr. Angel, you don't want money. There must be something with which we can negotiate? MIKE ANGEL (OS) Well, there are a couple of small stipulations. First, this would only be an 18-year license on the basic technology. I would be free to develop it further independently. MIKE ANGEL (OS; CONT'D) Second, under absolutely no circumstances would you share with any of your 'allies', especially any that have a non- secular form of government. Third, only people whose grandparents were native-born Americans and who have no family ties to a foreign country will be allowed to work with it. PRESIDENT FOREST (sputtering) Now I know you're insane. Those are unrealistically harsh terms, Mr. Angel, and impossible to grant. You can't dictate national or foreign policy. I would have to discuss those terms with State; look at any treaty or pact issues. If you are truly concerned about the welfare of your country, Mr. Angel, you will reconsider your demands. You must see the situation from our perspective. You have given us no real proof of trust. We are not going away; we've been here almost 250 years. My first job is to protect the American people and that is what I will continue to do. MIKE ANGEL(OS) (more than a little exasperated) Look, Sir. I'm glad you see the risk. Worst-case scenario; I have a year's supply of food and water. I admit only a month or so of beer, but I can do without. My power is self-sustaining. You can't get in, but I can leave any time I want to by going straight up in the ship. This field goes up a little over 100,000 feet and I don't think an SR-71 can precision bomb at their cruising speed to drop anything down a small opening. You'd need Luke Skywalker to pull off that one. MIKE ANGEL(OS; CONT'D) You could try nukes, but then you'd take out a little piece of real estate known as Atlanta and, frankly, I can sustain a direct hit with the shield, or I could deflect it off a state or two and then you'll be responsible for taking out a city full of civilians. By intensifying the shield, not even the EMP can get through. SECDEF You wouldn't do that! MIKE ANGEL Try me. Whether you like it or not, Mr. President, I am in control of this situation and you will just have to take my honest word for it that I don't intend to use any of my inventions to harm or destroy any person, government, or country. I will not turn over any of my work to your government or any one else's and that is my final word. If you check with my old C.O., Captain Teramore, you'll find out that I always do exactly what I say. Forest's hand starts to move toward the button again, but the Director of CIA spoke up. BILL MURRAUGH What is that gibberish on the CD- ROM you sent us? MIKE ANGEL (OS) Not gibberish, Mr. Murraugh. That disk contains the complete detailed plans for everything I have here, including the plans and programming for Esads along with all of my notes. I'm certain your people discovered already that I encrypted it. That's a 4096-bit encryption key that Esads and I estimate will take nearly 18 years to crack if you use every super computer that the government can lay its hands on. MIKE ANGEL (OS; CONT'D) President Puchinskiy in Moscow has also received a duplicate copy. The two countries working together might be able to break it in 15. However, since sharing of information is neither one of your strong suits, I don't really see that happening. I'm going to hand you the key the day the patents expire anyway. If you're interested in flushing taxpayer money down the toilet, you can try to crack it early. Who knows? You might get lucky. BILL FREER You can't ship that type of information outside the United States! That's an illegal arms shipment. MIKE ANGEL (OS) (exasperated) Last I looked, the U.S. and Russian Federation were friends and they're not on your forbidden list. Not bosom buddies, mind you, but you're not dropping hardware on each other either. Since there have really only been two great super powers in the history of the world, I thought it only fair to include the Russians in the mix. I'd like you to check the URL of the site I'm broadcasting from right now. You'll find it's on a Relcom server that you can't control. I have quite a few other servers around the globe; so short of cutting the Internet backbone into the US, there's no way you can block me. I told the Secretary of Defense earlier that everything I do from here on out is public knowledge. We have links with video and audio on a global scale that anyone who wishes to surf can pick up. I don't trust the press or the P-R pukes any more than any of you do. MIKE ANGEL (OS; CONT'D) If the court of public opinion is going to crucify me, it will be for something that I've really done, not what some third party interprets me as doing or saying. I have no secrets...well, maybe a couple here and there in orbit, but my intentions are a matter of public record. (beat) Think of it like those porno sites you see all over: Angel- cam. All Mike, all the time. Anybody, including the news services, can tune in 24/7 and can go off on a reality trip. I may be private, but I don't do secrets. I don't want to read tomorrow in the New York Times that I threatened the United States because that's what you leaked to the press. They can tune in and draw their own conclusions. It also makes it tough for you to find 12 people for a jury to try me on any charges you want to trump up. Like I said, I don't do closed-door. ATTORNEY GENERAL (smugly) We don't have to. The Patriot Act provides us with the means of trying you in a Military Tribunal as a terrorist. PRESIDENT FOREST (shouting now) You can't get away with this. This is a total breach of National Security. As long as this is a public forum, there may be many Americans who, like me, will immediately worry about so much power in the hands of one man. You may find, Mr. Angel, that a majority of Americans will join me in a desire to have real guarantees. MIKE ANGEL (OS) (flatly) I can, I will, I have already. You're a publicly elected official; well, maybe not by me, but let's not go there. Anything that you do will have an effect on the entire country. It's their right to be in on what you're up to on their behalf. The rest of you people are sitting there at the behest of the President; therefore, your actions reflect his judgment of your competency. This is one of the few times in history that the electorate can be in on the real workings of their tax dollars. I'll bet C-SPAN is going nuts over this show! Heck, if you keep your flyboys in my street, we could turn this into the ultimate 'Survivor' until I decide to kick them off the island. Forest can see Mike grinning into the camera on the television and his hand starts to go for the mute button again when he realizes it wouldn't do any good. PRESIDENT FOREST Suggestions? GENERAL APPLEHOFF I say we hit him with everything we've got. I can get close to a division there by tomorrow afternoon. Delta Force is already on their way down from Fort Campbell. VICE PRESIDENT LINK Sir, the Senate at this moment is debating a bill to outlaw private ownership of this type of weapon. MIKE ANGEL (OS) (patronizing) Fellows, fellows. You can come up with all of the ex post facto laws you want, but I'll beat you with the Supremes. MIKE ANGEL (OS; CONT'D) As for military force, I really don't want to get into a posturing contest with you because I know I can win. I'd just rather not have to pay that price, though, in funerals for your people. It would be a complete exercise in futility on your part to throw bodies at me. You know I can crush anything you send my way, pun intended. (beat) Look, I really didn't want to have to do this, but do you have any real estate that you don't need that doesn't have any people near it for about a ten mile radius? PRESIDENT FOREST Why do you ask? MIKE ANGEL (OS) I have one final demonstration - well, an experiment really. I need coordinates of a site that you won't miss. Or, if you'd like, by my calculations I could turn the Pentagon into a tide pool of the Potomac. Forest looks around the table as a white-faced Secretary of Defense holds up a finger indicating "wait a minute". He rises and leaves the room. PRESIDENT FOREST Is that a threat? What do you plan on doing? MIKE ANGEL (OS) No, Sir, not a threat at all. Look, I'd planned to test this aspect of the drive on the moon, but it would probably be in everybody's best interest if all of you were witness to it. I intend to create a small quantum singularity at a point you specify. SCIENCE ADVISOR (Blurting) A black hole? Impossible! MIKE ANGEL (OS) (Obvious grin in his voice) Watch closely, then. You seem to overlook the small fact that I've solved the Unified Field Theory and can contain forces that you say don't exist. It's the heart of my drive system, a blend of quantum mechanics with super- strings, and I estimate with proper development, it will allow me to travel close to light speed. I just haven't tested it out yet because your junior birdmen outside interrupted me rather rudely. Now is as good a time as any to run the rest of the tests while I have an audience. GENERAL APPLEHOFF (Stiffening) I think that any good American would interpret that as a threat. MIKE Not really. It's more of a promise. Right now, you and I have each other's full attention. I'm just saying that there is a line that you don't want to push me past because I can theoretically do a whale of a lot of damage to your infrastructure. I don't want to do that, and I hope you believe me, Sir. However, right now, you are the people who are way out of line, not me. I'm just sitting here having dinner with no ulterior motives and I'm not crazy about the thought of you trying a 'Pork Chop Hill' tactic on me. I get indigestion with that stuff. Besides, we all know by now that the poor people you send would follow any misdirection you give them and end up as fertilizer. Not something I want to do. The SecDef reenters and hands the President a paper. PRESIDENT FOREST Mr. Angelskov... MIKE ANGEL (OS) Mike, or Mr. Angel if you insist. PRESIDENT FOREST Here are the co-ordinates you requested. He proceeds to rattle off several numbers as latitude and longitude. MIKE ANGEL (OS) Thank you, Sir. And you're certain that there is nobody near this location? PRESIDENT FOREST Yes. CUT TO: INT. MIKE'S LIVING ROOM Mike reaches for his communicator on the television. MIKE ANGEL Ship? PROTOTYPE (OS) Yes. MIKE ANGEL Did you get those coordinates? PROTOTYPE (OS) Of course. MIKE ANGEL How long to reach them? PROTOTYPE (OS) It will take approximately four minutes to achieve stable orbit over that position. MIKE ANGEL OK. Then prepare a 1 centimeter singularity for one half second. That should be enough. PROTOTYPE (OS) I would recommend a tenth second and a half centimeter, sir. Otherwise you might risk taking too much of the state with it, not including the atmosphere. Besides, the orbital effects are still unknown. MIKE ANGEL Whatever you feel is best. Let me know when you're in position and prepare to give a video feed. PROTOTYPE (OS) Aye, aye. CUT TO: INT. CONFERENCE ROOM SCIENCE ADVISOR (SHAKILY) Your space ship is actually going to create the quantum singularity? MIKE ANGEL (OS) Technically, it's not really a singularity; just a highly concentrated gravitational field in a small area - about one solar mass in the space of a pea, if my calculations are correct. I'm going to have the ship direct its space drive toward the coordinates the President gave me. The concentration at ground level will attract all matter for nearly a quarter mile. Basically, everything will seem to disappear. SCIENCE ADVISOR Creating a black hole is impossible. MIKE ANGEL (OS) We'll see. As I said, theoretically I can do it. The preliminary calculations for the design of the ship that Esads made says we can do it. I've never tried it before but now is as good a time as any to give it a shot. VICE PRESIDENT LINK (LOOKING LOST) What exactly is an Esads? MIKE ANGEL (OS) Electronically Simulated Artificial Development System, my house computer. There is a smaller version aboard the ship, but I haven't named her yet. SCIENCE ADVISOR How can a computer talk like that? I've got voice recognition and speech synthesis on my PC at home, but nothing that can interpret plain speech from several people. MIKE ANGEL (OS) Well, when I was designing him I found it a real pain to type in all his programming, so I developed a heuristic operating system that is not just voice activated, but can also respond with speech. That was a couple of years ago. He since improved on my design by several orders of magnitude. He continually learns and improves. That's the easy part, especially being able to access the world's knowledge on the web. SCIENCE ADVISOR Then it's basically just a supercomputer with voice recognition. MIKE ANGEL (OS) He left supercomputers in the dust a long time ago. He started out as a massively parallel processor with several thousand old 1-gigahertz DEC Alpha chips I picked up on E-bay. Each chip has a gigabyte of RAM for short- term memory. The first thing he developed was a holographic memory storage using silicon crystals. At last estimate, he has about 150,000 teraquads of long-term worm memory. The entire system runs at over 500 teraflops. SCIENCE ADVISOR Tera what? MIKE ANGEL (OS) Teraflop. He can perform over 500-trillion operations per second. PRESIDENT FOREST What are the worms? MIKE ANGEL (OS) Worm. Write once, read mostly. I designed the basic operating system to be like a human's since I wanted him to independently develop things. The short-term RAM gathers and stores data. He then filters it for relevance over several days. Anything he figures is worth remembering is stored periodically in worm memory. He'll discard anything not of interest. The operating system is now light years ahead of my original design. Like I said, he's constantly improving himself. PROTOTYPE (OS) I am in position. CUT TO: INT. MIKE'S LIVING ROOM Mike turns to the screen of the laptop. MIKE ANGEL Can you give me a video feed on the target? PROTOTYPE (OS) (sarcasm) Of course I can. An image appears on the laptop showing an expanse of desert with several low buildings and an old airstrip in severe disrepair. Mike assumes it to be an old abandoned military installation somewhere in the Southwest. MIKE ANGEL You're sure this is an area you don't need anymore? CUT TO: INT. CONFERENCE ROOM The President looks to the general who nods. CNN is still carrying all of this and the image sent by the ship appears on the large screen at the White House. PRESIDENT FOREST Yes. MIKE ANGEL (OS) Ok, then please believe me when I say that this is not a threat. It's only a demonstration of why it's really not in your best interest to keep bugging me. I had absolutely no intention of testing this on the Earth, or of ever using it for any purpose like this. I just want you to understand that I can if I have to. I assume, also, that by this time I've gathered quite a global audience, which is a good thing. I hate repeating myself. CUT TO: INT. MIKE'S LIVING ROOM Mike can see a message scrolling across the bottom of the screen of the laptop. MIKE ANGEL Good. I see NTV in Moscow is also covering this so that everyone can get a good view. PROTOTYPE (OS) Sir, I have company up here. MIKE ANGEL Is a representative of NSA or CIA present, sir? PRESIDENT FOREST (OS) Yes. MIKE ANGEL Then I would heartily recommend he keep his birds at a minimum 100 klicks. We don't mind an audience, but the ship resents anything invading her personal space. BILL MURRAUGH (OS) That's a 500-million dollar satellite! MIKE ANGEL Then I'll remind you again that you paid too much. I built the ship and the computer that runs her for around a mil. I'll also mention again that while the rest of my satellites aren't as sophisticated as the ship, they are all relatively antisocial and don't like unexpected company. They will crunch anything that gets too close. CUT TO: INT. CONFERENCE ROOM The CIA Director looks for a sign from Forrest and when he gets it, he places a call on his mobile phone. He quickly dials a number and speaks into it in a low tone. MIKE ANGEL (OS) Are you ready Mr. President. PRESIDENT FOREST (Glum voice) "No, but I assume you'll proceed anyway." MIKE ANGEL (OS) (to prototype) Fire when ready, Gridley. The scene on the large television in the conference room remains unchanged. Then everything is gone; buildings, runway, cacti disappear in an instant. The emptiness lingers a second or two before a sudden and tremendous wind and sand storm blots out the picture. GENERAL APPLEHOFF (shouting) What in blazes kind of explosion was that? MIKE ANGEL (OS) Implosion. A gravitational force, roughly equivalent to that of our sun, existed for a fraction of a second in the desert. Everything for a quarter mile got sucked into it. PRESIDENT FOREST (Shakily) Where did it go? Forest's eyes are glued to the screen that shows the dust beginning to settle and a large crater appears where the old base once stood. MIKE ANGEL (OS) I imagine by now it's somewhere near the center of the Earth. Everything that used to be there was compressed to about the size of a pea so it became rather heavy, probably several hundred million tons, and sank. You can inspect the hole anytime you want because there won't be any residual radioactivity or anything else in the area. In fact, you've got a nice valley in an otherwise dull landscape. PRESIDENT FOREST (still shaken, now white) I'll think about it and let you know on your demands. MIKE ANGEL (OS) I've made no demands. You're the one that's surrounded my house and have been badgering me. I have only one wish and that is to be left alone - to see a nice quiet street outside my house again, instead of a bivouac area for the 3rd Army. There is a loud click as the connection is terminated. CUT TO: INT. MIKE'S KITCHEN Mike takes his meal out of the oven, sets it out on a plate, and grabs a bottle of wine from the refrigerator. HOUSE COMPUTER (OS) They have disconnected. MIKE ANGEL The singularity worked. Mike pours a small glass of a domestic Chardonnay. HOUSE COMPUTER (OS) Of course it did. Did you expect it not to? MIKE ANGEL We hadn't tested it before and experiments rarely work the first time. HOUSE COMPUTER (OS) Mine do. MIKE ANGEL Remind me to work on your ego subroutine. Tell the ship to come back and stand by, please. HOUSE COMPUTER (OS) She's already here and waiting. Do you want me to cut the streaming audio and video? MIKE ANGEL Heck no. Let the news services pick what they want, and the rest of the world can be voyeurs. This is all Mike all the time...remember? Besides, they'll know that good food is really where it's at. HOUSE COMPUTER (OS) (extreme sarcasm) Talk about my ego, we need to work on yours. MIKE ANGEL We'll work some on your sarcasm, too. Nobody likes a smart-ass! Especially a mechanical one. HOUSE COMPUTER I have no moving parts, sir. MIKE ANGEL Drop it! DISSOLVE TO: INT. CONFERENCE ROOM The president looks around the room, still white and shaking. PRESIDENT FOREST Well, gentlemen, where do we go from here? GENERAL APPLEHOFF Even though he seems invulnerable, we still have several missile platforms in orbit left over from the eighties. We could position one over his shield and just drop one or two on him. NSA DIRECTOR Yeah, right. Best case, we destroy him and all his equipment. Worst case, he moves your bomb to the Arlington suburbs. I'd call that a lose-lose situation. Besides, you think 20-year-old guidance systems can hit a 100- yard hole from 500 miles up? Don't forget, he has that monstrosity up there over his head standing guard. PRESIDENT FOREST I would agree, too. But we can't roll over and play dead to this man who is sitting on a weapon of mass destruction that we have absolutely no defense against. Worse than that, this weapon is intelligent. Taking out this man would only open us up to his computers. BILL FREER We could keep him pinned down indefinitely. PRESIDENT FOREST I believe him when he says that ship of his could navigate down the shield around his house. He can sit there mocking us until he wants to leave. Then he will. BILL MURRAUGH What's the range on that old 'Star Wars' laser we still have up there? We might be able to take out the weapon he has up there by blindsiding him. SCIENCE ADVISOR If I understood him, each of his satellites can detect us and have similar capabilities. We start moving weapons around and he's going to take measures against us. He's already threatened the Pentagon. GENERAL APPLEHOFF We can't just sit here and do nothing, that would be tantamount to surrender. PRESIDENT FOREST Do we have a viable alternative? If he's to be believed, he doesn't want to be the aggressor here. Can we work with him? SCIENCE ADVISOR I don't know. He is a total wild card. He's shown so far that he doesn't want anything except left alone. He hasn't done anything except retaliate. I need time to study what we've seen before I can give you an educated guess as to his capabilities. PRESIDENT FOREST (snorting) I've already seen his capabilities! I don't need guesses, I need answers. GENERAL APPLEHOFF I want those weapons where they belong, and that's entirely under our control. This nut could potentially issue an ultimatum for the government to resign and that is an unacceptable risk. PRESIDENT FOREST He hasn't done that so far. I don't see where he intends to...yet. The President's Chief of Staff comes in with some papers and hands them to the President. VICE PRESIDENT LINK Whatever you decide, it had better be gentle. The global polls are running almost 54% in favor of this character and already 35% against the government's handling of him. People here are getting a little hostile against the persecution of one private citizen by the entire force of the government. His publicity is showing us off as pompous bullies. And besides, he's holding us off! PRESIDENT FOREST Can we kill his access to the press? VICE PRESIDENT LINK Doubtful. He was right that we'd have to cut the Internet backbone. If he can access a server within any country, there's almost no way we can get him. Besides, he'd probably just jump servers every time we shut one down. Since he's using satellite communication, he can pop up anywhere. PRESIDENT FOREST I want everyone here to get their staff working on ideas tonight. We'll meet back here at eight in the morning. His dismissal has everyone up and hurrying for the door. The President stops his press secretary. PRESIDENT FOREST I'm going to need an official statement by nine tomorrow or the press is going to eat me alive. PRESS SECRETARY Which way is it to go? PRESIDENT FOREST (tired) Better get me two: one each way. Unless someone comes up with a bright idea, this guy is untouchable and we are going to look like the idiots if we don't back off. PRESS SECRETARY Will do. DISSOLVE TO: INT. NAVAL OFFICE A man in Naval fatigues, CAPTAIN BARRY TERAMORE, is sitting at a desk filling out paperwork. He has eagles on his collar. Another man knocks briefly and enters. XO Captain, the CNO is on the phone. CAPTAIN TERAMORE What? I'm just commander of the Seal Training Unit. What does the Chief of Naval Operations want with me? XO Unknown, sir. He's on line two. The captain reaches for the telephone on his desk. CAPTAIN TERAMORE I'll take it here. The XO turns on his heel and closes the door behind him. CAPTAIN TERAMORE Sir, this is Captain Teramore. CNO (OS) Captain, I need to speak to you about one of your former personnel. CAPTAIN TERAMORE Yes, Sir. I try to maintain contact with most of our people. CNO (OS) It's about former Master Chief Michael Angel. CAPTAIN TERAMORE Oh Lord! What's he done now? CNO You remember him, then. CAPTAIN TERAMORE Sir, there are some people you can't forget, no matter how hard you try. The Captain slouches in his chair and we see a slight tremor begin in his hand as a twitch develops in his left eye. CNO (OS) A real troublemaker I take it. CAPTAIN TERAMORE Well, that depends on your definition of troublemaker, Sir. He's more of a major pain-in-the- ass. If you want a job done, he's your man. I've never had a better Seal before or since. Nevertheless, if you need someone to follow protocol and orders, then you need to run as fast as you can from him. The guy is a one-man division. The mission will be done, but he'll do it his way or no way. CNO (OS) I take it you've been keeping up with the news, then? CAPTAIN TERAMORE No, Sir. We just returned from a month's training exercises and I've been catching up on paperwork. CNO (OS) Then I suggest you turn on CNN. Captain Teramore reaches for a remote control on the desk and activates the television in the corner of the office. As the picture fades up it reveals the image of a man lounging on a folding chair wearing a loud shirt and holding a can of beer. The Captain can make out an Air Force officer and several other military personnel walking around in the background. On closer inspection, the scene appears a suburban setting, not your normal military base. The Captain's hand has now developed a distinct tremor and his eye has a full-blown tic. CAPTAIN TERAMORE (hoarsely) That's him. What's he done this time? CNO (OS) He's been threatening the United States with weapons of mass destruction. CAPTAIN TERAMORE Now that's not him! I couldn't ask for a more dedicated man at my six. Frankly, he spent more time and energy coming up with ways not to inflict casualties than he would have if he'd just follow orders for a change. He's not a pacifist, mind you, but he won't hurt anyone he doesn't have to. We got more damn prisoners on my watch than I care to think about. Crap, I hate to admit it, but I was tempted to put him in for the Medal of Honor a half- dozen times for all of the lives he saved on both sides. God, please don't ever let him know I said that. CNO (OS) Let me fill you in what's been happening. The CNO begins relating the events of the past week. Teramore is white by the end of his briefing and his hand with the telephone is now vibrating against the side of his head. CAPTAIN TERAMORE You haven't pissed him off, have you Sir? CNO (OS) You're telling me that he's dangerous, then? CAPTAIN TERAMORE Dangerous? No...well, yes...maybe. Again, it depends on how you look at it. CNO (OS) He'll retaliate, then? CAPTAIN TERAMORE Retaliate? No. Get even? I'll bet my retirement on it! You get him too bent out of shape and he'll make you pray that he'd retaliate. Armed conflict would be a walk in the park compared to what he'll do to your life. He'll make you so miserable that working in the sewers would be preferable to government service. Like I said, he's a one-man division and he's smart. You can't have a better man on your side; and you can't have a worse one against you! CNO (OS) But he's threatened to destroy the Pentagon. Moreover, he threatened to redirect missiles to the D.C. area! Teramore breaks out into a tension-relieving belly laugh. CNO (OS, CONTD) He's bluffing, then? CAPTAIN TERAMORE (voice still shaking from the laugh) No. It's not really a bluff. That's just the Chief's warped sense of humor. Sure, he may have the capability to do it, but Mike would no more put anyone in harm's way than you'd deliberately run down a nun in a crosswalk. I'll bet he kept a straight face when he told you that, that warped son of a...! CNO (OS) But he can actually do it. He demonstrated it to us! CAPTAIN TERAMORE (calming down) I know. You know he can. He knows that you know it, and that's why it's funny. CAPTAIN TERAMORE (CONT'D) He'll keep you just off-balance enough with doubt until he strong-arms you into agreeing with him. That's just his way. Believe me Sir; I don't think the man even uses insecticide. He has always come up with a way to minimize any collateral damage. But don't get on his bad side because he will make everyone on the Hill wish they'd flunked out of law school and gone into ditch-digging. CNO (OS) The man has totally ignored and insulted the President, Captain. CAPTAIN TERAMORE Good...I mean, I always thought it was just me that he tortured like that. CNO (OS) Captain? CAPTAIN TERAMORE Sir, I don't think the Pope or even Jesus Christ could get through that thick skull of the Chief's when he thinks he's right. He gave me an ulcer, a nervous tic, and I received at least a half-dozen reprimands for me not following orders to the letter when I had the misfortune of being his keeper. The only authority he respects is his own. Please assure the President that it's not personal - and assure him that he's not going to win, either. The Chief doesn't dig in this hard unless he knows he's holding all the cards. CNO (OS) You're saying that we have to give in to his demands. CAPTAIN TERAMORE Oh, no Sir. Angel will eventually give you a graceful way out, but you'll still wind up doing what he wants. He just enjoys keeping you swinging in the breeze for a while. The damnable thing is he's usually right. This guy plans tactics in his head and makes the rules up as he goes along...and the rules change every minute and a half. One of his few redeeming qualities is that if it looks like he's wrong about something, he'll be the first to tell you and he'll make it right. No, you won't give in, but I'll guarantee he's left just enough wiggle room for what looks like a compromise which will end up giving him just what he wanted in the first place and you don't lose face. CNO (OS) He's playing politics? CAPTAIN TERAMORE More like head games, Sir. He doesn't do politics, at least not in the sense that you do - no disrespect intended, Sir. He'll play you like a well-tuned symphony orchestra until everyone is performing his music. It may always end up a win-win situation, but it's rough on the ego and the chain of command in the meantime. In his mind, the chain of command stops at him and there's no higher authority. I'm just thankful that I don't have to deal with him any more. CNO (OS) I wouldn't be too certain of that, Captain. CAPTAIN TERAMORE Sir? The tic starts up in Teramore's eye again as his voice croaks. CNO (OS) We may require a liaison that's familiar with this situation. CAPTAIN TERAMORE Yes, Sir. (The Captain's voice becomes hoarse once again.) Will that be all? CNO (OS) For now. The line goes dead. The Captain slowly replaces the receiver on its hook. We see a wall clock behind the Captain showing it is only 0600 in San Diego. He opens a bottom drawer in the desk and removes a glass and a bottle of Maker's Mark bourbon. He fills the tumbler half full of amber liquid. CAPTAIN TERAMORE (mumbling) Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water... The Captain downs the glass in one swallow. FADE OUT: Ben W. Gardner Sedona, Arizona "I do not fear computers. I fear lack of them." --Isaac Asimov http://ca.geocities.com/vladilyich/ In The Beginning - ISBN: 1-4116-3848-4 Just In Time - ISBN 1-4116-3851-4 Ad Astra - ISBN: 978-1-84728-518-8 In stores and at Amazon.Com http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/103-1761779-3946261?url=search-alias%3Daps&... |
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