Untitled Singularity Story: Intended Revisions
Even though my singularity screenplay was a complete failure, I didn’t completely give up on it until Christopher Nolan’s movie Transcendence came out. I spent years outlining various revisions, but they never translated to a finished product. Here’s some of what I had planned.
More realistic, less conclusive ending. I was going to ditch the stupid time travel ending, and even get rid of Steven Denton’s murderous computer hacking. Instead the story would end with Elliot Preston and Dr. Nestor testifying before Congress, debating a law which would require all citizens be implanted with an internal cell phone. They’re physically alone in the room, as a recent law has allowed Senators to start working remotely from their home states. The only dialogue I managed to write down for this scene:
NESTOR: [X amount] of tax money is never paid because the process is too difficult and time consuming. But if all monetary transactions were electronic--
ELLIOT: Do you know what kind of backlash there would be? People would revert to the barter system.
NESTOR: No, they wouldn’t. They would fall in line like they always do when progress marches forward, and you’re more convinced of that than I am. In fact, isn’t that why you’re here? To fight this before it becomes a law because you know no one will afterwards?
ELLIOT: I will, and I’m not alone.
NESTOR: If you’re not alone, Mr. Preston, where is everyone else?
Grayson’s back story. The revisions were going to turn Janice Randall’s accidental source, Private Grayson, into an intentional whistleblower. This would be explained with a back story in which Grayson is responsible for the botched drone strike that paralyzes Jeff Weaver. His guilty conscience causes him to leak information to Janice about the strike, and he contacts her again after the military starts using Nestor’s technology. This new relationship is depicted in the scene below, in which Grayson tries to discreetly pass classified files to Janice.
(City street. Janice is walking down the sidewalk, looking through her purse, when she trips over a passerby’s cane and spills some things. The man, Grayson, falls and tosses a flash drive in the direction of Janice’s things. Janice gathers her effects as Grayson tries to stand up, his legs not entirely immobile but not very useful.)
JANICE: I’m so sorry. Are you alright?
GRAYSON: More used to it than I’d like to admit.
(Janice helps him to his feet. They talk more quietly now.)
JANICE: Nice touch with the cane.
GRAYSON: Sure, got to keep things original. Hey, listen. What I got for you this time, it’s important. It’s the reason I started doing this. Don’t let them undersell it.
JANICE: (nods) Always a pleasure, Grayson.
GRAYSON: It’s been a trip.
(The two part ways. When Janice is out of sight, Grayson shakes his head and sighs.)
GRAYSON: Nice touch..
David. The revised story included a new character named David, a factory worker who’s not great with computers. He loses track of his finances when his employer and bank go paperless, which is why he and a lot of his coworkers don’t immediately notice their money being funneled to an identity thief who hacked the payroll. This causes so much trouble that David loses his job, and he has trouble finding a new one due to his lacking computer skills. He gets increasingly angry at the world and its technology, and the results of Marie’s trial piss him off so much that he kills his old boss’s daughter (Annie Lancaster in the original script).
David also happens to be a widower whose young daughter has an irregular heartbeat, requiring constant medication. Every night when he puts her to bed he lays his ear on her chest and listens, just to hear her heart. After he kills Annie Lancaster, David and his daughter go on the lam, and eventually run out of her heart meds. They end up in a hospital in Mexico City, where a robot doctor--Watson, from Jeopardy--tells them she’ll need an artificial heart. After the surgery, he lays his ear on her chest and can’t hear anything, because the artificial heart doesn’t beat--it’s a centrifugal pump. By one definition, his daughter isn’t even alive anymore.
LOTR Quotes. Throughout the revised story, David and his daughter are reading JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Passages read aloud by David would draw connections between the book and the events of the movie, comparing cell phones to the One Ring (“Sometimes I have felt like it was an eye looking at me…but I found I couldn’t rest without it in my pocket”) and Sauron’s near omniscience to modern privacy concerns. The Tolkien quotes would also help segue between the different character’s scenes.
Marie’s Trial In the original script I explained Marie’s case with Janice’s highly illegal interrogation at the police station, then kept the actual trial entirely off screen. In the revised version I intended to skip the interrogation and have Janice send her research to Michael Martin, who would then be shown presenting it in court.
PROSECUTOR: I’d like to call to the stand the arresting officer, Lt. Louis Lane.
(Officer sworn in.)
PROSECUTOR: Lt., please describe for us what you found when you arrived on the scene that night.
LANE: Well, the ambulance had beat me there, and they were checking the victim’s vitals when I showed up. They confirmed what the 911 calls had reported, that he was already dead. It appeared that his neck had been broken, which the autopsy also supports. The victim also showed signs that he beaten quite viciously prior to his death, as the witnesses claimed. The defendant was seated on the ground nearby, with several citizens watching her to make sure she didn’t run.
PROSECUTOR: Had she tried to run?
LANE: No.
PROSECUTOR: And when you arrested the defendant, did she resist at all?
LANE: No, sir. She was very cooperative.
PROSECUTOR: In your opinion, was this cooperation only to avoid further charges, or did Miss Genoveve feel she deserved to be arrested?
LANE: She seemed to have some remorse, and also fear of what she might do next.
PROSECUTOR: Thank you. Mr. Martin, your witness.
MICHAEL: Lt., you said my client seemed to be afraid of what she might do next, as though she might not be able to stop herself from committing another crime. Is this normal behavior, in your experience?
LANE: Not exactly. People under the influence of or addicted to drugs sometimes agree that incarceration is for their own protection, but there’s no evidence of Miss Genoveve having a drug problem.
MICHAEL: Interesting. One other thing. If there wasn’t so much evidence supporting it, would you have thought my client was physically capable of breaking a man’s neck with her bare hands?
LANE: I’m not a medical expert, but no, I suppose I wouldn’t have.
MICHAEL: No further questions.
PROSECUTOR: Call to the stand Detective Frederick Richter, who was assigned to this case.
(Fade to a couple minutes later.)
PROSECUTOR: So the defendant had a prior arrest record?
RICHTER: That’s correct. She’d been brought in three times on charges of soliciting.
PROSECUTOR: And soliciting, in layman’s terms…
RICHTER: Prostitution.
PROSECUTOR: I understand you believe this is how she first met the victim. Is that correct?
RICHTER: Miss Genoveve admitted as much. And he also had a prior record of hiring prostitutes, although the two of them were never arrested together.
PROSECUTOR: Your honor, I’d like to enter these arrest records as “Exhibit B.”
(The judge agrees.)
PROSECUTOR: Based on the multiple arrests, is it fair to assume that prostitution is was the defendant’s primary source of income?
RICHTER: Yes, I would think so.
PROSECUTOR: Thank you, detective. Now, if the defense has no questions for the detective, I’d like to call the defendant herself, Marie Genoveve, to complete the picture for us.
(Michael nods his approval. The detective steps down and Marie is sworn in.)
PROSECUTOR: To begin with, Miss Genoveve, do you dispute any of the facts presented thus far?
MARIE: No.
PROSECUTOR: Very well. To continue where we left off, you had an existing…business relationship with the victim, correct?
MARIE: Yes. We’d met on several occasions.
PROSECUTOR: Was he a good customer? Paid promptly, followed whatever ‘rules’ you might have laid out?
MARIE: I don’t usually use the word ‘good’ to describe my former clients, but he was as good as any.
PROSECUTOR: Then you had no particular ill will towards him?
MARIE: (slowly and deliberately, with an emphasis on the word ‘particular’) No particular ill will.
PROSECUTOR: In the security footage I showed earlier, the two of you exchange a few words. Do you recall this conversation?
MARIE: Mr. Faraday propositioned me, and I declined. He kept insisting and I kept refusing. He put his arms around me and--
PROSECUTOR: Yes, we can see that much in the video, and it would make your initial response justifiable as self defense. But instead of running to safety once you’d escaped his grip, you pinned him, pummeled him, and snapped his neck, all the while crying and saying “I’m sorry.” Who were you apologizing to, Miss Genoveve?
MARIE: Mr. Faraday.
PROSECUTOR: And why were you apologizing? Because you were completely aware of what you were doing? Because you knew it was wrong?
MICHAEL: Objection. Leading the witness.
PROSECUTOR: Withdrawn. (Gestures to Marie.) Mr. Martin.
MICHAEL: (approaches stand) You’re not from around here, are you, Marie?
MARIE: No. I grew up in Ohio.
MICHAEL: Why did you come to Los Angeles?
MARIE: To become an actress.
MICHAEL: But prior to Elliot Preston casting you in a film just recently, you haven’t had much luck, have you?
MARIE: I worked as an extra a couple of times, but no speaking parts.
MICHAEL: Why do you think that was?
MARIE: I’m sorry?
MICHAEL: Yes, we’ve covered that. Miss Genoveve, you ultimately won the lead in a potentially high profile film, so you must be a capable actress. Why weren’t you cast in a major role earlier?
MARIE: There’s a lot of other capable actresses competing for the same roles.
MICHAEL: Have you always considered yourself an attractive woman?
PROSECUTOR: Objection. Relevance.
MICHAEL: Withdrawn. Your honor, I’d like to enter as “Exhibit C” my client’s most recent mug shot, and compare it onscreen with one of the older ones.
(With the judges approval, the pictures appear side by side on a courtroom TV screen.)
MICHAEL: Miss Genoveve, could you tell me what seems to be the most significant difference between these two photos.
MARIE: My height.
MICHAEL: You didn’t even look at the screen, but you’re right. You went from 4’6” to 5’3”. Quite a jump for a woman your age.
PROSECUTOR: Objection. Relevance.
MICHAEL: Your honor, if I could request a sidebar?
(The lawyers approach the bench.)
MICHAEL: Do you have any more witnesses?
PROSECUTOR: I don’t need any more witnesses. I have video evidence and a defendant that’s all but confessed to murder!
MICHAEL: If it pleases the court, I’ll withdraw the question, allow the defendant to step down, and move on with my defense.
(A few minutes later. A young Japanese man has taken the stand.)
MICHAEL: Mr. Motiro, could you please describe your relationship with the defendant?
MOTIRO: I was a client of hers once.
MICHAEL: Could you be more specific?
MOTIRO: I employed her services…
MICHAEL: You paid her to sleep with you.
MOTIRO: That is correct.
MICHAEL: Could you explain the circumstances of your meeting?
MOTIRO: My friends and I had flown to America to celebrate my birthday. Our destination was Las Vegas, but there was a layover in Los Angeles. My friends convinced me to pass the time by employing an escort.
MICHAEL: Was Miss Genoveve the first you encountered?
MOTIRO: No. There were others.
MICHAEL: Why choose my client over them?
MOTIRO: She proved more affordable.
MICHAEL: I see. Speaking of money, flying across an ocean to gamble can’t be cheap. What business are you in?
MOTIRO: I am a junior executive at Motiro Robotics Corporation, my father’s company.
MICHAEL: Was the defendant aware of this?
MOTIRO: It may have been mentioned.
MICHAEL: And was the evening of your layover the last you heard of her?
MOTIRO: No. She contacted me a few weeks later with a favor to ask, and threatened to disgrace my name by telling the press about us if I didn’t cooperate.
MICHAEL: Would you describe this favor for the court?
MOTIRO: Miss Genoveve had been researching our company. She wanted to have her limbs amputated and replaced with synthetic ones which we produce.
MICHAEL: Had there been an accident? Was she ill?
MOTIRO: No. As far as I could tell, her purposes were purely cosmetic.
PROSECUTOR: Your honor, I request permission to have these claims medically verified.
JUDGE: Granted. Court will reconvene on Tuesday the fourteenth.
This was as far as I got with the trial, but I did write a couple more lines Michael might use later on.
MICHAEL: If the court will indulge me: a vocabulary lesson. Instantaneous gratification. It means getting anything you want the moment you want it, and it always has a downside. The microwave made it easier to cook, so we ate too much and got fat. The Internet made it easier to share information, and easier to steal information. And on that night, cybernetics made it easier for my client’s body to kill, before she could tell it not to.
Janice and Brennan’s final scene: In the revised story, the final exchange between Janice Randall and General Brennan takes place in Washington at the same time that Elliot is in Congress. For reasons I don’t remember, I wrote it as prose instead of a script:
Janice understood why Brennan had chosen this as a meeting place; she seemed to be the only person in the building. Then again, she hadn’t seen much life anywhere in the city. Since Congress was now allowed to telecommute, many of the businesses they patronized had closed, causing people to leave in search of work. Washington was slowly changing from capital city to patriotic theme park, and attendance was down.
Janice had just walked over to the display case containing the Constitution when the sound of a key in a lock echoed through the cavernous room. She didn’t bother turning to see who it was. He let the door slam behind him.
“They used to have a more grand presentation here,” said Brennan as he walked up next to her. “You would climb the big stairs out front, and as you reached the top you’d see it there laid out in front of you: the most important document since the Bible and the Koran. Then the liberals came in, and now it’s just an anticlimactic ending to the abominable exhibit downstairs. City’s gone to pot.”
“I’m not in town to discuss the museum’s, General. What happened to Jeff Weaver?”
“Jeff Weaver was doing a black ops mission in the Middle East. He went a little too far under cover and ended up being paralyzed by one of our own drones.”
“That’s all public knowledge.”
“It wasn’t,” Brennan muttered bitterly. “The military takes care of its own. We were going to get him the best prostheses available. Robotics. Brain-machine interface. But Nestor hadn’t had many test subjects, and he got a little overzealous in his experimenting. He kept asking more and more of Weaver’s brain until running his body became a low priority.”
“He atrophied,” Janice deduced. “He shut down.”
“His body shut down. His brain is alive and well in a server at the Pentagon. The boy was a fine soldier.”
“Why would you keep using that technology on your own men? And to put it out into the public!” Janice shuddered at the realization.
“Unlike a politician, a military man does his job to the letter, even if it threatens to make him obsolete. And my job is to preserve the system until it achieves its purpose.”
“What system? What purpose?”
“What are they teaching you punks these days?” Brennan indicated the fragile document before them. “Have you ever even read it?”
Taking his cue, Janice began to read, but immediately stopped and lingered on the first phrase. “We the people, in order to form a more perfect union…”
More realistic, less conclusive ending. I was going to ditch the stupid time travel ending, and even get rid of Steven Denton’s murderous computer hacking. Instead the story would end with Elliot Preston and Dr. Nestor testifying before Congress, debating a law which would require all citizens be implanted with an internal cell phone. They’re physically alone in the room, as a recent law has allowed Senators to start working remotely from their home states. The only dialogue I managed to write down for this scene:
NESTOR: [X amount] of tax money is never paid because the process is too difficult and time consuming. But if all monetary transactions were electronic--
ELLIOT: Do you know what kind of backlash there would be? People would revert to the barter system.
NESTOR: No, they wouldn’t. They would fall in line like they always do when progress marches forward, and you’re more convinced of that than I am. In fact, isn’t that why you’re here? To fight this before it becomes a law because you know no one will afterwards?
ELLIOT: I will, and I’m not alone.
NESTOR: If you’re not alone, Mr. Preston, where is everyone else?
Grayson’s back story. The revisions were going to turn Janice Randall’s accidental source, Private Grayson, into an intentional whistleblower. This would be explained with a back story in which Grayson is responsible for the botched drone strike that paralyzes Jeff Weaver. His guilty conscience causes him to leak information to Janice about the strike, and he contacts her again after the military starts using Nestor’s technology. This new relationship is depicted in the scene below, in which Grayson tries to discreetly pass classified files to Janice.
(City street. Janice is walking down the sidewalk, looking through her purse, when she trips over a passerby’s cane and spills some things. The man, Grayson, falls and tosses a flash drive in the direction of Janice’s things. Janice gathers her effects as Grayson tries to stand up, his legs not entirely immobile but not very useful.)
JANICE: I’m so sorry. Are you alright?
GRAYSON: More used to it than I’d like to admit.
(Janice helps him to his feet. They talk more quietly now.)
JANICE: Nice touch with the cane.
GRAYSON: Sure, got to keep things original. Hey, listen. What I got for you this time, it’s important. It’s the reason I started doing this. Don’t let them undersell it.
JANICE: (nods) Always a pleasure, Grayson.
GRAYSON: It’s been a trip.
(The two part ways. When Janice is out of sight, Grayson shakes his head and sighs.)
GRAYSON: Nice touch..
David. The revised story included a new character named David, a factory worker who’s not great with computers. He loses track of his finances when his employer and bank go paperless, which is why he and a lot of his coworkers don’t immediately notice their money being funneled to an identity thief who hacked the payroll. This causes so much trouble that David loses his job, and he has trouble finding a new one due to his lacking computer skills. He gets increasingly angry at the world and its technology, and the results of Marie’s trial piss him off so much that he kills his old boss’s daughter (Annie Lancaster in the original script).
David also happens to be a widower whose young daughter has an irregular heartbeat, requiring constant medication. Every night when he puts her to bed he lays his ear on her chest and listens, just to hear her heart. After he kills Annie Lancaster, David and his daughter go on the lam, and eventually run out of her heart meds. They end up in a hospital in Mexico City, where a robot doctor--Watson, from Jeopardy--tells them she’ll need an artificial heart. After the surgery, he lays his ear on her chest and can’t hear anything, because the artificial heart doesn’t beat--it’s a centrifugal pump. By one definition, his daughter isn’t even alive anymore.
LOTR Quotes. Throughout the revised story, David and his daughter are reading JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Passages read aloud by David would draw connections between the book and the events of the movie, comparing cell phones to the One Ring (“Sometimes I have felt like it was an eye looking at me…but I found I couldn’t rest without it in my pocket”) and Sauron’s near omniscience to modern privacy concerns. The Tolkien quotes would also help segue between the different character’s scenes.
Marie’s Trial In the original script I explained Marie’s case with Janice’s highly illegal interrogation at the police station, then kept the actual trial entirely off screen. In the revised version I intended to skip the interrogation and have Janice send her research to Michael Martin, who would then be shown presenting it in court.
PROSECUTOR: I’d like to call to the stand the arresting officer, Lt. Louis Lane.
(Officer sworn in.)
PROSECUTOR: Lt., please describe for us what you found when you arrived on the scene that night.
LANE: Well, the ambulance had beat me there, and they were checking the victim’s vitals when I showed up. They confirmed what the 911 calls had reported, that he was already dead. It appeared that his neck had been broken, which the autopsy also supports. The victim also showed signs that he beaten quite viciously prior to his death, as the witnesses claimed. The defendant was seated on the ground nearby, with several citizens watching her to make sure she didn’t run.
PROSECUTOR: Had she tried to run?
LANE: No.
PROSECUTOR: And when you arrested the defendant, did she resist at all?
LANE: No, sir. She was very cooperative.
PROSECUTOR: In your opinion, was this cooperation only to avoid further charges, or did Miss Genoveve feel she deserved to be arrested?
LANE: She seemed to have some remorse, and also fear of what she might do next.
PROSECUTOR: Thank you. Mr. Martin, your witness.
MICHAEL: Lt., you said my client seemed to be afraid of what she might do next, as though she might not be able to stop herself from committing another crime. Is this normal behavior, in your experience?
LANE: Not exactly. People under the influence of or addicted to drugs sometimes agree that incarceration is for their own protection, but there’s no evidence of Miss Genoveve having a drug problem.
MICHAEL: Interesting. One other thing. If there wasn’t so much evidence supporting it, would you have thought my client was physically capable of breaking a man’s neck with her bare hands?
LANE: I’m not a medical expert, but no, I suppose I wouldn’t have.
MICHAEL: No further questions.
PROSECUTOR: Call to the stand Detective Frederick Richter, who was assigned to this case.
(Fade to a couple minutes later.)
PROSECUTOR: So the defendant had a prior arrest record?
RICHTER: That’s correct. She’d been brought in three times on charges of soliciting.
PROSECUTOR: And soliciting, in layman’s terms…
RICHTER: Prostitution.
PROSECUTOR: I understand you believe this is how she first met the victim. Is that correct?
RICHTER: Miss Genoveve admitted as much. And he also had a prior record of hiring prostitutes, although the two of them were never arrested together.
PROSECUTOR: Your honor, I’d like to enter these arrest records as “Exhibit B.”
(The judge agrees.)
PROSECUTOR: Based on the multiple arrests, is it fair to assume that prostitution is was the defendant’s primary source of income?
RICHTER: Yes, I would think so.
PROSECUTOR: Thank you, detective. Now, if the defense has no questions for the detective, I’d like to call the defendant herself, Marie Genoveve, to complete the picture for us.
(Michael nods his approval. The detective steps down and Marie is sworn in.)
PROSECUTOR: To begin with, Miss Genoveve, do you dispute any of the facts presented thus far?
MARIE: No.
PROSECUTOR: Very well. To continue where we left off, you had an existing…business relationship with the victim, correct?
MARIE: Yes. We’d met on several occasions.
PROSECUTOR: Was he a good customer? Paid promptly, followed whatever ‘rules’ you might have laid out?
MARIE: I don’t usually use the word ‘good’ to describe my former clients, but he was as good as any.
PROSECUTOR: Then you had no particular ill will towards him?
MARIE: (slowly and deliberately, with an emphasis on the word ‘particular’) No particular ill will.
PROSECUTOR: In the security footage I showed earlier, the two of you exchange a few words. Do you recall this conversation?
MARIE: Mr. Faraday propositioned me, and I declined. He kept insisting and I kept refusing. He put his arms around me and--
PROSECUTOR: Yes, we can see that much in the video, and it would make your initial response justifiable as self defense. But instead of running to safety once you’d escaped his grip, you pinned him, pummeled him, and snapped his neck, all the while crying and saying “I’m sorry.” Who were you apologizing to, Miss Genoveve?
MARIE: Mr. Faraday.
PROSECUTOR: And why were you apologizing? Because you were completely aware of what you were doing? Because you knew it was wrong?
MICHAEL: Objection. Leading the witness.
PROSECUTOR: Withdrawn. (Gestures to Marie.) Mr. Martin.
MICHAEL: (approaches stand) You’re not from around here, are you, Marie?
MARIE: No. I grew up in Ohio.
MICHAEL: Why did you come to Los Angeles?
MARIE: To become an actress.
MICHAEL: But prior to Elliot Preston casting you in a film just recently, you haven’t had much luck, have you?
MARIE: I worked as an extra a couple of times, but no speaking parts.
MICHAEL: Why do you think that was?
MARIE: I’m sorry?
MICHAEL: Yes, we’ve covered that. Miss Genoveve, you ultimately won the lead in a potentially high profile film, so you must be a capable actress. Why weren’t you cast in a major role earlier?
MARIE: There’s a lot of other capable actresses competing for the same roles.
MICHAEL: Have you always considered yourself an attractive woman?
PROSECUTOR: Objection. Relevance.
MICHAEL: Withdrawn. Your honor, I’d like to enter as “Exhibit C” my client’s most recent mug shot, and compare it onscreen with one of the older ones.
(With the judges approval, the pictures appear side by side on a courtroom TV screen.)
MICHAEL: Miss Genoveve, could you tell me what seems to be the most significant difference between these two photos.
MARIE: My height.
MICHAEL: You didn’t even look at the screen, but you’re right. You went from 4’6” to 5’3”. Quite a jump for a woman your age.
PROSECUTOR: Objection. Relevance.
MICHAEL: Your honor, if I could request a sidebar?
(The lawyers approach the bench.)
MICHAEL: Do you have any more witnesses?
PROSECUTOR: I don’t need any more witnesses. I have video evidence and a defendant that’s all but confessed to murder!
MICHAEL: If it pleases the court, I’ll withdraw the question, allow the defendant to step down, and move on with my defense.
(A few minutes later. A young Japanese man has taken the stand.)
MICHAEL: Mr. Motiro, could you please describe your relationship with the defendant?
MOTIRO: I was a client of hers once.
MICHAEL: Could you be more specific?
MOTIRO: I employed her services…
MICHAEL: You paid her to sleep with you.
MOTIRO: That is correct.
MICHAEL: Could you explain the circumstances of your meeting?
MOTIRO: My friends and I had flown to America to celebrate my birthday. Our destination was Las Vegas, but there was a layover in Los Angeles. My friends convinced me to pass the time by employing an escort.
MICHAEL: Was Miss Genoveve the first you encountered?
MOTIRO: No. There were others.
MICHAEL: Why choose my client over them?
MOTIRO: She proved more affordable.
MICHAEL: I see. Speaking of money, flying across an ocean to gamble can’t be cheap. What business are you in?
MOTIRO: I am a junior executive at Motiro Robotics Corporation, my father’s company.
MICHAEL: Was the defendant aware of this?
MOTIRO: It may have been mentioned.
MICHAEL: And was the evening of your layover the last you heard of her?
MOTIRO: No. She contacted me a few weeks later with a favor to ask, and threatened to disgrace my name by telling the press about us if I didn’t cooperate.
MICHAEL: Would you describe this favor for the court?
MOTIRO: Miss Genoveve had been researching our company. She wanted to have her limbs amputated and replaced with synthetic ones which we produce.
MICHAEL: Had there been an accident? Was she ill?
MOTIRO: No. As far as I could tell, her purposes were purely cosmetic.
PROSECUTOR: Your honor, I request permission to have these claims medically verified.
JUDGE: Granted. Court will reconvene on Tuesday the fourteenth.
This was as far as I got with the trial, but I did write a couple more lines Michael might use later on.
MICHAEL: If the court will indulge me: a vocabulary lesson. Instantaneous gratification. It means getting anything you want the moment you want it, and it always has a downside. The microwave made it easier to cook, so we ate too much and got fat. The Internet made it easier to share information, and easier to steal information. And on that night, cybernetics made it easier for my client’s body to kill, before she could tell it not to.
______________________________________________________________________
MICHAEL: But as we know, Miss Genoveve is no ordinary human. Information travels more quickly through wires than synapses; motors move faster than muscles. All of this combined translates to faster reaction time and lower impulse control.Janice and Brennan’s final scene: In the revised story, the final exchange between Janice Randall and General Brennan takes place in Washington at the same time that Elliot is in Congress. For reasons I don’t remember, I wrote it as prose instead of a script:
Janice understood why Brennan had chosen this as a meeting place; she seemed to be the only person in the building. Then again, she hadn’t seen much life anywhere in the city. Since Congress was now allowed to telecommute, many of the businesses they patronized had closed, causing people to leave in search of work. Washington was slowly changing from capital city to patriotic theme park, and attendance was down.
Janice had just walked over to the display case containing the Constitution when the sound of a key in a lock echoed through the cavernous room. She didn’t bother turning to see who it was. He let the door slam behind him.
“They used to have a more grand presentation here,” said Brennan as he walked up next to her. “You would climb the big stairs out front, and as you reached the top you’d see it there laid out in front of you: the most important document since the Bible and the Koran. Then the liberals came in, and now it’s just an anticlimactic ending to the abominable exhibit downstairs. City’s gone to pot.”
“I’m not in town to discuss the museum’s, General. What happened to Jeff Weaver?”
“Jeff Weaver was doing a black ops mission in the Middle East. He went a little too far under cover and ended up being paralyzed by one of our own drones.”
“That’s all public knowledge.”
“It wasn’t,” Brennan muttered bitterly. “The military takes care of its own. We were going to get him the best prostheses available. Robotics. Brain-machine interface. But Nestor hadn’t had many test subjects, and he got a little overzealous in his experimenting. He kept asking more and more of Weaver’s brain until running his body became a low priority.”
“He atrophied,” Janice deduced. “He shut down.”
“His body shut down. His brain is alive and well in a server at the Pentagon. The boy was a fine soldier.”
“Why would you keep using that technology on your own men? And to put it out into the public!” Janice shuddered at the realization.
“Unlike a politician, a military man does his job to the letter, even if it threatens to make him obsolete. And my job is to preserve the system until it achieves its purpose.”
“What system? What purpose?”
“What are they teaching you punks these days?” Brennan indicated the fragile document before them. “Have you ever even read it?”
Taking his cue, Janice began to read, but immediately stopped and lingered on the first phrase. “We the people, in order to form a more perfect union…”
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