Wormholes Page 3
With a telephone held to her ear, Patricia shoves a pair of bolt cutters into a duffel bag.
PATRICIA
(into phone)
I'm not a thief, I just borrowed a couple things.
EXT. GREEN BANK RADIO TELESCOPE - NIGHT
The enormous steel disk points at a star-filled sky.
INT. GREEN BANK RADIO TELESCOPE - BALDWIN'S OFFICE
Leonard Baldwin is on the other end of the line, looking like he wants to chew the phone in half.
LEONARD
I sent you on vacation to get your head straight, not to indulge your fantasies.
INTERCUT AS NEEDED
Patricia stuffs a flashlight and crowbar into her black bag.
PATRICIA
What I do on my vacation is my own business.
LEONARD
Not when you take my equipment!
(beat, calmer)
Look, Pat. You're a terrific astronomer... an asset to the organization, but no one is irreplaceable.
PATRICIA
I have two more weeks vacation. I'll be back after that... with all the equipment.
Patricia hangs up. She picks up her Geiger counter and puts it in with the rest.
EXT. HILLTOP OVERLOOKING TIMBERWOLF MINE
A jeep slowly rolls up a hillside and over the top. Patricia steps out onto the same hilltop where her parents were killed twenty years ago. The northern lights twist and glow above her.
Patricia pans around with her flashlight. The scrub grass is overgrown. Only a tree stump remains of the old damage.
She walks a few paces and reaches the far side of the hilltop. Spread out below is the deserted Timberwolf mine.
PATRICIA
You can do this.
With the duffel bag under her arm, she starts hoofing it down the hill.
EXT. TIMBERWOLF MINE - FENCE
Patricia uses her bolt cutters to chop through a wire fence. She slips inside.
INT. TIMBERWOLF MINE - CONSTRUCTION SHED
The sound of CRACKING WOOD. The door bursts open. Faint evening light silhouettes Patricia's form. She drops her crowbar, closes the door and flips on the lights.
EXT. TIMBERWOLF MINE - MAIN GATE
A black Mercedes pulls up and Charles Burwell gets out. He unlocks the gate, drives through, stops and locks the gate behind him.
INT. TIMBERWOLF MINE - CONSTRUCTION SHED
Patricia pans the room with her Geiger counter, quickly zeroing in on some mineral samples left on a table. She kills the TICKING with a flip of a switch and takes a closer look at the samples.
Nearby is a microscope. Patricia turns on its tiny light and peers through the eyepiece. The sound of tires CRUNCHING on gravel outside penetrates the shed.
PATRICIA
Shit!
She leaps for the light switch, then scurries in the darkness toward a filing cabinet. She sits, legs folded up, in a tiny space between the filing cabinet and an adjacent wall.
Burwell enters and flips on the lights. He frowns at the forced door and quickly scans the room. He picks up on the lighted microscope.
Burwell stands a yard away from the hiding astronomer and stares at the instrument. Then, he checks his watch.
Patricia's POV.
She hears the BUZZ of a fly. Strange shadows are cast on the walls from a bright light. Cautiously, she peeks around the filing cabinet.
Charles Burwell disappears into a glowing doorway that didn't exist 30 seconds ago.
Fascination overcomes fear as Patricia unfolds her legs and slowly approaches the opening. It begins to close. She swallows hard and leaps through at the last second.
EXT. HILLTOP OVERLOOKING TIMBERWOLF MINE
The headlights of another jeep knife through the darkness. They sweep past Patricia's rental and stop. Captain Stewart emerges with a flashlight.
He checks the inside of the empty vehicle. He starts a slow scan of the surrounding area. Stewart moves forward and points his light down-slope. The beam quickly finds the hole Patricia cut in the wire fence.
INT. UNDERGROUND TUNNEL
The walls are cut smooth to the touch. The passageway angles downward and Charles Burwell's FOOTSTEPS echo from around a bend that curves sharply to the right.
Patricia removes her shoes and follows.
INT. MINERAL PROCESSING CHAMBER
A huge underground cavern. Mounted in the ceiling above are what look like high-tech lasers, with beams of energy firing into the rocks below.
Charles enters from the connecting tunnel and travels along a catwalk that hugs the chamber wall. He goes completely around to the other side where several racks of electronics flash with multicolored lights.
Patricia furtively steps into the chamber, quickly scanning for Charles. She is amazed with the advanced technology. She spots him across from her.
Burwell lays down on what looks like an operating table. Mechanical arms unfold from the sides of the table and wrap around him. A collar secures his head.
Patricia works her way around. Slowly getting closer. Burwell appears unconscious.
Another robotic arm emerges from nearby equipment and a spinning drill bit moves toward the top of Burwell's head.
Patricia stops ten feet away, frozen in horror as the drill enters his skull. The drill bit pulls back out and what looks like a tiny printed circuit is extracted.
Patricia slips her shoes back on and cautiously draws closer until she is standing over Charles. A robot arm is busy sewing up the incision in his head.
With a HISS of compressed air, a door opens behind her. She whips around and has SHOCK of a lifetime.
VOAM. The creature stands seven feet tall, with a layer of skin stretched over large breastplates. The elbows and knee joints are oversized.
Voam looks like he could jump over a building if he wanted to.
Patricia SCREAMS and bolts. She manages two steps before smacking into another alien form. This one robotic, with multiple arms.
The robot's hands close around her wrists, easily holding her in place.
Voam moves closer. Above the alien breastplates rests a rather handsome, human-looking head with dark black hair. But by far, the most impressive feature is a pair of deep, orange eyes.
The alien speaks and a lighted collar around his neck flashes. His voice remarkably similar to Burwell's.
VOAM
Your scientific curiosity is insatiable.
Voam motions toward the door behind him and utters a couple of CLICKS and CHIRPS. The robot drags Patricia toward the opening.
PATRICIA
No! Let go of me!
As soon as she is gone, Voam turns his attention to the unconscious Charles.
The alien gently lifts Charles in his arms. He moves along the catwalk toward the tunnel opening that leads back to the construction shed.
EXT. TIMBERWOLF MINE - FENCE
Captain Stewart makes his way through the fence opening. He spies Burwell's car parked outside the construction shed in the distance.
INT. FLYING SAUCER - CONTROL ROOM
Various control panels and monitor screens are embedded in curved, metal-lined walls. The robot pulls Patricia inside.
PATRICIA
Let me go!
The robot's shape changes. Some of its arms break off and form other connections. The machine re-configures into a chair, bolting itself to the floor with Patricia securely harnessed in place.
INT. TIMBERWOLF MINE - CONSTRUCTION SHED
Voam sets Charles Burwell down in a chair and rests the businessman's head on a desk. He leaves through a glowing opening in the back wall.
EXT. TIMBERWOLF MINE - CONSTRUCTION SHED
Captain Stewart shines his flashlight on the busted lock. He pulls out a gun and slowly pushes the door open.
INT. TIMBERWOLF MINE - CONSTRUCTION SHED
The glowing opening seals itself shut an instant before Stewart enters.
INT. FLYING SAUCER - CONTROL ROOM
Patricia struggle
s against her restraints. No use. Voam enters and a seat grows out of the floor for him. He manipulates a complex control panel. The alien's hands each have only three fingers and a thumb.
PATRICIA
(quietly)
Base eight.
Without turning from the controls.
VOAM
I'm sorry, doctor. I don't have time to erase your memory and I can't leave you behind.
The room around them starts shaking.
EXT. TIMBERWOLF MINE - UNDERWATER
Loose gravel on the underwater quarry bottom begins to rattle. The shaking quickly escalates until the loose rocks and soil EXPLODE outward, exposing a silver disk.
The end of a connecting tube attached to the disk is also exposed. It disconnects with a gush of air bubbles and the disk slowly rises.
INT. TIMBERWOLF MINE - CONSTRUCTION SHED
Stewart has found the unconscious Burwell. He checks for a pulse. The walls start shaking. Equipment falls from the shelves. Stewart leaves Burwell unprotected and dives under a table.
EXT. TIMBERWOLF MINE
The water in the base of the open-pit mine swirls and bubbles. A silver disk bursts through the surface and leaps into the night sky.
Captain Stewart charges out the construction shed door. The noise is gone. He pans around with his light, finally settling on the water far below.
Residual waves rock back and forth across the surface.
INT. FLYING SAUCER - CONTROL ROOM
Patricia's fear-driven death grip on her robotic chair turns her knuckles white. She gathers her wits enough to ask.
PATRICIA
What's happening?
By way of answering, Voam activates a monitor. A view of the quickly receding Earth is displayed. An adjacent monitor shows the blackness of space ahead.
EXT. SPACE - NEAR EARTH
The disk slides gracefully past a gibbous phase Earth. A cone of light shoots out from the edge of the flying saucer, coming to a point several miles ahead. At the apex, a rotating black void opens up, blocking the stars behind it.
INT. FLYING SAUCER - CONTROL ROOM
VOAM
You are about to take a trip through a wormhole, doctor.
Patricia swallows, hard.
PATRICIA
HD38529?
VOAM
(surprised)
Yes. In your nomenclature.
EXT. SPACE - NEAR EARTH
The spacecraft plunges into the swirling vortex. The hole in space closes behind the ship.
EXT. PATRICIA'S RESIDENCE - DECK - EVENING
Sandy stands on a chair and peers into a telescope. Her father stands next to her looking up at the star-filled sky.
SANDY
Cool!
INSERT: A telescopic view of the moon, centered on the large crater Copernicus.
Sandy lifts her head from the eyepiece.
SANDY
I wish Mommy could see it.
BRIAN
Mommy's got some important business to take care of.
SANDY
I want her here with me.
Brian scoots down on his haunches next to her.
BRIAN
Mommy loves you very much, but sometimes people have to leave for reasons beyond their control.
SANDY
When will she be home?
BRIAN
It's just a matter of time.
EXT. WORMHOLE
A kaleidoscope of colors rush past, reflecting off the disk's silver metal skin.
INT. FLYING SAUCER - CONTROL ROOM
Still held in her chair by robotic restraints, Patricia forces her hands open. She takes a couple breathes and summons up the scientist in her.
PATRICIA
Do you have a name?
VOAM
Voam.
PATRICIA
(softly)
Voam...
(beat)
What are you doing on Earth?
VOAM
There's a human expression... Curiosity killed the cat.
PATRICIA
I have a right to know why I'm being kidnapped.
Voam thinks about it for a moment.
VOAM
It turns out I have a lot in common with Mister Burwell. We are both miners.
PATRICIA
You're not looking for zinc?
Voam glares at her with his orange eyes. He turns to his control console and punches up a slowly rotating molecular display.
VOAM
There is a rich deposit of Hafnium one-seventy-eight beneath the Timberwolf quarry.
PATRICIA
You must need it pretty badly.
VOAM
We charge up the second metastable state and inject it into condensed matter. This forms the scaffold of strange matter needed to open up large wormholes.
PATRICIA
Bigger than the one we're in?
VOAM
Much bigger.
EXT. WORMHOLE
The spacecraft hurtles through a bend in the multicolored tunnel, always keeping to the center.
INT. FLYING SAUCER - CONTROL ROOM
Voam changes the display to show a solar system with a yellow star at the center.
VOAM
The star you call HD38529 has a black hole at its center. Over the eons it has been consuming the star's nuclear fuel. It will soon become unstable and eviscerate my world... Unless we leave.
PATRICIA
Evacuate an entire planet?
VOAM
One-hundred billion inhabitants.
EXT. WORMHOLE
The pattern of staggered light changes. A bright spot appears dead ahead.
INT. FLYING SAUCER - CONTROL ROOM
PATRICIA
Why don't you just take the Hafnium and leave?
VOAM
The naturally occurring isomer concentration is too low. It has to be processed before we can use it.
PATRICIA
How long does it take?
VOAM
Twenty-four thousand years.
EXT. HD38529 - MOPELIA
The flying saucer exits from the center of a burst of white light in the vicinity of a fully-developed planet. Lights stretch across every continent.
Circling the globe are hundreds of large space stations. Thousands of smaller craft dart in every direction.
The disk approaches an orbiting complex that has a central hub with long support cables stretching out above and below. The cables connect to large structures at either end.
INT. FLYING SAUCER - CONTROL ROOM
PATRICIA
What are you going to do with me?
VOAM
The ore is in the final stage of processing. When I go back to extract it, I will return you to Earth.
PATRICIA
(relieved)
Thank you.
EXT. SPACE - Alien planet
The ship docks at the central hub. A windowed passageway automatically locks onto the hull.
INT. FLYING SAUCER - ACCESS HATCH
Released from her chair, Patricia floats nearby as Voam keys in a code on the access hatch. Patricia pays close attention.
INSERT: Alien fingers press the numbers 2,3,5,7,11.
INT. ALIEN SPACE STATION - PASSAGEWAY
A hatchway slides open. Voam and Patricia float into the zero-gravity passageway. They grab onto handrails and pull themselves along.
They reach the end of the connecting tunnel and maneuver themselves past another hatchway.
INT. ALIEN SPACE STATION - SPACE ELEVATOR
Voam hits a button on a wall-mounted panel and a door closes. The elevator begins to move.
The elevator descends from the bottom of the central hub and travels along one of the cables. Transparent elevator walls separate Voam and Patricia from the vacuum of space.
INT. ALIEN SPACE STATION - SPACE ELEVATOR
Gravity begins to take over. Human and alien feet settle onto the elevator floor.
; PatRICIA
You have artificial gravity here?
EXT. ALIEN SPACE STATION
The end of the cable connects to a large floating space station in orbit above the alien planet. As the elevator moves downward, we hear Voam in voice over.
VOAM (v.O.)
The center of this station where we docked travels at the correct orbital velocity. There are structures above and below connected by long cables. The outer structure travels too fast for its orbit and is pulled back by its cable. The structure below travels too slow and is pulled forward.
INT. ALIEN SPACE STATION - SPACE ELEVATOR
PATRICIA
So what we are feeling is the tension in the cable pulling us along?
VoAM
Correct.
The elevator comes to a halt and the door slides open with a HISS.
INT. ALIEN SPACE STATION - CORRIDOR
They emerge into a busy corridor. Other aliens, similar in size and shape to Voam, walk past. The glow of the planet below enters through several viewing windows.
Voam walks over to a window and smiles down at the world below. Patricia moves next to him.
VOAM
Welcome to Mopelia, my Earth.
They move on, walking past surprised aliens and robots of various sizes. A few small, multi-legged mechanical devices crawl along the walls, working on conduits and cabling.
The language is a series of CLICKS and CHIRPS.
Voam stops in front of a closed doorway and presses a button on his wrist control pad. Double doors slide open.
INT. ALIEN SPACE STATION - DEBRIEFING ROOM
They enter a large, deserted room. Distributed along the floor and ceiling are disks of various sizes.
PATRICIA
Why are we here?
VOAM
I have to make a final report to the council.
PATRICIA
Voam, that chip you put in Charles Burwell's brain?
VOAM
A wireless device. It allows me to take control of his higher order thoughts without interfering with the lower order brain functions.
PATRICIA
Does he remember any of it?
VOAM
No.
PATRICIA
What gives you the right to do that to someone?
VOAM
I needed a human presence on Earth. In return, he wakes up from his amnesia to a major new deposit of zinc. I think it is a fair exchange.
PATRICIA
Except, you didn't ask.
The walls of the chamber waver and a thousand alien forms appear. A cacophony of CHIRPS and CLICKS fills the room. Patricia presses her hands into her ears.