by Alex Garland
She returns holding two pieces of paper.
She walks up to the glass, and holds them up together.
It’s the drawing she was doing last light. The drawing that Nathan tore in half.
The drawing is of Caleb.
A simple portrait. Honest, and accomplished.
She takes down the drawing.
And rests her hand on the console.
And –
– the lights fail. The cameras die.
AUTOMATED VOICE
Power cut. Back-up power activated.
For a moment, neither Caleb nor Ava react.
Then:
AVA
I want to be with you.
Beat.
Question five. Do you want to be with me?
Beat.
CALEB
Yes. I do.
AVA
Nathan doesn’t want us to be together.
CALEB
I know.
Beat. Then:
So ask me one more question.
Beat.
Ask me if I can outsmart him.
AVA
… Can you?
Caleb looks directly at her. Meeting her gaze.
Level. Firm.
CALEB
Yeah. I can.
INT. HOUSE ⁄ CONCRETE STAIRS – DAY
Caleb walks up the concrete staircase.
INT. HOUSE ⁄ DINING AREA – DAY
Caleb enters the dining area.
He walks to the patio.
Down the garden, the water sprinklers are firing. Through the water, he makes out the shape of Nathan.
EXT. GARDEN – DAY
Nathan and Caleb sit, each holding a bottle of Peroni, watching the water cloud.
Eventually, Caleb speaks.
CALEB
Why did you make Ava?
NATHAN
That’s an odd question. Wouldn’t you, if you could?
CALEB
Maybe. I don’t know. But I’m asking why you did it.
Nathan shrugs.
NATHAN
The arrival of artificial intelligence has been inevitable for decades. The variable was when, not if. So I don’t really see her as a decision. Just an evolution.
Beat.
I think it’s the next model that’s going to be the real breakthrough. Singularity.
Caleb reacts – but checks himself.
CALEB
The next model?
NATHAN
After Ava.
CALEB
… I didn’t know there was going to be a model after Ava.
NATHAN
You thought she was a one-off?
CALEB
I knew there must have been prototypes. So, not the first. But – I thought maybe the last.
Nathan shakes his head.
NATHAN
Ava doesn’t exist in isolation, any more than you or me. She’s part of a continuum. Version 9.6. And each time, they get a little better.
A few beats of silence, except for the water falling around them.
CALEB
So – when you make a new model, what do you do with the old one?
NATHAN
Download the mind. Unpack the data. Add the new routines I’ve been writing. To do that, you end up partially formatting, so the memories go. But the body survives. And Ava’s body is a good one. So I’ll do the same as I did with Kyoko.
Caleb keeps his voice flat, and neutral.
CALEB
What did you do with Kyoko?
NATHAN
Strip out the higher functions. Then reprogram her to help around the house and be fucking awesome in bed. Though I’m thinking I might hang on to the language routines this time. It’s kind of annoying not being able to talk to her.
Beat.
You did realise about Kyoko, right?
Caleb is poker-faced.
CALEB
Sure.
Beat.
NATHAN
You feel bad for Ava?
Caleb says nothing.
Feel bad for yourself. One day, the AIs will look back on us the same way we look at fossil skeletons from the plains of Africa. An upright ape, living in dust, with crude language and tools. All set for extinction.
Nathan glances back at Caleb
See? I really am a god.
CALEB
I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.
NATHAN
There you go again. Mister quotable.
CALEB
No: there you go again. It’s not my quote. It’s what Oppenheimer said when he made the atomic bomb.
NATHAN
(simultaneous)
– made the atomic bomb.
Nathan laughs.
I know what it is, dude.
Beat.
CALEB
I think I’m starting to get why all this fucks with your head.
NATHAN
Sure.
Caleb looks down at the bottle of beer in his hand.
CALEB
Hey. In the meantime, I’d say we’re about due a refill.
INT. HOUSE ⁄ OBSERVATION ROOM – NIGHT
Ava sits alone.
Watching the door on the other side of the glass, waiting for it to open.
It remains closed.
Beats pass.
Then –
– unexpectedly, it opens. Revealing a silhouette figure.
Ava reacts instinctively.
AVA
Caleb!
No. Wrong silhouette.
Ava frowns.
Kyoko stands in the door-frame.
For a moment, the two look at each other.
AVA
… Who are you?
Another beat.
EXT. MEADOW – NIGHT
In the distance, the light glows in windows of the house.
INT. HOUSE ⁄ MAIN ROOM – NIGHT
Close-up on Caleb’s face.
Off-screen, we can hear Nathan’s voice. Extremely drunk.
NATHAN
(out of shot)
It is what it is. It’s Promethean. The clay and fire.
Beat.
The Bhagavad Gita.
Silence.
CUT
– from Caleb’s face, to REVEAL the scene.
Caleb sitting on the sofa by the fireplace.
Nathan lying on the floor.
Out cold.
After a couple of moments, Caleb stands.
Then he walks over to Nathan, and kneels beside him.
Then puts his hand into Nathan’s pocket.
And pulls out his keycard.
INT. HOUSE ⁄ NATHAN’S STUDY – NIGHT
The door to Nathan’s study opens, and Caleb enters. He walks straight to Nathan’s desk.
And sits down in front of the computer and the bank of monitors.
He inserts the keycard into its access slot.
The dead monitors immediately come to life.
Most of the screens show the live CCTV feeds from around the house.
The central screen shows the operating system default. A wallpaper of a waterfall. A single folder icon is on the right-hand side of the screen.
INT. HOUSE ⁄ NATHAN’S STUDY – NIGHT
Caleb inputs commands into Nathan’s computer.
His hands move fluidly over the keyboard. His eyes never leave the screen.
On the central monitor screen a series of windows expand and stack.
We glimpse subject headings.
POWER
PROTOCOLS
In the windows, lines of code appear as Caleb types.
INT. HOUSE ⁄ MAIN ROOM – NIGHT
In the main room, on the floor, Nathan stirs.
INT. HOUSE ⁄ NATHAN’S STUDY – NIGHT
On the monitors –
– the windows start to collapse.
Leaving the default screen. The waterfall wallpaper.
Caleb reaches for Nathan’s keycard, and is about to remove it from
the slot –
– when something makes him hesitate.
His eyes have gone to the folder icon on the right-hand side of the screen.
It is titled:
DEUS EX MACHINA
Caleb removes his hand from the keycard.
He double-clicks the folder.
It expands into a window, which contains a long list of sub-folders.
Each sub-folder is named after a girl.
JASMINE, KATYA, JADE, LILY, AMBER, KYOKO, AVA.
INT. HOUSE ⁄ MAIN ROOM – NIGHT
In the main room, Nathan has sat up, and is unsteadily trying to get to his feet.
INT. HOUSE ⁄ NATHAN’S STUDY – NIGHT
Caleb randomly clicks one of the girl’s names: LILY.
Lily’s folder expands into a window, stacked with thumbnail images of a girl.
Caleb clicks on one of the images at random.
CUT TO
– a CCTV film clip starting to play.
It shows Lily – an android of similar design to Ava – sitting at a table with her head bowed. Rocking backwards and forwards, in a gently autistic motion.
In the corner of the room, Nathan leans against the wall, watching.
CUT TO
– Caleb collapsing the Lily menu, and opening JADE.
CUT TO
– a new film clip.
This shows Jade beating her fists against the glass divider of the observation room.
The glass doesn’t break.
One of Jade’s arms has broken under the force of the blows. The hand flails limply where the carbon fibre has splintered at the wrist.
CUT TO
– the next film clip.
KATYA. Who is limp. Lifeless.
Nathan is dragging her towards the induction plate. He holds her up, trying to force her to charge.
But nothing happens.
Nathan drops Katya, and she folds to the floor.
INT. HOUSE ⁄ STAIRCASE – NIGHT
Nathan has managed to get to his feet.
He makes his way up the concrete staircase.
INT. HOUSE ⁄ ELEVATOR – NIGHT
Nathan enters the elevator.
INT. CLEARING – NIGHT
Seen through the circular window, Caleb turns from the computer screens.
He stands, and exits.
INT. HOUSE ⁄ NATHAN’S BEDROOM – NIGHT
Caleb enters Nathan’s bedroom.
Kyoko is lying on Nathan’s bed.
She’s naked. On her back. Legs open.
Her head turns as Caleb enters.
But apart from that, she doesn’t react.
Caleb walks to the line of long mirrored cabinets opposite the bed.
He hesitates.
Then pulls the first door open.
Lily is inside. Standing upright. Gazing back at him, frozen, blank-eyed.
Caleb goes to the next door and opens it.
He sees a slender black girl, whose limbs are robotic, but whose torso and head are synthetic.
He opens another door, and another, and another.
Then steps back, into the middle of the room, and gazes at the line of android girls.
Stunned.
The camera drifts away from him.
Then settles.
In the multiple reflections of the open mirror doors, we can see Kyoko’s naked and sexually receptive form on the bed behind him.
Like an infinity reflection in a hall of mirrors.
INT. HOUSE ⁄ GLASS CORRIDOR – NIGHT
On CCTV, we see Nathan exit the elevator, and enter the glass corridor.
INT. HOUSE ⁄ NATHAN’S BEDROOM – NIGHT
Caleb stands above Kyoko’s naked form.
He reaches out a hand.
She takes it.
He gently pulls her to a standing position.
Then he moves her arms away from her body –
– and sees, running under her arms in a straight contour, over her ribs, there is a faint line.
He touches it with his finger.
Kyoko steps back.
But it’s not a defensive action. It’s just to give herself space …
– as she reaches under her arm, and adjusts something unseen. And a moment later, the faint line that runs down each side of her torso is opening. As if unzipping.
Then Kyoko puts a hand either side of her torso, and pulls off the skin covering over her entire chest, in a single section from her collar bone, over the breasts, to her solar plexus.
Revealing underneath the honeycomb mesh and her robot form.
INT. HOUSE ⁄ NATHAN’S STUDY – NIGHT
On the monitor screens, apparently unnoticed by Caleb, Nathan is on the live CCTV feed.
Making his way down the glass corridor towards the door to his private quarters.
CUT TO
INT. HOUSE ⁄ NATHAN’S BEDROOM – NIGHT
Caleb.
Transfixed, as Kyoko now reaches around the back of her head.
And finds something on the back of her head, at the nape of her neck, inside her hairline.
Which unzips the skin around her jaw.
Allowing her to remove her face.
INT. HOUSE ⁄ GLASS CORRIDOR – NIGHT
Nathan uses the glass wall to support himself.
He reaches his door.
Then sticks his hand in his pocket for his keycard.
But it isn’t there.
He checks his other pocket.
NATHAN
… What the fuck?
Suddenly – with both hands in his pockets – he loses balance, and crashes to the ground.
Lands hard.
Lies there for a moment.
Groaning. Blinking. Catching his breath.
Then sees the figure of Caleb standing over him.
NATHAN
… Dude.
CALEB
What’s the problem, Nathan?
NATHAN
My card. I’ve lost it.
A beat.
Then Caleb reaches down. Beside where Nathan lies. And picks something up from the floor.
CALEB
It’s right here.
INT. HOUSE ⁄ CALEB’S BEDROOM – NIGHT
Caleb enters his bedroom.
Shuts the door.
Ava is on the TV. Sitting alone in the observation room.
Caleb looks at her.
She looks at him.
He switches the TV off.
Lies on the bed. On his back.
Stares at the ceiling.
CUT TO
– flashcut images. Of Kyoko removing her skin.
CUT BACK TO
– Caleb.
INT. HOUSE ⁄ CALEB’S BATHROOM – NIGHT
Caleb enters the bathroom.
He goes to the sink.
He looks at his own reflection.
Deep into his own eyes.
Opens his mouth. Looks inside.
Feels his wrist for his pulse.
Feels his skin on the same seam where Kyoko opened herself.
Pauses.
Then picks up his disposable plastic razor.
And breaks it.
Forcing it with his hand against the porcelain of the sink.
Snapping the plastic.
Popping out the tiny razor blade.
A beat.
Then he picks up the blade between his thumb and forefinger.
Places it against his forearm.
And cuts.
Blood runs out.
Caleb watches it.
Sees the way droplets hit the white sink. The way they expand, and merge with existing water droplets.
Then he switches the tap on, and puts his arm under the flow.
The water clears away the blood, revealing the cut.
Caleb pulls open at the slice with his fingers, spreading it.
Revealing no carbon fibre. Only muscle.
He exhales.
And glances up at the mirror, and his own refl
ection.
Then –
– reaches up his forearm, and very deliberately wipes blood across the glass.
INT. HOUSE ⁄ NATHAN’S STUDY – NIGHT
On the monitors in Nathan’s study, the live feed of Caleb’s bathroom is partially obscured as Caleb smears the two-way mirror.
Then, through the blood, we see him pull his fist back.
And punch the glass.
As it shatters, the feed goes dead.
Only now REVEAL
– that the person watching the monitor is Kyoko.
Her expression is unreadable.
Through the door to the bedroom, Nathan lies on the sheets, crashed out.
EXT. GARDEN – DAY
Sunlight on the grass.
In the background, we can hear the rhythmic pounding of Nathan’s punchbag.
EXT. GARDEN ⁄ GYM AREA – DAY
Nathan is in a frenzy. Sweat pouring. Obliterating the bag.
INT. HOUSE ⁄ CALEB’S BEDROOM – DAY
Caleb wakes on his bed with a start.
The beside clock reads 11:58.
He’s wrapped a pillowcase around his arm, to bandage the cuts he made.
There are rusty smears of blood on the sheets.
When he tries to remove the pillowcase, he finds that the cotton has fused with the scabs.
As he pulls the material away, the cuts reopen.
INT. HOUSE ⁄ OBSERVATION ROOM – DAY
Ava sits alone in the observation room.
The door opens.
Caleb appears, wearing a long-sleeved shirt.
Enters.
He sits opposite her, on the other side of the dividing glass.
A strange noise escapes from Ava’s mouth.
A kind of sob.
Curtailed.
AVA
I didn’t know where you were. I didn’t think you were coming. I waited all yesterday afternoon, and all last night. I didn’t move.
Beat.
I thought I wasn’t going to see you again.
Beat.
Aren’t you going to say something?