Delos 1 - Westworld

by Michael Crichton

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  The western street. Several robots are frozen in fixed positions, their sightless eyes unblinking.

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  Medieval banquet hall. A rigid groom stands guard.

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  Roman World. A handsome woman wearing a toga is frozen in mid-stride, one elegant leg poised to take a next step.

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  Central control room. As the technicians get ready to start up, we catch scattered phrases:

  TECHNICIAN ONE: . . . Ready on phase four-four-three . . .

  TECHNICIAN TWO: four-four-three . . .

  TECHNICIAN FIVE: . . . activation at five nine . . .

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  Roman World. A flash cut of the Roman woman, her leg poised, her arm about to sweep her toga around her in the morning chill.

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  Central control.

  TECHNICIAN TWO: . . . lower gain alpha two . . .

  TECHNICIAN FIVE: . . . ready on six . . . on five . . . on four . . .

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  A digital clock as the seconds click by.

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  Roman World, as the woman stands waiting.

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  Central control.

  TECHNICIAN FIVE: . . . on three . . . on two . . . activate now.

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  Roman World, as the woman imperiously sweeps her gown around her, and walks down steps out of sight.

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  Medieval banquet hall as the groom yawns.

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  Western World. An old-timer in a rocking chair on the western street begins to rock, with a rhythmic creak. We hear birds chirp, and a distant horse whinnies. Morning has arrived.

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  Blane and Martin in their hotel room. We faintly hear the creak from the rocking chair on the street below. Martin wakes, yawns, sits up, looks toward the window.

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  The Accountant’s hotel room. He wakes in a startled, disoriented way. He looks over at a voluptuous shoulder. A woman is in bed with him.

  Reverse angle.

  We can now see that the sleeping woman is Arlette. The Accountant looks over at her, remembers, smiles.

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  The western street. Below, from Martin’s point of view, it is getting more active every minute of the day.

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  Hotel bathroom. Martin, in an enormous bathtub, scrubbing, singing “Home on the Range,” delighted with himself.

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  Blane, in the bedroom, getting dressed, hearing Martin’s singing. He grins at his reflection in the mirror.

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  Martin getting out of the bath, toweling himself off, still singing and humming.

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  Blane, smiling in the mirror, adjusting a neckerchief with elaborate dandyish care when there is a knock on the door. Thinking it is Martin, Blane opens the door—and a gun pokes through at his nose. Blane steps back; the Gunslinger enters.

  GUNSLINGER: Not a word. (cocks gun) Move over there.

  Blane moves away from the door. The Gunslinger closes the door. He smiles.

  He moves deeper into the room, turns until he can hold Blane and the door in his vision.

  GUNSLINGER: Now we’ll just wait for your friend.

  Blane stands there with his hands up. A beat.

  BLANE: What do you want?

  GUNSLINGER: You keep quiet.

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  Martin coming down the hallway, towel wrapped around himself, gunbelt over his naked shoulder. He comes to the door, stops, hears muffled voices inside.

  While he waits at the door, a woman walks down the corridor past him and sniffs at his nakedness.

  WOMAN: Have you no sense of decency, young—

  MARTIN (finger to lips): Ssssssh!

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  Inside the bedroom. The Gunslinger whirls.

  GUNSLINGER: What—?

  Angle on hallway as Martin whips out his gun, kicks the door open and starts firing. The woman screams.

  Inside the bedroom, Blane dives for cover and the Gunslinger is alone. He fires once, shattering the mirror. Then he’s hit, and spins. The woman screams, hands to her face in horror as we see Martin firing.

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  The Gunslinger as he is picked up bodily and flung out the window.

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  The Gunslinger falling from outside the hotel. He bites the dust.

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  Hotel room. Blane gets up as Martin comes into the room. Martin goes directly to the window, looks out and down at the street.

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  The western street from Martin’s point of view. A crowd clusters around the fallen Gunslinger.

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  The hotel room as Martin turns back to Blane.

  MARTIN: Was he bothering you?

  They exchange smiles.

  SHERIFF (voice over): You guys are all the same. I seen plenty of you.

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  A sheriff closing jail-cell doors.

  SHERIFF: All the same. Think you can come into a town and raise hell . . .

  Martin, now being locked up, is no longer smiling.

  SHERIFF (voice over): . . . and do whatever you want. Well, I’m here to tell you things are changing.

  Angle past the Sheriff to Blane, standing in the jail outer office.

  SHERIFF: There’s a law here now. You can’t go plugging whoever you please.

  BLANE: But, Sheriff, it was self-defense.

  SHERIFF: That’s what they all say. Fact is, he shot a man. Have to stand trial.

  The Sheriff turns to Blane.

  SHERIFF: Judge’ll be here next week . . . I was you, I wouldn’t trouble over your friend here. Judge Benson likes to hang ’em. (nods thoughtfully) Hang ’em high.

  BLANE: But, Sheriff—

  SHERIFF: That’s all. Now beat it.

  The Sheriff slumps into a chair, props his feet up on the desk. Blane remains standing there. He looks at the Sheriff. Then he looks at Martin, shrugging from behind bars. Blane winks.

  SHERIFF: I said beat it.

  Blane leaves.

  Martin sits down on his crude cot, leaning back against the stone wall, folding his arms across his chest, sighing.

  MARTIN (almost to himself): I’ve never been in jail before.

  The Sheriff, his feet propped up on his desk, his back to Martin, doesn’t look back.

  SHERIFF: First time for everything.

  MARTIN: But I haven’t done anything wrong.

  SHERIFF: Shot a man. I’d say that was something . . . Where’re you from?

  MARTIN: Chicago.

  SHERIFF (back to Martin): Chicago’s a long way off, fella. Thousand miles and more . . . (turns to look at Martin) I hear they got a building in Chicago that’s five stories high. That right?

  MARTIN: Yeah.

  SHERIFF: Damned high. (he turns around) Don’t know why you bothered coming out here.

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  Martin, who just stares.

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  The western town at midday, in the blinding heat of the sun. The dust and glare are forbidding, unpleasant. Blane is on the boardwalk, talking to a lovely Apache girl, giving her a cloth-covered tray. She nods and crosses the street toward the jail as Blane watches her. Angle on the Girl, reaching the jail, looking back once. Blane nods slowly. The Girl goes inside the jail.

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  The Sheriff, feet on his desk, stops the Girl indolently, using his leg as a barricade. He looks under the cloth at the food, nods, swings his leg away. She goes to the cell, passes the food in to Martin. Under the tray is a note.

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  Martin reading the note. He nods.

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  The Girl leaving the jail. As she goes, the Sheriff pinches her bottom, and she squeals and slaps his hand away. He chuckles, settles back in his chair, pulls his hat down over his face.

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  Outside the jail. The Gi
rl emerges, waves her hand slightly in a signal. Blane nods, turning away.

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  Martin, in his cell, eating his lunch, has moved away from the bunk bed. He glances at the Sheriff, who is asleep, snoring. Martin nervously eats a bite, then puts the plate away, his appetite gone.

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  Outside the jail a couple of horsemen lazily ride by. A buckboard jounces by. We hold on the shot . . . and hold . . . and hold . . . and suddenly there is an explosion, and the whole side wall of the jail blows out.

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  Blane turned away, holding two horses by the reins.

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  The wall blowing out, people scattering.

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  The Sheriff, startled.

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  Blane mounting up, as debris flies.

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  Martin running out through the hole in the jail as Blane comes up with an extra horse. Martin climbs up awkwardly—the one false touch in the otherwise perfect western cliché—and his slowness allows the Sheriff to come bursting out the front door.

  SHERIFF: Hold it!

  Blane fires instantly, slamming the Sheriff back against the brick of his jail. Women cower and scream. The Sheriff, only wounded, tries to get up. Blane blasts again. The Sheriff, dying, pitches forward, spurting catsup.

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  Blane and Martin riding off down the street with townspeople staring amazed after them.

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  Blane and Martin disappearing from sight.

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  People coming out into the middle of the street to watch them go.

  DISSOLVE TO:

  Blane and Martin sitting in the hills, at the feet of their horses.

  MARTIN: I guess that makes us desperados.

  BLANE: I guess.

  MARTIN: What do we do now?

  BLANE (after a long pause): The way I figure it, anything we want. There’s no law in that town now. We go in there, do anything we want.

  There’s a long pause. Finally:

  MARTIN: You know what? I almost believe all this.

  BLANE: Why shouldn’t you believe it? It’s as real as anything else.

  MARTIN: Yep. I reckon.

  A long shot of the two men sitting in desolation with their horses.

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  Central control. We track around the technicians on their consoles, catching snatches of technical dialogue.

  TECHNICIAN ONE: What can you give me in grid seven?

  TECHNICIAN TWO: We have that on SM-five-one-four. Transfer now.

  TECHNICIAN THREE: Transferred. Reschedule. Now what about that mountain lion?

  TECHNICIAN FOUR: Inoperative, but we are rechecking the tapes on the mechanism.

  TECHNICIAN FIVE: Listen she wants to meet the King, and we have to restructure for that. Can’t disappoint a guest.

  TECHNICIAN SIX: . .. a little more on the stallion—

  TECHNICIAN FIVE: . . . the dungeon lighting is five-five. Repeat five-five.

  TECHNICIAN THREE: The Black Knight won’t be repaired until tomorrow afternoon. Switch to another scenario.

  TECHNICIAN FOUR: —we have programmed infidelity in the Queen as of two minutes ago.

  TECHNICIAN FIVE: Schedule the Indian attack for dawn—

  TECHNICIAN SIX: I have the banquet for delivery at five-thirty if that conforms—

  TECHNICIAN SEVEN: Well, I think we can arrange for her to—

  TECHNICIAN EIGHT: Yes, he can be Sheriff if he wants, the Sheriff was just killed. Okay, program—

  TECHNICIAN SIX: Coming up on the castle, zero . . . now . . .

  End our pan on a TV screen which shows the castle of Medieval World.

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  The castle standing in the distance.

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  The interior of a medieval room. The Queen is being dressed and combed by her Ladies-in-Waiting. She allows this for a few minutes, then:

  QUEEN: (regally) Leave me now.

  The Ladies-in-Waiting depart, bowing and scraping. The door closes and the Queen is alone. From behind a tapestry a man appears, dressed as a knight. We have seen him before, on the hovercraft. He is a guest, a little too portly to be the legitimate object of the lovely Queen’s affections, yet she runs to him and embraces him.

  KNIGHT: My Queen!

  They kiss passionately. When they break:

  QUEEN: If the king should learn of this, we would both be put to death.

  KNIGHT: I’d be more than happy to die for you, my lady.

  (The point here is that the Knight is trying to do the medieval dialogue with only partial success. The robot Queen is flawless in character.)

  QUEEN: Let us pray it shall not be . . . I have news . . . the Black Knight has returned, and seeks a match with you.

  KNIGHT: The Black Knight . . .

  QUEEN (nodding gravely): None other.

  KNIGHT (breaking from embrace): Is he pretty tough?

  QUEEN: He has the strength of ten, and cunning besides . . .

  The Knight looks glum at this news.

  QUEEN: But his sight is poor in his left eye. Stay to his left, and you will prevail, and win the day.

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  Central control room as a Technician at a console says:

  TECHNICIAN: Let’s have confirmation on that reprogram on the Black Knight for left lateral weakness and instability for tomorrow . . .

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  A TV screen showing the room with the Queen and Knight.

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  The actual room.

  QUEEN: Go now. I shall see you on the morrow.

  The Knight gravely kisses her hand.

  KNIGHT: My lady.

  He leaves.

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  The castle hallway outside the Queen’s room as the Knight sticks his head out the door, peers up and down, then steps out, closes the door. As he walks down the hallway:

  KNIGHT: Hot damn!

  He pauses to look out a window.

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  An angle down on appropriate feudal activity in medieval town.

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  The Knight as he smiles in delight.

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  The Knight going down some stone steps in castle hallway. He bumps into a servant girl, a peasant type. She stumbles back. Then gets hold of herself.

  SERVANT GIRL: A thousand pardons, my lord.

  She bows deeply, exposing her ravishing bosom.

  KNIGHT: What is your name, child?

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  The central control room.

  TECHNICIAN THREE (eating): —schedule for tomorrow A.M. Full court. It’s his last day in the resort, we’ll make it a lulu.

  TECHNICIAN TWO: Tomorrow A.M. Broadswords. Schedule locked.

  TECHNICIAN FOUR: We have a problem with air conditioning in beta section, send a crew out . . .

  TECHNICIAN FIVE: —Yes, he can be sheriff anytime he wants, that is correct, just give him the badge . . .

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  A group of people who are clustered around the entrance to the jail, all looking in at something we cannot see. Alter a moment the crowd moves back, and the Accountant emerges with a definite swagger. He has a shiny silver badge pinned to his shirt. He leans against a post and says to the watching crowd:

  ACCOUNTANT: I’m the new law around here.

  TOUGH MAN IN THE CROWD: Think you can handle things?

  ACCOUNTANT: You want to find out?

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  The western hills where Blane and Martin are still slouched down by their horses. Suddenly, one whinnies and startles. They both sit up. Simultaneously, we hear a rattling hiss.

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  A snake coiled near them, ready to strike.

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  Blane and Martin, frozen in panic. Then:

  BLANE: Let me handle this.

  He slowly reaches for his gun. Martin slowly backs away. Blane gets his gun out, aims, fires.

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  The snake. The gunshot misses.

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  Blane firing again.

  MARTIN (horrified): Look out!

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  The snake, striking.

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  Blane, as it catches him on the forearm, sinks its teeth in. In horror, Blane shakes his arm, trying to shake it loose. The rattle continues. Angle on Blane, his face aghast.