Space: 1999 - What really happened to Victor Bergman
Matt McIrvin
already in progress.
ACT III
(Moonbase Alpha control room.)
COMMANDER JOHN KOENIG: So we really can't stop the creature?
DR. VICTOR BERGMAN: No, no, I told you... (Takes a puff on cigar.)
It's made of pure triperplexium. Enough of that could crush
anything. (Blows smoke ring.) We're going to have to try
something more subtle.
DR. HELENA RUSSELL (concerned): John, I have three more dead and six injured.
KOENIG: We're running out of time. And the computer hasn't helped
us any.
COMPUTER GUY: But Computer cannot be useless!
(Cut to hallway. The walls are glowing green. The creature engulfs
three extras. It looks like an orange shag carpet, with a rotating,
spiral-patterned hypno-disk for a head.)
EXTRAS: AAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!
(Space. Three stars are visible in the upper left corner of the screen.
An Eagle wafts by, spewing Freon. Suddenly an enormous, mottled, yellow
ball shifts into view.)
(Interior of Eagle. AUSTRALIAN GUY is at the controls.)
AUSTRALIAN GUY: I don't understand it, Alpha. No matter where I go,
(cut to KOENIG, listening to transmission) the planet's
magnetic force pulls me directly to the east!
BERGMAN: Hmm. Yes. That would be consistent.
RUSSELL (concerned): Consistent?
BERGMAN: With a polarized energetic disturbance. They tend to... erm...
gravitate, so to speak, in an easterly direction. (Gestures
noncommittally.)
KOENIG: Could that explain the voices I've been hearing?
RUSSELL (concerned): Perhaps, John. Polarized disturbances are the
first step toward antiperception. It's a well-known fact.
BERGMAN: (Nods) Yes, yes, that it is.
KOENIG: But that still doesn't help us with the creature.
(Cut to hallway. The walls are glowing blue. The shag carpet
encounters two more extras. The camera tilts up to give us further
evidence that the set has a ceiling.)
EXTRAS: AAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!
(Commercial)
ACT IV
(Night. KOENIG's quarters. He tosses in bed, unable to sleep.)
VOICE OF DAME JUDITH ANDERSON (heavy reverb): The creature is your
friend! You must not stop the creature! The creature is
your friend! You must help the creature!
(KOENIG sits up and jumps out of bed, agitated. He staggers out of
his quarters and into a hallway, with walls glowing red. With a
horrified expression, he sees AUSTRALIAN GUY firing at the creature
with what looks like a staple gun. A beam of light extends
intermittently from a point a few inches to the right of the staple
gun to a point a few inches to the right of the shag carpet.)
KOENIG: Nooo! (Leaps between AUSTRALIAN GUY and the shag carpet.)
You don't understand!
AUSTRALIAN GUY: What? Commander--
RUSSELL (concerned): John! (Zaps him in the neck with a hypospray.
KOENIG crumples to the floor.)
KOENIG: You don't... understand... (Loses consciousness.)
(AUSTRALIAN GUY fires again, and the hypnodisk reverses direction and
starts rotating counterclockwise, and shoots sparks; the shag rug
backs down the corridor.)
RUSSELL (concerned): Counterclockwise might be the death direction!
(Sick bay. KOENIG is strapped in a hospital bed, with various
blinking devices displaying his vital signs. Suddenly he awakens.)
VOICE OF DAME JUDITH ANDERSON (heavier reverb): The creature cannot
live confined. You must rupture Moonbase Alpha. The creature
cannot live confined. You must make holes in Moonbase Alpha.
(With sudden, awesome strength, KOENIG, teeth clenched and face
contorted, breaks through the straps holding him in the bed. He
leaves the sick bay.)
(Commercial)
ACT V
(KOENIG sits in the transport tube. Stock shot of transport tube car,
which is square on the inside and cylindrical on the outside, moving
through tunnel.
KOENIG leaves transport tube, puts on a spacesuit, and exits Moonbase
Alpha through an airlock. He bounds across the desolate lunar surface
toward a shed covered with radioactivity warning signs, the interior
of which appears to be piled high with Gouda cheese. He lifts one of
the cheeses; it is about two feet wide and marked with an enormous
"radioactive" symbol. Music sting.)
(KOENIG staggers into the control room, looking totally deranged,
carrying the enormous radioactive Gouda. He lifts it high.)
KOENIG (shouting): Must... make... holes! Must... make... holes!!
RUSSELL (concerned): No, John.
(KOENIG drops the Gouda. It hits the floor and breaks, revealing...
cheese.)
RUSSELL (concerned): No!
KOENIG: Cheese?
BERGMAN (excited, smiling): That's it! I've almost got it! The
voices... The planet... The creature... of course! You only
have to tell me one thing, John.
KOENIG: What?... Cheese?... I thought...
BERGMAN (suddenly grim): Why did you resign, John?
KOENIG: Why...?
BERGMAN: Why! Did! You! Resign?
KOENIG (dropping to knees, screaming): NO! NOOOOOOOO!!
BERGMAN: Why, Six? Why?!
KOENIG: NEVER!!!!!
(KOENIG's facial features change: suddenly he isn't Martin Landau,
he's Patrick McGoohan. A spherical ceiling lamp illuminates his head,
which is also festooned with electrodes. Zoom out: he's kneeling and
screaming in a padded room, visible on an enormous wall screen.
Lava-lamp-like blobs float around on the screen to the left. The
enormous circular set has a huge, hemispherical chair in the center,
next to a spherical white balloon, which wobbles slightly. The chair
swivels around to reveal BERGMAN, wearing a badge bearing a penny-
farthing bicycle and the number 2. Enter RUSSELL, wearing the badge
of Number 45.)
NUMBER 2: Damn. Damn Number Six! I almost had him.
NUMBER 45 (concerned): This will have repercussions, you know.
NUMBER 2: Yes, yes... hrmmm... (Blows smoke ring.) I thought this
would do the trick. Expose him to a continual tissue of
absurdities, a world based on an astronomical non sequitur...
one lacking basic coherence, let alone dramatic structure.
A few minutes longer and I'd have him pleading for mercy.
But I had to let go too soon. (Receives phone call.
Picks up enormous receiver, listens.) Hmmm, yes, yes...
I... I understand... But, you see... (Crestfallen) Yes,
yes, I see. Be seeing you. (Hangs up.)
(NUMBER 2 slowly climbs out of his chair, which recedes into the
floor, and removes his Number 2 badge. Enter MAIA, who takes it from
him and pins it on. The former NUMBER 2 drops his cigar and walks out
in disgrace, head bowed.)
THE NEW NUMBER 2: The experiment will continue.
(Giant face of Patrick McGoohan, flying out of an aerial view of Wales.
Bars clang shut over the image. A penny-farthing bicycle assembles
itself over the closing credits.)
THE END
--
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McIrvin ^ Harnessing tab damage for peaceful ends!