ALIEN NATION: CARRIER
By Gayle Highpine
ACT ONE
FADE IN
EXT. LITTLE TENCTON - NIGHT
On a street in the roughest, most
run-down section of Little
Tencton.
A figure shuffles warily under the irregular
illumination of
the trash-strewn sidewalk. As he passes under a streetlight,
he is revealed as a shabbily dressed, middle-aged-plus
Newcomer man whom we will come to know as HERMAN SHEPHERD.
He clutches a wrinkled grocery sack.
He pauses to peer down into the dark well of an
alleyway.
Then he turns and starts down the alley.
As he makes his way down the unlit alleyway, we
see two
NEWCOMER MEN silhouetted at the mouth of the alley. They
start down the alley, following him. He looks back warily.
Seeing the men, he turns around to try to return to the
relative safety of the street. One of the men steps in front
of him, blocking his path.
MAN #1
(leering)
{Hey, baby, wanna party?} Che, eeba, vopa blazi?
HERMAN
Leave me alone.
Two more Newcomer men appear and join the first
two. Herman
is surrounded. The men's manner is menacingly flirtatious,
like that of men surrounding a woman and threatening gang
rape.
MAN #2
(leering)
You know you want it. Come on, honey.
HERMAN
(clutches grocery bag tighter)
Go away.
They close on him. One of the men grabs Herman
from behind.
He struggles, attempts to fight back, dropping the grocery bag
as he does so. We hear GLASS BREAKING ON PAVEMENT and LIQUID
SPLATTERING. The men wrestle him to the ground. We hear
CLOTHES RIPPING.
2.
MAN #1
Let's see it, huh? Come on, you
sell it but you won't give us a
little bitty look for free?
Despite Herman's attempts to defend himself, he is
quickly
pinned to the ground. Though our view of Herman is mostly
blocked, we can see that Herman's chest is now bare.
The torn remains of his shirt cling to his shoulders.
The men shift positions to give us a better look,
and now we
can see that Herman's clothes have only been torn off to the
waist; the men seem to have no interest below the waist.
VOICE (O.S.)
(shouting authoritatively)
Police! Mileetsya!
The men stop, look in alarm toward the mouth of
the alley: a
cop car with lights flashing, two cops (a human policeman and
HUMAN POLICEWOMAN) running toward them.
COPS' POV of an obvious gang assault; the
perpetrators
scatter and disappear as the cops approach.
HERMAN'S POV of the two cops as they run toward him.
Getting close, the two cops see that Herman's
pouch is
severely swollen and abraded, with a large rip oozing pink
blood. It looks gross, but the anatomy is so alien that we
don't get too grossed out. His face shows that his
humiliation goes far deeper than physical pain.
A Newcomer hooker, whom we will come to know as
DAISY WHEEL,
peers down the alleyway from behind a building, concern
visible on her heavily made-up face.
The grocery sack Herman dropped lies open on its
side
(something inside still weighs it down). A broken baby bottle
(with an alien-shaped nipple) lies near on the street,
obviously fallen out of the sack. A trickle of pale-green
milk runs out of it down the cracked pavement of the alley.
The green milk runs past a windblown Tenctonese
newspaper
page, an empty tarantula-chip bag with label in Tenctonese and
English, a crushed sour-milk carton, and other litter of
Little Tencton. It trickles into the street down the gutter,
past the high-heel-clad feet of the hooker, and into a storm
drain, which becomes the starfield of
3.
THE ALIEN NATION SERIES MAIN TITLE
The CAMERA approaches Earth, glides down through
the
stratosphere, and the IMAGES continue as described by:
NARRATOR
That was the scene in California's
Mohave Desert, XXX years ago,
our historic first view of the
alien ship Gruza. Theirs was a
slave ship, carrying a quarter
million beings bred to adapt
and labor in any environment.
Unable to leave Earth, the
Tenctonese Newcomers have
become a part of the ethnic richness
of America.
Various shots: the police partnership of Newcomer
GEORGE
FRANCISCO and human MATT; the push/pull love relationship of
MATT and Newcomer CATHY; the dynamics of the FRANCISCO FAMILY
-- independent SUSAN, rebellious BUCK, sociable EMILY, sweet
VESSNA. The rich tapestry of ALIEN NATION...
INT. MATT'S APARTMENT - NIGHT
Cathy and Matt are leisurely stroking each other's
temples.
Sensuous Tenctonese music plays on the stereo. They HUM
softly as they nuzzle and kiss.
CATHY
Somebody we know came to visit
the clinic today.
MATT
(between nuzzles)
Yeah, who?
CATHY
One of the couples from sex class.
Do you remember Cicely Alaska and
Dennis Anderson?
MATT
Wasn't he was the guy who
complained about having to be
celibate during hay fever season
'cause he'd get too stuffed up
to hum?
4.
CATHY
(chuckles)
Yes, him.
MATT
So why'd they come?
CATHY
To see Norma.
MATT
(blankly)
Norma?
CATHY
Dr. Norma Limits. Don't you
remember, I introduced you to her
when you came to the lab
to pick me up to go to that play?
MATT
(faking it)
Oh, yeah, the lady with the
microscopes.
CATHY
We all have microscopes, you nut.
(kisses his forehead)
She's the director of the lab's
comparative genetic mapping
project.
MATT
(running his fingertips
down her back spots)
Mmmmm. Pretty different maps, huh?
CATHY
Lots of differences. For one thing,
the Tenctonese genome doesn't have as
many introns as the human one.
A single gene locus can code for
several different proteins because
of splice variants...
MATT
(more interested in Cathy's neck
than in splice variants)
Mm-hmm. So, they come looking
for a job, or something?
5.
CATHY
(beat; with false casualness)
They wanted to ask her about the
possibility of their ever...
having a child.
Matt sits bolt upright, pulling away from Cathy.
MATT
(beat)
But... it isn't possible, right?
CATHY
No, no, no, no, of course it's not.
They just felt they had to ask,
to find out for sure...
MATT
But she told them it was
impossible, right?
CATHY
(beat)
No...
INT. HALLWAY OF CALENDARS' APARTMENT BUILDING - DAY
MARK, a slender human man, mid-twenties, stands in
the hallway
of an apartment building, angrily pounding on a door.
MARK
Hey! Open up! I told you you
couldn't get away with it!
I told you I'd find you, you
spotty-headed gopher-breaths!
A hand taps Mark on the shoulder from behind. He
turns, jumps
a little when he finds himself facing the Newcomer LANDLADY.
MARK
Hey, um, I hope you didn't get
the wrong idea. I gotta lotta
Newcomer friends. We hang out.
I thought these two were my
buddies, and then you wouldn't
believe what they did.
Landlady holds a key up in front of his face, then
inserts it
into the lock.
6.
MARK
You have a key to their place?
You their landlady? ...Hey, not
to tell you your business or
anything, but isn't it illegal
to enter a tenant's premises
without permission?
Landlady opens door, gestures for Mark to enter.
LANDLADY
I'm not entering, you are. Go
ahead, get 'em outta bed or
whatever.
Mark hesitates.
LANDLADY
(chuckles)
Hey! Let 'em go to the cops!
Like to see 'em do it.
(looking at Mark)
What'd they do to you, get
you with their dove drop scam?
Go ahead, settle it with them
-- then I have some little matters
to discuss with them myself.
INT. CALENDARS' APARTMENT
Mark walks into the shabby, messy apartment,
landlady behind
him. Both of them react to the stink.
LANDLADY
They ever clean this place?
Phew. Rotten weasel, I bet.
INT. KITCHEN
They walk into the kitchen, which is strewn with
sour-milk
cartons; see GREGORY's feet protruding from behind a table.
Mark freaks.
LANDLADY
(a bit shaken)
Wow. I didn't think they really
would kill each other.
7.
INT. RAPE CRISIS CENTER - DAY
A living room furnished with discarded and donated
furniture
-- threadbare couches and faded easy chairs and worn rugs.
The wall has a bulletin board covered with layers of flyers,
and posters related to women's issues.
On Herman Shepherd, the Newcomer assault victim,
seen now in
full light. He has been cleaned up and now wears different
clothes -- they look like charity discards, but are clean. He
sits slumped on a loveseat, looking drained and tired.
COUNSELOR (O.S.)
We're so glad that you were able
to come, Mr. Francisco. We do
have a male counselor here
to work with male victims
... human male victims --
but I don't think he'd know
what to do in this instance.
I've never heard of a case
like this before.
On the COUNSELOR, seated at her desk; a sign on
the wall reads
"Rape Crisis Center." She addresses Buck, who is standing in
the doorway.
POLICEWOMAN (O.S.)
His name is Herman Shepherd.
I didn't know what else to do, so
I brought him here. The doctor
wanted to hospitalize him at least
one night, but he refused.
As the Policewoman speaks, PULL BACK and we
recognize
her as one of the cops who saved Herman. Her arm is draped
protectively around him. She does not notice that he
shrinks from her touch, as though all the more humiliated to
have his shame exposed to these human strangers.
POLICEWOMAN
(handing papers to Counselor)
Here's the medical report, at least.
They sewed up the tear in his pouch.
COUNSELOR
Is he going to press charges?
The Policewoman makes a gesture of futility. The
Counselor
recognizes her meaning, and sighs.
8.
POLICEWOMAN
Anyway, to tell the truth, I don't
know if the law would consider this
sexual assault. Or just simple assault.
COUNSELOR
As I understand it, the pouch is part
of the Tenctonese male's reproductive
system. That makes it a sexual organ --
so an assault like this should be
classified as sexual assault.
(beat)
Assuming those who make the laws have
any sense.
She looks compassionately at Herman, whose psychic
shame is
clearly greater than his physical pain.
COUNSELOR (cont.)
I'm sure it feels like sexual assault
to him.
Buck walks slowly to Herman. Very gently he moves
the
policewoman's intrusive arm away from Herman's shoulder. Then
he half-kneels in front of him.
BUCK
(whispering a ritualistic
chant-like mantra)
{Your wound is my wound,Vots zin te nos zin,
Your blood is my blood,Vots likwi te nos
likwi,
Your hearts are my hearts, Vots valen pim nos
valen,
Your voice is my voice.Vots sov te nos sov.
You are another myself.} Vot te keeno naras.
The chant seems to have a healing effect on
Herman. He lifts
his eyes -- eyes which have obviously seen years of suffering
and humiliation -- to meet Buck's, and the two of them gaze in
a bond of mutual understanding, the only Newcomers in this
alien environment.
COUNSELOR (O.S.)
You know this man, Mr. Francisco?
INT. CALENDARS' APARTMENT BLDG -- KITCHEN -- DAY
On congealed streams of pink blood that have
intermingled
with spilled sour milk on the floor. Pull back to show Matt,
George, and Landlady in Calendars' kitchen; several open sour
milk cartons are on the table.
9.
LANDLADY
They usedta beat each other up good
when they got tanked. But I didn't
think they'd ever...
GEORGE
(reading from his notes)
Ms. Julie N. Calendar was arrested
on three occasions for beating
her husband, Gregory N. Calendar.
However, Mr. Calendar always
declined to press charges.
LANDLADY
They got along okay when they weren't
drinking.
She picks up a sour-milk carton on the table,
shakes it
disdainfully; its contents SPLASH inside.
MATT
Hey, lady, keep your hands offa
the evidence.
Landlady tosses milk carton back onto the table.
It teeters
but miraculously doesn't spill. Matt rolls his eyes.
LOIS
The victim was killed by multiple
gunshot wounds. It could be a
domestic violence incident, but...
GEORGE
(to Landlady)
Do you have any idea where
Mrs. Calendar might be?
Landlady shakes her head.
GEORGE
Surely if she escaped when the
murderer was attacking, she
would have called the police.
And if she wasn't home at the
time, she surely would have
come home by now.
LOIS
The body's been dead four to five
days.
10.
MATT
So you think the wife did it?
GEORGE
Possibly. Or perhaps she's
lying dead somewhere herself.
(checking his notes)
The Calendars also have a record
for fraud and petty theft.
MATT
You figure somebody mighta been
out to get 'em for rippin' 'em off?
GEORGE
Possibly.
(to Landlady)
Did they get many visitors?
LANDLADY
(nods sardonically)
Clients, they said. They told me
they were investment counselors.
MATT
(scanning the stained and
peeling wallpaper)
You get a lot of investment
counselors move in here, I'll bet.
Landlady gives him a LOOK.
MATT
Do you know who any of their
"clients" were?
Landlady shrugs.
MATT
Well, I think finding wifey's
our first order of business.
(to Landlady)
You gotta picture of her?
LANDLADY
Oh, sure, framed right next to the
grandkids on the living room wall.
MATT
(rolling eyes)
Okay, how about a description?
11.
GEORGE
Matt, the police computer will have
pictures and descriptions of her.
LOIS
Add to the description that she's
probably pregnant.
GEORGE/MATT (unison)
Pregnant?
LOIS
Look at the state of Mr. Calendar's
lingpod flap.
Matt, George, and Landlady peer at the body.
George and
Landlady nod in understanding; Matt doesn't even know what
he's looking for.
GEORGE
Yes. I see.
MATT
What??
LOIS
(to Matt)
It's opened. He's ready to
receive a pod.
MATT
(to Lois, grudging admiration)
Huh. You really been hitting the
books in those Tenctonese
physiology courses.
LOIS
And the cadavers.
GEORGE
(to Landlady)
Did you know she was pregnant?
LANDLADY
Seemed like I thought once
she was getting up there.
GEORGE
Do you know when she was due
to transfer the pod?
12.
LANDLADY
I don't know...
I thought she already had.
GEORGE
Obviously she had not. Her husband
is still in a state of receptivity.
LANDLADY
(shrugs)
Try asking their friend --
Allison Wonderland. Sweet girl --
dunno why she was mixed up
with people like them.
MATT
Hey, George, with hubby dead,
Miz Calendar's got a problem,
right? What's she gonna do when
dad's not there to take her pod?
Could another guy do it?
GEORGE
She must be biologically in sync
with the male who receives her pod.
(beat; softer)
You couldn't just walk up to a
stranger and synchronize...
INT. CAR - MOVING - DAY
MATT
I guess what we gotta do is
check out Newcomer hospitals,
because they gotta have incubators,
right? Like there's gotta be
times when the father's not there,
Newcomer hospitals must be prepared
for that kinda situation, right?
George nods without speaking, a distant, haunted
look on his
face.
INT. HERMAN'S APARTMENT - DAY
HERMAN
Thanks for taking me home.
BUCK
No trouble.
13.
HERMAN
Would you like to come in and have
some refreshment? Some lichen tea,
perhaps?
BUCK
Sorry, I have to go pick up my mom
from work. She only let me use her
car on the condition that I'm at her
office by five to pick her up.
INT. APARTMENT
Herman swings the door open, and he and Buck walk
in to the
tiny, crumbling hole-in-the-wall one-room apartment.
HERMAN
It's not much. But it's home.
BUCK
Home, yeah...
INT. COP SHOP - DAY
GRAZER
Got any leads on the Calendar murder?
MATT
(typing on computer)
We're checking out hospitals. In case
somebody's used an incubator.
GRAZER
Incubator?
INT. HERMAN'S APARTMENT - DAY
Herman is bringing a dish of something toward the
table;
a rat tail sticks over the edge.
HERMAN
Have some.
Buck reaches toward the center of the dish.
14.
HERMAN
Go ahead, take the head.
You're my guest.
Buck takes a piece from near the edge and eats it
(it
CRUNCHES). Herman smiles and takes a piece as well.
HERMAN
If someone had told me, back on
the ship, that someday I could
have fresh-killed rodent
whenever I wanted...
Both of them chuckle.
HERMAN
So, Buck, do you live near here?
BUCK
Little Tencton? No, we live
in the suburbs. You can go for
miles without seeing another
spotty head.
HERMAN
Do you go to school? I mean,
Earth school, human school?
BUCK
I go to school online.
(off Herman's look)
Through my computer.
I take classes from lots of
universities in different places.
Different countries.
HERMAN
That sounds very interesting...
Going to school, that must be an
interesting experience.
BUCK
You've never been to school?
HERMAN
Just the orientation sessions we
had in quarantine. But it sounds
like a good way to learn about
this planet.
15.
BUCK
I thought that if I studied hard,
I could understand this planet.
But the more I learn, the less
I feel I know about it.
So many different kinds
of thinking... some of it so
different, and some of it
seems so familiar...
HERMAN
Living around humans must help you
to understand them.
BUCK
(laughs)
I'm starting to wonder if the
humans even understand themselves.
HERMAN
I don't know many humans.
Except on TV.
INT. CAR - MOVING
MATT
Well, no luck on the Newcomer hospitals.
GEORGE
But we got an address for Allison
Wonderland. Maybe she can give us names
of other "clients."
INT. HERMAN'S APARTMENT - DAY - LATER
The sunset sky seen through the windows show that
Buck and
Herman have been talking for a while.
HERMAN
...Vessna? I used to know a Vessna
...back on ship, a long time ago.
-- she was a teacher, an Elder.
BUCK
My little sister was named after
my grandmother, my mother's mother.
Herman and Buck look at each other, both wondering
if it could
possibly have been the same person?
16.
HERMAN
When I was in the children's
barracks, after they took me
from my parents, Fron Vessna
came and talked to me.
She told me something I never
forgot. She said, The reason
we are created is to add
whatever we can to the beauty
in the universe. No matter
how hard things may be,
if we can add to the beauty
rather than to the ugliness,
we have won.
Buck is captivated -- less by the idea, which is
familiar to
him, than by the possibility that these words might come from
his own grandmother.
HERMAN
Then the Chooser took me away,
and I never saw Vessna again.
But her words always stayed with me.
BUCK
That's a Celinist teaching.
HERMAN
Celinist... Is that what you are?
Your family is?
BUCK
Yeah, mainly. We follow some
Yoniati customs, too -- that's
what my Uncle Moodri was.
HERMAN
But Celinism... that's what your
father believes in? What he
teaches you?
BUCK
Yeah...
(shrugs)
Well, sort of. Sometimes
it seems he's more interested
in human ways...
(long beat)
I don't know what he
really believes inside.
HERMAN
He must feel so lucky
to have you for a son.
BUCK
(surprised at the thought)
Lucky?
(beat)
I don't know...
HERMAN
You don't know if he feels
luck to have you as a son?
(looking at Buck, imagining)
...to look at you and say, There.
There is my son. There is my child.
Buck grows uncomfortable under Herman's gaze.
BUCK
What about your own children?
HERMAN
(with difficulty)
...I don't have any children.
BUCK
(surprised)
But the doctor who examined your
lingpod said that you had borne
at least...
He stops as Herman raises toward him eyes that
have seen
infinite tragedy.
BUCK
(stammering awkward apology)
Oh. I'm sorry.
HERMAN
They're not dead. I just
don't know where they are.
An uncomfortable pause. Buck looks out the window,
realizes
the sun has set, looks at his watch and starts.
BUCK
Oh no. My mom expected me to
pick her up. Do you have a phone?
HERMAN
There's a pay phone in the hall.
Up a flight.
18.
INT. HALLWAY OF HERMAN'S APARTMENT BLDG - NIGHT
Buck is talking on a pay phone in the apartment hallway.
BUCK
What?... How long ago?... Okay. Thanks.
Buck slowly hangs up the phone. He wears a rueful look.
INT. HERMAN'S APARTMENT - NIGHT
Buck comes back in. Herman is washing out the cups.
BUCK
I have to go. My mom's already
left. She's going to kill me.
HERMAN
Well, thank you for coming to visit.
He picks up the teacups and takes them to the
sink. Buck
picks up the plate of rat and takes it to the refrigerator,
opens it.
BUCK'S POV on refrigerator interior -- CLOSE ON
baby bottles
full of pale-green milk, and a box of Powdered Grasshopper
Baby Formula.
END OF ACT ONE
19.