Ex Machina

Title Page

Cast and Crew

EX MACHINA

Photographs from the Film

About the Author

Also by Alex Garland

Copyright

A computer monitor.

Lines of code appear, as they are typed.

main (    ) {

    extrn a, b, c;

    putchar (a); putchar (b); putchar (c); putchar(‘!’*n’);

}a  ‘hell’;

b    ‘o, w’;

c    ‘or

CUT TO

– a view above a huge open-plan office.

Just over the heads of the young men and women who sit at desks, in front of a computer screen and keyboard.

Each workstation is personalised. Photographs of friends or family, or pets. Cutting from magazines. Ironic superhero/video-game figurines.

CUT TO

– the hands of the young man doing the coding. He types fast, with two fingers.

CUT TO

– extreme close-up of a pinhole webcam lens in Caleb’s monitor.

CUT TO

– the point of view of the webcam.

Looking back at Caleb.

Twenty-four. Glazed. Ear buds in, connected to cell phone. Head bobbing slightly to the music.

As we watch from the monitor point of view, we can see the computer’s facial recognition system in operation. Imaged as vector boxes, which track Caleb’s face, and the faces of all the people behind him.

CUT TO

– the computer monitor.

On which a message appears, in a small window, over the code.

VIP EMAIL RECEIVED

Subject: HIDDEN

CUT TO

– the monitor webcam point of view.

As Caleb stops typing –

– he gazes at the message. Then clicks on the link. Then mouths the word: ‘Fuck’. Caleb reaches for his cell phone.

CUT TO

– the cell phone point of view, seen from the tiny camera above the screen, as Caleb lifts the phone, and starts keying in a text.

We see facial-recognition software flickering over Caleb’s features, and reacting to shifts in his expression.

CUT TO

– the cell phone. The screen. The tiny camera nestled above it. Lens glinting.

On the screen, a time-bar extends next to the word:

Sending

A beat later, a reply text message appears.

WTF? seriously!?

CUT TO

– the webcam point of view, watching Caleb react to the arrival of the text.

CUT TO

– cell phone screen.

Caleb sends the word:

Yes

A beat later, a stream of text messages start appearing:

Buena estoria bro

omfg fucking AWESOME

:o

take me take me?!?

Caleb > ∞

CUT TO

– the computer monitor point of view.

A few of the people behind Caleb in the office are reacting.

One stands and applauds.

A girl comes out from behind her desk, runs over to Caleb, and embraces him from behind, planting a kiss on his cheek.

Caleb still looks dazed.

He still has his headphones in. Still in the audio bubble, which, despite the commotion around him, remains unburst.

Title:

A spectacular mountain landscape. Waterfalls drop down massive rock faces to inland lakes. Rivers push through forest. Forest spreads across valley floors, which rise to snow peaks.

Caleb wakes abruptly –

– to find himself in the front seat of a helicopter.

The pilot, Jay, is a man in his forties.

Outside the window is the mountain landscape.

Caleb looks around. Wipes sleep out of his eyes. Gets his bearings.

Jay smiles.

Beat.

The pilot laughs.

He shrugs.

He glances over at Caleb.

Caleb looks out of the window.

Beat.

Jay chuckles.

The helicopter flies over a vast white glacier.

A CCTV camera is hidden in the rock and snow.

As the helicopter glides past, the lens of the camera twitches.

The helicopter flies over the lip of the glacier, revealing a valley.

The valley floor is a bright green meadow. Sunlit, like a jewel in the icy mountains.

A whitewater river runs alongside it, leading to a waterfall.

Caleb looks down at the breathtaking view as the helicopter banks, turns and descends.

Meadow flowers whip in the rotor wash as the helicopter touches down in the vast meadow.

By the landing site is a collection of huge metal crates. All have Chinese characters on the side.

The rotor blades slow, but don’t stop.

Jay exits.

Jay holds open the door as Caleb exits the helicopter cabin.

Caleb looks around, his eyes adjusting to the bright sunshine outside.

Jay goes to the side of the helicopter, pops open a hatch, and removes Caleb’s luggage. A large suitcase with wheels.

Caleb looks around. Apart from the packing crates, there are no man-made structures to be seen.

Caleb shouts over the engine noise.

The pilot gestures vaguely towards the whitewater.

Jay puts Caleb’s bag on the ground.

Caleb reaches into his pocket.

Produces a wallet, and pulls out some crumpled bank notes.

The pilot gets back inside the helicopter, and closes the door.

Caleb hurriedly retreats with his bag.

Moments later, in a roar of wind and noise, the helicopter is lifting off.

Equally suddenly, the noise is fading, and the helicopter is soaring upwards, and banking back towards the glacier.

Then it is gone. Birdsong and wind-rush replace engine noise.

Caleb suddenly looks very isolated.

Caleb walks along the banks of the fast-flowing river, awkwardly bumping his wheeled suitcase over the ground.

The banks of the river start to climb, to an intimidating drop.

It feels that this can’t be the right way.

Caleb reaches into his pocket and pulls out his mobile phone.

No signal at all.

He puts his phone back in his pocket.

Caleb rounds a bend in the river.

Ahead, almost hidden in trees, there is a steel and glass structure.

Caleb walks towards the house through the trees.

In the ground, in a grassy clearing, he finds a circular window, reflecting the sky.

He walks up to the window, and looks inside.

It reveals what is effectively a glass-covered well – about four metres deep, with smooth concrete sides.

At the bottom of the well is a brightly lit room, which appears to be an office of some sort. There is a desk, with monitors, and a chair.

But apparently no one inside.

Beyond the clearing, in the tree line, Caleb sees – almost camouflaged by forest – the dark shapes and straight lines of a low, one-storey building complex.

Caleb approaches the building.

As he nears the entrance –

– he startles, as an automated voice speaks to him, from an unknown source.

Caleb tracks the source of the voice.

Near what seems to be the front door, a pillar protrudes from the ground. Head-high, with a glass screen on one side.

Below the screen is a dispenser.

Caleb looks into the screen, and as soon as he has locked eyes with his own reflection, the screen flashes. A single bright strobe.

Almost immediately afterwards, something small clatters into the dispenser.

Caleb picks up the object. It’s a credit-card-sized ID.

On it there is an embedded chip and a photograph of his face. He looks comically surprised.

Caleb walks up to the front door.

Beside the door, a keycard plate is set into the wall, with a red LED light.

He holds his keycard ID.

The red LED light changes to blue.

Caleb pushes the front door, and it swings open.

The front door opens to a glass-walled staircase, which leads down to an open-plan room.

At the bottom of the staircase, Caleb waits to see if he is welcomed, or noticed.

But he is not.

Silence.

After a few moments, he enters.

He walks across the white carpet.

Then suddenly stops.

Something under his foot has crunched.

He looks down, and sees that he has trodden on a wine glass.

Bright shards of glass are sprinkled in the bleached wool.

He freezes, unsure whether to try to pick it up, or whether to simply pretend it never happened.

CUT TO

– Caleb on his hands and knees, hurriedly picking up the tiny shards of glass, and putting them into his open bag. On to his clothes.

As he does so –

– he is startled a second time, by the sudden commencement of a thumping sound.

Abrupt. Rapid. More or less rhythmic. From somewhere nearby.

Caleb finishes clearing up the glass, as the thumping continues.

Then he stands.

And exits in the direction of the noise.

Caleb enters a dining area.

Which now reveals –

– a huge glass door.

It presents an arresting view of a garden, river and the mountains behind.

The door is open, and through it we see the reason for the thumping sound.

Just outside, on a patio, in the sunshine, a man is working a punchbag.