Ex Machina (9 page)

Nathan shakes his head.

A few beats of silence, except for the water falling around them.

Caleb keeps his voice flat, and neutral.

Beat.

Caleb is poker-faced.

Beat.

Caleb says nothing.

Nathan glances back at Caleb

Nathan laughs.

Beat.

Caleb looks down at the bottle of beer in his hand.

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.

No. Wrong silhouette.

Ava frowns.

Kyoko stands in the door-frame.

For a moment, the two look at each other.

Another beat.

In the distance, the light glows in windows of the house.

Close-up on Caleb’s face.

Off-screen, we can hear Nathan’s voice. Extremely drunk.

Beat.

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.

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.

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.

In the main room, on the floor, Nathan stirs.

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.

In the main room, Nathan has sat up, and is unsteadily trying to get to his feet.

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.

Nathan has managed to get to his feet.

He makes his way up the concrete staircase.

Nathan enters the elevator.

Seen through the circular window, Caleb turns from the computer screens.

He stands, and exits.

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.

On CCTV, we see Nathan exit the elevator, and enter the glass corridor.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

A beat.

Then Caleb reaches down. Beside where Nathan lies. And picks something up from the floor.

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.

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 reflection.

Then –

– reaches up his forearm, and very deliberately wipes blood across the glass.