Crimes of the Future (2022) Movie Script
1
[ELECTRICAL ARCING;
ZAPPING]
[MECHANICAL SWITCH
THUMP]
[BUZZING]
[GENTLE
RHYTHMIC GUITAR]
[VOCALIZING]
[LOW RUMBLE]
[FILM PROJECTOR
WHIRRING]
[OPENING
ORCHESTRAL THEME]
[LAPPING WAVES]
[DIGGING IN
ROCKY SHORE]
[MUSIC BECOMES
MORE DRAMATIC]
[SPOON CLINKING
ON ROCK]
[SCORE
FADES OUT]
- Brecken...
I don't want you eating
anything you find in there,
you understand me?
I don't care
what it is.
Don't care
what it is.
[CICADAS CHIRRING]
[SURF HITTING SHORE
IN DISTANCE]
[TOOTHBRUSH
INTO HOLDER]
[CRUNCHING]
[POIGNANT SCORE]
[CRUNCHING CONTINUES]
[BED CREAKING]
[EMOTIONAL BREATHING]
[SCORE FADES OUT]
[CHAIR CREAKS]
[SOFT FOOTFALLS]
[EDGY SCORE]
Ah...
[MUFFLED GRUNTS]
- Mum! Mum!
- No! No!
- [LEGS THRASHING]
[MUFFLED SHRIEKS]
No!
No, no!
[THRASHING STOPS]
[DJUNA
BREATHES HARD]
[TREMULOUS BREATHING]
[SCORE
FADES OUT]
[RINGING]
[RINGING]
[POIGNANT SCORE]
[RINGING]
[CONNECTING BEEPS]
- Yes?
Yes, it's still Djuna.
Now you've confirmed
the phone number.
I want you to tell Lang
that if he's interested
in picking up the corpse
of that creature
he calls his son--
Yes, yes, I mean
the Brecken thing.
So, you tell him to come
to the address I gave you.
It will be here,
and I won't be.
[STATIC]
[CLICK]
[PHONE CLATTERS
TO SHELF]
[EMOTIONAL SCORE]
[SHARP
NASAL EXHALES]
[SOBBING]
[SNIFFLES]
[SOBBING]
[GENTLE SURF]
[SCORE FADES OUT]
[FOOTFALLS
ON ROCKS]
[DOOR CLOSES]
[LANG DOTRICE EXHALES]
[MOVING SCORE]
[DEEP INHALE;
EXHALE]
[SOBBING]
- Oh, my boy, boy, boy.
My boy.
Oh, my boy.
[DRAMATIC SCORE]
[RUMBLING]
[GUTTURAL NOISES]
[GAG]
[GROANING]
[MOANING]
[GASP]
[LOW THRUMMING]
- Saul.
Saul, darling,
can you wake up?
- Who's here?
- It's just me.
It's Caprice.
Did you sleep?
[SIGH]
- I think this...
bed
needs new software.
[PAINED BREATHING]
It's not anticipating
my pain anymore.
[SHARP GASPS;
BREATHING]
It's not turning me
properly.
- Yes,
I heard you.
- A sleepless night.
- [TENSER GAGGING]
I will call
LifeFormWare right away.
They're usually
very responsive.
[SHARP EXHALE]
- What else?
What else?
- The tests cooked all night
and were ready this morning.
There is a new hormone
in your bloodstream.
- Ah...
Great.
It's about time.
I thought
I was all tapped out.
[INHALE]
[SIGH]
Dried up.
- You always think that,
and you're always wrong.
- One day,
I'll be right.
- Not today.
[DEEP RUMBLING]
[SHARP EXHALE]
- Not today.
[SAUL AND CAPRICE
LAUGH]
It's still
before breakfast.
[WHIRRING;
CLICKING]
What do you see?
I can feel you pulling things
around in there.
- It seems to be
some small sort of, uh,
endocrine gland,
about the size
of an adrenal gland.
- Small.
That's disappointing.
It's not very dramatic.
[GROANS]
- It's a
brand new organ
Never before seen.
- Yeah.
- And it's
functioning.
[SAUL GROANS]
Can you feel it?
That new hormone?
- Yeah.
Oh,
LifeFormWare.
[DEEP EXHALE]
- LifeFormWare?
- Yeah.
The pain
is different.
That's probably why my bed's
computer's having trouble.
[GROANS]
This new organ,
it's, uh,
it's shifting
my pain centres.
- For better
or worse?
- So far,
just different.
[SIGHING]
How's the artwork
progressing?
- It's a slippery surface.
Hard to be precise
with the ink.
- Huh...
Why not do something
that really looks like a tattoo?
A heart,
an anchor,
"Mother"?
[LAUGHING]
- That would be
playful.
But the Registry
insists on
"uniquely
self-referential."
- Ah, the Registry.
Of course.
[SIGH]
[PLACID SCORE]
[SPOON CLINKING
ON PLATE]
[NASAL EXHALE]
[GAGGING]
[CHAIR THRUMMING]
[GAGGING]
[CHAIR CREAKING]
[GRUNT]
[GRUNT]
[GAGGING]
[GROANS]
[DRAMATIC SCORE]
[GAGGING
CONTINUES]
[TENSER SIGHS]
[COUGHING]
[COUGH]
[MOANING]
[WRAPPER CRINKLING]
[KNOCKING]
[TENSER GRUNTS]
[APPROACHING FOOTSTEPS]
Saul Tenser.
- Caprice.
- Oh, my God.
So you are.
Welcome.
I'm Wippet,
by the way.
[DOOR CREAKS]
Wow, um...
- [DOOR CLOSES]
- This is a real treat
and a privilege for us,
isn't it, Timlin?
That's Timlin.
This isn't very grand, is it,
but this is
the National Organ Registry
nonetheless, and
we're fully equipped,
aren't we, Timlin?
Um, it's all
secret stuff now
because we're part of
the NVU of Justice,
but we'll be ready
to break out and go public
when the time
inevitably comes.
- NVU?
- New Vice Unit.
No crime
like the present.
[SAUL LAUGHS]
- Sorry, we're a little
confused about procedure.
This is
our first time.
- Hm.
But you understand the necessity
of organ registration
from a security standpoint?
- We understand
human bodies
are changing.
[CLEARS THROAT]
I know this
quite well.
Um...
And, apparently,
this is of some concern
to the governments
of the world.
- Human bodies, yes.
"Human" is the
operative word.
Human evolution
is the
concern.
That it's
going wrong.
[SAUL
CLEARS THROAT]
That it's...
uncontrolled, it's...
insurrectional.
It might lead us
to a bad place.
Look what's happened to the
pain thresholds, for instance.
The world is a
much more dangerous place
now that p-p-pain
has all but disappeared.
What good is it
that only a lucky handful of us
experience pain
in our sleep?
Pain
has a function.
It is a warning system
that we don't have anymore,
and how did this happen,
what does this mean?
Or, or what about
infections?
Infections?
What happened to them?
Nobody washes
their hands anymore.
What is it-
what is that new, uh, fad,
uh, what do they call it?
Desktop surgery?
In public!
It's repulsive.
- [CLEARS THROAT]
- Um...
Our records indicate
that you've been producing
random and novel bodily organs
for some years,
but that
you've had them
consistently
removed.
- Who wouldn't?
[WIPPET SCOFFS]
- You'd be
surprised.
- We would be
surprised.
They're basically tumours,
right?
Who would
want to keep them?
They could
kill you.
[TENSER GROANS]
- What is the relationship
between you two?
- I remove these tumours
as part of our performance.
We are
performance artists.
We perform together.
- Hm.
And you're qualified
to perform surgery?
- Well, as Mr. Wippet
was saying,
everybody's qualified
to perform surgery these days.
[WIPPET CHUCKLES]
- If consent is
legally given,
there is really no-
no issue there.
- Hm.
I was speaking of your
professional relationship.
You wouldn't want to kill
your performance partner,
would you?
- You never know.
There's a lot of improvisation
in our shows.
- Stop it.
- Hm.
- We met when Saul
was cut up on duty.
I was a trauma surgeon
at First General.
We unleashed things
in each other.
We both changed,
left our
professions.
And now we are
what we are.
- Oh.
You're stars,
that's what you are.
Gosh, everyone wants to be
a performance artist these days.
- It's all the rage, but...
- [INHALES]
not everyone
can do it.
- Well, then...
Registration?
[GENTLE SCORE]
[CLICKING]
[GEARS CLACKING]
[SNORING]
- Oh, my.
Oh, it is
so beautiful!
- I can't quite see it
from my angle.
Can you pick it up
from where you are?
- Oh, yes.
It's-it's very clear.
Oh, gosh!
It is a gorgeous,
I might even say,
sensual example
of the registration
tatooist's art.
- Why don't you tell us
what a registration tattoo is?
- Well, um...
...we here at the
National Organ Registry
have just instituted
a new policy
of tattooing
novel organs,
or idiopathic organs,
that is,
new organs whose function
is unknown,
so that they
can be registered
and kept track of.
[MOAN]
Um, our fear is...
that some of these
neo-organs
might establish themselves
genetically,
and then be passed down
from parents to children,
who would then
no longer be,
strictly speaking,
human.
At least, in the
classical sense.
Our concept
of the registration tattoo
was largely inspired by
the performance art
[SIGH]
of Saul Tenser.
- Oh, I'm so sorry, but it's
forbidden to record in here.
- Oh, right, right.
She's right.
- I was thinking we could use it
for our performance.
We record
the most intimate things.
- I'm sorry,
but it is illegal.
This department
does not yet exist.
- Right, if it
doesn't exist,
then, I guess, it's impossible
to make a recording.
- Sorry.
- [LAUGHS]
- Too bad.
[WIPPET SIGHS]
[EXHALES]
[COMPRESSORS
HUMMING]
I don't think you should have
invited those two creeps
from the registry
to our show.
- Why not?
- [CLEARS THROAT]
Why not get 'em
on our side?
- I don't trust them.
The woman,
Timlin,
she's, uh...
especially
creepy.
- Hm.
I thought she was
rather attractive.
In a...
bureaucratic way.
- Hm.
The LifeFormWare technicians
are here.
They need to see you
in your bed.
[Groans]
- I'm a little upset
about the tattoo.
- Oh?
[CLEARS HIS THROAT]
- Rambunctious.
That's what
I'd call it.
- That's a
technical term?
TENSER.;
Uh.
[SIGH]
- It takes over
the form,
the shape
of the organ itself.
It really, in a sense,
dominates it,
reshapes it.
It's not just
parasitic,
although I suppose,
in a sense, it is that too.
It seems
to take meaning
[CLEARS THROAT]
away from the organ.
Takes the process
of meaning
for itself,
so to speak.
- You'd really better
get into bed.
- There, there.
You'll be comfortable
again soon.
OrchidBed is our
top of the line bed.
Once we
correct the misalignment
caused by your...
hormonal imbalance,
[SQUELCHING]
you'll be
floating.
- [DEEP RUMBLING]
- Huh.
- Isn't that right,
Berst?
- Uh-uh.
Yeah, these things are
basically bulletproof.
This bed loves your body,
Mr. Tenser.
It is
so flexible,
so attuned to every shift
of your pain centres,
it's a beautiful thing
to behold.
[TENSER MOANS]
I see you actually have
several of our units here,
- don't you?
- Mm-hm.
- The OrchidBed Bed,
the BreakFaster Chair,
that'll probably need
some adjustment as well.
We can...
download your
OrchidBed co-ordinates
into the BreakFaster,
tweak the EatWare parameters,
and we should be
very close.
[PAPERS CRINKLING]
Oh, my God.
Router.
- What is it?
- Mr. Tenser
has a Sark unit here.
[Gasp]
[FAST FOOTSTEPS]
[SIGH]
- Yes.
He really does.
[GENTLE SCORE]
- The Sark autopsy module
was one of the best units
we ever made.
It's gorgeous.
- They're legendary.
- So complex.
- So subtle.
- Do you ever work
on one of these?
- They stopped making them
before our time.
I've never seen one
in the flesh before.
- [SCOFFS]
- They're legendary.
- What do you
use it for?
You're not in the
autopsy business, are you?
- It's my
paint brush.
[INDUSTRIAL SCORE]
[CLICKS]
[GEARS WHIRRING]
[MECHANICAL WHIRRING
AND GRINDING]
[INHALE]
[WHIRRING]
[SQUELCHING]
[CRINKLING]
[SQUELCHING]
[CHIRPING]
[AUDIENCE GASPS]
[HIGH-PITCHED
WHINE]
[INDUSTRIAL MUSIC
ENDS]
[MULTIPLE
INDISTINCT CONVERSATIONS]
[TENSER
SPEAKS QUIETLY]
[GLASSWARE CLINKING]
- Hm.
Mm, oh, my God,
look at this thing.
No, you can't.
[GLASSES CLINK]
Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
- It's not
that small.
- Quite big,
actually.
- Hm.
- Do you mind if I ask you
something intimate?
- Hi.
No, go ahead.
- That surgery is sex,
isn't it?
- Is it?
- Hm.
You know it is.
Surgery is
the new sex.
- Hm.
Does there have to be
new sex?
- Yes.
Yes,
it's time.
When I was watching
Caprice cut into you,
I wanted...
- Yes?
- I wanted you
to be cutting into me.
That's when
I knew.
- Hm.
- [GLASS DOWN]
- Hm?
- What was that
all about?
- Just another
epiphany.
Art triumphs
once again.
Hm.
- His body needs are subtle and
they're constantly shifting.
We feel,
Danny Router and I do,
that the Tenser account
will force
our entire organization
into new,
exhilarating territory.
- Saul Tenser is...
an artist
of the inner landscape.
Creation of art
is often associated with pain,
and pain, as we know,
is always associated with sleep.
We at LifeFormWare
specialize in
manipulating
and modulating
the pain of artists,
and,
to us,
Saul Tenser
is the greatest challenge,
so intimate and involving
in his art,
and the nature
of his pain.
A good night's sleep
is a...
hard thing to define
when you're an artist
and you
seek pain.
[TENSE SCORE]
[GROANS]
[TENSE SCORE
ENDS]
[APPROACHING
FOOTSTEPS]
[APPROACHING
FOOTSTEPS]
- Hm.
Sit down.
I'm Detective Cope.
I'm with
New Vice.
And you are?
- Wippet.
- Timlin.
- Hm, yes, good.
Have you had recent dealings
with the performance artist,
Saul Tenser?
- Yes.
- And you have a portfolio
of all the neo-organs
which he has
developed
and removed?
- He donated it
to us.
[INHALES]
He was the first
to undertake the logging,
the archiving,
of his
inner creations.
We call it the
Tenser Organography.
For him,
it was an art thing,
an artist wanting
a systematized record
of his art.
- But, for us,
it triggered
an awareness of the flow,
the significance
of these
spontaneous growths
which many people
were experiencing in secret.
So, now, we have
actually required
the legal registering
of these growths.
- The registering
of a genuine, new...
Saul Tenser
internal organ...
- It's like discovering
a new species of animal.
- Well,
more like discovering
a new Picasso.
- How can a tumorous growth
be considered art?
Where is the
emotional shaping,
the philosophical
understanding,
which is basic
to all art?
[TIMLIN SCOFFS]
[WIPPET SIGHS]
[SCOFFS AGAIN]
Look...
I have a lump
on my abdomen.
You see it?
Picasso?
Duchamp?
Francis Bacon,
perhaps?
Am I an artist?
[CLEARS THROAT]
[INHALE]
- He takes the rebellion
of his own body
and seizes
control of it.
Shapes it,
tattoos it,
displays it,
creates theatre
out of it.
It has meaning,
very potent meaning, and...
many, many people
respond to it.
- [LAUGHS]
- Yes.
- Tattoos it?
- Here we go.
- Hm.
- You see?
See, right from
the beginning,
after he met Caprice,
all his neo-organs
were tattooed
while they were still
inside his body.
- Caprice
is his lover?
- Caprice is
his performance partner.
She does
the tattoos.
And the surgery.
- Hm.
[TIMLIN INHALES SHARPLY
THROUGH HER NOSE]
[TIMLIN SIGHS]
Looks to me as though
Caprice is the artist.
Tenser is just
a glorified organ donor.
[WIPPET LAUGHS]
- Well, there are
the performances.
And, then-then,
there is the question of will.
- Will?
- Yes.
We believe,
that on a certain level,
perhaps
a subconscious one,
Saul Tenser
wills these new organs to grow.
So...
[COPE SIGHS]
Hm, you really ought to get that
lump on your abdomen looked at.
[GROAN]
[ROLLING DOOR
OPENING]
[CART ROLLING
ACROSS FLOOR]
[TENSER MOANS]
[CHAIR SLIDING
ON FLOOR]
[CLATTERING]
[FOOTSTEPS]
[TENSER MOANS]
- Saul?
Saul, darling,
can you wake up?
[SOFT MOAN]
Your bed says that you're
working on something new.
Can that
be right?
So soon?
- The bed
is very quiet.
The bed
is never wrong.
[SIGH]
Just ask our friends
at LifeFormWare.
[MOANS]
- Is this something
we should worry about?
The interval between growths
seems to be closing up.
- I'm feeling
very creative.
I guess.
We'll just have to
start cutting faster.
[TENSE SCORE]
[Squelching]
- It is time
to stop seeing.
It is time
to stop speaking.
It is time
to listen.
[LOUD
HOUSE MUSIC]
- I don't like
the ears.
- What?
- The ears.
They're cute,
they're striking, but
a thousand ears
is not good design.
Surround sound?
The extra ears
don't even work.
They're just
for show.
- How do
you know?
- I'm Adrienne Berceau.
I'm Klinek's
Biomorphology Coordinator.
Don't tell him I said this,
but he's better with the dancing
than he is
with the conceptual art.
Are you working
on anything new, Mr. Tenser?
- I never
really know
when I'm
working on something new.
[CLEARS THROAT]
It doesn't
seem to be my decision.
- What if it is?
- If it is?
- The creation of inner beauty
cannot be an accident.
Forgive me
for quoting you and your show.
Have you heard of
Dr. Nasatir?
- No.
- You should
pay him a visit.
Inner beauty
is his specialty,
as it is yours.
I've booked you
an appointment.
Go to the address
written here.
- A consultation
about a medical problem?
- A consultation about
a political problem.
[SLOW FOOTSTEPS]
[WOMAN MOANS]
[TENSER CLEARS THROAT]
[GROANS]
- I have
a concept for you.
- Yeah?
- Yeah, yeah.
It came to me
when I saw you
use a Sark unit
as part of your show.
The Sark was originally
an autopsy module.
Did you
know that?
- I knew that.
- Have you ever thought about
using it for a real autopsy?
As part
of your show?
- Perform an autopsy?
- On a corpse.
Mm-hm.
I have a corpse
for you.
It's a
very special corpse.
You could do a live autopsy
on a dead body.
And there would be surprises.
I can guarantee a few surprises.
- What corpse
are you talking about?
- My son.
Eight years old.
[TENSER
CLEARS HIS THROAT]
- Why is he
a corpse?
- His mother murdered him.
Wouldn't that be...
good raw material
for a performance?
- You have the body
of your son?
- Yes, of course I have
the body of my son.
He's my son.
- Wow.
- Yeah, I know.
I mean,
how radical are you?
Hm?
Are you afraid of
a little emotion?
[TENSER COUGHS]
- I'm afraid
of everything.
[DOTRICE SCOFFS]
[TENSER COUGHS]
[GAGS]
[COUGHS]
[GROANS]
The throat thing
is very severe
today.
I can't
open it.
- What's going on?
- I am not sure.
- You were out
for a very long time yesterday.
- Yeah.
It's not
my allergies.
In fact,
they're not
bothering me.
- [COUGHS]
- It's strange.
- Are you
in discomfort?
- No, it's a...
compelling fullness.
Not a completely
bad feeling.
- At least not...
- [SWALLOWS HARD]
uninteresting.
[SIGHS]
I went to see
the Klinek.
- How was it?
- [EXHALES]
- The usual.
[GAGS]
- [EXHALES]
- It was packed.
- Jealous?
- Of course.
- But that's not it.
- [CLEARS THROAT]
I met this guy...
[GAGS]
- On the street.
- [CLEARS THROAT]
He had an idea
for a show.
[GENTLE SCORE]
[CLICKING;
BEEPING]
- So,
I'm the boy's corpse.
We'll have to
modify the Sark.
- Hm.
- Convert it back
into an autopsy module.
[TENSER EXHALES]
- I don't know
where the law is
on acts degrading
to human remains.
[WHIRRING]
We'll have to be outrageous
to make it worthwhile.
We have to
go deep.
[EXHALE]
[CAPRICE MOANS]
[WHIRRING]
[CAPRICE MOANS]
I'm not sure how we'd play
the inner beauty angle.
This guy, Dotrice,
he said there'd be surprises...
- [GASP]
- Oops.
- Oh.
- Sorry.
- That was
the machinery talking.
- That was you
talking.
Keep going.
[CAPRICE
SIGHS DEEPLY]
- Really?
- So far...
so good.
[CAPRICE EXHALES]
[MACHINERY CHIRPING]
Oh...
[CAPRICE MOANS]
Oh...
Oh!
Oh...
[EXHALING]
- You could be on the inside
for the next show.
- Maybe.
But maybe
this is
just for us.
[CONTROLLER CLICKS,
CHIRPS]
[MACHINERY
WHIRRING]
[RAPID BEEPING]
[CHIRPING]
[WHIRRING]
[SQUELCHING]
[WIND BLOWING;
SURF IN DISTANCE]
[APPROACHING
FOOTSTEPS]
- How are you feeling?
- What do you mean?
- Got anything
cooking in there?
- Huh.
Your imagination's
working overtime.
- I just got to see
your portfolio.
You are very
prolific.
I had no idea.
It must be
exhausting, uh?
- I could live
without it.
- Listen,
illuminate me.
Why is Saul Tenser
doing undercover?
I mean, you seem to be
pretty deep
into that
body-art stuff.
- Well...
What I'm saying with that
body-art stuff
is that I don't like
what's happening with the body.
In particular,
what's happening with my body,
which is why
I keep cutting it up.
- Your partner,
Caprice,
she's in the dark
about this?
The under
the covers?
- Yeah.
- Totally?
- Yeah.
- She can't read
your insides?
There aren't any traces there
that say undercover stoolie?
- You really are
imaginative.
- What have you
got for me?
Dr. Nasatir.
Cosmetic surgery.
- Someone contacted me
at the Klinek show.
[CLEARS THROAT]
- I heard
it was a good show.
Very disturbing.
Multiple ears.
Wow.
Got to be
good.
- It was okay.
If you like
escapist propaganda.
This someone
talked to me about
my take
on inner beauty.
Said I really should consult
with a doctor.
Dr. Nasatir.
- Inner beauty, huh?
That's right up
your alley.
- Guess that's why
she was talking to me.
- Okay, good.
Follow it up.
Find out
what it means.
What else?
- Why is your body-crime unit
called New Vice?
I don't get
the vice part.
- Somebody in the Bureau
thought it was sexier than
Evolutionary
Derangement.
Sexier means
easier funding.
Anything else?
- Yeah.
You have a woman named
Djuna Dotrice in the Metro Pen.
- We have?
New Vice
has her?
- Probably just Old Homicide.
She's in for murder.
Murdered
her own kid.
- Yeah.
Well?
- I need
to talk to her.
[METAL SCRAPING]
[GENTLE SCORE]
- The Sark
was originally
a coroners'
autopsy sarcophagus.
When it went out of style
in the medical profession,
it took on
new life as
artists' supplies.
- I've heard
that some of the Sarks
that were modified
for performance surgery
have been really brutally
hacked around,
but this one was
converted by someone
with a very
delicate touch.
It's in
beautiful shape.
[WHIRRING]
[CLICKING]
- Where's your
partner?
- Saul likes me
to do the techno dog work.
Keeps me in touch
with my roots.
- What happened
to him?
- The body-growth thing.
- Is there a name
for it?
Accelerated Evolution Syndrome.
Your body
gets very inventive
and throws a lot
of new stuff at you.
I guess it wants to see
what sticks
for the next
generation.
- Yeah, but,
uh...
Tenser's not letting
anything stick, is he?
I mean...
not if he's
getting rid of it all.
the new,
improved body parts?
- It's pathological.
It's not
healthy.
It's a breakdown
of the system.
An organism
needs organisation.
Otherwise, it's just
designer cancer.
- Hey, Caprice.
Check us out!
[LAUGHS]
Whaddya think?
Do we got a future
in performance here?
[LAUGHING]
- Definitely.
[MODERATE SCORE]
[SCORE MODULATES
DARKER]
[COUGHING]
[COUGHING
CONTINUES]
[GROANS]
- Saul Tenser.
Come on in.
[CLEARING THROAT]
This
is very exciting.
- Is it?
- Seeing you here,
is like a lightning bolt
from the blue.
It strikes you very hard
and very convincingly.
Let me
take your coat.
- Uh, I prefer
to keep it on.
I get cold.
- If you don't mind
staining.
Please, just hop up on there
and expose your abdomen.
[CLICKING;
DYNAMO SPINS UP]
[CLEARS THROAT]
- Tell me about
the lightning bolt.
- Saul Tenser
and the Inner Beauties.
It's a marriage
made in heaven.
- Inner Beauties.
[EXCITED BREATHING]
- I propose
to install
the rip-lock
here.
This will give you
maximum access.
[CLEARING THROAT]
- Access to what?
I believe I'm here
to discuss my political problem.
- I wasn't aware
you had one.
- I wasn't either,
but Adrienne Berceau
seems to think I do.
- Oh, Adrienne.
She's so dramatic.
Listen...
Me, I'm just
a mechanic.
I install doors and windows
into the future.
Politics
will come soon,
when you're
registered.
- Registered?
For what?
- He doesn't even know.
For the
Inner Beauty Pageant.
I'm sure you'll be
a contender.
[TENSER COUGHING]
- Hi.
- Hi.
- How's the Sark
coming along?
- Our LifeFormWare friends
are very...
[CHUCKLES]
How can I
put it?
Very playful.
- Huh.
Is that
a good thing?
- They love it to death,
that piece of machinery.
They literally
salivate on it.
They won't
hurt it.
- Huh.
- Wow.
And
what's this?
Cut yourself
shaving?
[TENSER CHUCKLES]
[COUGHS]
- I seem
to be a contestant
in the
Inner Beauty Pageant.
It's very
hush-hush.
Might not be
quite legal.
- The things
you drag home.
- Hm.
I'm entering
in the category
of Best Original Organ
With No Known Function.
This is like a raincoat
for internal organ flashers.
[CHUCKLES]
- Wow.
A new world
opens up.
- Hm.
- Wait a minute.
Have we just been
made, um...
obsolete?
- No,
of course not.
It's just
a functional thing.
[SNIFFLES]
It's a
zippered fly;
it's not art,
It's not sensual.
Besides,
remember what
our Registry friend said:
sex is surgery.
A zipper
can't replace our Sark.
- I think she said, uh...
"Surgery is
the new sex."
Besides,
- zippers...
- [ZIPPING]
- [GENTLE SCORE]
- have their own
sex appeal.
[TENSER MOANS]
[GASPS]
[SQUELCHING]
[CAPRICE MOANS]
[TENSER SIGHS]
- Careful...
don't spill.
[GROANING]
[SCORE
FADES OUT]
[FLIES BUZZING]
- He ate a plastic
wastepaper basket.
What would
you do?
- I wouldn't
kill him.
A little kid,
my own son.
- But he wouldn't be
your own son.
He wouldn't even be
a little kid.
- What would
he be?
- A creature.
A thing.
A thing my husband invented
to torment me.
- A thing that can eat
a plastic wastepaper basket.
- Eat it
and enjoy it.
And eat nothing but plastic
and weird synthetic stuff.
[LAUGHS]
He would take that watch
and he'd have it for lunch.
[LAUGHS]
- He could
digest plastic?
- He had this
weird,
thick white drool
that he'd sometimes
slurp over everything.
It was like
acid.
It'd dissolve
any kind of plasticky stuff.
It would sting
if you got it on your skin.
Didn't bother him,
though.
That lizard.
[CLEARS THROAT]
- Your husband
is Lang Dotrice.
- Was.
Was my husband.
I've disowned him - fuck him.
- He invented
your son?
- Yeah.
That's how
I think of it.
And here's another thing
I think of:
the thought
of that slimy worm
growing in me
still makes me sick.
- The police tell me
they haven't found
your son, Brecken.
I get
the feeling
they don't think
you really killed him.
- I confess
they don't
believe me.
The perfect crime.
[GROANS]
- You confessed?
- Yeah.
- Why?
- I'm guilty.
- Where's the body?
- Lang has it
unless he's thrown it away.
- How'd he
get it?
- I left it
for him.
My little
divorce present.
- What is Lang
going to do with the body?
- Maybe him and his cannibal
friends are going to eat it.
Who the fuck knows?
Who the fuck cares?
- His friends
are cannibals?
- Um-hm.
If you're
a Barbie Doll,
then they're
cannibals.
- If the police
found Brecken's body
and did
an autopsy,
what do you think
they'd find inside it?
- Outer space.
[FOOTSTEPS RECEDING]
[CICADAS CHIRRING]
[BANGING
ON METAL DOOR]
[DOOR MECHANISM CLACKING,
SLIDING OPEN]
- Tarr.
- Lang.
- Everybody's here.
- Good.
[INDISTINCCONVERSATIONS]
- Our supply lines
are up and running again,
so we're
in very good shape.
Production will soon
be back to maximum.
[THUD]
[BUZZER]
[GEARS
RATCHETING]
[PLASTIC
CRINKLES]
- Tarr, if we have to
move the commune,
I mean, the whole operation,
the assembly line, everything...
Sit.
How quickly
can it be?
- You're expecting
problems?
[LAUGHS]
- I'm going ahead
with the Brecken autopsy.
Finally, what we're doing
is going to be very public
and it's going to
resonate.
[DRAMATIC
SCORE]
[CAMERA SHUTTERS
CLICKING]
[RASPING]
[HEAVY BREATHING]
- Oh...
[SCORE
FADES OUT]
[INDISTINCCONVERSATIONS]
[WOMAN LAUGHING]
[GLASSWARE CLINKING]
- Oh.
Where's
Mr. Tenser?
- He's doing some research.
- Ah.
- Where's your friend,
Timlin?
- Oh, she was, uh,
intimidated.
- By whom?
- Well, we've been
forbidden
to mingle.
It's now part of
the job description.
I'm risking my career
just being here,
but, uh...
I can't
stay away.
I've got
the fever.
- Forgive me.
I've got to talk to her
before she goes.
Odile.
- Caprice.
Oh, you have no idea
how hard it's been for me
to find plastic surgeons
who understand
that I do not wish
to be made more beautiful.
- Surgeons tend to be
very focussed
and unimaginative.
It's considered
a strength.
I was
a surgeon myself.
Not cosmetic surgery,
though.
- [SIGHS]
- Trauma.
- Trauma.
But that's very
um...
provocative.
I enjoy trauma.
What I do to myself
is very traumatic.
- Is it?
You seem so peaceful,
so...
beatific while your surgery's
going on.
Watching you
suddenly...
filled me with the desire
to cut my face open.
[SIGH]
It's a feeling
that shocked me.
- A desire
to be open
is often the beginning
of something exciting...
[CAPRICE
BREATHES DEEPLY]
...new.
[EXHALES]
Perhaps you would
like to join me and the troupe
later
this evening,
at the hotel?
[CLEARS THROAT]
- A desire
to be open?
- Metaphorically.
Emotionally.
Artistically.
- You want to take over
the Brecken show.
- I want to perform
the autopsy.
I want
to perform.
[TENSER
CLEARS THROAT]
- Well,
this is new.
- Yes,
it is.
[SIGHS]
- Maybe...
you were too shy
before.
- I'm not
too shy now.
Will you have something new
for the show?
We could definitely do work
in a Tenser extraction.
Double Autopsy.
- Hm.
I do have
something cooking.
[SIGHS]
Maybe
a few things.
But I'm happy to let them
stay inside for now.
- That might not
be healthy.
- We can extract
in private,
if it's
a problem.
Doesn't have to be
a performance.
- Don't let it go
too long.
[COUGHS;
CLEARS THROAT]
[CHAIR CREAKS]
[SIGHS]
- How was
Odile's show?
- It was...
- Brilliant.
- [CHUCKLES THROUGH NOSE]
She's exhilarating.
- Yeah.
- She says
hello.
- Hello.
- I want to do more
than perform.
I want to
construct.
I want to construct
the Brecken show.
- It already has
an innate structure.
[CLEARS THROAT]
A murdered boy.
A very
strange boy.
A public autopsy,
some...
surprises.
- I want to
work with it.
It's juicy
with meaning.
[WIPPET INHALES,
EXHALES]
- Saul Tenser.
[CHUCKLES]
Well,
then,
come on in.
Hm.
[DOOR LATCH
ENGAGES]
Just...
[TENSER CLEARS
HIS THROAT]
- What's up?
- Oh, well...
I just want your advice
as a neo-organ generator.
I...
- just...
- [LAUGHS]
Uh...
actually, I wanted
to show you our safe room.
Can I?
[TENSER CLEARS
HIS THROAT]
Yes...
So, this is where
we archive our more
provocative material
in here.
- I thought
it was all provocative.
[WIPPET SCOFFS]
- You,
- you provoke us.
- [LAUGHS]
- Uh...
- [TENSER CLEARS THROAT]
You,
you provoke me.
I'm--
I'm just so glad
you're with us, you know.
It makes such
emotional sense.
- Who's us?
- It's me, I'm...
I'm the one.
I am the Registrar
for the Inner Beauty Pageant.
- [LAUGHS]
- Sh, don't tell.
- Registration
seems to be
your strong suit.
- I-I think you have
a very good chance
of winning your category.
In fact, if I were you,
I'd go for Best in Show.
- I'm not sure I'll have
anything to show.
Might have to
fake it.
- Speaking of
faking it,
I said it makes emotional sense
for you to be with
the Inner Beauties,
and it does, but...
you know,
doesn't make
logical sense.
- No?
- No.
- Because the Inner Beauty
Pageant is all about acceptance.
It's about acknowledgment,
aesthetic empowerment,
And you,
Saul Tenser,
you're all about anger,
and rebellion, and...
rejection
by scalpel.
[TENSER GROANS]
[LONG SIGH]
- This has been a mistake,
hasn't it?
- No.
- No, you're right.
I'd be a fish out of water
at your little
secret event.
- But, no, no, no.
We want you,
we need you, we-we...
It'll all fall apart
without you!
- What if I won
for best original organ
and then I ripped it out
in public at my next show?
Wouldn't that
humiliate your group?
[MUMBLES]
It's star power.
We'll-we'll-we'll cover it.
We'll,
we'll settle.
We'll give you
whatever you want
and maybe, just maybe,
you'll begin to see it our way.
[LAUGHS]
- Uh...
- [CLEARS THROAT]
- So--
- [CLEARS THROAT]
So, okay...
we rewind.
- I, uh...
- [CLEARS THROAT]
I'm here to register
for the Inner Beauty Pageant.
- Mr. Tenser?
- Ah! Oh.
- Saul...
- It's you.
[CLEARS THROAT]
- Could you
come into my office?
[SHUTS DOOR]
[TIMLIN SIGHS]
You were just with
Mr. Wippet.
- I was.
- I'm very worried
about him.
- He seemed
to be in fine form.
- Oh, no, it's a
very dangerous form to be in.
[TREMULOUS INHALE]
- I--
I don't understand.
- It's...
in our line of work,
very easy to be dazzled
by the glamour
of the performance world,
the charismatic people
we meet,
like you.
TENSER:
Mm.
- I see.
- Do you?
[CLEARS THROAT]
- Maybe not.
Tell me.
[CHUCKLES]
- Well, this
is our world.
This office,
this building.
From the
centre of it,
deep,
deep within it,
this beautiful white light
emanates outward.
That light
is you,
what you create,
and those
like you.
Mm...
It's hard-it's hard
for us, drab
little bureaucratic insects
that we are,
not to be drawn into your
powerful gravitational field.
Hurtling towards you,
plunging into your black hole
that pulls all light into it.
[DEEP INHALE]
We want to
follow that light,
fuse
with that light.
- Is--
Is Wippet
doing some fusing,
- [CLEARS THROAT]
- do you think?
- Oh...
He's-he is drawn
to inner beauty.
- Is he playing games
with subversive groups?
Is that-is that
what you mean?
[INHALES]
- I...
I am very,
very fond of him, but...
Yes, I think I might have to
actually turn him in.
- No, don't-don't-don't
do that.
- Uh...
- [ECHOEY CLATTERING IN HALLWAY]
How safe
is this room?
- Oh, it's...
It's totally safe.
You can be
open with me.
- Yeah, open.
Um...
Have you run across
a neo-organ...
or rather,
a system
of neo-organs,
that had
a digestive function?
A system that can digest
synthetics, plastics...
that sort
of thing?
- No.
No, but that
sounds interesting.
We've only come across
single organ growths here,
like yours.
Of course, nobody knows
what would happen
if those growths
were allowed to accumulate.
Do you think they
could ev--
Um, I almost
- said evolve,
- but I didn't.
Hah.
Um...
Do you think they could
actually develop into...
a system
of organs?
like a...
circulatory system,
nervous system, um...
lymphatic...?
- You know a lot
about human physiology.
- Yeah.
- Hm.
- [CLEARS THROAT]
- Do you think
you would ever
let me be a part
of your show?
Uh...
Because I would
love to...
find myself
in that Sark module with...
you
at the controls.
- That would,
that would
definitely fall into
the category of New Vice.
- Mm...
Well, that is
where I live.
[QUIET SCORE]
- [INHALES]
- Hm.
Ah.
[TIMLIN MOANING]
[SHARP EXHALE]
[TENSER MOANS]
[TENSER MOANS]
[TIMLIN SIGHS]
- Oh...
Uh...
[STACCATO CLEARING
OF THROAT]
- I'm sorry.
- No.
- I'm just not very good
at the old sex.
[WIND BLOWING]
[CRICKECHIRPING]
[KNOCKING
ON DOOR]
- Please,
come in.
Sit, uh,
anywhere you like.
[LAUGHS]
[TENSER GROANS
QUIETLY]
[DOOR CREAKS;
CLOSES]
- This is Caprice.
She's
my partner.
- Yes, I've seen
your work.
Beautiful.
Outstanding stuff.
- Thank you.
- I spoke
to your wife.
Your ex-wife.
- Why'd you
do that?
- I wanted to know
what we were getting into.
- Do you
know now?
[TENSER EXHALES]
- Not exactly.
- Okay.
- [CHUCKLES]
- Why don't we, uh,
- [SLAPS FREEZER TWICE]
start with this.
[FREEZER COMPRESSER
DRONES]
[TENSER
CLEARS HIS THROAT]
Don't you want to take a look
at your raw materials?
Please.
[TENSER
CLEARS HIS THROAT]
[CAPRICE SIGHS]
[EXHALES]
- I don't think
we should do this.
- Maybe
you shouldn't.
[BANG]
- But you obviously
really want us to.
[SIGHS]
Why do you?
- I need to
make a statement.
A very public
statement.
- Hm.
Wouldn't a
formal police autopsy
make that statement?
[DOTRICE LAUGHS]
- No, no, it would be
covered up.
You'd never
hear a thing.
[THUD]
[CAPRICE INHALES;
EXHALES]
- Performance art
is all consensual.
[CAPRICE SIGHS]
This one
would be different.
[TREMULOUS BREATH IN]
This would be
different.
- Yes, well,
you'll have my consent.
Brecken
isn't talking.
I'm sure you realize
that Djuna doesn't care
what happens
to her son's body.
- I got the feeling
she was obsessed with his body.
[CLEARS HIS THROAT]
Especially
his digestive system.
- Ah.
Well...
[PLASTIC WRAPPER
CRINKLING]
Ever eaten
one of these?
- Never seen
one of those before.
- Go ahead.
Please.
I think it'll be
a revelation.
[SNIFFS]
- I'm very fussy
about my food.
- Yeah,
so am I.
So was Brecken.
Let me
ask you something:
does the EatWare application
work for you?
I looked at one of those
BreakFaster chairs
from LifeFormWare
in a showroom window once.
The way they adjust
every part of your body
to make chewing, swallowing
and digesting easy.
At one point
in my life
I thought that might be
the answer.
- To what question?
- The eating problem
that I have,
Brecken had...
and that
you have.
- Hm.
You think
they're related?
- You're a man who's fighting
what he really is.
Don't you see?
You should let your body
lead you to
where it wants to go
instead of
hacking it to pieces
and displaying it
in some
hidden museum
like the bones
of an extinct animal.
- Saul would be dead now
if he listened to that advice.
His body
wants to kill him.
What we're doing is
we're making art
out of
anarchy.
We are creating meaning
out of emptiness.
- Are you?
Has it ever occurred to you
that you might simply be
interfering in a
fantastic natural process
that you should
surrender to?
[GROANS]
- Never has.
- Will you do
the Brecken show?
- Should I do
the Brecken show?
What does New Vice
want to get out of this?
- You have a new
best friend.
- Who would
that be?
- Lang Dotrice.
We want him.
But we don't
just want him.
We want his group
of freaks.
All of them.
- I don't know anything
about a group.
- You will find out
about the group.
He likes you.
He trusts you.
- He trusts me to
cut up his dead son in public.
What'll that
get us?
- It could get you
to the next stage,
which is
infiltration.
We want to know everything
there is to know about Dotrice
and his
plastic-eating comrades.
- Plastic-eating?
- You don't
get it yet?
- You talking
about those
purple
candy bars?
[COPE LAUGHS]
- Ever try
eating one of those?
One of
our agents did.
He's as dead
as Brecken now.
- Poisoned him?
- They're synth bars.
Synthetic,
man-made stuff.
Toxic.
A normal human
can't eat that stuff.
But
those people,
- they just...
- [CRUNCHING]
they just munch away,
no problem.
[STONE HITS
METAL SIGN]
They're evolving away
from the human path, Saul.
It can't be allowed
to continue.
[TENSER GRUMBLES]
[LOW RUMBLE]
[STACCATO TICKING]
[KNOCKING ON DOOR]
[CRACKLING]
[NASAL EXHALE]
[MECHANICAL WHINE]
[FOOTSTEPS
RECEDING]
- Doctor Nasatir?
- Yes?
- Router and Berst
of LifeFormWare.
Authorized
technicians.
- You called us,
we're here.
- Did I call you?
- A paradigm shift
with your BreakFaster chair.
- Yes, that's true,
but I'm just eating now.
- Oh,
it's perfect timing.
[DISQUIETING
SCORE]
[LOW THRUMMING]
[SQUELCHING]
[MECHANICAL STACCATOS]
- We're moving
everything out.
Mr. Tarr here,
he's taking care of everything.
I figure the Brecken show
is going to make us too hot
but this,
this is what
all of us eat.
[TENSER
CLEARS HIS THROAT]
- All of us,
is how many?
- Well, our own little cell,
60, 70 souls
but around the world,
our network is vast.
And, really,
the number's unknowable.
- And everybody's had
the same elaborate surgery?
- Tarr.
Everyone around the world,
yes.
The procedures were developed
over years of collaboration.
There are variations,
of course.
Culturally unique
versions.
- And you did it
because?
- Because our bodies
were telling us
it was time
to change, yes?
Time for human evolution
to sync up
with human technology.
We've got to start feeding on
our own industrial waste.
It's our destiny.
- The end result
is you can't eat food.
- Well, we eat
modern food.
We eat
plastic.
And that's what
we like to call it.
- And Brecken?
- Brecken.
Brecken was
the first-born.
- The first to be born
with a plastic...
processing
digestive system.
To be...
naturally
unnatural.
- She hated us.
Djuna hated us.
She stole Brecken
away from us.
She never really understood
what a gem her kid was.
She-- she
couldn't handle it.
- He really
must have been a gem,
because what you're saying
sounds insane to me.
- Why?
- Well, you're saying
your surgery,
the surgery that
made you plastic eaters,
was somehow replicated
genetically in your son?
That surgically acquired
characteristics
[GRUNTS]
became
inheritable?
You cut off
your little finger
[CLEARS THROAT]
and your kids are born
without little fingers?
- Brecken was
our miracle child.
He was everything
we all wanted to be.
That's all
I can say.
Can't say
I understand the process.
- But why
a Brecken show?
- Because I wanted to, someday,
present my son to the world.
I wanted
to show the world
that the future
of humanity existed
and was good.
Was at peace and harmony
with the techno world
that we've created.
Now, all I can do
is present the reality
of his dead little body
as a promise of that future.
I don't know
what we'll see.
But I know
he'll be beautiful.
Sweet and real
and beautiful.
[CICADAS CHIRRING]
[GENTLE SCORE]
[CAMERA SHUTTERS
CLICKING]
- Sorry, I gotta...
I didn't expect
you to be here.
- Hm.
- Couldn't keep away, huh?
- Guess not.
Special event.
- Mm-hm.
- [LAUGHS]
- Worth the risk.
- We've all wanted to see
an autopsy, haven't we?
[SCORE BECOME DRAMATIC]
[MECHANICAL WHIRRING]
We've all felt
that the body was empty,
empty of meaning
and we've wanted
to confirm that,
so that we could fill it
with meaning.
[BEEPING]
Autopsia means
the seeing
for oneself.
Why First Autopsy?
Because
we know
there'll have to be
a Second Autopsy.
If you want to do
an autopsy,
you need
a corpse.
Corporeal,
incorporate,
corpulent.
Body words.
Fleshy
words.
[SIZZLING]
Brecken
is our corpse.
Brecken
was a young boy
who was murdered
by his mother
[TREMULOUS BREATH]
because of what was hidden
in his body.
Because of the meaning
that was there.
For her, the body
was not empty of meaning.
[CLICKING;
SQUELCHING]
[ENGINES WHIRRING]
[SLOW EXHALE]
And now
let us dive deep
into the body of Brecken
and,
like professors
of literature,
search for the
meaning
that lies
locked
in the poem
that was
Brecken.
[BEEPING;
CLICKING]
[SQUELCHING]
[AUDIENCE GASPS;
MURMURS]
- Oh, my God.
[OVERLAPPING CONVERSATIONS]
[CAMERA ROTORS WHIRRING]
- Oh.
- So, we see
that the
crudeness
and the
desperation
and the ugliness
of the world
has seeped
inside even
our youngest
and most beautiful.
[TREMULOUS BREATH]
And we see that the world
is killing our children
from the
inside out.
[EMOTIONAL SIGH]
Here we have the anatomy
of today's pathology.
And we know now why
we'll have a Second Autopsy,
and a Third.
[CAPRICE INHALES]
We know
that we'll
have to keep...
diving back
deep inside,
hoping to find
a different answer.
But for tonight,
let us not be afraid
to map the chaos inside.
[TREMULOUS EXHALE]
Let us
create a map
that will
guide us
into the heart
of darkness.
[CAPRICE GASPS]
[SIGHS]
[BEEPING;
CLICKING]
[SQUELCHING]
[CLICK;
WHIRRING]
[CICADAS CHIRRING]
[SOBBING]
- No, no, no.
No, no, no,
no, no, no.
- That was
hideous.
- I feel
so awful.
- That's not what he was inside,
that's not what he was.
She did this.
- She?
- She, she, she.
- The ex-wife;
the mother of the cadaver.
[GASPS;
SIGHS]
- Djuna?
No,
she didn't.
She had
nothing to do with it.
- Of course
she did.
What you saw in there,
that was her message to me,
to me.
- No,
it wasn't.
I have a feeling
she'd approve of this, though.
[DRILLS
WHIRRING]
[CRANIUM
CRACKING]
[BODY THUDS]
[SOFT SCORE]
[FOOTSTEPS
RECEDING]
[METAL TINKLING]
- I'm sorry
I'm late.
Lots of meetings
these days.
- Hm...
New Vice is getting
quite big, is it?
- It is now.
A lot of people
running scared.
So many plastic-eaters
running around with scalpels.
Makes people
insecure.
- They're pretty good
with the scalpels,
those plastic-eaters.
Better than whoever
did that hack job
on Brecken's
insides.
- Yeah,
so...
Okay...
Okay, we've got
a man inside.
We got there
first.
The kid was pretty weird
inside anyway.
You wouldn't have
recognized a thing,
but the
hell of it was that...
it was
all natural.
He was born
that way.
[MUTTERING]
- You wouldn't want
everybody to know that.
- I couldn't.
I couldn't
let that out.
Once that got
out of the box,
you would never be able
to put it back in.
Your friend at the Registry
did the work.
"Inspired
by Caprice."
- My friend?
You mean,
Wippet?
- No, that strange
little woman.
- What's her name?
- [SNAPPING FINGERS]
Uh, Timlin.
- I wondered what she was doing
at the show.
I guess she couldn't resist
checking out her work.
- She really wants to be
Caprice for you,
if you know what
I mean.
And I know
that you do.
- And Dotrice's
assassination?
- Assassination?
[HANDS
HIT SIDES]
Fancy word
for murder.
- He was
a leader.
He had
a cause.
- Whatever it was,
it was a surprise to me too.
- You have a bad habit
of not telling me things.
It makes it difficult
to function.
- I'm telling you,
we didn't know about it.
Maybe...
Maybe
his crazy wife
got to him somehow.
I don't know.
- No, no, no.
Well, it doesn't matter
who killed him.
It's going to make him
a martyr.
Just what
the cause needs.
- The cause?
Sounds like you are
becoming a believer.
- If you're going to be good
at living undercover,
a part of you
has to believe.
[DRAMATIC SCORE]
[FOOTSTEPS
RECEDING]
- Saul!
Saul!
[TENSER
MOANING]
[CAPRICE
MOANING]
[TENSER
GROANING]
- Oh...
[TENSER
GAGGING]
- Uh!
[CAPRICE
BREATHING HEAVILY]
[TENSER
GAGGING]
[TENSER
COUGHS]
Uh, uh-uh.
[TENSER MOANING;
GAGGING]
[CAPRICE
BREATHING HEAVILY]
- You are
in pain.
- Uh...
Was I?
- What's it like?
- Physical pain?
- Yes.
[SIGHS]
- It's hard
to be clear about it.
It becomes...
part of
the dreaming.
mixes with
the emotional pain
of the dreaming,
so it's-it's...
It's confused.
- I...
I almost
thought...
I almost thought
I was...
I was feeling.
- Ah.
Ahh...
- Did you dream
about Dotrice?
[TENSER SIGHS]
- Dotrice...
Djuna
and Brecken.
They were all
in the Sark
together.
[SIGHS]
A family
autopsy.
[GRUNTS]
- Who was
at the controls?
- You.
And I.
We both were.
[QUIET SCORE]
[MOTORS WHIRRING]
[CLACKING]
[GROAN]
[CAPRICE
SIGHS]
[PLASTIC
CRINKLING]
[GAGGING]
[MOTORS
WHIRRING]
[GROANS]
[COUGHING;
GAGGING]
- Well, Saul...
what do you
think?
[GRUNTS]
- Yes.
I think yes.
[PAINED BREATH]
It's time
to try it.
[COUGH;
GAGGING]
[MOANS]
[GROANING]
[CHAIR BUZZES]
[MOTORS
POWER DOWN]
[EMOTIONAL
SCORE]
[CALM EXHALE]
[EXHALE]
[CHAIR
PURRING]
[LONG
EXHALE]
[PURRING]
[CLOSING THEME]
[ELECTRICAL ARCING;
ZAPPING]
[MECHANICAL SWITCH
THUMP]
[BUZZING]
[GENTLE
RHYTHMIC GUITAR]
[VOCALIZING]
[LOW RUMBLE]
[FILM PROJECTOR
WHIRRING]
[OPENING
ORCHESTRAL THEME]
[LAPPING WAVES]
[DIGGING IN
ROCKY SHORE]
[MUSIC BECOMES
MORE DRAMATIC]
[SPOON CLINKING
ON ROCK]
[SCORE
FADES OUT]
- Brecken...
I don't want you eating
anything you find in there,
you understand me?
I don't care
what it is.
Don't care
what it is.
[CICADAS CHIRRING]
[SURF HITTING SHORE
IN DISTANCE]
[TOOTHBRUSH
INTO HOLDER]
[CRUNCHING]
[POIGNANT SCORE]
[CRUNCHING CONTINUES]
[BED CREAKING]
[EMOTIONAL BREATHING]
[SCORE FADES OUT]
[CHAIR CREAKS]
[SOFT FOOTFALLS]
[EDGY SCORE]
Ah...
[MUFFLED GRUNTS]
- Mum! Mum!
- No! No!
- [LEGS THRASHING]
[MUFFLED SHRIEKS]
No!
No, no!
[THRASHING STOPS]
[DJUNA
BREATHES HARD]
[TREMULOUS BREATHING]
[SCORE
FADES OUT]
[RINGING]
[RINGING]
[POIGNANT SCORE]
[RINGING]
[CONNECTING BEEPS]
- Yes?
Yes, it's still Djuna.
Now you've confirmed
the phone number.
I want you to tell Lang
that if he's interested
in picking up the corpse
of that creature
he calls his son--
Yes, yes, I mean
the Brecken thing.
So, you tell him to come
to the address I gave you.
It will be here,
and I won't be.
[STATIC]
[CLICK]
[PHONE CLATTERS
TO SHELF]
[EMOTIONAL SCORE]
[SHARP
NASAL EXHALES]
[SOBBING]
[SNIFFLES]
[SOBBING]
[GENTLE SURF]
[SCORE FADES OUT]
[FOOTFALLS
ON ROCKS]
[DOOR CLOSES]
[LANG DOTRICE EXHALES]
[MOVING SCORE]
[DEEP INHALE;
EXHALE]
[SOBBING]
- Oh, my boy, boy, boy.
My boy.
Oh, my boy.
[DRAMATIC SCORE]
[RUMBLING]
[GUTTURAL NOISES]
[GAG]
[GROANING]
[MOANING]
[GASP]
[LOW THRUMMING]
- Saul.
Saul, darling,
can you wake up?
- Who's here?
- It's just me.
It's Caprice.
Did you sleep?
[SIGH]
- I think this...
bed
needs new software.
[PAINED BREATHING]
It's not anticipating
my pain anymore.
[SHARP GASPS;
BREATHING]
It's not turning me
properly.
- Yes,
I heard you.
- A sleepless night.
- [TENSER GAGGING]
I will call
LifeFormWare right away.
They're usually
very responsive.
[SHARP EXHALE]
- What else?
What else?
- The tests cooked all night
and were ready this morning.
There is a new hormone
in your bloodstream.
- Ah...
Great.
It's about time.
I thought
I was all tapped out.
[INHALE]
[SIGH]
Dried up.
- You always think that,
and you're always wrong.
- One day,
I'll be right.
- Not today.
[DEEP RUMBLING]
[SHARP EXHALE]
- Not today.
[SAUL AND CAPRICE
LAUGH]
It's still
before breakfast.
[WHIRRING;
CLICKING]
What do you see?
I can feel you pulling things
around in there.
- It seems to be
some small sort of, uh,
endocrine gland,
about the size
of an adrenal gland.
- Small.
That's disappointing.
It's not very dramatic.
[GROANS]
- It's a
brand new organ
Never before seen.
- Yeah.
- And it's
functioning.
[SAUL GROANS]
Can you feel it?
That new hormone?
- Yeah.
Oh,
LifeFormWare.
[DEEP EXHALE]
- LifeFormWare?
- Yeah.
The pain
is different.
That's probably why my bed's
computer's having trouble.
[GROANS]
This new organ,
it's, uh,
it's shifting
my pain centres.
- For better
or worse?
- So far,
just different.
[SIGHING]
How's the artwork
progressing?
- It's a slippery surface.
Hard to be precise
with the ink.
- Huh...
Why not do something
that really looks like a tattoo?
A heart,
an anchor,
"Mother"?
[LAUGHING]
- That would be
playful.
But the Registry
insists on
"uniquely
self-referential."
- Ah, the Registry.
Of course.
[SIGH]
[PLACID SCORE]
[SPOON CLINKING
ON PLATE]
[NASAL EXHALE]
[GAGGING]
[CHAIR THRUMMING]
[GAGGING]
[CHAIR CREAKING]
[GRUNT]
[GRUNT]
[GAGGING]
[GROANS]
[DRAMATIC SCORE]
[GAGGING
CONTINUES]
[TENSER SIGHS]
[COUGHING]
[COUGH]
[MOANING]
[WRAPPER CRINKLING]
[KNOCKING]
[TENSER GRUNTS]
[APPROACHING FOOTSTEPS]
Saul Tenser.
- Caprice.
- Oh, my God.
So you are.
Welcome.
I'm Wippet,
by the way.
[DOOR CREAKS]
Wow, um...
- [DOOR CLOSES]
- This is a real treat
and a privilege for us,
isn't it, Timlin?
That's Timlin.
This isn't very grand, is it,
but this is
the National Organ Registry
nonetheless, and
we're fully equipped,
aren't we, Timlin?
Um, it's all
secret stuff now
because we're part of
the NVU of Justice,
but we'll be ready
to break out and go public
when the time
inevitably comes.
- NVU?
- New Vice Unit.
No crime
like the present.
[SAUL LAUGHS]
- Sorry, we're a little
confused about procedure.
This is
our first time.
- Hm.
But you understand the necessity
of organ registration
from a security standpoint?
- We understand
human bodies
are changing.
[CLEARS THROAT]
I know this
quite well.
Um...
And, apparently,
this is of some concern
to the governments
of the world.
- Human bodies, yes.
"Human" is the
operative word.
Human evolution
is the
concern.
That it's
going wrong.
[SAUL
CLEARS THROAT]
That it's...
uncontrolled, it's...
insurrectional.
It might lead us
to a bad place.
Look what's happened to the
pain thresholds, for instance.
The world is a
much more dangerous place
now that p-p-pain
has all but disappeared.
What good is it
that only a lucky handful of us
experience pain
in our sleep?
Pain
has a function.
It is a warning system
that we don't have anymore,
and how did this happen,
what does this mean?
Or, or what about
infections?
Infections?
What happened to them?
Nobody washes
their hands anymore.
What is it-
what is that new, uh, fad,
uh, what do they call it?
Desktop surgery?
In public!
It's repulsive.
- [CLEARS THROAT]
- Um...
Our records indicate
that you've been producing
random and novel bodily organs
for some years,
but that
you've had them
consistently
removed.
- Who wouldn't?
[WIPPET SCOFFS]
- You'd be
surprised.
- We would be
surprised.
They're basically tumours,
right?
Who would
want to keep them?
They could
kill you.
[TENSER GROANS]
- What is the relationship
between you two?
- I remove these tumours
as part of our performance.
We are
performance artists.
We perform together.
- Hm.
And you're qualified
to perform surgery?
- Well, as Mr. Wippet
was saying,
everybody's qualified
to perform surgery these days.
[WIPPET CHUCKLES]
- If consent is
legally given,
there is really no-
no issue there.
- Hm.
I was speaking of your
professional relationship.
You wouldn't want to kill
your performance partner,
would you?
- You never know.
There's a lot of improvisation
in our shows.
- Stop it.
- Hm.
- We met when Saul
was cut up on duty.
I was a trauma surgeon
at First General.
We unleashed things
in each other.
We both changed,
left our
professions.
And now we are
what we are.
- Oh.
You're stars,
that's what you are.
Gosh, everyone wants to be
a performance artist these days.
- It's all the rage, but...
- [INHALES]
not everyone
can do it.
- Well, then...
Registration?
[GENTLE SCORE]
[CLICKING]
[GEARS CLACKING]
[SNORING]
- Oh, my.
Oh, it is
so beautiful!
- I can't quite see it
from my angle.
Can you pick it up
from where you are?
- Oh, yes.
It's-it's very clear.
Oh, gosh!
It is a gorgeous,
I might even say,
sensual example
of the registration
tatooist's art.
- Why don't you tell us
what a registration tattoo is?
- Well, um...
...we here at the
National Organ Registry
have just instituted
a new policy
of tattooing
novel organs,
or idiopathic organs,
that is,
new organs whose function
is unknown,
so that they
can be registered
and kept track of.
[MOAN]
Um, our fear is...
that some of these
neo-organs
might establish themselves
genetically,
and then be passed down
from parents to children,
who would then
no longer be,
strictly speaking,
human.
At least, in the
classical sense.
Our concept
of the registration tattoo
was largely inspired by
the performance art
[SIGH]
of Saul Tenser.
- Oh, I'm so sorry, but it's
forbidden to record in here.
- Oh, right, right.
She's right.
- I was thinking we could use it
for our performance.
We record
the most intimate things.
- I'm sorry,
but it is illegal.
This department
does not yet exist.
- Right, if it
doesn't exist,
then, I guess, it's impossible
to make a recording.
- Sorry.
- [LAUGHS]
- Too bad.
[WIPPET SIGHS]
[EXHALES]
[COMPRESSORS
HUMMING]
I don't think you should have
invited those two creeps
from the registry
to our show.
- Why not?
- [CLEARS THROAT]
Why not get 'em
on our side?
- I don't trust them.
The woman,
Timlin,
she's, uh...
especially
creepy.
- Hm.
I thought she was
rather attractive.
In a...
bureaucratic way.
- Hm.
The LifeFormWare technicians
are here.
They need to see you
in your bed.
[Groans]
- I'm a little upset
about the tattoo.
- Oh?
[CLEARS HIS THROAT]
- Rambunctious.
That's what
I'd call it.
- That's a
technical term?
TENSER.;
Uh.
[SIGH]
- It takes over
the form,
the shape
of the organ itself.
It really, in a sense,
dominates it,
reshapes it.
It's not just
parasitic,
although I suppose,
in a sense, it is that too.
It seems
to take meaning
[CLEARS THROAT]
away from the organ.
Takes the process
of meaning
for itself,
so to speak.
- You'd really better
get into bed.
- There, there.
You'll be comfortable
again soon.
OrchidBed is our
top of the line bed.
Once we
correct the misalignment
caused by your...
hormonal imbalance,
[SQUELCHING]
you'll be
floating.
- [DEEP RUMBLING]
- Huh.
- Isn't that right,
Berst?
- Uh-uh.
Yeah, these things are
basically bulletproof.
This bed loves your body,
Mr. Tenser.
It is
so flexible,
so attuned to every shift
of your pain centres,
it's a beautiful thing
to behold.
[TENSER MOANS]
I see you actually have
several of our units here,
- don't you?
- Mm-hm.
- The OrchidBed Bed,
the BreakFaster Chair,
that'll probably need
some adjustment as well.
We can...
download your
OrchidBed co-ordinates
into the BreakFaster,
tweak the EatWare parameters,
and we should be
very close.
[PAPERS CRINKLING]
Oh, my God.
Router.
- What is it?
- Mr. Tenser
has a Sark unit here.
[Gasp]
[FAST FOOTSTEPS]
[SIGH]
- Yes.
He really does.
[GENTLE SCORE]
- The Sark autopsy module
was one of the best units
we ever made.
It's gorgeous.
- They're legendary.
- So complex.
- So subtle.
- Do you ever work
on one of these?
- They stopped making them
before our time.
I've never seen one
in the flesh before.
- [SCOFFS]
- They're legendary.
- What do you
use it for?
You're not in the
autopsy business, are you?
- It's my
paint brush.
[INDUSTRIAL SCORE]
[CLICKS]
[GEARS WHIRRING]
[MECHANICAL WHIRRING
AND GRINDING]
[INHALE]
[WHIRRING]
[SQUELCHING]
[CRINKLING]
[SQUELCHING]
[CHIRPING]
[AUDIENCE GASPS]
[HIGH-PITCHED
WHINE]
[INDUSTRIAL MUSIC
ENDS]
[MULTIPLE
INDISTINCT CONVERSATIONS]
[TENSER
SPEAKS QUIETLY]
[GLASSWARE CLINKING]
- Hm.
Mm, oh, my God,
look at this thing.
No, you can't.
[GLASSES CLINK]
Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
- It's not
that small.
- Quite big,
actually.
- Hm.
- Do you mind if I ask you
something intimate?
- Hi.
No, go ahead.
- That surgery is sex,
isn't it?
- Is it?
- Hm.
You know it is.
Surgery is
the new sex.
- Hm.
Does there have to be
new sex?
- Yes.
Yes,
it's time.
When I was watching
Caprice cut into you,
I wanted...
- Yes?
- I wanted you
to be cutting into me.
That's when
I knew.
- Hm.
- [GLASS DOWN]
- Hm?
- What was that
all about?
- Just another
epiphany.
Art triumphs
once again.
Hm.
- His body needs are subtle and
they're constantly shifting.
We feel,
Danny Router and I do,
that the Tenser account
will force
our entire organization
into new,
exhilarating territory.
- Saul Tenser is...
an artist
of the inner landscape.
Creation of art
is often associated with pain,
and pain, as we know,
is always associated with sleep.
We at LifeFormWare
specialize in
manipulating
and modulating
the pain of artists,
and,
to us,
Saul Tenser
is the greatest challenge,
so intimate and involving
in his art,
and the nature
of his pain.
A good night's sleep
is a...
hard thing to define
when you're an artist
and you
seek pain.
[TENSE SCORE]
[GROANS]
[TENSE SCORE
ENDS]
[APPROACHING
FOOTSTEPS]
[APPROACHING
FOOTSTEPS]
- Hm.
Sit down.
I'm Detective Cope.
I'm with
New Vice.
And you are?
- Wippet.
- Timlin.
- Hm, yes, good.
Have you had recent dealings
with the performance artist,
Saul Tenser?
- Yes.
- And you have a portfolio
of all the neo-organs
which he has
developed
and removed?
- He donated it
to us.
[INHALES]
He was the first
to undertake the logging,
the archiving,
of his
inner creations.
We call it the
Tenser Organography.
For him,
it was an art thing,
an artist wanting
a systematized record
of his art.
- But, for us,
it triggered
an awareness of the flow,
the significance
of these
spontaneous growths
which many people
were experiencing in secret.
So, now, we have
actually required
the legal registering
of these growths.
- The registering
of a genuine, new...
Saul Tenser
internal organ...
- It's like discovering
a new species of animal.
- Well,
more like discovering
a new Picasso.
- How can a tumorous growth
be considered art?
Where is the
emotional shaping,
the philosophical
understanding,
which is basic
to all art?
[TIMLIN SCOFFS]
[WIPPET SIGHS]
[SCOFFS AGAIN]
Look...
I have a lump
on my abdomen.
You see it?
Picasso?
Duchamp?
Francis Bacon,
perhaps?
Am I an artist?
[CLEARS THROAT]
[INHALE]
- He takes the rebellion
of his own body
and seizes
control of it.
Shapes it,
tattoos it,
displays it,
creates theatre
out of it.
It has meaning,
very potent meaning, and...
many, many people
respond to it.
- [LAUGHS]
- Yes.
- Tattoos it?
- Here we go.
- Hm.
- You see?
See, right from
the beginning,
after he met Caprice,
all his neo-organs
were tattooed
while they were still
inside his body.
- Caprice
is his lover?
- Caprice is
his performance partner.
She does
the tattoos.
And the surgery.
- Hm.
[TIMLIN INHALES SHARPLY
THROUGH HER NOSE]
[TIMLIN SIGHS]
Looks to me as though
Caprice is the artist.
Tenser is just
a glorified organ donor.
[WIPPET LAUGHS]
- Well, there are
the performances.
And, then-then,
there is the question of will.
- Will?
- Yes.
We believe,
that on a certain level,
perhaps
a subconscious one,
Saul Tenser
wills these new organs to grow.
So...
[COPE SIGHS]
Hm, you really ought to get that
lump on your abdomen looked at.
[GROAN]
[ROLLING DOOR
OPENING]
[CART ROLLING
ACROSS FLOOR]
[TENSER MOANS]
[CHAIR SLIDING
ON FLOOR]
[CLATTERING]
[FOOTSTEPS]
[TENSER MOANS]
- Saul?
Saul, darling,
can you wake up?
[SOFT MOAN]
Your bed says that you're
working on something new.
Can that
be right?
So soon?
- The bed
is very quiet.
The bed
is never wrong.
[SIGH]
Just ask our friends
at LifeFormWare.
[MOANS]
- Is this something
we should worry about?
The interval between growths
seems to be closing up.
- I'm feeling
very creative.
I guess.
We'll just have to
start cutting faster.
[TENSE SCORE]
[Squelching]
- It is time
to stop seeing.
It is time
to stop speaking.
It is time
to listen.
[LOUD
HOUSE MUSIC]
- I don't like
the ears.
- What?
- The ears.
They're cute,
they're striking, but
a thousand ears
is not good design.
Surround sound?
The extra ears
don't even work.
They're just
for show.
- How do
you know?
- I'm Adrienne Berceau.
I'm Klinek's
Biomorphology Coordinator.
Don't tell him I said this,
but he's better with the dancing
than he is
with the conceptual art.
Are you working
on anything new, Mr. Tenser?
- I never
really know
when I'm
working on something new.
[CLEARS THROAT]
It doesn't
seem to be my decision.
- What if it is?
- If it is?
- The creation of inner beauty
cannot be an accident.
Forgive me
for quoting you and your show.
Have you heard of
Dr. Nasatir?
- No.
- You should
pay him a visit.
Inner beauty
is his specialty,
as it is yours.
I've booked you
an appointment.
Go to the address
written here.
- A consultation
about a medical problem?
- A consultation about
a political problem.
[SLOW FOOTSTEPS]
[WOMAN MOANS]
[TENSER CLEARS THROAT]
[GROANS]
- I have
a concept for you.
- Yeah?
- Yeah, yeah.
It came to me
when I saw you
use a Sark unit
as part of your show.
The Sark was originally
an autopsy module.
Did you
know that?
- I knew that.
- Have you ever thought about
using it for a real autopsy?
As part
of your show?
- Perform an autopsy?
- On a corpse.
Mm-hm.
I have a corpse
for you.
It's a
very special corpse.
You could do a live autopsy
on a dead body.
And there would be surprises.
I can guarantee a few surprises.
- What corpse
are you talking about?
- My son.
Eight years old.
[TENSER
CLEARS HIS THROAT]
- Why is he
a corpse?
- His mother murdered him.
Wouldn't that be...
good raw material
for a performance?
- You have the body
of your son?
- Yes, of course I have
the body of my son.
He's my son.
- Wow.
- Yeah, I know.
I mean,
how radical are you?
Hm?
Are you afraid of
a little emotion?
[TENSER COUGHS]
- I'm afraid
of everything.
[DOTRICE SCOFFS]
[TENSER COUGHS]
[GAGS]
[COUGHS]
[GROANS]
The throat thing
is very severe
today.
I can't
open it.
- What's going on?
- I am not sure.
- You were out
for a very long time yesterday.
- Yeah.
It's not
my allergies.
In fact,
they're not
bothering me.
- [COUGHS]
- It's strange.
- Are you
in discomfort?
- No, it's a...
compelling fullness.
Not a completely
bad feeling.
- At least not...
- [SWALLOWS HARD]
uninteresting.
[SIGHS]
I went to see
the Klinek.
- How was it?
- [EXHALES]
- The usual.
[GAGS]
- [EXHALES]
- It was packed.
- Jealous?
- Of course.
- But that's not it.
- [CLEARS THROAT]
I met this guy...
[GAGS]
- On the street.
- [CLEARS THROAT]
He had an idea
for a show.
[GENTLE SCORE]
[CLICKING;
BEEPING]
- So,
I'm the boy's corpse.
We'll have to
modify the Sark.
- Hm.
- Convert it back
into an autopsy module.
[TENSER EXHALES]
- I don't know
where the law is
on acts degrading
to human remains.
[WHIRRING]
We'll have to be outrageous
to make it worthwhile.
We have to
go deep.
[EXHALE]
[CAPRICE MOANS]
[WHIRRING]
[CAPRICE MOANS]
I'm not sure how we'd play
the inner beauty angle.
This guy, Dotrice,
he said there'd be surprises...
- [GASP]
- Oops.
- Oh.
- Sorry.
- That was
the machinery talking.
- That was you
talking.
Keep going.
[CAPRICE
SIGHS DEEPLY]
- Really?
- So far...
so good.
[CAPRICE EXHALES]
[MACHINERY CHIRPING]
Oh...
[CAPRICE MOANS]
Oh...
Oh!
Oh...
[EXHALING]
- You could be on the inside
for the next show.
- Maybe.
But maybe
this is
just for us.
[CONTROLLER CLICKS,
CHIRPS]
[MACHINERY
WHIRRING]
[RAPID BEEPING]
[CHIRPING]
[WHIRRING]
[SQUELCHING]
[WIND BLOWING;
SURF IN DISTANCE]
[APPROACHING
FOOTSTEPS]
- How are you feeling?
- What do you mean?
- Got anything
cooking in there?
- Huh.
Your imagination's
working overtime.
- I just got to see
your portfolio.
You are very
prolific.
I had no idea.
It must be
exhausting, uh?
- I could live
without it.
- Listen,
illuminate me.
Why is Saul Tenser
doing undercover?
I mean, you seem to be
pretty deep
into that
body-art stuff.
- Well...
What I'm saying with that
body-art stuff
is that I don't like
what's happening with the body.
In particular,
what's happening with my body,
which is why
I keep cutting it up.
- Your partner,
Caprice,
she's in the dark
about this?
The under
the covers?
- Yeah.
- Totally?
- Yeah.
- She can't read
your insides?
There aren't any traces there
that say undercover stoolie?
- You really are
imaginative.
- What have you
got for me?
Dr. Nasatir.
Cosmetic surgery.
- Someone contacted me
at the Klinek show.
[CLEARS THROAT]
- I heard
it was a good show.
Very disturbing.
Multiple ears.
Wow.
Got to be
good.
- It was okay.
If you like
escapist propaganda.
This someone
talked to me about
my take
on inner beauty.
Said I really should consult
with a doctor.
Dr. Nasatir.
- Inner beauty, huh?
That's right up
your alley.
- Guess that's why
she was talking to me.
- Okay, good.
Follow it up.
Find out
what it means.
What else?
- Why is your body-crime unit
called New Vice?
I don't get
the vice part.
- Somebody in the Bureau
thought it was sexier than
Evolutionary
Derangement.
Sexier means
easier funding.
Anything else?
- Yeah.
You have a woman named
Djuna Dotrice in the Metro Pen.
- We have?
New Vice
has her?
- Probably just Old Homicide.
She's in for murder.
Murdered
her own kid.
- Yeah.
Well?
- I need
to talk to her.
[METAL SCRAPING]
[GENTLE SCORE]
- The Sark
was originally
a coroners'
autopsy sarcophagus.
When it went out of style
in the medical profession,
it took on
new life as
artists' supplies.
- I've heard
that some of the Sarks
that were modified
for performance surgery
have been really brutally
hacked around,
but this one was
converted by someone
with a very
delicate touch.
It's in
beautiful shape.
[WHIRRING]
[CLICKING]
- Where's your
partner?
- Saul likes me
to do the techno dog work.
Keeps me in touch
with my roots.
- What happened
to him?
- The body-growth thing.
- Is there a name
for it?
Accelerated Evolution Syndrome.
Your body
gets very inventive
and throws a lot
of new stuff at you.
I guess it wants to see
what sticks
for the next
generation.
- Yeah, but,
uh...
Tenser's not letting
anything stick, is he?
I mean...
not if he's
getting rid of it all.
the new,
improved body parts?
- It's pathological.
It's not
healthy.
It's a breakdown
of the system.
An organism
needs organisation.
Otherwise, it's just
designer cancer.
- Hey, Caprice.
Check us out!
[LAUGHS]
Whaddya think?
Do we got a future
in performance here?
[LAUGHING]
- Definitely.
[MODERATE SCORE]
[SCORE MODULATES
DARKER]
[COUGHING]
[COUGHING
CONTINUES]
[GROANS]
- Saul Tenser.
Come on in.
[CLEARING THROAT]
This
is very exciting.
- Is it?
- Seeing you here,
is like a lightning bolt
from the blue.
It strikes you very hard
and very convincingly.
Let me
take your coat.
- Uh, I prefer
to keep it on.
I get cold.
- If you don't mind
staining.
Please, just hop up on there
and expose your abdomen.
[CLICKING;
DYNAMO SPINS UP]
[CLEARS THROAT]
- Tell me about
the lightning bolt.
- Saul Tenser
and the Inner Beauties.
It's a marriage
made in heaven.
- Inner Beauties.
[EXCITED BREATHING]
- I propose
to install
the rip-lock
here.
This will give you
maximum access.
[CLEARING THROAT]
- Access to what?
I believe I'm here
to discuss my political problem.
- I wasn't aware
you had one.
- I wasn't either,
but Adrienne Berceau
seems to think I do.
- Oh, Adrienne.
She's so dramatic.
Listen...
Me, I'm just
a mechanic.
I install doors and windows
into the future.
Politics
will come soon,
when you're
registered.
- Registered?
For what?
- He doesn't even know.
For the
Inner Beauty Pageant.
I'm sure you'll be
a contender.
[TENSER COUGHING]
- Hi.
- Hi.
- How's the Sark
coming along?
- Our LifeFormWare friends
are very...
[CHUCKLES]
How can I
put it?
Very playful.
- Huh.
Is that
a good thing?
- They love it to death,
that piece of machinery.
They literally
salivate on it.
They won't
hurt it.
- Huh.
- Wow.
And
what's this?
Cut yourself
shaving?
[TENSER CHUCKLES]
[COUGHS]
- I seem
to be a contestant
in the
Inner Beauty Pageant.
It's very
hush-hush.
Might not be
quite legal.
- The things
you drag home.
- Hm.
I'm entering
in the category
of Best Original Organ
With No Known Function.
This is like a raincoat
for internal organ flashers.
[CHUCKLES]
- Wow.
A new world
opens up.
- Hm.
- Wait a minute.
Have we just been
made, um...
obsolete?
- No,
of course not.
It's just
a functional thing.
[SNIFFLES]
It's a
zippered fly;
it's not art,
It's not sensual.
Besides,
remember what
our Registry friend said:
sex is surgery.
A zipper
can't replace our Sark.
- I think she said, uh...
"Surgery is
the new sex."
Besides,
- zippers...
- [ZIPPING]
- [GENTLE SCORE]
- have their own
sex appeal.
[TENSER MOANS]
[GASPS]
[SQUELCHING]
[CAPRICE MOANS]
[TENSER SIGHS]
- Careful...
don't spill.
[GROANING]
[SCORE
FADES OUT]
[FLIES BUZZING]
- He ate a plastic
wastepaper basket.
What would
you do?
- I wouldn't
kill him.
A little kid,
my own son.
- But he wouldn't be
your own son.
He wouldn't even be
a little kid.
- What would
he be?
- A creature.
A thing.
A thing my husband invented
to torment me.
- A thing that can eat
a plastic wastepaper basket.
- Eat it
and enjoy it.
And eat nothing but plastic
and weird synthetic stuff.
[LAUGHS]
He would take that watch
and he'd have it for lunch.
[LAUGHS]
- He could
digest plastic?
- He had this
weird,
thick white drool
that he'd sometimes
slurp over everything.
It was like
acid.
It'd dissolve
any kind of plasticky stuff.
It would sting
if you got it on your skin.
Didn't bother him,
though.
That lizard.
[CLEARS THROAT]
- Your husband
is Lang Dotrice.
- Was.
Was my husband.
I've disowned him - fuck him.
- He invented
your son?
- Yeah.
That's how
I think of it.
And here's another thing
I think of:
the thought
of that slimy worm
growing in me
still makes me sick.
- The police tell me
they haven't found
your son, Brecken.
I get
the feeling
they don't think
you really killed him.
- I confess
they don't
believe me.
The perfect crime.
[GROANS]
- You confessed?
- Yeah.
- Why?
- I'm guilty.
- Where's the body?
- Lang has it
unless he's thrown it away.
- How'd he
get it?
- I left it
for him.
My little
divorce present.
- What is Lang
going to do with the body?
- Maybe him and his cannibal
friends are going to eat it.
Who the fuck knows?
Who the fuck cares?
- His friends
are cannibals?
- Um-hm.
If you're
a Barbie Doll,
then they're
cannibals.
- If the police
found Brecken's body
and did
an autopsy,
what do you think
they'd find inside it?
- Outer space.
[FOOTSTEPS RECEDING]
[CICADAS CHIRRING]
[BANGING
ON METAL DOOR]
[DOOR MECHANISM CLACKING,
SLIDING OPEN]
- Tarr.
- Lang.
- Everybody's here.
- Good.
[INDISTINCCONVERSATIONS]
- Our supply lines
are up and running again,
so we're
in very good shape.
Production will soon
be back to maximum.
[THUD]
[BUZZER]
[GEARS
RATCHETING]
[PLASTIC
CRINKLES]
- Tarr, if we have to
move the commune,
I mean, the whole operation,
the assembly line, everything...
Sit.
How quickly
can it be?
- You're expecting
problems?
[LAUGHS]
- I'm going ahead
with the Brecken autopsy.
Finally, what we're doing
is going to be very public
and it's going to
resonate.
[DRAMATIC
SCORE]
[CAMERA SHUTTERS
CLICKING]
[RASPING]
[HEAVY BREATHING]
- Oh...
[SCORE
FADES OUT]
[INDISTINCCONVERSATIONS]
[WOMAN LAUGHING]
[GLASSWARE CLINKING]
- Oh.
Where's
Mr. Tenser?
- He's doing some research.
- Ah.
- Where's your friend,
Timlin?
- Oh, she was, uh,
intimidated.
- By whom?
- Well, we've been
forbidden
to mingle.
It's now part of
the job description.
I'm risking my career
just being here,
but, uh...
I can't
stay away.
I've got
the fever.
- Forgive me.
I've got to talk to her
before she goes.
Odile.
- Caprice.
Oh, you have no idea
how hard it's been for me
to find plastic surgeons
who understand
that I do not wish
to be made more beautiful.
- Surgeons tend to be
very focussed
and unimaginative.
It's considered
a strength.
I was
a surgeon myself.
Not cosmetic surgery,
though.
- [SIGHS]
- Trauma.
- Trauma.
But that's very
um...
provocative.
I enjoy trauma.
What I do to myself
is very traumatic.
- Is it?
You seem so peaceful,
so...
beatific while your surgery's
going on.
Watching you
suddenly...
filled me with the desire
to cut my face open.
[SIGH]
It's a feeling
that shocked me.
- A desire
to be open
is often the beginning
of something exciting...
[CAPRICE
BREATHES DEEPLY]
...new.
[EXHALES]
Perhaps you would
like to join me and the troupe
later
this evening,
at the hotel?
[CLEARS THROAT]
- A desire
to be open?
- Metaphorically.
Emotionally.
Artistically.
- You want to take over
the Brecken show.
- I want to perform
the autopsy.
I want
to perform.
[TENSER
CLEARS THROAT]
- Well,
this is new.
- Yes,
it is.
[SIGHS]
- Maybe...
you were too shy
before.
- I'm not
too shy now.
Will you have something new
for the show?
We could definitely do work
in a Tenser extraction.
Double Autopsy.
- Hm.
I do have
something cooking.
[SIGHS]
Maybe
a few things.
But I'm happy to let them
stay inside for now.
- That might not
be healthy.
- We can extract
in private,
if it's
a problem.
Doesn't have to be
a performance.
- Don't let it go
too long.
[COUGHS;
CLEARS THROAT]
[CHAIR CREAKS]
[SIGHS]
- How was
Odile's show?
- It was...
- Brilliant.
- [CHUCKLES THROUGH NOSE]
She's exhilarating.
- Yeah.
- She says
hello.
- Hello.
- I want to do more
than perform.
I want to
construct.
I want to construct
the Brecken show.
- It already has
an innate structure.
[CLEARS THROAT]
A murdered boy.
A very
strange boy.
A public autopsy,
some...
surprises.
- I want to
work with it.
It's juicy
with meaning.
[WIPPET INHALES,
EXHALES]
- Saul Tenser.
[CHUCKLES]
Well,
then,
come on in.
Hm.
[DOOR LATCH
ENGAGES]
Just...
[TENSER CLEARS
HIS THROAT]
- What's up?
- Oh, well...
I just want your advice
as a neo-organ generator.
I...
- just...
- [LAUGHS]
Uh...
actually, I wanted
to show you our safe room.
Can I?
[TENSER CLEARS
HIS THROAT]
Yes...
So, this is where
we archive our more
provocative material
in here.
- I thought
it was all provocative.
[WIPPET SCOFFS]
- You,
- you provoke us.
- [LAUGHS]
- Uh...
- [TENSER CLEARS THROAT]
You,
you provoke me.
I'm--
I'm just so glad
you're with us, you know.
It makes such
emotional sense.
- Who's us?
- It's me, I'm...
I'm the one.
I am the Registrar
for the Inner Beauty Pageant.
- [LAUGHS]
- Sh, don't tell.
- Registration
seems to be
your strong suit.
- I-I think you have
a very good chance
of winning your category.
In fact, if I were you,
I'd go for Best in Show.
- I'm not sure I'll have
anything to show.
Might have to
fake it.
- Speaking of
faking it,
I said it makes emotional sense
for you to be with
the Inner Beauties,
and it does, but...
you know,
doesn't make
logical sense.
- No?
- No.
- Because the Inner Beauty
Pageant is all about acceptance.
It's about acknowledgment,
aesthetic empowerment,
And you,
Saul Tenser,
you're all about anger,
and rebellion, and...
rejection
by scalpel.
[TENSER GROANS]
[LONG SIGH]
- This has been a mistake,
hasn't it?
- No.
- No, you're right.
I'd be a fish out of water
at your little
secret event.
- But, no, no, no.
We want you,
we need you, we-we...
It'll all fall apart
without you!
- What if I won
for best original organ
and then I ripped it out
in public at my next show?
Wouldn't that
humiliate your group?
[MUMBLES]
It's star power.
We'll-we'll-we'll cover it.
We'll,
we'll settle.
We'll give you
whatever you want
and maybe, just maybe,
you'll begin to see it our way.
[LAUGHS]
- Uh...
- [CLEARS THROAT]
- So--
- [CLEARS THROAT]
So, okay...
we rewind.
- I, uh...
- [CLEARS THROAT]
I'm here to register
for the Inner Beauty Pageant.
- Mr. Tenser?
- Ah! Oh.
- Saul...
- It's you.
[CLEARS THROAT]
- Could you
come into my office?
[SHUTS DOOR]
[TIMLIN SIGHS]
You were just with
Mr. Wippet.
- I was.
- I'm very worried
about him.
- He seemed
to be in fine form.
- Oh, no, it's a
very dangerous form to be in.
[TREMULOUS INHALE]
- I--
I don't understand.
- It's...
in our line of work,
very easy to be dazzled
by the glamour
of the performance world,
the charismatic people
we meet,
like you.
TENSER:
Mm.
- I see.
- Do you?
[CLEARS THROAT]
- Maybe not.
Tell me.
[CHUCKLES]
- Well, this
is our world.
This office,
this building.
From the
centre of it,
deep,
deep within it,
this beautiful white light
emanates outward.
That light
is you,
what you create,
and those
like you.
Mm...
It's hard-it's hard
for us, drab
little bureaucratic insects
that we are,
not to be drawn into your
powerful gravitational field.
Hurtling towards you,
plunging into your black hole
that pulls all light into it.
[DEEP INHALE]
We want to
follow that light,
fuse
with that light.
- Is--
Is Wippet
doing some fusing,
- [CLEARS THROAT]
- do you think?
- Oh...
He's-he is drawn
to inner beauty.
- Is he playing games
with subversive groups?
Is that-is that
what you mean?
[INHALES]
- I...
I am very,
very fond of him, but...
Yes, I think I might have to
actually turn him in.
- No, don't-don't-don't
do that.
- Uh...
- [ECHOEY CLATTERING IN HALLWAY]
How safe
is this room?
- Oh, it's...
It's totally safe.
You can be
open with me.
- Yeah, open.
Um...
Have you run across
a neo-organ...
or rather,
a system
of neo-organs,
that had
a digestive function?
A system that can digest
synthetics, plastics...
that sort
of thing?
- No.
No, but that
sounds interesting.
We've only come across
single organ growths here,
like yours.
Of course, nobody knows
what would happen
if those growths
were allowed to accumulate.
Do you think they
could ev--
Um, I almost
- said evolve,
- but I didn't.
Hah.
Um...
Do you think they could
actually develop into...
a system
of organs?
like a...
circulatory system,
nervous system, um...
lymphatic...?
- You know a lot
about human physiology.
- Yeah.
- Hm.
- [CLEARS THROAT]
- Do you think
you would ever
let me be a part
of your show?
Uh...
Because I would
love to...
find myself
in that Sark module with...
you
at the controls.
- That would,
that would
definitely fall into
the category of New Vice.
- Mm...
Well, that is
where I live.
[QUIET SCORE]
- [INHALES]
- Hm.
Ah.
[TIMLIN MOANING]
[SHARP EXHALE]
[TENSER MOANS]
[TENSER MOANS]
[TIMLIN SIGHS]
- Oh...
Uh...
[STACCATO CLEARING
OF THROAT]
- I'm sorry.
- No.
- I'm just not very good
at the old sex.
[WIND BLOWING]
[CRICKECHIRPING]
[KNOCKING
ON DOOR]
- Please,
come in.
Sit, uh,
anywhere you like.
[LAUGHS]
[TENSER GROANS
QUIETLY]
[DOOR CREAKS;
CLOSES]
- This is Caprice.
She's
my partner.
- Yes, I've seen
your work.
Beautiful.
Outstanding stuff.
- Thank you.
- I spoke
to your wife.
Your ex-wife.
- Why'd you
do that?
- I wanted to know
what we were getting into.
- Do you
know now?
[TENSER EXHALES]
- Not exactly.
- Okay.
- [CHUCKLES]
- Why don't we, uh,
- [SLAPS FREEZER TWICE]
start with this.
[FREEZER COMPRESSER
DRONES]
[TENSER
CLEARS HIS THROAT]
Don't you want to take a look
at your raw materials?
Please.
[TENSER
CLEARS HIS THROAT]
[CAPRICE SIGHS]
[EXHALES]
- I don't think
we should do this.
- Maybe
you shouldn't.
[BANG]
- But you obviously
really want us to.
[SIGHS]
Why do you?
- I need to
make a statement.
A very public
statement.
- Hm.
Wouldn't a
formal police autopsy
make that statement?
[DOTRICE LAUGHS]
- No, no, it would be
covered up.
You'd never
hear a thing.
[THUD]
[CAPRICE INHALES;
EXHALES]
- Performance art
is all consensual.
[CAPRICE SIGHS]
This one
would be different.
[TREMULOUS BREATH IN]
This would be
different.
- Yes, well,
you'll have my consent.
Brecken
isn't talking.
I'm sure you realize
that Djuna doesn't care
what happens
to her son's body.
- I got the feeling
she was obsessed with his body.
[CLEARS HIS THROAT]
Especially
his digestive system.
- Ah.
Well...
[PLASTIC WRAPPER
CRINKLING]
Ever eaten
one of these?
- Never seen
one of those before.
- Go ahead.
Please.
I think it'll be
a revelation.
[SNIFFS]
- I'm very fussy
about my food.
- Yeah,
so am I.
So was Brecken.
Let me
ask you something:
does the EatWare application
work for you?
I looked at one of those
BreakFaster chairs
from LifeFormWare
in a showroom window once.
The way they adjust
every part of your body
to make chewing, swallowing
and digesting easy.
At one point
in my life
I thought that might be
the answer.
- To what question?
- The eating problem
that I have,
Brecken had...
and that
you have.
- Hm.
You think
they're related?
- You're a man who's fighting
what he really is.
Don't you see?
You should let your body
lead you to
where it wants to go
instead of
hacking it to pieces
and displaying it
in some
hidden museum
like the bones
of an extinct animal.
- Saul would be dead now
if he listened to that advice.
His body
wants to kill him.
What we're doing is
we're making art
out of
anarchy.
We are creating meaning
out of emptiness.
- Are you?
Has it ever occurred to you
that you might simply be
interfering in a
fantastic natural process
that you should
surrender to?
[GROANS]
- Never has.
- Will you do
the Brecken show?
- Should I do
the Brecken show?
What does New Vice
want to get out of this?
- You have a new
best friend.
- Who would
that be?
- Lang Dotrice.
We want him.
But we don't
just want him.
We want his group
of freaks.
All of them.
- I don't know anything
about a group.
- You will find out
about the group.
He likes you.
He trusts you.
- He trusts me to
cut up his dead son in public.
What'll that
get us?
- It could get you
to the next stage,
which is
infiltration.
We want to know everything
there is to know about Dotrice
and his
plastic-eating comrades.
- Plastic-eating?
- You don't
get it yet?
- You talking
about those
purple
candy bars?
[COPE LAUGHS]
- Ever try
eating one of those?
One of
our agents did.
He's as dead
as Brecken now.
- Poisoned him?
- They're synth bars.
Synthetic,
man-made stuff.
Toxic.
A normal human
can't eat that stuff.
But
those people,
- they just...
- [CRUNCHING]
they just munch away,
no problem.
[STONE HITS
METAL SIGN]
They're evolving away
from the human path, Saul.
It can't be allowed
to continue.
[TENSER GRUMBLES]
[LOW RUMBLE]
[STACCATO TICKING]
[KNOCKING ON DOOR]
[CRACKLING]
[NASAL EXHALE]
[MECHANICAL WHINE]
[FOOTSTEPS
RECEDING]
- Doctor Nasatir?
- Yes?
- Router and Berst
of LifeFormWare.
Authorized
technicians.
- You called us,
we're here.
- Did I call you?
- A paradigm shift
with your BreakFaster chair.
- Yes, that's true,
but I'm just eating now.
- Oh,
it's perfect timing.
[DISQUIETING
SCORE]
[LOW THRUMMING]
[SQUELCHING]
[MECHANICAL STACCATOS]
- We're moving
everything out.
Mr. Tarr here,
he's taking care of everything.
I figure the Brecken show
is going to make us too hot
but this,
this is what
all of us eat.
[TENSER
CLEARS HIS THROAT]
- All of us,
is how many?
- Well, our own little cell,
60, 70 souls
but around the world,
our network is vast.
And, really,
the number's unknowable.
- And everybody's had
the same elaborate surgery?
- Tarr.
Everyone around the world,
yes.
The procedures were developed
over years of collaboration.
There are variations,
of course.
Culturally unique
versions.
- And you did it
because?
- Because our bodies
were telling us
it was time
to change, yes?
Time for human evolution
to sync up
with human technology.
We've got to start feeding on
our own industrial waste.
It's our destiny.
- The end result
is you can't eat food.
- Well, we eat
modern food.
We eat
plastic.
And that's what
we like to call it.
- And Brecken?
- Brecken.
Brecken was
the first-born.
- The first to be born
with a plastic...
processing
digestive system.
To be...
naturally
unnatural.
- She hated us.
Djuna hated us.
She stole Brecken
away from us.
She never really understood
what a gem her kid was.
She-- she
couldn't handle it.
- He really
must have been a gem,
because what you're saying
sounds insane to me.
- Why?
- Well, you're saying
your surgery,
the surgery that
made you plastic eaters,
was somehow replicated
genetically in your son?
That surgically acquired
characteristics
[GRUNTS]
became
inheritable?
You cut off
your little finger
[CLEARS THROAT]
and your kids are born
without little fingers?
- Brecken was
our miracle child.
He was everything
we all wanted to be.
That's all
I can say.
Can't say
I understand the process.
- But why
a Brecken show?
- Because I wanted to, someday,
present my son to the world.
I wanted
to show the world
that the future
of humanity existed
and was good.
Was at peace and harmony
with the techno world
that we've created.
Now, all I can do
is present the reality
of his dead little body
as a promise of that future.
I don't know
what we'll see.
But I know
he'll be beautiful.
Sweet and real
and beautiful.
[CICADAS CHIRRING]
[GENTLE SCORE]
[CAMERA SHUTTERS
CLICKING]
- Sorry, I gotta...
I didn't expect
you to be here.
- Hm.
- Couldn't keep away, huh?
- Guess not.
Special event.
- Mm-hm.
- [LAUGHS]
- Worth the risk.
- We've all wanted to see
an autopsy, haven't we?
[SCORE BECOME DRAMATIC]
[MECHANICAL WHIRRING]
We've all felt
that the body was empty,
empty of meaning
and we've wanted
to confirm that,
so that we could fill it
with meaning.
[BEEPING]
Autopsia means
the seeing
for oneself.
Why First Autopsy?
Because
we know
there'll have to be
a Second Autopsy.
If you want to do
an autopsy,
you need
a corpse.
Corporeal,
incorporate,
corpulent.
Body words.
Fleshy
words.
[SIZZLING]
Brecken
is our corpse.
Brecken
was a young boy
who was murdered
by his mother
[TREMULOUS BREATH]
because of what was hidden
in his body.
Because of the meaning
that was there.
For her, the body
was not empty of meaning.
[CLICKING;
SQUELCHING]
[ENGINES WHIRRING]
[SLOW EXHALE]
And now
let us dive deep
into the body of Brecken
and,
like professors
of literature,
search for the
meaning
that lies
locked
in the poem
that was
Brecken.
[BEEPING;
CLICKING]
[SQUELCHING]
[AUDIENCE GASPS;
MURMURS]
- Oh, my God.
[OVERLAPPING CONVERSATIONS]
[CAMERA ROTORS WHIRRING]
- Oh.
- So, we see
that the
crudeness
and the
desperation
and the ugliness
of the world
has seeped
inside even
our youngest
and most beautiful.
[TREMULOUS BREATH]
And we see that the world
is killing our children
from the
inside out.
[EMOTIONAL SIGH]
Here we have the anatomy
of today's pathology.
And we know now why
we'll have a Second Autopsy,
and a Third.
[CAPRICE INHALES]
We know
that we'll
have to keep...
diving back
deep inside,
hoping to find
a different answer.
But for tonight,
let us not be afraid
to map the chaos inside.
[TREMULOUS EXHALE]
Let us
create a map
that will
guide us
into the heart
of darkness.
[CAPRICE GASPS]
[SIGHS]
[BEEPING;
CLICKING]
[SQUELCHING]
[CLICK;
WHIRRING]
[CICADAS CHIRRING]
[SOBBING]
- No, no, no.
No, no, no,
no, no, no.
- That was
hideous.
- I feel
so awful.
- That's not what he was inside,
that's not what he was.
She did this.
- She?
- She, she, she.
- The ex-wife;
the mother of the cadaver.
[GASPS;
SIGHS]
- Djuna?
No,
she didn't.
She had
nothing to do with it.
- Of course
she did.
What you saw in there,
that was her message to me,
to me.
- No,
it wasn't.
I have a feeling
she'd approve of this, though.
[DRILLS
WHIRRING]
[CRANIUM
CRACKING]
[BODY THUDS]
[SOFT SCORE]
[FOOTSTEPS
RECEDING]
[METAL TINKLING]
- I'm sorry
I'm late.
Lots of meetings
these days.
- Hm...
New Vice is getting
quite big, is it?
- It is now.
A lot of people
running scared.
So many plastic-eaters
running around with scalpels.
Makes people
insecure.
- They're pretty good
with the scalpels,
those plastic-eaters.
Better than whoever
did that hack job
on Brecken's
insides.
- Yeah,
so...
Okay...
Okay, we've got
a man inside.
We got there
first.
The kid was pretty weird
inside anyway.
You wouldn't have
recognized a thing,
but the
hell of it was that...
it was
all natural.
He was born
that way.
[MUTTERING]
- You wouldn't want
everybody to know that.
- I couldn't.
I couldn't
let that out.
Once that got
out of the box,
you would never be able
to put it back in.
Your friend at the Registry
did the work.
"Inspired
by Caprice."
- My friend?
You mean,
Wippet?
- No, that strange
little woman.
- What's her name?
- [SNAPPING FINGERS]
Uh, Timlin.
- I wondered what she was doing
at the show.
I guess she couldn't resist
checking out her work.
- She really wants to be
Caprice for you,
if you know what
I mean.
And I know
that you do.
- And Dotrice's
assassination?
- Assassination?
[HANDS
HIT SIDES]
Fancy word
for murder.
- He was
a leader.
He had
a cause.
- Whatever it was,
it was a surprise to me too.
- You have a bad habit
of not telling me things.
It makes it difficult
to function.
- I'm telling you,
we didn't know about it.
Maybe...
Maybe
his crazy wife
got to him somehow.
I don't know.
- No, no, no.
Well, it doesn't matter
who killed him.
It's going to make him
a martyr.
Just what
the cause needs.
- The cause?
Sounds like you are
becoming a believer.
- If you're going to be good
at living undercover,
a part of you
has to believe.
[DRAMATIC SCORE]
[FOOTSTEPS
RECEDING]
- Saul!
Saul!
[TENSER
MOANING]
[CAPRICE
MOANING]
[TENSER
GROANING]
- Oh...
[TENSER
GAGGING]
- Uh!
[CAPRICE
BREATHING HEAVILY]
[TENSER
GAGGING]
[TENSER
COUGHS]
Uh, uh-uh.
[TENSER MOANING;
GAGGING]
[CAPRICE
BREATHING HEAVILY]
- You are
in pain.
- Uh...
Was I?
- What's it like?
- Physical pain?
- Yes.
[SIGHS]
- It's hard
to be clear about it.
It becomes...
part of
the dreaming.
mixes with
the emotional pain
of the dreaming,
so it's-it's...
It's confused.
- I...
I almost
thought...
I almost thought
I was...
I was feeling.
- Ah.
Ahh...
- Did you dream
about Dotrice?
[TENSER SIGHS]
- Dotrice...
Djuna
and Brecken.
They were all
in the Sark
together.
[SIGHS]
A family
autopsy.
[GRUNTS]
- Who was
at the controls?
- You.
And I.
We both were.
[QUIET SCORE]
[MOTORS WHIRRING]
[CLACKING]
[GROAN]
[CAPRICE
SIGHS]
[PLASTIC
CRINKLING]
[GAGGING]
[MOTORS
WHIRRING]
[GROANS]
[COUGHING;
GAGGING]
- Well, Saul...
what do you
think?
[GRUNTS]
- Yes.
I think yes.
[PAINED BREATH]
It's time
to try it.
[COUGH;
GAGGING]
[MOANS]
[GROANING]
[CHAIR BUZZES]
[MOTORS
POWER DOWN]
[EMOTIONAL
SCORE]
[CALM EXHALE]
[EXHALE]
[CHAIR
PURRING]
[LONG
EXHALE]
[PURRING]
[CLOSING THEME]