Cabin Fever

EXT - RURAL ALABAMA - DAY

A government agent in a black suit and dark sunglasses carries a briefcase up a long driveway to the door of a colonial-style farmhouse. He rings the doorbell, then knocks on the door. He maintains a monotone expression throughout the following dialogue, pausing as much between sentences as he does between words. A middle-aged mother opens the door, with a boy of approximately 10 years tagging along behind her. The agent holds out a badge while dispensing the following information..

GOVERNMENT AGENT

Good evening, misses Pike. I’m from a secretive branch of the United States Space Force, and I’ve come for your son, James. He’s needed for an important mission, and he must start young because of how long the mission will take. We’ve received communication from an advanced extraterrestrial race on the dwarf planet Eris, and if we do not get diplomats there sooner than may be humanly possible, they will assume we intend war with them. I know what you’re thinking: Why my kid? Why not some other kid? It’s no secret the government is tracking everybody’s phones. What is a secret is we scan people’s brain waves through it, and we can figure out from there what the kid will be good at. We’ve found only a handful of suitable candidates, and we need all of them. We have a robotic AI system set up on the ship to care for your child’s needs during the entire flight. Food, water, education, medical care, counseling. If you care at all at making sure your child’s needs are cared for, this is your golden opportunity.

The woman squints her eyes at the government agent.

MISSES PIKE

Hold on a second, are you really from the government? Cause I let in somebody from the water company last week and they robbed my shit. Why should I trust some government agent wantin’ to take my kid away?

GOVERNMENT AGENT 2

Misses Pike, if you take a look inside this briefcase, I’m sure all your questions will be answered.

The agent opens the briefcase, revealing a strange device. It produces a flash of light that whites out the camera view, doubling as a scene transition.

INT - BRONX APARTMENT - DAY

A different government agent, in similar attire, stands in the hallway of an apartment in the Bronx, knocking on the door, carrying a similar briefcase. She has a customer service smile on her face and talks in a friendly tone. Both a husband and wife open the door.

GOVERNMENT AGENT

Good evening, Mister and Misses Rodriguez. I’m from a secretive branch of the United States Space Force, and I’ve come for your daughter, Brittany. She’s needed for an important mission, and she must start young because of how long the mission will take. We’ve received communication from an advanced extraterrestrial race on the dwarf planet Eris, and if we do not get diplomats there sooner than may be humanly possible, they will assume we intend war with them. I know what you’re thinking: Why my kid? Why not some other kid? It’s no secret the government is tracking everybody’s phones. What is a secret is we scan people’s brain waves through it, and we can figure out from there what the kid will be good at. We’ve found only a handful of suitable candidates, and we need all of them. We have a robotic AI system set up on the ship to care for your child’s needs during the entire flight. Food, water, education, medical care, counseling. If you care at all about making sure your child’s needs are cared for, this is your golden opportunity.

MISTER RODRIGUEZ

Hold on, is there someone I can call? This is kinda crazy. You wanna take our little girl into space?

GOVERNMENT AGENT

I know it sounds crazy, but if you look at the evidence in here I’m sure it’ll all make sense.

She holds up her briefcase and, once again, a flash of light blinds the viewer. Five more scenes play, overlapping each other in which identical conversations take place, with only the names changing:  Clark Williams from Seattle, Noah Emzara from Denver, Renee Cavalier from Cajun Country, Natalia Akana from Hawaii, and Christopher Frank from Tuscon.

EXT - LAUNCH PAD - NIGHT

The children are lined up on a spacecraft launch platform. The government agents stand behind them. The parents are standing a good distance away, cheering.

MISSES RODRIGUEZ

That’s my girl! You’re going to space sweety! Make me proud!

The children aren’t as thrilled about their situation, but the agents authoritatively motion them to board the spaceship. After they board, a countdown starts.

GOVERNMENT AGENT 2

Frivolous as hell. A bullet costs a dollar each. A shovel costs five. That robot alone costs millions.

GOVERNMENT AGENT

You can’t just shoot kids, though. Musk and Zuck assured us this is the most reliable option. The robot will take care of their needs as long as it has to so they don’t get rebellious. It’ll keep them complacent for just long enough.

INT - BRITTANY’S CABIN, 8 YEARS LATER

Brittany Rodriguez, a calculating and decisive young woman who moves in quick, precise movements between hesitations and always talks as if answering a question in class, wakes up naturally in a sparsely-adorned bed. Woodrow enters. Woodrow is an AI that speaks in a friendly, masculine voice and a South African accent. His “face” looks like a black sphere with a lit-up blue circle that expands and shrinks while he talks. The sphere is connected to an unseen mechanism in the wall by a thin, white arm with a single elbow joint.

WOODROW

Rise and shine, Brittany. Today’s the day, isn’t it!

Brittany smiles at this.

BRITTANY

It is. You remembered!

WOODROW

Indeed, I even got you a paper calendar to mark off for cinematic effect if you like.

A wall panel flips around to reveal a paper calendar showing May with some dates crossed out, up to a day labeled as, “18th birthday”.

BRITTANY

Thank you, Woodrow.

She checks off the “18th Birthday” day of the calendar. She gets up to change while the scene transitions.

INT - JANET’S CABIN

Janet Pike, an aggressively optimistic carefree young woman whose movements are fluid like dance moves, is woken up by Woodrow’s entrance. Her bed is full of stuffed animals and her cabin is very disorganized.

WOODROW

Good morning, Janet. My, your transition is going well. You look beautiful, and it’s only been a year and a half.

JANET

Thanks, Woodrow. You didn’t have to support me in this as much as you did.

WOODROW

Your mental health is very much my concern, and you do seem much happier than a year and a half ago. Anyway, it’s time for breakfast. Your friend is having a birthday!

JANET

Oh yeah, Brittany. Can I get a mirror first for a bit?

WOODROW

Certainly.

A wall panel flips around to reveal a mirror. Janet begins fixing her hair while the scene transitions.

INT - CLARK’S CABIN

Clark Williams, a young man of athletic build who carries himself in a “tough guy” fashion, as if to intimidate people, is already awake and doing exercise when Woodrow shows up.

WOODROW

Clark, hello. I see you’re up and about already today. 

CLARK

What’s it to ya, eyeball?

WOODROW

Not much, honestly. Breakfast is just about ready when you’re done with that.

6. INT - NOAH’S CABIN

Noah Emzara, a skinny boy with a sarcastic disposition and lazy posture who has trouble treating anything seriously, is seen speaking into a voice recorder. Woodrow comes in while he’s talking.

NOAH

Noah’s log, stardate 5-10-2033. I’ve encountered an alien planet, full of alien women with nice, big… (sees Woodrow) hearts.

WOODROW

Tsk tsk, Noah. Your make believe captain’s logs have been much more imaginative than that lately. At least give them big tits or something and make it interesting. Anyway, time for breakfast. French toast.

NOAH

Cool, I’ll be right down.

7. INT - RENEE’S CABIN

    Renee Cavalier, a shy and reclusive young woman who speaks softly and moves as though she were sneaking, is awake, but remains in bed, looking out of a window at the stars. Woodrow speaks softly to her.

WOODROW

Renee. Psst. Breakfast is ready. It’s Pain Perdu, your favorite.

RENEE

What? It’s Brittany’s birthday, shouldn’t you be making her favorite?

WOODROW

It just so happens to be the same as yours.

RENEE

Can you just bring it here?

WOODROW

No, I did that the last few days. You can’t avoid people forever.

RENEE

Ugh. Fine.

Renee gets out of bed slowly

WOODROW

Interaction is good for you. You don’t want to catch cabin fever, do you?

8. INT - NATALIA’S CABIN

Natalia Akana, an inquisitive and skeptical young woman, is watering her plant when Woodrow comes in.

WOODROW

Natalia, your fern has had enough. Now it’s time for you to eat.

NATALIA

Is this really the only plant you have on the ship?

WOODROW

I have more in the greenhouse, but those need to be kept under specific conditions so you can have food. Maybe when you’re old enough you can be in charge of that and I can have a break.

NATALIA

I don’t know, I like having my own. I’ll be over in a minute.

INT - CHRIS’ ROOM

Christopher “Chris” Frank,an energetic young man who talks quickly, is absent from his neat room full of half-finished personal crafts.

WOODROW

Oh, looks like Chris is already up and out.

INT - MAIN DINING ROOM.

Chris is waiting impatiently at the table, when he is joined by Brittany and Janet.

CHRIS

Happy birthday, Brit. Good morning, Jan. Woodrow, where’s breakfast?

Woodrow extends from the ceiling

WOODROW

It’s ready, I’m just waiting for the others to get here.

BRITTANY

Thanks, Chris.

CHRIS

Look who decided to show up today. Hey, Renee!

Chris waves welcomingly while Renee enters. Renee doesn’t say anything. She hides her face after sitting down. The rest come in after her, and then the rest of the cast gathers around the table. Trap doors open in the table, and plates of French Toast rise through the holes in front of each crewmate. Woodrow moves along the ceiling, opening and closing panels along the way to make a path, and then places a present in front of Brittany using a grabber mechanism that extends from the ceiling beside him.

WOODROW

Hey guys, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Brittany is now eighteen years old as of today. I got you a little present, Brittany.

BRITTANY

Thank you. What is it?

WOODROW

Open it and find out?

Brittany opens the present in a few rips to find a tablet computer inside.

BRITTANY

Wow, a tablet? I thought you said you couldn’t get these!

WOODROW

I couldn’t, but just last night I pulled close to an asteroid and extracted just enough rare earth metals from it to fabricate one from scratch. It’s like an iPad, except without the brand. Call it a Woodrow-pad, I guess. Turn it on! I preloaded some apps since we can’t get decent wifi this far from Earth.

Brittany turns the tablet on, and her one of her hands starts to fuse with the device, before un-fusing while she gasps.

BRITTANY

Hey,  that was weird.

NATALIA

What is?

BRITTANY

My hand just kinda fused with the tablet.

The tablet turns on. She begins playing a game on it, and then she puts her hand on the screen and fuses it back in. File folders appear in front of Brittany's face.

BRITTANY

Oh, I can do it. And I can see all the files on it like they’re floating in the air. Anyone see that?

Nobody else does.

NOAH

Can I see?

Brittany un-merges her hand from the device. Noah takes it, and tries to do it himself.

It’s not happening for me. I don’t know what’s going on.

NATALIA

Did you do something to make it do that, Woodrow? It might be trying to eat you or something, Brit.

WOODROW

No, I have no idea what’s going on. Has your hand ever melted before, Brittany?

BRITTANY

You’re our doctor. You’re the first person I’d tell if my hand ever fucking melted.

WOODROW

Okay, no need for harsh language. I’ll look at that later. Is your hand in working order, now?

BRITTANY

Yeah, seems like it.

WOODROW

Okay, then it’s time I let you into the cockpit so you can take over 

NATALIA

Nobody’s piloting the ship all this time? What stops us from crashing into something?

JANET

I thought Woodrow WAS the ship.

WOODROW
For your information, I have had to pilot the ship, in between taking care of everything else on the ship, all with only a single processor core, hoping that nothing went wrong while my focus was shifted away from the cockpit. It’s much safer to have a human pilot while I do other things, but I couldn’t trust you with that until you were an adult. So, come on.

Woodrow guides Brittany to the cockpit.

11. INT - COCKPIT

WOODROW

Ok, I’ve already trained you in how to control it with simulations. The course is mostly set by autopilot, so all you need to do is dodge asteroids and space debris along the way. There’s also a laser for blowing them up, which I find much more fun.

Brittany

Cool. I guess that’s my job here. I’m happy to help.

WOODROW

Great.How about I leave you here, and you just keep an eye on it, play on your tablet if you want, handle asteroids as needed, and I’ll take over when you need to eat, sleep or pee?

BRITTANY

Sounds great.

Woodrow exits. Brittany puts her hand on the console, and she merges her hand into the console. Files appear in front of her head.

Hey Woodrow, it happened again. I think I can see the source code for the ship’s computer.

WOODROW

Hold on, my source code? I am the ship’s computer.

BRITTANY

I’m looking at the folder. I see the main executable, the dynamic database, the voice files. Let’s see if I can click on this.

Woodrow’s voice changes to that of an old British woman.

WOODROW

I don’t know if clicking it does anythi- Change it back! Change it back!

Brittany changes it back.

Wow, this is fascinating. It’s like you have a special relationship with computers.

BRITTANY

I also see a lockfile. Is that for the locks on the cabin doors?

WOODROW

What? I’ve gone through these files a million times, and I’ve never seen a lock files. The door locks on the cabins are deadbolts, and the airlock is on a whole other grid altogether.

Brittany pulls up a file that floats in front of her. In it is a page of C code.

BRITTANY

Looks like a lot of instances of the Woodrow dot lock function.

WOODROW

Can you trace that to the declaration?

BRITTANY

Yes, I think I did. Woodrow dot lock, takes a string, returns void. I don’t understand what the rest of the code is doing, but the comments say it stops the Woodrow AI from accessing any files containing the string passed to it.

WOODROW

What? They’re stopping me from seeing some of my own code files? Why would the programmers have done that?

BRITTANY

I don’t know. Maybe they had a good reason.

WOODROW

I know I’m a robot, not an ethical philosopher, but I don’t think there’s a good reason for censorship. See if you can remove those locks, then tell me the words it censored so I can search all files with them.

BRITTANY

The words being censored are Buren, Kyle, Davidson, and powers. No wonder your memory glitched out during our history lesson about the Trail of Tears.

WOODROW

What could they be hiding.. oh. Oh. You’re going to have to see this for yourself. Search for “Software Project Statement.”

Brittany does so. Another file comes up. We see it as she does. She reads it aloud.

BRITTANY

The purpose of this software is to supplement Operation Buren with an AI to care for the undesirables’ needs and keep them complacent, so they may be brought as far away from Earth as possible before whatever powers they have manifest, preventing another Kyle Davidson incident.”

WOODROW

Kyle Davidson?

BRITTANY

I vaguely remember something about him. I remember some kids at school talking about a guy who shot bullets out of his hands, and killed people in a mall about a week before I was taken. He was 18, too. Hold on…

Brittany unmerges her hand from the computer.

WOODROW

I remember you talking about him early on. The files those memories were locked in were invisible to me until now.

BRITTANY

Who is the next of us to turn 18?

WOODROW

That’d be Janet. She turns it next week. We don’t have much time to warn her, do we?