Alien³

LONG on the shop. Beat. SOUND of five rounds from the pulse-rifle. With the last shot, the neon flicker dies. Muzak stops.

Hicks emerges, continues across the Mall.

Arrives at the elevator-like entrance to the mini-subway, punches in his destination ("OPS" lights up in red). Muffled SOUND of the breaking car; the door HISSES open – on Spence, both hands white-knuckled on the loop of a hanger-strap, the car an abattoir, red with the blood of Transformation.

Shredded clothing and rags of flesh.

HICKS

Spence...

She screams.

INT. OPS ROOM

Rosetti and Jackson are hunched over the screens as Hicks enters with Spence over his shoulder, brushing past two nervous Marines at the door. Bishop is making calculations on a console in the b.g. Hicks eases Spence down into a chair.

JACKSON

Revised ETA fro the Kansas City's another thirteen hours...

HICKS

(yanking Rosetti around in his chair)

Things don't look so shit hot out there right now, Rosetti. What about rigging the fusion package?

ROSETTI

(to Jackson; ignoring Hicks)

Sound the general alert, routine lifeboat drill...

HICKS

A general fucking alert? Lifeboat drill? Who the hell you think's gonna be left to pick up? I say we do the fusion package now!

JACKSON

(wearily; without looking up from her screen)

Hicks, you took out the scrubber, the main air-scrubber. Pretty soon there isn't going to be anything to breathe in here. We'd by okay for about five days, except you also started an electrical fire and we got no way to put it out.

The crew's down to one-twenty-eight.

HICKS

(stunned)

More than half...?

JACKSON

That's what I said.

HICKS

And you haven't rigged the place to blow?

JACKSON

(glances at Rosetti)

No.

ROSETTI

(as if noticing him for the first time)

You'll lead the group from this sector, Hicks. At the alert, they'll gather at blue assembly points. Proceed to the nearest lifeboat bay...

BISHOP

(approaching Rosetti with a single sheet of printout)

Colonel, my analysis indicates that a minimum of one fifth of the one hundred and twenty-eight remaining crew are already incubating the –

ROSETTI

(on the edge of hysteria)

Listen to me, you motherless zombie! Those are people! Can't you understand that? And we're going to get them out!

BISHOP

Yes, Colonel, I...

ROSETTI

(to Hicks)

You have your orders!

HICKS

I don't leave here until Jackson sets it to blow, Rosetti. Got that? Kansas City shows up, maybe there's nobody left for them to pick up. Then what? They'll send a boarding party in here!

JACKSON

I can't. The fusion package is under the scrubber, Hicks. You trashed the wiring, man. That's where the fire is. Those lines. I can't link through. I can't set it.

BISHOP

I'll go; I'll get it manually.

HICKS

I'll go with you.

BISHOP

No. Assist with the...

(glances down at the figures on the sheet of printout)

The evacuation.

JACKSON

(to Rosetti)

You just want to get your own ass out of here, don't you? They couldn't have done this without you approval, could they?

SPENCE

Hick!

As one of the Marine guards stumbles forward, dropping his weapon, hands upraised in claws of agony –
 

MARINE

Please, I...

He trips, fall across Jackson's console and the barrel of Hick's gun – as half a dozen New Model Chest-bursters erupt simultaneously from his torso in a spray of blood. Hicks bellow, jumps back, grabbing Spence.

The chest bursters tumble from the body of the dead Marine, scuttle into the shadows; one leaves a trail of small bloody prints across Jackson's keyboard.

HICKS
Out! Out of here!

INT. CORRIDOR

Hicks, Spence, Bishop, Rosetti, Jackson, and the remaining Marine guard hustle along, Hicks and Bishop bringing up the rear. Rosetti carries the dead Marine's pulse-rifle. Bishop touches Hick's shoulder as they reach the intersection.

BISHOP

I'll try to give you an hour. Overload at twenty-two hundred.

HICKS

(quietly; doesn't want the others to hear)

Blow it. That's what matters.

EXTREME CLOSEUP

On Hick's watch as her set the alarm for 2200 hours.

BISHOP

Yes.

Bishop splits off, down another corridor, running.

INT. LIFEBOAT ASSEMBLY POINT

Another intersection of corridors. A pathetic remnant of Anchorpoint's crew cluster beneath a flashing blue light. A dozen people, including HALLIDAY, a woman Spence's age; TATSUMI (male Japanese); a LAB TECH (male).

ROSETTI

Where are the others? There should be thirty people here...

HALLIDAY

(dazed and confused)

I can't find Tom. What is it? What's going on? He was just here. I mean there. But then...

JACKSON

Forget it, he's probably already on the boat. You know him, right? C'mon, we're getting out of here ourselves...

Hicks pulls a service automatic from his vest and slips it to Jackson.

HICKS

(under his breath)

Keep an eye on everybody, okay, Ops?

JACKSON

(to the others)

Okay! You all know the Goddamn drill! Done it often enough, right? We're taking A-52 to Blue Concourse. We stick together. We'll meet up with two others groups at Bay Five and proceed to board...

TATSUMI

What is happening, please?

JACKSON

What's happening is we're getting on the boats! Move!

INT. THE MALL

Dense haze of smoke from burning insulation; half the lights are out. A body floats face down in the pool at the foot of the waterfall; the pool is overflowing, splashing on polished concrete. Bishop emerges from a doorway and hurries along toward the freight elevator. He freezes. Hears something else. Moves quietly in the direction of the SOUND. The bar. He peers into the wreckage. Four Aliens are at work, cocooning their prey. Cocooned bodies – CLOSE on the face of Shuman – have been glued to the big screen, where silent images of the soccer game repeat endlessly. Bishop stares, then turns – looks up.

A Queen. The thing towers above him in the Mall, utterly still.

Beat.

He takes a step backward. Another.

The Queen's head sways.

Another step. He bolts for the elevator.

The Queen screams her rage, scrambles after him like a famished mantis.

He's reached the elevator – stabs desperately at the controls – as the doors open and he's through, punching more buttons – as the Queen strikes, her first blow buckling the steel doors.

INT. FREIGHT ELEVATOR

Her huge stinger lashes in through the gap, whipping and slicing, Bishop braced up straight in a corner, hand still on the controls. The elevator GROANS, SHUDDERS, begins to descend, then jams in the shaft. The stinger whips back out. SOUND of rending metal as the Queen continues her attack.

INT. A CORRIDOR AT BULKHEAD HATCH

Jackson ducks through first, still wearing her Ops cap. Rosetti next, then Spence, helping Halliday; the others follow, Hicks bringing up the rear. Hicks pauses, looks back through the hatch. Hears a distant CRASH, an inhuman cry. Takes a small bat of plastic explosive from his vest and squashes it against the edge of the bulkhead. Pulls a grenade from his harness, twists its neck in the delay-detonate combination, sticks in into the plastique, closes the hatch, and runs.

The smoke is getting worse.

INT. BLUE CONSOURSE

Another of the white-tiled traffic-tunnels, this one identified by a wide band of blue along either side. A small vehicle has overturned, amid blood and torn clothing. Jackson and her party are skirting the wreck as Hicks catches up with them. Jackson whirls at the SOUND of running feet, bringing up the pistol.

HICKS

Easy, Jackson!

JACKSON

Where y'been?

A distant EXPLOSION shakes the tunnel, jarring loose several tiles.

HICKS

(low, so the others won't hear)

They're following us. Left 'em something to slow 'em down.

JACKSON

Might as well. Just try not to put a hole in the hull, okay?

(coughs)

Remember the air-scrubber...

HICKS

Let's move.

INT. FREIGHT ELEVATOR

Bishop on his knees, running his hands delicately over the ribbed plastic flooring. The Queen HISSES, BASHES the door. He finds a seam, levers up with his nails, gets a grip. Pulls. Sense of his android strength as the flooring comes up on pale streamers of super-glue. The elevator shakes with the Queen's fury. He finds a section of the floor that can be removed. Forces the glue-caked catches. Slams down with the heel of his hand – the panel falls away, tumbling through smoke toward a point of fire-glow at the shaft's distant foot.

INT. SHAFT

Bishop lowers himself through the opening, dangles. An emergency service-ladder is recessed in one wall. He tries to reach one of the rungs with his foot, but the toe of his boot slips. Too far. He begins to swing back and forth like a gymnast, building momentum – and lets go. Falls six feet before he manages to get a grip.

He begins to descend the ladder. It's a long way down.

INT. BLUE CONSOURSE

The lifeboat party emerges, coughing, from a wall of acrid smoke.

REACTION SHOT

Dismay and amazement.

The tunnel has been sealed with a plug of Alien resin. Human bones, weapons, and Marine helmets protrude from the biomech convolutions of the resin-wall.

Another of the six-wheeled military vehicles carriers is skewed across the tunnel in a pool of blood.

ROSETTI

It doesn't want us to get out...

HICKS

Bugs. Just fucking bugs... C'mon.

(he climbs into the driver's seat of the carrier)

We're taking the bus. Which way, Ops?

JACKSON

(getting in beside him)

Way we came, unless you think of something better.

HALLIDAY

What's he mean, "bugs"? What is that thing?

(pointing at the resin-plug)

Where's Tom? Where's Tom?

SPENCE

(taking her arm; leading her to the carrier)

It'll be okay. Here, get up... There was an experiment. It got out of control. We have to go...

TATSUMI

What kind of experiment?

HICKS

(throwing the carrier into gear; cutting off their questions)

Come on!

INT. BLUE CONCOURSE

TRACKING on carrier, CLOSE on Hicks and Jackson. She takes a flat gadget from her jacket and flips it open; a miniature computer-map on anchorpoint, like a pocket video game.

As she wiggles a tiny joystick, EXTREME CLOSEUP on miniature color screen; she's looking for an alternate route to the lifeboats.

JACKSON

(still studying the map)

Left at B-83. We'll cut through Aquaculture, up to level to Aeroponics. We can get into Residential from there, then it's up a service tunnel behind the central mainframe...

HICKS

Sounds complicated.