Hackers

CEREAL

(agitated)

Oh man. That's universally stupid, man!

NIKON

Yo, man, you an amateur, man.

KATE

Why did he come to you?

DADE

I got a record. I was Zero Cool.

NIKON

Zero Cool? Crashed fifteen hundred and seven systems in one day?

Nikon closes his eyes and access his photographic memory.

NIKON

Biggest crash in history, front page, New York Times, August 10th, 1988. I thought you was black, man! Yo, man, this is Zero Cool! Oh, shit!

CEREAL

That's far out!

NIKON

This is Zero Cool, man! Whooo, haha!

KATE

(coldly)

Well that's great. There goes MIT.

DADE

I'll make it up to you!

KATE

How?

DADE

I'll hack the Gibson.

NIKON

They'll trace you like that

(snaps his fingers)

man, cops are gonna find you, they're gonna find you with a smoking gun.

DADE

Fucked if I care, man.

NIKON

Look, even if you had the passwords, it'll take you ten minutes to get in, and you've still gotta find the files, man, I mean, the cops will have you in... five minutes.

CEREAL

Oh wow, we are fried.

KATE

(suddenly lighter-hearted)

Never send a boy to do a woman's job. With me, we can do it in seven.

CEREAL

You're both screwed. I help, we can do it in six.

NIKON

Jesus, I gotta save all your asses. I help,  we can do it in five minutes, man.

DADE

Okay. Let's go shopping.

CEREAL

Woo hoo! Boom!

EXT. OUTSIDE ELLINGSON BUILDING

Dade and Kate cut through a chain link fence and jump into a dumpster at Ellingson. Kate lands on Dade.

DADE

You know, if I didn't live by a strict code of honor, I might take advantage of this situation. Erotically, as it were.

Kate fishes around in her pants, never breaking eye contact with Dade. She pulls out a flashlight. They start trashing. They get up to leave and are spotted by a security guard.

GUARD

Alright, hold it right there!

Kate pulls out a flare gun and fires it at the security guard. He ducks.

DADE

Shit!!

KATE

It's my subway defense system.

EXT. NEW YORK CITY STREET

Nikon is staring down a manhole, Cereal is fishing through an adjacent phone company truck.

NIKON

He's way down there.

Cereal emerges with a beltload of equipment and a hard hat.  But he forgot the most important thing.

CEREAL

Ta-da!

NIKON

Yo, brain dead, the manual!

Cereal goes back to the truck and gets a thick manual. The phone company technician comes up from the manhole.

PHONE COMPANY TECH

Hey!

CEREAL AND NIKON

(in unison, pointing down the street)

TRUCK!!!

The phone company tech jumps back in the hole, Cereal and Nikon take off.

INT. SECRET SERVICE BULDING

A woman is seated at the desk. Agent Gill walks by.

WOMAN

Find it?

Cereal emerges from the desk, between her legs. His tool belt dangles obscenely from his crotch.

CEREAL

Phone's alright. The problem must be somewhere else.

Cereal walks away with his buttcrack seriously showing.

INT. ELLINGSON MINERAL OFFICES

Nikon poses as a flower delivery boy. He winds his way through the offices of Ellingson Mineral, "shoulder surfing", watching the workers entering passwords. His photographic memory captures everything. The Plague walks past him, noticing briefly but not making the connection.

INT. PLAGUE'S LOFT

The Da Vinci virus' launch/cancel prompt is up.

MARGO

(pacing)

They had a large chunk of the garbage file?  How much do they know?

PLAGUE

Not everything. But enough to implicate us.

MARGO

You said the worm was untreaceable!

PLAGUE

Yeah. To civilians. But they're hackers.  But don't worry. All we have to do is launch the Da Vinci virus, and then they'll all be put away.

MARGO

Launch the Da Vinci virus? You can't do that!

PLAGUE

No one believes the guilty. Besides, by the time they realize the truth, we'll be long gone with all of our money.

Margo starts to protest.

PLAGUE

Look, there is no right and wrong. There is only fun and boring. A thirty year prison sentence sounds pretty dull to me. Who do you prefer serves it, us? Or them?

Plague clicks on "Launch". The virus repeats its demand.

VIRUS

Unless five million dollars are transferred to the following numbered account in seven days,  I will capsize five tankers in the Ellingson fleet.

EXT. OPEN SEA

As the virus speaks, a supertanker sails on a choppy sea.

INT. PLAGUE'S LOFT

Plague leaves a message on Gill's answering machine.

PLAGUE

(sternly)

The virus goes off tomorrow morning at 10:30,  and those hackers tried to get into our system again. At this point I insist you take more strenuous action, or Ellingson Mineral will hold the Secret Service responsible.

Gill gets on the phone.

GILL

(grimly)

Get me arrest warrants on Kate Libby, alias Acid Burn, Emmanuel Goldstein, alias Cereal Killer, Dade Murphy, alias Crash Override,  also known as Zero Cool, and Paul Cook, alias Lord Nikon. We pick them up tomorrow morning at nine o'clock.

As Gill gives the order, a mysterious device under his desk blinks. Cereal put it there.

INT. NIKON'S PLACE

Nikon and Cereal taped Gill's orders.

CEREAL

Snoop onto them...

NIKON

... as they snoop onto us.

Nikon calls Kate.

KATE

Yeah, it's Kate.

NIKON

Hey, Burn. We got a little problem here.

INT. SUBWAY

Cereal, Nikon, Dade and Kate skate through a run down subway platform and get on the "A" Train. They go over the results of their password gathering spree.

KATE

Alright, so what have we got?

DADE

Well, we have fifty passwords, plus whatever Polaroid head here got inside Ellingson.

NIKON

Well, I got a lot, alright? I don't know how many but... my head hurts.

CEREAL

Yo, everyone check this out. Hey, what's the Da Vinci virus?

DADE

What?

CEREAL

Check this out. It's a memo about how they're gonna deal with those oil spills that happened on the fourteenth.

KATE

What oil spills?

NIKON

Whoa, whoa. Yo, brain-dead, today is the thirteenth.