Protected

(This is a film treatment using some of the ensemble patterns of the first Star Wars (a new hope) film as a model)

 

 

SCENE 1: New York City Space Port – day time

 

A dark limo air car hovers near the entrance with a very pale boy (EARL) inside.

Two other limos are in front and back of this car, hovering like guardian angels, although the drivers and armed guards are standing on the sidewalk, their attention focused on the doors to the terminal.

Earl is an 11-year old somewhat lethargic boy, squinting out at the city as if this is a rare sight. He sings a soft song to himself, although it is clear from his expression that he is very sad.

In his hand he is clutching a very ornate sympathy card.

Outside, his nanny complains to one of the guards that the boy needs to be taken away from this place.

“He’s had a terrible ordeal,” she says. “He can’t be left like this.”

“The government says we have to wait, we wait,” the guard says unsympathetically.

“But the boy is in shock,” the nanny argues. “You don’t lose both your parents on the same day and get over it easily. Not at age 11.”

“Which is why the government wants more security,” the guard said. “We’re waiting for them to arrive so we can go secure the boy’s mansion. Nobody wants anything to happen to the boy – not with what he has up here.”

The guard taps his forehead.

Then an explosion rocks the front door of the space port sending down a shower of glass, concrete and blood on the cringing drivers, Nanny and guards.

At this point, another flyer pulls up, RICK and RITA leap out.

Rick aims some kind of device at the back door lock of the limo with the boy. The door opens. Rita leaps in and Rick performs the same trick on the front door and then jumps behind the wheel, and takes off with the limo as people on the curb scream for them to stop.

Earl screams, too.

Rick is a rat-like little man with a pointed nose and small eyes, and hair so greasy it shimmers even in dim light. He constantly fidgets.

“Will you shut that little brat up!” he yells at Rita.

Rita, who has dark hair, beautiful eyes, and a soothing voice, puts her long fingers on the boy’s shoulders.

“Don’t’ worry. We’re not going to hurt you. We’re just going to take you on a little adventure,” she says.

Rick snorts.

“Yeah, a real adventure. Right to the chop shop,” he says.

“Shut up in front of the boy!” Rita yells. “You want him to keep screaming or what?”

Earl, however, has calmed down. He is a bit of a dreamer, always caught up in adventures in space, and the romances of the past. So his eyes glow hopefully as he looks at Rita.

“An adventure? Really?” he says.

“Sure,” Rick snarls. “I’m Luke Skywalker and she’s Princess Leia.”

“I told you to shut up, Rick,” Rita said. “Just pay attention to driving and let me worry about the kid.”

This is solid advice since a moment later, police cars appear behind them in pursuit.

Rick guns the engine, but the vehicle does not seem to move very much faster.

“Damn these things,” he complains. “We would be better off driving a bus.”

 

SCENE 2:   Government office – Day.

 

BIG CHEESE is standing in a room full of video screens along with other government officials and the Nanny.

Big Cheese pushes several buttons and mug shots of Rick and Rita appear on two of the screens.

“Are these the two that took the kid?” Big Cheese asks.

The nanny nods

“Who are they?” Big Cheese asks the Underling. “Are they working for the Evil Corporation?”

“Not likely,” the underling says. “These two are small time operators. The Evil Corporation would not hire them for any job.  The man is a multiple offender. He faces the death penalty if caught. She is a local con-artist, last arrested for fortunetelling. They most likely did this freelance.”

“A fortune teller and a two time loser?” Big Cheese says in disbelief. “With what in mind?”

“They most likely want to see the boy and the chip to the highest bidder.”

“You mean they know about the chip and what it contains?” Big Cheese asks. “How?”

“Probably a lucky guess,” the underling says. “Most of the solar system knows that the boy’s parents were working on a new space drive when they died. Nearly as many are aware that their research has disappeared. These two probably put two and two together and came up with the boy.”

“But how could they know about the chip?” Big Cheese asks.

“They might not know. They might think the boy knows where the research is and they can squeeze it out of him,” the underling says.

“Then we have to get the boy back before they find out and sell the boy or the chip to anyone,” Big Cheese says. “Do we know where these two went.”

“Unfortunately not,” the underling says. “They gave our agents the slip.”

“Then find them,” Big Cheese says

 

SCENE 3: Ghetto Motel in Jersey near space port

 

Rita is very angry with Rick.

“How can you be so stupid?” she asks. “I thought you had a plan.”

Rick says he did.

Rita says, “some plan. Grab the boy and bring him here – to this rat trap. Is that all?”

“I thought the boy would tell us what we wanted to know,” Rick says.

“You expect him to know all those scientific things his parents were working on?” Rita asks. “That’s ridiculous. He’s only a boy.”

“I thought they might have told him where they hid the files,” Rick argues.

Rita is about to explode in rage, but then pauses, looks at the boy, and then says, “Maybe they did.”

She lifts the boy’s hair from the back of his neck and there is a dot at the base of his skull.

“The boy has an implant,” she says. “That’s where they stored their information.”

“Then we’ve done it!” Rick howls. “The person who controls the new space drive controls the universe. And that’s us.”

“Like hell is it,” Rita says. “We don’t have it the boy has it, and if other people know about this implant, they are going to want to take it from us.”

“We’ll buy protection,” Rick says.

“With what? We have to actually get the information out of the boy before we can sell it, and my guess is that somebody’s already sniffing around looking for us – and might be right outside the door right now. The best thing we can do is offer to give the boy back – for a price.”

Rick shakes his head. “No way.  This is our big break. I’m not settling for anything but the whole thing.”

“Damn it, Rick, be reasonable for once. We can sell the boy on the black market and still get enough to live in comfort somewhere.”

“Then you’d better thing of something quick before some storm troopers kick down that door and take the boy for nothing,” Rita says. “The government has ways of tracking implants like this.”

“Then we’ll get off the earth,” Rick says.

“Off Earth where?” Rita asks.

“The international space station first and then we’ll figure out where from there.”

The boy sings his song in the corner as the scene fades

 

SCENE 4: International space station

 

Consol with a beeping light, reflecting the face of a technician.

The technicians calls out that he has a reading on the chip.

Big Cheese rushes over with other men and demands to know where?

In the terminal, the techy says.

“Show me,” Big Cheese sais.

Shots show cameras moving, images on the screen show a sweep across the terminal where hundreds of passengers move from gate to gate.

One screen zooms in on three people who are dressed like tourists but clearly look out of place: Another screen compares the photographs of the boy, and the mug shots of Rita and rick with the shots taken from the terminal. The screen flashes “confirmed identity.”

Shift scene to floor of the terminal, and Rita ranting.

“I must be out of my mind allowing you to talk me into bringing the boy here,” she is saying. “This is the first place they’ll search for him.”

“If you have a better idea I’d love to hear it,” Rick growls.

“I already told you. Just deal the boy back to them, get some money, and washing our hands of the whole thing,” Rita said. “We’ll have more than enough to retire on.”

“I don’t want just enough to retire,” Rick says. “I want respect. I want to be the man with the power for a change.”

Meanwhile, Earl walks with them in total awe, saying he can’t believe he’s really in space, and how he’s always wanted to be in space, and asks again and again, where they are going from here.

“Tell the kid to shut the hell up,” Rick says. “I’m trying to think.”

“It’s a good question,” Rita said. “What’s your new plan call for other than getting us from the frying pan and into the fire?”

Cross cut to control room where Big Cheese nods.

“Get them,” he says.

Storm troopers charged through the crowd from every direction towards where Rita, Rick and the boy are.

Rick sees them and yells for the others to run

But it is clear that the circle of troops is rapidly closing in on them.

Just when they seem trapped near one of the doors, another group of gun men appear and there is a fire fight between these guys and the storm troopers.

Several dark figures including BAD MAN yank them through the door where they are whisked away.

 

SCENE 5: Bad Man’s cruiser

 

Bad Man as the three people on board his ship which has taken off from the space station, while a doctor prepares the boy for surgery.

“We have to get the chip out of the boy,” Bad Man informs them. “Once we have it we can decode it.”

“And the boy?” Rita asks. “What happens to him?”

“He dies, of course,” Bad Man said. “But he’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that he gave up his life in the pursuit of science.”

“I thought you can read the information without cutting it out,” Rita says..

“Only if you have the proper code, which we don’t,” Bad Man says. “That secret died with the boy’s parents. The chip has to be cut out.”

“You’re a cruel bastard,” Rita says. “We should have let the government catch us.”

“Don’t fool yourself, the government would do that same thing. The boy’s life is meaningless. The chip is everything,” Bad man says.

Rita grabs the guard’s gun and forces Rick to escape with the boy to an escape pod.

They fly away from the ship as Bad Men pursues, Rick yells that Bad Man will kill them, but Rita says they won’t try as long as the boy and his chip are with them.

“They’ll just follow us,” she says. “Which means we have to lose them somehow.”

Rick is very skilled with the craft and manages to keep ahead of the Bad Man’s cruiser until they eventually reach the asteroid belt.

Rick says he knows a doctor they can got to in the Belt who can cut the chip out of the boys’ head for them.

Rita tells Rick, “Nobody’s cutting the chip out of the boy.”

“Then how do we get the secret out of the chip?” Rick asks.

“I don’t know,” Rita says.

Meanwhile the boy sings his song and the rear monitors show they are being pursued by the Bad Man, but Rick waves through the narrow space of the confined field and soon loses them, steers towards on the asteroids with a mining camp on it.

 

 

SCENE 6: Mining Camp #1

Rick returns to the dive where Rita and the boy are hiding to tell them that he has a number of people interested in buying the boy.

He’s decided to take Rita’s advice and sell the boy to the highest bidder.

Rita is very quiet and let’s Rick leave to make the final arrangements, and then just grabs the boy and flees.

She seeks out an old partner who runs a black market supply depot and pawn shop, and she asks him for information about transport for her and the boy.

The dealer says, she, Rick and the boy are too hot for most people to handle, but he suggests she might seek out on rogue who might be willing to do it if the price is right.

She and the boy – at DEALER’s directions – got to a very dangerous tavern where the clients eye them as if they are on the menu, and in their mist, they meet DANGEROUS, the meanest of all, a broad shouldered thug who tells them to sit down and shut up, and to stop being so obvious.

“I know who the boy is,” Dangerous says. “And I know what you want me to do. I’ll do it, but only if I get a share in the profits when you sell the chip.”

Rita agrees, although she has no intention of living up to her part of the bargain or giving the boy over to anyone.

At this point, the Bad Man arrives with a troop of bad men, sees Rita and the boy and tries to get them, but Dangerous fights them off, and helps Rita and the boy escape to the street.

 

SCENE 7: Hotel lobby

 

Rick arrives for his scheduled meeting with potential bidders only to find Government men waiting for him.

He flees, they give chase through the streets, and he gets trapped in an alley where Big Cheese confronts him and tells him to bring him to Rita and the boy.

Rick does, but they dive is empty – Rita and boy are gone.

 

SCENE 8: Dealer

 

Dangerous is pissed and goes back to the dealer to find out why the man betrayed them to the Bad Man and his goons.

Dealer, while scared of Dangerous, is even more scared of Bad Man and says so.

Dangerous demands dealer give them supplies for a long space trip, and Dealer begrudgingly complies.

Then Dangerous and others take off from the colony only find Bad Man’s ships waiting for them.

Dealer has betrayed them.

Dangerous steers his ship away, the Bad Man’s ships give chase.

But Dangerous manages to slip away, after which, he tells Rita this is much more serious a situation than he first understood and wants a bigger percentage of the final take.

A clearly shaken Rita agrees, but demands to know what Dangerous’ plans are.

Dangerous says he needs someone he can trust to dig the chip out of the boy’s brain, and that person is located in one of the most notorious places in the solar system, the third moon of Jupiter.

Although this is quite a haul, Dangerous says it is the best place for them to go, and steers the ship in that direction.

 

SCENE 9: Government station at mining camp #1

 

Seeing his life on the verge of extinction and his grand plans up in smoke, Rick attacks his guards and manages to escape.

He roams the camp desperately yanking people he knows from his past to tell him if they’ve seen Rita or the boy.

He no longer has anything to lose and knows that if the government catches him again, they’ll kill him since he has nothing to trade for his life.

One guy he served time with a few years earlier tells him the thought he saw Rita at the tavern.

He goes to the tavern and finds its population still buzzing about the earlier fight. So he gets information as to whom Rita has taken up with. He also learns that Dealer sent Rita here so he heads back to have a talk with Dealer.

Dealer is freaking out and says he doesn’t want any thing more to do with this mess. But Bad Man has put the fear of God into him after losing Dangerous and says that if Dealer doesn’t get the boy back for him, he’ll kill Dealer and everybody close to him.

Rick agrees to find the boy and Rita for Dealer, and Dealer outfits him with what he needs.

The question is: Where did Dangerous and Rita take the boy.

Rick already knows because the Jupiter moon is the only place in the solar system where someone like Dangerous can get access to the kind of talent needed to get the chip out of the boy. – indeed, it is where Rick intended to go himself.

Rick takes off. But he is unaware of the fact that Big Cheese’s fleet is behind him.

 

SCENE 10: Aboard Dangerous’ ship in flight.

 

During the flight, Dangerous asks about the boy’s parents.

Dead, Rita tells him, some tragic accident.

Dangerous ponders this: accident? Maybe.

He looks at the boy who is humming a song in the corner, and Dangerous recalls how he lost his own folks young, but it only made him tougher.

Rita says the boy has been protected all his life and now when he needs to be tough, he’s helpless.

Dangerous growls. In this universe, nobody has any business being helpless.

He calls the boy over and says this is going to be a long trip and that he’s going to teach the boy how to fight.

Why? The boy asks.

For my amusement, Dangerous says.

 

SCENE 11: Third Moon of Jupiter

 

Dangerous’ ship lands.

They travel by air car to the sickest most depraved place in the solar system, where anything goes if you have enough money or are tough enough to use force.

Rita says she’s always hated this place and never though she would have to come back here.

Dangerous asks what she did when she was here last.

Rick rescued her from a bad situation, she says, but refuses to go into detail.

Dangerous leads them to a very questionable doctor.

Doc says he wants nothing to do with them, saying everybody in the universe is looking for them and the last thing he needs is more heat since he has a business to run.

Dangerous tells Doc they aren’t leaving until Doc takes the implant out of the boy, and the sooner the doctor does it, the sooner he is rid of them.

Rita pulls out a blaster and says, nobody is removing the chip from the boy.

Dangerous gets angry and says she can’t back out of the deal, blaster or not.

She says she doesn’t want the boy killed.

Dangerous looks at doc and say, isn’t there a way to get the chips information out without killing the boy?

Doc says he can destroy the chip but without the code the only way to get the information out is to cut the chip out and work on the chip outside the boy’s body.

Rita says that means the boy has to die and she won’t have it.

Doc says it doesn’t matter, the boy is doomed anyway.

A chip installed in a grown man won’t harm anybody. But the boy is still growing and the chip will eventually kill him.

It is probably killing him already.

Rita tells him to destroy the chip.

No, Dangerous says, and grabs the blaster out of Rita’s hand before she can use it.

At this point, Rick shows up, and demands that the boy be given over to him. After all, Rick’s the one who stole him.

Rick and Dangerous fight.

Rita grabs the boy and flees out into the moon’s terrible streets where all sorts of characters eye her and the boy.

They make rude offers

At that point, Bad Man and his thugs appear behind Rita and the boy and give chase.
Rita and the boy flee, but Rita is wounded and falls, yelling for the boy to keep going. He resists.

At this point, Big Cheese and his agents show up and he and Bad Man get into a firefight.

The boy can’t find Rita in the fog of the battle and wanders off calling her name.

 

CROSS CUT TO Rick And Dangerous fighting

 

Rick is outmatched by Dangerous and breaks off the fight and flees.
Dangerous chases Rick, but is drawn off when she sees the wounded Rita on the street.

And to rescue her, he has to fight the troops of Bad Man and Big Cheese.

Meanwhile, Rick sees the boy and begins to pursue him.

Doc, who was also pursuing Rick, kept following Rick, stops when he sees Rick going after the boy, and Doc turns back to find Dangerous.

 

CROSS CUT to Bad Man and Dangerous who are fighting.

 

Doc tells that Rick is after the boy.

But Bad Man attacks again, forcing Dangerous to defend himself.

 

CROSS CUT to Rick and the boy

 

Rick as the boy cornered in an ally and tells the boy he should give up.

The boy refuses.

Rick attacks. The boy fights back.

 

CROSS CUT – to Bad Man and Dangerous fighting

CROSS CUT – to Rick and boy fighting.

 

Rick is overpowering the boy

 

Cross cut to Bad Man and Dangerous

 

Bad Man cheats and overpowers Dangerous.

 

CROSS CUT TO Rick and Boy

 

Boy wheels around out of the way of Rick’s attack and stabs Rick

 

CROSS CUT to Bad Man and Dangerous.

 

Dangerous does the same to Bad man.

Rita and Doc plead with Dangerous to come help the boy.

Dangerous, Doc, Rita flee as Big Cheese’s men beat down the rest of Bad Man’s men.

Dangerous comes to find the boy standing over Rick’s dead body.

The boy looks stunned.

Dangerous grabs the boy and hurries the other away, back to his ship. They take off into space.

Government ships are soon in pursuit.

Dangerous eventually manages an escape.

Then, he, Doc, Rita and the boy settled into the cargo hold.

Rita says they need to destroy the chip before it kills the boy.

Dangerous mumbles something about dying a poor man after all.

But Doc says they might not have to lose the information anyway.

Rita wants to know what Doc means.

Doc says, listen!

The boy is singing.

So what, Dangerous says, the boy’s been singing that same stupid tune for weeks, nearly driving Dangerous crazy.

It’s the code, Doc says.

Dangerous asks if this means they will get the space drive

Rita asks if the boy gets to live.

Doc says yes, but this could be a bigger problem than any of them realize.

We might have the secret, he says, but someone will always try to take it away from us.

Dangerous asks if the Doc proposes destroying the chip anyway – you, a man of science.

DOC says no, that he proposed sharing the secret with everybody they can reach, to get the information out and then transmit it to every organization on every planet so that everybody has it.

Dangerous says – which means nobody , particularly him, gets rich and powerful as a result

Rita tells him being rich and powerful is overrated.

Then Dangerous asks: what about the boy?

Doc says once he’s extracted the information, he destroy the chip, and the boy will live a normal life after that.

Rita says, normal, but without parents.

Dangerous suggests the boy might live with them.

Rita says: as if you and me?

            You do presume a lot.

            After all, you haven’t even proposed to me yet.