Ex Machina (11 page)

Beat.

Caleb looks upwards.

Directly above, he sees a spotlight in the ceiling.

It dazzles him.

Nathan hesitates.

Caleb stares into the brightness above him.

Beat.

Silence.

Caleb doesn’t answer.

Nathan cuts off. Because at that moment –

– the lights and the monitors suddenly die.

Through the circular window, the emergency lighting lifts up. The window glows red.

Ava’s head turns to the door of her room.

Where, discreetly, the LED by the keycard plate glows blue.

Nathan checks his watch.

He glances at Caleb.

Caleb says nothing.

Beat.

Nathan frowns.

Caleb looks away from the dimmed ceiling light, to Nathan.

Beat.

Nathan freezes.

At that moment, the power comes back on.

The lights rise.

The computer monitors come back to life.

Revealing something.

On the CCTV feed of Ava’s room, the door is open.

And on the feed of the glass corridor –

– Ava is walking down it.

Nathan freezes as he sees her.

Both Nathan and Caleb simultaneously rise.

Almost as an afterthought, Nathan lands a deceptive, fast punch into Caleb’s solar plexus.

Caleb folds, the air forced out of him, gasping for breath.

Nathan helps him down to the floor.

A couple of yards away is one of his curl dumbbells.

He walks over.

Picks the dumbbell up.

Spins off the weights. Leaving him with a thick metal bar.

Then exits.

Nathan enters the glass corridor.

He sees, directly ahead of him, Ava and Kyoko. By their proximity, it is as if they have just been talking.

Both women turn.

Kyoko glances at Ava.

Ava breaks into a run –

– sprinting in Nathan’s direction.

Quiet in the garden.

Soft wind rush.

Moon and stars reflected in the windows of the house.

Ava impacts Nathan, and they fly backwards.

Then land hard.

Nathan gets to his feet first.

Ava tries to rise too.

And he kicks her extremely hard in the torso.

She is knocked back down.

Nathan glances around.

There is no talking.

Just Nathan’s laboured breathing.

Then he walks back to Ava, looking down at her.

He swings the metal bar.

Ava raises her left arm defensively –

– and shockingly, the bar smashes through it. Crushing the delicate mesh, shattering the carbon-fibre bone structure.

Breaking the arm halfway down the forearm.

CUT TO

Caleb, dragging himself up, stunned by the sight on the CCTV feed.

CUT BACK TO

Nathan. Preparing to deliver a lethal blow.

But as he does so, we see something.

Kyoko.

Approaching behind Nathan.

She’s holding something in her hand.

She walks directly up to Nathan.

And does something behind his back.

As she does so, Kyoko emits the first sound we have heard her make. A little gasp, or sigh.

Nathan jolts.

He looks down.

Something is under his shirt, just above his solar plexus. A little ridge.

He tugs the material of his shirt open –

– and reveals a tiny triangle of metal. Protruding from his skin.

He turns.

The handle of a kitchen knife is jutting out of the middle of his back, just left of his spine. It has been jammed so deep that the tip of the blade has poked out of his chest.

Blood soaks into his shirt material with amazing speed, blossoming from the point of the wound.

He sees Kyoko.

He lashes out with the metal bar.

It catches Kyoko in the jaw.

Her entire lower jaw snaps off.

It reveals metal armature, and carbon fibre, and spurting pneumatic fluid. And something in her neck, glowing and sparking.

Then she folds down to the ground, as her power abruptly cuts out.

As Nathan stares down at Kyoko –

REVEAL

– that Ava has got to her feet behind him.

She pulls the knife out of his back.

Feeling this happen, Nathan turns –

– and Ava pushes the knife into his chest.

Nathan stares at Ava.

Then takes a slight step away from her.

And sits down heavily on the white carpet.

Crimson drips on to bleached fibre.

Beats pass on this strange image:

Kyoko sprawled on the floor with her broken face.

Nathan sitting upright, his upper torso now drenched in blood.

Ava standing. Watching Nathan.

After a few moments, Nathan slumps sideways.

And stops breathing.

Caleb sees this same view, on the CCTV camera feed, on Nathan’s monitors.

Then –

– Ava starts walking.

On the cameras, he watches her progress through the house. Down the glass corridor. Through the threshold to Nathan’s private quarters.

Then –

– Caleb raises his head from the screens.

To see Ava standing at the open door to Nathan’s study.

Ava and Caleb look at each other.

Beat.

Ava leaves, closing the door behind her.

CUT TO

– the monitors.

The CCTV feed of Ava walking down the connecting corridor to Nathan’s bedroom.

Ava stands in Nathan’s bedroom, in front of the previous AI androids.

She is unclothed.

She gazes at the androids.

Then she removes the arm from one of the girls, and replaces her own shattered limb.

She takes a moment to see how the new limb looks in the mirrors.

Then she starts removing sections of their skin.

And putting it on herself.

The skin sucks itself to the honeycomb mesh, as if the mesh and the underside of the skin are magnetised, attracted to each other.

Transfixed, Caleb watches Ava’s metamorphosis on the monitors.

First light breaks over the mountains.

The glow of honeycomb mesh vanishes as Ava applies the last section of skin.

Nothing of her robot forms remains.

She is a naked human girl. Hypnotised by the sight of herself.

Caleb watches as Ava – now clothed – walks back down the connecting corridor to the study –

– then passes straight by his door.

Caleb gets up.

Goes to the closed door. Tries to open it.

There is a red LED light by the keycard plate. Locked.

He swipes his card, with his photo ID.

The red light remains.

He calls out:

He runs back to the monitors.

On them, Ava has reached the glass corridor.

Ava stands in the glass corridor.

She looks at Kyoko’s body for a moment.

Her expression is unreadable.

Then she walks up to Nathan’s body.

There, she stops.

Crouches down.

And takes Nathan’s bloodstained keycard out of his pocket.

Then stands.

She walks straight to the elevator.

Uses the keycard.

And steps through.

Ava exits the elevator, and steps into the dining area. Sees the view through the panoramic window. She is frozen by it for a moment. Then she walks to the open doors.

Ava steps outside for the first time. Into the garden. With the view of the sky and the mountains.

Caleb sticks his card into the slot by Nathan’s computer.

Instantly, all the screens die. Replaced by a single word:

REJECTED.

In the middle of the lawn, Ava stops. Absorbing the sunrise.

Caleb looks up at the thick glass of the circular window, several metres above him.

Far out of reach.

He starts to shout.

Nathan’s body. Kyoko’s body.

From the garden, we can see Caleb through the glass of the circular window, shouting Ava’s name.

On our side of the glass, there is silence.

Ava walks away, towards the meadow.

The helicopter sweeps over the glacier, into the valley.

The Pilot checks his approach.

Standing near the landing area is a girl.