At one particular house in a suburban area, a man is drinking from a plastic can whilst watching television. The TV is currently playing a news report about nanotechnology, showing 3D renderings of bug-like microbes.
REPORTER: "-nanotechnological microbes. Microscopic machines with the capacity to reproduce at a truly astonishing rate. Their origin is unknown but they are man-made. The Machinehead virus is not indestructible, it can be destroyed.
Evacuation of..."
Suddenly the man watching the television begins to gag. He drops the can from his hand and inadvertantly kicks over a lamp. Blood drips from his mouth as he stiffens, dead. Then his whole form takes on a new appearance which begins to
spread all around the room, across the chair and over the television. Very quickly it spreads to the outside of the house, soon to cover the entirety of the suburbs.
At an unknown location within a laboratory, a female scientist is stationed at a computer and a male scientist is working in a separate room with a blowtorch.
KIMBERLY: "My name is Kimberly Stride. Doctor Kimberly Stride. I've been engaged in research at MIT into the cause and effects of nanotechnological infestations. When by a stroke, my assistant Orville McCandle. Orville the geek and I
found refuge in an isolation bunker deep beneath the institute. We set about discovering the ways and means necessary to destroy the Machinehead virus. We had located the source of the virus and built a vehicle, flippantly called the
Vorpal Blade. To transport a nuclear bomb into the blighted heart of the Machinehead. But we had a problem. To bring the Vorpal Blade to its full operational capacity required a sophisticated artificial intelligence. In short, a brain
to guide it along the torturous and highly dangerous route to its dome. I had decided to upgrade the institute's CPU with encoded sequences from my own brain pattern and then implant this into the Vorpal Blade's operating system. But
Orville had ideas of his own..."
Orville, clutching a wrench in one hand, creeps up on Kimberly and strikes her over the head. She slumps across the computer console then falls backwards to the floor. Later, Kimberly awakens in another room.
KIMBERLY: "I couldn't move and my head hurt like hell. The geek had found us a brain alright. Unfortunately it was mine..."
Kimberly finds herself strapped to the Vorpal Blade, entirely unable to move. Orville waves Kimberly goodbye as a helmet descends upon her head.
KIMBERLY: "I had no choice. The bomb was primed and the geek had his fingers on auto-destruct."
All prepared, the platform holding the Vorpal Blade rises to the surface. The landscape has been shaped beyond recognition by the Machinehead virus.
KIMBERLY: "There was nothing else I could do."
The engines of the Vorpal Blade are initiated and Kimberly directs away from the platform, across the infected landscape.
SCENE
Kimberly slows the Vorpal Blade to a halt in the middle of a valley. Orville is contacting her from the laboratory.
ORVILLE: "Hello? Hello? Doctor Stride, can you hear me?"
KIMBERLY: "Yeah. Unfortunately I can."
ORVILLE: "Excellent! Okay, baby, before I give you directions to the Machine Head there's a couple of things I need for you to do. Not far from your present position you'll find a real cool train sitting pretty just like yourself. In a
hangar. The train's carrying fuel and I need for you to take it to some scientist friends of mine. Just a pretext, you understand. So if you can get into their bunker and find out what they're at regarding the Machine Head. I want you
to raise the train and await further instructions. It's only an itty bitty thing but it'll make me real happy."
KIMBERLY: "Little things please little minds, Orville."
ORVILLE: "Oh, your wit's as ??? as your beauty, Doctor Stride!"
KIMBERLY: "And your stupidity ???, scumbag."
SCENE
Kimberly is piloting the Vorpal Blade slowly through a valley. An unhappy Orville is contacting her.
ORVILLE: "What you did back there to my scientist friends wasn't very funny, Doctor Stride. I'm kinda toying with the idea of pressing that auto-destruct right now."
KIMBERLY: "If you won't do that, Orville, if you need me as much as I don't need you."
ORVILLE: "You don't know how right you are, baby! Okay, this is where things start to get real hard. Somewhere you're gonna see two humungous eels and they're just teeming with real nasty mutant termites. The kind that's real partial to
babe flesh instead of wood. Heheheh! You gotta find the entrance to the hill this side of the river. Once you're there I'll be in touch. So until then it's bye bye, baby!"
KIMBERLY: "Missing you already."
SCENE
Night has fallen and Kimberly is directing the Vorpal Blade across a narrow cliff overlooking a deep chasm. Again, Orville is contacting her.
ORVILLE: "I'm beginning to get real mad with you, Doctor Stride, and you wouldn't like me when I'm angry."
KIMBERLY: "Orville, I don't like you when you're not angry."
Kimberly is beginning to approach a large metal structure. Mutated wasps flutter around the area.
ORVILLE: "You shouldn't have killed the agent like you did, it was real unkind! And besides, you need to get me some real useful information about the Machine Head."
On the Vorpal Blade's small display screen, Orville can be seen slumped up against a wall.
KIMBERLY: "May I just interject, Orville? To say that you're looking even worse than normal. A fact that fills me with an immense feeling of pleasure."
ORVILLE: "I'm glad you're enjoying this so much, Doctor Stride. Always good to give a lady so much pleasure! Now, to the business at hand so to speak. My last remaining scientist friends have put a ??? into orbit like your big 'ol eye in
the sky so to speak. What you gotta do is get onboard somehow. My last remaining scientist friends most likely think you're their agent from the termite hills so they'll most likely help you out on that score. First up, you're heading
for the highway on the far side of the mountain pass. Once you're in there, hang loose and get ready for me. I'll be coming onto you in a big way so to speak!"
KIMBERLY: "The only thing that's big about you, Orville, is your ego."
The Vorpal Blade nears some of the mutated wasps. Kimberly opens fire on them, destroying all three.
SCENE
The Vorpal Blade materialises in the middle of peaceful greenlands, the colour blue dominating the skies. Once again, Orville establishes contact with Kimberly. He is audibly weary.
ORVILLE: "I guess you think that taking out the satellite was pretty darn amusing, huh? Well, ha ha ha! You better prepare yourself for a big surprise at the end, Doctor Stride! It's almost game over and you're getting warmer, real hot
in fact. Can't say anything more than that, baby! Let's get it on!"
KIMBERLY: "Gee, I don't think we're in Massachusetts anymore, Orville."
ORVILLE: "Bye bye, Doctor Stride! Its been a real gas!"
Back at the laboratory, Orville falls flat on his back.
KIMBERLY: "You know, I almost miss him. But then again..."
SCENE
Kimberly directs the Vorpal Blade to the cover of a rusty metal structure and disembarks. Suddenly, the voice of Orville booms across a loudspeaker. There is something unusual about his voice, more unusual than normal that is. Inside the
structure itself, Orville is observing Kimberly on a small screen.
ORVILLE: "Woah! Doctor Stride, how nice to see you in the flesh, so to speak. Did you enjoy my little game? We had such fun, did we not? And now it's game over!"
Having walked down a corridor, Kimberly produces a pistol and shoots out a monitoring camera. Inside his room, Orville is drenched in blood. A chord of some description is feeding itself into his stomach. He has been taken over by the
Machine Head.
ORVILLE: "Something I've been looking forward to all along. I hope you make it hurt a lot! Pretty twisted, huh?"
Kimberly arrives in the room.
KIMBERLY: "Damn right, you little creep!"
ORVILLE: "Oh, that's it! Talk dirty to me, baby!"
Kimberly advances closer until she is towering over the seated Orville, training her pistol on his head.
KIMBERLY: "I've had just about all I can take from you."
ORVILLE: "I can take. Give it to me, baby. Give it to me... hard!"
KIMBERLY: "You got it!"
Kimberly delivers a single shot to Orville's head.
BLAM
SCENE
A readout is flickering frequently on the Vorpal Blade's control console, indicating an imminent explosion.
KIMBERLY: "Damn!"
Even from many miles away from the Earth, the explosion of the Vorpal Blade can be seen large.
SCENE
Kimberly screams as the Vorpal Blade plummets through the clouds and into the dark void below.
SCENE
Kimberly screams as the Vorpal Blade plummets through the clouds.
SCENE
Suspended alone in a dream-like realm filled with moving shapes, Kimberly flickers in and out between an organic state and a wireframe state.
KIMBERLY: "Orville... I don't know..."
Kimberly screams when she remains a wireframe state and is finally obliterated from existence.
SCENE
The Vorpal Blade floats on the surface of the ocean but not for long. Kimberly gasps as the vehicle slips beneath the waves and into the darkness below.
SCENE
The Vorpal Blade floats on the surface of the ocean but not for long. The vehicle slips beneath the waves. Below the surface, a large mutated fish swoops around as the Vorpal Blade descends lower and lower.
CREDITS
English Voice Actors
Kimberly Stride - Catherine Shannon
Orville McCardle - John Vernon
Machine Head - John Vernon
TV Presenter - John Vernon