TITLE: THE DEAD AVATAR SKETCH
AUTHOR: Michael J. Gallagher ( mikejoe@odyssey.net )
(INT. Harper's Machine Shop aboard the Andromeda Ascendant. There is a work bench in the center of the room and a cooler filled with cans of Sparky Cola on a smaller table to one side. DYLAN ENTERS carrying ROMMIE in his arms. She's limp, completely lifeless, and Dylan is
visibly angry, but managing to contain it for now. He lays Rommie down on the work bench.)
DYLAN: Harper!
(HARPER pops up from behind the bench, as bright, cocky, and cheerful as Dylan is impatient and annoyed.)
HARPER: Yeah, hi, Boss! Good to see ya. What can I do for ya?
DYLAN: Mr. Harper, I am here to register a complaint about this ship's avatar that you manufactured not three quarters of an hour ago in this very machine shop.
HARPER (unfazed): Oh, yeah? What's wrong with her?
DYLAN: "What's wrong with her?" I'll tell you what's wrong with her, my lad. She's DEAD. That's what's wrong with her!
HARPER: No, no, she's resting. Beautiful cleavage, though, eh? Do I rule, or do I rule?
DYLAN: The cleavage doesn't enter into it! She's stone dead.
HARPER: No, no, resting.
DYLAN: Harper, I'm in no mood for your garbage right now. I know a dead avatar when I see one, and I'm looking at one right now.
HARPER: Uh-huh, Boss; resting!
DYLAN: All right then, if she's resting, I'll wake her up! (Bends to shout in Rommie's ear) HELLO, ANDROMEDA ASCENDANT! I've got a lovely Drago-Kazov Pride Destroyer for you to fight with!
(Rommie doesn't react -- she's dead -- but Harper kicks the work bench and she jerks.)
HARPER: There! She moved!
DYLAN: No, she didn't; that was you!
HARPER: I never! (He kicks the bench again, and she jerks again.) See, she's moving!
DYLAN: HELLO, ROMMIE! (He pulls her up to a sitting position, begins slapping her. He might as well be slapping a rag doll instead of Rom Doll.) Testing, testing! (He pulls her off the bench, stands her on her feet, shoves, and she flops over backwards. So he does it again and again and again -- as many times as required for this scene! Bits of artificial skin and metal parts flake off each time the dead android falls.) Fall in! Front and center! Ready for inspection! Shake a leg! This is your oh-dark-thirty alarm call! (One last shove and Rommie bounces off the bench and flops to the floor, totally inert and more than a little discombobulated for the abuse.) Now, that's what I call a dead avatar.
HARPER: No, now she's stunned.
DYLAN: "Stunned"?
HARPER: Yeah, you stunned her just as she was waking up! Ship's avatars stun easily. But beautiful cleavage!
DYLAN: Mr. Harper! When you brought that ship's avatar to my bridge, you told me her total lack of movement was the result of being tired and shagged out after a prolonged interface with the Ballance of Judgement. But that does not explain, to my satisfaction, why she hasn't said a word!
HARPER: Well, maybe she's pining for Tarn Vedra's fjords.
DYLAN: "Pining for the fjords"!? What the narf kind of talk is that? I've had enough of this! I took the liberty of examining that avatar while she was supposedly on duty, and I discovered the only reason she was standing at her command podium was she'd been nailed there.
HARPER: Well, of course I nailed her there, Dylan! If I hadn't nailed Rommie to that podium, she would have gained sentience of her own, muscled open the bridge doors, and VOOM!
DYLAN: "Voom"? Harper, she wouldn't "voom" if you put 4 million volts through her! She's narfing demised!
HARPER: No, she's pining .... !
DYLAN: She's not pining; she's passed on! She's deceased. She has ceased to be. This avatar is no more. She's extinct in her entirety. Bereft of life, she rests in peace. She's a stiff. She's kicked the bucket. She's rung down the curtain, shuffled off the mortal coil, gone to her final reward, and joined the narfing choir of angels! This is an ex-avatar!
HARPER (still cheerful): Well, I'd better replace her then.
(Disappears into the back of the machine shop.)
DYLAN: You want to get anything done in the Known Universe after The Fall .... uurrrrrrgggghhhhhhhh!
HARPER (reappearing): Sorry, Boss, but I've looked 'round the back and we're all out of ship's avatars.
DYLAN: I see, I see, I get the picture.
HARPER: I've got a nanobot.
DYLAN: Can it talk?
HARPER: Well, no, not really ...
DYLAN: Well, it's hardly a replacement, is it!?
HARPER: Well, Boss, you want to grab some Sparkys and troll the drift for Uber babes?
DYLAN ("Oh, what the hell"): Yeah, why not?
(They grab cans of Sparky Cola from the cooler and EXIT.)
THE DEAD AVATAR SKETCH is an unauthorized non-commercial parody of GENE RODDENBERRY'S ANDROMEDA and MONTY PYTHON'S FLYING CIRCUS. GENE RODDENBERRY'S ANDROMEDA and all related characters and situations are copyright (C) 2000 by Tribune Entertainment, Inc. MONTY PYTHON'S
FLYING CIRCUS and all related script materials are copyright (C) 1969-2000 by Python (Monty) Pictures, Ltd. This original script is copyright (C) 2001 by Michael J. Gallagher, all rights reserved, with apologies to Lexa Doig (whose character takes a posthumous pounding) et al.
To Michael J. Gallagher's Fan Fiction
Home