Interior of a «classroom.»
A large room. No windows, cream-colored walls, perfectly blank. About fifty boys are fidgeting in metal folding-chairs. Danny is sitting toward the rear. All the boys are now dressed in identical gray coveralls. Two uniformed guards stand by the room’s only exit, a pair of large double doors.
The boys are mostly quiet; they don’t know each other, they’re trying to size up the situation. Hansen comes through the double doors (which a guard quickly closes behind him) and strides to the two-steps-up platform in the front of the room. He has a small microphone in his hand. He smiles and tries to look confident as he speaks.
«I’m not going to say much. I’d like to introduce myself. I’m Dr. Hansen. I’m not a medical doctor, I’m a specialist in education …»
A loud collective groan.
«No, no …» Hansen chuckles slightly. «No, it’s not what you think. I work with teaching machines. You know, computers? Have you heard of them? Well, never mind.»
One of the kids stands up and starts for the door. A guard points a cattle prod toward the kid’s chair. He gets the idea, goes back sullenly and sits down.
«You’re here whether you like it or not,» Hansen continues, minus the smile. «I’m confident that you’ll soon like it. We’re going to change you. We’re going to make your lives worth living. And it doesn’t matter in the slightest whether you like it or not. You’ll learn to like it soon enough. No one’s going to hurt you, unless you try to get rough. But we are going to change you.»
Interior of the «reading room.»
A much smaller room. Danny and Hansen are alone in it. Same featureless plastic walls. No furniture except an odd-looking chair in the middle of the floor. It somewhat resembles an electric chair. Danny is trying to look contemptuous to cover up his fear.
«You ain’t gettin’ me in that!»
«It’s perfectly all right; there’s nothing here to hurt you. I’m merely going to determine how well you can read.»
«I can read.»
«Yes, of course.» Doubtfully. «But how well? That’s what I need to know.»
«I don’t see no books around.»
«When you sit in the chair and the electrodes are attached to your scalp …»
«You gonna put those things on my head?»
«It’s completely painless.»
«No you ain’t!»
Hansen speaks with great patience. «There’s no use arguing about it. If I have to, I’ll get the guards to strap you in. But it will be better if you cooperate. Mr. Carter—the one you call, uh, ‘Spade,’ I believe—he took the test without hesitating a moment. You wouldn’t want him to know that we had to hold you down, would you?»
Danny glowers, but edges toward the chair. «Motherhumpin’ sonofabitch.»
Series of fadeins and fadeouts.
Danny in the «reading room,» sitting in the chair, cranium covered by electrode network. The wall before him has become a projection screen, and he is reading the words on it. MUSIC UNDER is Marine Corps Band playing Cornell University Alma Mater: («Far Above Cayuga’s Waters …»)
DANNY (hesitantly): «The car … hummed … cut quiet-ly to it-self …»
FADEOUT
FADEIN
DANNY (tense with concentration): «So my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you …»
FADEOUT
FADEIN
DANNY: «‘Surrender?’» he shouted. «‘I have not yet begun to fight!’»
FADEOUT
FADEIN
DANNY (enjoying himself): «Robin pulled his bowstring back carefully, knowing that the Sheriff and all the townspeople were watching him.»
FADEOUT
Interior of Brockhurst’s office.
Hansen is pacing impatiently before the desk, an intense smile on his face.
«I tell you, it’s succeeding beyond my fondest hopes! Those boys are soaking it up like sponges. That Romano boy alone has absorbed more knowledge …»
Brockhurst is less than optimistic. «They’re really learning?»
«Not only learning. They’re beginning to change. The process is working. We’re changing their attitudes, their value systems, everything. We’re going to make useful citizens out of them.»
«All of them?»
«No, of course not. Only the best of them: half a dozen, I’d say, out of the fifty here—Romano, ‘Spade’ Carter, three or four others. At least six out of fifty, better than one out of ten. And this is just the first batch! When we start processing larger numbers of them …»
Brockhurst cuts Hansen short with a gesture. «Do you actually think these—students—of yours will go back to their old neighborhoods and start to rehabilitate their fellow gang members?»
«Yes, of course they will. They’ll have to! They’re being programmed for it!»
Interior of library.
Danny is sitting at a reading table, absorbed in a book. Bookshelves line the walls. A lumpy-faced redhead sits one table away, also reading. Hansen enters quietly, walks to Danny.
«Hello, Danny. How’s it going today?»
Danny looks up and smiles pleasantly. «Fine, Mr. Hansen.»
«I just got the computer’s scoring of your economics exam. You got the highest mark in the class.»
«Did I? Great. I was worried about it. Economics is kind of hard to grasp. Those booster pills you gave me must have helped.»
«You did extremely well. What are you reading?»
«Biography, by Harold Lamb. It’s about Genghis Khan.»
Hansen nods. «I see, look, it’s about time we started thinking about what you’re going to do when you go back home. Why don’t you drop over to my office tonight, after supper?»
«Okay.»
«See you then.»
«Right.»
Hansen moves away, toward the other boy. Danny closes his book, stands up. He turns to the bookshelf directly behind him and reaches unhesitatingly for another volume. He puts the two books under his arm and starts for the door. The title of the second book is Mein Kampf.
Brockhurt’s office.
Six boys are standing in front of Brockhurst’s desk, the six Hansen spoke of. They are now dressed in casual slacks, shirts, sport coats. Hansen is sitting beside the desk, beaming at them. Brockhurst, despite himself, looks impressed.
«You boys understand how important your mission is.» Brockhurst is lapsing into a military tone. «You can save your friends a lot of grief … perhaps save their lives.»
Danny nods gravely. «It’s not just our friends that we’ll be saving, it’ll be our cities, all the people in them, our whole country.»
«Exactly.»
Hansen turns to Brockhurst. «They’ve been well-trained. They’re ready to begin their work.»
«Very well. Good luck, boys. We’re counting on you.»
Exterior shot, a city street.
Mid-afternoon, a hot summer day. A taxi pulls to the curb of the dingy, sun-baked street. Danny steps out, ducks down to pay the cabbie. He drives away quickly. Danny stands alone, in front of a magazine/tobacco store. He is dressed as he was in Brockhurst’s office. Taking off the jacket, he looks slowly up and down the street. Deserted, except for a few youngsters sitting, listlessly, in the shade. With a shrug, he steps to the store.
Interior, the store.
Magazine racks on one side of the narrow entrance; store counter featuring cigarettes and candy on the other. No one at the counter. Overhead, a battered fan drones ineffectually. Farther back, a grimy table surrounded by rickety chairs. Three boys, two girls, all Danny’s age, sit there. The boys in jeans and tee shirts, girls in shorts and sleeveless tops. They turn as he shuts the door, gape at him.
«Nobody going to say hello?» He grins at them.
«Danny!»
They bounce out of the chairs, knocking one over.
«We thought you was dead!»
«Or in jail … nobody knew what happened to you.»