Palmer Eldritch Product Demo

EXT, TITAN -- DAY
The "sky" is hatched with the hexagonal pattern of a massive containment dome. Saturn and its rings are dimly visible through the superstructure.

Leo Bulero and Monica (a seven-year-old girl, apparently) confront each other in a desert landscape. She's sitting on top of a rocky outcropping; Bulero is standing on the ground looking up at her. 

Monica smiles. Her face occasionally flickers with Palmer Eldritch's steel teeth and artificial eyes. 

This isn't Titan. And Monica isn't Monica. She's really Palmer Eldritch, Leo Bulero's cybernetically enhanced competitor, who's just returned from Proxima Centauri with a new product. (Bulero is a media mogul who sells a psychedelic drug called Can-D to Martian colonists. Eldritch has a new drug called Chew-Z.) 

Bulero has just realized this unpleasant fact. Like a chump, he's willingly stepped inside Eldritch's hallucinatory realm. He's totally at Eldritch's mercy in this place. But he's keeping his cool.

Monica/Eldritch sits smugly on top of a rock. Then "she" shifts like a blob of Mercury into the "true" form of Palmer Eldritch. A beefy, forty-something man with artificial eyes, steel teeth and a prosthetic hand. 

In the previous scene, Eldritch put the ball in Bulero's court. Eldritch is waiting for a response, but forcing Bulero to come to him. A petty, bullshit power move.

Bulero stands there, then finally gives in.

Bulero: Fine. I'll ask the fucking question.

Bulero pulls himself up the outcropping. Keeps climbing until he's eye-level with Eldritch.

Bulero: Hey, Palmer. Question.
ELDRITCH: Hmmm.
Bulero: Why'd you bring me here?

ELDRITCH: Demonstration purposes.

Bulero: Oh, swell. What exactly are you demonstrating?

ELDRITCH: My product, stupid. What do you think?

Bulero: Seriously? (amused) All this … This is all one big product demo? (laughs) For Chew-Z?

ELDRITCH: No. Chew-Z is simply the delivery system.

Bulero: OK. So, what’s the product?

ELDRITCH: Why, this world, Leo.

Bulero: “This” world?

ELDRITCH: This world, that world, any world you want.

Bulero: It's a fucking hallucination.
ELDRITCH: It's a realm.

Eldritch melts into the form of the little girl again. Leaps down from the rock. Runs around with childish glee.

ELDRITCH: Come on, Leo! Look at this place!  The rock! That dust! You don't believe in it?
BULERO: No. (shrugs) It's convincing, sure ...
ELDRITCH: It's real! 
BULERO: And you're a real bullshit artist, Palmer. Can-D is a fucking hallucination. I never claimed otherwise.
ELDRITCH: I claim otherwise! 
BULERO: Then you're out of your fucking mind.
ELDRITCH: No, Leo. I take my users to other worlds. You've heard the expression, "worlds of imagination" ...?
BULERO: You mean like masturbation?
ELDRITCH: No! I mean the worlds of imagination! The many worlds! This is one of them! 
BULERO: (muttering) Here we go. 
ELDRITCH: With Chew-Z, you're not playing with dolls! No dolls, no layouts. No external reference points. Unlimited possibilities!

BULERO: Unlimited?

ELDRITCH: Uh-huh! Try it out. Make something, Leo.

BULERO: Out of what?

ELDRICHT: Out of nothing. Ab nihilo. 
BULERO: How's that work, exactly?
ELDRITCH: Use your imagination.

BULERO: You say so. Hocus pocus ...

Bulero gestures. Then he's holding something in his hands. Just out of sight.

ELDRITCH: What have you got?

Bulero holds it up so Monica/Eldritch can see.

ELDRITCH: (snorts) The Bible?

BULERO: King James Bible. 
ELDRITCH: You think that's going to protect you?
BULERO: (shrugs) Early childhood conditioning.

ELDRITCH: Oh, that's sweet, but it's a total waste of time.

The Bible turns to dust. A wind from nowhere blows it away.

Eldritch resumes his adult form.

ELDRITCH: Bibles, Korans, whatever. None of that crap works here, Leo. This is my domain.
BULERO: Yeah, I figured that out. You want my reaction?
ELDRITCH: Please.
BULERO: Well, to be perfectly frank, this is not a satisfying user experience. 
ELDRITCH: Why not?
BULERO: Your product stinks, Palmer.

ELDRITCH: In what sense?
BULERO: In a bait-and-switch sense. You make a pitch for "unlimited possibilities." One minute later, you come on like a comic book villain and turn the Bible to dust? Clumsy move.
ELDRITCH: Guilty as charged. I'm an asshole sometimes. What does that change?
BULERO: Because I see what you're selling, asshole. You pumped me full of Chew-Z, now I'm trapped in your dream. That's supposed to be fun?
ELDRITCH: No. I never said fun, Leo. I promised to demonstrate ...
BULERO: Yeah, you showed me what you can do. You're God in this universe. I get it.
ELDRITCH: Ask me what I want, Leo.
BULERO: I already know what you want. You want everything. Fuck you.

BULERO gestures again.

ELDRITCH: What are you doing, Leo?

BULERO: I'm making some stairs.

ELDRITCH: Stairs?

BULERO: Yeah, stairs. I'm thinking spiral.

A spiral staircase forms. Bulero turns his back on Eldritch. Then ascends the staircase.

ELDRITCH: Where are you going?
Bulero: Away from you.
ELDRITCH: That's rude, Leo. And it's a very bad idea.

BULERO: Nothing's real here. You can't hurt me.

ELDRITCH: You're sure?

BULERO: Go to hell.