This choice: Flip to another part of the book • Go Back...Chapter #24The Adventures of Diana Might and Friends (1) by: Seuzz   You flip the pages until your attention is arrested by an image. At the top of a smudgy page of bluish, typewritten ink is a logo: a TV-shaped box containing a cartoon rabbit face and a pair of fat rabbit ears sticking out of the top. Below is written "VARRICK-HARE AUDIO-VISUAL ENTERTAINMENT", and beneath that, "A Division of Cadence Parking Systems Inc." Scrawled in pencil in an upper corner: "Treatment for Episode 1-K, Title TBD."
At the bottom of the page: "The Adventures of Diana Might and Friends."
You start reading ...
* * * * *
TO: Warren Hanrahan
FROM: Ellis Schwartz
DATE: 4/9/74
RE: Story Proposal
Dear Bill,
In follow up to our water cooler conversation of Monday last here is an extended treatment of the idea we discussed. I doubt we can get Burgess Meredith to play the villain, but Jay Robinson would do in a pinch. However, I have called him "Dr. Meredith" throughout this treatment so you will have a firm of idea of how I see the character.
Establish on a modern office/house on a remote, tree-clad hilltop. Inside, at a desk, sits LINDA NEWCASTLE. She is typing a transcription, but removes her earpiece to answer the phone: "Live Technical Solutions. I'm sorry, Dr. Meredith's not in yet, shall I take a message." Just as she hangs up, DR. B. MEREDITH enters through a pair of glass double-doors. He is charming, erudite, avuncular -- and slightly sinister. He inquires after her weekend, chuckles that unlike her he has no time for dating, and reassures her that there is absolutely no rush on finishing the report that she is typing up. At the doorway to his inner office he turns as though remembering something and asks if she is enjoying the report she's typing. "I might if I understood a word of it, doctor," she breathlessly replies. "It's awfully full of big words!" He replies that he himself barely understands it, but chortles that "There's gold in them thar polysyllabic constructions!" He exits. Linda returns the earpiece to her ear, flicks a switch at her waist, but does not resume typing. The camera swings over to the glass doors to the office, and we see the name of the company emblazoned in reverse on them. The word "LIVE" notably resembles the word "EVIL."
Inside Dr. Meredith's office he lays out his briefcase and touches several switches. The blinds on his windows close, and various doors lock. A telescreen descends from the ceiling, and as the doctor perches casually on the corner of his desk with folded arms and a swinging leg, there appears on the screen the fiery corona of O.U.R.O.B.O.R.O.S. THE VOICE OF THE SNAKE declaims: "What is your report, doctor?" Suggested dialogue follows:
M: My secretary is typing it up now. If you want the executive summary--
V: We want the device!
M (shrugs): The device will be in three days. I am polishing it up now.
V: We do not wish it 'polished'! Arrange for its delivery.
M (scowls): I am not in the habit of delivering unfinished products.
V: You will acquire the habit of obedience!
M (again shrugs): If it blows up in your face, it will be your problem, then, not mine.
V: We have immediate need of it! See that it performs as you have promised! If it does not, you will suffer the fate of all who fail us!
The corona fades, and Dr. Meredith with a grimace reflects aloud, "Some days I can't believe I quit the Pentagon to work for these people." With the touch of a switch, he sends the telescreen back into the ceiling. But he gazes still at his desk, and the camera zooms in on a blinking light near the switch.
Inside a supply room, Linda is pressing her earpiece to her ear and talking softly but frantically into a microphone on her collar: "Steve, Dr. Meredith has completed the prototype, and is getting ready to turn it over to Ouroboros!" Intercut with STEVE ANDERSON in O.C.S. headquarters accepting her information and asking her if she has learned what Dr. Meredith's device is supposed to do. But she doesn't answer, and the scene ends with Dr. Meredith with his arm around Linda's waist and his hand over her mouth. "You will regret this attempt to practice espionage upon me," he hisses in her ear. "Or, to put it in words of one syllable -- what comes next will not be fun for you!"
Shift to the mansion of DIANA POUVOIR and her teenage ward SANDRA BOWERS. Sandra is passing through the living room when the doorbell rings. She calls for Diana, but gets no answer, so she opens it. A COURIER has a package to be signed for, and suspiciously asks the teenage Sandra if she is Diana Pouvoir. Sandra stammers, but maintains that she is, and is able to collect the package. Diana, in a robe and her hair in a towel, appears at the head of the stairs and asks who it was. Sandra tells of signing (under Diana's name) to collect the package, which she has already half-unwrapped. Diana wryly suggests Sandra finish unwrapping it—"I'll let you finish what I apparently started"—when the DynaPhone sounds. "Perhaps you'd like to get that, since you're having so much fun being me," Diana playfully suggests to Sandra, then pushes her back to answer it herself in the library. Sandra unwraps the package and shakes her head over the title: "Diffusive Properties of Light in the Holographic Projection of Images." "I wonder who I'd have to pretend to be in order to understand this?!" she marvels.
In the library Diana listens with grave concern as Steve talks. "We placed one of our agents in the offices of Live Technical Solutions, which we believe has been hired by Ouroboros," he explains. "Ten minutes ago she tried to reported that Dr. Meredith, who owns the company, has just completed a prototype for Ouroboros, but she was cut off."
"Dr. Meredith? Is that the expert on holograms? I thought he was at Pacific Tech and working for the Defense Department!" Diana exclaims. Steve replies, "I guess he discovered that Ouroboros would pay more than Uncle Sam." "Well, that's certainly a surprise," Diana marvels. "I've just received one of his books for study." Steve tells her he needs her out at Dr. Meredith's "research ranch" to save Linda. Diana says she'll be right on it. As Sandra enters the library, asking, "Say, Diana, what's a 'lucent transmitter chip'?" Diana seizes her by the wrist and drags her to the secret entrance behind her full-length portrait.
Cut to a tree-clad canyon. DOUG CARPENTER and LYDIA STRAUSS are hiking through the bushes. Both are college-age students: clean-cut, healthy, athletic. They are romantically involved and demonstrably affectionate with each other (by Saturday morning standards, naturally) but are concentrating on collecting wildflower specimens for a class. They grumble about the bugs and the heat and the bushes, but it is clear that they are enjoying the exercise out of doors. They also mention that several of their classmates, including "Jack" and "Cassandra," are in the area as well. On coming around a corner or over a ridge, they stop suddenly and fall quiet to watch. Down below them, an Ouroboros ANDRO-BOT has Linda in its grasp and is leading her away. "What is that?" Lydia asks. "I don't know," Doug replies, "but whatever that mobile tin can is, that woman doesn't want to go with him! You go get help, I'm going down there to see what I can do." He scrambles down the path while Lydia, though worried to see him go, scrambles up the hillside.
The driveway in front of Dr. Meredith's offices. A convertible with an Andro-bot behind the wheel. Dr. Meredith stands next to it. "Just be sure not to break any traffic regulations on the way," he tells it. In its metallic tones it replies, "I am programmed not to reveal myself in public. To drive an automobile is against my programming." "Don't worry, you won't be recognized for what you are," Dr. Meredith replies. He drapes a kind of necklace made of large, flat, rectangular plates around the Andro-bot's neck; each plate has a crystal set in it, with the largest and most eye-catching (a ruby perhaps) set in the plate that dangles at the breastbone. Dr. Meredith touches that crystal now. A glow envelops the Andro-bot, and when it fades the bot is a duplicate of Linda Newcastle (though her expression and aspect should be suitably glassy). "Don't go driving through Hollywood while looking like that," Dr. Meredith chuckles, "or you might get stopped by a talent agent!" He steps back from the car, which drives smoothly away.
Down in a gully, the real Linda is screaming and fighting off the Andro-bot. Doug charges up from behind and tries punching it with his fist. It takes no notice and continues. Doug finds a large tree branch and begins beating at it. This knocks the Andro-bot off-balance sufficiently that it hurls Linda away to turn and fight Doug. He keeps clear of its claws, though, and each time it turns around to go back after Linda, he taunts it with words and rocks into following him. He is contextually aware of his location, and uses that knowledge to lure the Andro-bot to a ridge, and when it lunges at him, he dives for its knees; the bot trips over him and tumbles over. When Doug looks into the gully below, the Andro-bot has been smashed into several pieces, but the limbs still twitch.
The Linda-bot is driving on a lonely country road when a figure darts in front of it. It's Lydia, and the car turns sharply to avoid hitting her and goes sliding down a hillside. Lydia chases it down. The car is on fire.
Cut to Diana Might and Nitro Girl, in the Rocket Car, driving down a similar road. Nitro Girl point to a stream of smoke, and Diana says they'll check it out on the way back: It's more important to find the kidnapped OSC agent.
At the wreck, Lydia gasps over the sight of a seemingly dead Linda Newcastle, and gasps again when with a glow the body changes into an Andro-bot. She removes the necklace from it, puts it on. She touches one of the smaller crystals at her collarbone, then presses the large crystal. A glow envelops her and she transforms into an Andro-bot.
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