"What am I working on?" "Something that will change the world and human life as we know it." "Change it a lot or just a bit?" "Be more specific." "You want me to be more specific here with half the scientific community eavesdropping?" "Where else?" "You could come back to my lab." "I'll make cappuccino." "I have a Faema of my own." "It's not the dilettante's plastic model." "It's a restaurant espresso machine with an eagle on top." "Somehow I get the feeling you don't get out much." "You can tell that?" "Yes." "You're making a mistake." "I think you really want to talk to me." "Sorry." "I have three other interviews before this party is over." "But they don't have something that will change the world." "They say they do." "Yeah but they're lying." "I'm not." "Are you sick?" "No" " Sure." "You're not a very good drunk." "No, I'm always like this." "It's the motion sickness." "When I was a kid, I puked on my tricycle." "I hate vehicles." "Should I drive slowly?" "No." "Turn left." "We're almost there." "This is it?" "It's cleaner on the inside." "Please." "Listen." "Maybe this is a bad idea." "Too late." "You've already seen them." "You can't leave here alive." "I haven't seen anything." "Those." "Designer phone booths." "Very cute." "I bet you have a really neat jukebox in here too." "Over there?" "No." "No." "This is the prototype of those." "The first one I had made." "It works, but it's clunky." "I call them telepods." "They're controlled by this." "Thank God for that." "What do these phones booths do?" "Telepods." "Okay, I need an object." "Do you have something that is personal I can use?" "Something uniquely you?" "An item of clothing or jewelry?" "You kidding?" "No, I'm serious." "Okay." "Here it goes." "I don't wear jewelry." "It's nice." "Brundle, Seth." "Watch the stocking." "Well?" "Great." "A giant microwave oven." "I'm glad I didn't give you my Rolex." "If I had a Rolex." "You're missing the point." "Look." "Teleportation?" "Please." "Wait a minute." "Is that a hologram?" "Where's my stocking?" "That's it." "Pick it up." "I don't get it." "What happened?" "You get it but you can't handle it." "Your stocking has just been teleported from one pod to another." "Disintegrated there and reintegrated there." "Sort of." "It will change the world as we know it, right?" "This is incredible." "It's not possible, is it?" "How have you kept this quiet?" "Please sit down." "How could you do this alone?" "I don't work alone." "There's stuff in there I don't understand." "I'm really a systems manager." "I farm out pieces to men more brilliant than I. I say:" ""Design me a molecular analyzer, " and they do." "I just assemble it." "None of them knows what the project really is." "And the money?" "Bartok Science Industries financed this?" "But they leave me alone because I'm not expensive." "They know they'll own whatever it is." "You haven't told them?" "When I'm ready." "Wait a second." "What's that?" "To get the quotes right." "Quotes?" "No." "This was personal." "Don't write about it." "What do you mean?" "I'm a journalist." "Oh, no." "You knew that." "I made a mistake." "I shouldn't have shown you this." "I'm very sorry." "Partcle Magazne sent me to get a story." "This is the most exciting story ever." "No." "Absolutely not." "I must have that tape." "Please." "You can't do that." "Don't write a story." "I'd never have told this stuff to a journalist." "But you told it to me." "I suppose I did but" "Sure did." "Now wait a minute." "Come here." "What about your stocking?" "Keep it for good luck." "I say: "Desgn me a molecular analyzer, " and they do." "I just assemblet." "None of them knows what the project reallys." "And the money?" "Bartok Scence Industres fnanced ths?" "But they leave me alone because I'm not expensve." "They know they'll own whateverts." "Well, that's it." "What do you think?" "It's a joke." "What?" "He's conning you." "It's an old nightclub routine." "The two cabinets." "You fell for it." "Wait a minute." "That was no" "Are we having lunch?" "That was no nightclub routine." "I was there." "I saw it." "Sure." "Send him in." "You must have made an impression." "What do you mean?" "Your magician followed you here." "I'm Stathis Borans, editor of Partcle Magazne." "Seth Brundle." "I know who you are." "Why don't you two use my office?" "I've gotta run." "If you plan to make anything disappear, let me know." "I have an assistant editor who's outlived his usefulness." "You didn't waste time." "I'm not getting any younger." "He wasn't impressed by your tape?" "He thinks you're a con man." "Excellent." "Let's see what the people at Omnthink about it." "No, no." "Listen, Veronica...." "I've come here to say one magic word." "Yeah?" "Cheeseburger." "I've been working alone too long." "I have a strong urge to talk about what I'm doing." "But if this gets out now Veronica, it'll kill me." "The Bartok people and my colleagues will kill me." "It's not ready yet." "It works okay." "No, something important's missing." "Yeah?" "Yeah." "What?" "I can only teleport inanimate objects." "What happens when you teleport living things?" "Not while we're eating." "Can't be worse than this." "You're not doing a good job of convincing me." "I think I should tell the world about this now." "You should tell it but not yet." "What do you have so far?" "Enough to make you nervous." "Why not get more?" "Make me your major project, a book." "Not a magazine article." "Follow me and my work, day by day in detail." "I have no life, so there's nothing for you to interfere with." "Research the background." "Cover the process." ""The complete record of the most earth-shattering invention ever." "The one that ended all concepts of transport of borders and frontiers, of time and space."" "The book will end with me transporting myself from one telepod to another." "That's what's missing." "Wait for me that long?" "What are you doing here?" "I was in the neighborhood." "Felt a bit scummy." "Rough day." "How'd you get in?" "I have a key, remember?" "You gave it to me." "I should've changed the lock." "You didn't." "That's because unconsciously you still want me to come back, move in again." "No." "That's because, consciously, I'm lazy and disorganized." "Your new playmate's interesting." "What playmate?" "The nightclub act." "Brundle." "Yeah?" "Yeah." "I was wrong." "He's really quite brilliant." "He led the F32 team." "Remember that?" "An inch away from the Nobel Prize for physics." "He was only 20 at the time." "I'm not going to do Brundle." "Maybe the Psychology Today gig." "That's not like you." "Are you getting out or am I?" "I'll go." "Shall I return later and tuck you in?" "No." "Key." "I'll keep it for old time's sake." "You're a petty schmuck." "Initiate in 5 seconds." "I've got to do this, Seth." "Talk to the tape." "Get in the habit." "The world will want to know what you're thinking." ""Fuck" is what I'm thinking!" "Good." "The world will want to know that." "What else?" "Why didn't it work?" "I think it turned the baboon inside out." "Why?" "It can't deal with the flesh, only inanimate objects." "It must be my fault." "Why?" "Computers only know what you tell them." "I don't know enough about the flesh." "I have to learn." "I don't want to talk now." "Do you ever change your clothes?" "What?" "You're always wearing the same clothes." "No, these are clean." "I change my clothes every day." "Five sets of exactly the same clothes?" "Learned it from Einstein." "This way I don't have to expend any thought on what to wear." "I grab the next set on the rack." "I bought some steaks." "Can I make you one?" "We could go out." "Cheeseburger?" "No, we don't have to go there." "You're very cute." "You know that?" "Am I?" "What happened?" "On my back." "Something's stuck to your back." "Pull it off." "Sorry." "I wondered where this was." "Do you have any disinfectant?" "No, that's okay." "I'll kiss it for you." "Sorry." "I just want to eat you up." "That's why old ladies pinch babies' cheeks." "It's the flesh." "It makes you crazy." "Ronnie." "Ronnie." "You want to try an experiment?" "Sure." "Eat this." "I need an objective opinion." "It could use some finesse, but it tastes like a steak." "Now try this teleported half." "A monkey just came apart in there." "Baboon." "Eat." "It tastes funny." "Funny how?" "It tastes synthetic." "What have we proved?" "The computer is giving us its interpretation of a steak." "It's translating it, rethinking it rather than reproducing it." "Something gets lost in the translation." "Me." "I'm lost." "The flesh." "It should make the computer crazy." "Like old ladies pinching babies." "But it doesn't yet." "I haven't taught the computer to be made crazy by the flesh." "The poetry of the steak." "So I'll teach it now." "I knew it." "What are you doing here?" "I followed you." "Psychology Today, my ass." "You stayed with Brundle all night." "Why didn't I believe you?" "I think he'd look great in this." "Don't you?" "For your Tme magazine cover, you have to look good, right?" "Don't you get it?" "I am finally onto something big." "Huge." "Yeah?" "What?" "His cock?" "Crude, Stathis." "Very crude." "You're too perfect." "You're a goddess." "Thanks for making my paranoid fantasies come true." "I don't have to report to you, you creep." "Ronnie?" "You have to talk to me." "No, I don't!" "We're finished." "I'll spend the night anywhere I damn well please." "Sorry." "I'll take this too." "I think it's time for champagne." "Oh, God, Seth." "It really happened." "You did it!" "You'll never be carsick again." "Or airsick or seasick." "I know." "Or tricycle-sick." "What's next?" "Send the baboon out for tests, see if he's okay." "How long will that take?" "Could be weeks." "Really?" "Yeah, why?" "I was thinking that we could take a holiday." "We could?" "Yeah." "Like an old married couple." "Old man's got a couple weeks off, so they go to Florida, someplace warm." "Just you and me?" "Is there someone else you want to bring along?" "No, no, I just...." "Is this a romance we're having?" "Yeah." "Could be a romance." "Come here." "I have a great idea." "You like Chinese food?" "Yes." "We'll have a romantic dinner here." "What's this?" "From your editor." "It was under the door." "Victor, it's Seth Brundle." "Yeah, I'll wait." "What's that?" "Nothing." "It's just personal bullshit." "Old married couples share everything to stay old and married." "Listen, Seth, don't rush it." "I have to go out for a few hours." "No, Ronnie, spicy eggplant, champagne." "Just a few hours." "I have the residue of another life." "I have to scrape it off my shoe and get rid of it, once and for all." "What's this supposed to mean?" "I'm your editor and I'm shaping your material into a story." "You told me there was no story." "You said Brundle was a con man." "I've decided to trust your journalistic instincts." "Thanks very much." "But this is not your story." "It's mine." "Says who?" "I sent you to the Bartok party to see what you could find." "Your discovery is my discovery." "I have a lot of background on Brundle." "He's worked on this for six years." "There's material to find if you dig deep." "I dug." "Stathis...." "All transportation is going to become obsolete." "And I'm in the middle of it." "The only inside recorder of the event." "Okay." "Look, just keep me informed." "All right?" "As a friend?" "As a professional confidante?" "That's all?" "I don't want you to disappear from my life." "Okay." "What about sex?" "I'm not saying love or affection." "Just stress-relieving sex." "You and me." "You're disgusting." "As always." "Couldn't disappoint you." "Residue means your old boyfriend, doesn't it?" "Stathis Borans is her old boyfriend." ""From the desk of Stathis Borans."" "How about, "Under the desk of Stathis Borans"?" "She works for her old boyfriend and runs out late at night to see him." "Is this the Ronnie game?" "I'm catching on." "I'm catching on." "I didn't mean to kill your brother, but he didn't die in vain if that's any comfort." "I wouldn't ask you to do anything that I wouldn't do myself." "You're all right." "I can tell you're okay." "What are we waiting for?" "Let's do it." "How you doing?" "Now, you tell me." "Am I different somehow?" ""Is it live or is it Memorex?"" "It's too bad Ronnie missed it." "I missed you last night." "It's still night." "I came back." "You had to celebrate without me." "I'm sorry." "I went through last night." "You went through?" "Without testing the baboon?" "I was drunk." "I was a bit upset." "You could've killed yourself." "Are you sleeping with Stathis?" "What are you talking about?" "I don't know." "I just get that feeling." "That's why you were upset?" "I got jealous." "Oh, God." "Seth, you don't have to be jealous." "He's an old boyfriend." "He taught college." "I was a science major." "He got me started in journalism." "Does he love you?" "How could he not?" "You went through and I wasn't there." "I taped it for you." "You did?" "I asked the computer if it improved me, but it didn't understand." "That made me think about what I'm feeling and why." "I'm thinking that process of being taken apart atom by atom and reassembled" "It's like filtering coffee." "It's a purifying process." "It's cleansed me." "I think it's going to allow me to realize the personal potential I've been neglecting all these years that I've been obsessively pursuing goal after goal." "Do you take coffee with your sugar?" "I've never given me a chance to be me." "Interestingly, when I achieved what will prove to be my life's work I've become the real me, finally." "So, listen not to wax Messianic but the synchronicity of the two events may blur the individual effect." "But it is, nevertheless, also certainly true." "I will say now, however subjectively, human teleportation molecular breakdown and reformation is inherently purging." "It makes a man a king." "Since I left the pod, I feel great." "I think I will have a cannoli after all." "Waiter!" "What an accomplishment." "But what have I really done?" "I've said to the world:" ""Let's go." "Move." "Catch me if you can." Waiter." "Jesus Christ!" "Oh, God." "What?" "How can you keep going?" "You can't have any fluid left in your body." "We've been doing this for hours." "I'm not ready to quit yet." "Come on." "Hey." "What's this?" "It's an attempt to distract me." "Really, what is it?" "It's like..." "...hairs or something." "I don't know, it's...." "It happens when you get older, weird hair." "They're really coarse." "I've never been hairy enough." "Know what I mean?" "Always too boyish." "I look forward to a hairy body." "It's one of the compensations of old age." "Where are you going?" "Not my new hairs." "What are you doing?" "Relax." "You don't want a body covered with these." "God!" "They're really tough!" "Listen." "I want you to go through." "I want to teleport you right now." "I hardly need to sleep and I feel wonderful." "It's like a pure, benign drug." "The power I feel surging inside me--!" "We'll be the perfect couple." "The dynamic duo." "Come on." "Right now." "Hey, wait." "Don't give me that born-again teleportation." "I'm scared." "What do I have to say?" "I'm not gonna do it!" "You're a fucking drag, you know?" "Something went wrong." "When you went through, something went wrong." "No?" "Not you?" "If you're too chickenshit to be in the dynamic duo club I'll find somebody else who can keep up with me." "Listen to me" "You're afraid to dive in the plasma pool." "You're afraid to be destroyed and re-created." "Think you woke me up about the flesh?" "You only know society's straight line about the flesh." "You can't penetrate society's sick gray fear of the flesh." "Drink deep, or taste not the plasma spring." "See what I'm saying?" "This is not just sex and penetration, but penetration beyond the veil of the flesh." "A deep, penetrating dive into the plasma pool." "I'll have a scotch." "Who's winning?" "I don't know." "I hope it's Marky." "How come?" "Because." "I like Marky tonight." "I like you tonight." "Maybe I'd better get involved." "Hey, pal, you're disturbing us." "$100 says I can beat either of you." "Take a hike, asshole." "Here's my hundred." "I get to take her home if I win." "Says who?" "Do I look like a hooker?" "Tawny, it's an easy hundred." "Let's get it over with." "Watch out." "He eats chocolate bars." "So I noticed." "Are you a bodybuilder?" "I build bodies." "I take them apart and put them back together." "Well, you sure took Marky apart." "Let's go to my place." "Your place?" "Well, okay." "I live with my mother anyway." "But could we go to a few more bars first?" "It's too early to quit." "Sure, a few more bars." "Great place." "There's no elevator." "I can't make it." "There's an elevator." "There, don't you feel elevated?" "Are you a magician?" "Yes." "So, are we going to breakfast or not?" "It's your turn." "To do what?" "To go through." "No." "I don't want to try that." "It'll make you feel sexy." "I already feel sexy." "How about a nice..." "...alcohol rub?" "Don't do that!" "It hurts." "Sorry, hon." "I didn't know you had the skin of a princess." "You're sensitive." "Okay!" "That's it." "You're going to like it." "I don't want to." "I'm afraid." "Don't be afraid." "No." "Be afraid." "Be very afraid." "Who's this?" "Oh, I live with my mother too." "Mom, meet Tawny." "I gotta go." "Thanks for a wonderful time." "Why'd you scare her off?" "Jealous?" "You're changing." "Everything about you is changing." "You look bad." "You smell bad." "I've never bathed much." "Those weird hairs that grew out of your back, I took them to a lab." "I had them analyzed." "The hairs?" "The hairs?" "Oh, yeah." "That's a strange thing to do." "Not as strange as the results." "The guy had trouble identifying them." "He finally concluded that they were definitely not human." "Very good." "Not human, Seth." "In fact, very likely insect hairs." "That's ridiculous." "Look." "There's more." "Look at your face." "Something happened." "You need help." "You must be sick." "You're jealous!" "I've become free and you can't stand it." "You'll do anything to bring me down." "Does this look like a sick man to you?" "No, stop it!" "Can a sick man do that?" "The deal is off." "I don't need you anymore." "Seth, please, wait." "Seth!" "Don't come back." "Oh, God...." "Oh, no." "What's happening to me?" "Am I dying?" "Is this how it starts?" "Am I dying?" "Brundle, Seth." "Give me a disc." "I need the first teleportation:" "S. Brundle." "Run sequence." "Hello." "Seth." "Seth, I've been trying to reach you." "Where are you?" "I've been afrad to see you." "Now I'm afrad not to." "Are you at home?" "You don't know how rght you were." "I've gotten much, much worse." "Please come see me." "Please come now." "Seth?" "I'm here." "Stop!" "You were right." "I'm diseased and it might be contagious somehow." "I wouldn't want to infect you." "And it's been accelerating." "It's unrelenting." "Every day there are changes." "Every time I look in the mirror, I'm someone different, repulsive." "What happened?" "I know an old lady who swallowed a fly Perhaps she'll de" "Seth, please." "I was not pure." "The teleporter insists on purity." "I was not pure." "I don't know what you mean." "A fly got into the transmitter pod with me that first time when I was alone." "The computer got confused." "There weren't supposed to be two genetic patterns." "And it decided to splice us together." "It mated us, me and the fly." "We hadn't been properly introduced." "My teleporter turned into a gene splicer." "A very good one." "I'm not Seth Brundle anymore." "I'm the offspring of Brundle and a housefly." "Oh, God." "Oh, God, Seth!" "You look so pretty." "What will happen?" "I think it's showing itself as a bizarre form of cancer." "General cellular chaos and revolution." "I'm just gonna disintegrate." "In a novel way, no doubt." "Then I'll die." "And then it will be over." "No, I don't accept that." "There must be something we can do, someone to go to, tests to be done." "No!" "I won't be just another tumorous bore talking about his hair falling out and his lost lymph nodes." "What do you want me to do?" "Why did you call me?" "That's disgusting." "My ear." "No!" "I'm scared." "Help me." "Please, please, help me." "Don't go back to him." "That's it?" "That's your advice?" "It could be contagious." "It could become an epidemic." "I have to go back to him." "I don't believe this." "lf you saw him, Stathis...." "If you saw how scared and angry and desperate he is" "I'm sure Typhoid Mary was nice when you saw her socially." "I do not want" "I don't care!" "All right, fine, okay." "Do I have permission to claim your body when this is over?" "Oh, God...." "Look, how about this?" "You say, if only I saw him." "Show me." "Tape him." "Show me." "Let me think about it." "I'll come up with something." "Seth?" "Seth?" "No, no, no." "Up here." "I've gotten pretty good at it." "Yeah, it's almost second nature." "I stopped biting my nails." "Look at this." "What's this?" "I don't know." "I seem to be stricken by a disease with a purpose, wouldn't you say?" "Maybe not such a bad disease after all." "I can't stay." "No, no, no." "Why not?" "Why can't you?" "I can't take it." "It's too much." "Why?" "The disease has revealed its purpose." "We don't have to worry about contagion." "I know what it wants." "What does it want?" "It wants to turn me into something else." "Most people would give anything to be something else." "Turned into what?" "What do you think, a fly?" "Am I becoming a 185-pound fly?" "No, I'm becoming something that never existed." "I'm becoming "Brundlefly."" "That's worth a Nobel Prize." "Here." "I want to give a demonstration that I think you'll want to record for posterity." "I think you must chronicle the life and times of Brundlefly, don't you?" "At the very least, it should make a fabulous children's book." "You seem tired." "You got me there?" "How does Brundlefly eat?" "He found out the hard way that he eats like a fly eats." "His teeth are now useless." "Although he can chew up solid food, he can't digest it." "Solid food hurts." "So, like a fly Brundlefly breaks down solds wth a corrosve enzyme playfully called "vomt drop. "" "He regurgtates on hs food." "It lquefes." "And then he suckst back up." "Ready for a demonstraton, kds?" "Heret goes." "Oh, my God." "My God!" "Hey, Ronnie." "Ronnie!" "What is it?" "I'm pregnant." "Oh, no." "Oh, no." "I'm pregnant with Seth's baby." "What do you want to do?" "I don't know." "I just...." "I don't know." "Stathis, I'm scared." "It's going to be all right, Ronnie." "It's going to be fine." "I don't think I want to lose it." "Why am I losing it?" "It's better this way." "You'll see." "It's the best thing that could happen." "She's expelling it." "It's coming out." "I don't think we'll have to go in." "It's gonna be easy." "Don't worry, honey." "No." "Please, no." "It'll be over soon." "Here we go." "A little suction here." "A little suction." "Hold on a minute." "There's more in there." "There's more?" "Yeah, I mean a lot more." "Okay." "You're gonna have to help us." "Push." "Push it out." "Come on, push." "That's it." "Come on, push." "No, wait." "Give us a push." "You can push it out." "Come on." "No, wait, wait." "No." "You can do it." "Wait." "No!" "I want a disc." "Give me preliminary integration." "I want a dsc." "Gve me prelmnaryntegraton." "You're relics." "Yes, you are." "You can't deny it." "Vestigial, archaeological, redundant." "Artifacts of a bygone era." "Of historical interest only." "You've missed some good moments." "Is that why you're here?" "To catch up?" "I wanted...." "My teeth have begun to fall out." "The medicine cabinet's now the Brundle Museum of Natural History." "Want to see it?" "No." "Then what do you want?" "I came to tell you...." "I just...." "I wanted to see you before...." "You have to leave now and never come back here." "Have you heard of insect politics?" "Neither have I." "Insects don't have politics." "They're very brutal." "No compassion." "No compromise." "We can't trust the insect." "I'd like to become the first insect politician." "I'd like to but I'm afraid...." "I don't know what you're trying to say." "I'm saying...." "I'm saying I'm an insect who dreamt he was a man and loved it." "But now the dream is over and the insect is awake." "No, Seth." "I'm saying I'll hurt you if you stay." "Let's go." "Let's do it now." "Now?" "Wait." "Wait a minute." "What did he say?" "I couldn't tell him." "Let's go, damn it." "No!" "I think we should wait a few days." "You're not in the right state of mind." "I want it out of my body now." "You should have seen him." "There could be anything in here, in me, in my body." "I don't know if I can arrange it now, tonight." "Why do we have to--?" "I don't want it." "Understand?" "I don't want it in my body!" "Well, okay, what's the story?" "She's pregnant and she wants an abortion." "In the middle of the night?" "We have good reason to think that this child will be deformed." "Yeah, but in the middle of the night?" "Look, Brent." "Please." "Is it your child?" "No." "It's the child of a man who is deformed." "I don't mean to interfere but I detect a certain uncertainty here." "There are tests we can do to determine whether" "I don't want tests." "Tests can't guarantee anything." "The baby could start off normal, then become...." "I want an abortion." "I'll do it myself if I have to." "If you'll slip into that, we'll be on our way in no time." "No." "Wait, Seth, no." "Why did you want to kill Brundle?" "The baby might be all that's left of the real me." "Please don't kill me." "I can't have it." "I'm afraid." "Please, have the baby." "I can't." "I can't." "Too bad." "Too bad." "Jesus!" "No, don't." "Don't, please." "Please." "Help me." "Help me be human." "How?" "Well...." "I go there and you go there." "We come apart and then we come together there." "You, me and the baby." "Together." "No...." "We'll be the ultimate family." "A family of three, joined together in one body." "More human than I am alone." "No, no!" "Oh, God." "Please!" "Oh, God, please!" "No, I can't." "I can't."