- Benson: [mumbles]
- Dr. John Ellis: [operating on Benson] What was that?
- Dr. Robert Morris: Patient.
- Dr. John Ellis: You all right, Mr. Benson?
- Benson: [groggily] Fine... fine...
- Dr. John Ellis: Any pain?
- Benson: No...
- Dr. John Ellis: Good. Just relax now.
- Benson: You too doctor...
- Dr. John Ellis: [Finishing up a briefing to a large audience of doctors and nurses, prior to the operation that will be performed on Benson] We have performed this operation successfully on animals 57 times. This will be the first such procedure on a human being.
- Dr. Ezra Manon: [arising from his chair in the back of the audience] I'm grateful to Dr. Ellis that we are talking about a man, and not an animal. It seems to me that all the technical data, so skillfully expounded, is mere paper over the cracks. The patient is also a paranoid psychotic who is afraid of machines, and afraid that men will be turned *into* machines. Your operation may exaggerate these feelings.
- Dr. John Ellis: I understand the objection, Dr. Manon...
- Dr. Ezra Manon: [cutting him off] Let me finish! I frankly feel that if somebody stuck wires in my brain, and a computer in my neck, and an atomic battery in my shoulder, I'd wonder if *I* hadn't been turned into a machine.
- Dr. John Ellis: I see what you're saying...
- Dr. Ezra Manon: [cutting him off] Let me also remind you of the estimated 50 thousand pre-frontal lobotomies performed in the 1940s and 50s for all sorts of mental illnesses and brain diseases. They created an unknown number of human vegetables. Vegetables are easier for mental institutions to control.
- Dr. John Ellis: Well, now, this is *not* a lobotomy...
- Dr. Ezra Manon: [cutting him off] Those operations were also carried out by physicians who were too eager to act! And they were stopped not by Congress, nor the American Medical Association, nor the American Psychiatric Association, but by the development of new tranquilizing drugs.
- Dr. John Ellis: [Calmly and matter-of-factly] Mr. Benson has agreed to have this operation.
- [Dr. Manon, looking disgusted, says no more and sits down]
- Dr. Janet Ross: About a year ago, he made what he calls a monumental discovery in his work. Benson is a computer scientist, specializing in artificial life, Machine intelligence. Apparently he is brilliant in his field. He claims that he discovered that machines were competing with human beings. And that ultimately machines would overtake the world.
- [Benson is describing what he smells before he has a seizure]
- Benson: It smells like pig shit in turpentine.
- [last lines]
- 1st man behind door: They want *you* next.
- 2nd man behind door: Quit kiddin' around!
- 2nd man behind door: They take Benson yet?
- 1st man behind door: This morning.
- 2nd man behind door: They really gonna put wires in his brain?
- 1st man behind door: Sure.
- 2nd man behind door: No shit!
- [small peephole opens in door to what appears to be a solitary confinement room from the inside POV; first man's eye is seen peering in]
- 1st man behind door: He's quiet now.
- [moves aside, a second man's eye appears]
- 2nd man behind door: What's his name?
- 1st man behind door: Benson.
- 2nd man behind door: Looks okay to me. What's wrong with him?
- 1st man behind door: Ahh, he's bananas.
- 2nd man behind door: When's he going out?
- 1st man behind door: In the morning
- [closes peephole]
- [after Benson's operation]
- 1st man behind door: I'm not kiddin' ya. Eddie watched the whole thing.
- 2nd man behind door: He did?
- 1st man behind door: Yeah
- [chuckles]
- 1st man behind door: that boy won't give *us* no more trouble.
- Gerhard: Any time you want to begin, Dr Ellis.
- Dr. John Ellis: [Benson hasn't arrived yet] Thank you. I think we'll wait for the patient.
- Benson: What are we going to do today?
- Angela Black: We are going to stimulate your electrodes sequentially and see what happens.
- Dr. Arthur McPherson: You know, this really is amusing in a way. We're telling Benson's tiny computer how to work. It gets instructions from the big computer which in turn gets its instructions from Gerhard. Who's got a bigger computer than all of them.
- Angela Black: How do you feel?
- Benson: You know I was so concerned I feel like I'm a - a time bomb about to go off.
- Dr. Robert Morris: I could put a wire in your head and pass a current to a specific part of your brain And immediately, you'd wanna' ball me.
- Angela Black: Did you get your tonsils out?
- Benson: No, I had electrodes planted in my pleasure cells.
- 1st man behind door: Eddie's most likely screwin' some nurse right now.
- Dr. Janet Ross: She worked in a strip joint. I think I've got the name of that place somewhere.
- Dr. Arthur McPherson: We better check that out.
- Benson: I hope I haven't come at an inconvenient time?
- Dr. Janet Ross: No. Not at all. Excuse me a moment, I'll put on some clothes.
- Dr. Arthur McPherson: These people are predisposed not only to violence and aggressive behavior but hyper sexuality, pathological intoxication...
- Reporter: Isn't that Paul Newman over there?
- Dr. Arthur McPherson: Where? No! We had one woman who, during a seizure state would have intercourse with 12 men in a night and not receive satisfaction.
- Reporter: My God!
- Benson: [Receiving continuous stimulations from his brain implant] LET IT STOP! LET IT STOP! LET IT STOP! LET IT STOP! LET IT STOPPP! LETTTT ITTTT STOPPP!
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