Facility | Scene 1 - Episode 1 "Arrival"

Scene 1 - The Facility

Characters in this Scene

Phil Granger - subject 139

Attendant - works at the facility

Subject 127 - a human blob

Sarah Paulson as Doctor Jean Smales - doctor and bio researcher

The doctor - works at the facility under Dr Smales

Kathy Bates as Nurse Wilma Babbit - a ruthless nurse

Dennis O'Hare as Lieutenant Ryan Potts - in charge of the facility

For full characters and synopsis, click here (WARNING spoilers, as this contains the plot outline)

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Nevada - 1966

Phil Granger wakes to another throbbing headache. The starkness of the four white walls does not help. He doesn’t know how long he has been here, maybe three months, maybe more, but it is not what he signed up for. He hasn’t been told how long he will be here, and when he asks, they say until we get the right result – what that is he doesn’t know. He suspects he may be on the verge of losing his mind.

A few months ago, he was down on his luck. The travelling salesman gig he thought he had going had fallen through. Now he had no money, no prospects, and was running out of options. He found himself sitting in a Phoenix diner drinking the free coffee and burning through cigarettes, the waitress had asked him for the third time if he wanted to order. If she came back again, he would be obliged to leave. He was scrolling through the wanted ads in the newspaper when something caught his eye.

Participants wanted for human behavioural studies

Must be healthy white males. Accommodation and meals will be provided for the duration of the study. If you complete the program successfully, you will be paid a substantial remuneration.

What have I got to lose? he thought. He used his last remaining quarter in the payphone to call the Nevada number listed. A clipped voice answered on the other end of the line identifying himself only as ‘the Lieutenant’. Phil was given instructions to get to a place called Talisman Springs; a ticket would be waiting for him the next day at the terminal downtown. The greyhound bus dropped him off near a gas station at a place that could only be described as the ‘butt-end-of nowhere’, he was then transported by jeep to his destination. Phil was made to wear a blindfold for the duration of the 40-minute trip, a gnawing feeling of unease started to grow in the pit of his stomach, and he wondered if he had made a mistake by coming here. As time went on, his gut proved correct.

Back in his room Phil is overcome by a wave of nausea; he grabs the bucket beside his bed and pukes up the remains of last night’s questionable meal. The shuddering begins after that. Soon, the doctor and his team will be here to put him through the exhausting mental and physical exercises he is subjected to each day. Phil wasn’t sure if he could take another day. An attendant enters the room with his breakfast.

“I don’t want it.” Phil mumbles weakly his head still in the bucket.

“Subject 139, you know you must eat it. It’s part of the program”

“My name is Phil!”

“You know we don’t use names here 139; you are to use your subject number please, and you are to eat the food that is given to you.” The attendant was mild mannered, but there was an underlying smarminess about him that really pissed Phil off. Something within him snapped.

“I said I don’t want it!” Phil picks up the bucket and swings it across the attendant’s face, puke and all. He uses the distraction to knock the man to the ground, laying several blows to the kidneys and head until he is out cold. Elated, he takes the passkeys off the attendant’s belt and slips out the door locking it behind him.

Phil frantically runs down corridors tying to orientate himself. He rounds a corner but retreats when he sees a doctor and two orderlies doing their rounds. He races towards the other bend in the corridor, but this is blocked off by an attendant wheeling a gurney. With both exits occupied, Phil tries the set of passkeys on the only door in this section of the corridor. He is rewarded with a click. The room is larger than his, and dark, illuminated only by a skylight. He can hear a shuffling noise from the corner and recoils at the sight of the occupant in the room. It lumbers toward him with great difficulty. There are crusty welts where the eyes should be, the mouth is a toothless, gaping hole. It can only be described as a humanoid looking blob of boils, pus, and weeping fluids. Phil is transfixed by the moving landscape of boils over its flesh, some of which erupt before his gaze. He holds his arm up to cover his nose; the stench is putrid.

“Kill me,” the thing speaks. Horrified, Phil starts to back away. “Wait…please,” it wheezes and rasps, “kill me!”

“What..what happened to you?”

“Bio-experiment..virus..weapon..injections...subject 127,” the thing rasped. It reaches out and grabs Phil’s ankle with a clammy hand. Phil screams and kicks with all his might. The force of the kick causes the thing to explode in a mass of fluid and blubbery flesh. Phil rolls around on the floor screaming and wriggling to get the mess off his clothes and face.

A woman in a white coat carrying a clipboard appears in the doorway and begins to berate Phil “You idiot! I was on the verge of curing him. You’ve just thrown away years of my research!”

Phil is incredulous. “Cure him! How could you cure that!! What in God’s name did you do to him?”

The doctor suddenly appears, along with two burly orderlies and the nurse. Phil dreads the sight of Nurse Babbit, his dealings with her have not been good, and her presence here now does not bode well for him at all. The doctor approaches calmly, with hands up, but Phil can see beads of perspiration on his brow, “I think you’ve had quite enough excitement for one day 139. Why don’t you come back with us to your room, nice and easy.”

“I don’t want to continue in the program! I’m claiming my right to leave as a citizen of the USA! You have no right to keep me here!”

“Alright 139, let me just speak to the Lieutenant and see if we can’t sort this out.” The doctor steps outside the room to where a communications system and monitor is mounted on the wall. He punches in a code, and the Lieutenant’s face appears on the monitor.

“Sir, we have a code orange.”

“Who is it?” the Lieutenant demands.

“Subject 139. We’re not getting any results from him for XPR-89 and he’s well past the 90-day milestone.”

The Lieutenant flicks through a folder of reports, and just like a Roman Emperor, he extends his arm and gives a thumbs down. The doctor nods at Nurse Babbit through the door and the two orderlies grab Phil. He thrashes wildly trying to escape those restraining him. “You’re going to answer for this! The government will find out what you are doing here!”

“Son, we are the government” Nurse Babbit grins as she plunges the lethal hypodermic into his neck.