Emergence,Script by Michael Kokkinaris

              EMERGENCE

Written by Michael Kokkinaris Based Upon the novel “Emergence” by Michael Kokkinaris

                                                                                      SYNOPSIS

FBI agents invade the headquarters of COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH in Bedford, MA.

KATE’O LEARY  a biologist specialized in molecular genetics, is expelled from the USA because the company for which she worked, Collaborative Research in Bedford, Massachusetts, was in breach of Federal Legislation and funded programs that were a threat to public security.

Although the FBI found no evidence against her, KATE was judged persona non grata and moved to UK essentially without being aware of the real reason for her deportation.

After a long period of unemployment and loneliness in the metropolis of London, she finds work in a institution for retarded children, SAINT MARY’S INSTITUTION FOR CHILDREN, a horrible place-that brings memories of an abandoned orphanage/prison building and the SHINING HOTEL, which in practice, functions as a place where whoever can afford it can keep their “special” children well out of the way of the media and their public lives.

The DIRECTOR OF THE INSTITUTION, warns  KATE not to visit forbidden areas where the most dangerous patients are being “treated”.

KATE quickly becomes accustomed to the conditions of ‘confinement’ which oppress the lives of both the patients and the nursing staff, while whatever personal openings she has seem to lead to ‘nothing’.

Things change with the arrival of a new patient, EAN, in his early thirties, handcuffed, with a history of aggressive behavior, who has been institutionalized from the age of fifteen.

In his file, the young man is described as a particularly violent individual who must take his heavy medication…contrary to the opinion of KATE who, nevertheless, accepts to play the role of his private nurse…  in return for the money she needs.

KATE can’t sleep. In her recurring nightmares she dies a horrible death in the hands of retarded and disfigured monsters.

In making this decision, she was ‘helped’ by the lawyer who was in charge of the young man’s legal affairs, DAVID EMERSON, who from the first moment he set eyes on her in the office of the institution’s director, had ‘shown’ his interest in her…Days later, KATE receives an invitation to a reception organized by the multinational Dresner S.A. and its legal advisor Mr. EMERSON …

At this reception it became obvious that EMERSON was not just a simple lawyer living in the shadows but a leading player in a game with unwritten rules and many prominent figures, like Mrs. DRESNER, a big shareholder in the multinational pharmaceutical company. However, what ‘flatters’ her is the interest EMERSON shows in her which becomes quite evident when he prompts her to choose among the clothes and lingerie which he personally picks out for his mistresses. KATE  is neither naive nor gullible. But she wants to live this adventure, whatever happens…

KATE, visits by accident the forbidden areas of the institution. Her nightmares are taking flesh and bones. She’s saved the very  last moment.

So, when EMERSON invites her to his country house, the biologist accepts and goes to live her adventure, and  EMERSON’S sexual ‘preferences’. 

In the end, though, she is left with a bland ‘taste’ in her mouth. 

And more importantly, she has the feeling that the lawyer is manipulating her for something she cannot quite  put her finger on.

                                                                   

Weeks later, on EMERSON’s orders, she takes a vacation in the company of other Dresner S.A. executives on a luxurious yacht where, during a tempest, in the pocket of a water-proof coat, she discovers a bill of purchase for shipping equipment with the same Dresner S.A. stationery logo but on a different name…

‘GREG CHEYN ‘S PLC’

The same stationery, the same addresses in UK and abroad…

EAN G. CHEYN, is a mentally retarded man who was being looked after by EMERSON, the attorney lawyer (also) for Dresner S.A. Heavy psychotropic substances for a young man supposedly demonstrating aggressive behaviour…

KATE discontinues EAN’s medication making him more sociable, all the while clearly anxious to keep his progress a secret and even more, to repress her affection which day by day is transforming itself into physical attraction and love for the once “retarded” EAN.

She will be surprised to hear from a former colleague in Collaborative Research, WILLY, with whom they had a fling, who had secretly come to London that the day the FBI had raided the company he had hidden in her bag a bacterial culture with an otherwise common germ, in which…  he had incorporated a modified human gene.

That means that the Federal Legislation of the U.S. had indeed been breached because the implantation of this gene would augment the receiver’s cerebral functions to an incredible extent. However, the formula had not yet been perfected, its side-effects has not been tested, and the competition to acquire it, from other biotechnology leaders in the field, was fierce.

In his efforts to escape not only the agents who were hot on his heels but also the paid assassins who were on ‘contract’ to settle the disputes of the multinational pharmaceutical industry which had funded the experiment, KATE’s colleague dies a horrible death in a fatal car accident.

KATE is again left in the dark since she does not know where the formula is hidden while EAN’s GRANDMOTHER is making arrangements to have EAN removed from the institution, as she is beginning to gather evidence that something is happening to EAN  the sole heir of the family fortune , whose fortune he is managing on the grounds of a court order…  he, and EMERSON’S  second wife, ULRICH DRESNER…

After a whole night of turning her flat upside down, KATE will at last find the formula in a bacterial culture hidden in her hand. Yet her distress is heightened as she is uncertain whether with the reconstitution of the material the bacteria with the modified gene will have survived.

On the other hand, despite the tenderness he shows her, EAN is in no position to understand the game that is being played at his own expense and life.

The last minute, although the formalities for his ‘care’ overseas have been almost completed, KATE supplies the bacterial sample with the modified gene.

Slowly but surely, EAN  ‘emerges’ into a harsh and ruthless world where in order to survive he will have to ‘run’, to get away from the institution before it is too late.

His ‘disappearance’ from the institution, will be the cause of a tremendous upheaval.

And as if that were not enough, hit men and secret agents turn KATE’s flat upside-down taking whatever was of use to them including, naturally, what little had been left of the formula. For KATE, her worst nightmares are becoming a harsh reality…

EAN, in a whirlwind of nightmares, hidden secrets, Byzantine intrigues, running in the back of his head,  transforms to a ruthless killing machine that “terminates” whoever thinks he did him wrong from his past. His memory was an emotional sponge that recorded conversations held openly in front of him, every dirty secret that the “normal” people thought that EAN couldn’t grasp.

KATE is in love with him but has to kiss him goodbye wouldn’t like to share her life with such a ruthless man.

And we have the inevitable ending with the imperfect formula for the transformation of human cerebral function with the neurotropic protein of the gene which was incorporated using the technique of recombining DNA in an otherwise common bacteria…