eXistenZ

Allegra:
So how does it feel?

Ted:
What?

Allegra:
Your real life. The one you came back for.

Ted:
It feels completely unreal.

Allegra:
You're stuck now, aren't ya? You want to go back to the Chinese restaurant because there's nothing happening here. We're safe. It's boring.

Ted:
It's worse than that. I'm not sure... I'm not sure here, where we are, is real at all. This feels like a game to me. And you, you're beginning to feel a bit like a game character.

Ted:
Allegra, what if we're not in the game anymore?

Allegra:
If... we're not...?

Ted:
If we're not, then you just killed someone real.

Ted:
What the f*** are you doing? You killed him. Are you going to kill me next?

Allegra:
Pikul, he was only a game character. I didn't like how he was messing with my mind.

Ted:
You didn't like that, so you killed him?

Allegra:
He's only a game character!

Ted:
Allegra, what if we're not in the game anymore?

Allegra:
If we're not.

Ted:
If we're not then you just killed someone real.

Ted:
I actually think there's an element of psychosis involved here.

Ted:
I want to put the game on pause. The game can be paused, can't it? I mean, all games can be paused, right?

Allegra:
Yeah, sure. But why? What's wrong? Aren't you dying to see what's so special about the special?

Ted:
I'm feeling a little disconnected from my real life. I'm kinda losing touch with the texture of it. You know what I mean? I actually think there is an element of psychosis involved here.

Ted:
Death to the demoness Allegra Geller.

Allegra:
That's not funny.

Ted:
Sorry. But you know I do feel the urge to kill someone here.

Allegra:
Who?

Ted:
I need to kill our waiter.

Allegra:
Well, that makes sense. Waiter! Waiter! When he comes over, do it. Don't hesitate.

Ted:
But everything in the game is so realistic. I don't think I really could.

Allegra:
You won't be able to stop yourself. You might as well enjoy it.

Allegra:
The only way I can tell if everything is OK is to play eXistenZ with somebody friendly. Are you friendly, or are you not?

Ted:
It's none of your business who sent us! We're here and that is all that matters.... God, what happened? I didn't mean to say that.

Allegra:
It's your character who said it. It's kind of a schizophrenic feeling isn't it? You'll get use to it. There are things that have to be said to advance the plot and establish the characters, and those things get said whether you want to say them or not. Don't fight it. Just avoid it.

Allegra:
Oh God!

Ted:
What happened?

Allegra:
The whole pod just disappeared into your back.

Ted:
It disappeared into my back? It's in my spine? It's working its way around my spinal cord?

Allegra:
Don't panic, it's just a game.

Chinese Waiter:
Hey, tell me the truth... are we still in the game?

Ted:
What happens if someone comes up here and really wants to ski?

Allegra:
Come on Pikul. No one actually "skis" anymore, you know that.

Ted:
eXistenZ is paused!

Allegra:
I suppose a smaller-caliber pistol would have to fire baby teeth.

Ted:
Free will is obviously not a big factor in this little world of ours.

Allegra:
It's like real life. There's just enough to make it interesting.

Ted:
We're both stumbling around together in this unformed world, whose rules and objectives are largely unknown, seemingly indecipherable or even possibly nonexistent, always on the verge of being killed by forces that we don't understand.

Allegra:
That sounds like my game, all right.

Ted:
That sounds like a game that's not gonna be easy to market.

Allegra:
But it's a game everybody's already playing.

Yevgeny Nourish:
Arrrgh. Spores. No. No, spores. Deadly spores.

Ted:
What was your life like before?

Gas:
Before?

Ted:
Before it was changed by Allegra Geller.

Gas:
I operated a gas station.

Ted:
You still operate a gas station, don't you?

Gas:
Only on the most pathetic level of reality.

Ted:
He wanted to kill you. That's two people in one day who wanted to actually kill you.

Allegra:
I've never been more popular.

Ted:
It hurts. I think it's infected.

Allegra:
No, it's not infected. It's just excited. It wants action.

Ted:
But I really don't think I want action! Me, I mean. The bearer of the excited bio-port.

Allegra:
What the hell was that?

Ted:
That wasn't me. That was my game character. I wouldn't have done that. Not here anyway.

Allegra:
Our characters are obviously supposed to jump on each other. It's probably a pathetically mechanical attempt to heighten the emotional tension of the next game sequence. No use fighting it.

Yevgeny Nourish:
You might be new but you seem to know what you're doing.

Ted:
It surprises me more than it surprises you.

Allegra:
Pikul, what are you doing?

Ted:
I don't know. I find this disgusting but I can't help myself.

Allegra:
Good.

Ted:
Good? You think this is good?

Allegra:
Yeah. It's a genuine game urge. It's something your character was born to do. Don't fight it.

Ted:
I'm fighting it but it isn't doing me any good.

Ted:
It was no accident you and I ended up on the run together.

Allegra:
Not an accident?

Ted:
No.

Allegra:
That's why you never had a bio-port. You were one of them.

Ted:
I still am one of them.

Allegra:
But you have a bio-port now.

Ted:
I made the bio-port sacrifice to get close to you.

Allegra:
Why would you want to do that?

Ted:
To understand what I have to kill.

Allegra:
Then understand this. Understand that I knew you were my real assassin when you pointed that gun at me in the Chinese restaurant. And understand that you're dead. Death to the demon Ted Pikul! Have I won? Have I won the game? Have I won?