A Place for Uncle
Treatment
by Nick Sconce
Logline
In 2073, years after the United States becomes the 11 Nations, a 5 Dem-Soc operative must convert a 6 Republic and A Place for Uncle monk to whistle-blower to expose the practice of selling its elderly and infirm sex offender inmates to human game hunters.
Characters
Meredith and her 5 Dem-Soc team: GERTY, VANESSA, DANTE, and RION, want to stop the 6 Republics and A Place for Uncle from selling their elderly and infirm sex offender inmates to human game hunters. The demands, commitment and sacrifices of Meredith’s job tear her away from her wife, STACY, who wants to start a family in Seattle, Washington.
Thurston, a recently promoted A Place for Uncle monk, wants to continue his successful ascension through the ranks by being a model law enforcer and lead other monks, NIALL and KILLIAN, in the same pursuit. All A Place for Uncle monks are victims of sexual abuse, and despite being sentenced to life in a cyber-prison monolith, Thurston’s personal perp haunts him. Thurston is very protective of his mom and sisters, SHEILA, LIV, and THYRA and financially supports them in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Chambers, Thurston’s supervisor, helps Thurston uncover who’s behind the attempted West Texas cyber-prison monolith prison breaks-ins to free elderly and infirm inmates.
Jasper and his fellow human game hunters, TOBIAS, ANTON, and CHRISTOPH, want to secure more consistent shipments of inmates from A Place for Uncle for their hunting organization.
Synopsis
Inside an abandoned middle school in Mount Pleasant, Texas, A Place for Uncle elderly inmates wake to find themselves in a boys restroom. An intercom voice tells them to arm themselves with weapons provided in the stalls and leave the restroom before toxic gas is released to kill them. Human game hunters execute the inmates just as they leave the restroom.
Local news covers protests outside a monolith, where the protesters feel the practice of keeping inmates unconscious and floating in tubes, is inhumane. The counter-protesters feel the inmates, living in simulated realities, have better lives than law-abiding citizens. The news reports that the Left Coast president is currently in talks with A Place for Uncle to build monoliths in the 5 Dem-Soc countries as they have in the 6 Republics as the Dem-Soc solution of genetically irradicating criminal tendencies has failed.
At a speakeasy in Bozeman, Montana, Meredith, Vanessa and Dante meet with JUDITA, A Place for Uncle monk, recently promoted from monolith prison guard, to acquire inmate transfer and buyer information. ARMANDO, Judita’s boss, has directed her to sell the data to Meredith’s team. Right after the deal goes down, Judita learns from Chambers that Thurston has killed Armando for being a traitor through her skinplate, a device installed just underneath her inner forearm skin that presses messages against her skin to be read and then vanish. Judita panics and shoots, killing Dante and wounding Meredith. Vanessa kills Judita. Vanessa cuts off Judita’s arm for the skinplate before she and Meredith flee the speakeasy and fly back to Seattle in their maglev truck.
On the trip home, reading the detached skinplate, Vanessa and Meredith discover Armando’s dead, and Thurston has been promoted to Armando’s position for killing him.
In Colorado Springs, Thurston hunts down targets for violating their sex offender protocols, killing one at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and capturing another at a waterpark hotel to deliver to a local monolith.
In a Seattle Dem-Soc hospital, Meredith, recovering from her laser burn wound, plans her team’s next moves with GERTY, her supervisor, which upsets, Meredith’s wife, STACY, who storms out.
Gerty informs Meredith and Vanessa she’s sending them to West Texas where the elderly inmates are being transferred before being sold to the human game hunters. Gerty is sending them with an android (andie) RION.
In Colorado Springs, Thurston attends his nephew, STEN’s, birthday party, at SHEILA’s, LIV’s, and THYRA’s (his mom and sisters) house. Thurston stands guard at the bathroom, which always puzzles his sisters though his mom suspects why.
In the Seattle hospital, Meredith and Stacy argue over Meredith accepting yet another dangerous assignment instead of taking more stable, local jobs so they can focus on Meredith becoming pregnant.
At a shooting range, JASPER and his human game hunter team plan their next shipment of A Place for Uncle inmates to Florida.
In Seattle, Meredith packs and prepares for her next mission, consoling Stacy, who is worried she won’t return.
Meredith meets with Gerty and Vanessa to finalize the mission before setting out for West Texas.
In Colorado Springs, Thurston has nightmares about being sexually abused at a birthday party when he was young. He also dreams about his training to become a monk, where his instructors use holograms to change their faces to his perp’s during sparring and melee training to test his resolve and focus.
He wakes up and checks on his scrollscreen for his personal perp, locked away in a monolith before Chambers calls to give him his new mission to investigate an attempted break-in at the West Texas monolith.
At the West Texas monolith, Thurston meets local monks, NIALL and KILLIAN, where they begin their investigation and determine a prison guard is somehow involved. Niall and Killian inform Thurston about the plans for all elderly and infirm inmates to be transferred to their monolith.
Thurston calls Chambers from his maglev truck to get permission for a stakeout. Thurston questions Chambers about the transfers, but Chambers acts like he isn’t aware of them. Chambers schedules Thurston for scenarios, downloaded sexual encounters that are designed to keep monks’ desires under control as they’re required to remain celibate. Thurston refuses to accept the scenarios.
In an underground tunnel system near the West Texas monolith, Meredith, Vanessa, and RION, their new android partner, prepare for their next break-in. They realize they will have to remove their turned monolith prison guard Clint’s, cranial implant to free the elderly inmates. The cranial implant removal will kill Clint. Meredith and Vanessa struggle with this but decide it’s the only way to complete the mission.
In his hotel room, Thurston checks on his personal perp to make sure he hasn’t been transferred to the West Texas monolith, which he hasn’t.
Thurston meets Niall and Killian at a trucker bar before their stakeout where RHODA, the bartender, sells them scenarios of the bar’s county music acts. Niall and Killian eagerly buy them, thinking they’re better than the assigned scenarios, but Thurston refuses these, too.
Niall and Killian head out for their stakeout, and Thurston stays at the bar, where Rhoda grills him on what it’s like to be a monk, to remain celibate, and to kill sex offenders when they won’t come peacefully. This triggers more nightmares for Thurston from his past.
Outside the West Texas monolith, Thurston takes his stakeout shift with Niall, where they discuss how they became monks and what they think of the next generation of monks being non-victims, something that Thurston opposes but Niall supports.
While preparing their weapons and strategy for catching the break-in assailants, they track something coming out of the ground near the monolith. On their maglev’s navscreen, they discover it’s three people moving so close together they appear as one. Thurston thinks one of the three is an android and the maneuver helps warm the android’s skin to human levels, which would help get it past the security stations inside the monolith. They wait until the three assailants enter the monolith before they spring out of their maglev and charge in.
The assailants break inside the monolith, working past the security with the dead guard’s eyeball and hand for retinal and print scans. They then fight the guards at the next security checkpoint and race to the cranial implant check.
Thurston and Nial close in on the assailants.
The assailants find the location of the elderly inmates and release them from their tubes.While the inmates argue to be put back in their tubes with the assailants, who reveal themselves as Meredith, Vanessa, and Rion, Thurston and Niall attack.
Thurston beheads Vanessa. Meredith impales Niall after he decommissions Rion. Meredith shoots a challenging looks to Thurston as she escapes the room and then the monolith.
Thurston, left with the inmates, executes them all.
Running back through the underground tunnels, Meredith reports to Gerty, demanding she find Meredith a new escape route to Seattle.
The next morning, Thurston and Killian watch the monolith guards disposed of the dead before Thurston checks in with Chambers. They both believe the break-in to be an inside job, discuss looking for the turned guard’s body and having Killian stay behind to work recovery while Thurston tracks down Meredith.
Waiting for Meredith to resurface, Thurston goes back to the trucker bar, speaks with Rhoda, the bartender, who gives him a scenario with a Dolly Parton impersonator, but only one where she talks and then cuddles. No sex.
Thurston wakes from a dream about his training days again, where he recalls improving in his focus when seeing his perp’s face during a fight. His instructor’s also notes his resolve to will away his sexuality and impulses to better control his actions. Checking in with Chambers, he tells Thurston to follow the new trace they have on Meredith. Her flight path suggests she’s seeking sanctuary at a Native American casino.
Flying off in his maglev truck, Thurston catches up to Meredith and shoots a tracking beacon onto her maglev truck.
He follows her to a casino just north of the Oklahoma-Texas border.
Landing shortly after her, Thurston heads straight to the casino’s corporate office, notifies the office manager they’re harboring a fugitive and gets taken into the casino’s CEO’s office where he finds Meredith hiding.
Thurston and Meredith draw their firearms on each other, and Meredith asks Thurston about his time at the bar with Rhoda, making him question whether it really happened, and distracting him enough for her to escape. But Thurston manages to burn a laser hole into Meredith’s right hand before she gets back to her maglev truck.
Back in the air, Thurston chases Meredith to another Native American casino outside of Tulsa. While in flight, Meredith tends to her laser burn with a prosthetic android spider that gives the wound pain killers and starts to restore tendons, nerves, and muscle.
She lands in the casino’s parking garage, thinking she’s lost Thurston, but he’s there before she can enter the casino.
Thurston needs to know how she knew about his scenarios before he can kill her. Meredith offers a truce for them to share breakfast inside the casino.
At breakfast, Meredith tells Thurston how her team intercepted his scenario, which was really engineered by Chambers. She then tells him of A Place for Uncle’s practices of selling elderly inmates to human game hunters. While they talk, Meredith releases her prosthetic spider, which crawls up Thurston’s leg and empties its pain killer supply into his foot, deadening it.
Meredith jumps from the table, tells Thurston to follow her to one more location, and then escapes the casino, leaving him there until the pain killers wear off.
Later that night, Thurston tracks Meredith to the abandoned school where the human game hunters performed their kill test on the first elderly inmates. Meredith thinks getting Thurston to see the kill site first-hand will get him to turn to her cause. When this doesn’t work, she tries to get him to talk about his personal perp and his victimhood. Thurston reacts violently, burning several laser holes into Meredith. Before he kills her, she reveals she knows that his perp has been sold for transfer to the human game hunters and will show him where the kill site is.
Thurston agrees to heal her wounds so she can take him to the kill site and finds a hotel nearby to help her heal.
Meanwhile, Tobias, Jasper and the game hunters finalize their plans for the first shipment of inmates to be delivered to their Florida team.
Back at the hotel, Thurston treats Meredith’s wounds while she remains unconscious. Seeing the damage he’s caused rather than having A Place for Uncle there to clean up after his kills makes him realize how violent and gruesome he’s become. He thinks back to his counseling sessions when he was a boy after he was molested and grows remorseful.
Thurston checks in with Chambers, telling him Thurston’s killed Meredith in the abandoned middle school. Thurston questions Chambers on what Thurston saw there. Chambers deflects, paints the dead inmates as a Dem-Soc “wag the dog” scheme and a set-up. Thurston doesn’t believe this. He then asks Chambers to send him another scenario to show Chambers he’s still aligned with his mission.
Thurston thinks back to when he assassinated Armando where Armando first told him about the black market selling of the inmates.
At the hotel, Thurston has brought Meredith breakfast and a hoverchair for her to use while her wounds heal. He attempts to apologize to her, but she’s infuriated with him and in immense pain. Meredith questions the implausibility of Thurston’s commitment to A Place for Uncle and they find common ground sharing some of the flaws of their disparate governments’ positions and policies.
When Meredith is healed enough to be moved, Thurston helps her out of the hotel, where he sets up low-tech biometric replication and charts a course for his maglev to return to Colorado Springs. He then puts her into an old minivan maglev he’s procured for their journey to Florida.
After they take off, Thurston flies the minivan maglev close to his maglev truck set on auto-pilot to check in one last time with Chambers, reporting that he’s heading back to Colorado but taking a longer, safer route.
During their flight to Florida, Meredith presses to turn Thurston to the Dem-Soc agenda. Thurston still struggles with seeing the wrong in A Place for Uncle selling off inmates, unwilling to empathize with convicted sex offenders. Reflecting on his dad being convicted of the attempted murder of Thurston’s molester, visiting his dad in prison, and his dad’s untimely death after getting a virus in prison, Thurston can’t separate his personal victimization from A Place for Uncle’s definition of justice. Thurston realizes that despite checking on his perp’s whereabouts inside, the data was disinformation and his perp had been transferred to the West Texas monolith while Thurston was there, staking out Meredith’s infiltration team.
Thurston lands at the Florida kill site, a swampy enclosure with a shipping crate delivered on one end.
Thurston jumps out of the maglev, leaving Meredith behind. He calls out to the unseen game hunters, telling them who he is and why he’s there. They reveal their covered positions and ask Thurston how they’ll be compensated for him killing an inmate they’ve paid for. He tells them he’ll let them live to tell the story.
Meredith has made her way to Thurston at the shipping crate and helps him identify his perp. Thurston locates BILL, his perp wakes him up, and sets him free of his Velcro strapping against the shipping crate’s wall.
Telling Bill who he is, Thurston makes him crawl out of the shipping crate. When Bill takes in his environment and that Thurston has become a monk, he tells Thurston he’s not sorry for what he did to Thurston.
Thurston burns a laser through Bill’s crotch. The game hunters close in. When the game hunters get close enough to the shipping container, about to execute Bill, Meredith and Thurston gun them down before freeing the inmates and sparing Bill’s life.
Thurston and Meredith flee to the San Juan Islands in Washington. Meredith watches the evening news that runs the story on Thurston’s whistleblowing, monks recovering the inmates, and the political fallout from A Place for Uncle’s business practices.
Meredith and Thurston discuss their futures. Meredith asks Thurston to join her Dem-Soc team. Thurston agrees if Meredith will help him smuggle his mom, sisters, and their kids out of Colorado.