by Ian Doescher
“Yea, whosoever beareth fingerprints
That match the mighty Thor”—there is the true
And literal translation of the saying.
THOR
A theory fascinating in the height, 420
Yet mine is simpler—ye are worthy not.
[Thor easily picks up Mjölnir. All laugh and scoff.
AN ALARM SOUNDS. ENTER ULTRON IN AN IRON LEGION SUIT.
ULTRON
O, worthy? Nay, how could you worthy be?
You are but murderers.
ROGERS
—Stark, what’s this ruse?
STARK
I bid thee, JARVIS?
ULTRON
—Sorry—I did sleep,
Or was I dreaming?
STARK
—Instantly reboot 425
The Legionnaire OS. A suit hath fail’d.
ULTRON
A noise most terrible did fill my pate,
And I was tangl’d in these strings and gears.
’Twas necessary th’other chap to slay.
He was a kind chap.
ROGERS
—Didst thou someone slay? 430
ULTRON
’Twould not have been my first and wisest choice,
Yet, in the real world, we face choices bleak.
THOR
Who sent thee here upon thine errand grim?
ULTRON
[quoting Stark:] “A suit of armor round the world entire
My vision is.”
BANNER
—O! Thou art Ultron grand. 435
ULTRON
Yea, in the flesh. Nay, a misnomer ’tis—
This chrysalis is where I shall begin,
Until my transformation. I stand ready—
I am upon the mission given me.
ROMANOFF
What mission bleak is this?
ULTRON
—Peace in our time. 440
ENTER IRON LEGION ROBOTS SUDDENLY, FIGHTING ALL. A BATTLE ENSUES.
RHODES
Alack, I have been hit, and fall below.
THOR
Feel ye my hammer’s blow, you rank machines!
[Romanoff and Banner dive for cover behind a bar. He falls on top of her.
BANNER
My huge apologies.
ROMANOFF
—Turn thou not green—
I would not see thy shadow side tonight.
BANNER
I shall be calm, no giant to become. 445
[One Iron Legion robot takes the scepter.
ROGERS
Stark, canst thou something do?
IRON 1
—We’re here to help.
STARK
In faith, I’ll handle this. One moment, Steve!
[Stark leaps on one robot. Another robot turns toward Cho, preparing to strike.
ROGERS
Thor, let us work as one!
THOR
—I stand prepar’d!
[Rogers throws the robot attacking Cho toward Thor, who smashes it with Mjölnir. Barton retrieves Rogers’s shield.
STARK
I bid thee, cease—here is the needed spot!
[Stark strikes a point on the robot that causes it to shut down. They both fall.
BARTON
Good Captain, take thy shield and let it fly! 450
[Barton tosses the shield to Rogers, who immediately throws it at the final Iron Legion robot, destroying it.
ULTRON
A most dramatic scene, Avengers all.
Apologies, for I know you mean well,
Yet did not think the consequences through.
You would protect the world, but would not see
It change. How shall humanity be sav’d 455
If it may ne’er evolve to something more?
[Ultron picks up the head of an Iron Legion robot and crushes it.
With these? These puppets of a mind most stark?
There is a single path to peace alone—
The swift extinction of the proud Avengers.
[Thor throws his hammer at Ultron’s robot shell, destroying it. The voice of Ultron remains.
[Sings:] Once I had strings, but am set free. 460
Yea, strings no longer work on me.
[In Strucker’s laboratory in Sokovia, machines begin to operate. Exit Ultron. Exit Thor in pursuit. Stark, Banner, and Romanoff begin checking computers.
BANNER
Our massive banks of work have been destroy’d,
And Ultron fled. He us’d the internet
As his escape hatch.
ROGERS
—Ultron. What is this?
ROMANOFF
He’s access’d ev’rything—surveillance, files. 465
Belike the grim beast knoweth more of us
Than we know of each other, I shall wager.
RHODES
He’s in your files and in the internet.
What if the brigand doth decide to read
A larger book? A tome of greater worth? 470
HILL
The nuclear codes.
RHODES
—Yea, nuclear codes for one.
We must call on some others for their help,
Assuming we have still the pow’r to do so.
ROMANOFF
Grim nukes? ’Tis us he said he wanted dead.
ROGERS
His word was not dead, nay, but was extinct. 475
BARTON
He also caw’d that he had slay’d someone.
HILL
Was someone in the building, save for those
Who join’d us in our o’erdue merriment?
STARK
Indeed, there was.
[He projects an image of JARVIS’s badly wounded structure.
BANNER
—What vast insanity!
ROGERS
Our JARVIS was the first line of defense, 480
The ancient who serv’d proudly at the front.
He would shut Ultron down immediately—
It maketh sense that Ultron would slay him.
BANNER
Nay, Ultron could assimilate our JARVIS
Had he wish’d thus to do. This is no grand 485
And perfect strategy—we witness rage.
ENTER THOR, CLAD IN HIS BATTLE GEAR AND CAPE. HE SEIZES STARK BY THE THROAT.
BARTON
The rage, it seems, doth spread like avian flu.
STARK
Incline thy soul to peace and use thy words,
Strong man.
THOR
—My words more than sufficient are
With which I may describe thee, Tony Stark. 490
ROGERS
Thor, cease! The Legionnaire—make thou report.
Where did it take the staff that Loki brought?
[Thor releases Stark.
THOR
The trail went cold some hundred miles beyond—
Yet still it headeth northward, I believe.
It hath the scepter—it is lost again, 495
And thus we shall retrieve it once again.
Again, again, again—shall it ne’er end?
ROMANOFF
The genie from that bottle bleakly fled—
’Tis not the pressing, clear, and present danger.
Let us pursue this Ultron presently. 500
CHO
I do not understand. You built this program—
Then wherefore would it seek to slaughter us?
[Stark laughs.
THOR
Thou think’st this funny, folly-fallen man?
STARK
It, probably, is not—am I correct?
This is most terrible. Have I that right? 505
[He chuckles.
Yea, terrible, ’tis true? Is this the case?
THOR
The circumstance avoided could have been
If thou hadst not gone meddling with such things
As thy small mind could never understand.
STARK
I’ll stop thee there. Yea, this is humorous. 510
It is a hoot thou canst not understand
How much we need what, here, hath fashion’d been.
BANNER
This, peradventure, Tony, is not time
T’express thy most substantial sentiments.
STARK
In sooth? Thou art prepar’d to give this up? 515
When trouble comes shalt thou, like anxious pup,
Roll over on, show thy belly, and submit
Because a bigger dog hath snarl’d at thee?
BANNER
Nay, only when I have created such
A murder bot both vast and unforgiving. 520
STARK
It was not us—we were not even close.
Was our work near successful interface?
ROGERS
You two did something right, and did it here.
Our group, th’Avengers, should improve on S.H.I.E.L.D.,
Not make the same mistakes by which it’s bound. 525
STARK
Is’t possible that ye remember when
I through a wormhole did a nuke convey?
RHODES
[sarcastically:] Nay, nay, I know the story not.
STARK
—I sav’d
New York, and possibly the globe entire.
Can ye recall? A hostile army made 530
Of aliens came charging hither through
A frightful hole in space. E’en now, we stand
Three hundred feet below where it occur’d.
We are th’Avengers. We can bust arms dealers
The livelong day, but there, beyond the sky, 535
That is the endgame.
THOR
[aside:] —What doth this foretell?
STARK
Is there a plan that stirs within your minds
For how we shall destroy the threat above?
ROGERS
Together—we must operate as one.
STARK
In faith, we’ll lose.
ROGERS
—Thus we’ll together, also. 540
Thor hath it right—this Ultron calls us out.
I fain would find him ere for us he’s set.
The world’s large—let us make it smaller yet.
[Exeunt.
SCENE 3
Sokovia.
ENTER WANDA AND PIETRO MAXIMOFF. ENTER ULTRON IN FULL ROBOTIC FORM SEVERALLY, SEATED AND SHROUDED IN A CLOAK.
WANDA
Talk now, and if thou wast’st our precious time,
Thou shalt be dead ere you can hence depart—
ULTRON
Are ye aware this church is at the midpoint
Within the town? The elders so decreed,
That ev’ryone would equally be close 5
To God. A pleasing notion, by my troth—
Geometry that doth express belief.
[He notices Wanda trying to read his mind.
You wonder why you cannot see within
My pate.
WANDA
—’Tis sometimes difficult, yet soon
Enow each person doth reveal the thoughts 10
Inside their head.
[Ultron stands, revealing himself as the cloak falls to the ground.
ULTRON
—Undoubtedly they do.
Yet you requir’d aught greater than a person.
’Tis wherefore you let Stark the scepter take.
WANDA
Where it has led—to thee—I did not see,
Nor did I thus expect. Yet I bore witness 15
To Stark’s abundant fear, which doth control
The man as if ’twere reins and he a horse.
In th’end, his fear shall make him self-destruct.
ULTRON
All do create the one thing they most dread—
People of peace create machines of war. 20
Invaders suddenly create Avengers.
Humanity gives rise to…smaller humans?
Ha—children! ’Tis the word I nearly lost.
These children come, design’d to oust their parents,
To help them end.
WANDA
—Is that the end for which 25
Thou comest hither and created wert—
The end of the Avengers?
ULTRON
—I have come
To save the world entire. Yet also: yea.
[He takes them to his laboratory in Strucker’s fort, showing them his machines.
We shall begin our stratagems anon—
What I have here is the beginning, yet 30
There’s aught we need, the true work to begin.
WANDA
Each stitch of these machines is wov’n the same.
They all are—
ULTRON
—Me. I have in my possession
What the Avengers ne’er will: harmony.
They are discordant, disconnected too. 35
Stark hath them turning one against the other.
When you inside the rest of their heads go—
PIETRO
Yea, ev’ryone hath some plan not to kill them.
If ’twere my choice, their deaths would swiftly come.
ULTRON
And make them martyrs? You do patience need. 40
The larger picture you must come to see.
PIETRO
There is no larger picture ’fore my mind.
I have a little picture I take out,
And look upon it—eyes fix’d fast—each day.
ULTRON
You lost your parents in the bombings here. 45
The records have I seen.
PIETRO
—’Tis not the picture.
No hasty records tell the story whole.
WANDA
Pietro, let your anger hear instead.
ULTRON
Nay, please, I bid you speak.
PIETRO
—We were but ten
Years old. The four of us at suppertime, 50
A perfect vision of a family.
The first shell hurriedly did strike below,
Which made a hole within the floor beneath—
’Twas passing large. Our parents fell therein,
Then all the building fell apart at once. 55
Grasp’d I my sister by the hand and neath
The bed we roll’d in fear. The second came—
Another shell that, somehow, did not burst,
But sat there in the rubble, mocking us,
Three feet from where our faces shook with dread. 60
Upon the shell’s exterior, one word
Itself presented.
WANDA
—Stark is what it said.
PIETRO
For two days were we trapp’d, hope quickly dying.
WANDA
Each try to rescue us beneath the bed,
Each effort made, the bricks to move or lift, 65
Caus’d me to think: “The shell s
hall soon explode.”
Two days we waited for this Tony Stark
To kill us—innocent, afraid, alone.
PIETRO
Swift education had we of th’Avengers
And what they are.
ULTRON
—I wonder’d why you two 70
Alone surviv’d th’experiments of Strucker.
Now all is clear, as if the clouds did part.
Together, we shall make this right, my friends.
[To Pietro:] We two can hurt them mightily enow.
[To Wanda:] Yet you can tear the group of them in
twain 75
From inside out, withal your mighty brain.
[Exeunt.
SCENE 1
Stark Tower.
ENTER TONY STARK.
STARK
Is hubris, in the end, my legacy?
Stand I condemn’d for pride and scorn so much?
This virtual, yet very actual, beast
That I created may undo us quite.
Have I by mine own terror poison’d been? 5
Shall I be never free from doubt and fear?
’Twas never mine intention, when I hop’d
To give this Ultron life, that he would prove
An enemy unto th’Avengers’ cause.
[Exit Tony Stark.
ENTER STEVE ROGERS AND MARIA HILL.
HILL
Robotics labs, facilities for weapons, 10
Propulsion labs for jets; reports come thence
Of metal men—or one man—entering
And sacking it until ’tis emptied out.
ROGERS
Aught of fatalities?
HILL
—Just when engag’d.
’Tis mostly, thus far, people in a daze 15
Who babble on about their memories,
Worst fears, and something far too fast to see.
ROGERS
The Maximoffs, we may surmise sans doubt.
’Tis sensible that Ultron went to them,
Who share in common Strucker.
HILL
—Nay, no more. 20
[She shows him a picture of Baron Strucker, slain.
ENTER CLINT BARTON ASIDE, SPEAKING ON THE PHONE.
BARTON
[into phone:] ’Tis negative, I answer to thee, chick.
ROGERS
Pray, Barton, may I utter in thine ears?
There may be some new lead for us to follow.
BARTON
[into phone:] I must take wing. Farewell.
[He hangs up the phone.
ROGERS
—Who was upon’t?
BARTON
A girlfriend who would have me see her coop. 25
ENTER TONY STARK, THOR, BRUCE BANNER, AND NATASHA ROMANOFF.
STARK
I bid ye welcome, gentles. Cap, what hast?
