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WE WHO ARE ABOUT TO
First Draft Screenplay
140519-020719
Screenplay by GREG STEDMAN
WE WHO ARE ABOUT TO
INT. PASSENGER OBSERVATION LOUNGE, SHIP, NIGHT (SUBDUED LIGHTING)
Elaine, John, Cassie, Valeria and Victor are in a kind of observation lounge, with low sofas, subdued lighting, muted dark colours and felted walls. Like a sterile modernist hotel lounge bar. Polite ambient electronica plays from hidden speakers. They are all dressed in evening wear, some (Valeria, Victor, Cassie) more so than others.
Valeria is sitting in state, admiring the band of her expensive looking Rolex-style watch as it catches the light. Victor stands beside and slightly behind her holding a tumbler of whisky, looking at nothing in particular and showing off his silver fox temples and square jaw. Cassie is sitting, looks bored, occasionally presses her fingers against her forehead and bounces one crossed calf (tattooed with a rose briar) against the knee of her other leg.
Elaine is sitting by a small table with a lamp casting a pool of light, apparently reading and making notes on a music score but also watching the other passengers. John is standing by the floor to ceiling observation window with one hand in his professorial jacket pocket, the other fiddling with his vape pipe, looking out at the depths of space. He grips the pipe stem between his teeth, holds his hands behind his back and rocks on his shoes as he tries to look around the edge of the window at something behind them. Elaine smirks at this briefly.
ELAINE
It’s just a simulation professor. A screensaver. You can’t see anything in the fold.
John turns his upper body towards Elaine, hands still clasped, eyebrows raised, and does The Smile at her, then turns back to the 'window'.
VALERIA
Been getting friendly with the crew my dear?
Elaine gives Valeria a quick tight smile. John salutes Valeria and Victor with a nearly soundless lizard chuckle and a wave of his pipe, resumes his vigil. Before John has quite settled Elaine speaks again, which the tightening across his shoulders shows annoys him although he tries to suppress it.
ELAINE
How fast do you think things really change Professor Ude?
Cassie sighs, fingers to forehead, as John turns fully to Elaine with The Smile and a kind of phoney engaged expression.
JOHN
Not sure I follow.ELAINE
You and Mr Graham were chewing over post-scarcity capitalism, meritocracy, progress and such weighty matters a couple of days ago. I just wondered.
John's eyes flicker to Victor, who looks at his glass. John gives a small nervous laugh.
JOHN
I’m ah afraid that isn’t exactly my field er Elaine.ELAINE
Oh. What exactly is your field John?
Cassie butts in (defusing? piling on?) while John's mouth arranges itself as he tries to come up with an answer.
CASSIE
What does a musicologist do anyway? What kind of music do you...
Cassie waves her hands and stabs in the direction of the sheet music, not sure how to frame the end of her question.
ELAINE
Thank you Cassie. Very old. European twelfth century to Baroque. Some of it’s surprisingly listenable actually, I may be biased. To answer your first question, I’m a scrounge. Foundations pay me to lecture and describe dead music. It’s a living. Of sorts.VALERIA
Baroque. How interesting. We must tell Lori.CASSIE (sighing)
Who cares?
Valeria looks affronted.
VICTOR
Now look here Cassandra I’m not sure you-ELAINE
No Victor I agree with her. It’s not interesting. We’re all scroungers, none of us does anything real. Except maybe Cassie. I envy the crew Mrs Graham and I bet you do too, not that you’d admit it. They might not have much of a purpose, ferrying people like us around, but something’s better than nothing.VALERIA
Nothing!ELAINE
Relax Mrs Graham we know you’re slumming. Everything. Nothing. What’s the difference.
Cassie snorts. Elaine looks at her with a certain attraction, raises her eyebrows, maybe trying to build an alliance. Cassie looks back through narrow eyes, hard and unmoved. Elaine shrugs and returns her attention to the sheet music.
ELAINE (quietly)
Oh we are a dull little bunch.
FADE TO BLACK
EXT. UPPER ATMOSPHERE OF PLANET
Fade up onto a sequence of long still views of an Earth-like but subtly alien planet at dawn/day/dusk (vast grasslands waving in wind, bare mountain ranges, glacial troughs, woodland trees something like baobabs, desert region, small rivers, but no sea, no clouds, no animals, no flowers, no large bodies of water). Sense of great spans of time passing and at the same time being without meaning or change. A tree falling and nobody witnesses it, kind of thing. Sequence ends on a view down on the planet from the dark blue upper atmosphere, with black space above, looking towards the curved horizon.
Music: Glory (Final Movement), Caterina Barbieri & Kali Malone (first six chimes)
An egg-shaped metallic pod streaks in a long arc just below us. The pod spins as it is buffeted by the bluish bubble of atmosphere which we can see around the planet. It is moving towards the night side of the planet, i.e. from full day towards dawn. We move forwards and down more slowly than the pod while keeping it in view as it descends. The pod vibrates and heats up at the leading tip as the atmosphere becomes more dense. No sound effects.
TITLE SUPERIMPOSED ON POD DESCENT. THE TITLE FADES IN AND OUT ONE WORD AT A TIME CENTRED ON THE SCREEN, TIMED TO THE FIRST FIVE MUSICAL CHIMES:
- WE
- WHO
- ARE
- ABOUT
- TO
ON SIXTH CHIME TO CUT TO
EXT. LANDING SITE, DAWN. LIKE NEW JERSEY 300 YEARS AGO.
Everyone (Valeria, Lori, Victor, Nathalie, John, Cassie, Alan-Bobby, Elaine) stands in a convex line on stony ground in front of the airlock of the base, which has formed out of the split pod and stands on insectile tripod legs. They all wear filter respirators which cover their noses and mouths but no air tanks or environmental suits. The respirators aren’t held in place by any visible means and are made from a material which flexes with the movement of the wearer’s face without breaking the seal.
They are holding hands awkwardly, looking at the horizon.
A brilliant white slow motion splash that looks like it starts below the dark horizon line hundreds of kilometres away is spreading out unevenly across the sky. It isn't the sun, which is coming up from behind them. It looks like the splash has been spreading out for quite a while. There is no sound from it, it's too far away so the soundwave hasn't reached them yet.
We hear the rasping respirator breathing of the group, followed by a close up of each person's face as they look at the slowly blossoming explosion. Generally they look shocked. Nathalie looks angry. Alan-Bobby looks dumb and without instruction. Lori frowns angrily. Victor looks heroic and hollow. Valeria looks peevish and haughty. Cassie looks like this is another shit thing that has happened to her in a long line of shit things. John doesn't look like he knows how he should feel, his expression never settles. Elaine is expressionless.
ELAINE (V.O.)
In the event of mechanical dysfunction, the ship goes to the nearest tagged planet, i.e. where human life is supposed to be possible, then ejects the passenger compartment separately.
Elaine pulls her hand away from Alan-Bobby’s grasp and trudges head down back to the airlock. Some of the group watch her go.
It looks like Nathalie is about to call her back when the first rumbling of the explosion rolls over them like thunder. Everybody apart from Elaine turns back to look at the sky, which hasn't changed. Lori gasp/rasps and huddles closer to Victor's leg keening (and away from Valeria on her other side). Elaine enters the airlock, turns and looks out with dislike at their dawn-sunlit backs through the clear round panel as she pulls the curved door across and (it sticks, she raises her hands, mouths 'for fuck's sake' and yanks the handle harder with both hands in irritation) seals it.
ELAINE (V.O.)
We're all going to die.
CUT TO BLACK
INT. POD, DAY (REDDISH LIGHT FROM OUTSIDE)
MUSIC: SINGLE CHIME OF GLORY (FINAL MOVEMENT)
Fade up on Nathalie squatting comfortably, methodically taking out and unpacking objects in pieces from a large container, examining, arranging and experimentally assembling them on the floor of the pod. Elaine fills a plastic cup from the water cycler. She approaches sniffing the water and then sipping from the cup as Nathalie removes some long and very light pieces of complex honeycombed carbon fibre parts that look like pieces of a 3D printed streamlined motorbike frame and bladeless fan rings.
ELAINE
That could come in useful.
Nathalie turns, looks up at Elaine with a suspicious scowl.
NATHALIE
You know what this is?ELAINE
Yup. Do you?
Nathalie looks suspicious, unsure whether to speak. Eventually she does, grudgingly, almost as a question.
NATHALIE
Yes.
Lori is at a porthole window, looking out anxiously. Alan-Bobby lurks behind her. She moves to a window on the other side of the pod, climbing over Cassie, who is lying on a yoga mat with what look like wireless earbuds in her ears. Cassie tuts, pulls herself back against the curved wall. Alan-Bobby follows, skirts around Cassie.
ALAN-BOBBY
Don't you worry Lori, they'll be back soon. Right Auntie Cass?
Cassie removes one of the earbuds, which leaks dubby beats.
CASSIE
Huh? Oh, sure.
John is rummaging through a medical kit, and doesn't give the impression of someone who particularly knows what he is looking at.
JOHN
The sensors say it’s breathable. Nothing toxic. It's a tagged planet after all. It must be, otherwise we wouldn’t be here.ELAINE
Hmm. Such optimism. The sensors don’t detect for organics or allergens by the way. Still, it was good of you to let them try it out first Professor.JOHN
We've got food, the water cycler, medicine, shelter. All in all we're in pretty good shape.ELAINE
Six months, maybe eight if we’re really careful and really lucky. That’s all it’s built for. And then what? You're going to say something about colonising next aren't you.JOHN
Why not?ELAINE
Please. We don't know if it's summer or winter, we don't know anything about the local macro or micro life, we've got two wide-spectrum antibiotics, some drugstore painkillers and no midwife. Colonise? We couldn't even cope with Lori's wisdom teeth coming in, unless your idea of dentistry is Alan-Bobby knocking them out with a fucking rock.LORI and ALAN-BOBBY
Huh?ELAINE
Nothing, forget it young pioneers.
Nathalie, now standing and looking daggers at Elaine, sharply twists/snaps together a black shovel and places it carefully on the floor. She goes through a stretching routine, cracks various joints, rolls her head, loosening her neck and shoulder muscles, still looking at Elaine.
LORI
Daddy!
Lori runs over to the airlock, Alan-Bobby follows and gently holds her back by her shoulders as she hops excitedly. The others direct their attention to the door and wait as we see the dark shapes of figures slowly approaching the translucent airlock from the outside.
JOHN (quietly)
Just what do you suggest we do?ELAINE (quietly)
Do anything you like. Live in the Stone Age. Lose your teeth. Forget how to read. Have children who’ll be lucky to live to thirty. Only leave me out of it.NATHALIE
Or what?
Elaine looks at Nathalie and John thoughtfully, then turns her attention back to the airlock as the mechanism starts to turn.
CUT TO
INT. POD, DARK
Sound of sleeping, rustling. It isn’t completely dark, there is reddish light (dawn? dusk?) coming in through the windows.
Elaine is lying on her side, her hand up to her face. Her eyes are open. A very faint bluish light emanating from her hand illuminates her lips.
ELAINE (murmur)
All of the things. A beautiful world really. But no music, no friends. If Earth had been hit by plague, by fire, by war, radiation, sterility, a thousand things, I’d have stood by her. I loved her. I’d have fought every inch of the way because my whole life was knit to her. And she needed mourners. To die on a dying Earth. I’d choose to live then, if only to weep. But here?
Elaine stops talking and the blue light fades as someone lying near her sits upright and holds her head in both hands, massages her temples and moans quietly. The figure stands clumsily and stumbles (whisper ‘Fuck’) over to the counter where the medical supplies are stored.
ELAINE (whisper)
Cassie?CASSIE
Oh you. Go back to sleep.ELAINE
I wasn’t. What’s the matter?CASSIE
Migraine coming on. But this stuff is no good.
Elaine sits up, fishes around in her clothes, produces a capsule.
ELAINE
Here. Take this, maybe you’ll catch it in time.CASSIE
What is it cyanide?ELAINE
Ha. Not this one. It’ll help.
Cassie reaches for the capsule, heads over to the water dispenser.
CASSIE
Bet it’s poison.
She swallows it, retches but keeps it down, comes back to her mat and sits with her knees up and her palms over her eyes.
ELAINE
You won’t care if it is, there’s a euphoric.CASSIE
Dinner and a show. Jollies.
After a while Cassie shimmies down the mat and lays down with a sigh.
ELAINE
That hitting the spot?CASSIE
Mmmmmmm. You really want to kill yourself? Goddamn cowardly if you don't mind my saying so.ELAINE
I don't. Nighty night Auntie Cass.CASSIE (sleepy)
Fuck off. Ooooooh. You got any more of these?ELAINE
Last one.CASSIE (blissed out sigh whisper as she drifts off)
Liar.
Elaine watches Cassie as unconsciousness overtakes her. Sound of slow breathing from Cassie. Elaine lays back on her mat, hands behind her head. She lies still for a while, eyes open looking up at an occasionally blinking light on the ceiling. She pulls herself up into a sitting position again, then stands and walks over to a window. Through it in the dusk light she sees other figures lying on mats in the open near the pod. Elaine looks at them and up at the strange sky.
CUT TO
EXT. OUTSIDE POD, DAY
Nathalie is digging a trench with the spade. She works steadily, she is strong. Alan-Bobby stands by the edge, frowning into it. He wants to take over and is frustrated by Nathalie's competence.
Lori is bathing and washing her hair with some help from Valeria in the large tool container which has been emptied and dragged out of the pod and is full of water and clothes. Elaine is sitting cross-legged under a tree that looks like a huge succulent, with a small pair of scissors and some pens. She is drawing an eight of hearts onto playing card-sized rectangles of white cloth.
LORI
What will we play?ELAINE
Oh, patience.
Lori pushes rinsed hair away from her face, looks disappointed.
ELAINE
Strip poker then, with your parents' consent of course.
Lori giggles, splashes around.
LORI
They always do what I want.
John and Victor come out of the pod and purposefully walk across to Elaine. John looks between Elaine and an object glinting in his hand as he walks. When he is close he holds out his hand to her and shows a necklace chain with a small gold medallion quartered with an engraved cross in a circle (the astronimical symbol for Terra).
JOHN
Now we know!
Elaine squints up at the necklace, the sun is low (as it always is) and behind John and Victor. Victor doesn't look great, a bit bleary and grey under his tan.
ELAINE
That isn’t mine.JOHN (doing The Smile)
It was in your things.ELAINE
You could have asked.JOHN
We're asking now.ELAINE
No you aren't.VICTOR (solicitous)
It would help to explain things Elaine.ELAINE
Explain what Victor?JOHN
That you're a Trembler of course.
Elaine groans.
ELAINE
Don’t you have anything better to do? Shouldn't you be finding water?
John sits down on the 'grass' next to Elaine, still holding out the necklace and looking pleased with himself.
JOHN
Well well. A Trembler in our very midst.ELAINE
Neo-Christians don't call themselves Tremblers, Professor. But look if it makes you feel better to believe I'm a nut then knock yourselves out. And keep the damn necklace, I don't need it.JOHN
But tell me, what does your church-ELAINE
No church.JOHN
Well, what do YOU say about - about, say, sex?
Elaine looks up at John and Victor, then around her at the others who have all (apart from Lori) stopped what they were doing and are paying attention, for a long moment. She is getting anxious. She wearily nods to herself, as though admitting a point to herself.
ELAINE
Nothing.
John and Victor exchange a glance. Elaine steels herself.
ELAINE
Listen, I want you both to leave me alone now. I'm not in the mood to talk theology, or whatever it is we're talking about, and Lori isn't going to be in that bath forever.
After a pause, John offers The Smile and pats Elaine's leg. She doesn't like it.
JOHN
I’ll spread the word my dear.
He gets to his feet, dusts himself off, pockets the necklace and walks back towards the pod. As he passes the container and greets Valeria with a wave Lori ducks her shoulders under the water with a small yip. Victor walks over to the trench to confer with Alan-Bobby, who he leads with a palm between the shoulders out of earshot, Nathalie resumes digging and Elaine lets out a long quiet exhalation looking down at the unfinished playing card. The blunt smooth tip of something matte black retracts up her sleeve.
Valeria flicks suds from her hands and approaches Elaine.
LORI
Mother I-VALERIA
In a moment Lori.LORI
Motherrr!VALERIA
In a moment!
Lori splashes her fists down angrily and crosses her arms.
Elaine shades her eyes and looks up at Valeria, who has stopped a couple of lengths away from her.
VALERIA
I'm curious. Do you people believe in life after death?ELAINE
I can’t speak for other people.VALERIA
But do you?ELAINE
Do I believe in heaven and hell? No.
Valeria takes a couple of steps closer but doesn't lower her voice.
VALERIA
And when was the last time you slept with someone?ELAINE
Excuse me?LORI
Mother, I heard that! You shouldn't-
Valeria waves for quiet. Lori makes a frustrated squeak.
ELAINE
Can’t remember. There’s other things. What’s the purpose of this little chat Mrs Gee?VALERIA
Please don’t be vulgar. So what are these other things, besides sex and money? Because you can turn money into anything you know.ELAINE
I see, you came over to gloat. Well I’m a communist Mrs Gee. Was.VALERIA
Valeria, please. So not any longer? Was it hydrogen fusion that took the steam out of your sails? It made me very rich.ELAINE
Actually it was the forties riots that did it, and what you very rich people did to us afterwards. I chose not to be tortured in a for-profit prison or beaten to death by a goon in an exoframe. But what difference does it make? None of us is anything any longer Valeria. Don't you remember?LORI
Daaaddyyyy!VALERIA
At least I remember that I had something.
Elaine shrugs.
ELAINE
I suppose you'll always have your veneers Mrs Gee.
Valeria throws her head and turns with an irritated tut. She runs her tongue across her teeth reflexively and walks off towards Lori. To Valeria's annoyance Victor is already carrying Lori, who is happily wrapped in towels, towards the pod.
CUT TO
EXT. BEHIND POD, EVENING
Elaine is bent over, walking a melon-size rock into place over a hole. We can’t see what’s in it. She looks furtive. The back of the pod is just visible in the distance, past a low rise in the ground. She brushes her hands off, stands and looks down at the rock then around the red-lit evening landscape with her hands on her hips. She is listening, and there is nothing to hear.
ELAINE
Nothing.LORI (distant call)
Foo-ood!
Elaine looks towards the pod, starts climbing up the rise.
CUT TO
INT. POD, EVENING
Victor (still looking peaky), Valeria, Lori, John and Elaine are standing by a flip-up worktop, looking at a rack of silver pouches doubtfully. From somewhere outside we hear Alan-Bobby singing.
VICTOR
So, they're done?LORI
It says you snap the top, they heat up and then you can eat them. Cassie's got hers already. She said it tastes like chicken.ELAINE
Everything tastes like chicken.
Elaine takes one, tears a strip off the top and sniffs at the contents. She picks up a spork, dips it in and tastes the stuff cautiously.
ELAINE
Does it taste any better if you turn it the other way?
The others look at her with puzzlement.
ELAINE
It's from an old story. Lori maybe I'll tell it to you sometime, if I can remember the songs. I'm going to take this outside, might distract me.
EXT. POD, EVENING
Elaine walks out of the pod's airlock, which has been wedged open with a stone. She holds the silver pouch which is open at the top in one hand and digs around in the steaming contents with her spork. Her face looks grim.
Alan-Bobby is in the container bath now, chant singing something like a college football or fascist song and sploshing around happily. What we can see of his body shows that he is heavily muscled.
ELAINE
Lusty Ay Bee.
He salutes and carries on. Elaine spoons the thick paste into her mouth without enthusiasm and walks slowly on, past the ditch which she looks into cursorily.
Cassie is sitting with her back against the tree, also eating from a silver pouch. She is wearing something new, a dress made from a white sheet.
Elaine looks past her into the distance. A dust cloud rises, showing something approaching at speed. It is Nathalie, riding the hoverbike (kind of a ground-effect vehicle) back towards the pod. The bike is travelling at about 40kph a couple of meters above the ground, angled slightly nose down. Nathalie wears a respirator mask and goggles. The hoverbike makes a high-pitched whizzing and lower pitched thrumming sound as the front and back bladeless inducement/entrainment motors propel her along, kicking up a lot of dust.
Nathalie brings the bike in to the area close to the front of the pod in a wide arc, switches it off and it sinks slowly to the ground on unfolding feet. The bike is stick insect thin, about 3 metres long, mostly to accommodate the large motors. Nathalie climbs off, stiff and tired and covered in dust. She pulls the goggles and respirator off her face as she walks past Cassie and Elaine.
ALAN-BOBBY
You took your time.
She pointedly ignores him, drinks straight from the spout of the water dispenser then pours a little water from the dispenser onto the goggles, sponges the yellow tinted optics clear. The others come out of the pod and gather round her. She enjoys this.
NATHALIE
There's running water not far from here, that way, which rises in a spring about two hundred klicks to the North, but the stream passes us only a couple of klicks away.ALAN-BOBBY
Did you have to go all that way? We've been waiting around all day.NATHALIE
Of course I had to. Someone give me something to write on.
John trots into the pod, comes out with a pen and a piece of card. In the meantime Alan-Bobby starts singing again and splashing about.
NATHALIE
Could you just shut the fuck up Alan-Bobby! And stop wasting water.ALAN-BOBBY
What's the big deal. You just said we've got water.NATHALIE
For the distiller, yeah. How are we gonna get it here, huh? Just... just get out of there. I need to clean up.
Alan-Bobby clambers out of the container moodily, but stumbles and pulls it over so the water floods the ground.
NATHALIE
What is wrong with you, huh? You imbecile! We could have put that through the cycler.
Alan-Bobby rights the container, pulls some clothes over his wet body.
ALAN-BOBBY
You know something I'm getting sick of you telling everyone what to do. How come you’re boss anyway?NATHALIE
Brains. How come you're such a moron?
Alan-Bobby looks stony-faced, not yet decided on what to do. Nathalie turns away from him, apparently to check something on the bike. Elaine positions herself slightly in front of Nathalie, palms raised.
ELAINE
Look, nobody else can fly that thing since you won't let me, so you'd better-
Alan-Bobby advances towards Elaine and she backs off.
ALAN-BOBBY (to Nathalie)
Turn around.
Nathalie pulls off her top and slaps the dust out of it. She’s heavily muscled, not as much as Alan-Bobby.
ALAN-BOBBY
I said turn around bitch.
Nathalie turns to face him with a scornful expression. Before she has fully turned Alan-Bobby swings and punches her hard on the jaw and she sprawls backwards, tripping over the bike. After a moment of being dazed she begins to pick herself up, looking into Alan-Bobby's eyes. He punches her down again. She crumples, looking dazed and breathing fast through her nose.
VICTOR
That's enough Al.ELAINE
Enough for what?ALAN-BOBBY
Now maybe you'll learn to treat people with some respect.
Nathalie tries to say something but her jaw doesn't open properly so she croaks, possibly the word 'moron'. Saliva and blood dribbles from her mouth.
Alan-Bobby looks happy. He sighs, the anger draining from his face, and he slips his trainers over his bare feet. He sees Lori watching him through a round window with a complicated expression, ducks his head under her gaze and skulks off in the direction Nathalie indicated with his hands balled in his hoodie pockets.
ELAINE
Well things are-CASSIE
Could you not, this once. Come on, help me get her inside.
Nathalie mutters something unclear about being able to do it herself through her swelling mouth.
CASSIE
Oh sure, sure. Come on take an arm.
Cassie and Elaine pull Nathalie to her feet and walk her slowly to the pod.
ELAINE
Why did you turn your back on him. I thought your training would have covered situations like that. Why didn’t you stick your fingers in his eyes? Isn’t that the kind of thing they-
Nathalie shakes her head. She is shivering now.
ELAINE
You were going to it, not coming from it.NATHALIE (indistinct mumble)
Doethn’t mathr now.ELAINE
At least you can learn on the job.NATHALIE
Thuck you.ELAINE
That’s the spirit.
They keep walking to the pod entrance.
CROSSFADE TO
EXT. NIGHT
Looking up at the night sky. Practically nothing to see apart from a long smudge near the horizon which could be a distant nebula. White noise sound of emptiness and silence.
CUT TO
EXT. BETWEEN POD AND STREAM, DAY
Elaine is walking slowly, gasping quietly and having some trouble with her ankles. She is carrying a box in her arms. Ahead of her are Cassie, Nathalie and John, also walking and carrying bags, boxes. They are moving much faster than Elaine.
ELAINE
Don’t wait for me, I’ll be fine.
Nathalie turns and pulls a face. Her face is badly bruised in one side.
Elaine keeps walking, slowing down.
ALAN-BOBBY (calling from behind Elaine)
Hey Elaine! Hold up!
Elaine turns, sees Alan-Bobby approaching fast, easily carrying a lot of kit and outpacing Elaine with ease.
Elaine slows even more, stops and rubs her ankles, which are swelling. She waits until he catches up with her.
ELAINE
Such a strapping lad.ALAN-BOBBY
Huh?ELAINE
What’s on your mind Ay Bee?ALAN-BOBBY
What? Oh, yeah. Look do you think what I did was that bad, cause Lori chewed me out something fierce and nobody’s talking to me today.ELAINE
Yes, I absolutely do think it was that bad. And worse, I think it was stupid. And so do you.ALAN-BOBBY
Yeah she was really mad. Lori. But I bet it taught her something.
Elaine sits on the ground and continues to rub and flex her ankles.
ELAINE
Oh it taught everyone something. It taught Nathalie to come at you from behind with a rock next time. It taught Victor you’ll do the same to him one day. It taught Lori-ALAN-BOBBY
Yeah OK OK I get it.ELAINE
Yes you do, you big dumb ox.ALAN-BOBBY
Hey. I could do the same to you.ELAINE
But you won’t. Look, you’re a good strong decent beautiful man, probably. Don’t forget Nathalie is smart. You throw your fists around she’ll take advantage of that. Keep your head down while her face heals, be a good boy and they’ll start talking to you again. Even Lori.ALAN-BOBBY
Yeah? Say how old do you think she would have-ELAINE
Sixteen. Now help me up and carry my stuff to the river. I’m going back to the pod before these balloon up even worse.
Alan-Bobby notices Elaine’s swelling ankles, pulls a face.
ELAINE
It’s not catching.
CROSSFADE TO
INT. POD, EVENING
Elaine is sleeping on a mat in the pod, with her swollen ankles propped up on a rolled up towel. It’s hot and her clothes are fairly neatly dumped in a pile next to her. We hear quiet scuffling noises and whispering from outside.
Suddenly hands hold her down at the shoulders and legs and she wakes screaming. Victor and John sweep up her clothes and search them. Victor slits open the lining of her jacket with a box cutter, John examines her belt. Elaine watches wide-eyed and screaming until Alan-Bobby slaps his hand over her mouth. She bites him hard and continues to scream.
ELAINE
Cassie you stupid fucking cunt!JOHN
Now now Elaine, we can’t afford for you to have these, for our safety or yours.ELAINE
Lori! Help me! Your dad-VICTOR
They're at the new camp by the river. We’ll all move there tomorrow.
John and Victor discover various stashes of capsules, pills, vials and collapsible microsyringes in Elaine's clothes and hidden in her belt. They pile them into a box as Elaine continues to scream and writhe. Gradually the screaming becomes sobbing.
ELAINE (through sobs)
I fucking hate you all.
She stops flailing and cries piteously. They let her go, looking uncomfortable, she sits up and hugs her knees continuing to cry, head down.
VICTOR
All right Elaine now the rest.ELAINE
You’ve taken everything. Everything.
Elaine looks up at him blearily, rubs the tears away from her eyes.
VICTOR (with some kindness)
Elaine.
She blows her nose, looks around the room. Eventually she slumps defeatedly. She picks up her shoe and slides away part of the sole, pours out some more capsules
ELAINE
Migraine pills you deceitful bitch.CASSIE
Ah come on, I’ll sew up your jacket.
and a very small clear glass ampoule with a drop of clear liquid inside. Elaine holds it up between her thumb and finger.
ELAINE
Put it out in the sun. It’s a contact nerve poison. I’m not kidding please be careful with it.
Victor extends the box and Elaine places it inside carefully.
The men take the box away, leaving Elaine, Nathalie and Cassie. Elaine starts crying again. Nathalie, standing by the door, crosses her arms. Cassie approaches Elaine and puts an arm around her shoulders. Elaine shakes her body and slaps Cassie’s hand away.
CASSIE
OK fine. I didn’t know they’d be so rough did I. What were you planning to do anyway, overdose?ELAINE
They humiliated me, and you helped. I feel so goddamned humiliated.CASSIE
I’m sorry. Don’t you think that’s better than dying.ELAINE
Oh Cassie I don’t believe you’re that naïve. This time they held me down to rob me. Next time it'll be to rape me. Don’t you see where this is going? They think they can breed their way back to civilisation. Just six days and look at what’s already happening. Conquer and control. Conquer and control. Have you seen your face? Haven’t you had enough of men forcing themselves on you? I don’t believe this is what you both want. It can’t be. It can’t.NATHALIE
I’m not a pussy.ELAINE
More fool you.CASSIE
Well I'm not into politics but I do want babies. They don’t let you keep them if you’re poor. But here-. Anyway those babies’ll love me, not their daddies.
Elaine looks at Cassie for a long moment, incredulous.
ELAINE
And Lori? She’s 11. You think you can protect her against them?CASSIE
Pessimist.ELAINE (frustrated)
Come on Cassie this isn’t about surviving, we died the second the ship spat us out. It’s just a question of how much you can take before-
Nathalie stomps out of the pod angrily with a shout. Elaine and Cassie watch her then look at each other wordlessly.
CROSSFADE TO
EXT. NEW CAMP, AFTERNOON
The new camp. Victor is sitting under a sheet awning attached to the side of the pod, which is now positioned near the stream. He looks grey and ill, staring listlessly at the ground in front of him and unconnected from what is going on around him. Lori is with him, chatting and occasionally trying to engage him with the cards, with limited success.
Elaine is digging in a trench. She is hot and tired. Nathalie, sweaty and dirty herself, is watching her. Elaine looks over at Victor as she digs. Nathalie follows her gaze but looks disinterested.
Elaine slices the shovel into the earth, wipes her sweaty forehead and clambers out of the trench.
NATHALIE
Where are you going?ELAINE
To kill myself Nathalie.NATHALIE
Suits you, being in there.
Elaine looks back at the hole, sees it looks like a grave.
ELAINE
Funny.
As she approaches the pod Elaine attracts Lori’s attention, motions for her to come over to the water dispenser. Nathalie watches.
ELAINE
What’s up with Victor?LORI
Oh Dad’s had this before, when he works too hard.ELAINE
Is it his heart?LORI
I don’t know. He has pills.ELAINE
You’re good to him. You’ve stayed with him all day. Love him a lot don't you.LORI
Mmm. We‘re both strays. That's what he says, when Mother isn’t listening. They bought me from the crèche when I was a baby you know. I was very ill. Mother spent a fortune and the doctors fixed me.ELAINE
I bet. And your dad?LORI
I don’t know. I don’t think he was sick but-ELAINE
I see. So what have you two been talking about?LORI
This and that. He told me never give up on anything, and that we’re proof that anything is possible.Will you play gin with me? Dad’s too sleepy now.
ELAINE
Sure. Why not? I’ve got a feeling I’m going to lose though.LORI
That’s because you’re a coward.ELAINE
I am huh?
Lori nods seriously. Elaine laughs.
ELAINE
OK. After you beat me I’ll read your palm. I want to know what kind of greatness I’m in the presence of.
Lori looks scornful but curious, rubs her palms together and looks at them.
LORI
Daddy says they’ll name this place after me some day.ELAINE (mystic gypsy voice)
You let me be the judge of that.
Lori giggles.
CUT TO
EXT. NEW CAMP, NIGHT
Elaine wakes up suddenly in pre-dawn grey. She isn't sure what woke her, if anything. She waits, yawns.
A small pained gasp and after a while Victor slowly gets up and steps over Elaine, a silhouette against the grey sky. He moves off holding his arm and breathing stertorously, stops and retches, then keeps walking. Elaine waits until he has walked out of sight and sound then rises quickly, finds John, kneels and puts her hand over his mouth, which wakes him.
ELAINE (whisper)
Where's my stuff. We need it. Victor.JOHN
Hu?ELAINE (whisper)
Drugs. We need them. He's having a heart attack.
John is confused, he stands but doesn't know what to do.
ELAINE
Come on Professor get it together. Wake Nathalie, find the stuff and catch me up. He's heading that way, between the hills.
Elaine runs off into the dark.
CUT TO
EXT. VALLEY, EARLY MORNING
John and Nathalie arrive to find Elaine crouching next to Victor, who is sitting with his back to the trunk of a stumpy tree. She is pressing two fingers to the side of Victor’s throat. He doesn’t seem to react but he is breathing in shallow gasps.
Elaine sees John and Nathalie falter. She gestures them over impatiently.
ELAINE
Spread them out here. Hurry up.
Nathalie empties the drug stash onto the ground. Elaine tugs up Victor’s sleeve, picks up a microsyringe, which is pleated like complex origami, presses on the arm vein and injects the fluid.
ELAINE
Lie down you fool.
She helps him to lie under the tree.
ELAINE
It’s a stimulant. Can you swallow yet?VICTOR
No.ELAINE
You’ll be able to soon. Do you want Lori?
Victor shakes his head slightly, eyes closed and frowning.
ELAINE
Your wife?
He doesn’t move but his frown deepens momentarily.
ELAINE
Listen to me Mr Graham. You’re looking a little better now. The stimulant is getting oxygen back into your blood. But it won’t last. I can give you more until we run out or it wears you out, which it will. Either way you don’t have very long.VICTOR
Tell Lori-NATHALIE
What?VICTOR
Anything. Make it up.ELAINE
You love her very much. You’re proud of her and you know she’ll do well. OK?VICTOR
Yes. Yes.ELAINE
Good. All right you two leave that, that and that, take the rest and go back to tell them, when they wake up. I’ll stay.
Nathalie looks unhappy.
JOHN
I don’t think-ELAINE
Victor who do you want to stay with you?VICTOR
You.
Elaine looks at Nathalie and John, eyebrows raised. They aren’t pleased (John does The Smile, Nathalie scowls) but they turn and walk away.
Elaine sits next to Victor, gently lifts his head and lowers it onto her lap.
VICTOR
You’re not afraid.ELAINE
Of death? I am. Very much.VICTOR
I worked on myself. Wasn’t easy. I was poor. Made myself good-looking, taller, so much surgery, voice coach, clothes, everything. Kept meaning to get around to my heart. Do you, do you despise me?ELAINE
You don’t know my friends Victor.
She laughs. Victor smiles.
VICTOR
When Val found me I knew I was made. I think I loved her but I can’t-
Elaine notes the greyness is coming back into his lips and his fingers are going blue at the tips.
ELAINE
Lori-VICTOR
Beautiful child. Look after her. It’s all for her.ELAINE
Sure. Of course.VICTOR
You should try this stuff. It’s like religion.ELAINE
Ha. I have. Now the stimulant is starting to wear off but the painkiller will keep working for longer. We could give you another shot, or you can fight it out yourself. Or there’s this.
She holds up the ampoule to his fixed gaze. She puts it next to one of his hands, within reach.
VICTOR
If you hold my hand.ELAINE
Can’t. It’s contact, it could kill me too.VICTOR
Thought you wanted to.ELAINE
No. I don’t.
Victor nods feebly. He tries to flick the ampoule away but his fingers are too clumsy. Elaine takes it carefully and places it out of his reach.
VICTOR
Sun’s coming up.
Elaine nods.
VICTOR
I’m going to die.ELAINE
Goodbye Victor.VICTOR
Go... away.
Elaine doesn’t move. She holds Victor’s head gently as he stares dully at the rosy glow rising in the sky. His breathing gradually becomes more laboured and shallow, the pauses between each inhalation grows longer. Long violet shadows appear in the pastel landscape. Elaine follows Victor’s gaze, doesn’t look down at him. She sees motes of dust caught in the long fingers of light coming through the tree branches. One of Victor's legs shakes for a while then stops. Eventually there are no more breaths. Elaine waits for a minute.
Elaine carefully lowers Victor’s head to the ground, stands and stretches.
MUSIC: MIDNIGHT BY JOHN DOWLAND (CLASSICAL GUITAR ARRANGEMENT)
She slowly spins with her head back and arms outstretched to the music in the pink dawn. When the music ends she stops, looks down at the poison ampoule by her foot on the ground.
CUT TO
EXT. VALLEY, MORNING
Elaine and Victor lie under the tree. Elaine is unmoving, her eyes are closed.
Close up we see her eyes flickering beneath her lids. She is unconscious. The shadows from the tree canopy move across her face in a breeze. We hear the close rush and tinkle of a fast flowing, shallow river.
CUT TO
Sound of footsteps of a single person approaching over stony ground. Very slowed down grainy view looking down on a fast flowing shallow river, travelling upstream at speed, just above the water. The water looks dark red in the dawn light.
NATHALIE (muffled)
Wake up!
CUT TO
Sound of river returns, louder. Elaine's unconscious face again, close up, now underwater as she lies against the bottom of the river. Her hair flows up and out in the running water.
CUT TO
Nathalie nudges Elaine’s side hard with her boot. Elaine doesn’t respond.
CUT TO
River. It meanders around islets and rocks, and our view stays with it. The bottom of the river is not deep and pebbles are visible through the water. Long ribbons of river weed wave in the flow. The banks of the river are lined with aquatic grasses, rushes, fern-like plants.
CUT TO
Close up Elaine’s eyes are open underwater, staring up at camera. Thundering water sound continues.
NATHALIE (O.S.)
Get up will you they’re coming. What happened? What were you doing?
River Elaine opens her mouth and big gouts of bubbles pour from her mouth, coinciding loosely with her speaking.
ELAINE (groggy O.S.)
He died. I stayed with him. I... must have fallen asleep.
CUT TO
Speeding above river again, higher now in brighter hazy light. The river undulates around an arid area of rocky outcrops, scree, boulders.
LORI (O.S. sad but commanding)
Will you sing something for us?
Sound of rhythmic digging and slinging stony soil.
ELAINE (O.S.)
OK.
Elaine sings The Lowest Trees Have Tops, by John Dowland, in a good untrained voice.
The lowest trees have tops, the ant her gall
The fly her spleen, the little spark his heat;
The slender hairs cast shadows, though but small,
And bees have stings, although they be not great;
Seas have their source, and so have shallow springs;
And love is love, in beggars and in kings.
Where waters smoothest run, there deepest are the fords,
The dial stirs, yet none perceives it move;
The firmest faith is found in fewest words,
The turtles cannot sing, and yet they love;
True hearts have ears, and eyes, no tongues to speak;
They hear, and see, and sign, and then they break
Flying up higher over the river during the song. The rocky landscape rises in foothills, towards high bare mountains and tall splinters of rock in the distance.
CUT TO
INT. CAVE, DAY
MUSIC: SINGLE CHIME OF GLORY (FINAL MOVEMENT)
Elaine is in gloom, squatting in an enclosed rocky place. She wears a respirator and goggles. She uses some kind of spark-making device to start a fire of dry leaves, twigs and sticks. As the fire crackles the space brightens, Elaine steps backwards. We see she is in a low cave made from large boulders. There is a small rivulet running through the middle of the cave towards the entrance. Elaine uses a long burning stick to poke and jab around in the dark corners of the cave, flipping over stones. Eventually she is satisfied that nothing is lurking.
ELAINE
OK. OK. Just us.
She pulls off the respirator and goggles, looks out from the cave mouth and takes a deep breath. We see that she is dusty, the silhouette of the goggles shows clean against her dirty face.
There is a ledge a couple of metres out, leading steeply down to a ravine. The view is huge, taking in a long glacial valley at the bottom of which a long winding river flows into the far distance. The landscape is semi-arid but not parched, dotted with patches of bushes and stands of larger succulent trees. It is greenest along the river banks. The valley is walled in by bare splintered rock stacks.
She clears her throat, cups her mouth with her hands and shouts
ELAINE
HELL-
Her voice cracks, she coughs. She is thirsty and her mouth is dry.
She kneels down, cups her hands in the clear water, looks at it for a second, then sucks it up into her mouth, waits a second, then swallows. She doesn’t die. She stands again.
ELAINE
HELLO! THANK YOU! MY NAME IS ELAINE. I... I'M SORRY. IT WAS A STUPID ACCIDENT. IT’S SO BEAUTIFUL, BUT I KNOW WE SHOULDN'T BE HERE. I'LL TRY TO MAKE AS LITTLE MESS AS POSSIBLE. BUT I AM A HUMAN BEING SO PLEASE DON’T TRUST ANYTHING I SAY. I THINK... I THINK THAT'S ALL.
There is some echo from the cave behind her, but mostly her voice disappears into the wide space.
She waits. There is just the sound of the stream.
She reaches behind a boulder at the cave entrance and tucks a makeshift sack under one arm and picks up the hover bike with the other, takes them into the cave, humming the tune of Lachrimae Pavane.
CUT TO
INT. CAVE, DUSK
Elaine sits on a thin mattress, knees up, under the cave overhang, facing out. The landscape is bathed in red evening light. She has a cloth around her shoulders like a shawl.
At one side of the cave is a stack of silver food pouches. The hover bike is propped against the cave wall.
ELAINE
Well.
CROSSFADE TO
EXT. RAPIDS, DAY
A torrent of fast-flowing water cascades down over boulders in the river bed. Mist rises and drifts from the thundering falls. Fern-like plants attached to the rocks shiver in the turbulent air.
With a whoop mostly covered up by the sound of crashing water Elaine on hover bike appears suddenly, bursting from the top of the falls and angling the bike down sharply to speed low over the surface of the water. The bike emits a bassy pulsating throb as she straightens up and steers it expertly at high speed, slaloming around the boulders. The intense ground effect pushes down water under the bike in a kind of inverted bowl as she passes, making a wild wake at the banks and generating a seething froth and rainbow mist which soaks her and the bike. She wears a loose 1930s style one piece playsuit and chunky boots. She isn’t wearing the mask but does have goggles on. Her wet hair flails and snaps around her madly as she shouts and howls happily and races along the rapids into the distance.
CUT TO
Same day. Elaine standing on high ground near the top edge of a vertical cliff face looking out. Her hair has dried in a wild mass. The hover bike rests in the grass behind her. She shields her eyes with both hands and looks out along the winding length of the river. She scans the horizon for signs of movement, of which there are none. She looks pensive.
CROSSFADE TO
INT. CAVE, DAY
Elaine lies curled half-asleep on the mat, her body lying parallel with the cave mouth so she faces the cave entrance. Her eyes are slightly open. Tinkling sound of the stream, close to her head.
A quiet scuffling sound and Cassie blinks in at the cave mouth in out-of-focus silhouette, seen at 90 degree angle. It could be a dream.
ELAINE (mumbling)
Why’ve you come for the water thingy. I left it-
Cassie’s silhouette comes into sharper focus, now correctly oriented. Elaine becomes alert and stops talking. Cassie stands uncertainly at the entrance. She can’t see in very well, if at all.
CASSIE
Elaine?ELAINE
What are you doing here?CASSIE
I want to talk to you. Can I come in?
Elaine hears scrambling on the cave roof.
ELAINE
That’s a long way to come for a talk. Oh you didn't bring Lori did you?CASSIE
No of course not. Can't you come out for a minute? Please?ELAINE
Ugh.
Elaine puts on her jacket, picks up a couple of grapefruit sized rocks, and stealthily walks towards the entrance, pressed close to the cave wall. When she gets near the cave mouth she throw/rolls one of the rocks across it. Loud stamping scrabbling sounds come from above, Cassie steps sideways and backwards out of view and Alan-Bobby leaps down from the cave roof and runs into the cave with his arms spread out sideways and fingers wide. Almost at once he cracks his head with a loud dull coconut thud against the low ceiling of the cave and stumbles backwards into the stream, which he trips in and falls on his face. He roars, begins to climb back to his hands and knees. It isn't clear if he can see Elaine, but he begins scrabbling messily in her direction anyway. His forehead skin is deeply split open and blood runs down his face and into his eyes.
Elaine raises the rock in both hands, waits for him to scuttle past her, then brings the rock down hard behind his ear, once to stop him and three more times to make sure. He lets out a loud guttural exhale sound on the first strike and drops, limbs sprawled and twitching. After the second series of strikes he doesn't move again.
Elaine quietly lowers the bloody rock to the cave floor near his head. She gets her breath back.
CASSIE
Al?ELAINE
It's all right Cassie. He’s hibernating. Come out where I can see you.
Cassie sidles back into view nervously.
ELAINE
And?
After a pause John appears on the other side.
ELAINE
Ah, the smiling Professor. And Nathalie?JOHN
She's sick.ELAINE
So you three came all this way by yourselves? How long did that take? Six days? Seven?JOHN
Well you did take the bike Elaine.ELAINE
But I left the water cycler Professor Ude. Fair’s fair. I suppose you've been drinking river water on your way up here. It seems harmless. I have been shitting in it though. Sorry.
Elaine drifts away from Alan-Bobby’s long body and towards the cave mouth as they speak. More slithers from the roof and Nathalie falls awkwardly feet first on Elaine, bringing them both down. Elaine hits the ground hard. They grapple for a while then Nathalie scrambles up and holds Elaine down in the dust with her hand and knee in a restraint hold, her other hand balled into a fist and cocked.
JOHN
All right Nat, no need for the rough stuff now. Cass, go get Alan.
Cassie moves past into the dark cave. Elaine starts to sob in the dust.
ELAINE (sobbing)
Why won’t you just leave me alone?
John leans over her, hands on his hips.
JOHN
Dear oh dear. You're quite mad, do you know that? We're going to have to tie you up back home so you don’t get loose again. We simply cannot afford to trust you. It's for your own good too of course, although I don’t expect you to underst-.
There is a muffled cry from Cassie. In the moment Elaine breaks Nathalie's grip loose, grabs and pulls John's legs out from under him, and in the same movement shoots into Nathalie’s chest from very close range with the flat pebble-like gas gun which was concealed in her jacket sleeve and is now in her palm. The gun makes almost no sound. John rolls backwards towards the lip of the ledge. He doesn't go over. Nathalie tips backwards, the explosive micro darts having torn through her chest in a wet sucking wound. She crumples over the edge. Slithering landslide sound. John scrambles to his feet with a shriek
ELAINE
Professor Ude! John!
and a furious expression, a rock in his fist ready to throw. As he advances
ELAINE
Stop!
Elaine shoots at his leading knee, and as his leg buckles inwards and he screams in pain she pushes him over the edge with a leg sweep. She maintains a fighting pose as the sound of thumps and stones skittering down the slope gradually stops. She looks down over the edge, breathing in ragged gasps. Nathalie and John have rolled down to the river bank, they are partly visible through scrubby bushes. Neither is moving. It look like John’s neck is broken.
ELAINE
Cassie?
Cassie comes out of the cave holding the bloody rock. She drops it and without looking she wipes her bloody hand on her white dress. Elaine still has the gas gun in her palm but isn’t pointing it at Cassie as she approaches. Cassie looks pale. She pushes her fringe away, leaving a wide streak of blood across her forehead.
Cassie stops, sits cross-legged like someone who has trained as a dancer and looks down at her still bloody hand. She is jittery and shaky with shock but keeping it together.
CASSIE
Well you have been busy. Someone should give you a medal.
Elaine stands, uncertain.
CASSIE
I told them to let you alone. I thought- Well I thought they might hurt you.ELAINE
Cass-CASSIE
I know, I know. If I had a baby it would die, and if it didn’t I would. Where did you learn to do this?
Elaine sits down heavily in front of Cassie.
ELAINE
I’ve been in trouble before.CASSIE
But not like this.ELAINE
No.
Cassie looks up at the sky.
CASSIE
Damn them! Don’t they ever come back to look?
Elaine looks too, shakes her head.
CASSIE
So what now? Are we meant to fight to the death too?
Elaine gestures noncommittally, looks away embarrassed. Cassie takes the opportunity to snatch the gas gun from Elaine’s hand and points it at Elaine. It’s hard to tell which end is which and Cassie doesn’t look like an expert. Elaine looks anxious, holds up her palms.
ELAINE
For God’s sake Cassie be careful with that.CASSIE
Oh shut up. Just give me that stuff, right now.ELAINE
What? What stuff?CASSIE
You’ve got it somewhere. You’re too much of a coward to be without it. I know they didn’t get it all.
Elaine looks at Cassie for a long moment. Cassie is still shivery but doesn’t waver, then suddenly her determined expression cracks and she guffaws. She doesn’t lower the gun.
CASSIE
I’m serious!ELAINE
All right Cassandra. Here.
Elaine produces two green grey jelly capsules and lays them on the ground between them.
CASSIE
Are they good?ELAINE
Oh yes. You’ll have a highly euphoric exit. I was saving them but-
Cassie places the gun down next to the capsules, then picks them up.
ELAINE
Listen Cassie, Cassandra. You don’t have to-. I would be very pleased to share your company. Very grateful.CASSIE
I swallow them?
Elaine nods.
CASSIE
I’ll do it somewhere else, if you don’t mind. By myself.
Cassie stands. Elaine sniffs.
CASSIE
Honoured huh?
Elaine spreads her hands and shrugs, blinking. Cassie seems to be weighing options, but not for long.
CASSIE
You can go back and kill Lori now.
Cassie walks off down the slope, straightening her dress. Elaine watches her go.
CUT TO
EXT. SAN FRANCISCO INNER CITY STREET, WEEKDAY
Elaine stands back from pedestrians on a noisy busy street. It is late autumn, long bright and dark shapes from the low sun carve up the scene. Squally light rain makes the sun glare off wet surfaces.
Elaine has the hood of her rubberised rain jacket up. She is looking up at the top of a 40 storey building across the street, trying not to be too obvious about it. Electric vehicles (cars, autonomous taxis, powered courier bikes, bendy buses, microvans) pass on the road, and some of the pedestrians zip along on gyro balls fitted with clear rain shields.
A steel shuttered underground car park entrance connected to the building has the words MONEY DOESN’T MATTER WHEN CONTROL IS SOMEWHERE ELSE and JR sprayed across it.
The top of the building opposite is screened off with milky plastic mesh sheets. Two large aircraft looking something like the hover bike but much larger and crossed with an airship hover and throb just above the building, one unloading boxes from a cargo bay to workers on the roof while the other has a long translucent tube like an umbilicus snaking between its cargo bay and the screened-off floor. Something seems to be flowing through the tube.
The ground floor entrance to the anonymous building is conspicuously guarded by hulking private security types in power suits. They look blankly out at the street through AR helmet visors which flicker and glow in the gloom. A group of women in overalls pile out of a van carrying carpet spraying guns, canisters and equipment. They are finger and face scanned for identification by the security and allowed in.
The van, now autonomous, crawls down into the underground car park as the steel shutter rolls down behind it.
ELAINE
Shit.
Someone thumps into Elaine hard and unseen while hurrying past in the rain.
CUT TO
INT. END OF LIFE CARE WARD, HOSPITAL, DAY
A very old man lies propped up on pillows in a hospital bed. He is wizened and sunken, every breath is a great effort and his face and chest shows it. His arms are resting outside the bed. In one hand he cups a breathing mask connected via clear tubing to a tap behind his head. Periodically he draws the mask slowly to his face and takes a deeper breath through it, and his eyelids close for a moment. A small foam-bladed fan clipped to the headboard flutters near the old man’s head, making a few stray strands of hair shiver. There is a tag around his bird-thin wrist. He has milky pale irises and pinprick pupils.
Elaine sits at a chair by his head, holding his other hand gently. Her coat is spread on the back of the chair and is still streaked with rain. Her fringe and the sides of her hair are wet. A photo badge pinned to her top reads ELAINE and VOLUNTEER. Someone has added the word ‘human’ in felt pen.
A dirty looking robot with pink rubber wheels and hospital colours trundles past along the corridor carrying a tray on which rattles a stack of disposable plastic cups, a small lidded jug of orange liquid, sachets and pipettes.
From somewhere off screen an old woman’s voice starts wailing I DON’T WANT TO DIE repeatedly until a placating voice (a nurse?) finally quiets her. The old man and Elaine look at each other and the old man raises his eyebrows as if to say ‘there she goes again’ as he draws from the mask.
ELAINE
Dying is a task.
The old man observes her drily for a moment then collects himself to speak, rasps
OLD MAN
Come and join us then.ELAINE
Oh. Funny guy.
The old man laughs completely silently, shoulders jiggling and eyes closed.
A sharp double clicking sound, Elaine turns round to see L.B. Hook looking at her through a glass panel in the door, a coin between his fingers. He looks at her expectantly.
CUT TO
INT. CAFETERIA, HOSPITAL, DAY
Elaine and L.B. sit across from each other at a two person table in the corner of a grubby hospital cafeteria. L.B. is a large shambling man of about 35 with big hands and a friendly melancholic face. He wears an old tan mac, rain splattered, and a 49ers cap. Two corrugated paper cups of coffee and an uneaten custard pastry on a plate sit between them on the table. Elaine fiddles with her cup nervously. A tatty black tuba case rests next to L.B.’s foot.
He dips into his coat pockets, pulls out a hip flask, unscrews the lid and pours whiskey into one of the coffee cups. He positions it over the other one with a question on his face, Elaine shakes her head. He puts the flask away.
L.B.
May I?
Elaine shrugs, L.B. pulls the plate towards him and takes a big bite.
ELAINE
They were going to kill me. I had to get out.
L.B. nods seriously, chewing, swallows.
ELAINE
I saw it on my way over here. The whole floor, gone, just like that. Jesus.L.B.
Sometimes I think you admire them.ELAINE
Them! I kind of do. But it’s like admiring a poison.L.B.
Huh. Nothing in the news. No social. Smothered. They can do that. We’re looking for misdirection now. Do you think they IDd you?ELAINE
Please don’t say IDd. You’re a tuba player. I don’t know. Anyway I’m finished, that’s it.
L.B. nods sadly, a blob of custard at the corner of his mouth.
L.B.
What are you going to do?ELAINE
I don’t know. Something else. You should’ve heard that noise Elbee. That sound. Coming out of them like- like death. Like actual death.
L.B. finds and wipes the custard blob with his finger, pops it in his mouth, swallows and opens his mouth to speak, then with a shout someone off screen drops a cafeteria tray laden with cutlery and plates on the floor very loudly and Elaine and L.B. twist in their seats.
SMASH CUT TO
EXT. GRASSY HILL, PREDAWN
Elaine wakes breathing in on grass in grey light. The hover bike lies behind her. A stand of tree things cuts off the view in front.
She rises into a sitting position, stretches, peers between the trunks. It’s still too gloomy to see much. She removes a silver packet from her jacket pocket, snaps the top and waits, tears the top strip off and eats the hot gloopy contents with her fingers, swearing.
CUT TO
Later, the sun is up. Elaine walks cautiously along the river, keeping hidden by bushes as much as possible. There are marks in the ground where things have been dragged, and footprints. Elaine follows them until she sees the pod in the clearing and the white sheet awning, then crouches behind a bush and watches and waits.
Eventually Valeria comes out of the pod, flapping a towel.
Valeria stands there, looks around her absently, including in Elaine's direction, then returns to the pod. Elaine takes the opportunity to move closer to the pod, getting to within about 20 metres before Valeria re-emerges with another towel, this time draped over her hand. She walks without hurry in Elaine’s direction, halving the distance between them while looking about her casually, then pulls the towel away to point a handgun at Elaine. Elaine straightens.
ELAINE
Val.VALERIA
Why are you here?ELAINE
It’s all right the others are coming. Nat broke her ankle.VALERIA
Is that so? And they just let you come by yourself.ELAINE
How’s Lori? You know how much-VALERIA
I won’t let you near her.ELAINE
All right Val, my goodness!VALERIA
Didn’t know I had this did you? You’re not the only one with little surprises.ELAINE
Well yes Valeria I am surprised.
Valeria gestures with the gun to indicate that she wants Elaine to walk towards a stand of trees in a hollow about 50 metres away.
Elaine starts walking, Valeria a couple of metres behind. From the pod Lori starts shouting in a loud bored voice
LORI
MO-THER! MO-THER!
Elaine turns her head, Valeria shakes her head and puts her finger to her lips and gestures for Elaine to keep moving. Elaine turns back to the trees and walks slowly.
VALERIA
Lift your hands so I can see them.
Elaine does so. They walk in silence for a while, Elaine not turning round and Valeria not getting any closer than about 5 metres.
VALERIA
You don’t know how to really live. You don’t, your kind.ELAINE
My kind?VALERIA
The Poor. You don’t know, how could you? People like you are animals I think, hardly alive. You have to be able to do anything if you want to really live. Money can do that. Change you. Change anything.ELAINE
Don’t you mean power?VALERIA
But my dear, money is power. They're the same thing. You should know that by now.ELAINE
Not here.VALERIA
I'm holding the gun and you are at the other end of it.ELAINE
And Victor?VALERIA
Victor. He was a toy really. A rental. I don’t much enjoy renting people anymore but he fell for Lori so I kept him for her sake. I expect you think it’s vulgar, as a communist or whatever you are. Fixing Lori cost more money than some countries spend on healthcare. On anything actually. When we bought her she had so many autoimmune diseases, the clinics found completely unknown ones before my wealth paid to cure them. The income from the patents I now own is, well, let's say it's a lot. And all for her, for Lori. So she can be truly alive. So she can be exceptional. Love will do that. It gets to you.ELAINE
Of course.VALERIA
Of course. I’ll always be the real mother here, no matter how many litters that silly bitch you've got the hots for squeezes out.ELAINE
Cassie?VALERIA
Don't misunderstand me. Actually I don’t care whether you understand me or not.
They have reached the edge of the hollow.
VALERIA
Down, get down in there now.
Elaine looks over the edge, turns to look back at Valeria. Valeria flicks the gun to say get on with it. Elaine crouches, takes a couple of sideways steps on the loose slope then appears to slip down a way so Valeria can't see her. Valeria walks quickly towards the edge nervously, gun outstretched. From below Elaine leaps up and throws herself at Valeria, colliding against her legs. Valeria topples to her knees on top of Elaine. They scrabble with each other on the ground at the slope edge.
LORI (distantly)
MO-THER!ELAINE
Lori! Lori! Help!
Valeria slaps her hand across Elaine's mouth, shoves her head down and tries to aim at Elaine, the barrel is practically touching Elaine's head when Elaine grabs Valeria's inner elbow and wrist in both hands, Valeria pulls the trigger and a bullet takes a chunk out of the rooty earth by Elaine's ear. Elaine uses her grip on Valeria to twist her off balance and pulls her over her body (it seems likely that Elaine is confident in judo or similar). They both slide down the slope into the hollow, Valeria first, grappling as they fall. Valeria tries to bring the gun up to bear on Elaine's face as they tumble. Elaine forces Valeria's gun arm and wrist inwards with the weight of her body. Valeria’s expression is of fury, spite and loathing.
VALERIA
How... DARE... you
As they bump against the floor of the hollow the gun fires.
SMASH CUT TO BLACK
Fade up to dim blurry shapes from Valeria’s point of view as she is dragged across the ground and propped up against the slope, Elaine grunting with the effort. Sound of Valeria's shallow laboured gasping through a wetly collapsing lung. Looking up at the pale sky through the branches on a lolling head. Then Elaine appears standing close in front of Valeria’s face, blocking out the view.
ELAINE
I’ll do it quickly. She won’t be afraid. Goodbye Mrs Graham.
Elaine moves away, we hear her making her way up the slope. The gasping breathing changes rhythm, it sounds as though Valeria could be struggling to move or say something but can’t. As Elaine's steps fade away the blur fades to black.
CUT TO
EXT. POD, MORNING
From a static distance we see Elaine limping towards the pod entrance. She pauses at the doorway then enters. We see her head moving slowly through one of the small porthole windows. We don’t hear anything except a quiet puff sound after half a minute. Shortly afterwards Elaine limps out the way she came and walks across the ground. She gets a way off, then stops and turns back, re-enters the pod. After another minute she emerges carrying the dribbling water cycler in both arms. She keeps going until she is off screen.
CUT TO
EXT. OVER RIVER, AFTERNOON
Elaine is slumped forwards on the hover bike. She is asleep. The water cycler is strapped to the back with elastic cables. The bike seems to know where it is going and also knows the rider is not attentive. It emits a series of long beeps as it slowly glides uphill along the river course.
The angry sound of a large group of people rhythmically stamping, chanting and shouting gradually swells in volume and menace.
Below her by the inner part of a bend in the river we see Cassie in her white dress lying sprawled on her back among a carpet of leaves that look like wild garlic. There is a trail of flattened leaves showing the path Cassie took to this spot. Cassie’s glassy eyes stare up at the sky.
CROWD SOUND CONTINUES AS WE CUT TO
INT. LECTURE THEATRE
Elaine stands alone on a stage, lights on her. She looks confused. She is wearing the same clothes she has in the present and she is holding the heavy dribbling water cycler which is making a puddle around her but she looks younger, her hair is cut in a different style. We don’t see what she can see.
ELAINE
I’m not supposed to be here. I-
Her eyes go wide with fear, she looks to the wings uncertainly as the sound of things being broken and kicked over and screams begin. There are shadowy figures lurking in both wings who look like Professor Ude, Alan-Bobby and Nathalie on the left side and Victor and Cassie on the right. Their faces are dark and indistinct. They don’t look completely present, not really themselves, but it seems they might try to block Elaine from escaping. She runs and barges through the left side using the weight of the cycler as a ram, keeps running down a short flight of steps and along a series of short narrow right-angle corridors and steps, some sections harshly lit, others in near dark.
The rioting noise from the lecture theatre gets further away, made echoey and strange by the hard mazey channel until it is a kind of dull thumping pulse.
Elaine turns a corner and stops at a service lift in a brightly lit bare windowless stretch of corridor with closed unmarked doors off it. She hunches and holds the still dribbling cycler with one arm briefly in order to rattle at the down button, and waits impatiently as the lift approaches from a floor in the teens. Elaine states up at the numbers, which change very slowly as the lift mechanism clanks and hums.
ELAINE
Come on come on come on.
A door quietly opens inwards behind her, she turns to see Valeria standing with her hand around the door. As with the others she is puppet like. She is wearing her blue and gold sari.
VALERIA
Where are you going Elaine?ELAINE
Oh Val. I’m sorry, I can’t stay. I don’t feel well, I... I have to go now.
Val nods and smiles broadly as though Elaine has said something else, opens the door wider, turns to face into the dark room and partly retreats behind the door to allow Elaine to see in. In the light from the corridor we see Lori sitting cross-legged on a bed with her back to the door. She is wrapped in a large pastel towel and has a smaller towel of a different colour wrapped around her wet hair. At the far end of the room is a large window with open curtains. We can see Elaine's silhouette in the reflection, and through the window we see the star field simulation from the pre-credit.
Lori is looking down in front of her. She has the cloth playing cards spread face down across the bed, turns them over methodically one at a time and looks at the value before putting each back face down on the bed.
LORI
What an awful noise. Whatever were you doing?ELAINE
Target practice.LORI
I wish you’d shoot mother. I think she is over-protective. Don’t you agree?ELAINE
I, um-
Elaine looks down at her feet. She is standing in a puddle spreading across the scuffed lino. Valeria moves back round to look at Elaine from behind the door. The lift pings and the doors open. It's a large rectangular service lift, with one long side sheathed in ribbed padded fabric laced to the wall. There are doors at both ends. Elaine turns and scuttles in hunched over the heavy cycler and presses the button for the lowest floor. She faces out to see Valeria moving out to stand full in the open doorway in front of the puddle, watching her with the same wide smile and nodding. Elaine jabs at the door close button. Eventually the doors close on Valeria's gaze and the lift begins to descend.
Elaine stands hunched in the big clanking lift making small keening noises and whispering ‘no’ as the lift vibrates and the illuminated floor numbers slowly descend from 40 to SB. The weight of the cycler seems to be increasing, or her strength is giving out. By the time the lift stops she is crouching, gasping, almost crying with the effort. As the lift jolts Elaine hauls herself upright and the doors begin to open onto what could be a dimly lit underground car park.
CUT TO
INT. CAVE, AFTERNOON
MUSIC: SINGLE CHIME OF GLORY (FINAL MOVEMENT)
Close-up of Elaine’s face. She looks blankly at nothing. She blinks occasionally but is otherwise unmoving. The sound of the stream trickles quietly. This goes on for about a minute. Somehow from Elaine’s face and eyes we eventually get the impression that she is avoiding something, putting something off for as long as possible but thinking about it.
CUT TO
Elaine dragging, rolling, hauling Alan-Bobby’s body onto the hover bike which is lying unpowered on the uneven stony ground beside him. He is difficult to move, big and heavy and stiff. His head is a mess of blackened blood, although his face is still recognisable. His body keeps slipping off when Elaine thinks she’s got it right. She is frustrated, she kicks him. Trying to get the bungee cords around him to hold him in place. Arm flops over, leg flops over, head lolls around and appears to look at Elaine as if to say what are you even trying to do.
ELAINE
What? Are you ever not a pain in the ass?ELAINE
Come on Aybee work with me here you big dumb ass. It’ll be better for both of us.
Eventually she manages to get his body positioned and tied along the length of the bike, using torn strips of cloth as well as the cords.
ELAINE
OK.
She activates the bike and uses the control panel to set it before pressing the start up button. The bike rises off the cave floor slowly on low power, the down force not kicking up much dust. One of Alan-Bobby’s legs starts to flop over the side, Elaine hastily shoves it back in place. The bike hovers nervously, seems to be OK then lurches sideways and flips around so Alan-Bobby is facing the ground, his arms and legs hanging down while his torso remains secured to the bike. A splatter of dark fluid falls out of Alan-Bobby’s mouth onto the ground (Elaine grimaces and looks away) but the bike continues to hover and seems more stable this way.
ELAINE
Fine. Fine.
She squats down to reach the now inverted control panel, presses a series of buttons and the bike increases power and height and slowly pulls out of the cave towards the ledge. As it picks up a little speed it suddenly dips and plunges spinning over the ledge and disappears from view. Elaine rushes out with an annoyed cry and sees the bike rise back up level with the ledge, now correctly oriented. It floats away with an occasional wobble through the valley, Alan-Bobby’s limbs sprawled out and catching on the thorny tops of the bushes.
Elaine shakes her head, watches it go for a while longer, then sighs with relief and turns back to the cave.
CUT TO
INT. CAVE, DUSK
In the grey flat light Elaine sits on her mat looking out at the grey world. After a while she lays down on her back, then sits back up again. She picks up a small tubular device, activates it so it glows with a soft blue-white light, and holds it in her lap with the tip pointed towards her face.
ELAINE
There’ll be hallucinations about being rescued, I know. Croaking thinly ‘no let me die’ (with immense dignity of course) as I’m carried out to the shuttle by great coarse strong disgustingly healthy people in uniforms. With thick necks.Actually it would be a little awkward trying to explain what happened to the others.
You killed them? Why?
They were trying to kill me!
Why?
To stop me.
From doing what?
Dying.
Hmm.
Elaine looks up at the cave mouth. For a moment it looks like Cassie is there in her white dress, trembling upright in a vertical version of the position she was in by the river. She raises her hand in surprise or greeting.
ELAINE
Ca-!
Elaine stops, realising, and makes a small noise, presses her hands to her face, takes them away and Cassie is gone. For the first time she feels the full force of how alone she is.
Elaine curls up in a ball and cries with her head down between her knees.
ELAINE
I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
CUT TO
NIGHT SKY
It is completely dark. We hear the stream and the slow breathing sound of Elaine sleeping peacefully.
A single meteor streaks silently across the sky. After a pause a couple more follow, then a shower criss-crosses the sky. After about a minute the shower tails off and it is completely dark again.
CUT TO
INT. CAVE, DAY
Elaine is drinking water from the cycler with her eyes closed. She looks much thinner now. She drinks litres of water, her throat moves rhythmically like a reptile drinking.
CUT TO
Elaine from behind squatting in the stream, pissing hugely.
CUT TO
Elaine sitting on the mat, the audio recorder cylinder held in her hand, which rests in her lap. After a while she raises her hand as though she is about to speak into the recorder. She holds it up for a longish time, breathing with (emotional?) effort, drops her hand down again despondently. Then she changes her mind, raises the recorder again decisively and speaks into it with some passion, although with diminished strength due to starvation.
ELAINE
If history were not fantasy then one could ask to be remembered. But history is fake, and memories die when you do. Only God remembers, and I don't believe that either. History's always rewritten. Nobody will find this anyway, or you'll have fucking flippers so who the fuck cares.
Elaine weakly flings the recorder away, breathing quickly and angrily. After a while she wills herself to calm down.
ELAINE
Flippers.
CUT TO
INT. CAVE, AFTERNOON
Elaine looks at L.B. who is sitting awkwardly on a rock and is looking back at her. Elaine moves her head around but L.B. remains apparently real and believable. He shifts a bit on the stone trying to find a less uncomfortable position.
Elaine licks her lips, clears her throat. She seems very feeble.
ELAINE
Well what are you doing now? Still teaching? Still preaching? Are you asleep somewhere, visiting me in your sleep?
L.B. looks at her for a while then looks away, hunched and unhappy.
ELAINE
Elbee are you dead?
L.B. continues to look sad, and also as though he’s listening to something. He faces Elaine. When he speaks we hear his words and his facial gestures match them but his mouth doesn’t move.
L.B.
Oh my dear, you’ve committed murder.ELAINE
What? Go away!L.B.
How can I love you if you’ve committed murder?ELAINE
All right don’t then. Don’t. You know it was in self-defence! You saw! I mean you’re made of ectoplasm or whatever. Running into the brush yelling colonise colonise. They were going to force me to have babies. I would have been tied to a tree and raped until I was pregnant. It was mass delusion Elbee, you know what that’s like. So I ran. Yes. I ran away. But they wouldn’t let me be. I had to kill them. Had to.L.B.
Murderer. Just because they annoyed you. You thought they should adapt to you. You never once thought you should try to get on with them. You murdered them because you didn’t like them.ELAINE
Please. That isn’t true.L.B.
You pushed them. You provoked them into doing what you wanted so you could kill them. Because what you wanted, what you’ve always wanted was to be completely alone. So I can’t love you now can I.
Elaine rises very shakily to her feet and approaches L.B. with a few faltering steps.
ELAINE
Liar! Fake! You never loved me. You know it wasn’t like that, it’s all just to destroy me!L.B.
That’s true.ELAINE
Then YOU’RE the killer you bastard!
Elaine tries to swing at L.B. and stumbles near him, falls awkwardly among the cave rubble. She flails, her face down in the dust, then turns her head sideways to see L.B.’s face looming over her, smiling vaguely.
L.B.
God hates you.ELAINE
How do you know?L.B.
I know what you know.ELAINE
You’re not Elbee. What are you? My conscience?
L.B scuttles a little way towards the cave mouth in a very inhuman way.
L.B.
Yes. I am your conscience.ELAINE
Come on, you’re not my conscience.L.B.
I’m not your conscience.
He/it continues to make darting scuttles along the cave wall towards the mouth, still smiling.
ELAINE
Stop! Tell me. Tell me where is Elbee right now?
L.B. stops and turns to Elaine. The smile slides off his face.
L.B.
Don’t know.ELAINE
Who are you?L.B.
You give me such an awful role to play. Because you’re an awful person. Making poor Elbee into your conscience! Of course he never loved you. Who could? Nobody could. I don’t even love you. And you know why? Because you’re bad. Bad bad bad bad bad!
As L.B. speaks this last part his voice changes to Elaine’s. We see Elaine crawling back to her mat bawling out the words, drool bubbling and running from her mouth. L.B. is gone. She slumps onto the mat, weeping.
ELAINE
And now you have to live with this awful, awful woman, this dreadful wretched miserable woman until she dies.
CUT TO
INT. CAVE, DAWN
Elaine lies on her back on the mat in the pink dawn. Her eyes are open, her mouth is slightly open, she is staring straight up and only her shallow breathing shows that she is alive.
CUT TO
Close up of Marilyn, a woman in a dark space, from the shoulders up. Marilyn is in her early 30s, wears large glasses which reflect unseen articifial light so her eyes are barely visible.
Marilyn looks benign, calm. She seems to be using some kind of sign language. She opposes her right forefinger to the third finger of her left hand. Then the third finger to third finger. Then the fourth finger to the same third, left-hand finger. Then she rotates both hands, fingers loosely half-curled like shell. Then she joins one palm to the other, spread fingers to spread fingers.
Marilyn carefully takes off her glasses, places them down somewhere unseen. She makes eye contact with the viewer, touches the collar of her shirt with her fingers together and thumb apart.
CUT TO
Elaine lying in the same position, eyes unblinking. We see she holds an unbroken poison ampoule between her forefinger and thumb.
We hear as from a distance the quiet babble of many voices. Gradually the sound gets louder, it is the sound of people entering an auditorium or concert hall, sitting down and waiting for a performance to start. We hear the buzz of an amplifier being connected up.
After a while a small frown creases Elaine's brow and her eyes suggest she has heard the sounds but doesn't trust them. They die down, replaced by a short period of clapping and then hushed silence. Elaine closes her eyes.
MUSIC: ANALOG MODULAR SYNTHESIZER PERFORMANCE OF TOCCATA AND FUGUE IN D MINOR BY J.S. BACH
As the first notes ring out Elaine's eyes flutter open. She listens for about a minute then manages to prop herself up on her elbows so she can look out at the valley through the cave mouth. This is the last time we see Elaine.
Shots of features of the landscape from various points of view cut in time to the music, as though the components of the landscape are the instruments of an alien orchestra.
As the piece develops the views come from a wider range, taking in places Elaine could not have seen. These include Cassie (the ragged remains of her white dress) by the river, the tree under which Victor died, the dilapidated pod with roof fallen in, the hollow where Valeria died, snow-capped mountains, cliff-top shorelines looking onto vast lakes or seas, grasslands stretching to the horizon, a huge waterfall, swaying forests, and so on.
As the music reaches around the half-way point the shots bring us back to the valley and the winding river. Looking our at the valley from the cave mouth we see a group of six distant figures in brilliant white uniforms approaching on foot along the river bank. They are spread out in pairs over the valley floor.
The figures are too far away to be able to discern their features but they are clearly human or human-like, with unmasked faces. They appear to have backpacks. One of them shades their eyes and points towards the cave, the others seem to agree and they adjust their course to converge and get nearer more purposefully. As they approach we sometimes lose sight of them for short periods, then they re-emerge from behind features in the landscape. They seem confident, strong and capable.
This goes on until the music ends.
CUT TO BLACK
TITLE: WE WHO ARE ABOUT TO
MUSIC: Glory (Final Movement), Caterina Barbieri & Kali Malone
CREDITS