Conflicts of the last progenitors

technology in the world.

A flap CLACKS open on the GRIDBOT; a variable wrench emerges.

Titlecard: 2134

EXT. LONDON - NIGHT

Smoke rises from the crumbling buildings and pyres throughout the city; hover-vans filled with corpses shuttle their fetid burdens through gaping holes in the fly tubes like bugs escaping the bowels of some translucent beast.

FEMALE VOICE (V.O.)

After a prolonged period of intra-

and international peace, a group

named New Purity rose in opposition to the world government. The New

Puritans had no leader, varying

agendas and regularly employed

biological terrorists. The Plague

War began in 2134.

A cloud of gas drifts through the streets; it envelops a group of running TEENAGERS. When it uncovers them, they are covered in ochre-colored hives and SCREAMING.

Titlecard: 2139

5.

EXT. THE BRONX ZOO - DAY

The zoo is silent; dead animals (lions, orangutans, seals), broken cages, leafless trees and human corpses are all a uniform stark white color, stripped of their natural hues.

Nothing moves.

Titlecard: 2142

INT. NORSK HYPERDOME - NIGHT

An enormous blue tarp with silver grid lines covers a slug-shaped mass that is a two-and-a-half miles long and a mile-and-a half wide. Hoses pump pink fluid through apertures in the covering, onto the cyclopean mass beneath; catwalks and raised viewing platforms crisscross the enclosure. ONE

HUNDRED AND NINETY WORKERS in snug, dark blue bodysuits prowl the walkways and ledges, surveying the massive enshrouded burden that nearly filled the hyperdome.

CHIEF BJORLSSON, a tall man of fifty-six with a wiry blond beard and ice blue eyes ringed with fatigue, stands at a podium. Three light blue stars and one green star adorn the breast of his dark blue bodysuit. He and his two assistants, a BLACK WOMAN of thirty-three years and a RED-HAIRED MAN of forty, stare at the luminous screen atop the podium.

SVEN, a tall twenty-year-old with short blond hair, a crooked nose, a blond mustache and greenish-blue eyes, climbs onto the catwalk upon which Chief Bjorlsson and his assistants stand.

SVEN

Chief Bjorlsson.

Chief Bjorlsson looks over at Sven. The young man bows forty degrees; the assistants bow twenty degrees; the Chief bows ten. They all stand upright; the older man’s eyes survey Sven for a moment.

CHIEF BJORLSSON

Don’t eat anything tomorrow. No

coffee either.

Sven’s eyes widen in alarm; he pales.

SVEN

Does...does Mom know?

6.

CHIEF BJORLSSON

No...and don’t tell her: I can’t

deal with her histrionics now. I

need to sleep when I get the rare

opportunity-- not coddle her.

Sven stares in mute disbelief at the Chief; the man does not return his gaze; the two assistants glance furtively at the young man and then back to the luminous podium screen.

CHIEF BJORLSSON (CONT'D)

(to his assistants)

Why are we looking at this?

RED-HAIRED ASSISTANT

Sir, the left scapular region is

90% desiccated.

SVEN

There are ten thousand people who

would rather-

Chief Bjorlsson looks up from the podium monitor and glares coolly at the young man.

CHIEF BJORLSSON

There’s no debate. You surpass all of the qualifications for

Bluebranch: 37 smart marks, Zenith

physical scores and Apex pilot

skills. You’re going. There was

an opening and I volunteered you

before it became known to the

faculty. I want our lineage to

survive.

SVEN

Out there? We don’t even know if

there’s-

CHIEF BJORLSSON

It’s better than staying here

waiting for Cancer Storms, Bleach

Clouds, Aging Mutagens or...or

whatever else the New Puritans

devise. It’s a chance.

SVEN

Then you should go.

CHIEF BJORLSSON

I can’t. I’ve too much left to do

here.

7.

EXT. NORSK HYPERDOM - NIGHT

The enormous three-mile-in-diameter stadium resembles a blue golf ball. The partitioned ceiling lies splayed open like a flower, the petals each thirty-ton flaps of steel. Steam rises from inside as if from a cup of coffee.

FEMALE VOICE (V.O.)

Nobody knew if humanity would

survive the Plague War. But all of the nations were agreed on one

thing: our species must endure, we

cannot let the curtain fall on us

forever.

The grass and trees outside are bleached, limp and drooping.

Festering animals (elk and coyote) lie dead, their open mouths and upraised hooves pushing at the heavy night.

FEMALE VOICE (V.O.) (CONT'D)

In a Scandinavian region

depopulated during the third year

of the Plague War, the Unified

Greater Congress assembled the

finest scientific minds in the

world and had them construct

Elysabeth, a confluence of

Fleischwerk, radio, pneumatic,

sonic, solar and magnetic

technologies.

The sound of spectacularly loud CRACKLING fills the cold air of the devastated region. Motes of light leap from within the Hyperdome. The ground shakes; the bleached, drooping trees loose their few remaining leaves; dead animals implode like dry mulch.

Light more brilliant than the sun flashes inside the Hyperdome. The stadium itself begins to crumble.