Conflicts of the last progenitors

The gray, lopsided, glistening giant disappears into the darkness.

Sven stands up, wipes his bloody palms on his bodysuit and faces the party.

SVEN

I think...I think th-that was...an

invitation.

JESCA

I concur.

96.

LO-CHEUN

We follow it inside.

(to Jesca)

It came outside. Can we use

lights?

JESCA

Yes, but just one for now...and

don’t shine it in their eyes.

The party files up behind the Swede. Zria, using her thermal, peers inside.

ZRIA

They just disappeared. Looks like

the cave slopes down.

Lo-Cheun walks up to Sven.

LO-CHEUN

You okay to continue?

Sven nods. Lo-Cheun reaches to Sven’s belt and CLIPS on a small button-light. The Chinese man CLICKS the clear hemisphere on; a dagger of blue luminance shines into the darkness ahead.

Lo-Cheun points into the doorway. Sven leads the rendezvous party inside.

INT. RAMPED HALLWAY - SAME

The sextet moves down the gradually sloping hallway; the light from outside diminishes as they ingress.

ABACUS

(looking up)

Zria. You see those?

Abacus points to the ceiling, upon which scramble barely-discernible serpentine shapes. Zria tilts her head back and squints her right eye.

ABACUS (CONT'D)

What color are their thermal

images?

SVEN

Blue and violet.

97.

ABACUS

Cold-blooded.

(to Zria)

And the big ones earlier?

ZRIA

Mostly orange. Some red.

Upon foam-soled boots, the sextet continues inside; the passage gradually curves away from the light...into heavy darkness. The dim CLACKS of the humanoids’ toe talons report from the black.

LO-CHEUN

Zria, light on.

Zria CLICKS on her button-light: the tightly focused beam darts up the passage, past the throw of Sven’s light, onto the three gray escorts two-hundred feet ahead.

The humanoids- seemingly unmindful of their human followers-stride down the cavern, their lopsided gait consistent and quick. A moment later, they disappear around a corner.

The sextet presses on. Sven’s breath steams before him.

SVEN

It’s cooler down here.

Abacus wipes moisture from his face.

ABACUS

And wetter.

LO-CHEUN

Bullets. Ready for an ambush.

Zria unfastens her j-gun; Kenneth withdraws his springblade; Lo-Cheun fingers his skull-embossed coilgun.

INT. CORKSCREWING PASSAGE - SAME

Bullets first, the sextet enters the curved and declining passage. The Chinese man surveys the area for a moment, then points forward.

LO-CHEUN

Bjorlsson, back up front.

Sven walks past the Bullets to take the lead, his button-light divining the ever-curving hall ahead.

98.

The wary party strides down the winding passage, their SHUFFLING footsteps reverberating.

LO-CHEUN (CONT'D)

(to Jesca)

Could this passage possibly be

natural?

JESCA

Very, very unlikely.

ABACUS

I’d bet one month’s carrot paste

they scraped this away with those

giant claws of theirs. You see

those things?

The sextet continues down the spiraling passage; Sven and Zria’s lights are two thin blades of luminance thrust into the heavy ink all around them.

JESCA

Point one of your lights to the

ceiling.

Sven plucks the button-light from his belt and aims it up: carved into the dark gray stone is a relief image, a very detailed scrollwork of trees with enormous leaves, coiled tentacles and strange spiky fruit. Jesca points her lensring at the images.

LO-CHEUN

We don’t want to lose our hosts.

Go.

The young Swede reattaches the button-light to his belt and continues forward. He pauses for a moment and squints.

SVEN

I think I see a light up ahead.

LO-CHEUN

Statues. Lights off.

The party stops; Sven CLICKS off his light; Zria CLICKS off hers. A weak green glow shines beyond the bend.

LO-CHEUN (CONT'D)

Lights on and forward.

Zria and Sven CLICK their lights back on and continue down.

99.

INT. PLATFORM / ENTRANCE - SAME

The rendezvous party emerges from the downward-corkscrewing passage into an oval-shaped room. A thirty-foot-wide portal stands before them, its edges delineated by an ornate frame.

Steam- illuminated by the green light beyond- billows forth.

Zria points her light at the frame: wrought in exquisite detail within the stone are the same strange trees with giant leaves, coiled tentacles and spiky fruit. Climbing the trees are the lopsided humanoids-- tiny specks upon massive arboreal pillars.

Sven looks through a pocket in the roiling vapors.

SVEN

There’s a ledge.

INT. THE LEDGE - SAME

Lit by the dim green glow, Sven walks near the edge of the ledge and looks at the vista laid before him. One thousand feet below- in the center of an underground cavern so large that none of its far walls are even visible- is a city carved in stone, illuminated by glowing green rivers that branch throughout it like luminous veins. Steam hangs over the vast territory; blue sparks flash intermittently within the buildings and the streets.

Zria, Lo-Cheun, Jesca, Kenneth and Abacus join Sven and momentarily marvel at the subterranean metropolis of lumpy buildings, indirect pathways and winding bridges. Tall trees sculpted in stone stand in clusters-- mock forests.