Conflicts of the last progenitors

GRUNTING and straining, the two men set the u-transmitter on the ground with a loud CLUNK.

The Bangladeshi Woman walks toward a swollen, eight-foot tall gray ‘body’ prostrated face-down on the floor, its arms outstretched, ready for crucifixion. The woman kneels within its back, slides her arms and legs inside the corresponding apertures and ultimately lies flush within it. She wriggles for a moment and then- enveloped by the Fleischwerk AUTOMUSCLE- rises.

The Arabic Man and Rectangle clear away from the u-transmitter.

Upright, the automuscle resembles a bulbous 1960s astronaut, wrought out of Fleischwerk and covered with veins; five human eyes and three powerscopes observe from the front and sides of its head; a speaker sits where a mouth would be. The torso is peppered with button-lights (the orange ones currently blink) and small ‘shelves’; each arm terminates with a thick ‘mitten,’ and outlined within each mitten is a small hand.

The Bangladeshi fluidly walks the automuscle to the u-transmitter and with the mittens, lifts the heavy steel device as easily as if she were cupping air. With the optics of the automuscle, the woman inside inspects the transmitter.

BANGLADESHI WOMAN

(through the speaker)

You’re supposed to remove this

piece.

The hand within the right mitten emerges, closes its thumb and index finger on a piece of orange plastic jutting from the u-transmitter and SNAPS it off.

111.

INT. CORKSCREWING PASSAGE - SAME

A u-transmitter juts from the wall of the cavern, its green light slowly pulsing.

INT. THE HUMAN PLATEAU - DAY

The human plateau is raised relative to the sculptors’ dug-in metropolis; luminous water runs irregularly over the rise, into the city below. Thirty Bluebranch BUILDERS (men and women of varying races) inhabit the territory: five operate automuscles, two drive flypods and the rest labor with power tools. Nine BULLETS stand at the edge of the rise, looking down at the sculptors domain.

Florida TAPS his earplug.

FLORIDA

Armadillo-6, this is Florida.

Receiving?

The Native American grins.

FLORIDA (CONT'D)

You too. Clear as if you were

right next to me.

An automuscle carrying sixteen metal rods (operated by a BLACK WOMAN) walks by the Senior.

FLORIDA (CONT'D)

Transmitters are up.

The automuscle operator pauses.

BLACK WOMAN

Order some Chinese food. Egg foo

yung, lo mein, whatever-- as long

as it’s got shrimp and roast pork.

FLORIDA

Well...I think they’ve got some

General Tso’s protein paste up in

orbit.

The woman departs.

The Bullet Senior returns his gaze to the sculptor’s city.

At the perimeter of the metropolis, upon the tallest towers, stand twenty-six sculptors. EERIE PITCHES sound from the watchers, yet they remain still.

112.

FLORIDA (CONT'D)

Osiyo!

Florida waves at the sculptors.

FLORIDA (CONT'D)

Osiyo! Hello!

The sculptors do not in any way acknowledge his gesture.

An IRISHMAN operating an automuscle carries a nine-foot cubical crate across the plateau, SPLASHING in the luminous fluid. The moment the Fleischwerk contacts the glowing water, the green radiance diminishes.

The darkened water runs from the raised human plateau toward the sculptors’ metropolis.

Titlecard: Three Days Later

INT. THE SCULPTORS’ METROPOLIS - DAY

Jesca, her ASSISTANT- a young white man with African masks tattooed on his left cheek and two blue stars on his chest-and Zria climb out of a Flypod parked at the perimeter of the steamy metropolis.

JESCA

Over there.

The anthropologist Senior points to an area adjacent to the city. From the darkness beyond, a lone sculptor rises. It scrapes its claws against the stone (eliciting blue sparks), sings an eerie TONE and turns around.

The trio walks toward the escort.

INT. THE WINDING CRACK - LATER

Lathered with sweat, Jesca, her Assistant and Zria walk down the curvilinear defile; the passage twists like a drunken serpent. Thin runnels carved into the floor channel the water that illuminates the elaborately-engraved environs.

Button lights illuminate the walls: they are covered with giant trees (bearing spiky fruit and tentacles), innumerable sculptors and vast sculptor metropolises.

113.

JESCA

This area likely depicts their

halcyon period.

INT. THE WINDING CRACK - MOMENTS LATER

The trio wends through the defile, the luminous water and their button-lights shining upon the wall engravings: the sculptors, trees and metropolises are on fire; the sky is filled with smoke.

INT. THE WINDING CRACK - MOMENTS LATER

The trio continues forward, eyes and lights surveying the surfaces of both walls. Within Jesca’s circle of luminance is the image of a sculptor holding a dead sculptor infant in the air.

JESCA

Let’s slow our pace-- this is where Tim and I left off yesterday.

Jesca and Tim turn on their lensrings and point them at the walls.

ZRIA

You think all of this says

something meaningful?

JESCA

I think it’s their history-- or

what they believe to be their

history: I doubt they are developed enough for purely fictitious

pursuits.

ZRIA

Why put it down here-- ran out of

space in their city?

JESCA

Yes-- the surfaces there are