Conflicts of the last progenitors

completely covered. I wouldn’t be

surprised to learn that they dug

this defile by hand solely to make

a massive slate for new carvings.

Jesca points her button-light at the wall: the image is of pile of sculptors with swollen bellies lying on the ground.

114.

ZRIA

They’re pregnant? Dead?

JESCA

Both, I think.

The group walks forward. Button-lights illuminate etchings of charnel pits within which infants and pregnant sculptors are piled.

JESCA (CONT'D)

It looks like their world was

overheating-- they were dying off

and- maybe because of solar

radiation- they became barren or

unable to carry infants to term.

These might be the last of their

kind in existence.

Zria looks at an engraving of a dead sculptor infant: wavy lines rise from its bowls; dripping fluid runs from its eye sockets.

ZRIA

How’d they get here-- they don’t

seem advanced enough for space

travel.

JESCA

They aren’t.

Jesca shines her button-light on the wall ahead: carved into the steep high wall is an image of outer space: stars, moons, planets and far off nebulas.

Titlecard: Six Days Later

INT. THE HUMAN PLATEAU - DAY

Seventy sweating PEOPLE- many of them shirtless- work on the human plateau. The steel foundations for twelve buildings have been moored into the ground; orange hemispheres (Fleischwerk-run gridbots) scuttle up and down the bones of the future human habitats, drilling rivets.

Eleven people in automuscles carry metal supports from the back of a parked hover-van. The water that the Fleischwerk drones occasionally SPLASH through radiates very little light. (Artificial human spheres brightly illumine the work area.)

115.

Nine BULLETS stand along the plateau edge, amongst them Kenneth and Zria. An automuscle approaches the duo, drops to its knees and flops forward, THWAP. Sven withdraws himself from its back. The young Swede wears light-blue shorts (decorated with two stars), an undershirt and foam-soled socks; he is glazed with sweat.

Sven and Zria bow twenty degrees; Kenneth bows thirty. They stand. Zria turns back to face the sculptors’ city.

KENNETH

Congratulations on the second star.

SVEN

You should’ve gotten one too. We

risked our lives to make this

happen.

KENNETH

Lo-Cheun said I talked too much--

it disturbed his thinking.

SVEN

He’s a real charmer, that-

A loud, disharmonic chorus of EERIE NOTES reverberates in the massive cavern. The Bullets stand at attention; the builders stop their activities.

Zria, Kenneth and Sven look at the metropolis below. The distant blank faces of sculptors stare up at them; the EERIE

NOTES continue, unabated.

One hundred yards north of Zria, five SCULPTORS clamber onto the human plateau. The Bullets before the humanoids hold their position, wary. Zria TAPS her earplug.

ZRIA

Ready, but do not raise.

(to Kenneth)

Let’s go.

Zria and Kenneth CLICK off their j-gun safeties and calmly (albeit quickly) stride toward their comrades.

ZRIA (CONT'D)

Florida. Get to the border. Five

neighbors. Maybe hostile.

Mere yards away from the line of Bullets, the five advancing sculptors stop; they peer down at the humans from inscrutable black eye sockets.

116.

The humanoids WAIL, blaring discordant pitches through the first mesh-covered bowls on their left shoulders. The Bullets wince at the explosive noise.

Zria and Kenneth join their comrades; Sven and every other human stares fixedly at the opposing forces.

From over the edge come two more sculptors; each carrying the inert body of another sculptor. Fifty yards away, Sven shakes his head.

The two humanoid burdens are laid upon the ground. Zria looks at the prostrated sculptors: their skin has become flaccid and white and is covered with hives. From the third bowls atop the sick ones’ shoulders, ochre ichor leaks. They WHEEZE terrible pitches.

The foremost healthy sculptor reaches into a slit in its own belly. The Bullets become even more agitated.

ZRIA (CONT'D)

Hold.

The sculptor withdraws two human statues from its inner pouch. The eleven-foot tall humanoid gently places the human icons upon the rising and falling, hive-covered chests of the sick ones.

ZRIA (CONT'D)

They’re saying we did this-- that

we made those two sick.

Two hundred yards away, Sven runs; he SPLASHES through luminous water toward a parked hover-van.

ZRIA (CONT'D)

Warning shots only. Florida get

over here. And get an anthro as qu-On long, backward-bending legs, the sculptors descend upon the human front line.

The Bullets fire warning shots over their heads, CH-CHAK, CH-CHAK, CH-CHAK. The sculptors are not deterred.

The foremost attacker sweeps its overlong right arm in a wide arc; its nine claws open and eviscerate three Bullets.

ZRIA (CONT'D)

180!

The Bullets turn to run; talon-tipped fingers rake the face of a fleeing JAPANESE BULLET; his skin falls away like loosened orange peel.

117.

ZRIA (CONT'D)

Do we have Killcall? Goddammit, do we-A ONE-ARMED SCULPTOR swings its lone hand at Zria; she ducks the blow and rolls away.

Nine talons penetrate the face of a SHOUTING ARAB BULLET, the points emerging from the rear of his head.

ZRIA (CONT'D)