INT. OVAL OFFICE - NIGHT
A round mahogany table in a dimly lit room. The Presidential
seal leers down on a dozen generals and bureaucrats.
Computer screens flicker and scroll an endless stream of
data. The President taps a note pad with a ballpoint pen.
PRESIDENT
Update.
GENERAL #1
Four thousand five hundred dead,
Mr. President. Bridges into the
city are out. Side roads
impassable. Power, water, all out.
PRESIDENT
Stop. You.
BUREAUCRAT #1
Survivors gathering at the
Convention Center.
PRESIDENT
Number?
BUREAUCRAT #1
Thirty thousand. Dozens of deaths
every hour. Looting, raping,
lawlessness.
PRESIDENT
Go.
GENERAL #2
We've dispatched haz-mat teams from
McClellan. Eight thousand men,
armaments, vehicles. Arrives
tomorrow morning.
PRESIDENT
Status.
BUREAUCRAT #2
Administration approval rating down
twenty-four points. Friendly news
media replaying your speeches from
three days ago. Unfriendly media
calling for your resignation. The
region went solidly against us in
the last election.
PRESIDENT
I know.
GENERAL #1
Sir, we need a go no-go.
The President sighs. He caps the ballpoint pen.
EXT. CONVENTION CENTER - NIGHT
Urban hell on earth. Fires burn; people attack one another
with sticks, knives. Stampeding, glass breaking, an idiot
melange of screaming.
A woman clutches a wailing baby in her arms and dodges
bullets. A bleeding man staggers into her; she pushes him
away with a shriek.
Four men surround her. They carry guns and knives. One man
swings a pipe experimentally.
A new, mechanical sound: the distant hum of rotary engines.
The chaos pauses and the people look up.
WOMAN
Food!
MAN
Water!
Helicopters appear over the black city skyline. Their blue
searchlights scan the destruction.
The mob stops fighting, drops their weapons. People flag the
helicopters, shouting with joy.
INT. PRESS ROOM - DAY
Bright sun through the windows. The President shuffles
papers behind a podium. A makeup artist touches his nose
with a powder puff.
PRODUCER
We're on in five.
PRESIDENT
I'll rehearse.
EXT. CONVENTION CENTER - DAY
Helicopters slowly descend upon the crowd. The faces of the
people, smiling, shouting, waving, gather around beneath
them.
PRESIDENT (V.O.)
My fellow Americans...
Our woman's face. She looks at the helicopters, thinks...
then turns, and begins to run.
PRESIDENT (V.O.)
I have consulted with the governors
and the mayors of the affected
region...
A milky white powder billows from canisters on the sides of
the helicopters.
PRESIDENT (V.O.)
And unfortunately, despite the best
efforts of the state and federal
authorities...
As the powder hits the people, they crumple and fall like
narcoleptics -- silently, suddenly, as if poleaxed.
PRESIDENT (V.O.)
No survivors have been found.
EXT. BLIND ALLEY - NIGHT
The baby in her arms still screaming, our woman cuts down a
back alley. She runs into a blind end: a door, a metal
Dumpster, three brick walls.
PRESIDENT (V.O.)
We will be tireless in our efforts
to overcome this disaster...
She wrenches at the locked doorknob -- useless.
PRESIDENT (V.O.)
We will not falter and we will not
fail.
A familiar mechanical drone. The baby wails. Our woman
looks up, and as she does a dark helicopter fills the sky
above the alley.
PRESIDENT (V.O.)
And though there has been great
misery and pain...
She wildly looks around her, sees the Dumpster.
PRESIDENT (V.O.)
I believe we as Americans can rise
to the challenge.
She looks up. From the woman's POV, a billowy cloud
envelops us, and we are in sudden perfect white silence,
except for the President's voice...
PRESIDENT (V.O.)
Through this challenge, we will
discover our capacity for
greatness.
FADE TO:
EXT. CONVENTION CENTER - MORNING
Morning, gray and fine. Camouflaged army troops, bearing
rifles, pick their way through innumerable piles of corpses.
Smoking, charred rubble, overturned cars.
PRESIDENT (V.O.)
It will take more than weeks or
months. It will take years.
EXT. ALLEY WAY - MORNING
An Army grunt wanders down the alley. He shoulders his
rifle. Our woman lies in the alley. He nudges her hand with
his boot.
PRESIDENT (V.O.)
It will cost billions. We will
find the money.
A tiny, reverberating cry.
PRESIDENT (V.O.)
For a time, my fellow Americans, we
will mourn. But then...
The grunt turns toward the Dumpster. Tentatively, he lifts
the lid, and we hear a baby's cry...
PRESIDENT (V.O.)
We will rebuild.
CUT TO BLACK.
What a field day for the heat
Published
Nice one John. So, I’m not the only one who finds the wildly varying death-tolls (between 248 and 45000), strange news reports of police firing in Engineers, that are then reversed to say that the police fired on other people who were (for unknown reasons) attacking the Engineers, and the coincedence of two police officers commiting suicideat the same time, in the same way, a little odd?
Can you say "Resident Evil"? ;^>