EPISODE 1 - THE BIG MESS

ACT I (TEASER) - SIX FEET UNDER

Music Rhythm for the Teaser (ACT I): "CtrlAltDel" by BONES

https://youtu.be/kM8LC3Nj7-s

COMPUTER SCREEN (black "DejaVu Sans Mono" font characters over sepia background):

The magnetic poles' reversal came true in 2044 - the year of The Big Mess.

In an attempt to use Earth's core energy to unlock deep space voyages, scientists of tech corporations triggered the final blast to our planet.

Quoting Eel Mars, founder and CEO of the Space-Bow Corp, "Mankind fucked up".

The characters liquefy covering the background with black.

A vision of Earth from space, a yellowish planet where continents are separated by semi-dried oceans.

SUPERIMPOSE: 2079. Planet Earth has its days numbered.

SCENE 1 - EXT. MELTING POT - DAY

The image google-earths from space towards the ground, until it intercepts a patrolling drone. The 8K-camera drone flies over silent skeletons of crystal skyscrapers, that leave room for tiny houses while following a road through the suburbs.

The UAV keeps riding out of the mega-city, targeting one of the few moving vehicles. A bus - number 77.

The lens switches to a road sign: "You are leaving Melting Pot - Capital of the European Cluster". Below it someone spray-painted in red: "May God help us all".

The bored drone gains altitude revealing a small town, a satellite of Melting Pot, dominated by two huge and severe concrete buildings. A last zoom by the 8K-camera shows a lonely man leaving the town on foot.

Another road sign informs the visitors that this is BRIG TOWN. But it ain't welcome them.

SCENE 2 - EXT. BRIG TOWN PENITENTIARY - DAY

One of the two mammoth buildings - high walls surrounded by security cameras and turrets. A penitentiary entrance, a massive steel door surrounded by an arch with some letters:

THE BRIG ♀

To the right of the main gate, stands a Lilliputian wooden door. It opens. SKY (49) steps out and stretches her body - the green crop top highlighting her flat stomach - while the door shuts back clanging and creaking together with the woman's bones.

Sky covers her eyes from the interrogation–room-like aggressive sunlight, then she wears black sunglasses with the other hand. She stares around and finally moves her milky white legs, a military green backpack on her shoulders.

SCENE 3 - EXT. BRIG TOWN BUS STOP - DAY

Sky approaches a covered bus stop granting some shadow to a sitting YOUNG RED HAIR WOMAN (29).

She nods her head - unanswered - lights up a cigarette and starts inhaling, slightly coughing at first. Bus-77 bangs through the road followed by heavy clouds of dust.

SKY
Seventy-seven. My bus.
(inhales)
It seems my lucky day.

YOUNG RED HAIR WOMAN
Luck -- my ass! Three hours sitting and still fucking counting.

Sky puts the cigarette out on the ground, and starts climbing the bus. She stops, looks at the woman and throws her pack and lighter towards her. The woman makes a clean catch and nods with a smile.

The bus leaves space for a sun-faded billboard on the other side of the road:

Space-Bow Corp
The Road To Our Future
A smiling photograph of Eel Mars

SCENE 4 - EXT. MELTING POT PLAYGROUND - DAY

The very same billboard in a silent skateboard playground.

OMER (49), EVA (49) and ALEX (49) are sitting on the edge of a ramp, holding their skates. A fourth board is next to them.

OMER
It is one-hundred percent illogical to play skate-ball under this sun.

EVA
We need to celebrate her release, Omer. Bury your logic and embrace romanticism!

OMER
I understand but -- I mean -- this planet is facing the worst damn water shortage since The Big Bang. Romanticism will not prevent us from dehydrating.

ALEX
(searching his backpack)
But my chemistry yes...

Alex takes out a thermos, he is smiling.

A shadow slowly stretches over them, then a lightning-fast hand steals the thermos from Alex's hand. They spring to their feet facing the intruder.

SKY
(spinning the thermos)
Weeds never die out, Alex. You're still the same Ukrainian genius, mate.

Sky throws the thermos back to Alex, then warmly hugs a toothy-smiling Eva.

EVA
Look who's talking, Miss Sky Troublemaker!

Alex and Omer tightly embrace the two women, forming a circle.

SKY
What about Paco and Akua? Too busy eating burritos and cheesecakes?

The sad answer is silently shouted by her friends staring at their toes.

ALEX
The fucking outbreak --

EVA
-- With the new laws, you get sick and you get no medicines. They just let you die.

OMER
The Reinforcement Law. Understandable if you want to strengthen our species. But we buried them --

SKY
-- Jesus Christ! Good that you didn't leave them drying under the fucking sun. So human...

OMER
I'd not classify it as human. I'd rather consider it necessary to avoid additional diseases.

EVA
Shut the hell up Omer, please.

Eva's words fade into a dull rumble that shakes the ground.

EVA
Guess that's not a thunder, right?

The four friends grab a skateboard each. Eva collects a ball from the ground.

ALEX
Nope. Our dear old Earth kinda shitting its pants off.

SKY
We failed again, ain't we?

They all hang their eyes to the ground, thoughtful.

SKY
Holy shit. This is what? Our twentieth attempt? Twenty-first?

OMER
Nineteenth. The result is always the same - our planet gets nuked.

EVA
And this time we lost two of us. We should improve each jump we make, but instead, we move like shrimps.

ALEX
Slowly?

SKY
Backwards. Omer, we are missing a piece in the picture. What about your fucking A.I.?

OMER
Lexa - she has a name. And she is an M.T.A.I. - Multiverse Traveling AI. In between, she agrees with you.

SKY
(crossed arms)
-- So? Any shred of explanation?

OMER
It is complicated.

EVA
Let me simplify it. If I press here...

Eva steps pushing her weight on the skateboard tip.

EVA
I expect the board to lift on the other side --

SKY
-- But?

EVA
But, unfortunately, in our case, the exact opposite happens.

She presses the other skate tip, till it touches the ground.

ALEX
The piece we are missing is a kind of singularity, a huge mass. A planet, maybe.

SKY
The fucking Big Mess. We need Lexa to push us further back on the timeline.

OMER
(as a machine gun)
No way, no way, I say no way. We would not be able to keep our memories if we move that much back. No way.

EVA
We must.

OMER
Don't you all understand? I programmed the M.T.A.I years after the Big Mess! What if I don't invent it again?

A sound from the smartwatch on Omer's wrist.

LEXA (AI VOICE)
Omer. There is a possibility. I may encrypt myself and run my routines in shadow mode, in the back of your Lexa's first prototype.

OMER
No way, again and again. It is too risky. I may format Lexa for any stupid reason and you would pass from shadow to oblivion mode.

Sky grasps his shoulder.

SKY
We are a democracy. We vote.
(raises her arm)
Who's with me? Eva?

EVA
(raises her arm)
Count me in.

They all look at Alex.

ALEX
Fuck, I don't know. It's too risky.
(he smiles raising his hand)
But I love risk.

Omer sighs hopelessly.

OMER
But --

The Earth's gut roars once again.

SKY
-- Time-out time-out, give us a break genie. We decided and it is now time to honor Paco and Akua on our skates, till Earth lets us.

ALEX
Hundo P! Two-on-two women against men?

Alex and Omer, still annoyed, high-five. Eva looks straight into Sky's eyes. Then she makes a sudden movement with her board and shoots the ball up in the air. Alex immediately challenges Sky, getting a middle finger back on his face.

ALEX
The Brig got your bones rusty, Sky.

Another rumble shakes them for a blink.

They sprint skating towards the ball through the up and downs of the playground.

SKY
(to Alex)
Eat my dust dandy!

Another dull sound from the ground. But this time God is slowly rotating the volume up.

The Eel Mars' billboard moves "earthquaking" up and down...

SCENE 5 - EXT. BRIG TOWN BUS STOP - DAY

The rumble volume wheel keeps rotating clockwise.

The red hair woman is still sitting, smoking and waiting. A jolting movement of the bench makes her jump in the air and then fall back on her ass. She leans over towards her fallen cigarette.

YOUNG RED HAIR WOMAN
Bloody hell!
(looking up to the sky)
Lord, this is my first day off the Brig! You feel me, Lord? Feel me?

The volume mutes. Icy silence.

YOUNG RED HAIR WOMAN
(proudly)
Yeah, God feels me --

The last pinch of icy silence.

Then the ground tears apart and swallows the bus stop. The red hair woman screams while disappearing into the earth's bowels, fading into the darkest black.

SCENE 6 - EXT. MELTING POT - PLAYGROUND - DAY

Eva and Sky are celebrating after scoring a goal.

ALEX
Guys -- this silence is weird. So thick we may cut it into slices.

The two women freeze. Omer touches his elbow, the hairs on his arms standing up.

A blast wave suddenly hits and pushes them down into a ramp. Omer falls on his belly, the others on their back. They are facing the opposite direction with respect to Omer.

OMER
Are you all in one piece?

No answer.

OMER
Guys?

Eva, Sky, and Alex are stoned. Terrified.

EVA
(in Italian)
Cazzo cazzo cazzo! We have to move move move, now noooow!

She doesn't. Nobody does.

ALEX
We are fucking screwed.

Omer finally turns to understand what --

OMER
What the fuck is that?

SKY
You tell us.

An immense wave of ground, the size of a mountain, is cutting the distance at the speed of sound.

Omer starts tinkering with his smartwatch.

OMER
(to the smartwatch)
Lexa? Activate it now!

LEXA (AI VOICE)
Do you mean activate M.T.A.I.? The encryption process is still at 85%.

The mountain is running to Muhammad.

OMER
Correct Lexa, activate M.T.A.I.

LEXA (AI VOICE)
Encryption process at 89% --

The mountain is fucking close.

OMER
-- Lexa, listen to me. The Earth is six feet under. We all are. Activate M.T.A.I. NOW!

LEXA (AI VOICE)
Encryption process at 95%.

OMER
See you somewhere in the past, Lexa -- Inshallah.

The mountain is here, crumbling the city. A crackly sound explodes.

The last day of our planet is over.

SCENE 7 - EXT. SPACE - DAY

The Earth from space.

FIRST SUPERIMPOSE COMPUTER SCREEN:

M.T.A.I. software code running; the characters scrolling down super fast. Then they stop - ENCRYPTION COMPLETED. TIME SHIFT PROCEDURE READY. YEAR 2044 DATA ACQUIRED. ACTIVATING...

The Earth cracks open, ripped from pole to pole into two semi-spheres that start rotating until they look like two circles touching each other. An infinity symbol - the TV serial logo.

SECOND SUPERIMPOSE:

Kidz over the Earth left semi-sphere. Bones over the right one.

The crackly sound continues.

END OF ACT ONE