.awakenings.
- from here (except cut for all of Raimi’s parts)
MONITOR ROOM (UNKNOWN)
Two SHADOW MEN (age/details unknown - seen only as mysterious silhouettes) confer in front of a sprawling series of giant video screens. Their conversation is very cryptic - but teases the first hints of a massive technological conspiracy that is quickly moving into place. Cue a barrage of satellite imagery, scientific schematics, global coordinates, power-grid tables, and military reports.
Their conversation closes with talk of an event that is IMMINENT…something that will change the world forever.
Push through a glowing satellite image of the EARTH from high orbit, and shuttle down dramatically to…
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COAST CITY (BIOCOM headquarters)
Camera rush through the tarp-covered roof of the building, through layers of concrete and steel, wiring and dirty secrets, to the programmers’ cubicle farm…where we finally meet:
RAIMI MATTHEWS (25) - a coiled and jaded spring of sarcasm, paranoia, and too much intelligence for one room to contain. Raimi is receiving a disciplinary action from SANDRA TELFER (20+) - the executive assistant, and Raimi’s unrequited office romance. He gets notified of his removal from the big corporate satellite network project he’s been slaving on for months. Raimi protests passionately, and some of the other programmers quietly mock him nearby. Sandra suggests that he should work the rest of the day from home - his computer there can monitor his office hours to make sure he stays on the clock. Reluctantly, he grabs his laptop and some papers, and slowly makes his way out of the office, eyes twitching with frustration and powerlessness…
Raimi rockets down 40+ floors in a glass elevator pod to the BIOCOM lobby, staring out at the sunset silhouette of the sprawling metropolis in the distance. He lights a cigarette, and some office executives in the pod with him begin to cough and point to a No Smoking sign, before a verbal warning from the elevator computer echoes the policy. Raimi stubs out against the security console, the butt falling in sparks between polished shoes…
He emerges into the cavernous BIOCOM lobby - a titanic hall seemingly carved out of marble like a classical cathedral, but with every major surface covered by giant plasma screens and projections showcasing the history, current projects, and future plans for the company: BIOCOM: We Keep You Connected…Inside and Out.
Raimi turns and stares up at the giant statues of the two company founders, and watches a brief ‘infomercial’ about them playing on the wall below. He can’t help but sneer, and strides purposefully through the crowded lobby, and out into the busy city streets. As he walks several blocks to the BIOCOM ‘residences’ (staff apartments), we get our first real look at Coast City - a seemingly modern-day urban utopia with endless reflective glass buildings, digital billboards, monorail transit, etc. But on the street, Raimi passes by filthy alleys and decaying buildings, along with hordes homeless with their hands raised in desperation. He is oblivious to all of it…especially the spray-painted messages of prophecy and doom on the walls nearby. WEEP…THE END IS NIGH.
Raimi’s thoughts become our own - his internal monologue mirrors the key locations that he sees: His thoughts on commerce? Cue the old-fashioned newsstand with vendor, where he buys more cigs and a porn mag. Relationships? We pass the MARS club - a sleazy sex club with hulking bouncers out front. Spirituality? The GNOSIS new-age store is en route too, with its dreadlocked owner milling about behind the glass.
When he finally reaches his building, the doors open automatically. He walks down a sterile hallway with more plasma screens touting BIOCOM propaganda (Work=Life! Free Onsite Medical! Connected with You - ALWAYS!), and reaches a wall of elevators. A cutting-edge hand/eye/brainwave scanner identifies our hero and the elevator opens, greeting him verbally as he enters, and displaying his current health stats on its plasma walls. It whisks him up to a non-descript floor, where a dark unmarked door automatically opens into his apartment. We get the quick tour of his space (slick kitchen with oversized medical fridge, open plan with floor-to-ceiling windows, rebellious artwork, closet-sized bedroom), until he sits down at his monstrous 9-monitor computer rig in the far corner of the flat.
Raimi fires up his PC and loads all the pertinent info - satellite network feeds, co-ordinate stats, stock prices, military conspiracy websites, and (of course) porn - before pinging Sandra through a chat window and starting a video conference. Witty banter and a romantic raincheck are all that come to pass though…Sandra instead sends him some info that will aid in his night’s endeavour - to hack the corporate mainframe. And Raimi really begins to dig…finding extremely curious transmissions bouncing along specific ground-to-satellite communication nodes. He cracks his knuckles, sips some coffee, and digs in for a long night.
His screens form a grid of transmission patterns and locations. A convergence blip is found, but the location makes no sense. It’s too remote to matter…
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RAIMI’S APARTMENT
He’s deeper in the data trail now, uncovering questionable technology ties to unlisted corporate and military partners - a secret arm of BIOCOM’s new project! Raimi’s on fire now…the screens reflected in his glasses, and a look of mischievous obsession owning his face. His fingers slam the key of three keyboards. An inhuman blur…
The satellite map highlights a region just north of TOKYO…
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He can’t believe his eyes now- the level of military involvement in the project is disturbing, and the added technology on the satellite network is raising serious flags: holographic projectors, microwave transmitters, and BIOCOM’s experiment ‘cellular processors’. This is the motherlode. If Raimi’s right, he could bring the whole damn empire crashing down around him…or at least blackmail them for millions. More coffee. Another cigarette. The screens blur like his fingers now. The rig is beyond its design limits - the processors’ wisps of smoke curling up to meet his deep exhale.
The map screen tracks one more NODE on the network…
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There are three flashing red nodes on the BIOCOM satellite map. Raimi scrambles to record the data and exit the server with a series of trapdoors, but his computer goes haywire. The map node over FIJI begins to flash wildly, and the screens become a wall of rolling static.
Raimi tries to unplug his machines, but receives a vicious electric shock. The static morphs into the haunting words:
I see YOU!!!
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The computers scream on all frequencies now, tearing at Raimi’s mind…perhaps his very soul. It’s a unrelenting shriek of horror and despair.
WEEP.
THERE IS NO HOPE.
THE END IS NIGH!!!
The screens flash and his world tumbles and collapses - his vision warping and filling with haunting images of fiery suns and bodies in the streets and the terrible face of some unknown BEING in the sky. The electrical screams build to a terrible crescendo, and Raimi’s body begins to shake and seizure. He can’t run. He can’t call for help…
He can only witness.
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Raimi collapses to the floor with his eyes shocked open. He begins to speak incoherently, as if trying to decode what he has just seen.
I almost touched them…
I almost touched the stars.
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Slow pullbacks from on all characters to show their common fate:
- Shandala twitches helplessly as her clan rushes to help her.
- Kami reaches weakly for the box in the smoky ruins of his home.
- Oran weeps as Hassan bleeds to death, and the silhouettes of military vehicles appear on the horizon.
- Raimi reaches up towards the ceiling. A security camera is watching everything from a fixture overhead, and a control panel in his kitchen signals EMERGENCY.
- A wall of monitors erupts in a flash of static.
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MONITOR ROOM (UNKNOWN)
A lone SHADOW MAN watches events unfold on the glowing green screens. Raimi’s apartment is only one of hundreds of scenes he is observing. The screens flash again to reveal the same satellite map that Raimi was trying to decode.
A NEW SHADOWMAN enters the scene and raises a glass, as if to celebrate:
It was only a matter of time…
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