THE ALPHA CENTAURI PROJECT SCRIPT by Marco Santini Page A

crowded hall.
    FIRST AID STATION
    The HEALTH OFFICER is attending to patients together
with his team.
    He leaves a little girl to an assistant and runs to
meet them.
    health officer
    I am sorry I cannot receive you better, but here the
situation is critical. We are overwhelmed by new arrivals.
    The hall is crowded with bodies lying on stretchers
and the few staff are working hard in the narrow space.
    HEALTH OFFICER
    Very soon we will not be able to accept patients
anymore. How is the preparation of the clearing hospitals
progressing?
    COLONEL
    According to plan. But shortly they will be full. We
shall be forced to leave the patients in the streets.
    CORRIDOR
    They set out through a corridor packed with
stretchers. On them bodies, with waxen complexions, lie
motionless.
    HEALTH OFFICER
    Many arrive here without an identification code. In
these cases we compare their genetic code with the data in the
registry office, and then we publish their names and try to contact
their relatives. Unfortunately our efforts are almost always in
vain, whole families are usually infected.
    ROOM
    They step into a room where a mother is sobbing over
her son's body.
    HEALTH OFFICER
    Here relatives meet patients.
    A few steps further, a man is asking to take away his
sick wife.
    C573Y
    What do you do then?
    HEALTH OFFICER
    We are happy to discharge the patient. We accept only
those who are without any other assistance.
    beat
    Our medicine is powerless. In my whole career I have
seldom met such serious injury.
    C573Y
    What type of service do you provide?
    HEALTH OFFICER
    Only decent accommodation. This situation humiliates
us, our mission is something else. How is the Computer Science
Institute going with the treatment?
    C573Y
    They are performing the first tests.
    HEALTH OFFICER
    They have been lucky to escape the contagion. How was
that possible?
    C573Y
    During the infection they were in the bunker for a
meeting.
    The guests take their leave.
    EXT. ALPHACITY -- MOMENTS LATER
    Now the situation in the main streets has
improved.
    The victims are laid out in orderly lines on the
sidewalks and the carriageways are crowded with troops and
vehicles.
    The rescue teams are advancing into the side streets
still covered with bodies.
    COLONEL
    Within a few days we will reach everywhere and with a
bit of luck we will have a cure.
    C573Y
    Even worse moments are approaching.
    COLONEL
    Why?
    C573Y
    The virus can reappear at any time. We must destroy
it, but how? As to the treatment, we don't even know whether the
damage is reversible. What is to be said about the fact that the
population has attacked our troops, or that the ships don't respond
to the controls anymore? The real reason is that someone is trying
to take possession of the fleet.
    INT. flagship armory -- MORNING
    Nihil wakes up in a war android, unfastens the belts
holding it against the wall and checks his new body.
    It is black as the one he left on the Earth, but much
bigger and covered with a shield.
    Around him, about one hundred androids are waking
up.
    He puts a rucksack on his back and a few plastic
bombs, then he gathers his followers.
    NIHIL
    I connected to the computer of the ship. Security has
occupied the bridge, but they are only a few. Now we will attack
them.
    The metal wall isolating the armory from the rest of
the ship slides open.
    Nihil points his arm towards the exit and crosses the
threshold. THE SOUND OF FOOTSTEPS echoes down the corridor.
    INT. FLAGSHIP BRIDGE -- MOMENTS LATER
    C573Y is on the bridge, barricaded with five
blue-shielded androids. He looks at the image of the ship.
    The covering dissolves. A hundred lights are rushing
from the armory along a corridor.
    They stop in front of a reinforced door. The officer
magnifies the picture.
    A black android gives orders with such an imperious
tone that all obey in silence.
    He puts some plastic on the lock, and rejoins the
group crouched at safe distance.
    INT. flagship corridor -- CONTINUOUS
    A DETONATION. A raider rushes to