Fictional Motion Picture Screenplay

© Darren White 1999. All Rights Reserved.

" glorious "

b y

d a r r e n w h i t e

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Excerpt of glorious:

© 1999 Darren White

AVERY

Oh, let’s not get into some endless psycho-babble debate. What is this? I think therefore I die?

IRIS

I just don’t see why it has-

An angry siren interrupts IRIS. RALPH stares at the display,

RALPH

Oh, shit.

EXT. SPACE, ALPHA ORIONIS SUN, DARK

The dark-red, planet-sized sun burns coldly in the infinite void. A huge fluffy, candyfloss ball of orange particles shimmers in the diameter the sun used to inhabit. A darker core of near-iron throbs in its cold heart.

Suddenly, without warning, the star shrinks violently, in less than the blink of an eye, from tens of thousands of kilometres across to only a few hundred. As it does so, the force of its own gravity, itself converting into heat, rips apart the work of over eleven million years of nuclear fusion. The outer globe, its floor pulled from under it, falls in at a quarter of the speed of light as the star shrinks instantaneously.

It shrinks further, squeezing all that mass into a ten kilometre diameter neutron star, essentially a single atomic nucleus. It burns darkly, the stars around it rising to new intensities and seeming to move in as gravity wells contort. The centre of the neutron ball is compressed to densities even greater than those in a nucleus, and a long second later the centre rebounds against the pressure. It pops out, expanding furiously with new light and vigour until it meets the collapsing outer ball head on.

The combining energies burn with the first real anger of the process, erupting out in a new outburst of light. At the centre of the sphere, the star burns and contracts. An energetic ball of neutrinos ripples out from it, visible only by the particles they displace, climbing out to eventually join the first, stalled eruption.

In the ten seconds that follow the core shrinks to just a twenty kilometre ball of black neutrons, the first eruption stalls at the surface of the sun - burning and fizzing on the chromosphere’s skin - and the neutrino burst, gaining speed and rising in amplitude eventually smashes into the burning mass of the outer star at the speed of light, completing the job of blowing the outer layers of the star completely away.

The star explodes spherically out, in a totally white flash, taking a huge percentage of its remaining mass with it. The erupting white-hot ball seems to repeat the burst of the earlier Matter / Anti-matter drive but on an enormous scale, with powerful eddies and flares raging in its shell. Mass and energy caught in the void between the tiny core and the outer eruption is simply pulled apart.

The huge globe of erupted, ejected mass speeds out frightening quickly, expanding spherically at a twentieth of the speed of light - a distance consuming half a million miles each and every minute. Alpha Orionis, otherwise known as Betelgeuse, known to the scientists as intended Super-Nova candidate Seven, has become the Universes’ latest and deadliest natural disaster.

INT. CENTRAL CONTROL CHAMBER, PURGATORY OBSERVATORY, DARK

The siren blares around the dirty chamber.

AVERY

Oh, my God.

McCREEDY

What is it? What’s happened?

RALPH

A huge x-ray flash!

McCREEDY

Signifying?

RALPH

Signifying that magnetic fields got tangled and then `reconnected`, liberating lots of energy, leading to a huge outburst of x-rays! Just as we predicted!

McCREEDY

But it doesn’t mean anything else, right?

RALPH

Just as we predicted!

IRIS

You calculations were correct! What a discovery!

FAITH

Except that it’s not your discovery.

(points at the incredulous PATIENCE)

It’s hers.

McCREEDY

Yes, but it doesn’t mean anything else, right?

AVERY

It means that the sun just went Supernova.

McCREEDY turns to the windows, the star burns as a tiny red speck in the distance.

McCREEDY

It can’t have. It looks the same. Look at it!

AVERY

That’s old light. Light from the Supernova won’t reach us for over ten minutes.

PATIENCE is still staring opened mouthed at the displays.

PATIENCE

RALPH, you were right.

MICHEALS

PATIENCE is this alarm what I think it is?

PATIENCE

Sure is. It’s something RALPH or IRIS must have rigged. It was set off by-

MICHEALS

Tell me later. How long do we have?

PATIENCE

Roughly about-

GABRIELS

Twenty-seven minutes. I worked it out beforehand.

MICHEALS

Oh, Jesus, that’s not long. Right, we need to get the fuck out of here now! You get back to the Wings and prime them.

PATIENCE

No, I still haven’t finished the up-link.

MICHEALS

Sorry, but we don’t have time.

PATIENCE

(considers)

OK. Conceded.

MICHEALS

OK. See you all back at the Wings.

PATIENCE kills the link and run to the wall panel. She unclips the last storage device and begins to pull it from the wall.

AVERY

Don’t do it. The human race needs all this data.

FAITH

She can’t hear you.

AVERY

Put the storage unit back and complete the up-link.

PATIENCE pauses, then pushes the device confidently back into its socket and reactivates it.

AVERY

Good girl!

She races to the console and begins to frantically tap at the keys.

FALL

Now I don’t know about the rest of you, but when she leaves, I’m going with her. I don’t know what the fuck’s going on here, but I’m not sticking around to find out.

SACHS

She’s right. I’m going too.

McCREEDY

Yeah, me too. Anyone else?

RALPH and IRIS nod quickly in agreement. FAITH thinks for a second and then shrugs in resigned agreement.

RALPH

What about you AVERY? You’re coming right?

AVERY

No, it’s over. I’m staying.

PATIENCE moves between them to the console on the wall and pulls out the last storage device. She places it in her bag and zips it up.

RALPH

But you’ll die here.

AVERY

I’m already dead, remember?

PATIENCE gives the room one last lingering look then turns and hurries from it.

FAITH

Come on. We have to stay close to her.

IRIS

He’s right. Only she can open doors.

They rush off in her wake, following her closely. RALPH stares back at AVERY as he leaves.

RALPH

Good luck.

AVERY

It’s not about luck. It’s about faith from here on in.

RALPH gives him a puzzled look, but the others pull him hurriedly away. AVERY turns and looks out towards the faint, distant sun. A painful smile crosses his face.