BY Peter Krzywiec
FOR SALE
It is based on a short story of the same title by Peter K. from his S-F book “The Pulse of a Nightmare” as well as his grandfather’s memories from his imprisonment in a Soviet concentration camp [gulag] during the Second World War.
SCENE INDEX:
1. THE JUDGMENT DAY [ALLAH AHBAR]
2. THE PLAGUE
3. ZONE 13
4. THE SCUM OF THE EARTH
5. FIRST MISSION [BATTLE WITH THE DRAGONRATS]
6. DISINFECTION
7. ELYSIUM
8. BATTLE IN THE RUINS OF KREMLIN
9. ELYSIUM II
10. HOOKERS
11. EVACUATION
12. SEX WITH TANIA
13. GUILLOTINE
14. A MAN WITH A PLAN
15. THE CYBORG
16. THE CATHEDRAL
17. LIVING ZOMBIES [THE KINGDOM OF JESUS]
18. CANNIBALS [THE VALLEY OF DEATH]
19. DESERTED SPACECRAFT FACTORY
20. FINAL SOLUTION
21. SIEGE
22. AIR BATTLE OVER MOSCOW
23. APOCALYPSE NOW
24. EDEN [EPILOGUE]
SCENE 1: JUDGEMENT DAY [ALLAH AHBAR]
Year 2090. Russian plains at blood- red sunset. A huge military spacecraft with the emblems of red stars cuts through the sky at immense speed and parks just above the ground in front of the forest edge. It opens its hatch and spits out two insect-shaped armoured personnel carriers, which cover the distance to the forest within seconds.
Highly computerized interior of the armoured personnel carrier crewed by commandos from elite special forces as well as combat cyborgs.
RED ARMY OFFICER:
Steppe Wolf 5 asks for permission to enter the base area. We have general Romanov on board. Code Black: 297709173.
COMPUTER VOICE:
Code confirmed. The shield will be shut down in 5 seconds.
In a split second the hologram of the forest, animals and birds disappear. Then the combat web of laser swords gets turned off. As soon as the armoured carriers enter the base, which resemble black and shiny pyramids, the hologram of the forest appears again. General Romanov accompanied by scientists and commandos get inside the base where they wear special protective pressure suits. Soon they take an elevator and go deep underground into the heart of the top secret Biological Weapons Development Center. When they enter the main lab they pass a number of metal cages and acquariums with dogs, monkeys, rats and insects. The general sees the top Russian biologists and scientists specializing in combat viruses in front of highly-advanced computers.
GENERAL ROMANOV:
The Kremlin wants to know more about your discovery. The reports have been very incoherent and bizarre. What the hell is going on here?
PROFESSOR GOLDBERG:
The Kremlin pays us to play God and create demons. And that’s what we’re doing here. Waking up the demons. The day we’ve been waiting for so long has come, General. What you’re about to see is more evil than the Satan himself. It’s pure chaos. It’s going to change the face of modern warfare. I would say it will eliminate wars. The Kremlin will no longer need nuclear missiles or any conventional weapons.
GENERAL ROMANOV:
Could you be more precise, Professor.
PROFESSOR GOLDBERG:
I’m talking about the deadliest virus ever created on the surface of this planet. It’s capable of destroying the USA or any other country within a month.
GENERAL ROMANOV:
What about the antidote?
PROFESSOR GOLDBERG:
It’s almost finished. However, we’ve encountered some little problem.
It started to mutate and we can hardly catch up with its expansion.
SCIENTIST:
Show them the „monster”, Professor.
PROFESSOR GOLDBERG:
Yes, the „monster”. It’s the best part of the show.
The general is shown a horrifying-looking creature inhabiting a huge aquarium. It resembles a 3 meter tall gigantic rat with some human and spider features.
GENERAL ROMANOV:
What the fuck is that?
PROFESSOR GOLDBERG:
In order to observe its effectiveness on the battlefield we decided to try the virus on the three most resistant species on Earth: humans, rats and spiders. That’s why we we combined their genes…
GENERAL ROMANOV:
Is it human?
PROFESSOR GOLDBERG:
Partly yes. Now it’s time you saw the destructive power of the virus.
Professor presses a red button and releases the virus into the acquarium. The „monster” falls into a rage and dies in terrible pain. Its body starts to swell and the blisters begin exploding.
When the experiment is over everybody is impressed.
PROFESSOR GOLDBERG:
Vasyl! Clean up the mess.
When Vasyl enters the acquarium he damages the computer system blocking the way in and out. He slowly takes off his helmet. Disgusting blisters appear on his face.
PROFESSOR GOLDBERG:
What are you doing? Get the hell out of there!
Vasyl slowly unzips his pressur suit. His body is whole covered by explosives. He starts to pray in Arabic citing the words from the Koran. The General and his men open fire at the acquarium, but it turns out to be bullet-proof. The scientists fall into panic and try to escape.
The corpse of the monster revives and starts to recreate its damaged cells at incredible speed. Hairy tentacles grow out of its body and get hold of some pipes at the ceiling. The „monster” climbs the ceiling using its spider-like tentacles. Vasyl doesn’t see the creature and keeps shouting;
VASYL:
Allah Ahbar!
The whole base blows up glittering the pitch black sky. In the sea of fire a creepy whining can be heard. Streams of thousands of monstrous mutated rats flood the Russian plains. The virus gets unleashed.
WASHINGTON, WHITE HOUSE
POLITICIAN:
Mr President. A phone call from Russia. They have a serious situation there.
An attractive woman walks down the street with a baby carriage. Suddenly she stops by the railings surrounding the White House. She pulls out her baby and starts acting very weirdly. A cop in a police car spots her and while approaching her he notices that the baby is all covered by explosives. When he runs towards her with a gun in his hand the woman raises her baby and begins citing the Koran.
COP:
Freeze! Don’t fuckin’ move. Get down on your knees!
WOMAN [ISLAMIC TERRORIST]:
Allah Ahbar!
The woman presses some button. A nuclear explosion wipes out the White House and the whole Washington.
BEGINNING OF THE MOVIE: LORDS OF DARKNESS
CNN SPEAKER:
The darkest nightmare has come true. Nuclear terrorists attacks have struck a number of targets all around the world. New York, Los Angels, and London have been totally destroyed. Millions have lost their lives in this unprecedented assult. The Vatican has been reported to be wiped out. According to the CIA reports all the attacks were planned and carried out by Al Kaida . The leaders of Europe, the USA and China decided to separate Russia due to the spread of a mysterious virus.
Pieces of international news reports showing the so called „Judgment Day.”
SCENE 2: THE PLAGUE
RUSSIA: January 2nd 2098 The view of a 50-meter-high wall separating Russia from the rest of the world. Barbed-wire fences, soldiers with laser guns killing birds and fugitives approaching the wall.
MOSCOW: Late evening. The horrifying landscape of the deserted Moscow suburbs. Under the blood-red sky hundreds of Russian soldiers dressed in pressure suits as well as cyborgs burn heaps of rotting, frozen and deformed corpses. The Soviet symbols returned with the new regime. Dilapidated tanks and armoured vehicles drive around the city, whose streets are covered with dying people, the homeless and beggars. It snows heavily. The temperature fell down to –20 C degrees. Monumental ruins of Moscow looks like a huge cemetery.
VLAD [OFF- low, macho voice]
We are set loose and fight only at night. Actually we are already dead meat like the Roman gladiators. Fuck. Normally we would have got sent to the death row anyway but the „Generals” let us live because hardly anybody survived the „plague”. Our enemies are the nightmare monsters inhabiting the sewage systems of our cities. We don’t know much about them. After the islamic terrorists blew up the Biological Weapons Development Center they unleashed the deadliest virus known to man called „Sodoma”. The experimental rats passed it to our cities killing 200.000.000 people. The plague set back the clock of history and changed Russia into a totalitarian, brutal regime separated from the rest of the world. However deadly to man „Sodoma” gave birth to a new kind of mutant giant rat, which devoured its predecessor. Nobody ever discovered the truth concerning the
creation of the new species or its mysterious resistance to the disease. According to the scientists 200.000 mutant dragonrats fall on a single human being. The sewage systems of the cities became their secret kingom. At night they left the underground tunnels to attack and devour people. Then they become the real LORDS OF DARKNESS.
An anti-gravitational transporter carrying the most dangerous criminals to ZONE 13
SCENE 3: ZONE 13
POKROVSK REGION : ZONE 13
An old military lands in a Soviet concentration camp [gulag] for the most dangerous criminals. The whole gulag consists of dozens of primitive bunkers and barracks as well as a ruined Russian Orthodox Church, which is the main prison. The area is surrounded by barbed-wire fences and watch towers. Metal cages are opened and hundereds of shaved bald, ragged, chained thieves, rapists, murderers and political prisoners leave the transporter accopanied by drunk guards with wild dogs. First they are taken into a special bunker where they are disinfected. Then on their way to the prison they see gallows, a guillotine and a dozen or so impaled prisoners rotting on the frozen pales. Patriotic Soviet songs are played through dilapidated loudspeakers. When they enter the monumental monastery they are led into the old dungeons. There a dwarf monk brands the newcomers their identification numbers. In the deeper dungeons they are put identification cyber- collars, which inject poison if a prisoner leaves his zone. The last procedure is based on dividing the criminals into 8-men-squads and locking them up in their cells. From now on they consitute teams. They are going to live and serve together.
GENERAL RASKOLNIKOV [OFF-loudspeeker]
My name is Colonel Raskolnikov. From now on you are not human beings any more and don’t have your individual names. Despite your crimes Mother Russia gives you a chance to wipe out your disgrace. Now you belong to me and Zone 13 , which is going to be your home. Your commanders will be your fathers and those who will survive will get additional portions of food and, from time to time, women. The best of you will enter the Caste of Teachers whom you will meet tomorrow. Since today the only sense of your miserable shitty lives is going to be destroying the nests of the plague in Moscow, the heart of our Great Mother Russia. Thanks to the cyber-collars we will watch your every movement and if you decide to escape from this Zone your personal cyber-friend is going to inject you poison.
The wild, sick faces of prisoners express the moral hell of their disturbed minds. All the lights are turned off.
SCENE 4: THE SCUM OF THE EARTH
6:00 a.m. The sound of sirens wakes everybody up. The prisoners get a simple breakfast. A piece of stale bacon, 2 slices of black bread and some water. Dirty Soviet soldiers appear in the dungeons escorting a group of teachers assigned to particular cells. There are also some Russian Orthodox monks among them who sing religious songs and incense the halls. A few guards and a veteran- convict named Vlad enter the cell nr. 666. He is an about 35-year- old muscular man with a scarred face and pearl-honey hair. He’s got a charismatic look. However, there is something innocent and boyish in his eyes. The guard quickly reads the profiles of the convicts from the cell 666.
The Russian Orthodox monastery – Zone 13
GUARD:
Professor Aaron Goldstain. The former director of the Development of Military Technologies Departament. Murder. 30 years of imprisonment.
Professor is a bald, Jewish-looking man with an incredibly searching and intelligent look. He wears old-fashioned glasses and avoids any conversations.
GUARD:
Cyrus Fatimi. Gypsy. Drug-trafficking. 15 years of imprisonment.
Cyrus is a malicious, vulgar, corrupted Gypsy with a dirty sense of humour and a satanically neurotic laughter. He’s got gold teeth and tatoos all over his body.
GYPSY:
My dog fucked your mother and spunked in her asshole mouth.
The soldier hits Gypsy in the face with his kalashnikov rifle. The convict bleeds and laughs like a madman.
GUARD:
Alosha Pavlov. Arsonist. Set fire in a whore house in Sankt Petersburg. Burnt 79 hookers alive and masturbated looking at it . 35 years of imprisonment.
Alosha has got a deranged look of a firestarter and a kinky onanist.
GYPSY:
Burnin’ whores and chokin’ the chicken? Who the fuck am I sitting here with? Best of the best!!!
GUARD:
Shut the fuck up!
GUARD:
Brothers Anton and Sasha Suvorov. Ukrainians. Common looters and smugglers. 10 years of imprisonment.
Anton and Sasha are two fat, big-boned Ukrainians with simple faces and unintelligent looks.
GUARD:
Alex Baranauskas. Lithuanian origin. Pimp and gangster. 15 years….
Baranauskas is a wicked and ruthless tough criminal.
GUARD:
Sven Mashkarov. Latvian serial killer and rapist called „Vampire from Chelabinsk”. Massacred and devoured 31 prostitutes. 60 years ….
Sven is in his mid 30’s and looks like a priest. A picture of Jesus hangs above his bed. He’s got an unbelievably friendly smile but something dark and horrifying lurks in his blue eyes.
SVEN:
The Lord’s revenge was swift and lethal. And he destroyed the cities of Sodoma and Gomora because they were infested with sinful women. I hear the voice of Jesus and he told me to do it.
GUARD:
Shamil Vasajev. Chechen terrorist. 50 years.
The guard leaves the cell. Vlad watches his new squad with an empty and cold look.
VLAD [Vladislav Kowalsky]:
My name is Vlad Kowalsky. I’m Polish and I’m gonna be your “teacher”. I’m a convict just like you but I’m doing what I’m doing ‘cause I was tough enough to survive in the Zone. When we go into the underground tunnels tonight we will be able to count only on ourselves. If you don’t keep together you’re gonna become rat food. What you’re gonna encounter there is not a common 30-centemeter-long rat but its new kind- the Dragonrat. It’s a mutation of gigantic rat and spider. This one is about 2 meters long, shoots with venom and can knock down and tear apart a strong man with its tail. It moves deadly fast and got fangs sharp enough to bite through a pressure suit or a military chain mail. Some of you may have seen them. The army tried to gas them but it didn’t work out. Now move your asses.
When he turns around ruined Baranauskas attacks him and tries to break his neck. Vlad knocks him down like a professional commando.
VLAD:
Don’t make me kill you son of a bitch. Now you’re a property of the Zone and that’s why you’re still alive. Move up!”
The convicts put on military chain mails, pressure suits.
VLAD:
You can’t move around any city without a pressure suit unless you want to get infected. If one of yours gets damaged during a mission you will be left in the ruins or shot like a dog. The plague is spread by the dragonrat breath, sweat and venom. If we get into the city we’ll be in their territory. So watch your asses.
SCENE 4: FIRST MISSION [BATTLE WITH DRAGONRATS]
Night. A dozen or so squads leave the Russian Orthodox Church full of monuments of saints, frescoes and Russian icons. They are in chains and march through the mystical temple accompanied by Soviet guards with wild dogs and an old monk preaching the Bible. The soldiers light the darkness with big military flashlights. The convicts resemble the Roman gladiators going to death. Hundreds of prisoners howl in the cells like beasts and bang their metal mugs against the bars.
CONVICTS [OFF- in the cells]
The rat catchers are coming… Salute to the rat catchers!
MONK:
God bless you sons!
GYPSY:
Tell your god to go fuck himself!
The monk falls down and starts shaking. His eyes spark. He turns out to be an old generation android which broke down. Gypsy laughs madly, Sven prays to Jesus, Kamiński nervously chews tabacco. They get outside where they are awaited by a chain of combat hovercrafts. It’s freezing cold, blizzard. The squads are pushed into their assigned anti-gravitational hovercrafts, which take off and fly low above the deserted streets of Moscow. At night people hide into special bunkers or special civilian zones. On the streets they have to wear special masks and protective clothes. The population of Moscow was decimated. Inside every hovercraft the chained convicts are guarded by a Soviet soldier armed with a kalshnikov.
The interior of a combat anti-gravitational hovercraft.
VLAD:
Soon you will get weapons, but no night-vision glasses. They are only for military units, not for convicts. As far as I know all of you finished the basic training of an infantry soldier in the Transitory Zone. Believe me. After the first mission a survivor commits suicide, goes insane or becomes a vet.
The Russian snow desert.
The hovercraft lands near a small bunker situated among the ruins. Pitch-black darkness. Blizzard. A soviet soldier unchains the convicts from Vlad’s squad. They put on special helmets serving as a gas mask, headphone and a flashlight. Then the convicts get outside the craft and reach the bunker. Vlad dials a special code and the heavy doors open. Inside the bunker there is an industrial elevator with 9 metal boxes installed in the walls.
COMPUTER VOICE [OFF]
Press the red button. Press the red button.
All of them press the red buttons and the metal boxes move out of the walls. Each of them contains the latest model of kalashnikov with a flame-thrower, hand grenade launcher, laser backsight as well as a rapid-firing cannon shooting bursting rounds. Vlad pushes a special button and the elevator goes 11 floors down to their assigned sector.
SHAMIL:
Why won’t they blow up all those tunnels and stop sending people
down here?
VLAD:
There are about 10 million tunnels under Moscow itself, plus the underground systems. Maybe some day they’ll drop down an atomic bomb and wipe out the whole city. But then most of us will end up in the death row. They keep us alive only because there are scarcely any people in this country.
SHAMIL:
Why won’t the UN and Americans help us?
VLAD:
They’ve got their own problems. Would you try to help leprous lunatics who shit with their blood and scare everybody with nuclear missiles. Anyway if the plague gets out of Russia the rest of the world is fucked.
GYPSY:
Fuck’em if they fuck us.
VLAD:
If some of you decided to shoot me in the back down there remember one thing. None of you knows the tunnels. It’s a separate world with its own rules of survival. Welcome to hell.
Baranauskas’ finger trembles on the trigger. He hates Vlad and can’t wait killing him. They get outside and see a labyrinth of dark tunnels. There are hundreds of them. Strange mist hovers above the ground. Vlad who carries a military scanner, a kind of infrared sensor, leads the squad. Suddenly they feel something crackling under their boots.
GYPSY:
What the fuck is that?
VLAD:
Human bones. Convicts and the homeless who chose to go underground than freeze to death in the deserted city. Listen up. We’re supposed to find and destroy as many nests as possible.
The rat catchers look with terror at dozens of rotting human skulls and bones under their feet. The squad moves through the dark tunnels until they encounter an abyss. Vlad looks at the scanner.
VLAD:
We got a nest. We’re going down there!
They go down 100 meters using ropes. Suddenly they enter a spacious chamber full of damaged pipes. It’s filled with hundreds of pregnant female dragonrats. Some of them give birth to their young. The rats are between 1-2 meters tall and have big, human, wise, emotional eyes. The young squeal right after their birth.
VLAD:
Unlock the flame – throwers.
Despite their psychopathic mentality the rat catchers hesitate staring at the rats’ hypnotic eyes. Suddenly they open fire and burn the females and their young. The rats scream like burning humans. Arsonist Alosha takes extreme pleasure in burning the animals. There is a strict connection between fire and sex in his mind.
ALOSHA:
Burn baby, burn!
VLAD:
According to the scanner another nest is about 2 kilometres away. Let’s go!
PROFESSOR:
Where are the males? Shouldn’t they protect the females?
VLAD:
We were lucky this time ‘cause there were no warrior males.
When the squad marches through the labyrinth of tunnels the scanner breaks down. Vlad shakes and hits it but it doesn’t work. Alosha plays with his flame-thrower watching flames.
BARANAUSKAS:
Fuck!
GYPSY:
I shit in the milk of the mother of the son of a bitch who invented this fuckin’ machine!
VLAD:
Listen up. We gotta come back to the bunker and get a new scanner.
After a 3-hour- long walk to the bunker they realize they got lost. They come full circle and can’t find the way out.
PROFESSOR:
Without a scanner we’re totally blind here. It contains a map of the tunnels from our sector.
Vlad shakes and hits the scanner again but it doesn’t work.
VLAD:
Damn it. It’s dead.
All of the sudden Gypsy grabs the scanner and hits it against the concrete floor.
GYPSY:
Fuck Great Mother Russia and her technology!!!
Nothing fucking works in this sick country!
Baranauskas attacks Gypsy and knocks him down punching and kicking him all over his body.
BARANAUSKAS:
You crazy little fuck!
When Vlad and the others try to separate them they hear the buzzing sound of the scanner. When Vlad takes it into his hands he gets dead silent.
PROFESSOR:
They are coming? How would you feel if somebody burnt alive your wife while giving birth to your children? I would definitely desire revenge. Are there many of them?
VLAD:
Quite a big herd. 15 maybe 20 thousand warrior dragonrats.
Unlock the rapid-firing cannons.
GYPSY:
Are you out of your mind? Let’s get the hell out of here!
SASHA SUVOROV:
He’s right. Let’s get out of here.
VLAD:
It’s too late. Unlock the guns. It’s an order!
SVEN [VAMPIRE FROM CHELABINSK]:
Everything’s in the hands of Lord. Jesus tells me….
GYPSY:
Who the fuck cares what Jesus says…
SHAMIL:
They’re coming …!
VLAD:
Baranauskas, Sven, Brothers Suvorov. Retreat to the bridge…
about a mile south of this place. It’s on the 10th floor.
Vlad shows them the map in the scanner. Professor prays silently.
VLAD:
Gypsy, Alosha , Professor, Shamil. Fire at will!
The equipment of dragonrat killers.
Horrifying figures of warrior dragonrats come out of darkness. Their furious eyes and sharp fangs shine in the light of the flashlights. They look like a mixture of a vampire, rat, bear,spider and an alien monster. The bursts from rapid-firing cannons make a wall of fire tearing into pieces bodies of attacking dragonrats. The warriors explode like balloons filled with black blood splashing it on the convicts who look like butchers in a slaughterhouse. Some of the dragonrats deflect against the walls and try to jump at the convicts. They don’t pay attention to their huge casualties and still try to bite even if their heads are torn off.
SHAMIL:
I’m running out of ammo.
PROFESSOR:
I’m out.
VLAD:
Use the hand grenade-launchers! We’re falling back!
Suddenly Alosha disobeys Vlad’s order and attacks the dragonrats with a flame-thrower. He’s sexually excited by the flames and fire. It gives him the sense of power. Soon Alosha gets a hard-on, has an orgasm and laughs like a lunatic.
ALOSHA:
Burn baby, burn. I’m gonna burn all of you!
VLAD:
Alosha! Get the hell out of there!
A warrior rat knocks Alosha down with its tail, which winds around his neck and throws him a few meters ahead. He accidentally sets himself on fire with his own flame-thrower. His body explodes torn into pieces by dozens of dragonrats. Vlad puts a defensive fire and withdraws his men to the bridge. The convicts run madly through the tunnels full of smoke and strange mists. A ceaseless stream of enraged dragonrats follows them. Vlad’s men run into the reserve group, which protects them with a defensive fire spitting 4000 bullets a minute from their rapid-firing cannons.
ANTON SUVOROV:
Where is that damn bridge? There’s no fucking passage here!
They can hear the demonic whining of the coming dragonrats. The convicts gather around Vlad who sends a burst cutting an old pipe. The pipe falls down connecting the two sides of the abyss.
VLAD:
Professor! Defensive fire!
A few meter long tail of a dragonrat catches Sven by the head and kidnaps his body into the darkness of the ceiling. Streams of his blood gushes on the convicts’ pressure suits.
GYPSY:
Motherfuckers are coming down from the ceiling!
Gypsy shoots out flames from his gun towards the ceiling. Dozens of dragorats fall down. Vlad notices that some of them are taller than 2 meters and move on 2 limbs just like humans. One of the animals falls down between Anton Suvorov and Baranauskas. The latter one is hit by a tail and a thrown a few meters away. The dragonrat grabs Anton’s head with its claws and crushes it into small pieces. Parts of his brain and crushed skull land on the pressure suit of his brother Sasha who is lying without a leg. Professor tries to stop the bleeding tying a belt around the stump. Baranauskas is paralyzed by fear and can’t move. Gypsy grabs him by the arm and tries to pull him back shooting at the coming dragonrats. Suddenly he realizes that he pulls only Baranauskas’ massacred trunk. The survivors pass on the lying pipe to the other side of the abyss. Vlad sends a few grenades from his launcher towards the charging beasts. Mushrooms of fire are filled with burning pieces of dragonrat bodies. A shock wave of an explosion hits Shamil who follows as the last one on the pipe. He loses balance and falls down the abyss. In the last moment Vlad grabs him by the hand and pulls up. The convicts destroy the pipe with a grenade. The dragonrats create a few living bridges with their own bodies. They act as if commanded by a singular instinct. Their devotion, contempt for death and the will of fight are incredibly impressive. The rat catchers plant explosives and create a wall of fire, which lets them escape.
Early morning. The ruins of Moscow. Finally Vlad, Professor, Shamil and Gypsy didn’t manage to return to the bunker and get outside through a hatchway . Their pressure suits are spilt with blood and they are in the state of shock. All of them fall down on the snow. Vlad lies in the snow and stares at the clouds like a lunatic. Gypsy lost his gun underground and starts crying.
GYPSY:
No fuckin’ way. I ain’t gonna go down there no more!
Gypsy notices a gun pointed at his head.
SOVIET SOLDIER:
Get up pigs. Drop down your guns!
Vlad and the other convicts see a couple of combat anti-gravitational hovercraft and about 20 soviet soldiers who detected their position thanks to their personal cyber-collars. Some of the soldiers drink vodka and behave like wild animals. The convicts are sprayed with a disinfectant, kicked, humiliated and enchained. After a while they are pushed into a hovercraft where they take off their helmets.
SOVIET CO-PILOT [EX-CONVICT]:
You were really lucky. Out of 93 men who went underground only 39 came back alive.
SCENE 6: DISINFECTION
All the convicts who took part in the mission are taken to a special bunker where they are disinfected.
COMPUTER VOICE [OFF]:
Disinfection has been completed.
SCENE 7 : ELYSIUM
Late afternoon. Blizzard. Zone 13. Outskirts of Moscow. Ruins of a Soviet governmental edifice surrounded by barbed-wire fences. After every mission the survivors spend 2 days in a guarded drug resort called Elysium where they smoke opium, drink vodka, watch Hollywood movies and have sex with prostitutes. It’s a kind of reward and incentive, which is supposed to motivate them to fight. Some prisoners yell and masturbate watching a porno movie in the cinema in Elysium. Others dope or get drunk in their cells. Narcotic, oriental music is played from loudspeakers.
COLONEL RASKOLNIKOV [OFF-Loudspeeker]
Comrades. In recognition of your military service for Mother Russia you have been rewarded by the highest command. You will spend 2 days in our special resort called Elysium. If you are here for the first time, enjoy the vodka, opium and women because you may not return here any more.
Dingy shower-rooms in Elysium. Dozens of naked, starved convicts wash their bodies off blood, sweat and dirt. Vlad feels somebody’s hand on his shoulder. When he turns around he sees Shamil.
SHAMIL:
I’d like to thank you for what you did down there on the bridge. I don’t know if you realize whose life you saved.
VLAD:
I don’t know and to tell you the truth I don’t give a fuck about it.
SHAMIL:
I can get you out of here. Can we talk in private?
Shamil and Vlad take a walk into a dark corner of a prison corridor.
SHAMIL:
My name is Shamil Samajev. If you imagine a pack of cards
my father is Joker Number 1 in the Caucasus. I’m talking here about the Chechen mafia, but don’t connect me with those religious fanatics blowing up airports and space shuttles or detonating nuclear bombs in American cities. I was brought up and graduated from a couple of universities in the west. I care only about money and freedom. The others can rot here for Allah or Jesus. As far as I am concerned I’m going to get out of this place in one piece. At a fixed time a hired transporter can take us away from this sick circus. [perfect British accent]
VLAD:
How far?
SHAMIL:
Even to the International Zone: Phoenix on Mars. New Wonderful World, new opportunities and a completely new identity.
VLAD:
What do you need me for if your friends can get you a trip to Mars and interplanetary passports?
SHAMIL:
You survived 2 years in the tunnels. You know them like your own pocket and I can bet that you served in the army. Maybe even in the Special Forces. I will never get through the tunnels to the outskirts of Moscow on my own. I’m a businessman, not a soldier. Secondly, I trust you.
VLAD:
In the Zone trust shortens your life dangerously quickly.
SHAMIL:
For a Chechen honor, trust and friendship are the only things you haven’t deprived us of. Think over my proposal. How long will you stand it here? A year, a year and a half? Not longer.
Dirty cell. Vlad, Shamil, Gypsy and Professor drink another bottle of vodka and eat slices of old, fairy bacon. Gypsy pours alcohol into dirty glasses. Vlad smokes opium with a long pipe and passes it on to the others.
SHAMIL:
When we were burning the females giving birth to their young I felt as if I were killing people. Those creatures fight and die with the human devotion. I’ve seen many rats in my life, but those ones are totally different. Even their eyes and the sounds they make express human emotions.
VLAD:
You are a new guy here so I’ll tell you. The plague got out from our lab where military scientists worked on a new kind of combat virus deforming the human DNA chain. They not only wanted to kill the enemy but deform him in a humiliating way. That’s why they implanted the human DNA in a few generations of rats in order to observe the evolution of the virus. What was born as a result of a mutation created a new species spreading the plague. As you know our scientists never seriously thought about producing antidotes to any viruses they made. Blind playing with nature led to the disaster. And that’s when …
GYPSY:
That’s when everythin’ got fucked up.
VLAD:
So in the tunnels we partly kill humans, and in part rats which we detest.
PROFESSOR:
Let’s drink to the God’s Providence and the faith, which will keep us alive.
SHAMIL:
Bullshit! Man is just a little wiser animal who eats, shits, breaths, fucks and dies. We appeared on this planet as a result of a pure twist of fate or an intervention of an extraterrestrial race we derive from. If we resemble God in any sense he must have been a monster. Everything is ruled by accidental chaos. You die not because you’re good or evil, but because you turn up in a wrong place at a wrong time. Where the fuck was your God in the nazi concentration camps? Neither Jesus nor Allah will get us out of here! I believe in what I can see, feel and desire.
PROFESSOR:
Tell it to thousands of the infected dying on the streets and churches. Tell them that God is only a bullshit myth of the scared soul. Before I got here I’d been a professor of philosophy and theology as well as the former director of the Development of Military Technologies Departament. Contradiction in itself, isn’t it? But if we suffer and die in such an absurd way there must be some God’s plan in it.
Gypsy defecates into a hole in the floor which serves as a toilet. Additionally he
takes a leak and farts loudly. He holds a glass full of vodka in his hand.
GYPSY:
I find god in a very wet cunt. If it weren’t for the sticking dick and his sister pussy we’d have died out on this fuckin’ planet a long time ago, comrades. You can note it down. Quote from „ Personal Thoughts of Cyrus Fatimi”- god’s Gypsy from shitty Russia in a far away galaxy behind seven mountains and seven fuckin’ forests.
SHAMIL:
I still can’t get used to killing. Those are only animals but when the night falls all the pictures come back. Maybe it’s stings of remorse. Fuck! / smokes opium/
PROFESSOR:
You’re a Chechen and should have sucked killing out of your mother’s milk. However, if you can’t get used to murdering read some Dostojevski. He divided people into “ordinary” and “extraordinary” ones. So the first group is just ”material”, which copulates and wastes life on hard work. Accidentally they manage to conceive “extraordinary supermen” who shape and rule the world. All the great men have always been destroyers and murderers who didn’t hesitate to spill an ocean of blood to realize their visions. Why did a guy who gassed millions of Jews in a concentration camp fall into tears when his wolfhound broke its leg? Because he didn’t consider them to be humans. What the “extraordinary” always get away with will never be forgiven to the “ordinary”. So when we’re murdering those creatures in the tunnels in a couple of days close your eyes for a while and tell yourself: “ I’m not subject to any morality or ethics any more. I’m a superman and what I kill is just “material”. In my case it works perfectly.
GYPSY:
What Dostojevski? Haven’t heard about the guy though I’ve been in the slam for two damn months. Who’s that fuckin’ Dostojevski? /Gypsy drinks vodka and smokes opium/
VLAD:
A convict just like all of us? /Vlad bursts into laughter/
GYPSY:
But not from our Zone?
PROFESSOR:
No. Dostojevski is a guy from a completely different Zone.
Shamil vomits, Vlad starts laughing without any control and Professor takes out a hidden bible.
PROFESSOR:
“I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father, but by me. He that liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Where I am, there you may be also. And you will live forever and ever.”
GYPSY:
All that religion is one big bullshit. Let’s hope your god will save our asses next time and we’re gonna be back and drunk here forever and ever.
Gypsy farts loudly and drinks vodka from a dirty bottle.
SCENE 8: BATTLE IN THE RUINS OF KREMLIN:
After midnight. A few squads of convicts [between 50-60 men] supported by about 10 dilapidated Soviet tanks enter the ruins of Kremlin. The monumental buildings are covered by the old Soviet symbols adopted by the new regime. It snows heavily. Vlad and his squad take shelter behind a heap of rubble.
VLAD:
We’re supposed to search the ruins of the Kremlin.
They look pretty quiet tonight, so if we’re lucky they will
take us back from here in a couple of hours. No flashlights.
We’re gonna use scanners.
GYPSY:
I heard they gonna give us coupons for whores if we survived this shit.
VLAD:
Shut up. Lock and load. Don’t fall into panic. Just keep close together.
PROFESSOR:
We’ve got a rookie in the team.
Professor points at a 12-year-old kid in the squad who shakes like a jelly because of fear. Vlad turns around and sees a really small boy in a pressure- suit with a kalshnikov who breathes so quickly as if he were suffocating.
VLAD:
Hey punk! What’s your name?
PIETIA:
Pietia. [almost whispers]
VLAD:
What did they send you here for?
PIETIA:
My parents were political oppositionists.
VLAD:
Don’t worry, kid. You’re gonna make it. All men go, no man dies.
Everybody repeats the sentence: “ All men go, no man dies. ”Vlad passes orders to all the commanders through the headphones in his helmet.
VLAD:
Code red to all the commanders. Let’s move up!
All the groups move towards the ruins of the Kremlin, which look like a demonic huge palace of devil. When they enter the building they walk through dark corridors full of paintings and monuments of communist dictators such as Lenin and Stalin. Suddenly they hear a cow mooing in a distance. When they get into a monumental room with a huge metal red star they see a column of dragonrats carrying human corpses and animals, some of them are still alive. Convicts open fire at the creatures whose bodies explode. In split second the ground under their feet cracks and some of them fall down into an abyss, which turns out to be an underground, communication labyrinth of dragonrats. Vlad and other commanders hear a deafening scream produced by warrior dragonrats. It alarms the other beasts nearby. Thousands of the furious animals get on the surface throughout hidden holes and tunnels. Streams of dragonrats charge through the Kremlin corridors straight on the convicts who form a defense line. They open fire at the animals, which die in hundreds. Unexpectedly the beasts start throwing with their tails pieces of rock, metal and stone at the humans with such a force that some of the convicts get decapitated or crushed by the incoming objects. Some of the animals jump down the ceiling or manage to get so close to the people that the convicts wage a hand-to-hand fight with them using combat knives or bayonets. Pieces of human bodies fly in the air gushing liters of blood mixed with massacred organs. The survivors decimate the rats with grenades from their launchers. Vlad orders a retreat and the convicts rush through the corridors yelling in panic. Some of them fall into traps set by dragorats: hidden holes with spikes or cobwebs. An army of rats arises in the whole area. When about 40 convicts run out of the Kremlin complex they receive an order from the command played from loudspeakers on the tanks.
GENERAL RASKOLNIKOV: [OFF]
You’ve got keep your position at any cost. You mustn’t retreat even half a mile. It’s an order. You bring a disgrace to our Great Army and Nation.
Vlad and other convicts disobey the order and fall back sending short bursts at the attacking beasts. Suddenly their own tanks open fire at them tearing into pieces a couple of the running rat catchers. The ground under the tanks crack and the vehicles fall underground into the traps dug by the dragonrats. The convicts hear the sound of the incoming Soviet bombers, which drop down their loads of bombs and missiles straight on the Kremlin complex. An army of dragonrats and most of the surviving convicts get wiped out in an ocean of fire. Vlad, Gypsy, Professor and three other convicts from their squad: Semen- (Cossack); Han (Korean); Pietia (a 12-year-old Bialorussian boy) take shelter into a dark hole dug by the rats. Within seconds they slide down about 100 meters and land in a labyrinth of underground tunnels. A wave of fire flies above their heads destroying an area of a few square kilometers. The entrance to the labyrinth gets blocked and they realize that they are buried alive. In the light of their flashlights they force their way through the tunnels hearing a weird squeak coming from the darkness. Unexpectedly they find a dragonrat baby, which must have been abandoned during the bombing raid. It’s deadly scared and squirms helplessly. It has got beautiful big eyes and gray fur. The Bialorussian boy Pietia comes up to it and touches its delicate body. From a distance they hear a footsteps noise, which approaches them. Out of the darkness there appears a desperate dragonrat mother looking for its baby. It’s very scared but gets very close to the convicts to pick up its baby.
GYPSY:
Let’s burn the bitch alive.
VLAD:
Hold it. Her screaming can lure hundreds of warriors.
Let her go!
The convicts can hear explosions of the falling bombs and missiles. The dragonrat mother takes away its baby and slowly walks away. Unexpectedly it turns around and makes a sign as if it wanted them to follow its way.
SEMEN [COSSACK]:
What the hell does she want from us?
Vlad mechanically follows the animals trail and after about 2 miles they come across a hole in the tunnel surface. In the light of their flashlights they manage to recognize the subway station. All of them go down using ropes. The whole station is totally ruined and full of rotting human and dragonrat corpses. The squad follows Vlad who tries to find the way out. Gypsy notices that Pietia falls behind and starts behaving very strangely. The boy puts his kalashnikov into his mouth and tries to commit suicide. In a split second Gypsy grabs the gun out of the boy’s hands and punches him in the stomach.
GYPSY:
What the fuck is wrong with you!? You gotta be tough and survive this shit. Some day this war is gonna be over and …
PIETIA:
My daddy said it would never be over. [falls into tears and shakes]
Gypsy holds him tight and lets him cry. The rest get back and watch them silently.
VLAD:
Let’s move. The scanner got fucked up again so we gotta find a way out !
All of them disappear in the darkness.
SCENE 9 : ELYSIUM II
All the members of Vlad’s squad get drunk with vodka and smoke opium in their cell.
HAN:
What did they put you in the slam for?
VLAD:
I killed my commander in action.
SEMEN [COSSACK]:
No shit!
VLAD:
Once we were looking for Islamic guerrillas and burning local villages in the mountains of the Caucasus. The whole squad was on LSD and our lieutenant got fucked up in the head. He started chopping off the heads of all the children in one village to make the old talk.
SEMEN [COSSACK]:
So?
VLAD:
I blew his fuckin’ brains out.
PROFESSOR [doped and vomiting] :
Fucked up world. Another asteroid should clean it once more.
GYPSY:
He wasted so much good stuff. They put me in the can for sellin’ drugs and I spend all my free time here dopin’ even more of this shit.
SEMEN [COSSACK- pointing at Professor]:
What is this big shot doing here anyway? I heard he was the director of the Development of Military Technologies Departament in Moscow or something like that.
GYPSY:
Hey Professor? You know I read about you in a paper. How does it feel to stab your own wife 159 times?
PROFESSOR:
Shut up! [completely drunk and doped]
GYPSY:
Once he caught her doing the blow job to his brother. He fuckin’ killed them both.
Professor jumps like a tiger at Gypsy and grabs him by the throat trying to strangle him.
PROFESSOR:
I’m gonna kill you , you Gypsy cock-sucker!!!!
The rest separate them and freeze for a second when they hear a scream.
CONVICT:
They brought the hookers.
Hundreds of wild screams come from dark and stinking cells. A dilapidated hovercraft lands on the roof of the Soviet penitentiary called Zone 13.
SCENE 10 : HOOKERS
Late evening. A few dozen prostitutes accompanied by guards go to have sex with the convicts in their cells. A 17-year-old hooker named Tania enters Vlad’s cell and embraces him as if they had known each other for years. Her smooth hand lands on his crotch. She’s got beautiful sapphire-blue eyes and long, dark hair.
TANIA:
Hi soldier. My name is Tania. What do you feel like doing with me tonight. Do you want me to do you the blow job? Maybe you want to fuck me in the ass?
Her voice sounds unnatural and artificial as if she were citing the bible of whores. Vlad smokes opium and doesn’t even look at the hooker.
TANIA:
What’s wrong with you? Are you a faggot or somethin’? Or
maybe you don’t like me? Come on. I know how to make you feel good.
Vlad notices an identification number branded on her arm and realizes that she belongs to Zone 13 just like he does.
VLAD:
How old are you?
TANIA:
What the fuck do you want? Are you gonna fuck me or not?
If you ain’t, there are several other guys who will.
VLAD:
You wanna smoke some? Good stuff… kicks like hell.
TANIA:
You know what? I’ve never met here such a fucked up guy like you. You’re really weird.
They both smoke opium and get high. He holds her in his arms like a little doll.
He touches her smooth skin as if he were learning her body by heart. Tania notices that he’s desperately lonely and burnt out.
VLAD:
I’m not a damn animal. They will never make me an animal. Please, hold me. Just hold me.
The girl kisses him delicately and holds him tight. They dope and drink vodka silently.
SCENE 11 : EVACUATION
Pitch-black darkness. Ruins of Moscow. Vlad’s squad as well as a couple of others retreat from the burning ruins chased by a few thousand dragonrats. They jump into a combat anti-gravitational hovercraft, which opens fire at the streams of infuriated animals. Vlad grabs one of his men by the hand. The bitten off limb remains in his hands when the door gets locked and the transporter shoots up into the sky. His men are all covered by blood and pieces of both human and rat flesh. Pietia falls into tears, the rest is totally numb and petrified with terror. Vlad looks down at Moscow through the window. He thinks about Tania.
SCENE 12: SEX WITH TANIA
Elysium. Vlad gets loaded with vodka in his private cell smoking opium and eating rotten bacon and stale bread as a reward for his last action. Suddenly guards let Tania into his room. She looks like a cheap whore: heavy make up on a childish face, dirty red clothes. She stinks with vodka, sperm and nicotine. The girl slowly sinks into his arms. They are both silent ruined by a nightmare life they are forced to lead. She sees scars and wounds on his dirty body.
TANIA:
Did many men die this time?
VLAD:
Gave up the body count a long time ago. You want some?
He gives her vodka, which she drinks greedily.
VLAD:
How did you get into this shit? Don’t you have a family?
TANIA:
They all died when the plague reached our town. Let’s not
talk about it. I want to forget …. forget about it for a while.
She drinks more vodka and starts kissing his wounds delicately. Tania knows that she doesn’t have to pretend when she is with him.
TANIA:
Does it hurt?
VLAD:
It doesn’t matter any more. We are all going to die anyway.
TANIA:
Nobody lives forever. I’m sure you’re gonna make it. When I was a kid my mom used to tell me I got the third eye. You know … a kind of magic intuition like those gypsy old fortune-tellers do. So I’m positive you’re gonna return in one piece next time.
VLAD: [drinks more vodka]
We keep killing them not to survive but to return here and get more opium and booze. You can leave Zone 13 only one way. Dead. On the other hand they tear us into pieces to guard their young and protect their species. If there is a devil we reflect him, not God.
TANIA:
Thinking too much kills here. When you are with me don’t think about it. Imagine you’re in a better place where there’s no pain or sorrow. Out of time.
He looks into her drunk eyes and kisses her deeply. They start having passionate, wild sex in the light of the candles. After sex they fall asleep. In the dead of the night they are woken up by the alarm signal, which means they have to leave their cells immediately. Guards with wolfhounds take them out of Elysium to the execution square. It’s freezing cold. A few hundred convicts are put into columns. Subconsciously they know something terrible is going to happen. They can hear patriotic Soviet songs played through big loudspeakers. Huge, steel, lighted red stars glow in the pitch-black darkness.
SCENE 13: GUILLOTINE
Soviet soldiers rush up a dozen or so naked men shaking of cold and bitten by furious military dogs. General Raskolnikov appears on an illuminated tower, which stands out of Elysium. He resembles Stalin during one of his speeches.
GENERAL RASKOLNIKOV:
Mother Russia loves her children, and every child owes his mother endless devotion and protection. Trying to escape these men disgraced our Great Mother, Zone 13 and their own brothers in arms. We are waging a total war for survival, the kind of war which has never been fought on the face of this planet. Our experiment with democracy and capitalism failed and we’ve got to come back to the ideals of Stalin. He made us powerful and proud. The power of this Great Nation is based not on the liberties of an individual but on the heroic strength of the masses , which die and give birth to new generations. That’s how we beat Napoleon and Hitler. In order to destroy monsters we’ve got to turn into monsters ourselves. You know the rules of Zone 13.
All the naked men are executed: either beheaded by guillotine or torn apart by horses. All the gathered convicts are forced to look at it.
SCENE 14: A MAN WITH A PLAN
Late evenining. Elysium. Vlad and his squad sit in their cell after another mission underground. They got additional food, vodka and drugs for burning 4 rat nests. A few candles light a small, cold room with rotting walls. The men eat stale bread and onions and whisper.
VLAD:
I accept your offer Shamil. We gotta get out of here. We’re not gonna survive another month in the tunnels. Sooner or later we will all become rat food.
SEMEN [COSSACK]:
Nobody has ever managed to get out of here alive. Cyber-collars… they gonna localize our position thanks to the damn cyber-collars.
GYPSY:
Cossack is fuckin’ right. There is no way out of here. They gonna catch us and tear us apart with horses or decapitate like those guys. Who will disarm these fuckin’ cyber-collars?
PROFESSOR:
I will.
VLAD:
How come?
PROFESSOR:
Because I designed them. Don’t forget that I was the director of the Development of Military Technologies Departament in Moscow for 15 years. I can do it with my eyes blinded using a piece of wire. However, we will never get out of the tunnels alive fighting with those fuckers.
VLAD:
Who said we’d fight them? Thanks to a scanner we will pass round their hatcheries and nests.
SHAMIL:
If we manage to get outside the city the hired smugglers will take us to the Transit Zone, and then to the International Zone on Mars. No country in the world will let any Soviets citizens in. Especially ex-Soviet convicts. They are shit-scared about the spread of the plague. On Mars it’s different. Nobody gives a fuck about your nationality, religion or race. With false identity cards and a lot of cash we can be there whoever we want. I offer 200.000 grand for everybody who will help me to get out of the Zone.
HAN:
I heard they built a real paradise city there. It’s called Eden. Fresh air, clean water, fabulous architecture.
PROFFESOR:
There is a much worse problem. For the last 4 months they’ve been retreating the regular army and civilians out of the city and sending the convicts to the combat zones.
VLAD:
So? What’s your point.
PROFESSOR:
The regime generals realized they are fighting a losing battle. We can’t burn or even gas all the dragonrats. They are a stronger species than us. One female gives birth to about 300 young every year. There are millions of them living underground. They multiply at enormous speed and can adapt to any conditions. Their genetical code keeps evolving into new, unknown forms. For years the most famous scientists in the world have been unsuccessfully trying to work out an antidote against the plague. They don’t even know what they’re dealing with. My point is the generals are going to drop a nuclear bomb and wipe out the whole city.
PIETIA:
What about the Penitentiary Zones and thousands of convicts? What about us?
PROFESSOR:
We’re gonna burn in hell.
SCENE 15: THE CYBORG
Late evening. Zone 13. Dark corridor lighted by torches and candles. Vlad’s squad goes to the armoury to get their chain mails, gas masks and all the necessary equipment.
VLAD: [whispers to Shamil]
There is somebody else I’d like you to get out of here.
SHAMIL:
My men outside will take care of the girl.
The Moscow downtown. Late evening. Blizzard. A combat transporter lands in the ruins. The convicts get outside the craft and reach the bunker. Vlad dials a special code and the heavy doors open. Inside the bunker they get their kalashnikovs. Vlad pushes a special button and the elevator goes 19 floors down to their assigned sector. Vlad, Shamil, Gypsy, Professor, Han, Pietia and Cossack walk through dark, horrifying tunnels. Vlad takes out some old map and studies it carefully.
VLAD:
According to that there must be an old, secret shaft around here. You won’t find it in any computer map of the Moscow underground tunnels or the subway. It’s 25 kilometers long and leads right from the Kremlin to different parts of the city. Stalin was totally paranoid and had it built in the 1930s. It was supposed to be his secret getaway labyrinth. Shamil and Professor, follow me.
Vlad, Professor and Shamil disappear in the darkness. Pietia, Gypsy, Han and Cossack wait for them in silence.
COSSACK:
Shit!
HAN:
What?
COSSACK:
I stepped into rat shit.
All of them burst into laughter.
HAN:
Hey Cossack. What did they lock you up for?
COSSACK:
It’s a long story.
HAN:
We got all the time in the world. If you tell me how you got here I’m gonna tell how I won the World Karate Championship in 2070.
COSSACK:
In life there are some holy things you mustn’t just defile. My two sisters and me were brought up by our mother. She was a holy woman. She had to clean the floors and fuck around with some fat drunk pigs so that we could have something to eat. One day her heart just broke. I spent all my money on her funeral. The next day it turned out some fuckers from the neighbouring village opened her grave to steal her jewelry. [dead silence] …..
HAN:
What happened next? What did you …..
COSSACK:
I found them, cut their heads off and put them on the railings in their village. I hope I will meet her in the afterlife.
HAN:
First we gotta get out of this damn planet.
Suddenly Pietia changes from an angelic, sensitive boy into a ruthless, self-confident individual.
PIETIA:
Clause 187 of the Penal Code says: “ Any attempt of escape from the assigned zone is punished by death. Clause 276 adds: “ If a convicts prevents an escape of another convict or helps to capture him he should be removed to a better cell and get additional food.”
COSSACK:
Pietia…? What the fuck are you talkin’ about?
Pietia hits Cossack in the chest with a deadly force. The boy’s tiny fist pierces through the Cossack’s trunk. Gypsy and Han see the Ukrainian’s still beating heart in Pietia’s hand. Han gives Pietia a double karate kick straight in the face. The boy’s nose gets fractured in several places. Pietia doesn’t seem to feel any pain and turns out to be an Alfa combat cyborg. Han’s head simply explodes when it’s hit by the boy’s steel fist. The cyborg walks slowly to petrified Gypsy. He behaves like a cold, ruthless psychopath.
PIETIA
According to Clause 187 of the Penal Code “Resisting a functionary of the Zone is punished by immediate death”.
Gypsy opens fire at the cyborg with his kalashnikov. His rapid-firing cannon spits a few thousand bursting rounds a minute tearing into pieces the boy’s flesh uncovering his titanic armor. The machine gets hit and disappears into a cloud of smoke. Suddenly the cyborg emerges from the fumes and smoke. Its titanic armor shines through the massacred layer of the bleeding flesh. A metal spike shoots out from the machine’s hand and pierces Gypsy’s arm nailing him to the concrete wall. The voices of coming Vlad, Shamil and Professor echoes in a distance. The cyborg turns around its head and perfectly copies the Gypsy’s voice. Its eyes and face are expressionless.
PIETIA [CYBORG]:
Come here quickly. You found that fuckin’ shaft?
VLAD:
Yeah. The map was right. It’s about 5 kilometers away.
When the convicts approach closer Pietia pulls a trigger in his kalashnikov and sends a few bursts at them. A strong blow of a flow of red-hot bullets reaches Shamil and throws him a few meters back. He lands in the layer of mud, slime and shit. His pressure suit gets covered with a series of burning holes. Fortunately, his bullet-proof jacket saves his life. Vlad and Professor fling themselves into the shit and lie low in the slime.
PIETIA [CYBORG]: (low, male, commanding voice)
Clause 187 of the Penal Code says: “ Any attempt of escape from the assigned zone is punished by death. Surrender and you can count on the commutation of your punishment. You are under arrest on a charge of …
Vlad sends a nitroglycerine grenade from his launcher. Although the explosion tears the cyborg apart its burning trunk keeps repeating clauses of the Penal Code with contempt for any physical pain. Gypsy falls down with a piece of metal spike in his arm.
GYPSY:
They’re all dead. This punk Pietia is a fuckin’ cyborg. The son of a bitch killed everybody.
Shamil, Vlad and Professor stand up and approach wounded Gypsy. Vlad pulls out a spike from his arm and stops the bleeding with a special liquid in spray. Then he takes out another spray and covers the holes in the pressure-suits with a special foam which immediately hardens and isolates the convict from the surrounding environment.
VLAD:
Pray you didn’t get infected. The plague hatches in the tunnels and floats in the air.
GYPSY
If I turn into a fuckin’ zombie in several hours shoot my dick off.
The convicts set off and follow the way to the shaft. Unexpectedly the cyborg’s head gets alive and its eyes open slowly staring maliciously around. The machine’s trunk crawls to its torn off legs, which join it in a split second as if connected with the trunk by the force of magnets. When the convicts cover the distance of about 2 kilometers they hear metallic, hollow sounds coming from the darkness.
VLAD:
What the hell is that?
In the flashlights they notice the cyborg charging at them at incredible speed. It emanates a powerful will, animal fitness and agility as well as a warrior-like figure. All the convicts open fire at the machine. A deadly wave of thousands of bursting bullets knocks it down and stops the cyborg for a while. The convicts retreat about 800 meters and lay explosives on the walls of the tunnels. The cyborg slowly gets up and continues its pursuit. Shamil, Vlad, Gypsy and Professor race towards the shaft while a huge explosion blocks the tunnel and prevents the cyborg from getting the convicts. The wall of rubble trembles when the machine tries to break through it kicking and punching with a lethal force. It produces a deafening whining and chaotically keeps repeating different clauses of the Penal Code imitating voices of the people it had chased. Vlad watches their scanner carefully.
VLAD:
We are almost out of the Zone. It’s time to disarm the cyber-collars.
Professor skillfully disarms the cyber-collars with a piece of wire. He does it so professionally and easily that Shamil, Vlad and Gypsy, who are shit-scared, calm down slowly. When the Gypsy’s cyber-collar is disarmed he sighs with relief.
PROFESSOR:
I underestimated you, doc. Elvis sucks. You’re the King.
The convicts find the shaft. They empty their boxes with urine and excrement, which are installed in their pressure-suits. Because they ran out of drinking water the convicts drink their urine through special pipes, which can be connected with their helmets. They also warm themselves up drinking vodka in the same way.
VLAD:
Nobody has probably been here for 100 years. Keep your eyes peeled and be ready for the worst.
GENERAL RASKOLNIKOV’S CHAMBER OF TERROR: ZONE 13:
General Raskolnikov observes a maneater shark devouring a convict in a huge aquarium. A guard enters his Chamber of Terror.
SOVIET GUARD:
Excuse me Comerade General. Four prisoners are reported to have escaped from the Zone.
The general turns around slowly as if he didn’t believe his ears.
GENERAL RASKOLNIKOV:
Prepare the team of Hunters. [ sadistic voice]
SCENE 16: THE CATHEDRAL
Vlad, Gypsy, Shamil and Professor walk through an endless labyrinth of tunnels.
Suddenly all their flashlights turn off as if switched off by some mysterious energy. They walk for a couple of minutes in complete darkness. All of them feel a kind of creepy, thrilling mini vibrations getting through them as if they stood near a nuclear reactor. Strange whispers echo all around them.
VLAD:
I think we got lost.
GYPSY:
Fuck! I knew we ain’t gonna make it!
Unexpecetedly their flashlights turn on as suddenly as they turned off. The convicts realize they are in a huge ground structure resembling a gothic, medieval cathedral. It’s dug hundreds of meters underground. Its roof is built of metal pipes and different metal objects transported from the surface. On the metal and wooden shelves there sit a few hundred mutant dragonrats. However, they don’t belong to the classes of warriors, workers or females reproducing their species. They look more like a council of ancient Greek wisemen with big black-golden eyes expressing love, knowledge, enlightenment, sympathy and understanding. Their fur is silver-grey and they are much slimmer than dragonrats warriors. Their breaths resemble clouds of dense smoke filled with the plague. Vlad gives a sign to his men not to open fire. Suddenly the convicts hear in their heads a telepathic voice of the oldest rat wiseman whose eyes seem to hypnotize them.
RAT WISEMAN: [ telepathic voice]
What are you humans looking for among those you hate so much?
VLAD:
We don’t want your blood. We’re renegades of our own species, which
despises and detests us. It’s true that we fought you, but we were forced to do it. The only thing we want is to leave this planet. We come in peace.
Vlad recognizes the female mutant dragonrat and its baby rat they spared while they were buried alive in the tunnels during the bombing of Kremlin. It stands behind the Rat Wiseman.
RAT WISEMAN: [ telepathic voice]
Wherever you go, you humans bring death and destruction. You can only build in order to destroy it. Your hearts are infected with evil. Nobody understands you better then us, the species created as a result of genetical experiments of your scientists. Their mistake was our blessing and the cradle of your extinction. Implanting human genes into experimental rats you intended to give birth to a deadly virus, which was supposed to deform and exterminate your own brothers. Finally you made a monster, the plague which decimated your population. In fact we are half human and in half a result of a whim of mutating genetical sequences. You killed your monkey cousins, whose genes were used by the civilization that created you. In the same way we devoured our primitive rat brothers whose genes we partly derive from. Devouring human flesh we learnt your emotions. As you can see our species is divided into different castes whose spiritual development vary considerably. Unfortunately our species can’t coexist on the same planet. What gives us life is the breath of the plague, which is deadly to you. We’re going to spare your lives so you could see how false your picture of us is.
VLAD:
We got to get to the surface as quickly as possible.
A few murderous dragonrat warriors appear behind the convicts. Vlad and his men feel that the rat wisemen see through them and read their thoughts. The warriors accompany them and lead through tens of tunnels. On their way to the surface they pass by a number of chambers full of females giving birth to their young, dragonrat workers building new underground constructions or warriors collecting food. Most dragonrats stare at them with hate, some with interest. If it weren’t for the decision of the rat wisemen the convicts would be torn into pieces immediately. They can see the power of the new species with their own eyes. Their deadly claws and fangs, powerful tails and glowing diabolic eyes terrify the convicts who try to keep their fear at bay. Finally, they reach the exit from the labyrinth. The blinding light makes the humans extatic. The dragonrat warriors disappear into the darkness of the tunnels.
SCENE 17: LIVING ZOMBIES [THE KINGDOM OF JESUS]
Vlad and his men cover about 9 miles working their way through deep snow-drifts. They head for an old factory where the smugglers are supposed to leave them supplies of weapons, satelite equipment and food. 5 miles from there they are to be taken aboard a combat spaceship and evacuated from Russia. In a distance they see monumental skyscrapers of the deserted Moscow. Covered by silver mists the city looks like a cemetery of an extinct civilization. The survivors were already evacuated deep into the interior of the country: Syberia, Asian plains and the Caucasus mountains. At noon they take shelter in the forest and go down a ravine. Suddenly they are surrounded by a gigantic crowd of the infected who resemble living zombies. Their bodies are covered by rotting ulcers. They have bloodshed eyes filled with horror and panic. Hundreds of rotting hands touch the anti-virus pressure suits. The desperate infected beg the convicts for food. Some ask them to get them out of this hell.
INFECTED WOMAN: [with a baby daughter in her hands]
Save my daughter. She hasn’t been infected yet.
INFECTED MADMAN:
God sent us angels. It’s a sign. He finally gave us a sign.
The crowd carries the convicts like a flow of a river of mud straight to a deserted Moscow airport. At the heart of the airport the convicts are met by a neurotic, fanatical catholic Polish priest. He looks like a combination of John the Baptist, Marilyn Manson and a Voo Doo shaman. In the background the convicts see a 17 meter-high monumental steel sculpture of the crucified Jesus surrounded by a sea of burning candles.
GABRIEL [THE IMMORTAL]:
Welcome to the Kingdom of Jesus. I’m Gabriel but they call me the IMMORTAL. Once I used to be an ordinary priest. I don’t know why Jesus chose me and protects me from the plague. I’ve been among them for a year. I took care of the infected and buried their corpses with my own hands, but his shield has guarded me from the breath of death. I don’t know why he gave me the mission to bring his words to the world. The doomsday is very close and the judgment day is coming. All the signs predicted in the Bible are coming true. The Lord will return in glory to punish the sinners and take the faithful to paradise. What are you looking for in the House of God?
VLAD:
We’re trying to get out from the city and reach the plains. Sorry, but we ran out of food and can’t halp you in any way.
PROFESSOR:
I suppose they’re going to drop an atomic bomb soon and wipe the whole place out. They have already withdrawn most troops and civilians into the interior of the country. They will probably do the same with all bigger cities.
GABRIEL [THE IMMORTAL]:
Do you see all those people? You probably think they are already dead? Actually, you are dead. Your souls are like empty wells. You have dark holes in your chests instead of hearts. You do your best to fill these holes with blood, sex and money, but you can’t.
Gabriel hits hard and touches their pressure-suits as if he was stroking a snake. Thousands of the living zombies gather around the monumental steel sculpture of the crucified Jesus surrounded by a sea of burning candles. They fall into a trance, dance, swing, tear their hair off, mourn, laugh and sing religious song. The masses of people resemble a living organism possessed by a religious obsession.
GABRIEL [THE IMMORTAL]:
Wherever you go you bring your tanks, bombs and destruction. We’re not afraid of death because Jesus is waiting for us on the other side. But save your dark souls from the power of Satan. You unleashed one of his plagues but salvation is at hand. Unfortunately, you’re too blind to see that.
Gabriel kisses and holds infected women and children and comforts them like Saint Francis from Assissi. He gifts all his dying “sheep” with unimaginable love.
GABRIEL [THE IMMORTAL]:
If you want to reach the plains you will have to cross the “Valley of Death”. Nobody has ever returned alive from there.
VLAD:
What do you mean?
GABRIEL [THE IMMORTAL]:
Cannibals. Human monsters preying on the refugees. They sometimes come at night and kidnap some of us. Sometimes we manage to fight back. But they have never dared to enter this holy place. Your pressure-suits and guns and … your flesh will lure the hords of those blood-thirsty demons. The more human flesh they devour, the more hungry they become. We hear their screams and moans at night. You’d better stay with us and wait for the Second Coming of Jesus.
SHAMIL [ to Vlad]:
We’d better hurry up. We’re running out of time.
VLAD:
Lock and load. We’re getting out of here.
GABRIEL [THE IMMORTAL]:
Pray for your souls, cause you’re already dead. He’s our rope, our only hope!
Gabriels joins his worshippers and is about to say mass. He gets extatic and stares at the gigantic sculpture of the crucified Jesus. The convicts leave Gabriel’s Kingdom of Jesus and enter into the thick oak forests. Their flashlights light the darkness. The farther they move, the more human bones and skulls they come across.
SCENE 18: CANNIBALS [THE VALLEY OF DEATH]
The convicts reach the Valley of Death, which is filled with scattered bones and impaled rotting corpses. Pieces of dried human skin and skulls hang on the oak branches. Suddenly Gypsy falls into a trap and his body lands in a big net, which disappears in a treetop in a split second. The sounds of war drums as well as hundreds of wild screams come from all directions. Gypsy sends a short burst from his kalashnikov, which tears the net into pieces. He falls down on a heap of human intestines. Hordes of long-haired, bearded cannibals run down the Valley slopes yelling like animals. They are armed in spears, hatchets, bows, axes and hammers. They are dressed in rags, shabby, old clothes and bags. Their faces are covered in mud. Their rotten teeth are spilt with blood of their victims. A sea of burning arrows stings and hits the pressure suits of the convicts.
VLAD:
Fire at will!
Vlad, Professor, Shamil and Gypsy send a dozen or so hand grenades from their launchers at the swarms of the frenzied cannibals. The explosions tear their bodies into burning pieces, which fly in the air. The convicts clear their path with flamethrowers sending long tongues of fire into masses of the cannibals. Some of them burn like living torches and still continue their charge. One of the arrows pierces Professor’s left hand. Dozens of stones and pieces of concrete or rock hit the convicts’ helmets. The convicts keep running ahead and get straight into a settlement of the cannibals where they see big, metal bowls with the boiling human limbs and intestines, cages with the cannibals’ victims and heaps of cut off human heads.
Suddenly they hear horses neighing. Soon a squad of cannibals on horseback appears straight from the pitch-black darkness. Some of them are armed in primitive rifles and spears with human heads thrusted on the spearheads. The riders are followed by groups of cannibals with dogs. Gypsy falls into a rage of killing launching 3 hand grenades into a mass of men and animals.
GYPSY:
Die you sick motherfuckers! You want to get my ass! Come and get it!
Three explosions massacre the horses and their riders. The convicts get out of the Valley and see the snow-covered plains in a distance. They only have to run across the frozen river. A horde of blood-thirsty dogs are just behind their backs. One of the dogs jumps at Shamil’s back. He wrestles with the animal for a few seconds and blows its brains out with his kalashnikov. In the light of their falshlights they see a sworm of enraged dogs followed by about a hundred cannibals. Vlad sends a few long bursts at the dogs whose bodies explode. While the convicts fall back they feel ice cracking under their feet. The ice surface breaks under Vlad who falls into the deadly cold water. In the last moment Shamil grabs his hand and pulls his on the surface. They crawl to the opposite bank of the river in a wild blizzard. The horde of the cannibals drowns when the ice cracks under their feet. The convicts rest in the monstrous snowdrifts.
SHAMIL [to Vlad]:
Now we’re even. We gotta go. Our rallying point is about 2 kilometers from here. It’s a deserted factory. The supplies of food, ammo and guns are supposed to be hidden for us there. I told you we were gonna make it.
The convicts set off and make their way to the deserted factory.
SCENE 19: DESERTED SPACECRAFT FACTORY
Dawn. The convicts reach the monumental spacecraft factory, which looks like a huge, desrted fortress consisting of gigantic hangars. Vlad searches the place with a special “virus detector” and finds no signs of the plague.
` VLAD:
The place is clean. No plague.
They take off their masks, which uncover tired, bearded, cold faces. The convicts begin to quarrel when they find no supplies in a set up place.
SHAMIL:
Something must have gone wrong? There must have been too many soldiers hanging around here.
GYPSY:
Yeah. You’re fuckin’ right. Everything went wrong!
Your pals fucked up the job! Now we’re all gonna
die here, you Chechen cocksucker!
SHAMIL:
Get off my back, you Gypsy pimp. Fuck off or I’ll blow your brains out!
You knew the risk!
Shamil and Gypsy point their guns at each other ready to tear each other into pieces like wild animals. Vlad takes out a hand grenade ready to explode.
VLAD:
Back off, both of you. I didn’t get so far to listen to this bullshit. They kept you in the fucking metal cages and made you fight the monsters so long that you turned into monsters yourselves. I’m a monster myself. I killed women and children in the Caucasus and I can do nothing to change it. You know I won’t hesitate to blow the shit out of this place. So “back off”. I wanna survive. And we won’t survive if we don’t keep together.
PROFESSOR: [weak voice, coughing]:
I’m dying. I don’t see anything. I’m too weak to stand up. I’m not gonna make it.
GYPSY:
What’s the plan?
VLAD:
There’s no plan any more. If they don’t pick us up tomorrow morning we’re history.
Shamil looks at his watch and checks the date.
SHAMIL:
The landing site is about 2 kilometers from here. The hired combat transporter is supposed to take us aboard in 16 hours.
Three combat transporters cut the blood-red sky searching for the convicts. The pilots led by General Raskolnikov observe the snow desert.
PILOT:
No signs of the fugitives, comrade General.
GENERAL RASKOLNIKOV:
Keep searching. Those animals couldn’t escape too far.
It gets dark. They can’t light any bonfire because they could be detected by the “convicts hunters”. They sit together trying not to lose too much body heat. It almost dawns.
VLAD:
What are you gonna do when we get to Mars?
SHAMIL:
I’m gonna open up a casino or some luxurious joint and make a lot
of cash. I’m gonna buy a huge limo with a mini swimming pool, virtual reality and all that stuff. Of course I will change my name into … let’s say James McDowell.
GYPSY:
James McDowell? Sounds like some British wimpy dick from the Buckingam palace. I’m gonna screw a pussy from every country in the world, including spacemen pusses if they encounter any out there. I’m gonna buy golden shoes and a guitar and play Gypsy songs in bars to those rich assholes in the city of Eden. What about you, doc?
PROFESSOR:
I’m going to stop feeling scared. That’s what I want. Stop feeling deadly scared.
GYPSY:
You’re a weird, crazy Jew, doc. You’re gonna get 200.000 grand and that’s all you can dream about.
PROFESSOR:
I’ve always lived in hell. I don’t even know what freedom is. How will I know where to go when there are no zones, barbed wire fences and guards with dogs. I’ve been in the cage of terror all my life. I always did what I was told to. I want to feel like a human being again, not like an animal.
GYPSY:
What about you, boss?
VLAD:
I wanna settle down, get married, have kids. A nice, white house in the suburbs would be O.K. I would sit down in my garden every evening, drink vodka and sing Russian songs and then make love to my wife.
GYPSY:
I saw that Tania. She’s a real piece of ass.
SHAMIL:
My men will get her out of the Zone.
Professor starts praying in Hebrew.
GYPSY:
Come on, doc!
PROFESSOR:
They’re going to drop the bomb soon.
SCENE 20: FINAL SOLUTION
THE NEW CAPITAL OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION: STALINGRAD- SIBERIA
A view of the industrial city situated deep into the interior of the country. The Soviet-style monumental edifice- the headquarters of the regime of “GENERALS”. Six Soviet generals sit at a luxurious oak desk in front of the video-phones. The portrait of Stalin and big red stars hang on the walls of the room.
SOVIET OFFICER [ video-phone screen]:
What are the orders, Comerade general?
SOVIET GENERAL:
It’s time for the FINAL SOLUTION. Drop the bombs on the infected cities. Let’s hope Mother Russia will forgive it to us.
A dozen or so wings of nuclear bombers take off. The roar of their engins is deafening.
SCENE 21: SIEGE
All of the sudden the convicts hear the roaring of the landing combat anti-gravitational transporters of the “convicts hunters”. The gates of the transporters open and about 10 snow-scooters drive out of them. The convicts get up right away and grab their kalashnikovs.
VLAD:
Gypsy, Professor. Go to the first floor and whack every fucker who approaches the building! Watch out! They’re ex-convicts so they know all the tricks! Shamil! Where is our transporter?
SHAMIL:
They will be here in 20 minutes.
Professor and Gypsy take their positions on the first floor and observe the half-drunk “convicts hunters” who prepare themselves for an assult.
PIETIA [CYBORG- loud-speaker]:
Surrender and your lives will be spared. You belong to Zone 13 and you are going to remain there until you pay back your debt to Mother Russia.
The convicts recognize the familiar voice of the combat cyborg hidden in the body of their former companion called Pietia. The machine dressed in a khaki uniform with the remains of the burnt skin on its face gives orders to half-drunk “convicts hunters”.
GYPSY:
Pietia! You fuckin’ motherfucker!!!
Pietia gives an order to the “hunters”whose scooters shoot out charging at the hangars. The “hunters” open fire and the rain of bullets stings the walls of the buildings. The convicts send hand grenades from their launchers and 4 scooters explode. Pieces of the burning bodies of the “hunters” fly in the air and get scattered in the snow. Then they send short bursts at the Soviet infantrymen. Vlad sees Pietia and a couple of soldiers placing a “sound cannon” in the snow.
VLAD:
They got “a sound cannon”! We’re getting the hell out of here!
All the convicts run out of the hangar, which explodes within seconds hit by a stream of condensed sound.
SHAMIL:
6 minutes! The landing site is only about a mile ahead!
They run madly through the snowdrifts, which explode right beside them. Suddenly Gypsy and Professor are thrown into the air by a nearby blast of condensed sound. When Gypsy gets up he sees bleeding Professor whose cut off legs lie just beside him.
GYPSY:
Hey doc! Do you hear me?
VLAD:
Is he alive?
Professor wakes up from coma and starts groaning with pain.
GYPSY:
Fuck! What am I supposed to do! It cut his fuckin’ legs off. He got no
fuckin’ legs!!!
Professor grabs Gypsy by the hand.
PROFESSOR:
Leave me. It’s over.
Vlad runs back to his companions, takes off his belt and ties it around the Professor’s massacred limb. Gypsy does the same with his belt.
PROFESSOR: [bleeds from his mouth]:
Damn! You fools. Leave me and save yourselves.
VLAD:
I won’t do that! I’ve left too many men behind. Don’t worry. They got a hibernation container on board of the transporter. They’re gonna implant you new legs on Mars.
SHAMIL:
Motherfuckers behind your backs!
Vlad turns around and whacks another snow scooter with his flamethrower. In a split second he takes Professor on his back. Gypsy carries the bleeding legs, which stream with black and scarlet blood.
VLAD:
What the hell are you doing? Throw it away!
Gypsy throws the Professor’s legs away and follows his companions. When they get to the landing site the convicts fall on the ground and send short bursts at the charging Soviet infantrymen.
GYPSY:
I’m out!
VLAD:
I’m out, too!
Suddenly a combat anti-gravitational transporter lands just behind their backs. It’s a UFO-like saucer, about 50 meters in diameter. Its laser gun turns two snow scooters into balls of fire.
Two smugglers in masks appear in the spacecraft’s doors and wave their hands at Shamil. They look like the 18th century pirates.
SHAMIL [ to Vlad]:
I told you they’d come for us!
The convicts run madly to the transporter’s door. Gypsy turns around and takes the last look at the Russian plains.
GYPSY:
FREEDOM !!!
He gets hit in the legs and falls down in the snow. Shamil grabs him by the arm and drags him into the spacecraft. When all the convicts pass through a disinfection chamber they get inside the transporter where they meet a dozen or so smugglers and mericinaries.
MERCINARY [to Shamil]:
Welcome aboard!
SHAMIL:
Let’s get out of here!
Vlad and Gypsy put bleeding Professor into a hibernation container where he is frozen. Some doctor takes care of the Gypsy’s leg.
VLAD [to Shamil]:
Let me take over the ship. I used to fly much bigger stuff in the Special
Forces for a couple of years.
Shamil tells the pilot to let Vlad fly the transporter. The spacecraft takes off at enormous speed, flies over the hangars and stops over the cyborg disguised in the body of the small boy Pietia.
PIETIA [CYBORG]:
Surrender and your lives will be spared. You belong to Zone 13 and you are going to remain there until you pay back your debt to Mother Russia.
VLAD:
Sweet dreams asshole.
Vlad pulls a trigger and the laser cannon hits the cyborg with a deadly laser beam. The machine explodes into small burning pieces. Suddenly Vlad’s transporter gets hit by the rain of rounds spit from a huge anti-gravitational destroyer piloted by General Raskolnikov. It’s a triangular spacecraft, about 80 meters in diameter.
Nuclear bombers approach Moscow.
NUCLEAR BOMBER PILOT:
We will reach the target in 12 minutes.
SCENE 22: AIR BATTLE OVER MOSCOW
Vlad’s transporter turns on the anti-gravitational propulsion and shoots out in the air at the speed of 10.000 kilometers per hour. After a couple of minutes it reaches the monumental ruins of Moscow and flies low over the huge avenues full of rotting corpses and abandoned vehicles. It’s followed by General Raskolnikov’s destroyer, which spits thousands of rounds from its rapid-firing cannons.
GENERAL RASKOLNIKOV’S CO-PILOT:
Comerade General. 8 minutes to the nuclear explosion. If we don’t give up the chase we won’t manage to leave the “ death zone” on time. I recommend that you should …
General Raskolnikov takes out a gun and puts it to his co-pilot’s head.
GENERAL RASKOLNIKOV:
Shut the fuck up! Nobody has ever escaped from my Zone.
General Raskolnikov pulls the trigger and sends a laser beam from his destroyer. Vlad makes a sudden turn hiding behind a monumental skyscraper, which explodes in flames.
Nuclear bombers approach Moscow.
NUCLEAR BOMBER PILOT:
6 minutes to the “drop zone”.
Two combat transporters fly above the frozen river at the speed of 10.000 miles an hour. Vlad’s spacecraft cuts through the mists under a dozen or so gigantic, steel bridges. He tries to avoid Raskolnikov’s missiles, which destroy the main Moscow Bridge. The two spacecraft get into the downtown full of monumental skyscrapers covered in mists. Suddenly Vlad’s transporter disappears into the mists.
GENERAL RASKOLNIKOV:
Where the fuck is he?
In a split second Vlad’s spaceraft flies out of the fog heading straight towards Raskolnikov’s destroyer.
VLAD:
Let’s play chicken shit.
In the last moment Raskolnikov makes a sudden turn avoiding a certain crash. His destroyer hits a skyscraper and turns into a ball of fire.
SCENE 23: APOCALYPSE NOW
Nuclear bombers reach Moscow.
NUCLEAR BOMBER PILOT:
90 seconds to the “drop zone”.
Vlad’s scacecraft shoots out into the sky leaving the Moscow skyline behind. The bombers drop down 3 nuclear bombs on the deserted city. Huge flowers of fire rise a few miles above the ground wiping out the former capital of Russia together with the penitentiary Zones as well as the underground kingdom of dragonrats. A smuggler pilot takes over piloting the spacecraft.
SHAMIL:
We’re heading for my father’s secret base in the Caucasus. There we’re gonna get false space passports and tickets for a shuttle to Mars.
Vlad and Gypsy spot nuclear mushrooms over the horizont.
SHAMIL:
They are burning the sources of the plague- Sankt Petersburg, Kijev…
You look like shit Vlad. Have some rest.
Vlad comes into a cabin where he takes off his pressure suit covered with pieces of human and rat flesh. Unexpectedly he feels somebody’s presence in the room and turns around. Tania slowly takes off her clothes and has passionate sex with Vlad.
SCENE 24: EDEN [ EPILOGUE]
INTERNATIONAL ZONE PHOENIX:THE CITY OF EDEN: MARS
The panorama of the city of Eden which resembles a perfect combination of fabulous architecture, exotic gardens and water parks. Vlad parks his space cadillac in front of a
luxurious night club called „ZONE 13”. He is dressed in a smart suit and smokes a cigar. Inside he meets Shamil who counts the cash and talks to the bodyguards and bartenders.
VLAD [0FF]:
You know what? Fate is a malicious and doped joker driving a sports car. I used to be a slave, renegate, a despised cannon meat. Now I’m in Eden building the „New, Brave World”. My best friend and business partner is a Muslim playboy and the son of the Chechen mafia boss. He derives from the race I hated and tried to exterminate in a couple of wars. My wife and the mother of my children is a former hooker who screwed half the guys in the Zone. Out of the hundreds of men I tried to get out of hell I managed to save only two: a Gypsy pimp and Professor who stabbed his wife 159 times when he caught her doing the blow job to his own brother. I’m alive ‘cause some mutated monsters let me live. Although I burnt their females deep under the ground they spared my life and led me out of the tunnels. I was enslaved and hunted like an animal by humans. As far as Professor is concerned, he had his new legs implanted and bought himself a dog, which he called Dostojevski. After the incident with his wife he never trusted any woman again. He got a job in a „water park” and devoted his life to studying philosophy. Once he told me he was searching for God in all this mess. Gypsy? This guy could really taste life. He got himself golden shoes and became a local rock star.
Night club. Gypsy, dressed like Elvis Presley performs on stage. After the concert he gets drunk, dances on the tables and picks up some whores telling them some tall stories about dragonrats.
International Zone Phoenix- Eden on Mars. Vlad and Professor sit silently on the golden beach in the fabulous „water park” under a gigantic, artificial dome with a beautiful sunset projected on its surface. Pregnant Tania walks in the incredibly bright blue water of a tropical Martian lake playing with the Professor’s dog Dostojevski. Crimson and tangerine sunlight licks the waves.
VLAD:
The Chinese say that one picture reflects more truth than a thousand words. I went through hell to get to Eden. Sometimes the worst nightmares end up in paradise. So here I am and I can tell you one thing. Life? … Life is beautiful.
THE END
