Review This Screenplay Called "The Anabolic Kings".

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Anabolic Kings
By Doug Holland

Submitted to Library of Congress March of 1993

Fade in. Dark screen.
Narrator:

For some people the bible is asleep, not having much influence on their daily lives. They may feel it is old in thought and outdated. They only like the cute story-telling. It lies on the coffee table in its prepared place for all those who visit to see. Opened little, they only move it for dusting. Yet for the men of power who control the world, it is their greatest fear. Men who put faith in one story, one chapter will turn the world upside down, never to be the same. It is for this scripture that a science team has sought.

Scripture appears on the screen.
{Genesis 6:1-4}. Wicked angels take form as men, taking women, namely all whom they chose. After sexual relations the women bore sons . . . The Neph’i’lim, mighty ones, men of fame.
Fade out.





Fade in.
Approximately 2600 B.C.E. Middle East.

It is a clear night when the stars fall out of heaven. The wood fire just outside the deerskin tent gives out, signaling it is time for sleep. A little girl watches as do her mother and father at the continuous falling of the stars. Hot, molten lava strikes the ground in many places, causing the earth to shake. Large sparks shower into the air setting trees and tents on fire. The rocks quickly cool and stretch into various shapes. Fingers, arms and legs form out of the stone. Water seeps up from the ground through the dirt and streams directly into the nostrils of the strange figures. Steam rolls off the rocky parts as water meshes with the hot stone. Eyes, ears and mouth form from the top of the rocks, while legs, groin and feet stretches from the bottom. Arms extend, while fingers separate and flex. Muscles begin to twitch and hair pushes out of the skin. Eyes of red, flaming with fire, cool and change to blue, green or brown. Fingernails form as do the teeth and tongues. People scream and gape with shock as they witness the materialization of men from lava rock. The little girl’s panicky mother and father beg her to go into the tent as the steaming bodies approach the different shelters. They forcibly throw the young ten-year-old into the tent. A large man stands in front of the girl’s parents, who are blocking the entryway to their home. Trembling, the little girl scuttles back to the front from where her parents threw her. She peeks out of a small opening at the base of the tent to get a better view of what is happening. She sees the naked man standing in front of her parents and notes that he is incredibly handsome but evil-looking.
Her mother is very beautiful, having long, blond hair and sparkling blue eyes. Her soft, white skin shines in the dark and even when she trembles with fear, she is radiant. The large man's eyes look her up and down, paying close attention to her female parts. Her father trembles and asks the large man to go away. Then the naked man turns his attention to the father and with lightning speed, grabs him around the neck. The mother screams at him to let her husband go. He is gasping for his life and his wife becomes desperate, grabbing a stick and beating the large man with it without success. The little girl screams as her father’s life is being squeezed from him. He convulses and saliva drips out of his mouth and over the man's wrist. The being watches with interest as the man dies in his hand. She continues to scream when her father hits the ground lifelessly. Veins had bursts in the membrane lining causing blood to trickle out of his nose.
The man turns to the little girl's mother and walks up to her. In terror, her mother backs up to the wall of the tent. The man puts his hand gently against her trembling cheek. She quivers at his touch. Then he puts his hand in her hair and grabs it forcefully. The little girl runs to the back of the tent and hides behind some rolled up wool blankets. Frightened, the ten-year-old feels her own death is imminent. She peeks through to see her mother being dragged up to the main support pole of the tent. Her mother punches and slaps at him, but he does not even feel it. The wool dress her mother is wearing is ripped right off her. The little girl closes her eyes and can hear her mother screaming in agony as he rapes her vigorously. With her mother being assaulted and her father dead, the final thrust of adrenaline causes her to pass out.

Fade out.

Fade in.

The next day, the girl wakes up to her mother kissing her face and gently stroking her long, blond hair. Her mother is telling her that she loves her. She slowly sits up, holding tightly onto her mother. She pulls back to get a better look at her. Purple bruises are along her hairline and neck. Out of the corner of her eye she detects movement and sees the hateful man lying stretched out, eating fruit from yesterday's pickings. He sits up and speaks to her mother while staring at the little girl with a smirk.

Large Man:
"Soon your daughter will be old enough to please me as you have pleased me."

Mother (in a terrified whisper):
"She is just a child."

With a chuckle he lays back down and keeps staring at the little girl.

Fade out.

Fade in.

The wicked angels organize and take the women, all whom they choose. They quickly kill anyone who dares to stop them. The most evil ones crush the male's heads right in front of their families. Swift and organized, they dominate in a matter of days. The handsome angels drag any woman they happened to want wherever they want and have their way with them. Beauty was a curse and some women die of the constant abuse. To most, it would be a blessing. Months later, the women who have intercourse with the spirit forces then bear sons. These sons are tremendous in size, twice as big as the average man of their time and they mature very quickly. They too, when fully mature, turn out wicked like their fathers. They see that no human man can stop them and they can take whatever and whomever they want as their fathers did. A majority become slaves of the beasts. The Hebrew texts later calls them Hag-gi-bo-rim or the neph’i’lim. Who can stand against them? Who can reason with this arrogant species?

The little girl watches, as she grows older, the unfair games which the wicked men set. Two average men against one hybrid in an arena circle with no escape. The arenas consists of solid brick floors. A carving of a pyramid with an open eye distinguishes the center ring. A small, wooden wall around its’ base surrounds this. Any man wanting rights to his family must be willing to enter the ring and battle to the death. They can choose a weapon but only once did a hybrid lose. That was because he was extremely drunk. The Neph’i’lim prove quicker, stronger and more intelligent than their inferior human counterparts. So many men prefer to die trying to gain rights to their family instead of living with the shame that their wife is with another man by force. By the time the little girl is no longer a little girl (sixteen years old ) she is, unfortunately for her, incredibly beautiful. The wicked angel that first abused her mother takes her too.

At this time in life, they rule the earth with power and fear. It is a time of joy in the black hearts of the spawn beasts. The taste the milk of human suffering and find it sweet. No longer playing by the rules of love, they satisfy every want and desire at humans’ expense. The evil empowerment of the wicked angelic force would never truly end, not even after the flood, for even when the flood does come and the Neph’i’lim die, their wicked angelic fathers de-materialize and go back to heaven, while their presence never really leaves the earth.

Fade out.

Fade in. Florida.January 1985.

Narrator/Cliff:
When I was in high school, I had met a girl named Kara. She had recently broken up with a tough, macho cowboy named Beau. We met on the sidewalk in front of the school and she was the only one who was willing to talk to me.
The parking lot consisted of asphalt and had broken into several slates and potholes. A chain-link fence about four feet high surrounded the pavement and some open grass that met its outer edges. There was one large tree in the center of the yard that was a small distance from the main sidewalk that took one into the school. The school itself was large, about four stories high. Made of brick, it was probably very old. Large, tinted windows were staggered unevenly across the facade of the school. The gutter that hung from the roof was worn badly and bowed in the center. Little drops of water came through the small crack at its base from last night's rain. Mud puddles were everywhere, especially close to the large oak tree. It was badly groomed and had branches that scraped the front part of the roof overhang in two places. Plenty of foliage on the branches gave quite a bit of shade to the school grounds. That was where many boys stood with a few girls around them. Black cowboy hats balanced out the white ones. Flannel shirts seemed to be the style. The only variety was the color chosen. Just about everybody seemed to be wearing giant belt buckles with leather straps around their waist. Some of the belt buckles had images of confederate flags while others had a skull and crossbones and a few had bullhorns. Most of the teenagers had their names burned into the belts. Billy, John, Loni, Pat and Mary Lou just to name a few. Two of the guys standing around went so far as to have handkerchiefs tied to their necks! A couple of the guys wrestled with each other while their girlfriends giggled. There also seemed to be a variety of cowboy boots. Steel-pointed, snake skin, alligator skin and other leathers in a variety of colors. It seemed some of the guys prided themselves on their boots while others wanted them to look as damaged as possible. Maybe that was the sign of a real cowboy. Who knows? One thing was for sure. All had eyes on me when I came out into the open. Kara took a big chance being seen with me on the first day of this school. The reason being that within a few short moments, I had become the object of ridicule due to my dress. I had come to Florida as a Chicago street boy unwilling to leave the city life and dress that I was so accustomed to. On this day, I was wearing black, flared-out pants with a red stripe down the sides of both legs; a shirt of red velvet and a silver rope chain around my waist completed the outfit.
South High was known for its cowboy image, but how was I to know that just a few in a school of eight hundred students didn't dress like the Lone Ranger. I also didn't find pleasure in seeing students expand their cheeks with tobacco and then see what furthest bush they could spit on. The sound of Glasspack mufflers that would rumble the Sears Tower to the ground was not too delightful either. I didn't fit in, that much was obvious. With all the name calling directed at me, I was surprised that Kara stayed and talked to me. We continued to see each other between classes that day and frankly, she helped me keep my sanity. After school, she asked me to give her a ride home and I did. Little did I know that was going to trigger the greatest changes of my life.

Fade out.

Fade in.
Chicago suburb.

Narrator/Cliff:
Before I came to Florida, I lived on Second Street in Chicago. That was where our small, two bedrooms, one bathroom apartment was. My last seven years were spent growing up in this humble apartment. Very few army personnel were fortunate enough to not be stationed in several places. So when my dad retired (or so he said), they moved us close to our immediate relatives. Grandpa. No one else. My dad's brothers died in Vietnam. One on the battlefield and the other succumbed to the Agent Orange. Grandma had passed away from cancer so Grandpa was all we had left. One of my uncles left behind a wife and son, but when Grant Packard died, she blamed the Army and us. I've never met Buddy. I guess he was supposed to be my age.
Anyway, we lived a very good life in that small apartment. Though retired, Dad and some of his buddies seemed to be involved once in a while doing some 'consultancies' for the army or for government and sometimes for private industries. He was pretty secretive about them to me but I got tired of that. He downplayed everything and made it seem like it was some kind of veteran's club thing he did with his buddies. I guess he made pretty good money but he and Mom were pretty frugal by nature. They weren't tightwads but they didn't spend a lot of money on things they didn't need and we didn't need anything more than that cozy apartment. I knew that there was a special safe next to Mom and Dad's bed only for Dad's personal use. Sometimes he would bring home small boxes and put them in there or take them out later. I knew not to ask about them. Finally, one day while I was brushing my teeth in the bathroom, I overheard Mom and Dad raising their voices. I quietly shut the water off and held the burning toothpaste in my mouth while I walked closer to their door. Our bathroom had three doors, one from my room, one from my parent's room and one from the hallway. Stupid design. I put my ear close to their door and could hear my Dad pacing back and forth. The floor creaked with each step.

Dad:
"Listen, honey, me and the boys have to be a part of the project. My life won't be complete without this one."
Mom:
"I understand Sweetheart, but it's such a risk."
Dad:
"I have to. They need me."

Narrator/Cliff:
That was it. My father had made up his mind. This project was going to be on the Florida-Georgia borderline. And we were going.

Fade out.

Fade in.

School in South Florida.

N/C:
Thursday of that first week, Kara and I had lunch together in the school cafeteria. Lunch was rotten but we didn't care, we liked each other’s company. She noticed my change in dress, blue jeans and all. I didn't go for the whole cowboy look, I just wanted to fit in better. I was becoming afraid of being beat up for my dress. Kara was sympathetic to the peer pressure I was feeling. She said I was cute no matter how I dressed. And with her very beautiful smile, I was quickly put at ease. I had never related well with the fairer sex. In Chicago I had a lot of male companions. I loved stickball, snowball fights and the Chicago Stadium. Great teams came to play but the Cubs was always my favorite. Girls were alien to me. But Kara, she was different. After eating lunch and finishing our small talk, we said goodbye and off she went. As I was standing at the tray station, picking through my empties, Goliath approached me.

Goliath:
"Hey, Pencil! Has my girlfriend gone crazy?! What could she possibly see in a two-inch armed, three-inch legged boy like you?!"




Cliff’s hands begin shaking at the fingertips. He quickly skips the line and places his tray in the garbage disposal. Goliath follows.
Goliath (yelling):
"Did you hear me?!"

Cliff has no where to go.
Cliff:
(gulping)
"Uh...what's your problem?"

Goliath:
"You, dummy! You and my girl Kara!".

Cliff:
(shaking)
"Well, uhhhhh…..."

Kara:
“His character, you big jerk!”
Goliath:
"What character? Juliet in Shakespeare's play?"

All the students in the general area start laughing at me and begin to egg Goliath on. The giant is coming closer.

Goliath:
"Do you know who I am?"

Cliff:
(trying to step back)
"No.”

Goliath puts his left hand on my shoulder and begins speaking.

Goliath:
"Look, my name is Beau Clark. My friends call me Beau, but you're not my friend so you can call me Sir Beau."

The students laugh harder at Beau's comments.

Goliath/Beau:
"Now the reason I approached you was to tell you that you and Kara will see each other no more; you won't talk to her, write to her or even look at her. If I had been coming to school earlier, I might have been able to inform you of this."

Cliff:
"Oh yeah? Well, what if I do keep seeing her? Who's going to stop me?"

N/C:
Wait a minute! Rewind! What did I just say?! Beau, like most bullies, went on to stick his finger in my face and thought he was going to push me around.
Well.....he did.
Cliff goes on the offensive and tries to deliver a hail-mary kick to Beau’s groin. The other boys in the cafeteria collectively groan and grab their privates. Beau acts as if he doesn’t feel it. Beau then picks up Cliff and holds him over his head and starts spinning him like a helicopter.

Screams of the teenagers filled the air.

Teenagers:
"A fight! A fight!"

Beau then drops him and starts choking him with one hand and punching him in the stomach with the other hand. He then throws Cliff headfirst into one of the cafeteria walls.

Fade out.

Fade in.

On a typically warm January day in Florida, a black van enters the guarded drive towards the iron gate. The letters MP in yellow mark the doors of the vehicle. They come upon a 'stop here' painted right on the asphalt just before the gate. A concrete guardhouse stands to the left of the iron partition and seems to take little space. The pavement continues up and over a hill and that is all that can be seen. Shortly, an electronic door on the guardhouse slides open and a man wearing a white cap, black uniform and a white armband with an MP symbol in yellow on it approaches the vehicle. The driver’s side, dark-tinted window slowly slides down and a quick signature on a clipboard is given. The iron gates swing open and the van is driven quickly over the hill and towards a concrete fortress. Modern in appearance, it has few windows gracing the facade and is painted a bright, boring white. The structure is square, having no off angles or special design. A large marble slab, like an oversized tombstone, stands up in the center of the main courtyard inscribed with the letters DVA VA CENTER. It is a cold, concrete jungle and no plant lovers have decided to warm up the place a bit with some flora. The van comes to a stop in front of an outside elevator door. Two men, smartly dressed in army regalia stand at either side of the door, waiting. Both have a red stripe down the side of the shoulders and serious expressions on their faces.
The doors open as the MP's exit the vehicle. They open the back door and move to grab a white body in white clothing, covered head to toe in shackles. It is Beau. He has crazed eyes and a furiously foaming mouth. Extreme anger shows all over the disgusted face. Leg irons two inches thick guard both ankles and are held together by a thick chain. Three separate chains wrap his waist attached to thick layers of leather around his chest. What looks like a dog collar encircles his neck, this being attached to a leather band that fits snugly around his head. He spews some foam on the officers while trying to bite them as they hustle him into the waiting elevator.

Fade out.

Fade in.
County Hospital.
Mom:
"Cliff. Cliff, it's your parents, Cliffie. We're here with you, honey."

Cliff:
(grunting)
"Mom . . . ...Dad.

Mom:
(relief and excitement)
"Yes honey, it's Mom and Dad. It's so good to hear your voice."

Cliff:
(groggy)
"Where am I?"
(excited)

"I can't see anything!"

Mom:
"That's because you have three pounds of gauze over your eyes, dear."

N/C:
My mom and dad were fine examples of good parents. My dad was an army vet who loved the military. He told me war stories that got bigger and better as I aged. He always felt, though, that I didn't seem to have that strong, spirited attitude the others in my family had. He always said I was more like Mom, but he never let me down one day in my life. His promise was a promise. Mom was wary but relatively willing to try new things. I talked her into helping me do things that most moms wouldn't let their children do. Such as getting weird movies or books with morbid contents or even play hookey once in a while. I loved scaring myself.

Dr. Sevich:
"Hello Cliff. My name is Dr. Sevich. It looks as if your entanglement at school today caused you some minor injury."

Cliff:
"Huh! It was more like David and Goliath without the slingshot!"


Dr. Sevich:
(chuckling)
"Son, you're going to have a mild concussion to overcome for the next few days. So you need to rest."

Cliff:
"Great.”

Dr. Sevich:
"You'll be just fine."

N/C:
When the doctor left the room, I began to dwell on three things: One, would they miss a small supply of Demerol from the drug supply room? Two, was I going to make the right choice in still seeing Kara? After all, was it worth this? And three, what did Beau mean when he called me a pencil?

Fade out.

Fade in.

October 1970. In a lab deep underground.

A red plexiglass box hangs from a painted steel rod about ten feet off the ground. It is five feet long and four feet high and the glass is six inches thick on all sides. The steel rod is attached to a cylinder which looks like a blank soda can. It swings back and forth like a pendulum and then slowly comes to a stop. The cylinder itself rests on the concrete floor. The whole room is concrete and everywhere power cords run like snakes from the walls to the cylinder. What is interesting about the box is that it is not actually red but on a closer inspection, it is just liberally splashed with blood. A couple of the sides have apparently missed the splatter to expose a human body. The chest cavity has been ripped open and the innards cover the man's face. Hairy skin on the forearms has withdrawn from his bones and strands of ligaments hold the skin loosely to the muscle. Wires with small receivers hang down his front loosely against where his ribs used to be. A doctor with a white coat enters the room, slowly walking toward the cell. His stomach starts roiling when he sees what’s inside and when he opens the cell door from a tall ladder he can taste the bile in his mouth and then he quickly jumps off the ladder, wretching and pukes the nice microwave breakfast he ate that morning.

Doctor:
"It's bad, really bad!"

In the background:
(man’s voice)
"Lower the cell!"

When it is lowered, the man that has been gagging by this time has some assistance and they pull the corpse out, splashing blood and organs on the floor with it. The assistant starts gagging and has to stop to compose himself. Out of the background steps a short, dark-haired man in a green army outfit with a red stripe stitched to his right shoulder (Cliff Packard’s father). He speaks to the doctor standing near him.

Jack/Mr. Packard:
"The project's over. We've lost too many."

Dr. Insalaco:
"Oh God, Jack. I'm so sorry. We were so close."

Jack/Mr. P:
"I know Doc, but we can't afford to lose another man."

The doctor turns his head and looks at the remains of the dead man.

Dr. Insalaco:
(quietly to himself)
“I'm sorry Dave. Please forgive me.”

Fade out.

Fade in.
Cliff’s high school graduation. Two years later.
The few friends Cliff has shakes his hands, gives him hugs and say their farewells. Cliff notices two men in green suits staring at him from the second floor balcony of a large auditorium. There are about two thousand students and family members but there is easily room for more. There was one small deck where the curtains hung across that the two men in green suits were standing. They are just staring and staring. Belatedly, Cliff gets his dad’s attention to see if he knows who the men are. When Cliff points up to the deck, the men are gone. After a cursory glance around, Cliff forgets about them.

Fade out.


Fade in.
In the car with his parents on the way home from graduation.

N/C:
As my parents were driving me home, I began to recollect back to those two years of my life. The growing pains I suffered seemed immense. Even after Beau was expelled for hospitalizing me, my sense of justice never rendered itself. If all men were created equal, how then can one man overpower another so easily? It's a good thing our local courts of justice gave him an ultimatum, either pass your GED and join the army or go to jail. I didn't want to have to test the laws of nature any more.
Beau's real background was foreign to me, but students that knew him intimately, blamed what happened in the school cafeteria on a medical experiment he and his parents volunteered him receiving treatment for his muscular disease. I did hear rumors around school that he could bench-press over six hundred pounds, due to the steroids he took in combination with a new drug. Beau's friends explained that he wasn't aggressive before the over-the-summer experiment, in fact they said he was docile.
I found it difficult to believe that Goliath, who used me as a human jackhammer, was ever docile.

Fade out.


Fade in.
A few days later in Cliff’s living room with his father explaining his anxieties to him.

Dad:
"Son, join the army as your fathers before you did."

Cliff:
(in trepidation)
"The army?"

Dad:
"Yes, the US Army!"

Cliff:
"Dad, do you really think I could make it in the army? I know you made it Dad, but-"

Dad:
(cutting Cliff off)
"No buts about it! If you want to discipline your mind and get tough and earn respect. You need to enlist."

Cliff:
"Okay Dad, I'll think about what you said."

Dad:
"Good!"

Fade out.




Fade in.
October 1996. Mogadishu, African Continent.

Mist lightly blankets a small, open grassy field. Heavy moisture has formed dew drops on the leaves of several strychnos trees. Their opposite leaves bear the beautiful yellowish flowers that give innocence to the forty foot mammoths. Spinosa plants grow haphazardly amongst the giants and with the little light not taken by the strychnos, they’re able to produce their orange berries right on time. Up high into a large vine-covered tree lay a black beauty. Waking from his sleep, the upside-down creature stretches one leg at a time and then opens its’ wings and mouth for a final stretch. The flyfox, distinctly known for its dog-like face of light orange, is irritated at the morning light. It should have left an hour earlier but for some reason the megabat overslept. With wings fully spread, the black caped creature is off, weaving in and out of the trees. The peace he left is soon quietly broken by men crawling on their stomachs in guerilla camouflage. Four men dressed in green camo, green goggles, brown boots and gray gloves hide themselves in some tropical bushes at the base of one of the strychnos. They start to speak quietly.

Joe:
"Garrett, did ya see one?"

Joe is crammed tightly between two plants. Leaves cover his face and neck but his chest is plainly exposed.

Garrett:
"Quiet.

Garrett is looking for the other team leader. The other two remain silent. Rex scans the open field looking for someone or something.
PHUT! All of a sudden Joe's chest explodes in red dye.

Joe:
(unnecessarily)
"I'm hit!"

Garrett runs over to Joe and gets hit on the arm and the waist.

Garrett:
"Crap!"

The other two who are with Garrett and Joe lift up their paint guns and return fire. Their guns look like miniature, hand-held, pump-action shotguns. Each gun holds only twenty paint balls and has limited power from the Nitrogen. With each shot the guns become weaker. Their random shooting proves fruitless and they are quickly overtaken by another team. The other two men, Dave and Bob take hits to the chin and neck, respectively. All are fatal hits by the rules and for that the B-team loses. Three men who are party to the A-team, approach Garrett as he wipes the dye off his hands. Joe is so ashamed at being hit so early, he remains sitting and doesn't say a word. Goggles come off the first man, exposing his brown eyes.

First man:
"Garrett, what the heck were you doing?! ........ you didn't last one hour on your mission exercise!"

Turning, he looks at Joe.

"I don't even want to hear an excuse about how you men got too drunk last night at the colonel's party. Every day could be your last!"

Turns back to Garrett.

"You're dead! How does it feel to be dead?!"

They get up and start walking back to camp and are intercepted by a jeep blocking their way. It has a flat green paint job that covers the rust on the roll bar and fenders. One man, a sergeant, in a green army suit with red stripes on his shoulder gets out.

Sergeant:
(To Garrett and Joe)
"Garrett, Joe... your new orders."

The sergeant then hands Garrett an envelope. After a quick wink by the black-haired man in green, they are in their jeep and gone.

Fade out.


Fade in.
The underground lab. 1983.

Noise of an animal beating a human.

Doctor Insalaco:
"Stop him! Hurry! He's killing me! Use the tazors!"

The gorilla is nasty-looking and angry. He snorts belligerently while he bats the doctor around like a doll. Behind the ticked-off gorilla lay overturned steel cages. A key has been thrown on the floor outside one of the doors. The wild animal stands five-feet tall and is extremely stocky and dense. A syringe sticks out of his right thigh, the plunger not depressed. He roars at the top of his lungs to show his displeasure.

Rudy:
"I can't get a clear shot!"
Doctor Insalaco:
"Oh, God!"


Then Rudy finally gets a clear shot and fires at the gorilla. The twin prongs embed deep into his lower back. The body immediately jerks spasmodically and drops, falling on Dr. Insalaco. With feet still twitching, Rudy drags the gorilla as best as he can off the Doc. Insalaco's face is bleeding from the attack, and barely conscious, he struggles out from underneath the huge beast. The lab is a mess turned upside down. Equipment is scattered or destroyed. Vials, beakers, computers and file cabinets are trashed in the brief attack. A sweet smell meets the Doc's nostrils and he glances over to where the chemicals like formaldehyde are and sees them broken and splattered everywhere. The attack lasted for seconds. Rudy checks for a pulse on the gorilla.

Rudy:
"He's alive. The tazor didn't kill him."

Doctor Insalaco:
(coughing)
"Get him back to his cage and next time...a much stronger sedative. Bloody gorilla has never been friendly!"

Then the doctor gets an ice pack out of one of the refrigerators and holds it to his throbbing face.

Fade out.


Fade in. DVA VA Center.
In a white, featureless room lays Beau. His very blue eyes are calm. He turns to the nurse coming into the room. He sees the needle. Another blood test. He stretches out his arm on the bed and allows the nurse to insert the needle and draw the blood. Calm and collected he remains. The doctors have done their job well.
Later that day the test results come back and they let him know. Clear!

Fade out.


Fade in.
Fort Stuart; Hillsman, Georgia. Cliff is completing boot camp.

Sgt. Jackson calls cliff to his office. Cliff is standing at attention clothed in underwear and dogtags as he’s about to turn in. Sgt. Jackson sits at his desk with his elbows on it leaning forward, amused at Cliff’s discomfiture.


Sgt. Jackson:
"It seems you have a new recruit, a transfer from Ft. Patterson."

Cliff:
"Yes, sir. What is it you...wanted me to do, sir?"

Jackson stands and comes around the desk toward Cliff.

Sgt. Jackson:
"A higher-up wanted him to be working side by side with you, since you were old friends of course."

Cliff:
(confused)
"Friend, sir?"

Sgt. Jackson:
"Your old high school buddy, Beau Clark."

Cliff starts to breathe hard.

Cliff:
"Oh god, sir. You're joking, the men put you up to that, sir."

He gets right in Cliff’s face.

Sgt. Jackson:
"Did I say speak freely?"

Cliff:
"Sir, no sir."

Sgt. Jackson:
"They tell me he was responsible for your…..timidity. Well, he's a changed man. You can handle it, Juliet."

He chuckles and dismisses Cliff.

Fade out.







Fade in.

We come to a new scene, with familiar characters. Some of these characters seem to have different personalities (reasons for this are left obscure…subsequent scenes will make everything clearer to the viewer).

December 6, 1996; Near Turkey.
A tall man, a professor, with dark hair and brown eyes, covered in American combat clothes and boots, begins to speak to a small group of volunteers on the base of a rocky hillside.

Professor Andrew Thornback:
"Forty-five hundred years ago, the greatest catastrophe in earth's history occurred. The flood, as most of you know it, came to destroy all living men, women, children and animals. The only survivors on the face of the earth were Noah's family and two of every animal according to its’ kind. A wooden ship approximately forty-five feet tall, five hundred feet wide and having the length of a football field landed here, somewhere on the top of this mountain. Mount Ararat has been explored many times in the last fifty years, bringing new, unanswered questions and more stories. The US government has been so gracious to fund me, an unknown scientist and his group, to find the ark. I have spent my entire life dreaming of the day I would be standing at the base of Mount Ararat, looking up-"

Aki:
"I hope you have God's blessing on this trip as well because we are going to need it."

Aki is a Turkish man that is reclining on a patch of dirt.

Prof.:
"Why would you say that?"

Aki:
(with a touch of derision)
"I have lost a friend because of this mountain, because of your ark."

Prof.:
"I’m sorry. I realize that there are risks involved. But think of the glory and praise we will receive after discovering the ark. Is that not worth enduring a little bad weather and other possible risks?"

Al Scunovitch:
"A little bad weather. Hyuh."
Brice Branson:
"It is factually known that once you go above ten thousand feet, you can't see past your own belt buckle 'cause of the dense fog."

Brice is a Massachusetts land surveyor.

Travis Johnson:
"That ain't nothing, sometimes the wind can go from ten miles per hour to sixty in five minutes."

Travis Johnson, a former US Olympic runner hopeful.

Cliff Packard:
"At least you can hide from the wind. Try to hide from a bolt of lightning that has your name on it."



Prof.:
"Men, listen up, please. All eleven of us were made aware of the risks before we volunteered to come to the Middle East. We all came for our own individual reasons and I hope we all have the same drive to find the ark without let up. We need to put all negative thinking aside and start pondering over the journey we are facing tomorrow."

The men start pitching their tents on the last bit of flat ground they will probably see in a long time. All have their own tents except for three army personnel assigned to go on the exploration. They have one tent large enough for all three of them. They also have equipment stuffed in duffel bags that stated in large letters, Top Secret-Authorized Army Personnel Only. Officers Joe simmons, Beau Hickman and Garrett Taylor each possess a typical soldier’s demeanor. They do not converse with others in the group and seemed to wish to do their duty only.

The next morning marks the beginning of the two-week planned expedition. After eating breakfast, which consists of freeze-dried foods, Aki gives a prayer for the tough journey ahead. He prays to his God, asking that no one dies on the trip and that he admits his fear of the situation. Many have died on the mountain and he begs for the mens’ safety. No one gives proper respect for the prayer except Andrew. His hands and head are as tight together as Aki's. The rest drink coffee or pick at food while he speaks. Prof. Thornback starts leading the pack the first few yards of the rocky base. The young medical intern, Ken Baker, picks up his medical supply sacks and follows Gene Seymour, who is a marine biologist for the Miami Institute. He is followed by Scunovitch, Gene’s assistant. Then Aki, Brice, Cliff, Travis and the three army officers follow. The men start breaking into a sweat after climbing boulder after boulder after boulder.
Six hours pass by and the men sit relaxing their exhausted legs and to refresh their stomachs with food.
Travis looks up at the summit, noticing the mist.

Travis:
"Man, look at that fog around the summit. That's thick, real thick."
Ken:
"How high up are we?"

Brice stares down at his gauge.

Brice:
"According to my altimeter, we are twenty-five hundred feet above ground level."

Cliff:
"Only one-fourth of the way there, and we haven't entered the ice and snow yet."


Prof.:
"Let's not rest too long fellows, we'll end up getting tired and then we won't want to press on further today."

Cliff:
"Look at those geeks sitting away from us, huddled together like they were the three wise men."

Travis:
"Yeah, what's their problem anyway? Can't they be a little more sociable?"

The pack of men groggily get themselves together and start to head up the mountain at a slow pace. The three officers get up and follow, not saying a word. The view is gorgeous. Mountains in every direction showing their immense size over man. As the men continue upward, they feel as if the mountain could absorb them at any moment.

Travis:
"Holy smoke! Didja see that?!"

Brice:
"What?"

Travis:
"A stinkin' cockroach the size of a softball went under that rock!"

Ken looks around on the ground.

Ken:
"What cockroach?"
Travis:
"I'm telling you people I seen a big cockroach go under that rock over there!"



Cliff:
(laughing)
"There is no cockroach the size of a softball in the entire world."

Travis:
(irritated)
"I saw what I saw, man."

Ken tries to reassure him.

Ken:
"It must be the thin air having an effect on your mind. I've seen this before. It was when I was doing some climbing with friends in Yellowstone Park."
Travis:
(snapping)
"All right, all right! If you guys don't believe me, then forget it. Forget I said anything,"

Some of the men keep laughing as they continue to climb higher. The men finally reach five thousand feet before nightfall. The men stop for the night. As the men begin pitching their tents, they start to talk about themselves. Travis answers Drake on his life before the exploration.

Travis:
"I used to run. Almost made it into the Olympics. I used to thrive on running all the time. But one day, during competition, I popped a knee joint-competitions were over for me. I recently had surgery, but of course now I'm too old to run. I did not handle it well…..stayed drunk for a while after that. Then, just when I thought life was over for me, a preacher came to my door and changed my life. I became interested in bible history, especially the ark, so here I am to help carry equipment."

Cliff:
(not liking the depressing sounding story.)
“Bummer, dude.”

Travis:
"What about you, Cliff? What's your story?"

Cliff:
“The hard life, dude. It all began when I saw the most bodacious wave by a ten-year-old's eye. A twenty-five footer to be exact. Up to that point, I could only bring myself to master the small, fifteen-foot waves. But one frustrating day, I was standing on the beach with my board in hand and I took my friend Kiko's advice.

Travis:
“What advice was that?”



Cliff:
“'Smoke this hooter,' he said. It was the largest joint I'd ever seen. After I took a toke of the monster rap, life was clear to me. Man Versus Wave."

Travis:
"You're whacked."

Cliff:
"No dude, I'm serious. It's like taming a wild stallion. At first it seems like too difficult a task. But with firmness and determination, the stallion submits itself, just as a wave submits itself to the rider. That's why I came to this overwhelming mountain. It's the greatest wave to tame, in my opinion.


Travis:
“Why exactly are these guys footing the bill for you to ‘tame this mountain’?”

Cliff:
(grinning unrepentantly)
“They also needed my photographic expertise."

Aki:
(There is a faraway look on Aki's face as he speaks.)
"I'll tell you why I came back after all this happened. I have lived with my family's dream of helping to find the ark."

(That look quickly turns to cynicism)
"I am also the only government representative who was willing to volunteer to help you men find your way to death."

The men laugh at Aki's statement and continue conversing without let up.

Travis:
"Gene, why are you here?"

Gene:
"I got a letter in the mail in June of '88 asking me to analyze fossilized marine life found on this mountain."

Ken:
"That's it? That's why you're here?"

Gene:
"That's the only reason. I don't believe that the ark exists."


Prof:
"There is an ark all right and I can't wait to see the magnificence of the forty-five hundred year old vessels. Can you imagine working over forty years to build a vessel that had twenty thousand planks that were twelve inches thick and twenty feet long; having braces three feet thick and thirty feet long? Using one hundred and fifty tons of pitch tar to seal the cracks to make it waterproof. Over nine hundred stalls for animals and bedding for an entire family and food and water storage to last over a year. All put together by wooden nails, driven by wooden hammers. It's absolutely remarkable what we might be able to reveal.”

The men banter some more and then go to sleep.

Fade out.



Fade in.
Back at the underground lab.1983.
Dr. Insalaco:
(excited)
"It worked! It worked! The doggone thing worked! Poppy made it! Can you believe it? Poppy made it?"

Jack/Mr. P:
"It's possible Doc, I believe it just may have happened."

Dr. Insalaco:
"It's not 'possible'. It did. Those jerks at NASA had no idea what they almost held in the palm of their hands!"

Newspaper clippings, journals and magazines litter the desk. One in particular is opened to a picture of a frozen gorilla and Doc has written ‘Poppy’ in large red letters across it. Underneath is a caption talking about some mysterious boiled peanuts being found in the gorilla's digestive tract. The black-haired officer and Rudy share the Doc's enthusiasm. Dr. Insalaco focuses on the officer, Jack and asks him a question.

Dr. Insalaco:
"The project's back on, right?"

Jack/Mr. P:
"We'll see, Doc."

The doctor looks sufficiently pleased with even that vague promise. Rudy is smiling at the doctor when his attention falls on the main monitor and for a brief moment, watches some data lines blink as they scroll through. His eyes grow wide and he runs over to the computer, typing furiously to close files left open.

Rudy:
"We've got a problem."

Doc and Jack come over.

"Disconnect the modem!"

Dr. Insalaco pulls the telephone line connected to the computer out of the wall.

"Hacker. I haven't used this computer all day, but someone else has. I hope we're not screwed."

Dr. Insalaco:
"Rudy, you've got the tightest access codes. Who could possibly break in?"

Rudy:
"It doesn’t make sense. It would take several months to go through twenty years of files."

Fade out.


Fade in. Mt. Ararat, Turkey.

Beau:
"Get up men!"

The men wake up, but still feeling groggy, they go back to sleep.

"Get up NOW! We have work to do!"

Travis:
"Who is that man talking that crap?"

Aki:
"I don't believe it. The men in green talk."

Al. S.:
"What time is it?"

Andrew:
(even too early for him.)
"It's four-thirty in the stinkin' morning."



Cliff:
(pulls his blanket over his head.)
"Dudes, I wouldn't get outta bed at four-thirty in the morning if the greatest wave of all time came to my home beach with a beach full of string bikinis watching."

The men reluctantly get up and begin to fold their blankets and tents.

Travis:
"Dangit, it’s cold."

The wind is still blowing at ten miles per hour out of the east. They fuss back and forth over getting ready in the dark. The army team wants everyone ready at daybreak for immediate takeoff. Travis bumps into Cliff while Aki trips over Brice. It is not confusing as to why the blood is not up to the brains yet. It is cold. It is early and they are tired. The men start upward to face another gruesome day that is to prove more challenging than the day before. As the men are climbing nearer to seven thousand feet, the pitch of the ground is steeper.
The snow was melting at a slow rate due to the sunlight and was causing the men to slip and slide a few feet.

Aki:
"Look out!"

His bag slides down towards the men behind him.

Andrew:
"I got it."

Andrew stops the bag, but the force causes him to lose his footing on a small rock he is standing on and he falls and starts to slide downwards. Cliff has a good footing in the crack of a solid boulder and he reaches out and catches Andrew from sliding further.

Andrew:
"Thanks Cliff. Let's break for lunch here."

The men sit, broke out the dried food.

Ken:
(looking at the army officers with interest)
"I don't get it. What's their problem? I thought that this was a team effort."

Travis:
(joking)
"Maybe they don't want to get to know us because they plan on killing us if we find the ark!"

The army group is strange. They will only converse with Andrew. No smiles, no expression at all. As the day goes on, one can hear the whisper of the wind over the top of the snow as well as the crunch of the snow compacting under the men's boots.

Brice:
"Pretty close to nine thousand feet."

Cliff:
"Look at that fog, dudes. How're we going to see once we get in that stuff?"
Ken:
"Don't worry about seeing, worry about breathing. The air is thin up there."

The men finally get to ten thousand feet right under the thick fog belt and decide to camp there for the night. Al and Ken constantly flip over trying to sleep but are too wound up in anticipation of tomorrow's journey. Andrew takes notes in his binder of the day's experiences. Aki stares out of the small gap that is in the base of the tent's zipper. He can see the small glow that softly lights up the officers’ tent. He also can hear parts of their quiet murmuring.

Beau:
"Yes sir, things are right on schedule........just as planned.......if that happens, we'll take care of it........yes, I understand some of our transmissions were intercepted.....going to be a problem? Okay....be watching for it.......over."

The light goes out in the army tent and Aki rolls over and pulls his blanket up to his chin and appears to ponder over what he's just seen and heard. He, along with the other men, finally falls asleep.

Fade out.


Fade in. December 1996. Large boat is anchored just offshore of Key West.

It has a large fiberglass hull and is sixty or so feet in length. It is a Cadillac of boats with it’s sharp edges and modern structure. Deep navy paint waxed a thousand times makes the exterior shine like a mirror. Two men in black suits stand at a table in the bright sunlight while a man relaxes at the same table in a satin Chinese robe. A black leather suitcase lay on the table, unopened. To the side of the custom boat is a ladder with a rope attached to it which leads to a smaller boat that the black suits came on. The man in the robe has no name and no face as far as the black suits are concerned. He is as close to the most powerful men in the world as can be. Untouchable without a doubt. There is power and there is power. There is the power of presidents or congress or kings or queens and then there is real power. The kind that controls all those puppets.

Man in robe:
(With a push of the briefcase.)
"Find out if the project is working."

The briefcase that sits on the table knocks into a paperweight on the table and it falls to the floor. Mr. Bull (Black suit #1) picks it up and looks at it. It is a heavy crystal pyramid with an eye in the center that is mounted on black walnut. Not a scratch. He sets it back on the table.

Mr. Bull:
"No problem, sir. We'll get you the information you need."

Black suit #2 grabs the briefcase. Mr. Bull has a face of iron. No hair, just clean-shaven. Not one mark. And a deep, cold stare.

Fade out.


Fade in. Back at Mount Ararat.


Upon being awoke by Andrew's calling, they opened their eyes and looked out their tents to see luminescent, white fog.

Travis:
“I can't see five feet through this crap!"

Aki:
"I have a bad feeling."

Al:
( irritated at Aki’s ‘superstition”)
"Why, because you woke up? By the way, where are those officers?"

Andrew:
"They were up and eating when I woke you guys up this morning."

Brice:
"Why didn't they wake us up this morning?"

Cliff:
“Who cares?"

After finishing their morning ritual, they head up the mountain through the dense fog, now with a visibility of fifty feet or so. While climbing up the steep rock, they begin to analyze the officer's conduct.


Ken:
"Andrew, why do they need us? I mean, after all, they could've used army personnel only, right?"

Andrew:
"No Ken, they need us. The Turkish government would have thought we were all spies if we were all soldiers. These officers are here to protect us against radical groups and to keep the mission top secret."
Gene:
(concerned)
"Radical groups."

Andrew:
"Yes, Gene, there are extremists who feel that the ark should not be discovered. They have ambushed innocent groups on this mountain, stripping them of all clothing and then leaving them to freeze to death. One excavation group in 1954 had gasoline poured on them and then they were lit on fire. Other groups have seen stranger things that put horror into their minds but didn't reveal what they had seen for fear of ridicule or retaliation, I don't know. I feel that it's just scare tactics used by either the Jews, Turks or Iranians to keep people from finding the ark. That's why we need protection and these military men are not on any social event."

Aki:
"It is not just scare tactics, it is God warning us to stay out of the summit."

Meanwhile, the rest of the men resort to their ice picks in order to climb the steep, icy snow.

Andrew:
"Don’t be paranoid. Relax, Aki."

He continues but the men just ignore him.

Sound of shouting.

"Is that you, Cliff?!"

Cliff:
"Yeah! It's me! Up here!”

The men stop at a large, icy wall that is possibly fifteen feet tall.

"Careful, some of that rock is unstable.”

Aki:
(dropping some of the bags he is holding.)
"I can't go further."

Andrew:
"Why are you afraid?"

Aki:
"I had a bad dream last night that we all died after we had seen the ark. It is an omen. A terrible one-“

A rumbling voice:
"LEAVE MY MOUNTAIN!"

Aki screams. Then flees, knocking over Andrew, screaming Turkish gibberish. A leather wallet pops out of Aki's pocket and hits the ground. It is made of brown leather and has an image of a pyramid on it. Several paper bills fall out which Andrew recognizes as American bills. Aki quickly grabs his wallet and money and runs downhill and is quickly out of sight. Andrew focuses on American money being on a Turk.
Ken:
"Aki, come back!"
The men climb over the wall, apparently unconcerned about the loud voice they heard, and pull up their belongings with ropes. As Andrew walks to the center of the group of men, they begin quietly celebrating their great acting skills.

Travis:
(speaking to Beau, Garrett and Joe – the officers.)
"Were we great or what?"
Cliff:
(dropping the surfer-boy persona)
"Now maybe we can get some work done."

Beau and Garrett:
"Nothing was harder than to listen to that beach slang."

Joe Simmons:
"Guys, look around you. Look at what we're standing on."

The men are awestruck.
The place is astonishing in it’s white beauty. As they look up, they have the feeling that they are standing in the middle of a tornado. A miraculous pressure somehow keeps the walls of the fog moving in a counterclockwise motion around a rink of ice. As the men look at the very top to the open space above, they see a cliff formation that is the opening of the spectacular fog pattern. The fog walls that encircle the men again and again have a hypnotic effect as it dances in front of them. Under the men's feet is a solid slab of crystal clear ice about one hundred feet thick and two hundred feet wide. Shiny, glass-like rocks encircle the mass of ice just below the swirling wall of fog. It is almost as if the fog is polishing the stones underneath.
Ken, along with everyone else is astounded.


Ken:
"It is like a giant ice-skating rink."
Dumbfounded, Gene looks down long enough to notice what is below them.

Gene:
"Look! If you look through the ice, you can see what seems to be a canyon!"

The men all get down on their hands and knees to view what lies under neath. It is reminiscent of those glass-bottom boats, but any fish Gene will be lucky enough to find will be frozen in an icy limbo. It is hard to tell where objects start and end beneath the ice.
Travis
( figuring its dimensions.)
"This glacier is thick, really thick!"

Andrew:
( excited )
"This is what I've been looking for. This is the relief hole where I hoped we could find the ark!"

Joe:
"What do you mean by 'relief hole'?"

Andrew:
"In my research, I estimated that when the flood came, this volcano was underwater and at the time, must have been active. Look around you. Do you see the pillow shaped rock near the fog line? Pillow lava. As the volcano erupted underwater, the lava cooled quickly into these pillow forms. We are probably standing directly over the mouth. Back about five thousand years ago, this opening could have been two thousand feet wide. A perfect place for the ark to settle when the waters receded. Most volcanoes that erupt then become dormant for thousands of years as did Mount Ararat."

Ken:
( bewildered )
"If this is the spot, how are we going to find the ark through all this ice?"

Brice:
( relishing at the challenge )
"Blast it."

Andrew:
"Let’s eat first, plan it out, then do it!”

Cliff and Beau put on a mini ice-skating show. First they try to see who could skim the longest across the slippery surface. Then they hold hands trying to imitate the Ice Capades while falling all over each other like clowns. Some laugh, but most are too preoccupied with what they had

found so far and what is in front of them. They eat, lying on their backs, looking up at the unusual opening of fog that was somehow affected by the overhang.
Fade out.


Fade in.
December 9, 1996.
Nighttime. A large, blue van creeps slowly with it’s lights off, heading for shelter under a large oak tree next to a mail box that reads an address of 237 Coral Avenue. There is a cold breeze blowing causing branches to shake and leaves to fall. The engine cuts off shortly on the new Ford and coasts to a stop. With a quiet turn of the handle, the sliding doors open. Feet shod with black shoes touch the ground and quickly head for the front door. Six bodies in all stealthily creep from the van while one stays behind and quietly closes the door. Black cotton outfits covered them from head to toe. Only the eyes are uncovered, not even the mouth is free. Their clothing is skintight, betraying no muscle fat on the men and showing them fit. No bags, no guns, just a few rolls of duct tape they carry. The house they walk up to is beautiful even in the dark. It is a two-story, southern antebellum style painted in white. Matching in color is a small one-foot picket fence that runs along the landscape edge in front of the house. Several sprinkler heads spray water delicately in different directions, particularly at the small flowers inside the picket fence. Little respect is given to the precious plants by the feet of the men heading towards the house. They stalk silently and slowly staying low to the ground. The first man to reach the door reaches into his sleeve and pulls out two small metal objects only a few inches in length. They are as thin as a pencil and have a sharp point at the end. He looks inside the sidelight next to the door and a small nightlight in the foyer barely illuminates him, showing a left eye that twitches furiously. He easily picks the lock and silently give thanks for the idiots upstairs that don't at least have watchdogs if not alarms. They enter the house in a single file.

Fade out.

Fade in.

Same time, date and location as previous scene. From the homeowners’ perspective. Upstairs a man and women are sound asleep in their bed. The clock next to them ticks every second.
We see pictures of the Packard family. They are smiling and holding hands while their young child clutches their legs in the photograph on the mahogany dresser. The picture has been taken earlier in life when their skin was unwrinkled and no gray hairs could be found. The boy looked to be about six or seven years old and has a smile from ear to ear. All are dressed in outrageous Hawaiian shirts with flower leis around their necks and surrounded by hula dancers. Another picture hanging on the wall shows a tall, skinny man with brown hair wearing a long white medical coat and a smaller man wearing the same. In between them is a man wearing a green army uniform, the same man in the Hawaiian picture, the same man sleeping in the bed. Agitated in his sleep, he flips over to get more comfortable. His hand reaches over and unconsciously looks for his wife's shoulder. He tiredly tries to open his eyes as his hands are patting the empty sheets next to him. Just then he hears the sound of a flushing toilet and he turns his head toward the bathroom door. With his eyes out of focus he sees his wife in front of the bathroom door. Then his eyes come into focus and the bathroom door swings open to reveal that the figure standing in front of the door is not his wife. His heart starts pounding and his wife, still in the bathroom, starts screaming. The man standing in front of her quickly grabs her and in no time tapes her mouth shut. Cliff Packard’s father tries to get up but by then the others have quickly filed into the room and has delivered a couple of powerful blows to his mid-section, forcing him back down. Duct tape flies like streamers as they all quickly manipulate them and turn them until every part of their body was taped together, allowing no movement. Then five abandoned them to start ransacking the house. The man whose eye twitched sits next to them on the bed.

Black camo man 1
"I hope you're not starting a new project, Jack. Don't you know when to give up? We will watch you day and night and if you continue.......well, I'm sure you know, Mr. Packard....you and your wife are dead."

He leans in closer to stare in to Jack's eyes

( continues )
"You can't stop the power, Jack. It always been and it'll always be. Soon, what you and your puny backers searched for will be the very force ruling your lives."

Then he pats Jack lightly on the face.

( continues )
"Don't you see, Jack? You're searching for solutions to questions that have already been answered."

Rising to his feet, he turns to them and says,

( continues )
"You will stop the flow of money won't you, Jack? You will not fund a new project, will you?"

Jack shakes his head.
Black camo man 2
( clearly impatient and ready to leave)

"That's good. Look, we hate all the clichés about cement shoes and whatnot. If you make us come back, we’re coming back to kill you.”

They turn and walk out of the room. They only hear the ransacking go on for a few minutes and then they hear the door slam and the sound of a vehicle pulling away.

Fade out.




Fade in.

Mt. Ararat

As some of the men finish eating, Brice cuts a hole two feet deep in the center of the rink with his drill. He places dynamite in the hole and covers it with packed mud and melted ice water. He then runs a stringer of cable across the ice to a safe distance for detonation. He just stares at his handiwork. Some of the other men look quizzically at him.

Brice:
( feeling their questions )
"As soon as the mud and water freeze together, I'll detonate the sticks, so get back, preferably behind some big rocks."

The men secure themselves behind the outlying walls of rock so as to protect themselves from ice shrapnel and other debris. Brice connects the positive and negative wires to a control switch. Once the screws are tightened, he looks at the men to see if everyone is secure. He takes the safety switch off and holds the box close to his stomach, keeping his hands from causing premature detonation. He flicks the switch. A tremendous explosion roars over the top of the rock walls. Ice flies like bullets, then disintegrates across the boulders.
The men crawl over the wall to see how much ice had been displaced. The hole was five feet deep and about ten feet wide.


Brice:
( surprised at how little a hole has been blown in the rink)
"At this rate, I might not have enough to do the job,"

With those words just out of his mouth, Beau walks over and hands Brice a slender package covered in vinyl. He opens it and his mouth drops open at seeing several pounds of pure plastique premium. Giving candy to a child is not near the expression of love that Brice shows for his new gift.

Beau:
"We're talking high dollar plastic explosive to be used only with the greatest of discretion,"

Brice:
(with a touch of amused sarcasm)
"Using this for a bookend would be 'discreet'"blowing the tops of mountains would not."

The sarcasm, however, is a mask for the excitement he is feeling at having so much power in his hands. After hooking up the positive connector to the wicked power, Brice instructs all to get far away. Brice sets the remote-controlled detonator for five minutes. As the men wait, anticipation changes to impatience as the time crawls by. Brice just stands with a smile on his face while he rubs his hands. You can tell this was his love, firebug that he is. Finally, the mark is reached and a flash of bright, white light is followed by a deafening boom. The explosion shakes the ground and rumbles all the way down to the men hiding behind the rocks. Ice chunks the size of basketballs come crashing down the sides of the mountain, creating rock slides in every direction. Gene and Al's boulder shakes loose and starts to roll at them. They easily step out of the way of the immense rock only to be faced with more rocks and ice coming out of the fog. As Al tries to get under another safe boulder, a small rock about the size of a tennis ball zips by his face, sending a panic signal to the part of his brain labeled 'survival'. Gene followed Al who was dodging debris. Hailing storms of ice come to the ground. All it takes is just one to hit you in the head and you re a dead man. The rocks and ice gradually stop falling and the ground becomes peaceful once again.




Gene
(who is lying on top of Al)
"That was too close."

Al:
"You can get off me now, I think the danger is over."

The men crawl out from under and behind large boulders and head back up the steep terrain to see what changes have been made in the ice. It is a mess. The beautiful tranquility of the smooth ice rink is no more, for now it is covered in large debris. The plastic explosive had removed a one hundred foot by fifty foot section of ice. There is only a few feet of ice that needs to be removed at the bottom of the hole. Brice lights and drops a few sticks of dynamite down the crevice to remove the final portion. After the smoke clears from the last explosion, the men are able to go down the icy, jagged walls. Travis hands Joe and Beau the climbing ropes and they secure them around a big boulder.

Beau:
(directing)
"We only have three hundred foot sections to rappel with, so only two men can go at a time."

As the men prepare themselves for their descent into the unknown, they playfully argue over who is going first.
Cliff wraps the rope properly around the clips that are secured to his waist.
Cliff holds his rope in his hand, his feet on the edge of the ice, looks downward and yells,

Cliff:
"Geronimo!"

Travis does the same. Excitement fills their blood for they are exploring where no one has explored before. Cliff turns on his shoulder light and turns on his infra-reds to aid his eyes as he sinks to a darker level in the ice. When he looks down, all he can see is the dangling rope that is resting on what seema to be a rock formation. When Cliff and Travis finally get down to the bottom of the rope, they see a sight a thousand times greater than from above. Soon the rest of the men follow. Andrew looks up and his heart begins to pound with excitement.

Garrett:
( looking up as well.)
"I wouldn't believe it, if I didn't see it with my own eyes. Nothing I've ever seen compares to this."

The place is immense. It could probably house an entire football stadium inside and have room to spare. There is a frozen lake of ice above that has a flat bottom and forms the roof of the place. The roof is suspended about 80 feet above the men. The glacier gives off a tiny glow that looks like candlelight over the dark water. The walls of the large cave are unvarying in continuity. All are smooth as glass and have no texture.



Ken:
( rubbing his hands against one of the walls)
"Why are the walls so smooth and defined?"

Andrew:
(not totally sure of what he is seeing)
"I don't know, it seems as if the water has slowly penetrated small pores in the precipice and froze over it making it smooth."

Drake:
(excited, pointing to a place about thirty yards from where the men are standing)
"Look over there!"

Travis:
( as he gazes through the steam)
"Wow, it's beautiful.”

There is a large pool in the icy floor. It is filled with hot water that bubbles profusely. There is also a phosphorescent glow that comes from within the pool.

Garrett:
"A hot spring, let's go in and swim around."

Andrew:
"Probably why everything's so smooth and glassy around here.”

Joe:
"Well, can we go in? Do you think it's safe? Who wants to go in?"

Ken volunteers. He rolls up his sleeve and removes his protective glove. The men tie one end of rope to Ken's legs and lower him into the water. He puts his hand into the bubbling water to estimate it’s temperature.

Ken:
"Hot! Hot! Hot!"

Cliff:
"What do you think? Is it okay?"

Ken:
"Perfect. Hazard a guess – under 120 degrees. If you go in you will look like a lobster in 10 minutes"

The men begin to pull their heavy garments off. Cliff drives four metal spikes into the frozen floor, ties rope to them and in the men go, stark naked. The men slide down the ice on their bare butts like penguins crashing into the Jacuzzi heaven. Al and Travis catapult out as fast as they went in the scalding hot water. Then one by one, ease themselves in all the while taking ridicule from the others.

Beau:
"Can't take the heat, sweet peas?"

Gene:
(bubbles jet on his back and legs)
"Aaaahhhhh, this feels so good."

The other men readily agree as their bodies are massaged by the hot water spring. It is wonderful to the men. The hot mist that leaves the spring moves straight up to the ceiling of ice. Then as it hits, it spreads like an umbrella, caressing the rock sides then coming back to the floor. The flecks of light that make it through the steam from the ice barrier look like falling stars coming out of heaven. The streaks of light burst from one side and flare to the other. You almost feel like you are in the world's largest planetarium.

Ken:
"The only thing missing is women."

Andrew:
(who still remains out of the water)
"This cave is just a piece of the puzzle. We must find the ark in order to find the Nephilim. Let's get back to work."

After the men dress, they head to the east wall to find some evidence of the ark.

Beau:
"I see wood! Plank wood behind the ice!"

Andrew puts his flashlight right onto the spot where Beau is pointing.

Brice:
"I don't see it.”

Andrew:
"Turn your light so it hits it from a side angle. Here, let me show you."

Brice:
(turning both lights on an angle which illuminates the wood underneath)
"I see it! Yes! It looks like marble. It's definitely petrified."
Cliff:
(getting a closer look)
"I see it too."

The men dig out their ice picks and started chipping away at the ice. It is a slow and tedious process. Brice brings out his medium-sized pick hammer to speed up things. Each time he hits it, the chipped ice becomes like razor blades and is a nuisance to the others. So they step back while he gets the major chunks. Then they go in to finish the smaller pieces off so as not to damage the wood. Once they uncover the wood, Andrew examines some of it. With the drill he removes a core from the petrified piece to get a better look. They place the specimen under a fluorescent light and pulled out a miniature microscope. He looks carefully at the piece, turning it side to side and on it’s end.

Andrew:
( lifting his head up)
"It's gopher wood! This is the wood Noah used to build the ark!"

Despite knowing why they were on this expedition, they are still surprised. Most of the men thought the myth as possible but few really expected it to happen. Andrew is very excited.

Brice:
"Are you sure this is the same wood used for the ark?".

Andrew:
"Oh yes. Even the Bible said so. Can you believe it? How else would the wood get up on this mountain from thousands of miles away? There had to have been a flood. It really happened. It really happened!"

Gene:
"Each piece is probably worth thousands of dollars."




Andrew:
"It’s priceless and a moot point. We did not come here to take the ark. The Turks would get the money anyway, this is their land, remember? We came to find something to tell us where the Nephilim was buried."
( Pause )
"I want you to break through this wooden wall to see what's on the other side."

The men begin to pound through the petrified wood.
After the men remove one of the wooden planks, they find nothing but rock and dirt on the other side. They continue to dig, but no opening is found. They try lower, removing section after section of ice and finding wood backed by rock.

Andrew:
( staring into the open cave )
"Wait a minute. Look around you carefully. Look at the outline of this place. Don't you guys see it? We are in the ark!"


Beau:
"No way, this place is the size of a football stadium. No man could build this."

Andrew:
"Look at the walls. They angle out from the east to the west, and are shortened from north to south. What cave have you been in that had flat, vertical walls? My guess is that they needed wood back then to build homes or for firewood, so they gutted some of the floors and stall walls out of the ship, leaving only the supporting outer walls and the flooring in some places."

Cliff:
(seeing the fitting image)
"Unbelievable!"

Andrew:
(extremely enthused)
"Look, my god, this is beautiful. This is the greatest ship of all time. Don't you see it? It's greater than I ever imagined."


Brice:
“Well, if this is the ark, we're outta luck finding anything that points to the Nephilim."


Andrew:
"Not true, all ships have some secret place where information could be found. There's got to be some place in the ship's flooring that contains some kind of ship's diary, maps of the land, animal records and so on. Possibly Noah did not take them with him when he went off into the lands."

The men search for six hours, not turning up any evidence of a safe spot. Just as they are about to give up for the night Al finds a double-thick board in the southwest corner of the ship.

Al:
"Over here! This might be it!"

The men come over to where Al is sitting.


The men begin picking at the ice. After exposing what seems to be a chest, the men raise their lights, filling up the chest with a soft glow, showing the clay tablets. Dirt covers the pottery, covering most of the ancient lettering.

Andrew:
"This chest has not been opened up in over four thousand three hundred years.”

Nobody else wants to go first and touch the tablets, afraid of what they might find. Andrew, without hesitation picks up one carefully. The others carefully remove the tablets also, so that they will not be broken.

Travis:
"Who knows how to read these bird-feet prints?"

Andrew:
"That's not bird-feet, that's ancient Hebrew and I know how to read it. You didn't think we'd come all this way and not be able to decipher the old language.”


Andrew takes a deep breath and blows the four-thousand-year-old dirt off the lettering. He begins mumbling Hebrew words in an undertone, driving the others crazy that want to know what they say. Andrew scans the tablets for several minutes.

Andrew:
"According to this map, the Nephilim were mostly concentrated in a valley about eighteen miles from here at the base of Mount Judi. It's still pretty rough yet. I need more time. These tablets can never fall into the wrong hands. That's why we had to scare Aki out of here. He was an informant and he would have told them of our reasons for this expedition. No one else has wanted to find the Nephilim that the book of Genesis refers to. After I read these tablets tonight, we must hide them.”

After Andrew is finished explaining his plans, he lifts a tablet to his face and begins reading again the archaic symbols. There are forty-five, one-inch thick tablets for Andrew to absorb. The other men leave Andrew and head back up the hole in the ice to set up camp for the night. Two-hundred and fifty feet of rope to climb, knot by knot. As the men climb up through the glacier, they look like fireflies illuminating the night with their shoulder lights. Andrew, sitting quietly and alone, takes in history firsthand. He will be the first man since Noah's day to read his very writings. Andrew's hands shake as his excitement and nerves become hard to control. His flashlight dimming gives off a soft glow that lights up his body and enables him to read. His reading is slightly distorted by shadows, causing him to constantly turn the tablet. As he reads some of the horrifying history, he feels alone in the big, dark hull of the ship. It is so quiet, one can hear a pin drop on the opposite side of the ark. The light flickers off the professor's lips as he mumbles to himself the Hebrew writings. The echoes of his soft murmuring bounce off the
Fade out.

Fade in.
(Next morning on top of ice)

Andrew:
( explaining to men as they head down the mountain )
"Hag-gib-bo-rim, or the Nephilim, were on the earth during Noah's time. What the Hebrew text said was, 'The sons of the true God, took for themselves wives from among the attractive daughters of men. They had intercourse with them, bearing children later'. What I am trying to say is that bad angels came down from heaven and mated with human women, producing a special hybrid, a man half human-half spirit. They became the men of old, or the men of fame. They were considered giants back then, probably 9 feet or more in height and having incredible muscle mass. Their strength was immense. They were thieves and rioters who had nothing but hatred on their minds. There was no good in man at the time, so God destroyed the wicked beasts and evil mankind along with them, by bringing the flood. But ironically, before the flood, Mt. Judi was active. It erupted one day covering hundreds of Nephilim in volcanic ash. That's the place we need to go in hopes of finding at least one preserved.”

Men in front seem to be heading down the mountain too slowly.

Travis:
"Are you guys starting to wimp out?"

Gene and Al slowly turn around in the misty air. The group's laughter at what Travis has said turns to fear and panic. Gene and Al are both gasping for air as they have a crossbow arrow sticking out of their chest cavities.

Travis:
( yells as he watched their blood pour out onto the white snow)
"Oh God!"

Beau, Joe and Garrett react quickly by grabbing their weapons supplies.

Andrew:
(dive behind a rock)
"What the hell-!"

Travis, Cliff, Brice and Ken follow the professor. Then they separate into two groups and hide behind two rocks about ten yards apart. Cliff runs out to help drag one of the injured men. As he gets close to Gene, an arrow flies by his left ear, nearly pegging him. He quickly heads back to the rock dragging Gene.

Travis:
(desperate for a weapon)
“Someone Hand Me A Gun!"


Joe, Beau and Cliff were well-armed. However, they were at a disadvantage because of the fog.

Drake:
(nervous as he hands Travis his personal, nickel-plated, thirteen-round Colt 45 handgun)
"Where are they?! Do you see them?! "

Travis:
"Not this! I want one of the 9mm automatics! The Uzi!"

Cliff:
"That's all I got! I left the automatics with Beau!"


Travis:
(pulling back on the hammer)
"We're dead! We're going to be cut up by some sick religious group."

Over behind the other rock, where the other scared explorers were hiding.

Beau:
( Talking to his cohorts)
"The enemy is obviously below us."

He loads a 64-capacity clip into his M-16.

Garrett:
"I figure we throw a flare into the fog and hope that stirs up a reaction."


Ken:
(moaned.)
"Why did they have to kill our friends?"

He held his head in his hands and was laying in a fetal position behind the rock. He was a man dedicated to saving lives, not taking them. Killing was anathema to him.

Garrett:
(responding angrily).
"Because they're sick, man!"

Ken:
"Why'd they use arrows?"


Beau:
"They're sick, not stupid. They know if they use a gun, they might cause an avalanche. Plus it might draw attention to them."

Ken:
"I can buy the avalanche part. But I seriously doubt anyone could hear anything from this mountain. I mean, there is no civilization within four hundred miles from here! I wonder how they knew we were up here? Do you think Aki gave us away?"

Beau:
"I don't know, let's go over to the others."

Joe:
"I think they are just a few yards south of us behind that rock,"

With that, Beau fires a flare away from his buddies, then takes off toward Travis and the rest. He is followed shortly by Joe and Ken. Arrows fly at them, missing them by inches. Beau and Joe drop to the ground as Ken leaps behind the rock where the others are hiding. Beau opens fire at the passing ghosts that filter through the mist-filled air. Joe also opens fire. Garrett hands Travis a 9mm to help cover the grounded officers just a few yards away.

Beau:
"Did you get one?!"

Cliff:
"I think so, I heard one man scream!"

Joe:
"I think I got a couple of them too!"

They hear yelling at them,

Travis:
"Come over, we got ya covered!"

Beau and Joe brake loose and head for the rock. Travis and Garrett are systematically opening their magazines. Empty shells become rain droplets on Ken's head as he lay, panic-stricken, from the action. Cliff grabs a hand grenade out of Garrett's army bag. He pulls the pin, but holds the release lever tight, waiting for just the right moment. Five white robes that have masked faces approach Joe and Beau from behind. Cliff, being the only one who notices them, releases the grenade through the air, directed at their feet.

Cliff:
"Get down!"

The officers take one long leap and reach the rock where the others hide. Boom! The grenade explodes, dropping three men instantly, spraying blood over the white snow in stark contrast. Travis picks off the other two with his Colt 45 before they could release their arrows. The grenade starts a rumble that causes rocks to go into motion. The land starts to slide and the snow starts to move fiercely.

Andrew:
"Avalanche! C'mon, move or we'll be crushed!"


The team tries to run, but the shaking ground keeps forcing them to crawl. As soon as the men crawl out from behind the boulder, they are swept along by a force not to be reckoned with. The men slide down the mountain at over eighty miles per hour. As they come out of the fog, they gasp at the sight of the treacherous speed and bumps that they encounter. Up and out heads pop as snow and rock push men under and over the waves of sliding earth. Each man fends for himself as they all struggle to stop themselves from sliding. They see the rocks below at seven thousand feet. Ken's left foot grabs into the snow and he is spun around face first, smashing his head into a rock the size of a beach ball. His body folds over as his neck twists and quickly snaps. The other men start using any tools on them, driving their picks or handles into the snow to try and slow down. Rocks traveling faster than the men fly over and by, missing the men, fortunately. All except Travis manage to maneuver themselves out of the avalanche stream. The other men come to a complete stop while Travis stays in the main flow. He speeds up to over a hundred miles per hour. The men lay helplessly as they watch his body get raked over the rocks, tearing him to shreds and listen to his awful screams. It would have been better for him to eat an arrow than to have his body torn up by a thousand feet of stone.

Andrew:
(as he watched one of his best friends die)
"Oh God!"


After the avalanche finally stops, all that could be heard on the mountain was the sound of silence.

Beau:
"They're all probably dead from the avalanche, I saw two guys get smashed on the rocks,"



Garrett:
"One thing was strange. I saw a tattoo on one of those I
diots in the white robes. If they were religious radicals, they wouldn't have tattoos on them, would they? I thought it was a sin or something to mark their bodies."


Andrew:
"I don't care. I just hope it was worth all this."

With that they bury Ken and Travis. Gene and Al's bodies are not to be found.

Fade out.



Fade in.
High noon, two days later. Valley of Isha.

The men reached the valley of Isha, which lay at the base of Mt. Judi. The men continue to mourn over their lost friends by remaining silent. Even if they felt like being jocular, it would be terribly inappropriate. They stand and look over the vast area on which they have to gamble to know where to start. No trees, no grass, just rocks and dirt. Isha is about two miles wide and about four miles long. After two hours of thoroughly studying the land, Andrew speaks to the group.

Andrew:
"The best educated guess I can derive is to blast here. Approximately twelve feet of sediment lies on sixty feet of volcanic ash. So what we need to do is remove the fifty feet of soil and ash. Once we remove that portion with explosives, then we need to dig by hand. This needs to be done quickly, before the extremist’s friends start looking for answers."

Andrew walks up to Brice to deliver his calculations.

Brice:
"It will take the rest of my eighteen sticks of dynamite to remove what you propose."

The men sit back as Brice removes level after level. Brice makes it to the desired depth with one stick to spare. The men begin digging with their small hand shovels. Ash is like pressed, gooey mud. Perfect for preservation, but awful to dig through.

Beau:
(Already wondering if this was a lost cause)
"What is our chance of finding the Nephilim? One in a million?"



Garrett:
(feeling the soil with his bare hand)
“Man, this ground is cold."


While digging, Andrew feels his shovel strike something hard as a rock. He gets down on his knees and starts to scrape the ash away from the object gently. As he removes the soil, his fingers run across a smooth surface. He continues to brush the surface off.


Andrew:
(uncovering the bone structure)
"It's a skull!"

The men stop digging and begin to help Andrew remove the dirt from the ancient body. It is either a Nephilim head or just your average Joe Schmoe. The flashlights barely light up the shadows of the deep hole, for it is very dark outside.

Andrew:
(cautioning)
"Be careful! We don't want any of the major bones to break."

Around the neck of the preserved body is a necklace made from bone.

Cliff:
"Look at the size of these shoulders! These shoulders are as big as the railroad tie my dad used as a bumper for his truck!"

Beau:
"You said the same thing to me when you joined the army.”

Cliff:
"You will always remember that fight we had back in school over that girl, Kara, won't you, Beau?"
Beau:
( laughing )
“Yep.”

Cliff:
"Oh yeah? Well, maybe if I was doing some sort of super experimental steroid, the situation might have been different!"



Andrew:
(irritated and trying to concentrate)
"Will you guys quit yakking and concentrate on our specimen? You just pray that you survive the anatomy converter if we get the DNA that we need.”


They uncover the entire body of the large species and are removing the last vestiges of dirt.

Andrew:
(measuring the spinal column and rib cage)
"It's got to be a hybrid."

The corpse is dark and gray. Most of the outer tissue is burned off by the hot ash. The bones are stiff but not damaged. The ashy tar formed a coating over the body that preserved it from decaying. The lungs are filled with ash and the eyes were scorched out from the sudden fire it was exposed to during their judgment. The fingers were welded together as were the toes. It seemed the hybrid suffered a sudden death.

Andrew:
"All we need is the femur. We can extract enough bone marrow to do the job ten times over.”


Andrew instructs the men to set a tent up for a lab. They then bring the ancient corpse to the tent and set it down at the professor's feet. Andrew tries to remove the femur from the large leg of the beast by sawing the tendons that connect the joints. The smell of burnt flesh and bones permeate the enclosed tent.

Andrew:
( saying tiredly )
"I can't cut through these tendons. They're much thicker than ours and therefore stronger, probably by fifty times. With this kind of tendon strength, who knows how powerful these men were?"

Beau:
( A look of bewilderment )
“It's got a weird symbol on it."


Beau holds up the necklace and points out the crude triangle etched on it with an eye in the center. Andrew is more interested in the skeleton than anything else. He finally cuts through, then looks at the useless piece of metal that had been a saw.)
Andrew pushes a syringe into the center of the bone to withdraw the marrow. Then he places the raw form into a glass beaker and adds the fat-removing enzyme lipase, which forces fat cells to separate from proteins. The fat collects at the top of the beaker while the protein stays at the bottom. Then the professor skimmed the fat off the top and repeats the procedure to make sure all the fat is gone. He then instructs Brice to put batteries in the centrifuge machine. The

machine is the size of a small coconut. It contains six slots into which he places six glass vials full of raw protein solution.

Andrew carefully begins to fill five syringe vials, equally adding some of the purified water they brought to make it a solution. A separate amount is kept for study to prepare the necessary serum. Hours pass and the men fall asleep except Andrew.
Andrew wakes the men up.

Andrew:
"How much do you guys know about DNA?"

Garrett:
"Not much. It's the code that makes up who we are or something."

Andrew:
"That's what I thought.....well, how can I make this simple? Okay.....we're an organism, humans that is, so are dogs, cats, birds, etc. The Nephilim were an organism too, we thought, having the same characteristics as humans because they were born from women. Now under normal circumstances, an organism's deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, has an understandable genetic code. Kind of like a map. Only this map is made up of two strands or bars that have letters in a certain sequence. Humans, even though having their own individual characteristics, have much the same molecules that make us all the same. For example, dogs mating with dogs produce dogs. But a dog and a cat cannot mate and produce a hybrid due to the genetic code not allowing such a thing. Each one produces to its own kind. However, today we have been able in DNA technology to combine two different organisms that are similar in genetic makeup. Much like a donkey and a mare that produces a sterile male mule. Here is how it should work. To alter the characteristics of one organism you need a piece of the genetic material of another. That certain piece of code can only be inserted into another by the use of a restriction enzyme."

Beau:
(eyebrows bob up and down)
"What is a restriction enzyme?"

Andrew:
(sighing and rubbing his forehead)
"Restriction enzymes are species of bacteria able to recognize particular sequences of a nucleotide, or chemical units that make up DNA. The bacteria can break the sequence of the two chains in the same place and form a new linkage between the two different organisms. When this happens, the hybrid molecule is formed keeping both traits from both parent organisms and not losing any of the good characteristics, if not making better ones. Do you get the picture?"

The men just look at each other.

Andrew:
"Look guys, it's this simple. The hybrids have a strange DNA pattern. Instead of humans being similar to humans in code, theirs is like something I've never seen before. I'm not sure the restricted enzyme is going to work in making your own chemical units change. I have to contact the doctor to see if he can decipher the strange strands."

Brice:
"So what you're saying is - that this weird breed has a strange pattern and you don't know if it's going to hurt us or help us or not work at all."

Andrew
( nods)

"Okay men, this is the day we make history. Now we don't have Demerol or Percodan or any other medication to help ease the pain caused by the Flexiton needle, so I recommend that you four start consuming the vast quantities of whiskey that I brought."

Joe:
"Just how painful is this going to be, Andrew?"

Andrew:
(hedging)
"Weelllllll, it's more discomforting than painful. At first it will feel like a hornet has flown into your mouth and stung the roof of it. Uh, irritating the nerve endings as the needle passes the through the palate will trigger the gag reflex. After that you will feel a strong urge to itch your right eardrum as the needle then penetrates the hypothalamus gland. That's where I'll be injecting the solution of DNA. You will feel sick to your stomach and want to puke your guts out. Your teeth will burn as if you were having several cavities drilled at the same time and your nose will run because of the painful burning sensation felt in the tissue lining. Other than that it will actually be a walk in the park."


All the men turn and look at the smiling professor and say,

"Thanks a lot. We feel a lot better. Extremely comforting."


Andrew:
"Just drink up! It'll only take a few minutes for each of you."

Cliff:
(taking a large swig of whiskey)
"Oh well, if it doesn’t work, I’ll enjoy this part at least."

The men pass the bottle back and forth, taking greater gulps of the 120-proof whiskey. After an hour, the men are more than ready for the shots. Beau volunteers to go first to show his manliness in taking pain.



Beau:
"All right, Andurf- drew, give it to me. My hypothickerthol-entomoss is waiting to be.....purricked!"

Cliff:
"Man, you're scrrrewed up!"


Beau lays down on his back, with a pillow under his neck to give his head the proper arch. Andrew draws a full syringe of pure DNA from one of the prepared vials. It is a clear, gooey liquid that draws slowly through the thick needle head. Once full, he turned to Beau. He sees the needle coming and his giggles change to silence. Andrew directs the huge, eighteen inch needle to the back of his throat. With a quick thrust, he penetrated the skin just to the right of Beau’s tonsils. While he was emptying the vial, Beau begins to moan in pain. Stomach acids and bile are coming up to the top of his throat and hitting his upper palate. Andrew takes his time releasing the serum all the while wondering if Beau is going to choke on his own vomit.
Beau begins kicking his legs, while Andrew tells him sternly,

"Just two more seconds."

The needle, as flexible as it is, seems that at any moment it could break. Andrew
removes the needle to stop the breakage. Beau quickly rolls over and unleashes the contents of the deepest parts of his digestive system. The process takes one full minute, which seemed to take forever to the rest. Beau, after spitting out the last of his stomach acids, crawls over to the whiskey bottle. Back goes the bottle and this time the burning sensation feels good in his stomach. Andrew re-sterilizes the needle with alcohol and fire.

"Who's next?"

No more joking, just large eyes and plain silence. Then Cliff goes next wanting to get it over with so that the anticipation, which is sometimes the worst, wouldn't get the best of him. Joe follows and then Garrett is last. Garrett’s was the hardest. He swallows his tongue and turns blue as Andrew gives him his shot. The pressure from the strain causes his nose to bleed profusely.

Fade out.


Fade in.
Iranian Airport
Trained dogs trample their baggage, as the men are being patted down at customs.

Iranian officer 1:
(directing his men to search)
"Anything!".

Iranian officer 2:
"Nothing but toothpaste and clothes,"



Officer 1:
"Double-check to make sure, check the passports."


After finding nothing, they release the men to board the plane and head back to the states. Their only regret is leaving their dead friends in a foreign country.

Fade out. Fade in. Three weeks later.
Ft. Stewart, Georgia, USA.

The head of the project begins to lecture Andrew's men.

Bob Vogel:
"My name is Lieut. Bob Vogel. Another lieutenant, whose name I won't mention for security reasons, and I started this program twenty years ago. We have researched for years on time travel and we finally figured out the theoretics and probabilities needed to do so. Our only problem was keeping our specimens alive in the anatomy converter. Once we figured out the proper G-force needed using raccoons, we gambled on a couple of human volunteers that we felt could take the acceleration before reaching the extract stage. Unfortunately, they died. We discovered that their bodies collapsed and crushed before they reached the proper G-force necessary for extraction. After the two men died, we felt like giving up. It was horrifying that we were responsible for the two men's deaths. Then one of my colleagues mentioned the use of anabolic steroids to enhance the body's muscular structure in order to endure the G-forces. We spent months developing the most powerful growth enhancers possible. We’ve got the bravest of men. They knew death was a possibility. But time travel, if successful, was worth all risks. The doubling in strength and size did not save two other men. They were also crushed a split-second before extraction. The project was over. No man could stay alive long enough to be extracted. Then Andrew came up with his idea and gave us a little bit of hope that time travel would still be possible. So here you are. Successful in the first part of your mission. Andrew has informed me that you have been feeling changes in your bodies at a regular rate. Andrew and I have agreed that from here on out you men must grow and train at a special underground facility that only a handful of men knows about. This facility will best help you deal with the metabolic changes through weight-lifting, self-defense and other special training. You will also be schooled in history that's applicable to fulfill your mission. Then, with a lot of hope and luck you will be the first humans to ever travel time to gather needed evidence against the powerful force that will soon be ready to overtake the world. There is no doubt in my mind that you men will not die. You may ask Andrew any questions you might have. I've authorized him to brief you. Just remember one thing, only a few dozen people know about this project. All have the same goals for justice and want to expose the evil that exists. Do not repeat to a single soul what Andrew tells you. There is a force that fears this project for what it really is, a truth seeker of the past. Gentlemen.”

Garrett:
(nervous)
"Andrew, I gotta admit, I'm worried about that so-called anatomy converter."

Andrew:
"Don't worry, you guys won't die, I'm sure of it. It does take more than the strongest man alive right now to handle it, but you have a new genetic code that is going to perform wonders internally, physically and mentally. Remember the tendons of the hybrid? No steroid in the world can produce that. You have the greatest potential of receiving it, and only - seriously - only if you do, then I'll put you on the converter. First, however, I'm going to let you men take the entire weekend off for some R and R. I'd better let you go now before you men change too much. You also might not see friends or family for a year or more.

Fade out


Fade in.
(Guys in Jeep heading on road)
Cliff:
"You got it! It's time to let loose! Party time, dudes!”

They jump into their issued jeep and off they go, screaming and hooting out of the fort. They find a roadside tavern not too far away from the base.

Then they jump out and go in and find four hard stools to sit on, begging the cute barmaid for the largest mugs of cold beer possible. Hank Williams, Jr. is playing on the jukebox for the few people two-stepping on the dance floor. The bar is definitely a honky-tonk. All wood floors, ceilings covered in cedar, and table and chairs are made out of maple. There are about thirty men and a few women hanging out in the pub. The lighting is dim, but suitable for making it to the restrooms. The place slightly smells of mildew but mostly of beer.

Waitress:
"What brings y'all here to lil’ Missy's tavern?"

Joe:
"Carb-loading. Ma’am, we need beer!”

All of a sudden they become aware of a loud voice directed at them.


( Voice)
"Y'all come from Ft. Stewart thinking you own the damn bar."

Beau turns toward the complaining voice.

Waitress:
"Don't pay no attention to 'em. They dint’ mean nuthin’ by it."

Voice:
"Speak for yerself, Annie. We're tired of these glory boys takin' over our bar.


Beau now has a clear fix on the mouthy man, who is surrounded by twelve of his hillbilly comrades.

Cliff:
(rubbing his legs)
"I feel weird, guys. It's like something is expanding in me,"


Beau doesn't hear Cliff’s words, just heads towards the instigator. He strides across the bar never breaking eye contact with the arrogant man, and the ceiling fans make shadows fall across his face again and again. He then grabs an empty chair and sits himself down at their table. The mouthy man has a black mustache, brown eyes and black hair. He also has a large build.

Mouthy/Man:
"I dint invite you to sit at my table."


Beau takes a large swig of beer and begins to speak.

Beau:
"My name is Beau Clark. My friends call me Beau, but you're not my friends so 'y'all' can call me Sir Beau."


Garrett is cramping badly. First his toes point, then his heel pushes out. His thumbs lock in and out. Joe has chest pains and his eyes hurt as if he is getting a bad headache.

Mouthy/Man:
“Well, well, well Sir Beau-bunny. My name is Jack Thorpe. These are my friends and this is my table. So pick up that chair and move your butt back to your fairy friends."



Jack doesn’t move an inch or blink an eye at Beau. Beau sits back and finishes his last few gulps of beer and then thumps his mug on the table.

Beau:
"I have a thousand dollars on me that I was going to use toward my vacation. I would be most willing to put it against you or any of your men at arm wrestling."

Jack's friends, crack up at the ludicrous sounding proposal.

Beau:
"As a matter of fact, I bet I can beat each one of you consecutively. And if I lose to just one of you, the money's yours."

Jack/Mouth:
( he grabs for the cash in his own pocket )
"You got it, Beau-bunny."

The rest of the men follow suit, pooling their money and placing it on the table. Joe, Garett and Cliff get up and painfully walk over and grab some chairs to sit and watch the crazy match that Beau starts. The rest of the tavern's occupants bring their chairs closer also so they can watch the spectacle.

Jack’s friends:
"Who's first?"
"Yeah, who's first?"
"I want to be first, let me finish him right off the bat!"
"No me!"
"No me, man!"

Jack:
"Stop! Shut up! Dewey will go first!"


Dewey pulls up his sleeve and slams his elbow on the redwood table, his hand held high and open.

Dewey:
"C'mon chump, I'll make this quick and painless."

Beau doesn't even reply to the feeble man's words. He rolls up his sleeve and gently lays his elbow on the table against Dewey's. The other man fights for a good grip while Beau stares him straight in the eyes. Dewey shakes nervously as his anxiousness begins to overwhelm him. His pride is on the line and everyone is watching. Dewey was born and raised in this same neighborhood and it is time to draw the boundaries.


Jack:
"He's nuthin'! You own 'im Dewey!"
"Ready, set, go!"

Dewey's arm goes down so fast, it is as if Dewey didn't even try.

Jack:
"What the heck was that?!"

Dewey:
( Whining)
"He cheated!"

Jack’s friends:
"Shut up Dewey. I'm next."
"No me!"
"No me!"

The men shove their way up to the front of the line. Parks, a six-foot beast with enough chew in his mouth to fill a small plant pot, pushes second. His cowboy hat is long enough that it almost touches Beau in the head from two feet away. He slaps a tight grip on Beau clenching all his fingers until the blood drains out into the arm. Tobacco juice spills from his mouth as he screams at Beau trying to intimidate him. Beau yawns. This really fires up the beast.

Jack:
"Go!"

Slam! His arm goes down quite easily, too. The hillbillies lose it and become extremely aggressive over who is to go next. They push Parks like a paper doll out of their way. One man after another loses disgracefully until Jack finally has had enough. Jack is about two hundred and sixty pounds of southern, solid beef. He was all muscle. The two lock hands as the tavern roars with yells of encouragement.

Jack’s friends:
"C'mon Jack, show'im who's boss!"

Sweat pours off Jack's face. Their beer money for the next week probably has him ready to kill.

Jack:
"Ready! Go!"

Back and forth move the arms, sometimes almost a win coming from either side. Then, after a few minutes of gruesome agony, Jack rears back and gives a final blast of strength to Beau's arm to take him out permanently. Beau, who felt the sudden thrust, locks his arm in upright position. SNAP! Beau instantly feels the loss of Jack's power as a ferocious scream comes out of Jack's mouth. Jack’s redneck friends are sickened as they see Jack's arm dangling while he rushes to staunch the flow of blood from the wound where the bone jutts out of his skin. Beau grabs the cash in the center of the table and hastily heads out, not looking back. Cliff, Garrett and Joe follow instantaneously.




Beau:
(as the tires on their jeep tear through the gravel drive)
"Yeeeehhhaaaaaww”
"Did ya see the look on everyone's face when I broke Jack's arm?!"

Cliff:
"Not to take any credit off you, Beau, but don't you find it a little strange that you beat six grown men with ease and still had the strength left to break Jack's arm? Look at ourselves. Just a few days ago we started experiencing nervous twitching, Joe and I bit our tongues and cheeks and you and Joe must've blinked your eyes a thousand times a minute. Then we started experiencing cramps all over our bodies. Right now I'm feeling these awful sharp pains radiating up and down my legs as if they were on fire."


Garrett and Joe both nod their heads, they know what Cliff is talking about.


Cliff:
"And now you, Beau. Your arm strength seems better than ever and plus you described your bones feeling like steel."

Beau:
"What are you trying to get at, Cliff? Just spell it out."

Cliff:
"I don't think we should be out in public. What if we really freak out or something?

Beau:
( sighing )
"All right, I guess I'll have to be content with hanging out with family. Some lady is missing out tonight."

Fade out.


Fade in.
After vacation. On way to the training facility.


Andrew:
( surprised at the physical changes of the men )
"If I'd known the changes would be this fast coming then I wouldn't have let you out of my sight. I'm sorry, fellas."


As they turn off a main road, they are driving down a grassy dirt driveway about a mile long. When they get to the end of the drive, they park in front of a big dump.


Beau:
“Talk about tight funding.”

The wood frame house was standing by a miracle. Gray paneling, covered by rotted plywoods gave the building a charming warmth that only a rat could love. Half-decomposed rubbish made the landscaping match the home. Shrubs and trees ran as wild and free as the rodents.

Joe:
‘How could this be a training facility”?

As we walked up to the front door, we watched every step.

Andrew:
“Lighten up. This is only a camouflage of what's inside."


Note! To all readers of this Screen Play! We must resort to putting the rest of the Play in a first person format to save pages and time of upload.
We will allow the dialog to slowly fade into a writing format.

The wooden door squeaked and the rusty hinges ground in a harmonious fashion. As we entered, we saw a sight worse than outside. Old toys, beer cans, bottles and newspapers stretched in every direction. Crooked paintings and greasy hand prints decorated the drywall, while built up scum added flavor to the wretched carpeting. We walked through the living room as if we were scouting for mines. Andrew pointed us toward a small linen closet that we were to enter. Threw a closet we entered what seemed to be a sophisticated elevator. Andrew leaned over and opened a plexiglass box that was attached to the elevator wall. He grabbed five of the six belts that were hanging in the box and gave one to each of us, including himself. The belts were self-adjusting and had four square objects spaced evenly apart, sewn in the lining. Andrew instructed us to put the belts on and position the square objects so that two were on either side of our hips, one in the front and one directly in back.




Andrew:
“These belts are your only tickets to surviving. The tunnel walls are lined with positive magnets so that you won’t come in contact with it if you're wearing this belt. Whatever you guys do, do NOT hit the release button on your belts. It's a matter of life or death."

Cliff/first person:
The metal floor we were standing on dropped out from under our feet. We screamed as we began to free fall. Before I knew it, we were falling down a tunnel about thirty feet in diameter. My stomach was in my throat and the rush of adrenaline left me gasping for air. We continued to fall at least two hundred feet. Then, when I thought we were going to hit bottom, our angle of motion changed. We'd flown through an elbow of some sort and were now traveling parallel with the earth's surface. The flow of air was so smooth, we were held perfectly in the center of the magnetic tube. There was no friction, no bumps or even a hum as we passed gracefully through the conditioned air. We must have traveled over a mile by now. There was a marvelous soothing effect from the weightlessness of the Positron field. I calmed down quickly as I felt confident in surviving this ordeal. We began to slow rapidly, but smoothly. There was a small pull in my stomach as I came to a stop over cushioned flooring. We hovered, suspended in air, until Andrew called for the drop. The cushions took the impact of our bodies as we were released from our airborne state. Andrew directed us to follow him into the central office to be briefed on what we were to do next.

(Different exchanges)
"Was that great or what, guys?"
"I thought we were dead."
"Me too."
We walked through the hallways that were separated by plexiglass doors. Andrew opened a door and motioned for us to go into an amazing room. A very large room the size of a gymnasium. Andrew began to describe what we were looking at.


Andrew:
"You men are going to be trained in every aspect possible. As you look around, you see the most advanced systems in weight training in the world. We are going to monitor your progress with computers to help us know what your body is capable of. Once we see the strength charts we will take you to the next stage. We have developed twenty of the most gruesome tests to tax your souls. Most of the tests would kill the average man, but I think our theoretical estimations of your capabilities will not only be met, but exceeded. I believe we will see some incredible changes that you or I cannot imagine at this point."

There was an elongated swimming pool that was twelve feet wide and a hundred feet long. Andrew explained that the pool floor's surface went up and down like gently rolling hills. The greatest depth of the pool was thirty feet and the shallowest was three feet. The water was darkened with a black dye for zero visibility. Andrew began to talk about the exercise I was studying. "This is a cardiovascular test and develops swim strength and will also help you learn how to hold your breath for long periods of time. You stand at the beginning of the pool at the three feet depth and you are then handed a bowling ball to push along the bottom of the pool up and down the hills without coming up for air. You must push the ball the entire length. Our goal is that you make twice the distance by the close of your training." That seemed impossible to me. The other guys were giving me pessimistic looks so it must've seemed impossible to them too. "Here we are at the third station. This is where you will learn the most advanced forms of self-defense. There are also balancing techniques to be learned at this station."

"The exercises are designed to train you to be coordinated. You need to stay in tune with your balance and reflexes while your bodies change so rapidly. Some of the tests are as simple as building a house out of playing cards. Some are as difficult as crawling along a one-inch cable for seventy feet. As far as self defense is concerned, you will be trained by a street master. His name is Vince Sanco. He will teach you how to subdue attacks in three moves or less. Any more than three is not only a waste of energy, which is precious in a bad situation, but also a detriment to your bodies."
This station looked like a gymnast's heaven with all its balancing beams, drop mats, tumble floor and other lesson devices. Next to that was a section where red laser beams that came from the ceiling moved briskly over color-marked flooring. A small section connected to that had a concrete floor that is covered with small marbles. Every time I moved my eyes, I saw something to marvel at. We had only gone by three stations and I was exhausted just thinking of all the exercise. "This is the fourth and final station. This is where you'll learn the proper use of lethal weaponry. Because of the extract you will have to learn how to make bombs and other weapons from scratch. That's why you see all this junk that takes up the largest part of the station." He was right. There was soap, clay, beer cans, sawdust, rolls of string, cardboard, screws and nuts that lay on one corner of one table that was in the midst of twenty tables. A smaller part of the station was dedicated to using weapons. There were targets for archery, rifle, knife-throwing and so much more. I was amazed at the large room used for explosives. The inside walls were covered by two full rows of sandbags. The floor was nothing but a large pit of white sand and the ceiling was of loose parachute material that would give with each percussion.

Cliff:
"This is really overwhelming!"

Andrew:
"Don't worry guys. Look at this as a challenge. This is going to be your home for the next three months. There will only be four other people with ourselves that will be in this facility. One is Mark Crawford, your weight trainer. Roy Grimmett handles those really gruesome tests in station two. There's also your self-defense instructor Vince, who I've mentioned, and last but not least, Crazy Eddie."
"Crazy Eddie - and I mean that literally - will teach you the love of firepower."


The next morning I found myself in a strength detecting device called the Crippler. There was a series of pads, wires and straps attached to my body. The thickest straps were around my ankles, wrists and head. There must have been twenty thousand different parts that made up the machine. The computer that ran the Crippler was supervised by Mark Crawford, who explained to me what the machine was going to do. "The computer is going to monitor your body's resistance to the machine's temporary crippling effects. You must try and stay as hard as you can in a military stance, face forward, arms down, feet together. The computer is going to send messages to the bionic parts in an attempt to turn you into a pretzel. By doing this, we will see where your weaknesses are, whether they are great or small." Mark threw the switch and almost immediately Rex and Beau were laughing at me. My arms and legs were being twisted in every direction. I felt my head being pulled back and I pushed forward, resisting the pull. As soon as I undid the knots my legs were in, I had to pry my left arm from around my back. It was like wrestling three, grown men. After two minutes, the test stopped. I had broken out in a full sweat and my body was pumped in that time. The straps came off and to the floor I went.




Joe:
( picking Cliff off the floor)
"You all right, buddy?"

Mark took my pulse while I looked for a nice spot to puke on. He then directed me to a soft pad to lie down on while I got my bearings together. The other men went for the ride.

Mark:
"You guys fought the Crippler pretty well. However, the computer shows weakness in minor and major areas. But a strange thing happened. I don't know if it is possible, but I could almost swear your bodies detected your own weakness and began to compensate for them establishing new tissue growth."


Andrew standing buy looks at some xrays of men and computer printouts.

Andrew:
“Do you men know how muscle is formed? Muscle is formed by taxing the fibers until they rip and tear. After the tissue is torn, blood flows to the area and makes a cast, so to speak. That cast is scar tissue and for the average man it takes forty-eight hours to repair the torn tissue. On you men it took less than ten seconds. When we have used the Crippler on an average man, their strength went down as time elapsed. You all got stronger. You guys were sick for a few minutes but you're totally fine now, not experiencing the kind of soreness that could go on for days.”


Andrew was right. When I first started bench pressing, I could push up to a maximum of two hundred and fifty-five pounds which was a little greater than my body weight of one-eighty-five. Four weeks later, I was pushing up nine-sixty-five for an easy set of ten. Beau was benching one thousand pounds even and curling six hundred. Garrett had a squat just under a ton and Joe blew our minds by doing thirty-six hundred pushups nonstop. Mark began to run out of weight but that didn't matter because the bars used for holding the weights fatigued quickly and would bend easily. Our growth wasn't anticipated this much. We became aggressive with the iron, tossing one hundred pound plates at each other like they were Frisbees. Mark would not even get close to us while we worked with the heavy steel, he just observed. Our actual body size did not get a whole lot bigger. I added about 15 pounds of mass. Beau was a little bigger and Joe and Garreett were about the same as me. All of our bodies were defined and there was no fat to be found. I really became addicted to the bench press. When I laid flat on the bench support, I would get into this....like, ninja concentration. After that, I counted to five and then slapped my hands hard around the bar and watched the chalk clouds burst from my hands. I evened up the spacing on my hands, checked the four hundred pounds of weight on my right then on my left and then took three quick breaths. I would lift, arch my back and do a grunt scream at the top of my lungs. I loved to feel that weight pressing down on my arms and chest. I took a perverse pleasure in making my reps so slow that they hurt all the way down and all the way up. I could hear the clanking of eight one-hundred pound metal frisbees as I gave the bar a slight bounce on the tips of my pecs. It felt like my chest muscles would explode from the increased pressure of blood rushing to repair the torn tissue. It w