Mimic

FADE IN:

THE SCREEN:

Stygean darkness.

Wet CLICKING SOUNDS. A BEAM of purplish ULTRA-VIOLET LIGHT

reveals a mosaic of moving forms... COCKROACHES. They skitter

restlessly under the beam's intensity. SERIES OF SHOTS -- the

UV Beam passing over various parts of the space. Pipe webs,

walls, girders -- all covered with the insects. Thousands of

them.

PULL BACK TO REVEAL

INT. SEWER SYSTEM

Innards of steel. A vast maze of tunnels.

A GROUP OF FIGURES advances through the tunnels with handheld

UV lamps.

The figures are dressed in gray air-tight NEOPRENE SUITS,

their faces hidden by skin tight MASKS and bug-like NIGHT

VISION GOGGLES. In the dense silence, respirator valves HISS-

CLICK at the corner of their lips in mechanical rhythm.

The scene has a dream-like, choreographed quality.

NIGHT-VISION POV

Eerie, aquatic green. The horde of insects appear to be some

kind of sea-life, crawling over the floor of a dead ocean.

THE TEAM OF FIGURES

From their midst appears another FIGURE, its neoprene suit a

flat WHITE. Female, clearly the TEAM LEADER.

She carries a stainless steel CONTAINER filled with twenty

small compartments, each bearing a large, heavy-shelled roach

with a different BARCODE on their back.

JUDAS ROACHES.

She kneels and opens the

CASE:

TCHK!! A dozen of the Judas roaches are released. They slide

through into the area.

THE NEARBY ROACHES

react instantaneously. In a rustle of tiny legs, they begin

to stream toward the Judases.

Jostle and fight each other for position to mate with them.

They even crawl over the Team Leader in an effort to reach

the Judases. The Team Leader makes no effort to brush them

off. Patient, almost godlike, she watches the MATING.

LATER:

A MANHOLE has been opened above. CHAINS are dropped down and

attached by a Team Member to A 100-GALLON DISPOSAL DRUM.

REVEAL the floor of the tunnel, carpeted with the still forms

of the roaches, now all DEAD.

The Team Members quietly shovel the tiny corpses into other

disposal drums.

At their feet skitter the only survivors of the massacre:

the bar-coded Judas Roaches.

In a crunch of machinery, the first disposal drum is lifted

by the chains through the manhole to

EXT. A CITY STREET - DAY

MIDTOWN MANHATTAN. A cacophony of SOUND and LIGHT.

Dirty snow drifts over Bryant Park. Emergency lights blink

everywhere. A wall of cars sits on Sixth Avenue, stopped

dead. Exhaust fumes hang in the air. Jaded TRAFFIC COPS send

the cars on crosstown detours.

Mounted policemen patrol a line of yellow sawhorses near

dozens of Department of Public Health vehicles, angle-parked

in a military phalanx.

A monumental ribcage-like scaffolding has been erected in the

middle of the street, "sealing" the area with amber plastic.

Inside, UNIFORMED WORKERS take the disposal drum of roaches

and toss it into one of a number of huge DUMPSTERS.

The Team Leader watches from nearby, exhauster. Her mask is

off. We see her face: Enthomologist SUSAN WYETH, 28.

An ARM gently drapes over her shoulder.

PETER (OS)

How we doing?

She looks over at DR. PETER TYLER, 34, bespectacled. A

HEADSET around his neck, a coat emblazoned with the

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH logo. He has the look of a man who's

just fought a long battle and come out victorious.

SUSAN:

We'll see...

He offers her a bite of a PAY DAY CANDYBAR. Susan smiles,

shakes her head. She wearily leans against him.

Peter looks out as the dumpster filled with roaches is raised

by MECHANICAL ARMS into the waiting maw of the dump truck.

THE SCREEN. DARKNESS.

A voice, a somber bas-relief in the darkness.

ANCHORMAN (VO)

Strickler's Disease crept into Manhattan

like a thief in the night, claiming its

first hundred victims before it was even

classified.

INT. HOSPITAL - NIGHT - FLOATING SHOT

We FLOAT through a long hospital ward.

Past ROWS of illuminated oxygen tents, pulsating softly in

the dark like cocoons of light.

ANCHORMAN (VO)

Most were children under ten.

TRACK past tents. BODIES OF SMALL CHILDREN inside, wrapped

in white sheets, hooked up to IVs or breathing apparatus.

Skeletal hands, parched lips, glazed eyes.

BELLOWS of respirators push in and out, labored, failing.

IMAGE RESOLVES TO A VIDEO ON A SCREEN.

PULL BACK to reveal a number of SCREENS, each with a

different set of images. We are in a NEWS VAN. A

TECHNICIAN and DIRECTOR sit watching.

The voice belongs to an ANCHORMAN who's now overimposed.

ANCHORMAN:

Only after the numbers had reached into

the thousands were officials able to

identify the carrier of the deadly

infection...

DIRECTOR:

Cut to three.

The Technician manipulates the controls. On another screen

we see them cut to STOCK NEWS FOOTAGE: regular cockroaches,

crawling on garbage.

ANCHORMAN:

Blattida Germanica. The common

cockroach.

DIRECTOR:

(To a RUNNER)

Tell them we're ready for a live feed.

EXT. OUTSIDE VAN - CITY HALL - DUSK

The runner exits the News Van. Other such vehicles parked

nearby. A CROWD of ONLOOKERS, REPORTERS and a gaggle of

PROTESTERS with handpainted signs.

Gliding past them, we pick up sound bites...

REPORTER 1

...an insect that has proven virtually

immune to chemical control...

REPORTER 2

...the announcement by the Health

Department that an end to the nightmare

has finally...

REPORTER 3 is interviewing a Greenpeace PROTESTER who is

holding up a photograph of Susan.

REPORTER 3

...an ex-colleague of Doctor Susan

Wyeth...

PROTESTER:

...Susan has always been opposed to

biological tampering. A real advocate

for ecological causes, it's not...

MOVE past them to further inside of the perimeter...

INT. AUDITORIUM - CITY HALL

A NEWS CONFERENCE in progress. A packed house. T.V.

monitors spaced ever 10 seats or so. In the audience, the

MAYOR OF NEW YORK and various CITY OFFICIALS, listening to

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