Panel 1: Probably smaller inset above. Eliza and Daphne meeting in an office somewhere, shaking hands somewhat tentatively.
CAPTION – TURPENTINE NARRATING (1): Eventually, we were down to two candidates, one to serve in the principal attempt and the second as an alternate.
Translation (1): В конце концов мы отобрали двух кандидатов, одного главного и второго запасного.
Eliza (2): Uh, hi!
Translation (2): Здравствуйте!
Daphne (3): How do you do?
Translation (3): Как поживаете?
Panel 2: Eliza and Daphne sitting at a table in a richly-appointed conference room of a major law firm. Across from them sit some serious-looking lawyers. Eliza is signing something.
CAPTION – TURPENTINE NARRATING (4): We had them sign agreements of various kinds: consents to the procedure, agreements to prominent mention in all publications related to the project, and also contracts with compensation of a sort: a charity of each’s choosing would get a contribution of $1,000,000 upon each’s completion of her…contribution.
Translation (4): Они подписали кучу разных документов: согласие на процедуру, согласие на упоминание в публикациях, относящихся к данному проекту, а также контракты с благотворительным взносом в размере $1 000 000, который будет внесен ими после выполнения их… миссии.
Single panel: A girl swimming partly upright underwater in a giant (at least 6 meters high and 4 meters in diameter) cylindrical glass tank. She is wearing a utilitarian one-piece swimsuit, to which various “tentacle” attachments have been made at various places, including at the breasts and between her legs. Her face is covered with an attachment rather like the “mask” that covered Phoebe Petrobux’s face in her last appearance above the surface. Beneath the swimming girl’s feet there is a large tube similar to the feeding siphon the creature is believed to have. Off to the right of the panel a white-coated scientist is operating a control panel with a variety of levers and dials. To the left, another scientist watches monitors and keeps notes.
CAPTION – TURPENTINE NARRATING (1): Those women who got through the initial rounds of the process went through a simulation test.
Translation (1): Женщины, прошедшие первые раунды отбора, были испытаны на симуляторе.
CAPTION – TURPENTINE NARRATING (2): We don’t want subjects who will panic and struggle under field conditions.
Translation (2): Нам не нужны люди, которые могут впасть в паническое состояние в полевых условиях.
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INT. WAREHOUSE CONFERENCE ROOM – DAY
ARTHUR
Okay, Harry, look, I know this is all really horrible but we’ve got to keep our heads clear before things really blow up. This looks like a pretty clear case of accident or suicide so we can probably keep entanglements with the authorities to a minimum. As for liability, Dr. Quisp has no close living family, so…
HARRY
Good lord, Arthur. My valued colleague is a pile of bones here, and you want to talk about…
There is a PINGING noise. Ernie pulls out his smart phone and looks at it.
ERNIE
The creature just uploaded something into the virtual space.
HARRY
This is really not the time…
ARTHUR
We should take a look, just to make sure it doesn’t make things worse.
Harry pauses, then nods at Ernie
ERNIE
I’ll patch it through.
Ernie punches something on his phone. The video screen in the conference room is now filled with text and scientific diagrams of various kinds. Harry looks at it and furrows his brow.
HARRY
What the…go to the next page.
Another page of the same.
HARRY
(to Arthur)
Give me your phone.
Harry begins scrolling through page after page of material. His eyes scan through the material he is reading with feverish intensity.
HARRY
This is not garbage.
(scans a few more pages)
This is not right-wing propaganda, or literary crackpottery. If this is what I think it is, then the creature has just given us…
Please do not reproduce this storyboard or its associated screenplay text without permission from Faustus, who may be contacted here.
Panel 1: HARVEY ELIGOS (“Eligos”), an elegant-looking man with a neatly trimmed Van Dyke beard and an expensive suit, sits across a polished wooden conference table in a conference room of a high-priced law firm. He is being interviewed. He looks and in control of his situation.
Unseen interviewer (1): We don’t understand about “non-suicidality.” Isn’t this a sort of suicide mission by definition?
Translation (1): Не совсем понятно насчет «суицидальных наклонностей». Рассматриваете ли вы вашу миссию как суицидальную по определению?
Eligos (2): No.
Translation (2): Нет.
SUBTITLE (3): Harvey Eligos, J.D., Ph.D., legal psychologist and consultant.
Translation (3): Харви Элигос, доктор права и философии, судебный психолог и консультант.
Panel 2: Harvey, still in control, continuing his response to the interviewer.
Eligos (4): To be suicidal means wanting to end one’s life, and that’s what the testing on this project was meant to screen out.
Translation (4): Суицидальные наклонности означают желание свести счеты с жизнью, и именно такие случаи призвано исключить тестирование.
Eligos (5): Accepting the end of one’s life as a side-effect of achieving a higher goal, that’s not suicide.
Translation (5): Готовность принять смерть как побочный эффект при достижении высшей цели – это не суицид.
Unseen interviewer (6): We still don’t understand.
Translation (6): Все-таки не совсем понятно.
Panel 3: View of a dead United States Marine (WWII era), lying face down in the mud, his rifle and various battle detritus strew about his corpse.
CAPTION – ELIGOS NARRATING (7): Suppose a Marine throws himself on a live grenade, sacrificing his own life to save those of his fellow Marines. Would we call that a suicide? Of course not. He nobly sacrificed his life to achieve a higher goal.
Translation (7): Предположим, морской пехотинец бросается грудью на гранату, жертвуя своей жизнью ради сослуживцев. Можно назвать это суицидом? Конечно, нет. Он благородно принес свою жизнь в жертву ради высшей цели.
Panel 4: Close-up on Eligos’s face.
Eligos (8): These researchers were looking for subjects interested in the higher goal of advancing science, among other things.
Translation (8): Эти исследователи ищут людей, заинтересованных в высшей цели прогресса науки.
Panel 1: Probably the largest panel across the top of the page. An institutional-looking room full of young women sitting at desks, filling out forms with pencils.
CAPTION – TURPENTINE NARRATING (1): We were surprised at the number of volunteers we got when word of our project got out on social networks.
Translation (1): Разместив информацию о нашем проекте в наших соцсетях, мы были поражены количеством желающих в нем участвовать.
CAPTION – TURPENTINE NARRATING (2): We did extensive psychological testing to root out cases of suicidality and mental instability.
Translation (2): Мы провели расширенное психологическое тестирование, чтобы отсеять лиц с неустойчивой психикой и суицидальными наклонностями.
Panel 2: Turpentine in his office, being interviewed.
Turpentine (3): There were some legal issues, of course, but our philanthropic sponsor is well connected and found ways to deal with them.
Translation (3): Конечно же, возникли и некоторые юридические проблемы, однако наш щедрый и влиятельный спонсор смог их разрешить.
Panel 3: A young woman wearing a hospital gown, sitting on an examination table and having her blood pressure checked by a nurse.
CAPTION – TURPENTINE NARRATING (4): We did rigorous medical screening.
Translation (4): Мы провели строгое медицинское тестирование.
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INT. WAREHOUSE CONFERENCE ROOM – DAY
Joe goes to the conference table and lifts the sheet off. Rosalie’s skeleton, somewhat disconnected because many of its ligaments have dissolved, lies neatly laid out on the table.
JOE
There’s a sewage trap underneath the creature which we use to remove the bones of the goats it eats. An hour or so ago we found this. Very neat work, all soft tissue completely removed.
Harry stares horrified at Rossalie’s remains for a moment, then he takes a pair of nitrile gloves from the box on the table and puts them on.
Please do not reproduce this storyboard or its associated screenplay text without permission from Faustus, who may be contacted here.
Panel 2: View of a vase painting showing the Greek hero Achilles.
CAPTION – DAPHNE NARRATING (4): In the Iliad, the hero Achilles faces a choice between either going home and living a long life – that’s νόστος – or staying to fight and living a short but glorious life – that’s κλέος.
Translation (4): В Илиаде герой Ахиллес встает перед выбором между возвращением домой и долгой жизнью – νόστος, – и участием в битве и короткой, но славной жизнью – это зовется κλέος.
Panel 3: Daphne, leaning forward to engage more closely her unseen interviewer.
Daphne (5): Given the choice between a either a lifetime as a corporate drone after which I shall be forgotten or being part of something that will be in history books for centuries, the right answer seems obvious.
Translation (5): Стоя перед выбором – быть всю жизнь офисным планктоном, после чего меня ждет забвение, или стать частью того, что на века войдет в анналы истории… выбор очевиден.
Panel 4: Daphne sitting back, taking a sip from her cup of coffee.
Daphne (6): Or at least, the right answer is obvious to me.
Translation (6): По меньшей мере, он очевиден для меня.
