The Rewilders Page 10
Coming up behind, on foot, Rachel and her Team carry the smaller kids in their arms.
They emerge from a forest, teeter down a hill, through a broken gate surrounding the zoo, and out to a quiet laneway inhabited only by a waddling family of Mallards.
Everyone finds Safety at Last
EXTERIOR - CLEARING - NIGHT (DUSK)
With rural country in the FOREGROUND and the remnants of Glasgow in the BACKGROUND, our survivors sit around three cozy campfires. Sweet songs of nature surround them, OFF-SCREEN.
Rachel and the others pass out little sandwiches to the children, and hug them to console them from their fears.
EXTERIOR - CLEARING - DAY (DAWN)
Charlie and his motorbike, and the kids, stand and face Ally and the rest of the team, prepared to go their own way.
Rachel, though, stands a little apart from her Teammates.
ALLY
Well, let's go off to fight the good fight, guys.
WALLY/ROGER
"Rewilding humanity!"
YABBY
Huh?!
ALLY
It's important to take the children, to try to "preserve" what's left of human civilization. Isn't that right "Cadwraeth"?
CHARLIE
Hmmph. I'll take the kids to the South of England, and then maybe to France.
RACHEL
Not so many predators were released there, so we heard.
Charlie Learns who Rachel Is
Charlie gazes at the woman he saved, Rachel, still swooning back at him. Ally notices the silent language between them.
ALLY
Rache? I think you're supposed to go with him, don't you?
CHARLIE
We can use all the help we can get, Miss. Rachel. Rachel... ?
RACHEL
(offers her hand)
Rachel Wallington.
CHARLIE
(jaw drops)
You... ? You're Rachel Wallington? All those notes! In my mailbox?!
RACHEL
You got them?!
CHARLIE
I surely did... Rachel!
They take each other's hands and swim in each other's eyes.
DISSOLVE TO LATER
The Team offers hugs and kisses to Rachel, now sitting up behind Charlie on his motorcycle.
The kids are already walking down the avenue in a neat line, escorted by their parents.
Tearfully, Rachel's Team steps back from her, and Charlie revs the motor and lurches forward a bit.
ALLY
Say, Mister, just why did they call you Cadwraeth?
CHARLIE
Huh?
A light comes to Rachel's eyes, and she hugs Charlie tighter around his chest.
RACHEL
It's his name! "Charles Andrew Darwin Rath!"
She waves frantically, as her old Teammates return waves and blow kisses by the dozen.
ALLY/ROGER/WALLY
Bye! All the best! Keep safe!
YABBY
(sad beaver imitation)
Hoot-hoot-hoooot!
RACHEL/CHARLIE
Goodbye! Good luck everyone!
Ally, Wally, Roger and Yabby turn and march off to try to save Mankind, somehow, while Charlie and Rachel and the few dozen children and their parents go off in the opposite direction, possibly as Humanity's last stand.
Finale: The Storyteller's World Revealed
INTERIOR - MACGILLVRAY HOUSE - DAY
Candles are burning, and the T.V. doesn't come on, even as Harry repeatedly presses the remote. He tosses it away.
Evey saunters in from the kitchen. She stops at a window.
EVEY
Need some air.
She yanks up the window all the way, before lurching back.
A male lion growls a mighty ROAR right at the open window!
EVEY
Oh, go away!
Grabbing a frying pan at-the-ready, on the sill, she clangs the big cat on the nose. He retreats with a little meow.
She shuffles over to the couch and flops down beside Harry. He puts his arm around her shoulder.
EVEY
It's definitely time to move, Harry.
They hug a nice embrace.
Then Harry reacts to something at the window.
CLOSE-UP - WINDOW (STILL OPEN) - A BLUE BUTTERFLY
A Large Blue Butterfly flutters up and down and sideways.
HARRY (OFF-SCREEN)
Look, Evey!
EVEY (OFF-SCREEN)
Oh, Harry! It's so lovely!
The storytellers from the future resume their narration:
GIRL (VOICE-OVER)
A butterfly?
BOY (VOICE-OVER)
The Blue Butterfly!
MOM (VOICE-OVER)
Yes, my sweet peas! It was one of the many, many offspring of the original, beautiful Blue Butterfly that your Great Great Grandmother released the year before!
EXT. MACGILLVRAY HOUSE/YARD
The beautiful Blue Butterfly flutters up above the trees, and then down and all around against a gorgeous blue sky.
Then it flutters up, OFF-SCREEN.
EXTERIOR - SOME RECOGNIZABLE CITY SKYLINE (SAME TIME)
The butterfly reappears in what seems the same brilliant blue sky.
But as it flutters down and around and all about, in the BACKGROUND is a whole new environment.
It's a skyline of a great city, perhaps New York or Chicago (somewhere instantly recognizable), indicating the spread of the Blue since its release the year before.
Up, up, it flutters, till it attains the pinnacle of an office tower. Settled there, it fiercely beats its fragile wings, as the sound increases to that of a great storm - a hurricane, even.
INTERIOR - UNDEFINED FUTURE RESIDENCE - NIGHT (DARK)
The storytelling Mom tucks in her drowsy children and blows out what's left of the candles.
MOM
And so, children, that is how the New World came to be, and how your Great Great Grandparents, Rachel and Charlie, were a part of it all.
Wide-eyed, but blinking to fight off the sleep soon to come, the kids sigh, roll, and face each other in the little bed.
MOM
Good night and sweet dreams, my children.
BOY/GIRL
We love you, mother.
MOM
I love you, too, for always more.
Now we pull back from the little family, out of the house and right through the window into the tree branches outside.
And then we look back at whence we came.
We see it's a little shack built up in a great tree, amongst singing birds and a beautiful sunset happening to the West.
Down the huge tree trunk we slide, to a vast plain populated by amazing creatures busily occupying themselves.
Critters from the Pleistocene Era, including a huge shelled armadillo (Glyptodon), monstrous moose (Irish Elk), a sabre-toothed tiger, giant cave bear, cave hyenas, and an elephant with down-pointing tusks (Dinotherium).
And, finally, nibbling away at lower branches on the great tree, a huge ground sloth (Megatherium), one that resembles King Beaver, having a spot in the middle of his forehead.
It is reverse evolution in progress, and what happened when all of the creatures of the world were left to be.
On the horizon, Nature is seen to rule a domain of decaying office towers, sagging electrical lines and overgrown Man-made wonders of a past civilization utterly overcome.
THE END
Synopsis
(Note: This synopsis contains spoilers!)
A tiny apartment at twilight - we don't know where or what year. There's no electricity, only candles and a smouldering fireplace.
A MOM, 25, settles in to tell an ancestral story to her two children, a BOY, 7, and GIRL, 5, laying together in a small bed.
The tattered clothes remind us of the Middle Ages, but there are suggestions of modernity, such as a dusty T.V. holding up books, and a touchpad phone acting as a coaster for a
glass of milk.
"Aren't you tired yet, my children?" Both kids respond, "No, tell us more - of how the New World Came to Be!"
Flashback to Glasgow. It is 23 years after Environmental Parties won the election, here and in most countries around the world.
One of the places we'll visit is a tiny apartment where EVEY, 65, and HARRY, 70, watch TV, and listen to an announcer describe "The Rewilding Act" to introduce species back into the world.
Then the storytelling Mom narrates: "Your Great Great Grandmama worked with the government. She was there at the beginning..."
RACHEL WALLINGTON, 27, works in the Central Rewilding and Agri-Program. Members of the public linger at counters, looking at enviro-posters. With Rachel are her boss, PROFESSOR ALLY GRUBERSTEIN, 55, WALLY, 30, the Team Technician; and ROGER, 35, YABBY, 30, both Games Keepers, and both British cockney.
A video transmission is underway with PROCTOR, 65, moustachioed, Minister of Conservation, in London. He's long had a bit of a crush on Ally, but she isn't interested in him.
They discuss what bird type the Team will be "rewilding" today. With each suggestion, Yabby imitates the call of that bird! The Red Kite? The Glanville Fritillary?
"Only birds?" says Wally. "Oh okay, do the Blue Butterfly then, outside Greenock," says Proctor. On the way there, the Team passes signs, posters, and hears broadcasts exhorting extreme conservation, scolding waste, lines of people cleaning, etc.
Arriving at a pretty ravine, viewing stands are set up with a speaker's area roped off. It's very sparsely-attended, with maybe 12 spectators. It's only a for a butterfly, after all. The Team's dressed in Blue Butterfly t-shirts, and Rachel hands out more of them to the children in the crowd.
Ally cheerfully describes the lifestyle of the near-extinct Large Blue Butterfly, and an animation shows how the Butterfly, as a caterpillar, is helped by red ants, and how the red ants feed off of dew from the caterpillar, till the Butterfly flies off, lays eggs on Marjoram plants, and the process repeats.
Roger oversees Yabby struggling to open the cage. It jams. He snaps his fingers. "Ouch!" Finally, to gentle applause, out fly several beautiful Blue Butterflies.
Back at the office, the Team calls Proctor. "Can we do something bigger?" He lets them observe a wild boar rewilding "up north".
Back to senior citizens Harry and Evey, watching T.V., they watch a report about deliberate desertification in California: "It if wants to be a desert," says the reporter, "let it be!"
Later, then, the Team joins another group releasing a boar. It's at a pasture, beside a tiny farm, with an audience of 35 people. A truck backs up with a cage, bouncing from the big beast inside.
The farmer is CHARLIE RATH, 30, a handsome widower. Rachel notices him grimly watching and sidles up to him, "Hello, I'm Rachel Wallington. Isn't this exciting, today?" No response, at first, before a weak handshake. "Charlie Rath."
The leader of this group reads a sour edict over the p.a. system. He's not nearly as cheerful as Ally at the butterfly release.
"Ladies and gentlemen? The Wild Boar. Stand your guard and breathe in its awful fragrance, it's one of nature's ugliest creatures and something you'd not want to meet in any nightmare." Rachel and Ally frown. Children in the crowd gasp.
Rachel admires Charlie's farm and learns a bit about him, but then the boar is released. It bursts out, knocking the games keepers off their feet, full of speed and fury. The audience flees every which way. It bursts through the fence and rampages through Charlie's garden, then into his house, crashing, banging.
Rachel is horrified, and Charlie protects her as the beast races past them. As the other bumbling rewilders chase the wild boar, Wally, Roger and Yabby grab tranquillizer guns.
Proctor, contacted by phone, fires the other rewilders and asks Ally to take over the "big game" reintroductions from now on.
Next, Rachel's Team gets to re-introduce beavers to the Bog of Scotland. As before, Ally does the cheerful lecture to the crowd of onlookers as Rachel and the others help with the spectators.
The beaver is released. "Rewilding ahoy!" A rather large beaver tentatively emerges. He has a light spot in the fur in the middle of his forehead. He burps, farts, whines, and jumps into the pond, followed by a little family of smaller beavers.
The Team is a great success, now, and become rewilding celebrities, cheerfully rewilding animals all over the world: Elephants, camels and a donkey, an Onager, are released. Ally says, "I release this ass to the wild. And a lovely ass it is!"
The Team is pleased, but Rachel is sad about Charlie. She personally delivers his "sufferer's compensation check" to his mailbox, but he tears it up in disgust, later, when he finds it.
Arriving back home for a respite, Rachel checks her computer to see that Charlie hasn't cashed his check. She leaves him a phone message to call her, "please call me!" She looks him up on the Internet. Finding a handsome photograph of him as a volunteer firefighter, saving kids in a fire, she prints it out to keep.
Then back to work! The Team has many rewildings to do, this time several different antelope creatures to Africa. Then on to South America. The creatures they re-introduce to the wild are often the funniest looking ones ever, like the collared peccary. Wally can't stop laughing: "Advanced ugliness". Roger says, "Maybe there's a reason these critters are nearly extinct." But Rachel coos, "He's so cute!" as she is an extreme sucker for animals.
Lastly, it's on to North America and Australia, to re-introduce an Anaconda, a spider monkey, and even the Tasmanian Devil.
Meanwhile, Charles, out of work because his farm was destroyed, has his home repossessed. He leaves with only his coat.
When Rachel gets home, she bikes to Charlie's house, but he's not there. The house is run down, unoccupied. She finds a few fragments of his compensation award check on the ground. Later, checking out his house, Charlie sees an envelope in his mailbox: A replacement check and a note from Rachel. He stares at her signature, not knowing she's the nice woman he met earlier.
Meanwhile, Evey and Harry watch T.V. again. A reporter says that rewilding may cause "reverse evolution" in which extinct animals redevelop. "Now that's the best news I've heard in a while! Think of all the steaks a Stegosaurus'll give us!" says Harry.
Back in the CRAP office, Rachel videoconferences with Proctor. She says they should slow down rewilding, but Proctor refuses.
Rachel notices Charles in a bread line, dirty and unshaven. She races to him, but when those in the line notice her badge, they shove her around. Charles rescues her, but doesn't remember her.
Later, Charlie sees many homeless people, and peaceful protesters being moved along by police on horseback, and the government guys in big green SUVs. He takes his check and buys some weapons. He's going to fight back.
Meanwhile, as Evey and Harry play Scrabble, they hear a report about "complications" with the Beaver in Scotland, destroying property. Then: "Harry, a beaver is chewing on the car tires!"
Later, the Team, not as happy as before, does a big release at a forest. But the goofy Conservation Ministry has made major mix-ups. Each cage has a photo of the animal that's supposed to be inside, but the pictures don't match the animals.
So, before a crowd of 100 spectators, they open the cage for a muskox, when a cheetah leaps out. Luckily, they restrain it. Then, from the next cage, a large vulture has somehow been substituted for a grouse. Lastly, and worst of all, the cage picture shows an aardvark, but the notes say it's supposed to be an armadillo. When they open the cage, a rhinoceros bursts out, rampaging everywhere, scaring people away, knocking things over.
Proctor, on radio, over-reacts and calls in an airstrike! A jet appears, but the bomb mistakenly destroys a wind power turbine. Then a masked man arrives on a motorcycle and directs the rhino away from the crowd. He whoops like a cowboy rounding up cattle.
As the team cleans up, Ally talks to Proctor. "Well, never mind now, we need you back here to consult on the situation in Central Scotland." There's a swarm of beavers
attacking the army!
Back to Evey and Harry, watching T.V. A reporter interviews Proctor, who talks about "Cadwraeth", a Lone Ranger masked man. "Obviously a terrorist, marauding around the country trapping government representatives, locking them up in cages."
The storytelling Mom tells her Kids: Remember the beaver? The government tried to control where he could live, but he began to think differently. There soon came a great battle, and he led his thousands of beavers against a big army of Man soldiers.
A big battle scene commences, of swarms of beavers, lynx, foxes, elk, muskoxen, geese, mice, hawks and boar, all led by the beaver with a spot in the middle of his forehead.
Paratroopers drop behind their lines and capture beavers in huge nets. "Sergeant, we're getting the better of the little buggars! They're retreating on all fronts." Then the electricity goes out. It's curfew and conservation rules dictate everything goes dark at 8 p.m.! The human army has to retreat! The war is lost!