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Page 1 & 2
Double Splash Page

There is a shot from a playground of a large mushroom cloud in the middle of a generic American city.

Narrator: In the year 2030, the world changed.

Page 3

Panel 1: There is a shot of the interior of the U.N. with the General Secretary making an impassioned speech we don't hear while holding his head at a "heroic" angle. His right fist is held vaguely over his heart.

Narrator: No one knows who started it; all that mattered to the small-minded leaders of men was that their country was the one to end it.

Panel 2: Several large, futuristic bombers are shown flying in formation, with the center bomber being the focus of the panel and the other ones being seen only at the edge of it.


Narrator: Meetings were held.

Panel 3: A phalanx of shock troops in full-body armor and face masks march into a city. It's crucial that the masks sort of correspond to the features of a human face, only to be mechanized beyond all recognition. They can't just be clean face-plates.

Votes were cast.

Panel 4: A soldier is positioned in the street behind a kneeling, crying woman with a futuristic bigass gun of some sort to her head and her infant standing next to her.

Narrator: Treaties were signed.

Page 4

Panel 1: Shot of a few scientists mulling around in a grungy makeshift lab; a large, troll sized, vaguely humanoid robot lies down on a Frankensteinian slab of metal or something.

Narrator: There were those who felt that things as they were could not stand.

Panel 2: Close-up on a vaguely middle-aged Japanese man with messed-up hair, small glasses, and a beard.

Narrator: My father was one of them.

Panel 3: Close-up on the head of the robot. One of the eyes is finished, the other isn't. It looks as if it's supposed to be covered in fake human skin; it's just not on there yet.

Narrator: The crux of the project was BK-1.

Panel 4: BK-1 is finished now, a combination of Olympian physical perfection and an amalgamation of the world's races. He's rising out of a vat of some sort, a very blatant womb-image.

Narrator: He was to be humanity's savior, a logical, objective, superintelligence that was to be all things to our troubled species.

Page 5

Panel 1: Time's Square, with BK-1's face over all the screens.

Narrator: A scholar.

Panel 2: A gigantic robot army marching across a desert, with BK-1 leading them. He is crushing a man's skull in his hand. This panel should be larger than panel 1.

Narrator: A general.

Page 6: Full-page splash. BK-1 is seated in a Geiger-esque palanquin carried by 8 enslaved humans, all of whom are haggard and obviously starved. Think Warhamer 40K.

Narrator: A ruler.

Page 7

Panel 1: The same lab, with several men in lab coats, old and young, hovering over two tanks full of eerie green fluid. One of them has a robot in it; the other one has a gas mask for an absent person.

Narrator: There was a solution to humanity's enslavement, but it needed the voluntary sacrifice of an individual's humanity.

Panel 2: There is a closeup on a young man's face, which resembles the scientist's on page 4. It is expressionless and yet unwavering.

Narrator: No one wanted to volunteer.

Panel 3: It looks the exact same, except the man's right hand is raised straight up.

Narrator: Except for me.

Page 8

Panel 1: Closeup on the second tank, with hints of metal creeping over his extremities. He is sort of in the fetal position.

Narrator: I don't remember much of what happened before my change; all this comes from datadisks.

Panel 2: Closeup on his right hand, with covering the first two segments of his fingers.

Narrator: I do, however, remember the change itself; the complete lack of light, of sound, of feeling.

Nothing.

Panel 3: Still on the right hand, the nanites have reached the middle of his palm by now.

Narrator: Except the cold.

Panel 4: His hand is completely mechanized by now; the hand is very slick and futuristic-looking.

Narrator: Always the cold.

Page 9

Throughout this page, the lyrics of a song, both in Japanese Katakana and in English start to play at the bottoms of every panel, not quite in frames, but written nonetheless. They're very small, at first, and by the third panel, they're quite large.

Panel 1: Closeup on his face, which is still human-looking.

Narrator: It doesn't matter much now; I have a purpose, a responsibility to every man, woman, and child still somehow living after all these years of meaningless slaughter.

Panel 2: Isometric view of him standing in the middle of a street with the infinite hordes of the robot army in front of him.

Narrator: I stand alone because there is no one left to stand.

Panel 3: Side view of his head, an anime-style mask comes up.

Narrator: Neither of us may have started this.

Page 10

Sorta-splash page. The top half is another close-up on the narrator's face, with resolute eyes and stuff. Near the middle, the image starts to de-rez until the bottom, there's a green void with a whimsically anachronistic turn-phone icon floating in the middle of it. It's ringing very loudly, and the first speech bubble in the comic comes from the bottom of the right side of the page; the speaker is off-panel.

Narrator: But I will --!&@#$(!@#$!%

DataDrain: FUCK!!!!

Page 11

Panel 1: The phone flies off its base...

Panel 2: into the hand of a main shrouded in black.

DataDrain: Yeah?

Hatchetman: We've got a job lined up.

DataDrain: What kind?

Panel 3: Ork tusks, flannel jacket, cell phone in right hand, dart held lazily in left hand. The panel cuts out his eyes.

Hatchetman: It's big; I can't say too much more over the phone.

DataDrain: I DO need to pay the landlord.

Hatchetman: And the pusher, and the pimp, and the...

Panel 4: DataDrain is idly shooting a flying Hello Kitty heads with a blue and red raygun.

DataDrain: Yeah, yeah, I know, "It's bad for you," "You need help," "You'll catch a venereal disease and rot from the inside out." Where do we meet?

Panel 5: Shot of a dartboard; all of the darts are at bullseyes, arrayed perfectly neatly around a soon-to-be quadruple Robinhood.

Hatchetman: It's at a club called the Heat Sink. Look as much like a nerd as possible.

DataDrain: Fuck off.

Hatchetman: I'm serious.

DataDrain: I don't go back on my word.

Hatchetman: See you anyway.

*Click

Page 12
Panel 1
The picture of the Matrix is steady.

Panel 2
Then it isn't.

Panel 3
Close-up on the dartboard.

Panel 4
The dart in the middle falls.

Page 13 & 14

Double splash of Seattle. The SR logo should be very visible in the top of it.

Page 15
Panel 1
Datadrain walks by a homeless man who he ignores. His pleas are out of speech bubbles, sort of like in Masamune Shirow manga. He has thick glasses and a black trenchcoat, standard nerd gear.
Thought box: Hopeless
Panel 2
He walks by an alleyway in which a person is being held up with a cyberarm. "Gimme your wallet" can be seen out of panel here as well.
Thought Box: Hopeless
Panel 3
He walks by a mall surrounded by Knight Errant security forces. A few spurting flamethrowers can be seen in the background. A reporter saying "The standoff with the insect shamans has continued into its third night. Sources tell us that it is likely that few survivors remain." can be see in the background, also talking out of panel.
Thought box: Hmmm... Possible job. Better file that away for later.
He has the same nonchalant walk as in panels 1-3.
Panel 4
He is at the edge of the slums right now, there is a very stark and easily seen contrast between the decaying brick buildings of the barrens and the gleaming class sidings of the skyscrapers just across the street.
He hails a taxi.
Thought box: Finally at a place where taxis aren't afraid to go. They don't go to the Barrens unless the cabbie's so suicidal no fragger'll ride with him.