INT CERN - DETECTOR ROOM DAY

INT PAPAL APARTMENT DAY

CLOSE ON an ornate ring. It's intricately carved with a seal, an

image of St. Peter casting a net. The ring is carried on a satin

pillow through a darkened, regal apartment. In the distance,

BELLS ARE TOLLING -- the slow, solemn tones that announce a death.

A dozen men in scarlet cassocks, ROMAN CATHOLIC CARDINALS, bend

down to inspect the ring, nodding in affirmation, part of an

ancient ritual.

A younger man (the CAMERLENGO) in a black cassock takes a silver

knife and scratches the ring's seal twice, once horizontally and

once vertically, in the sign of the cross.

Now the ring is placed on a lead block. The Camerlengo raises a

silver mallet and SMASHES it down, shattering the ring into a

thousand tiny pieces.

As the Cardinals confirm to their satisfaction that the ring has

been destroyed, the HUSHED VOICE of a NEWS REPORTER comes over the

image.

REPORTER

-- the Ring of the Fisherman, which

bears the official papal seal and by

Vatican law must be destroyed

immediately following the Pope's

death.

IN THE HALLWAY JUST OUTSIDE THE APARTMENT,

the Cardinals file out in a solemn procession. Behind them, the

Camerlengo closes and locks the doors to the apartment entrance,

helped by an AIDE who stretches red silk across the doors in the

form of an X.

REPORTER (O.S.)

The Pope's Chamberlain, or

"Camerlengo," then seals the papal

apartments ---

At the juncture point of the doors, the Camerlengo places a glob

of hot wax, then raises a seal and BURNS it into the wax with a

hot SIZZLE. TWO SWISS GUARDSMEN, traditionally attired, step in

front of the doors, their eight-foot swords held in a low cross.

REPORTER (O.S.) (cont'd)

--- and Swiss Guard will remain posted

outside the doors for at least nine

days of mourning, a period known as

tempe sede vacante, or ---

2.

INT ST. PETER'S BASILICA DAY

In St. Peter's Basilica, we move in toward an empty chair, a chair

so magnificent it can only be called a throne.

REPORTER (O.S.)

--- "the time of the empty throne."

A ring appears around the empty throne and --

DISSOLVE TO:

INT CERN - DETECTOR ROOM DAY

-- a ring as ornate in its way as the Ring of the Fisherman, except

this one is a mass of technological sophistication. It's twenty-

five feet across, covered with wires, sensors, gizmos. It's the

centerpiece of a massive laboratory the size of a football field.

SCIENTISTS and TECHNICIANS read off checklists in a variety of

languages, none of them English so far. The place is a hive of

activity and sound; cooling water WHOOSHES through pipes, the

static HUM of high levels of current floats in the air.

VITTORIA VETRA, an intense woman in her mid-thirties with the long

stride of an impatient person, makes her way across the floor to

PHILLIPE, the project manager, a Frenchman around fifty. She

follows him as he climbs down a scaffolding that surrounds the

detector wheel and heads toward a console across the room.

VITTORIA

(in Italian, subtitled)

Somebody pulled us off the grid,

Phillipe.

PHILLIPE

(responds in French,

also subtitled)

You hit 36kV down there yesterday.

The whole synchrotron only loads 18.

VITTORIA

(switching to French)

And the LEAR's specked up to 42. It's

all approved by the Director, you want

me to call him?

Reluctantly, Phillipe sits down at a console and starts entering

commands, shaking his head.

3.

PHILLIPE

Waste of power, what're you

extracting, still ten to the seventh

APs a second? How long to produce

a gram at that rate?

VITTORIA

About two billion years. At that

rate.

He looks at her sideways, didn't like the sound of that. He

hits a few last keystrokes and a series of flashing lights

reconnect what looks like a lower laboratory complex to the main

grid. She nods her thanks and starts to go.

PHILLIPE

Vittoria.

(switching to soft

ITALIAN)

Please don't blow us all to heaven.

And on the word "heaven," everything goes white and --

DISSOLVES TO:

INT ST. PETER'S BASILICA DAY

--- a veil of thin white silk billows down over the face of the

dead pontiff. TWO VATICAN FUNEREAL WORKERS pull a second veil over

his face, then another over his head and hands.

A burled cypress lid slides over the top of the coffin, which is

carried out of frame and into ---

EXT ST. PETER'S SQUARE DAY

--- St. Peter's Square, packed with THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND MOURNERS,

including kings, queens, presidents, and prime ministers.

REPORTER (O.S.)

Following the elegy Mass, the body of

the pontiff, borne by the traditional

twelve pall bearers will be sealed in

a zinc crypt deep in the Vatican

Grottoes along with the bodies of

twenty-five other popes.

The PROCESSION OF CARDINALS is a ribbon of red making its way

through the kaleidoscope of colors of the assembled religious

dignitaries. On the brilliant array of colors ---

CUT TO:

4.

INT CERN - DETECTOR ROOM DAY

--- another array of colors, this one like the best fireworks

display you've ever seen. Pulling back, we realize it's on one

of the giant monitor screens in the detector room at CERN, all of

which are lit up with similar arrays.

Something has happened and there's an enormous amount of

excitement in the room. More Scientists and Technicians pour

in, take their seats at consoles, CONFER excitedly. A

computerized voice speaks English over a loudspeaker:

VOICE (O.S.)

Beam on beam collisions are active.

It repeats the message in Italian, German, French, and Chinese.

Date: 2015-12-18; view: 698