A Curation of Ghosts
In a post-disaster exclusion zone, a group of data-archaeologists hunt for pre-AI records of the catastrophe, battling decay and automated patrols to uncover a truth the world's curated history has been programmed to forget.
INT. OKUMA-DAIICHI PLANT - CORRIDOR - NIGHT
SOUND of distant, groaning metal under oppressive silence
Dust motes dance in the narrow beam of a headlamp. The corridor is a husk. Paint peels from the walls in long strips like shed skin. Wires hang from the ceiling like dead vines.
BRANDON (20s-30s), clad in worn tactical gear, kneels before a door. A faded plastic sign reads: 'Chief Engineer - Maintenance Operations'.
A tinny, static-laced voice crackles in their earpiece.
KYLE (V.O.)
> Sweep pattern's changing. The Archive must be updating their routes. We've got twenty minutes, maybe less.
BRANDON
> (murmuring)
> Acknowledged.
Brandon’s voice is swallowed by the decay. They study the door’s lock: a solid block of rust. They pull a custom-built INDUCTION DEVICE from their pack and place it over the corroded metal.
BRANDON
> (into comms)
> Sari, power.
Down the hall, SARI (30s-40s) grunts and connects two heavy battery clips to a junction box. A brief shower of SPARKS illuminates her determined face.
The induction device on the door HUMS to life.
CLOSE ON the device. A faint blue light pulses beneath its casing.
SOUND of a heavy, metallic CLICK echoes down the hall, deafening in the quiet.
Brandon pushes the door. It swings open with a low groan.
INT. CHIEF ENGINEER'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS
The door opens into a time capsule sealed by three decades of dust.
Brandon enters, headlamp beam cutting through the gloom. A coffee mug with a dark ring of residue sits on a desk. A wall calendar is turned to OCTOBER, 2031.
KYLE (20s) follows them in, already un-slinging a portable power pack. He moves straight for a bulky, beige computer tower under the desk. Brandon joins him, connecting a modern interface.
KYLE
> Come on, you beautiful relic.
He hits a switch. The ancient machine WHIRS to life with the GROAN of failing fans. On a dusty monitor, a single green cursor blinks against a black void. A command prompt.
KYLE
> It's asking for a password.
Brandon doesn't respond, fingers already flying across their portable keyboard. Code scrolls past.
BRANDON
> The encryption is pre-standard. It’s a custom job. He was paranoid.
While they work, Sari moves through the office with a quiet reverence. She runs a gloved hand over the spines of dusty engineering manuals on a shelf.
Her fingers stop. Tucked behind a row of binders is a slim, leather-bound notebook. She pulls it free.
She opens it. The pages are filled with neat, cramped handwriting. A logbook.
SARI
> (hushed)
> Listen to this.
Brandon and Kyle glance over. Sari reads from the book.
SARI
> "October 14th. Another false positive from coolant pump B. Management refuses to authorise a replacement..."
Her voice fades, replaced by another.
TANAKA (V.O.)
> ...They say the budget is frozen until the fiscal review. I told them the sensor isn't faulty, the pump is cavitating. They ran the numbers through the corporate simulator. The AI says the probability of failure in the next five years is 0.012%. They trust the machine more than the man standing next to the damn thing.
Brandon stops typing. The blinking cursor on their screen seems to pulse like a heartbeat. Kyle stares at the book in Sari's hands.
Sari flips a few pages. Her breath catches.
SARI
> "October 19th..."
TANAKA (V.O.)
> The vibrations are getting worse. I can feel it through the floor of my office. It's a low, hungry sound. I falsified the daily report. I wrote that the pump was operating within acceptable parameters. They threatened my pension. My daughter starts university next year. What have I done?
A profound, chilling silence hangs in the air.
BRANDON
> (voice muted)
> I'm in.
On their screen, the password prompt is gone. A directory of files appears.
BRANDON
> Bypassed the primary auth. But the data files are partitioned. Corrupted. I need to run a deep recovery sequence, but it's going to take time.
SARI
> How much time?
BRANDON
> Fifteen, twenty minutes. Best case.
Kyle, eyes glued to his own datapad, shakes his head.
KYLE
> Drone's ETA is nine minutes.
ANGLE ON Kyle's screen. A schematic of the Zone. A single red dot moves steadily toward their position.
KYLE
> It's not just a patrol drone, Brandon. It's a Scrapper. They've been clearing this sector for salvage. It won't just scan us, it'll... clear us.
Brandon stares at their screen. A progress bar appears, crawling.
RECOVERY... 2%
Streams of raw telemetry data begin to spool, fragmented and slow. Temperature spikes. Pressure drops. Radiation alarms.
Sari closes the logbook and carefully places it in her pack.
SARI
> The book is enough. It's his testimony. Let's go.
BRANDON
> No.
Their focus is absolute, locked on the screen.
BRANDON
> His words need the data to back them up. Without the numbers, he's just another ghost story. The Archive will dismiss it as a forgery. But it can't argue with this.
They point to the streams of code.
BRANDON
> This is the machine's confession.
SOUND of a faint, high-pitched WHINE filters through the shattered windows. It's distant, but growing.
The red dot on Kyle's map is terrifyingly close.
KYLE
> (hissing)
> Five minutes. Five minutes max, or we're part of the salvage.
Brandon doesn't answer. Their fingers move in a blur, their entire world narrowed to a single progress bar.
CLOSE ON the screen. The bar inches forward.
RECOVERY... 3%
The WHINE of the drone's engines grows louder. A sanitizing future, closing in.
SOUND of distant, groaning metal under oppressive silence
Dust motes dance in the narrow beam of a headlamp. The corridor is a husk. Paint peels from the walls in long strips like shed skin. Wires hang from the ceiling like dead vines.
BRANDON (20s-30s), clad in worn tactical gear, kneels before a door. A faded plastic sign reads: 'Chief Engineer - Maintenance Operations'.
A tinny, static-laced voice crackles in their earpiece.
KYLE (V.O.)
> Sweep pattern's changing. The Archive must be updating their routes. We've got twenty minutes, maybe less.
BRANDON
> (murmuring)
> Acknowledged.
Brandon’s voice is swallowed by the decay. They study the door’s lock: a solid block of rust. They pull a custom-built INDUCTION DEVICE from their pack and place it over the corroded metal.
BRANDON
> (into comms)
> Sari, power.
Down the hall, SARI (30s-40s) grunts and connects two heavy battery clips to a junction box. A brief shower of SPARKS illuminates her determined face.
The induction device on the door HUMS to life.
CLOSE ON the device. A faint blue light pulses beneath its casing.
SOUND of a heavy, metallic CLICK echoes down the hall, deafening in the quiet.
Brandon pushes the door. It swings open with a low groan.
INT. CHIEF ENGINEER'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS
The door opens into a time capsule sealed by three decades of dust.
Brandon enters, headlamp beam cutting through the gloom. A coffee mug with a dark ring of residue sits on a desk. A wall calendar is turned to OCTOBER, 2031.
KYLE (20s) follows them in, already un-slinging a portable power pack. He moves straight for a bulky, beige computer tower under the desk. Brandon joins him, connecting a modern interface.
KYLE
> Come on, you beautiful relic.
He hits a switch. The ancient machine WHIRS to life with the GROAN of failing fans. On a dusty monitor, a single green cursor blinks against a black void. A command prompt.
KYLE
> It's asking for a password.
Brandon doesn't respond, fingers already flying across their portable keyboard. Code scrolls past.
BRANDON
> The encryption is pre-standard. It’s a custom job. He was paranoid.
While they work, Sari moves through the office with a quiet reverence. She runs a gloved hand over the spines of dusty engineering manuals on a shelf.
Her fingers stop. Tucked behind a row of binders is a slim, leather-bound notebook. She pulls it free.
She opens it. The pages are filled with neat, cramped handwriting. A logbook.
SARI
> (hushed)
> Listen to this.
Brandon and Kyle glance over. Sari reads from the book.
SARI
> "October 14th. Another false positive from coolant pump B. Management refuses to authorise a replacement..."
Her voice fades, replaced by another.
TANAKA (V.O.)
> ...They say the budget is frozen until the fiscal review. I told them the sensor isn't faulty, the pump is cavitating. They ran the numbers through the corporate simulator. The AI says the probability of failure in the next five years is 0.012%. They trust the machine more than the man standing next to the damn thing.
Brandon stops typing. The blinking cursor on their screen seems to pulse like a heartbeat. Kyle stares at the book in Sari's hands.
Sari flips a few pages. Her breath catches.
SARI
> "October 19th..."
TANAKA (V.O.)
> The vibrations are getting worse. I can feel it through the floor of my office. It's a low, hungry sound. I falsified the daily report. I wrote that the pump was operating within acceptable parameters. They threatened my pension. My daughter starts university next year. What have I done?
A profound, chilling silence hangs in the air.
BRANDON
> (voice muted)
> I'm in.
On their screen, the password prompt is gone. A directory of files appears.
BRANDON
> Bypassed the primary auth. But the data files are partitioned. Corrupted. I need to run a deep recovery sequence, but it's going to take time.
SARI
> How much time?
BRANDON
> Fifteen, twenty minutes. Best case.
Kyle, eyes glued to his own datapad, shakes his head.
KYLE
> Drone's ETA is nine minutes.
ANGLE ON Kyle's screen. A schematic of the Zone. A single red dot moves steadily toward their position.
KYLE
> It's not just a patrol drone, Brandon. It's a Scrapper. They've been clearing this sector for salvage. It won't just scan us, it'll... clear us.
Brandon stares at their screen. A progress bar appears, crawling.
RECOVERY... 2%
Streams of raw telemetry data begin to spool, fragmented and slow. Temperature spikes. Pressure drops. Radiation alarms.
Sari closes the logbook and carefully places it in her pack.
SARI
> The book is enough. It's his testimony. Let's go.
BRANDON
> No.
Their focus is absolute, locked on the screen.
BRANDON
> His words need the data to back them up. Without the numbers, he's just another ghost story. The Archive will dismiss it as a forgery. But it can't argue with this.
They point to the streams of code.
BRANDON
> This is the machine's confession.
SOUND of a faint, high-pitched WHINE filters through the shattered windows. It's distant, but growing.
The red dot on Kyle's map is terrifyingly close.
KYLE
> (hissing)
> Five minutes. Five minutes max, or we're part of the salvage.
Brandon doesn't answer. Their fingers move in a blur, their entire world narrowed to a single progress bar.
CLOSE ON the screen. The bar inches forward.
RECOVERY... 3%
The WHINE of the drone's engines grows louder. A sanitizing future, closing in.