Granite and Glitches

EXT. GRANITE RIDGE - DAY The sun is relentless. The air is a thick, humid blanket, alive with the BUZZ of insects. ROGER (30s, intense, focused) struggles up a massive spine of exposed Precambrian shield rock. He's drenched in sweat, his face a mask of grim determination. He adjusts his grip on a large Pelican case. Behind him, BEN (20s, academic, carrying the heaviest load) wheezes under the weight of a tripod and a heavy battery pack. SARAH (20s, sharp, agile) climbs past both of them with annoying ease, a heavy LIDAR scanner strapped to her back. She wears a long-sleeved flannel shirt despite the heat. ROGER > If you drop that, I’m leaving you here. I mean it. I’ll drive the Civic back to Thunder Bay and tell your mom you walked into a swamp. Ben, who carries the camera, holds up his hand. It's literally taped to the camera's handle with gaffer tape. BEN > I’m not gonna drop it, Roger. It’s taped to my hand. ROGER > It looks loose. Re-tape it. BEN > It’s not loose! You’re just sweating so much it looks like you’re crying. Roger wipes his forehead with a grime-streaked wrist, wincing as sweat and bug spray sting his eyes. BEN (Wheezing) > Why did we pick the highest point? The Revell site is massive. We could have filmed this in the ditch. ROGER > Because of the parallax. And because Sarah needs a clear line of sight for the photogrammetry or the mesh turns into garbage. You want to send the Lanzhou guys a garbage mesh? BEN (Muttering) > I want to send them a picture of me drinking an iced petrol station cappuccino. Ben stumbles on a patch of dry reindeer lichen. SARAH > It’s stable crystalline bedrock. That’s the whole point. Stable for a million years. Don't trip and ruin the geological integrity. They reach the summit. A collective GROAN as they drop the gear. The view is spectacular. A sea of green conifers stretches to the horizon, broken by the glitter of distant lakes and the grey scar of a logging road far below. Roger ignores the view. He pops the latches on the Pelican case—a LOUD CLACK in the quiet air. He pulls out a cinema camera body and lens kit, handling the glass like a holy relic. ROGER > Okay, Sarah, how’s the uplink? Sarah is already cross-legged on the rock, a laptop balanced on her knees. A mess of orange and black cables snakes around her. SARAH > Spotty. One bar of LTE. But the local recording is solid. I’m running the script the Lanzhou team sent over. BEN (Downing a water bottle) > The AI one? The scriptwriting thing? SARAH (Fingers flying across the keyboard) > No, the post-production denoiser. They use it to clean up radiation grain in their sensor tests. Should work for the sunlight glare here. It’s just math, not magic. Roger squints through the viewfinder, adjusting focus. Red peaking lines shimmer across the jagged rock face on his monitor. ROGER > Just make sure it doesn't make it look fake. I don't want that AI gloss. It needs to look like... this. Like dirt and heat. Ben wanders to the edge of the ridge. BEN > It’s wild, eh? The Beishan site. It’s granite, just like this. We’re standing on the Canadian shield, they’re on the crust of the Gobi Desert, and we both decided these were the only safe places to bury the most dangerous stuff we’ve ever made. Roger pauses, looking down at the grey, speckled rock beneath his boots. The heat radiates off it, smelling of baking minerals. ROGER > It is kind of weird. Two groups of people, half a world apart, looking at rocks and thinking: 'Yeah, let's put it here for a hundred thousand years.' SARAH > And we’re the ones making movies about it. Documenting the... what did that paper call it? The 'semotic markers of deep time.' ROGER > Don't quote academic papers at me. We’re just making a pilot. 'Hello Lanzhou, this is Revell. We have rocks too.' SARAH (Standing up) > We need to do the intro. The drone battery is only good for twenty minutes. --- A few minutes later, Roger frames the shot. Sarah and Ben stand against the endless treeline. The light is harsh, casting deep shadows. ROGER > Okay, rolling. Sound is speeding. Mark it. Ben CLAPS his hands in front of the lens. SARAH (To camera) > Hey everyone. This is Sarah, Ben, and Roger, reporting from Treaty 3 territory, Northwestern Ontario. Specifically, the Revell batholith. Ben gives an awkward wave. BEN > Hi. We’re currently standing on about... well, a lot of granite. SARAH > We’ve been looking at the VR assets you sent over... the virtual walkthrough of the Beishan facility is incredible. We wanted to show you what the surface looks like here, on our side. As Sarah talks, Roger slowly PANS the camera off them, capturing the texture of the rock, the scrubby pines, the sheer vastness. He RACKS FOCUS from a patch of bright green moss to the horizon. SARAH (V.O.) > We’re interested in the stories. Not just the engineering... We want to use those AI tools to tell the story of this place. Not just as a waste dump, but as a... a monument. Or a warning. ROGER > Cut. That was good. Natural. SARAH > I stumbled on 'radionuclides'. ROGER > It was fine. Human. Real people stumble. --- The high-pitched WHINE of a drone fills the air. It hovers like an angry hornet. Sarah pilots it with practiced ease, her eyes fixed on the controller screen. ROGER (Shouting over the rotors) > Go higher! I want to see the curve of the lake. Yeah, like that. Now orbit. Slow orbit. ON THE CONTROLLER SCREEN: The drone's camera sweeps over the ridge, capturing them as tiny specks on the massive stone shield. ROGER > Okay, bring it down low. I want a strafing run along the ground. Fast and low. Like a predator. SARAH > Safety sensors are on. ROGER > Override them. Trust your thumbs. Sarah smirks. She dips the sticks. The drone DROPS, skimming a metre above the rock, kicking up dust. It BUZZES past Ben, who flinches, and zips over the edge of the ridge. ROGER > Nice! That was cinematic! SARAH > Battery is at fifteen percent. Bringing it home. As the drone descends, Roger feels a VIBRATION in his pocket. He pulls out his phone. No signal. It VIBRATES again. The screen glitches, flashing on and off rapidly. ROGER > You have signal? My phone is freaking out but I have no service. BEN > Phantom vibration syndrome. ROGER > No, look. He shows them the glitching screen. SARAH (Landing the drone) > Different frequencies. Shouldn't be the scanner. BEN > Maybe it’s the radiation. Maybe we're standing on a secret uranium vein. ROGER > Not funny. Let’s check the footage. They huddle around Sarah’s laptop. The drone footage is crisp, hyper-real. ROGER > The colour grading is going to be tricky. The green is really saturated... SARAH > I can write a script for that. Match the histograms automatically. ROGER > Or we just colour it by hand. Like artisans. SARAH > Artisans with deadlines. BEN (Quietly) > Guys. He’s not looking at the screen. He’s looking down the ridge, toward the logging road where their beat-up Honda Civic is parked. ROGER (Distracted) > What? Is the exposure blown out? BEN > No. We have company. Roger looks up. Down below, a cloud of dust settles behind a clean, new, WHITE PICKUP TRUCK parked right behind their Civic. An amber light bar is mounted on the roof. The driver's door opens. A FIGURE in a high-vis vest and a uniform steps out. They adjust their hat, look at the Honda, then shield their eyes, looking directly up at the ridge. SARAH > Is that the NWMO? BEN > Or private security. Technically... are we trespassing? ROGER > It’s Crown land. I checked the maps. We’re adjacent to the withdrawal area, not in it. The figure on the road below raises a radio to their mouth. BEN (Whispering) > He’s grabbing a radio. ROGER > Okay. Don't panic. We’re just students. We’re just making art. SARAH (Muttering, closing her laptop) > Art involving high-tech surveillance equipment near a nuclear site. Yeah, that always goes over well. The figure starts walking toward the base of the trail, heading for them. ROGER > Leave the camera up. Ben and Sarah stare at him. ROGER > Keep recording. BEN > What? Are you crazy? ROGER > No. This is part of it. The interaction. The boundary. If he comes up here, we talk to him. We ask him about the rock. SARAH > I think he’s going to ask us for ID and tell us to delete the footage. She doesn't pack up. Her hand hovers over the 'Record' button on the audio interface. Roger watches the figure climb steadily toward them. The sun is lower now, casting long, dramatic shadows across the granite. Their own shadows stretch out like dark fingers reaching for the approaching guard. ROGER > Let’s see. FADE OUT.