4 CONTINUED:
SARAH
You just keep telling yourself that, Michael. But in the meantime, do yourself a favor. Now that the last of the greenhouses have closed, compare the amount of food from the solar lamp farms to the number of people now in the city.
(beat)
There are more than ten million people living in this city alone. You just check to see how many of those people will be fed this winter.
(beat)
Then you start thinking about what will happen when companies like this one finish using up the power that should be going toward those solar lamps.

Sarah picks up her briefcase and CAMARA PANS RIGHT as she walks past him to the door. Only she remains on screen framed by the doorway as she pauses and looks back TOWARD CAMERA.

SARAH
While I keep trying to keep those lamps lit a little while longer, maybe you should start thinking about what will happen when all the lights finally go out.

She flicks off the light switch and closes the door leaving Michael, and the camera, in darkness.

CUT TO:

5 INT. MED SHOT of Michael Peters entering his apartment

CUT TO:

6 TRACKING SHOT as he moves across a sparsely furnished living room, flicks on a single lamp on a low table, and tumbles into the chair beside it.

7 CU of Michael as he reaches over and picks up a single framed photograph from the table. He closes his eyes as if in pain and the CAMERA PULLS BACK as he places it back on the table face down. CAMERA PANS LEFT following Michael as he starts pulling boxes of statistical information off the bookshelf on the other side of the room.

MICHAEL
(mumbling)
Harvest reports. Harvest reports.
(beat)
Ah ha!

CAMERA PANS RIGHT as Michael returns to the easy chair with a sheaf of papers, and MOVES IN as he starts rifling through them. CAMERA HOLDS as a CU of Michael's face.

MICHAEL
(talking to himself)
Here it is. The winter estimates.
(reading report)
"The harvest this year will not equal last year's as outdoor production is down yet a further forty percent, leaving only a few equitorial islands producing food by natural methods. This should not be a problem, however, as the city's last census only two years ago put the estimates for this year's population at only about 7.2 million and the lamp farms' harvests will easily feed 8 million people through the winter. We hope to be able to ship the excess off to more needy areas..."

Michael stops reading, shocked, and looks up past the camera.

MICHAEL
(disbelieving)
But what about the refugees that have been pouring into this city since spring? That estimate is completely out of date! Surely they realize that...

8 MED. SHOT of Michael as he picks up Sarah's picture again and speaks to it.

MICHAEL
You're right again, sweetheart. A year ago you walked out of here after trying to tell me about this for moths, and I thought you were crazy.
(beat)
Well, now we'll have a famine. And thousands of people will go hungry and starve if they don't freeze to death first. And those of us with power in this city will keep twisting the facts so we can ignore it and pretend everything will be all right.
(beat)
Well, Sarah, come next spring, when we're burying the corpses in the barren sludge outside the city, no one will be able to argue with you anymore, not even me. But honey, if you think that solar batteries are going to save the world, you're lying to yourself as much as I am.

DISSOLVE TO:

9 LONG SHOT with Michael in f.g. and Sarah arguing with a CITY OFFICIAL in b.g. The Official shakes his head in denial as Michael sighs at Sarah's wasted efforts.

DISSOLVE TO:

10 LONG SHOT of a grave outside the city. . The rain pours down, blurring the scene. Michael stands on one side of the grave and Sarah on the other. There are no other mourners. Michael and Sarah look rather tired and underfed, but they do not cry under their umbrellas; nor do they look at one another. As they walk in differnent directions o.s., CAMERA MOVES IN SLOWLY on the simple headstone, as well as two others on either side. The headstone states simply, "Melissa Ryan, age 7". The one to its left says, "Andrew Ryan, age 30"; the one to its right, "Julie Peters Ryan, age 29". It is Michael Peters' niece who has just been buried between her all-too-recently dead parents. As the CAMERA PULLS BACK again, the entire field becomes visible. in teh b.g. are thousands of other headstones, most just pieces of concrete or rock, and wodden crosses. In many spots, rough caskets wait to be interred. Obviously the dead are dying too quickly for the living to keep up.

DISSOLVE TO:

11 MED. SHOT-SARAH'S LAB

Sarah is seated IN SILLHOUETTE at a table in a candlelit room. The table is covered with piles of notes of scribbled formulae and battery designs, as well as a single candle. SHe strains to read some of the notes in the flickering light. Her fellow researcher, ANNA SHELLEY, says from o.s.,

ANNA
I can't believe they finally listened to reason and restricted the power.

SARAH
(tiredly)
They had no choice, Anna. Two weeks more like that and there'd be no power left.
(beat)
It's too late. In a month or two--three on the outside--even the lamp farms will have to shut down. Between this constant acid rain and the cold nights we'll all be starving with pneumonia by the end of the year.

ANNA
Unless this one works.

(CONTINUED:)

1