EXT. FROZEN ARCTIC – EARTH – DAY
SUPER: EARTH: THE ARCTIC – 2054
Oil drilling station Marlowe-1 hums along in the middle of the frozen arctic. It's like a small town with rows of interconnected drill and pump rigs spread out in a spiderweb pattern. The sun above reflects brightly off the surrounding tundra.
INT. TARIN'S QUARTERS - MARLOWE-1
An alarm clock buzzes on a table next to a bed. A hand reaches out and haphazardly smacks at its buttons, anything to shut off the blaring and constant "Reet-Reet-Reet-Reet". One of the fingers slaps down the snooze button, which is next to the alarm off button. Momentary peace is achieved.
TARIN FARHAD, the outpost's commander, sits up and swings his feet over the side of the bed. Upon touching the floor, he quickly pulls his feet back and winces. When he looks down, he sees shards of a shattered vodka bottle. He checks his foot and finds blood, but the cut is superficial. Tarin licks his thumb, then wipes the blood off his foot and "seals it up" with a sock he finds wrapped up in the sheets.
He looks around the room. It isn't very large, but the mess is. Clothes are thrown about. A hanger bar that once extended from one end of a closet to the other has been ripped down on one side. All signs point to a thrown tantrum the night before.
Wearing only his boxers, Tarin sits in front of a laptop. He starts typing up an email.
On the screen: Dear Heartless Bitch...
Tarin stares at the blinking cursor as he ponders what to write next.
"Reet-Reet-Reet-Reet"... the alarm wakes up from snooze. Tarin looks over at it, stares. The sound annoys him. He hates it. Sitting there, he'd like nothing more than to stand up, grab the alarm clock, and throw it against the wall. That's why he stays seated. If he gets up, he'll rage. So, he sits. He listens to that annoying sound. He let's the "Reet-Reet" bounce off the walls of his head, pounding his hungover brain until...
"RUTROOOW-RUTROOOW-RUTROOOW-RUTROOOW"
"karurururum-karurururum"
A second alarm, this one much more intense, coming from the command center. Yet another sound follows that one, this one a low rumbling, like thunder or maybe...
The table shakes. An earthquake?
The door to Tarin's quarters explodes open. On the other side is DESMOND, Tarin's second in command. He is positively frantic.
DESMOND
Time to sober up. We need you.
Tarin grabs his uniform. The logo badge reads "SARCO".
INT. COMMAND CENTER - MARLOWE-1
Tarin marches into the noisy command center. He exudes authority, even in his disheveled state.
TARIN
Someone shut off that damned alarm, please.
Two engineers, CAROLYN and NEWT, hear him from their workstations. Carolyn throws a switch and the alarm silences.
CAROLYN
Got it.
TARIN
Thank you, Carolyn. Now... deep breaths... what the hell is going on?
Over at his workstation, Desmond appears dumbfounded.
DESMOND
I had to shut down drills three-gamma through seven-echo when we started receiving catastrophic errors across the board. Pressure and heat sensors through the roof with zero penetration.
TARIN
Mechanical?
DESMOND
On all of them?
CAROLYN
We hit something.
They look at her.
TARIN
Course we hit something. They're drills. We hit the ground as soon as we turned the damn things on.
CAROLYN
No, I mean, I think there's something down there. Under the ice.
Tarin folds his arms to think. Desmond waits a moment before asking...
DESMOND
Do we call the army guys?
Tarin heads for the a clothes rack where there is hanging several thick coats fit for the arctic. he grabs one for himself and tosses another to Desmond on his way to the door.
TARIN
Screw the army guys.
Desmond puts on the coat and follows Tarin out to...
EXT. DRILL THREE GAMMA - MARLOWE-1 - DAY
Tarin and Desmond ride over on a snowmobile to a large metal drill rig where several workers hurry to respond to orders barked at them by rig master HOFFA, a burly man who wouldn't look entirely out of place chopping down trees in the Amazon... with his bare hands.
HOFFA
Dammit, winch it and spike it. How many times? You idiots!
Tarin and Desmond park the snowmobile and then run over to Hoffa.
TARIN
Get her up. All the way.
HOFFA
Yea. Yea. I'm working on it. Come on! Act like you've done this before!
The workers follow Hoffa's instructions and then he throws a switch. The machinery grinds and moans against severe pressure. As the bit rises up, more of the dirt surrounding the original hole is disturbed. A jagged circle around fifteen feet across kicks up, flinging dirt and ice everywhere. It's as if the giant corkscrew got bigger underneath the ground.
With debris flying everywhere, workers run to duck down under cover. Tarin, Desmond, and Hoffa do the same.
TARIN
Shut it off!
HOFFA
Gotta get 'er up, or we might not get 'er on again! Trust me!
Ice, dirt, and now shards of metal from the broken drill go flying. A piece tears the snowmobile Tarin and Desmond used to ride over right in half. Another piece narrowly misses decapitating Desmond, and instead lodges in a concrete support wall behind him.
DESMOND
Holy crap!
Finally, Hoffa shuts down the drill and the grinding and chaos comes to a stop. Tarin and Desmond come out of hiding to appraise the carnage. The tip of the bit appears frayed, like a wire, split into sharp edges and compressed. It's a mangled, distorted, mess.
HOFFA
Well, pee on my leg, and bite off my ear. The hell shreds tungsten carbide like that?
The three men stare wide-mouthed up at the shredded piece of machinery.
Oink.
The three men look down at the hole and watch even more in shock as a little green pig, dressed in a parka, boots, and snow goggles, crawls out of the hole. With all four wee little boots on even ground, Piggy shakes some of the dirt off and looks up at the three men staring at him.
TARIN
Is that a pig?
DESMOND
That is a pig.
TARIN
Is that a green pig?
Piggy oinks and then bolts. The three men chase after him around the hole, under some machinery, around a corner, behind some barrels, around a toolshed and...
They stop when they encounter a man, now holding Piggy. The man wears a matching coat, boots, and snow goggles to the ones worn by the pig. We recognize him as... the Doctor.
DOCTOR
That's all right. Daddy has you. It's going to be okay. Yes, I know you were scared.
TARIN
Who are you?
The Doctor looks up, pulls off his goggles. He sizes up each man before him.
DOCTOR
My name is Inigo Montoya. You scared my pig. Prepare to die.
The Doctor smiles.
-To be Continued...-