CURTIS on EARTH
I think that change only comes through a big imaginative idea. A sort of picture of another kind of future. Which gives people … which connects with that fearfulness in the back of people’s minds and offers them a release from it. That’s the key thing. But I think the question for liberals and radicals is that they are always suspicious of big ideas. That’s what lurks underneath the liberal mindset. And the reason is - and they’re quite right in a way - was “look at what happened last time when millions of people got swept up in a big idea.” Look at the last hundred years at what happened in Russia and then in Germany. The point is - political change is frightening. It’s scary. It’s thrilling because it is dynamic and doing something to change the world. But it is scary because it can change things in ways where nothing is secure. It’s like being in an earth -
CUT TO
ADAMS
(aside)
We might be trusting a light we’ve never seen.
SANDS
(distracted beat)
I’m sorry, what did you say General Adams?
ADAMS
(beat)
Just muttering to myself Sands. Remember, now. Time with the president is precious. You only get ten minutes, so be concise.
SANDS
Understood, General.
ADAMS
(beat)
Out of curiosity, Sands, have you ever heard of the Wilmington insurrection?
SANDS
No. What’s that?
ADAMS
Well, back in 1898 the town of Wilmington in North Carolina elected a mixed-race government. It was during Reconstruction, you know. Some of the townspeople didn’t like living under, quote unquote Negro Rule. So they formed a mob and removed the elected government by force.
SANDS
Really?! I’d never heard of this.
ADAMS
Hm. Well. It was the first successful coup d’etat on American soil. All because some white people didn’t want black people in charge.
(beat)
ADAMS (cont)
The point is, I think we might be trusting in a light that we’ve never seen. If American history is a guide, what we’ve found out is going to completely remake this country. And not for the better.
SANDS
So … we shouldn’t tell the President?
ADAMS
Of course we should. I just don’t think there’s anything he can do about it.
SANDS
O...kay general.
ADAMS
Don’t listen to me. I’ve just learned to be cynical.
SANDS
I like to think there’s hope for everyone.
ADAMS
(long beat)
Maybe you’re right.
Enter PRESIDENT HENSLEY
HENSLEY
General Adams, always a pleasure ...
(beat)
George Sands! Are you in this briefing?
ADAMS
Sands is actually running the show.
HENSLEY
Really now? Excellent. Well, shall we get started?
(beat)
ADAMS
Sands, whenever you’re ready.
SANDS
Thank you.
(beat)
Mr. President, I will try to be brief. This … uhh … briefing is on the Black Friday phenomenon and where we are currently with the-
HENSLEY
We’re still not calling it a pandemic. It doesn’t matter what those idiots in Congress say.
SANDS
That’s just the thing, Mr. President. We know the Black Friday phenomenon is not caused by a pathogen or infection. We’re not … well, we wouldn’t call it a pandemic either.
HENSLEY
Damn straight. The prodigies at Cadmus figured out it’s genetic.
(long beat)
HENSLEY (cont)
… It is genetic, right?
SANDS
Perhaps we should start with the future projections chart. One moment.
SANDS (cont)
Like I said, we actually don’t know what causes the Black Friday phenomenon. So far, we have only been able to observe its effects.
SANDS (cont)
Even now, there is no pattern to the phenomenon other than it repeats every single Friday.
SANDS (cont)
The phenomenon manifests all over the world in different people. Here in the United States, the changes that have gotten the most press have been changes involving white people.
HENSLEY
So what about the genetic changes? I thought Cadmus Pharmaceuticals identified the gene that caused the phenomenon?
ADAMS
From our data, it’s pretty clear. The phenomenon causes the gene to change, not the other way around.
SANDS
It’s the hypothesis that best fits the data, Mr. President.
(beat)
SANDS (cont)
Right. We need to show you the data. Apologies, Mr. President.
SANDS (cont)
Here we are. Data from the very beginning of the phenomenon, so it goes back almost four years. Back towards the end of your second term. As you can see.
HENSLEY
Has it really been four years? Christ. I’ve had this job for twelve years now. Maybe presidents should only get two terms?
(beat)
HENSLEY (cont)
Sorry, just venting. Please continue.
SANDS
The number of people it changes is random, or at least it looked that way at the beginning. On one Friday a hundred people would change. The next, it would be twenty-seven. Then six. There is no way to tell whether it would go up or down in a meaningful way.
ADAMS
You see, at first we thought the phenomenon was completely random. However the data suggests that something else is happening
ADAMS (cont)
(beat)
Mr. President, we believe that the phenomenon is … spreading.
HENSLEY
(long beat)
All right. Walk me through this. How can it be ... spreading?
SANDS
Well not spreading exactly, Mr. President. But it's definitely accelerating over time.
HENSLEY
How can you tell?
SANDS
The conclusion jumps out at you if you analyze the trend. Week-by-week, the number of people affected is random. But over a year.
SANDS (cont)
Two years
SANDS (cont)
Three years
SANDS (cont)
You see an undeniable trend. The number of new people affected by the phenomenon is growing. It’s the hypothesis that best fits the data.
HENSLEY
Go on.
ADAMS
And if the hypothesis is correct, that growth will soon become exponential. If it isn’t already.
HENSLEY
And these projections are taking Tenebra into account?
(beat)
SANDS
That’s the second thing Mr. President. It’s not entirely clear that Tenebra … works.
HENSLEY
(beat)
What do you mean?
ADAMS
Well, Mr. President, it seems that when Cadmus first created the drug, they took advantage of the looser regulatory environment created by the Harris Act. They couldn't find a representative sample of people affected by the Black Friday phenomenon. So they … got creative.
HENSLEY
I’m scared to even ask. What the fuck did they do?
(beat)
ADAMS
It seems that Cadmus tested the drug on ... I suppose you can say … on “regular” black people.
HENSLEY
(long beat)
What?
ADAMS
They figured that if the drug worked on "regular" black people then by analogy-
HENSLEY
Wait, wait, wait. So you’re telling me that this miracle drug that only exists because of legislation I VETOED three years ago :
(number one) was tested unethically on;
(number two) random black people? Why the fuck wasn’t I told about this?
SANDS
There was a contingent within Congress and the FDA that felt if the truth would come out, then Congress would be unable to override your veto.
And Tenebra works - if you can call it that - on people of African descent. It deactivates a gene responsible for the production of melanin. That change is apparently permanent, but there’s no good data because Congress banned this use case completely.
(beat)
But its effects on people affected by the phenomenon are temporary at best. Anyone who takes Tenebra to reverse the Black Friday phenomenon will have to take it for the rest of their lives.
ADAMS
That’s one of the reasons we don’t think that the MC1-R gene is responsible for the phenomenon. Whatever is causing the phenomenon keeps overriding Tenebra.
HENSLEY
(exasperated)
Fuckin’ hell.
SANDS
And that’s not even considering the side effects that are coming to light. Sure, Tenebra alters one gene, but messing with that tiny bit of DNA has serious knock-on effects. It significantly increases your chances of getting several types of cancer, for one. When DNA replicates, it doesn’t always do so perfectly. Tenebra just adds more noise to the mix. The longer you’re on Tenebra, the worse your outcomes will be.
ADAMS
Mr. President, Tenebra is basically a slow acting poison.
HENSLEY
Yeah, big surprise there. So let’s pull it. Kill the authorization right now. The risk of the drug outweighs any possible benefit. What are we waiting for?
SANDS
Tenebra may be a slow poison, but it eases a lot of anxieties in much of the population. It will take years of wrangling to get this data out. We knew in the 1960s that cigarettes cause cancer. But we didn’t have mandatory labels until the mid 1990s.
ADAMS
Plus there’s a growing movement of people who simply don’t care about the risk. They are willing to chance it. Even Stefan Sailor knows Tenebra is dangerous. One of his deputies was affected by the Black Friday phenomenon, and got on Tenebra. Now the poor bastard is in an ICU with severe melanoma. His prognosis isn’t good ever since it spread to his brain. But United Mankind is an outlier. They require Tenebra if you get affected by the phenomenon. At least at the leadership levels.
HENSLEY
(sighs)
So what do you want me to do about this? I mean, we all knew about the safety data before now. The only thing that’s news to me is how Tenebra got tested.
ADAMS
Actually, Mr. President, there’s more. About the phenomenon, I mean.
ADAMS (cont)
As I mentioned earlier, the phenomenon seems to be spreading. There will be a new normal in the United States. In the next 30 years or so, almost forty percent of the population will be affected by the Black Friday phenomenon. By the end of the century, there may very well no longer be ... any white people left. At least, no longer in the majority.
HENSLEY
(long beat)
No more … white people?
(very long beat)
Doesn’t the Black Friday phenomenon happen in other countries around the world?
ADAMS
Yes sir.
HENSLEY
Is it the same in Europe? What about Asia, or the Middle East? Why is it only us freaking out?
ADAMS
Our research made it clear that most world leaders are aware of the trend in their own countries. They are, to put it bluntly, freaking out too. It’s just that some governments are better at muzzling dissent than others. There’s just no model for this sort of thing. We’re in completely uncharted waters.
SANDS
Which brings us to why we’re here. We need to get ahead of this. There’s a very vocal anti-Black Friday contingent right now, and the election brought them out. Sailor is their spokesman and Tenebra is their only hope. They’re going to cling to this hope because they’re never going to accept this phenomenon. But even with this false hope, they will become a major destabilizing force within the next few years. We should start with quashing conspiracy theories about the phenomenon. Get ahead of the truth and prepare people for what’s to come.
HENSLEY
Thank you both for this. I’ll have to think about it some more. General Sands, let’s make some time to discuss next steps. We should at least make preliminary plans to hand over to the incoming administration.
ADAMS
Thank you for your time, Mr. President. Sands, let’s go.
HENSLEY
Actually, can George stay back for a minute?
ADAMS
Certainly Mr. President.
EXIT ADAMS
HENSLEY
Trusting a light we’ve never seen, aren’t we?
SANDS
That’s what General Adams said. But I think we can still get ahead of this.
HENSLEY
General Adams is a military man. He hasn’t gotten to where he is by trusting in the virtues of others.
SANDS
(beat)
Did you need anything from me, Mr. President?
HENSLEY
You and Adams have me in a bind, Sands.
SANDS
How … we didn’t … wait, what?
HENSLEY
Imagine that headline: ‘Tenebra Unsafe; President Knew. Said Nothing.’
SANDS
But … Mr. President, wouldn’t that support your position? You’ve never supported Tenebra.
HENSLEY
You’re not understanding me Sands.
SANDS
I’m not?
HENSLEY
If I say nothing now and this data ever comes out, history will think I was equivocating on the Black Friday issue. If Tenebra is so bad, why stay quiet about the safety data? Is it because I didn’t want to alienate anxious white voters? Especially right before an election for my successor? Or is Tenebra actually not that bad since the President didn’t go Chicken Little with safety data?
SANDS
But if you say something …
HENSLEY
Then no one will listen because it’s just more liberal propaganda. People have the right to choose, after all.
(sighs)
The fact that Tenebra is poison doesn’t matter. Not to Stefan Sailor. Or to his flunkies in United Mankind. Or to most people.
SANDS
But it matters to you?
HENSLEY
Very much so.
SANDS
Which is why we need to face this!
HENSLEY
What good will it do?
SANDS
I don’t know. But we can’t just ... do nothing!
HENSLEY
Connect the dots, Sands. We have evidence that Tenebra is deadly. We also have evidence that an adviser to a presidential candidate is sick because of Tenebra. We know that this presidential candidate and his adviser belong to a group of people who will cling to Tenebra beyond reason and hope. To be a member of this group, you have to take Tenebra if the phenomenon affects you. What will we accomplish by telling the world Tenebra is toxic?
SANDS
Well, nothing for Sailor or United Mankind. He and his folks won’t ever give up Tenebra. There’s just some people you’ll never reach.
(beat)
SANDS (cont)
… but going public also shows that Sailor is willing to sacrifice someone for his goals.
(beat)
SANDS (cont)
Not just anyone either - Sailor is willing to sacrifice one of his closest advisers.
(beat)
SANDS (cont)
And if he’s willing to do that to one of his closest advisers, he’s willing to do it to anyone.
(beat)
SANDS (cont)
(realization)
And he’s not alone. Right behind him is an army of like-minded fanatics, who will literally poison themselves to …
(beat)
SANDS (cont)
To preserve their whiteness.
HENSLEY
Very good, Sands. You got there in the end.
SANDS
(long beat)
But he’s not likely to win.
HENSLEY
Sands, this is why you should never become a politician. People aren’t interested in facts! They are interested in how you make them feel! Like, have you ever been on a date with someone who had a job, flossed every day, was quite intelligent but there just wasn’t any *spark*? All the facts about them didn’t make you feel anything.
SANDS
Sure …
(beat)
… but that’s just my natural defensiveness, I guess. I … have a hard time letting people in.
HENSLEY
Exactly!
(beat)
Sailor is really fucking good at getting past people’s defenses. He’s convinced people that taking a drug which will very likely kill them in the long run is a perfectly sane and rational choice. He’s convinced people that it’s okay to force his advisers to take a drug that is slowly poisoning them! He’s done all of this while convincing people that he believes in diversity and freedom. He’s convinced people that his white supremacist death cult is a harmless cultural interest group slash political party. That’s why I think he’s going to win. That’s why I think we’re utterly and completely fucked, whether we go public with this or not.
SANDS
(after a long beat)
Sailor is still five points behind the V.P.
HENSLEY
Yeah, Sands.
(beat)
Only five points.
CUT TO
CURTIS on EARTH
Do you really want change? Do you really want it? Because if you do many of them might find themselves in a very uncertain world where they might lose all sorts of things. What we were talking about, in many cases, is people who are at the , sort of, center of society at the moment, they are not out in the margins. They would have a lot to lose from real political change because it really would change things in the structure of power.
Or — and this is the brutal question: Do you just want things to change a little bit? Do you just want the banks to be a little bit nicer say? Or people to be a little more respectful of each other’s identities? All of which is good — but basically you carry on living in a nice world where you tinker with it.
That’s the key question. But you can’t just sit there forever worrying about big ideas because there are millions of people out there who do want change. And the key thing is: they feel they’ve got nothing to lose. You might have lots to lose, but they feel they’ve got absolutely nothing to lose. But at the moment they’re being led by the Right. So things won’t remain the same. But society may go off in ways you really don’t want.
In answer to your question, what you need is a powerful vision of the future. With all its dangers. But it is also quite thrilling. It will be an escape from the staticness of the world that we have today. And to do that, you’ve got to engage with the giant forces of power that now run the world, at the moment. But the key thing is that in confronting those powers, and trying to transform the world you might lose a lot. This is a sort of forgotten idea. Is that actually you surrender yourself up to a big idea and in the process you might lose something but you’d actually gain in a bigger sense, because you change the world for the better. I know it sounds soppy, but, sort of, this is the forgotten thing about politics. Is that you give up some of your individualism to something bigger than yourself. You surrender yourself — and it’s a lost idea. And I think really in answer to your question is You can spot real change happening when you see people from the liberal middle classes, beginning to give themselves up to something. Surrender themselves for something bigger than themselves and-