Georeactor Blog

SUMMER 1992, SOUTH OF KOREAN DMZ

knock knock

Raymond, a tall white man, an academic in a shirt, tie, and heavy raincoat lets himself into a barracks building.
The soldiers in the building are taken aback.
"Is there a Jared here?"

Jared: "Yes sir."

Raymond: "I heard you found something strange on patrol. I'd just like to make sure he's doing OK"

Jared leads the group to a bathroom and shower area.
"He looked OK, we figured he needed some water"
Jared picks up a large bucket.
"I don't think he's hurt at all. We can let him go if that's better"

Inside the bucket is a hammerhead salamander

Raymond expression reveals he recognizes it but is also repulsed.

Raymond: "As you can see, he obviously was exposed to some… some chemical weapons, the North Koreans might have been careless-"

Other soldier: "oh Christ"

Raymond: "Now you all seem fine, but salamanders are very sensitive to this sort of thing. Jared, I need to see exactly where you found him."

[we see the group in a military jeep, pulling up to a hill surrounded by tall grass. The bucket is sloshing around in the back]

Jared: "...when he darted across the road, we saw him and something looked funny."

Raymond: "Good eye".
He unzips a backpack to carry a walkie-talkie with a long antenna.

The group watches as Raymond paces in a circle with the device.

[a distant, staticy voice] "I'm receiving you… "

Raymond touches the dial

[voice] "No, could you go back?"
[voice] "Alright I'm going to come to you"

Vero, an Argentinian woman in a 90s fashionable office blouse and dress, stands up in the grass, with a smear of mud down her side.

Jared: "She's with you? Where…"

Raymond calls out: "Can you come up here?"

Vero: "No, the nest is over.. uh.. here not there."

Raymond rubs his forehead. "Alright"

The whole group comes over to Vero, who parts the grass to reveal another salamander, and jelly-like amphibian eggs.

Jared: "Are they all infected… affected?"

Vero looks surprised.
Raymond: "Yeah yeah I am seeing it."

Jared: "Do you need anything?"

Raymond: "This is going to take a few hours for us to run tests. You're dismissed."

Jared: "I can stay with the car up here if you need anything."

Vero: "No we should be alright. Actually can you bring the other Diplo up here? The salamander." She has a disarming smile.

BATAM CAMPUS, INDONESIA, FALL 1993

Felix, a redheaded nerd type, arrives on a motor scooter to a classic architecture college campus. There are some tropical trees.

Felix: "Terima kasih"
He joins a group of students who point him to the main office.

Felix: "Hello, is there a Doctor Đinh here? "

[Vero appears at a doorway with a dossier, a candid photo of Felix clipped on top] "You must be Felix"

Felix: "Are you…. um…"

Vero: "I'm Vero. I just wanted to ask you a few questions, show you around the facility. Then we go to the professor".

Felix: "Oh alright. Of course."

[they're walking the campus]

Felix: "...it's the craziest thing, I had been doing some work with the computers there"

Vero: "Right"

Felix: "And I kept seeing these pages on the World Wide Web about-"

Vero: "A web?"

Felix: "That's what we call our corner of the internet. Most college campuses have access to a network–"

Vero: "I know about the internet."

Felix: "Great! Oh, okay. I didn't mean to–"

Vero: "And did the professor sent an email about our address? Or you found it on a web?"

Felix: "It was one page on the web. Erdős [air-dish] Center, Batam Island."

Vero: "We have a computer lab here. Could you show me?"

Felix: "I was planning to discuss it with Doctor-"

Vero: "Because she is delayed, we should look at the page first."

Felix: "Oh! I mean, thanks for showing me around."

[it's significantly later in the day, Felix is sweating, they are the only two in a computer lab where they have one NeXT machine]

Felix: "I'm trying to find the page exactly…"

Vero: "You're POSITIVE that it was on this website"

Felix: "well one of the links back here… but there are so many links"

knock knock
[They turn to see Professor Đinh, a Southeast Asian woman, out of breath]

Đinh: "Felix! I just heard that you were here"

Felix: "Oh!"

Đinh: "Vero? What's going on?"

Vero: "Did you publish our address on the web?"

Đinh: "Felix was just working at CERN. He can help us read the web for issues like this."

[Vero waves Felix from standing up / walking over]
Vero: "What information is on the web?"

Đinh: "I just took it down."

Vero: "Just keep me in the loop. Nice meeting you, Felix"
[Vero leaves abruptly]

Felix: "I didn't mean to cause any problems, if that wasn't public…"

Đinh: "No, it's quite alright. Let's get out of this lab. I'll show you what we're working on."

RENDERED VIDEO

[they exit the computer lab, turn a corner, and Đinh places a key in the wall, allowing her to open a latched storm door]

Đinh "After you?"

[they step through and are outside on a concrete pad in front of another classic college building with one word in metal, Erdős. There are metal rails allowing carts to be rolled from the pad to the nearest building. The buildings are surrounded by lush jungle]
[a ripple of rain washes over them]

Felix: "Wait, we're outside?"

Đinh: "Yes, let's walk over to campus"

Felix: "...but we were just…"

Đinh: "This is going to take time but you have to keep up."

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