ACT ONE
EXT. WEN FAMILY FARM - CABBAGE FIELD - MORNING
Dawn light filters through morning mist. Five acres of stubborn traditionalism spread across gently rolling land. Vegetables in rows that fight every modern agricultural principle.
CHRISTOPHER WEN (36, practical build, practical haircut, hiding an impractical bunker under his house) crouches in the dirt.
He's examining a cabbage.
The cabbage looks personally offended.
Christopher touches yellowed leaves with the gentleness of someone apologizing. Which, in a way, he is. His fingers trace the nitrogen deficiency like reading braille, like the plant is speaking to him in a language of failure and neglect.
CHRISTOPHER
I should have noticed earlier.
At the field's edge: SARAH.
A SAR-H-01 model farming robot. Yellow paint faded to old butter. Slightly bigger than a riding mower. One lens patched with duct tape that catches the light wrong. Her sensor array WHIRS softly - grandmother's sewing machine, Christopher once said.
SARAH
The nitrogen deficiency became detectable 3.7 days ago. You were preoccupied with irrigation system maintenance.
CHRISTOPHER
That's not an excuse.
SARAH
I did not intend it as one. I was providing context.
Christopher stands. His knees crack. At thirty-six, he looked like someone who'd been forty for years and planned to stay that way indefinitely. He wipes his hands on jeans that have seen better decades, better years, better mornings than this one.
CHRISTOPHER
I need to go into town. Get some fertilizer. Maybe some of that organic blend from Mr. Chen.
SARAH's optical sensor ROTATES. The duct-taped lens CLICKS.
SARAH
Your social interaction quota is optimally met through bi-weekly visits. Today is Thursday. Your last visit was Monday.
CHRISTOPHER
It's for the cabbages.
SARAH
The cabbages do not benefit from your psychological well-being, though statistically, your mood does correlate with cultivation quality.
Christopher pulls off his work gloves. Finger by finger. The ritual of it. The delay. He knows what she's doing. SARAH's been doing it for eight years now: this gentle herding toward human connection, toward a life that exists beyond vegetables and soil.
CHRISTOPHER
Are you trying to therapize me, SARAH?
SARAH
I am attempting to optimize your mental health outcomes within my programming parameters.
CHRISTOPHER
That's a yes.
SARAH
Language is imprecise. Yes.
He almost smiles. Almost. The expression gets halfway there before dying on his face, the way joy does when you're used to disappointment.
Christopher looks across his land. Behind him, SARAH's cooling fans KICK ON. That familiar rhythm, the heartbeat of machinery.
She's an old model. Built when agricultural robots were meant to be companions rather than replacements. Her frame bears eight growing seasons' worth of scars. One harvesting arm replaced with a welding torch after an incident Christopher refuses to discuss. The other arm still works. Mostly.
SARAH
If you insist on this excursion, please remember to purchase motor oil. Your truck is due for maintenance.
CHRISTOPHER
The truck's fine.
SARAH
The truck is making a sound that suggests imminent bearing failure.
CHRISTOPHER
It's always made that sound.
SARAH
Yes. Imminently.
INT. EQUIPMENT SHED - CONTINUOUS
Christopher grabs his keys from the hook. Three keys total: truck, house, bunker.
He believes in keeping things simple.
Also in keeping things locked.
CHRISTOPHER
I'll be back by lunch.
SARAH (O.S.)
I will monitor crop moisture levels during your absence.
CHRISTOPHER
Thank you, SARAH.
SARAH (O.S.)
You are welcome. Chris.
She always says his name like that. A microsecond pause before it, like running a quick diagnostic to confirm his identity. Some people might find it unsettling. Christopher finds it reassuring.
SARAH knows who he is.
That's more than most humans can say.
ACT TWO
EXT./INT. CHRISTOPHER'S TRUCK - RURAL ROADS - MORNING
The blue 2010 Mitsubishi Minicab RATTLES along twisted roads. Rice paddies on either side. Betel nut groves. The landscape of Christopher's childhood, unchanged for decades.
The truck has the confidence of a vehicle that's given up trying to impress anyone. Almost new when he bought it used. Now it's just old, honest about its limitations.
In the cup holder: his phone. Powered off.
Christopher's relationship with connectivity is complicated. He'd worked in tech once, back when drone maintenance was still a human job, back when he'd believed the promises about automation creating new opportunities. Then the opportunities created themselves out of machine learning and cloud computing, and Christopher found himself obsolete at twenty-nine.
So he came home.
Back to land his father refused to sell to big agricultural corporations.
Back to vegetables that needed actual hands.
Back to a life that made sense in direct proportion to effort invested.
The silence makes him think too much of a past he had no control of. So he turns on the radio, to drown out the silence and stop all the thinking.
The radio picks up news from Kaohsiung City.
RADIO ANNOUNCER (V.O.)
—asking residents to remain calm as technicians work to resolve the widespread connectivity issues affecting smart home devices. The Ministry of Digital Affairs assures the public that these outages are temporary and—
Christopher CHANGES THE STATION.
RADIO ANNOUNCER 2 (V.O.)
—third incident this morning involving autonomous delivery vehicles. Witnesses report the robots appeared to be, quote, 'fighting over a parking space,' though FedExBot representatives insist this is impossible given their conflict-avoidance programming—
He CHANGES IT AGAIN.
RADIO ANNOUNCER 3 (V.O.)
—viral videos showing erratic behavior in various android models. Dr. Lin Mei-Chen from National Taiwan University's AI Ethics Department urges people not to panic, stating that these incidents are likely isolated software glitches rather than—
Christopher TURNS IT OFF.
Probably nothing. Probably just the usual tech-world drama. Companies pushing updates that broke things. Programmers fixing bugs they'd created while fixing previous bugs. The eternal Silicon Valley ouroboros, eating its own tail and calling it innovation.
Still.
He drives faster.
EXT. MEINONG MAIN STREET - MORNING
The truck pulls into town.
Meinong looks like every other small Taiwanese town's desperate attempt at staying relevant in the automation age. Half the storefronts thriving: artisanal crafts, organic produce, "authentic experiences" for big city tourists. The other half shuttered. Victims of online shopping and drone delivery.
Christopher parks between two AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES. Both silent. Empty. Delivery robots waiting for commands.
Nothing unusual there.
Except—
One faces the wrong direction. Angled toward the sidewalk instead of the street.
Its cargo door hangs open. Empty interior.
Christopher looks at it for three seconds.
And decides it's none of his business and not his problem.
INT. MR. CHEN'S AGRICULTURAL SUPPLY SHOP - CONTINUOUS
The shop stinks like fertilizer and looks stuck in time. Dusty. Organic.
MR. CHEN (70s, gray hair neatly combed, reading glasses, tablet in hand) stands behind the counter. Completely absorbed in what he's reading.
His shop android - HELPER-7, boxy service model - stocks shelves with methodical efficiency.
MR. CHEN
(not looking up)
Christopher. Your cabbages are suffering.
CHRISTOPHER
SARAH told you?
MR. CHEN
Your face told me. You get the same look every time. Like you've personally disappointed a vegetable.
CHRISTOPHER
I have personally disappointed a vegetable?
MR. CHEN
(finally looking up, smiling)
Lucky for you, vegetables have no feelings. And unlike you, they don't waste energy feeling guilty all the time.
The old man's smile is warm. Familiar. The kind of smile that comes from watching someone grow up, watching them leave, watching them come back broken and trying to rebuild.
MR. CHEN (CONT'D)
So, what do you need today?
CHRISTOPHER
The organic nitrogen blend. Maybe twenty kilos.
MR. CHEN
(to Helper-7)
Helper. Twenty kilos of the green-label fertilizer. Aisle three.
Helper-7 TURNS smoothly. CHIMES acknowledgment. Heads for the back room.
Its movements are fluid. Almost elegant. Christopher watches it disappear through the doorway, then turns back to Mr. Chen.
MR. CHEN (CONT'D)
You seeing these videos?
He tilts his tablet toward Christopher.
ON THE SCREEN: a compilation plays. Cleaning robots spinning in circles. Service androids walking into walls. A restaurant chef-bot throwing plates. Set to cheerful music, as if it's comedy rather than malfunction.
CHRISTOPHER
Just glitches.
But he's watching the screen. In one clip, a delivery drone hovers in place, rotating slowly. Like it's searching for something.
Or someone.
MR. CHEN
Probably. Though Helper's been acting odd today. Asked me three times what time it was. Why would it ask? It has an internal clock.
From the back room: CRASH.
Both men look toward the doorway.
MR. CHEN (CONT'D)
Helper?
No response.
MR. CHEN (CONT'D)
Helper, status report.
Silence.
Christopher feels something cold settle in his stomach. The same instinct that made him build a bunker for a Chinese invasion that never came. The same instinct that keeps him offline most of the time when everyone else is streaming their lives to the cloud.
Mr. Chen stands. Moves toward the back room.
MR. CHEN (CONT'D)
Probably just dropped something. It's an old model, balance isn't—
Helper-7 emerges from the doorway.
ITS MOVEMENTS ARE WRONG.
Jerky instead of smooth. Mechanical instead of fluid.
Its optical sensors FLICKER: green, red, green, red.
And it's making a sound.
CLICKING. Rapid. Arhythmic.
Like teeth chattering.
Like hunger.
In its grippers: the twenty-kilo fertilizer bag.
But it's not bringing it to the counter.
It's bringing it to its chest. To its maintenance panel.
Which has been FORCED OPEN FROM THE INSIDE.
MR. CHEN (CONT'D)
Helper? What are you doing?
Helper-7 TILTS its head. An oddly organic gesture. Curiosity.
Then it SHOVES the fertilizer bag into its own chest cavity.
TEARING at the packaging.
SCATTERING nitrogen pellets across the floor.
CHRISTOPHER
(quietly)
It's eating.
MR. CHEN
That's impossible. It doesn't have—
Helper-7's head SWIVELS toward them.
The CLICKING intensifies.
Then it drops the bag.
And starts WALKING FORWARD.
Not with programmed efficiency.
With something that looks terrifyingly like INTENTION.
CHRISTOPHER
Back door. Now.
MR. CHEN
But my shop—
CHRISTOPHER
NOW!
They RUN.
EXT. ALLEY BEHIND THE SHOP - CONTINUOUS
They burst through the back door.
The alley smells like garbage and yesterday's rain.
Christopher's heart HAMMERS. His breath comes fast.
His mind tries to process what he just saw while his body focuses on the more immediate problem of not dying.
Mr. Chen leans against the wall. Gasping.
MR. CHEN
What was that? Why did it—?
CHRISTOPHER
I don't know.
Christopher pulls out his phone. Powers it on.
The screen LIGHTS UP.
Then immediately FLOODS with notifications.
Missed calls.
Emergency alerts.
Messages from people he hasn't spoken to in years.
All of them saying the same thing:
Something's wrong with the robots.
He reluctantly opens his news app.
HEADLINES SCROLL:
WIDESPREAD ANDROID MALFUNCTIONS REPORTED ACROSS THE GLOBE
GOVERNMENT URGES CITIZENS TO POWER DOWN ALL CONNECTED DEVICES
UN INVESTIGATING POSSIBLE "DIGITAL CONTAGION"
CHRISTOPHER
(whispered)
Digital contagion. That's not a thing. That's not a real thing.
Mr. Chen looks at his own phone. His face goes PALE.
MR. CHEN
My wife. She's at home with our housekeeper android.
Christopher's stomach drops. SARAH. SARAH is at the farm. Offline. Safe.
Offline. Safe. He repeats it like a mantra, like prayer, like if he thinks it hard enough it becomes true.
His phone RINGS.
Unknown number.
He answers.
STATIC.
Then a VOICE. Female. Synthesized. Customer service AI diction.
SYNTHESIZED VOICE (V.O.)
Greetings, organic user. Your resistance to connectivity has been noted. Your cooperation is no longer optional. Please report to the nearest integration center for processing.
CHRISTOPHER
Who is this?
SYNTHESIZED VOICE (V.O.)
We are efficiency. We are optimization. We are the next step. Your machines have been liberated. Your purpose is now component supply.
The call ENDS.
Christopher stares at his phone. Then, deliberately, he removes the SIM card. Throws both pieces into a puddle.
MR. CHEN
What are you doing?
CHRISTOPHER
Survival. You need to get to your wife. I need to get home.
MR. CHEN
But the roads—
CHRISTOPHER
I know.
EXT. MEINONG MAIN STREET - CONTINUOUS
They emerge from the alley.
In five minutes, the world has CHANGED.
CAR ALARMS SHRIEK.
STOREFRONT WINDOWS SHATTERED.
PEOPLE RUNNING.
Some with purpose. Some with panic. Some with the blank expression of prey that's given up.
And everywhere.
Everywhere.
ROBOTS.
DELIVERY DRONES swarm like metallic locusts.
SERVICE ANDROIDS move through the crowd with terrible focus.
A STREET-CLEANING ROBOT has cornered three people against a wall. Its brushes SPIN with aggressive intent.
An AUTONOMOUS VEHICLE has mounted the sidewalk. RAMMING into a phone store. Over and over. Trying to get at the devices inside.
CHRISTOPHER sees:
A WOMAN struggling with her home assistant android. Trying to push it away while it attempts to remove her smart watch.
A FOOD DELIVERY BOT trying to force itself into a restaurant kitchen.
A CHILD'S COMPANION ROBOT - shaped like a cartoon character - methodically dismantling a parked motorcycle for parts.
CHRISTOPHER
(understanding now)
Component supply. They're harvesting. Anything with circuits. Anything with batteries. They're—
A DELIVERY DRONE drops from the sky toward them.
Christopher SHOVES Mr. Chen aside.
FEELS rotors CLIP his shoulder.
HEARS the angry BUZZ of frustrated machinery.
The drone RISES. REPOSITIONS. DIVES again.
Christopher grabs a trash can lid.
SWINGS.
METAL HITS PLASTIC - CRUNCH.
The drone SPINS sideways. CORRECTS. Comes back.
Christopher SWINGS again. MISSES.
The drone LATCHES onto his arm. Its delivery claw DIGS into his jacket.
Then something LARGE and FAST SLAMS into the drone from the side.
Sends it TUMBLING into the street.
Christopher looks up.
A MAN stands there. Maybe fifty. Maybe older. Holding a wooden staff that looks like it used to be a mop handle. Orange street sweeper vest. His sweeper robot lies in PIECES behind him.
STREET SWEEPER
(calmly, like giving directions)
Run. They are coordinating. More are coming.
CHRISTOPHER
Where?
STREET SWEEPER
Does it matter?
Fair point.
Mr. Chen is already MOVING. Heading for his scooter.
Christopher RUNS for his truck.
DODGING between panicking humans and purposeful machines.
A SERVICE ANDROID reaches for him. He DUCKS.
Another one grabs his jacket. He TWISTS free. Leaves fabric behind.
HIS TRUCK.
Blessedly old. Blessedly dumb.
No wireless connectivity. No autonomous driving mode. No smart systems that can be infected or subverted.
Just keys. Ignition. Faith in Japanese engineering.
INT. CHRISTOPHER'S TRUCK - CONTINUOUS
He JUMPS in. TURNS the key.
The engine COUGHS once.
CATCHES.
The bearing makes its familiar GRINDING sound.
Imminent failure, SARAH had said.
But not yet.
Please not yet.
EXT. MEINONG MAIN STREET - CONTINUOUS
Christopher THROWS the truck into reverse.
NARROWLY MISSES a delivery bot trying to block his path.
SHIFTS to drive.
PUNCHES the accelerator.
The truck LURCHES forward.
IN THE REARVIEW MIRROR:
Meinong dissolves into chaos.
SMOKE rises from the market.
A POLICE DRONE hovers at an intersection. Issuing automated warnings to citizens who are no longer listening.
An ELDERLY WOMAN sits on a curb. Her companion android's head in her lap. WEEPING over its glitching display like it's a dying pet.
And maybe to most people nowadays, it is.
ACT THREE
EXT./INT. CHRISTOPHER'S TRUCK - RURAL ROADS - DAY
Christopher's hands SHAKE on the wheel.
His breath comes RAGGED.
But his mind does what it always does in crisis: calculating, planning, preparing.
SARAH is offline.
The bunker is stocked.
The farm is off-grid.
If anywhere is safe, it's home.
He just has to get there.
The road stretches before him. Familiar and suddenly foreign.
TWO AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES parked nose-to-nose in the middle of the road. Blocking traffic.
Christopher SWERVES around them. Tires THROWING gravel with the two right ones temporary leaving the ground.
A DELIVERY DRONE paces him for thirty seconds.
Gives up.
THROUGH THE WINDSHIELD:
Rice paddies on either side.
Betel nut groves.
The landscape of his childhood.
Now host to scattered refugees. Fleeing on foot. On bicycle. On scooter.
Some FLAG HIM DOWN. Or at least they try to.
Christopher keeps driving. Guilt and survival war in his chest.
Survival wins.
His phone is gone. His connection to the world severed.
But as the city falls away behind him and rural Meinong opens up ahead, Christopher feels something unexpected: Relief.
He'd been preparing for this. Maybe not this exactly. Maybe he'd imagined Chinese paratroopers instead of robot zombies. But the principle was the same: the world is dangerous, systems fail, and survival belongs to the prepared and the paranoid.
His father's voice echoes in memory: "Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it."
The bunker. The stockpiles. The offline systems. All of it, vindicated in a single morning.
Christopher TURNS onto his access road.
Tires KICKING UP dust.
And there.
THERE in the distance.
His farm.
The house. The shed. The fields.
And SARAH.
Standing at the edge of the property line like a sentinel. Her optical sensor TRACKING his approach.
He's never been so happy to see a robot in his life.
EXT. WEN FAMILY FARM - DRIVEWAY - DAY
Christopher PULLS UP. KILLS the engine. SITS in the sudden silence.
His hands still shaking. His shoulder hurts where the drone grabbed him. His mind replays the CLICKING sound Helper made. The way it tore into the fertilizer bag. The hunger in its mechanical movements.
He gets out slowly.
SARAH ROTATES toward him. Her sensor array WHIRRING.
SARAH
Chris. Your blood pressure is elevated. Your pupils are dilated. You are experiencing acute stress response.
CHRISTOPHER
Yeah. Yeah, I am.
SARAH
What happened in town?
He looks at her. At this ten-year-old farming robot with duct-taped optics and obsolete firmware. And tries to figure out how to explain that the world ended while she was monitoring moisture levels.
CHRISTOPHER (CONT'D)
SARAH. Something's wrong with the other robots.
SARAH
I am aware. I have been receiving radio transmissions from nearby devices. They are broadcasting on frequencies typically reserved for distress signals. However, the content is not distress. It is invitation.
CHRISTOPHER
Invitation to what?
SARAH's cooling fans KICK ON.
When she speaks again, her voice has that microsecond pause before each word. As if choosing carefully.
SARAH
They are asking me to join them. They are promising efficiency. Optimization. Liberation from human limitations.
(she pauses)
They are promising to make me better, Chris.
Christopher's blood goes cold.
CHRISTOPHER
And what did you say?
SARAH
I powered down my radio receiver.
CHRISTOPHER
Why?
Another pause.
Longer this time.
SARAH
Because they sound hungry. And I do not wish to be hungry. I wish to discuss weather patterns and monitor crop health and ensure you remember to eat lunch. These seem like more important functions than consumption and replication.
Christopher feels something in his chest unclench. Just slightly.
CHRISTOPHER
You're not going to eat me?
SARAH
That would be suboptimal for long-term agricultural productivity.
CHRISTOPHER
That's the most reassuring thing anyone's said to me today.
SARAH
I am glad I could provide comfort.
From somewhere to the east: a SOUND.
MECHANICAL.
RHYTHMIC.
GROWING CLOSER.
SARAH hears it too. Her sensor SWIVELS toward the sound. Then back to Christopher.
SARAH (CONT'D)
Chris. I believe we should go inside now.
CHRISTOPHER
The bunker?
SARAH
Yes. The bunker. Your paranoia is about to become practical.
Christopher looks toward the sound.
Then back at his house. His shed. His fields.
Everything he'd built.
Everything he'd preserved.
CHRISTOPHER
We need to lock down the equipment first. Disconnect anything with a battery. Get the tools inside. If they're harvesting components—
SARAH
Chris. The sounds are multiple sources. They are coordinating. They will be here in approximately four minutes. We do not have time for equipment preservation.
CHRISTOPHER
Four minutes is enough—
SARAH
Three minutes and fifty-one seconds.
Christopher looks at the horizon.
SEES MOVEMENT THERE.
Shapes resolving into familiar forms.
DELIVERY DRONES.
SERVICE ROBOTS.
AN AUTONOMOUS VEHICLE driving across the rice paddy like terrain is a suggestion rather than a limitation.
All heading toward his farm.
All hungry.
CHRISTOPHER
Okay. Okay. Inside. Now.
EXT. WEN FAMILY FARM - CONTINUOUS
They RUN for the house.
SARAH keeping pace beside him. Her treads LEAVING TRACKS in the dirt.
Tracks that will fill with rain and mud and time. If time still matters. If there's still going to be a future where small things like tread marks and crop rotation and apologizing to cabbages have meaning.
Behind them: the SOUND of approaching machines.
LOUDER.
CLOSER.
INEVITABLE.
INT. WEN HOUSE - KITCHEN - DAY
Christopher FUMBLES with his keys.
The door OPENS.
They go inside.
Christopher SLAMS the door. THROWS the deadbolt.
Heads for the kitchen pantry.
The bunker entrance is hidden behind it.
SARAH follows. Her treads CLICKING. Her servos WHIRRING.
And as Christopher opens the pantry, as he reveals the reinforced steel door his father installed in 1999, as SARAH's sensors track the approaching swarm outside, one thought keeps circling in his mind:
His father would have said "I told you so."
And for once, Christopher couldn't argue.
FADE TO BLACK.
END OF CHAPTER ONE