Brazil

JILL

Them?

SAM

Us. Them. I don't know... just get going.

Jill starts up and moves off, very cool, in her own time. By now Sam has got the shakes.

JILL

(indicting the papers that Sam has dropped)

Don't litter my cab!

SAM

(picking them up)

Oh, sorry.

EXT. CITY FREEWAY – DAY

A high shot of the lorry, moving through the city among traffic.

INT. TRAVELLING LORRY – DAY

Jill is preoccupied with driving. She is smoking a cigarette. Sam occasionally glances at her.

SAM

... This is amazing... for me... being here with you. I mean, in my dreams you...

JILL

I don't want to hear about your fucking dreams!

SAM

Oh. But... Look, I'm sorry I shouted at you.

JILL

(mainly to herself)

Why are they all pigs at Information Retrieval?

SAM

I don't know.

(realizing that this includes him)

Hey, that's not a very nice thing to say.

Jill blows smoke in Sam's direction.

SAM

(waving the smoke away)

You know, smoking's bad for you.

JILL

It's my fucking life.

SAM

(winding down the window)

Yes, of course. Sorry.

JILL

(lighting up another cigarette)

I know you. I saw you through the floor, didn't I?

SAM

Yes. Ceiling. Why did you run away?

JILL

I didn't run away. I left the flat.

SAM

Why?

JILL

I didn't like it.

SAM

Why not?

JILL

It had a hole in the floor. Where are we going? Where are you taking me?

SAM

What?

JILL

Where are you taking me?

SAM

Ah... Er... It looks as if you're taking me.

JILL

It does doesn't it?

SAM

(slightly worried)

Where are you taking me?

EXT. TRAVELLING LORRY

WE PULL BACK and lift off to see that the beautiful countryside through which we've been travelling is in fact a solid wall of giant bill-boards, advertising all sorts of wonders like pine scented lavatory paper, sea spray flavored cigarettes – you name it – These advertisements form an unbroken corridor down which the road travels. From a bird's eye POV we see that the land behind the hoardings is blasted and blighted with garbage etc.

EXT. POWER PLANT – DAY (LATE AFTERNOON)

The power plant is an extensive, brutal, Dante's Inferno of a landscape made mainly of steel... towers, chimneys, huge pipes, buildings which look like bomb shelters... It is still daylight but the whole scene is murky and forbidding because of the swirling steam and smoke. In the murk can be seen sinister-looking FIGURES in protective clothing and hard hats.

This is the world which is now entered by Jill's lorry... The lorry halts at a despatching hut near the crane and Jill jumps down from the cab. Sam stays inside, looking around. Something catches his eye.

CUT TO:

FACADE OF HOUSE

Window boxes with flowers and shrubbery surrounded by a white picket fence provide domestic charm, however, in the doorway stands a MAN with protective clothing and something like a gas-mask over his face. He is waving to someone. Slowly the house rises out of frame.

In a WIDER SHOT we can see the house is suspended from and a giant crane that swings it through the air – air filled with stead, smoke, evil-smelling fumes. It is lowered onto the back of a lorry and we can see that the house is one of many prefabricated houses used in the construction of the power plant.

INT. LORRY CAB – DAY

Sam watches Jill walk away from the lorry and enter the despatcher's hut. He looks around uneasily and then he start examining the inside of the lorry and opens a compartment which seems to be full of maps, rags, etc. He gets grease on sleeve of his suit. In the space behind the seats he finds the pieces of luggage which Jill had carried away from the flat. He starts to examine this cautiously and is startled by the sudden opening of the cab door.

JILL

Don't act guilty. Act like me. I'm just getting on with my job. Or, are you just getting on with yours?

Jill gets into the cab and closes the door and drives to a forward looking position.

SAM

What's going on here?

JILL

What does it look like... I'm collecting empties.

The lorry stops and Jill gets out. From Sam's POV, the house suspended from the crane starts moving through the sky towards the lorry. He glances back to see Jill slip a package out from behind the seat. She glances surreptitiously over her shoulder and slipping the parcel inside her jacket she walks away.

EXT. LORRY LATE AFTERNOON

Sam climbs down from the cab trying to keep an eye on Jill. He ends up standing next to a rusty Kodak Photospot standard. The picture on it – though faded by pollution – is of the beautiful valley that has now been replaced by the murk and mess of the power plant. Jill has made her way over to a rather SHADOWY FIGURE lurking around the corner of one of the metal structures. They appear to be exchanging parcels. Sam is worried by this suspicious behaviour – reinforced as it is by a Ministry poster on the side of the building that illustrates, almost identically, the action we have just seen along with the warning: "MIND THAT PARCEL. EAGLE EYES CAN SAVE A LIFE".

CUT TO the house being lowered and secured onto the lorry.

INT. LORRY CAB LATE AFTERNOON

Jill is starting up the lorry. Sam is glancing over her shoulder at the suspicious parcel which is tucked behind her. They move off. The last view of the power plant is of a group of MEN all in protective clothing and masks happily playing a game of volleyball.

INT. TRAVELLING LORRY LATER AFTERNOON

SAM

OK. What's in the parcel?

JILL

What parcel?

Sam nods knowingly in the direction of the parcel.

JILL

I don't know. Christmas present.

Sam picks it up.

SAM

It's heavy.

JILL

A heavy Christmas present.

He glances at her suspiciously.

JILL

Open it if you don't trust me.

Sam hesitates and puts the parcel down.

SAM

I'd rather trust you.

Jill gives him a quizzical look and smiles slightly, in spite of herself. She turns away so that he won't notice.

INT. TRAVELLING LORRY IN CITY TRAFFIC – DUSK

JILL

What are you doing in Information Retrieval?

SAM

Looking for you.

JILL

No, really.

SAM

Really.

JILL

I mean, it doesn't suit you.

SAM

(looking at his jacket)

Suit me?

JILL

Don't you know the sort of thing that Information Retrieval does?

Sam

What do you mean? Would you rather have terrorists?

JILL

We've got both.

SAM

Things would be worse without Information Retrieval.

JILL

They couldn't be worse for the Buttles.

Sam is at a loss.

JILL

Why don't you say, no system is perfect.

SAM

Well, no system is.

JILL

Say, all wars have innocent victims.

SAM

Well, all wars do –

JILL

Who is this war against, Sam?

SAM

Well, terrorists of course.

JILL

How many terrorists have you met? Actual terrorists?

SAM

Actual. terrorists? Well... it's only my first day.

Jill bursts out laughing. Sam joins in. They are both laughing hysterically as they approach the Central Supplies depot.

EXT. CENTRAL SUPPLIES – DUSK

The impression is that the place could be an abandoned airfield out to the use of a vast open air warehouse whose contents is arranged in a grid pattern of "streets", all the streets being lined by stacks, piles, ranks, jumbles of goods and objects which seem at first to be arbitrarily grouped, some of them (like the stacks of prefabricated houses) standing in the open others protected under simple areas of roofing. Each group of Assorted Supplies lies inside the squares of the grid of streets. The streets are eerily lit by lights just being switched on, and each square is also lit by harsh localized lighting. The effect is a nightmarish gigantic Aladdin's cave of black shadows and garishly lit mountains of stuff.

INT. LORRY DUSK

Jill's lorry starts down one of the "streets".

JILL

(as they pass a clock in "C"s)

Look at that – right on time.