Magazine May - June, 24

Good

About Project

Hostage to AI amid apocalyptic chaos, Eli, Eva, and four colleagues attempt to save the world.
An uneaten apple sits on a desk of the regional headquarters of (not Amazon) Nile.com where a
group of colleagues are introduced:
A. Main Characters – 6 Everyday Personality Archetypes
i. AJ: The Leader (white or mixed, early thirties, brilliant and arrogant (e
Miles Teller or Jesse Williams))
ii. ELI: The Good One (white or Jewish, late forties or early fifties, affable and
easy going (Paul Rudd or Robert Downey Jr.)
iii. EVA: The Clever One (mid 30s, white or mixed, strong (Blake Lively or
Zoe Kravitz))
iv. LEO: The Genius (Middle Eastern or Subcontinental, early forties,
introvert, (Tomer Capone or Rami Malek))
v. LILY: The Bad One (Mid 20s, Asian, or White, petite, fiery) (Tati Gabrielle
or Chloe Grace Moretz))
vi. JOHN: The Introvert (black man, early-thirties, beefy, no-bullshit (
Michael B. Jordan or Winston Duke)
The introduction is interrupted by the abrupt, unexpected, and shocking unraveling of
humankind.
In recent days, the UN Secretary General outed an American non-profit worker kidnapped by
ISIS, who then broadcast the worker being thrown from a building. The US retaliated by
destroying ISIS headquarters in Nigeria. The US strike against ISIS inadvertently killed a number
of Wagner fighters, and in response, Wagner provided ISIS with nuclear material absconded from Ukraine. ISIS outfitted a nuclear weapon onto the private jet of a Saudi sovereign wealth fund
representative, who inadvertently delivered the bomb to the annual shareholders meeting of
Berkshire Hathaway in Omaha, Nebraska, where it detonated upon landing.
FEMA announces the United States is uniquely prepared to meet the moment, as FEMA’s
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is fully integrated with the AIs of the nation’s military and critical
infrastructure . FEMA’s AI mistakes a unique mutation bloom of Covid in Arizona as a bioweapon,
and alerts the Pentagon AI to attack China, its deciphered source. A cascade of algorithmic
reactions leads to all-out war. The FEMA AI locks down access to all egress, and the main
characters are trapped inside their work building, as the FEMA AI believes they need protection
from rotating sources of danger outside throughout the movie.
One-by-one, the circumstances of humankind’s downfall team up with the unique character of
each archetype to cause their death, until only two characters remain: EVA/the Clever One and
ELI/the Good One.
EVA/the Clever One, finds a way to stop and even reverse the apocalypse, but to do so the Good
One must die. Tortured by this dilemma, EVA considers letting the world end rather than be
responsible for the ELI’s death. ELI, the Good One, understands the gravity of the situation,
reflexively saying, “Oh god,” to which a bitter EVA snaps back that the situation has proven that
no god exists. Instantly, there is no sound, no wind, no violence, no shaking, all kinetic activity
abruptly stops, and the Good One turns to her saying, “But I’ve been here the whole time.”
Eli/God explains that he is having a “time out,” for the first time in a while regarding humanity,
which Eva/the Clever One quickly interprets as existential and defends humanity’s potential,
despite everything. The characters are then instantly returned to the movie’s critical moment,
and Eva, with surprise help from a character thought dead, saves the world.
The survivors banter with Eli/God as the credits begin and the camera pulls away. And away. And
away, stopping when it reaches a beefed-up international space station. Inside, mega-wattage
actor cameo astronauts observe the ravaged earth below. discussing – among themselves their
plans to restore the planet with the provisions stored there. The film ends with a close-up on the
(bitten) apple.
After the credits, the audience is finally shown the never-shown back story of John, who is
revealed to have previously been an arms dealer in Nigeria (suspiciously dealing in bioweapons),
who had recently transitioned to cyberweapons and was hired by a mysterious consortium to
develop the very machine sought after to save the world in the movie. It is revealed that he is
the one who told Eva/the Clever One the secret password she needed in the end to save the world.