Alex Garland

Then, as a psychologist, I think you're confusing suicide with self-destruction. Almost none of us commit suicide, and almost all of us self-destruct. In some way, in some part of our lives. We drink, or we smoke, we destabilize the good job... and a happy marriage. But these aren't decisions, they're... they're impulses. In fact, you're probably better equipped to explain this than I am.

You're a biologist. Isn't the self-destruction coded into us? Programmed into each cell?

It's not like us… it's unlike us. I don't know what it wants, or if it wants, but it'll grow until it encompasses everything. Our bodies and our minds will be fragmented into their smallest parts until not one part remains… Annihilation.

It's the last phase. Vanished into havoc. Unfathomable mind. Now beacon, now sea.

Lena? We spoke, what was it we said? That I needed to know what was inside the lighthouse. That moment's passed. It's inside me now.

It's not like us, it's unlike us.

I don't know what it wants, or if it wants, but it will grow until it encompasses everything. Our bodies and our minds will be fragmented into their smallest parts, until not one part remains… Annihilation.

Oh, great, Valium. Not only will we be able to get to sleep, but if we're attacked in the middle of the night, we won't even care.

Oh, no. No, see-see, this is a really shit idea. You know why? Because it's really obviously a shit idea. So, we're just gonna drive in the tunnel full of fuckin' smashed cars and broken glass. It's really fuckin' obviously a shit idea!

Hey, don't do that. Look, Hannah is what Frank says she is, okay? She's tough, and she's strong, and she'll cope, just like I'll cope, and just like you'll cope.

Look, I'm a bicycle carrier. I was riding a package from, uh, Farringdon to Shaftesbury Avenue, and a car cuts across me. Then, I wake up today in a hospital. I wake up and I'm - I'm hallucinating, or I'm…

The world's worst place to get a flat, huh?

You think I don't get it but, um, I do get it. And I know I'd be dead already, if I hadn't met you.

No - No - No, then we should take the most indirect route. The one that's in broad daylight and that's not underground.

Listen. Listen to me. He's still all fucked. We're gonna be okay. He's still all fucked. We're gonna be okay. I've got to explain something.

I've seen something. It's gonna be okay. It's gonna be okay.

Well, I think Bill's got a point. If you look at the whole life of the planet, we, you know, man has only been around for a few blinks of an eye. So, if the infection wipes us all out... that is a return to normality.

Starting the world again when the rest of the fuckin' world hasn't even stopped! Just imagine… just think about it. How could infection cross the oceans? How could it cross the mountains and the rivers? They already stopped it! Right now, TV's are playing, and planes are flying in the sky, and the rest of the world is continuing as fuckin' normal. Think! Actually think about it. What would you do with a diseased little island? They quarantined us. 'There is no infection. Just people killing people.' He's insane!

Smithers says, 'Women and seamen don't mix.' And Mr. Burns says, 'We all know what you think, Smithers.' And that was my favorite joke in 'The Simpsons.' See, that's what they're doing a few hundred miles away, across the channel, across the Atlantic. They're eating dinner, and they're watching the fuckin' Simpsons. They're sleeping in their beds, next to their wives. But we are here, chained to a fuckin' radiator, because the O.C. has gone insane!

Mitchell! I swear to God, it's gonna end badly for you!

I promised them women.

Eight days ago I found Jones with his gun in his mouth. He said he was going to kill himself, because there was no future. What could I say to him? We fight off the infected or we wait until they starve to death, and then what? What do nine men do, except wait to die themselves? I moved us from the blockade. I set the radio broadcasting, and I promised them women... because women mean a future.

This is what I've seen in the four weeks since infection. People killing people, which is much what I saw in the four weeks before infection, and the four weeks before that, and before that, and as far back as I care to remember. People killing people, which to my mind, puts us in a state of normality right now.

Salvation is here. The answer to infection is here. If you can hear this, you're not alone. There are others like you. There are others like you. There are other survivors. We are soldiers, and we are armed. And we can protect you. Our location is the 42nd blockade in the M-602, twenty-seven miles northeast of Manchester. You must find us. Salvation is here.

And lastly, meet Mailer.

Mailer, Jim. Jim, Mailer. Got infected two days ago. Mitchell managed to knock him out cold, and we got a chain around his neck.

The idea was to learn something about infection. Have him teach me.

In a way. He's telling me he'll never bake bread, farm crops, raise livestock. He's telling me he's futureless. And eventually he'll tell me how long the infected take to starve to death.

Since it began, who have you killed? You wouldn't be alive now, if you hadn't killed somebody.

You killed all my boys.

I want to give you a chance. You could be with us, but I can't let them go.

So if you wake up one morning and it's a particularly beautiful day, you'll know we made it. Okay, I'm signing out.

When a Stellar Bomb is triggered, very little will happen at first -and then a spark, will pop into existance, and it will hang for an instant, hovering in space and then, it will split into two, and those will split again, and again, and again… detonation beyond all imaging - the big bang on a small scale. - a new star born out of a dying one… I think it will be beautiful… No, i'm not scared

Our sun is dying. Mankind faces extinction. Seven years ago the Icarus project sent a mission to restart the sun but that mission was lost before it reached the star. Sixteen months ago, I, Robert Capa, and a crew of seven left earth frozen in a solar winter. Our payload a stellar bomb with a mass equivalent to Manhattan Island. Our purpose to create a star within a star.

Eight astronauts strapped to the back of a bomb. My bomb. Welcome to the Icarus Two.

By the time you get this message, I'll be in the dead zone. It came a little sooner than we thought, but this means you won't be able to send a message back. So, I just wanted to let you know that I don't need the message because I know everything you wanna say. Just remember it takes eight minutes for light to travel from sun to Earth, which means you'll know we've succeeded about eight minutes after we deliver the payload. All you have to do is look out for a little extra brightness in the sky.

So if you wake up one morning and it's a particularly beautiful day, you'll know we made it. Okay, I'm signing out

and I'll see you in a couple years.

It's the problem right there. Between the boosters and the gravity of the sun the velocity of the payload will get so great that space and time will become smeared together and everything will distort. Everything will be unquantifiable.

It's not a decision, it's a guess. It's like flipping a coin and asking me to decide whether it will be heads or tails.

Heads… We harvested all Earth's resources to make this payload. This is humanity's last chance… our last, best hope… Searle's argument is sound. Two last chances are better than one.