pre:

1       EXT. CITY STREET - DAY

        Downtown L.A.  Noon on a hot summer day.  On an EXTREME LONG LENS the
        lunchtime crowd stacks up into a wall of humanity.  In SLOW MOTION
        they move in herds among the glittering rows of cars jammed bumper to
        bumper.  Heat ripples distort the torrent of faces.  The image is
        surreal, dreamy... and like a dream it begins very slowly to

                                                DISSOLVE TO:

2       EXT. CITY RUINS - NIGHT

        Same spot as the last shot, but now it is a landscape in Hell.  The
        cars are stopped in rusted rows, still bumper to bumper.  The
        skyline of buildings beyond has been shattered by some
        unimaginable force like a row of kicked-down sandcastles.
        Wind blows through the desolation, keening with the sound of ten
        million dead souls.  It scurries the ashes into drifts, stark
        white in the moonlight against the charred rubble.
        A TITLE CARD FADES IN:

                        LOS ANGELES, July 11, 2029

3       ANGLE ON a heap of fire-blackened human bones.  Beyond the mound is a
        vast tundra of skulls and shattered concrete.  The rush hour crowd
        burned down in their tracks.

4       WE DISSOLVE TO a playground... where intense heat has half-melted the
        jungle gym, the blast has warped the swing set, the merry-go-round
        has sagged in the firestorm.  Small skulls look accusingly from the
        ash-drifts.  WE HEAR the distant echo of children's voices... playing
        and laughing in the sun.  A silly, sing-songy rhyme as WE TRACKS
        SLOWLY over seared asphalt where the faint hieroglyphs of hopscotch
        lines are still visible.

        CAMERA comes to rest on a burnt and rusted tricycle... next to the
        tiny skull of its owner.  HOLD ON THIS IMAGE as a female VOICE speaks:

                                VOICE
                3 billion human lives ended on August 29th, 1997.
                The survivors of the nuclear fire called the war
                Judgment Day.  They lived only to face a new
                nightmare, the war against the Machines...

        A metal maniac somersaults onto the skull as if it was a tampoline.