Page 1:
Panel 1: Large panel. Two spaceships hang in space alongside each other. Both are massive and slab like, the size of a city, and they have similar yet distinct designs. The two long sides of the ships face each other with a slim but noticeable gap between them, like a pair of locomotives alongside each other in a station. They are against a background of the galactic spiral as seen from the very edge: thousands of stars in a great swirl.
Caption: OUT PAST THE GALACTIC RIM OUR TWO SHIPS FACE EACH OTHER, LIKE STRANGE DANCERS IN THE VOID.
Title: ANTIMATTER
Panel 2: Interior of the first ship. Leena, our main character, standing at a large round, slightly concave window, looking out into space at the massive ship opposite her own. Leena is human, but thousands of years of genetic manipulation and adaptation to space means she looks slightly different from the humans of today: beautiful, but weird looking, slightly alien. She has a slightly sad expression.
Caption: ACROSS THE GULF OF SPACE I LOOK ACROSS TO MY LOVE, AND HE LOOKS BACK AT ME.
Panel 3: What Leena can see: A window on the ship opposite, at which stands a man, also apparently human, also slightly alien (though in different ways to Leena). He's staring across the gulf of space back at Leena.
Caption: THOUGH WE HAVE NO COMMON LANGUAGE AND THE MEREST TOUCH WOULD MEAN OUR DESTRUCTION I KNOW I WILL LOVE HIM FOREVER.
Panel 4: Over Leenas shoulder we see Veen, another crewmember of the ship, as he enters the room. He has the same slightly alien characteristics as Leena, but is smaller, and his features are slightly weaslely
Veen: COME HERE TO STARE AT THE DAMN THING AGAIN, LEENA? I DON'T LIKE THE WAY WE'RE SO CLOSE TO IT.
Panel 5: Leena passes her hand over some kind of control and the window begins to close: metal lids move up from the top and the bottom like a gigantic eye closing.
Leena: THE SHIP LIKES TO BE THIS CLOSE. YOU KNOW THAT IT CAN REACT IN TIME TO PREVENT ANY COLLISION.
Panel 6: Same view as panel 5. Leena has turned towards us and is moving out of the frame as she leaves the room. Behind her the window has almost completely closed.
Leena: BESIDES, IT GIVES US SUCH A WONDERFUL VIEW.
Page 2:
Panel 1: Hoffman, an elderly human scientist, is talking with great enthusiasm while sitting at a low table. Tablet like computers showing vast amounts of data are spread out on the table in front of him.
Hoffman: ITS INCREDIBLE. SO FAR OUT INTO DEEP SPACE WE RUN INTO A SHIP THE SAME SIZE AS OUR OWN, OF A SIMILAR DESIGN, WITH A HUMAN LOOKING CREW, BUT NO KNOWN LANGUAGE AND COMPOSED ENTIRELY OF ANTIMATTER.
ITS LIKE LOOKING INTO SOME BIZARRE MIRROR.
Panel 2: Large panel. We're within some kind of lounge area within the ship. Hoffman is seated at a coffee table, while Veen approaches, holding a cup full of some kind of liquid. Behind him we see Leena getting a similar cup from a machine in the wall. Everything impossibly high-tech, beautifully designed, clean. These people are living a very refined life, all the basic problems of space travel were solved centuries ago and they are long past the point where there would be ducts and dirty machinery everywhere.
Veen: WHAT WORRIES ME. THE PRESENCE OF SO MUCH ANTIMATTER SUGGESTS ITS MUCH MORE ABUNDANT OUT HERE. WHAT IF WE SHOULD DRIFT INTO A CLOUD OF THE STUFF?
Hoffman: BOOM! WE'D BE VAPORISED. BUT THAT'S HIGHLY UNLIKELY. I THINK ITS MORE LIKELY THEY'VE CROSSED OVER FROM SOME KIND OF ANTIMATTER UNIVERSE. WE'LL KNOW MORE ONCE WE'VE ESTABLISHED COMMUNICATIONS WITH THEM.
Panel 3: Leenas face. She's curious.
Leena: HOW IS THAT COMING?
Panel 4: Back to Hoffman sitting in his chair. He loves to talk.
Hoffman: SLOWLY, SLOWLY. THEY LOOK SO HUMAN, AND YET THEIR LANGUAGE IS LINGUISTICALLY DIFFERENT FROM ANYTHING WE'VE EVER ENCOUNTERED.
Panel 5: Leenas face. She's slightly surprised.
Hoffman (offpanel): STILL, WE'VE MADE GOOD PROGRESS ELSEWHERE. I'VE JURY RIGGED A MATTER CONVERTER. IT'S A MODIFICATION OF OUR PERSONAL FORCE FIELD TECHNOLOGY: IT'LL CONVERT THE WEARER INTO ANTIMATTER SO THAT THEY CAN SAFELY INTERACT WITH THE ALIEN SHIP.
Page 3:
Panel 1: Leenas room at night. The sleeping quarters are as high-tech, aesthetically pleasing and clean as their living area. Leena lies sleeping, suspended about a foot off the ground by a force field. Her sleep is restless.
Caption: "...OF COURSE WE'RE A LONG WAY FROM THAT."
Panel 2: Large panel. Leena and the man from the other ship are embracing each other. They float together in space, in the gap between the two ships. Neither of them are wearing any kind of space-suit or visible means of keeping them alive. Probably this should take up most of the page, with panels 1 and 3 inset into it.
Caption: I DREAM I MEET MY LOVE OUT IN SPACE, BETWEEN THE TWO SHIPS. WE WEAR NO FORCE-FIELDS YET THE VACUUM DOES NOT KILL US, WE HOLD EACH OTHER BUT THERE IS NO EXPLOSION.
Panel 3: Close up of their faces as they kiss.
Caption: WE KISS.
Panel 4: Close up of her eyes as they snap open and she wakes up. Beads of sweat are dotted over her brow.
Caption: I AWAKE. OBSOLETE SWEAT GLANDS UNUSED SINCE CHILDHOOD HAVE REACTIVATED AND IT TAKES ME A WHILE TO IDENTIFY THE WETNESS ON Y SKIN.
Panel 5: Leena has gotten up and dressed and is leaving her room.
Caption: I DRESS QUICKLY AND GO TO THE LAB. I KNOW NOW WHAT I SHOULD DO.
Page 4:
Panel 1: Leenas hands as they pick up a piece of equipment: The Matter converter, its an octagonal metal device about 10 cm in diameter, and has various straps attached to it.
Caption: MY HEART POUNDS IN MY EARS LIKE THUNDER.
Panel 2: Elena is walking down a curving metal corridor, the matter converter tucked under her arm.
Caption: I'M DOING A TERRIBLE THING, I HAVE STOLEN, I AM ABUSING PEOPLES TRUST. I AM PLACING MYSELF IN DANGER. ALL BECAUSE OF SOMEONE I HAVE ONLY EVER SEEN ACROSS A GULF OF VACUUM.
Panel 3: We're in one of the ships airlocks, at the far end we see the airlock doors. Leena has strapped the matter converter onto her body, the octagonal box sitting in the centre of her chest. She is holding a clear face mask, attached by a tube to a tiny gas cylinder which she is clipping onto her belt.
Caption: AND YET I MUST, I AM DRIVEN. I KNOW THAT THIS IS RIGHT.
Leena: DEPRESSURISE.
Panel 4: Leea is fixing her air mask on, it fits over her nose and mouth, and is made out of a clear plastic material so we can see through it. As she does this she is having a conversation with the disembodied voice of the ship.
Disembodied voice: LEENA, THIS IS THE SHIP. I'M AFRAID I'M GOING TO HAVE TO STOP YOU. DON'T KNOW WHY YOU WANT TO GO OUT THERE, BUT AT THIS STAGE I DON'T THINK ITS A...
Leena: SHIP, EMERGENCY OVERRIDE CODE POLYHEDRAL DELTAL FIVE.
Panel 5: Same view as before. We see "steam" at the air vent as the air whistles out of the chamber. The voice of the ship fades out.
Disembodied voice (trailing off at the end): LEENA - *
Leena: I'M SORRY. I HAVE TO DO THIS.
Page 5:
Panel 1: Leena floats out of the airlock and into space. She touches a control on the matter converter and a glowing aura surrounds her. We see the surface of her ship and the open airlock door behind her.
Caption: I WAIT UNTIL I AM CLEAR OF THE SHIP BEFORE ACTIVATING THE MATTER CONVERTOR. MY BODY TINGLES AS PROTONS AND ELECTRONS REVERSE THEIR CHARGE. I AM ANTIMATTER NOW.
Panel 2: Over Leenas shoulder we see the surface of the Antimatter ship. A similar airlock has opened and out has come the alien man. He too is wearing a air mask and is surrounded by a glowing force field, though his technology is of a different design.
Caption: ACROSS THE VOID MY LOVE HAS COME OUT TO MEET ME, AS IF DRIVEN BY THE SAME MAD IMPULSE.
Panel 3: They meet each other in space. Leenas hand reaches out to touch his. We can see that the alien man is wearing a device on a his chest that looks roughly similar to Leenas matter converter
Caption: FINALLY I SHALL BE IN HIS ARMS. I REACH OUT TO TOUCH HIM, AND THEN I REALISE WHAT HE'S DOING OUT HERE...
Panel 4: Small panel. Close up on the alien mans matter converter.
Caption: HE'S WEARING A MATER CONVERTER TOO.
Panel 5: A massive explosion in space, totally destroying the two lovers. Massive damage is also being inflicted upon the two huge spaceships.
END
Panel 1: Large panel. Two spaceships hang in space alongside each other. Both are massive and slab like, the size of a city, and they have similar yet distinct designs. The two long sides of the ships face each other with a slim but noticeable gap between them, like a pair of locomotives alongside each other in a station. They are against a background of the galactic spiral as seen from the very edge: thousands of stars in a great swirl.
Caption: OUT PAST THE GALACTIC RIM OUR TWO SHIPS FACE EACH OTHER, LIKE STRANGE DANCERS IN THE VOID.
Title: ANTIMATTER
Panel 2: Interior of the first ship. Leena, our main character, standing at a large round, slightly concave window, looking out into space at the massive ship opposite her own. Leena is human, but thousands of years of genetic manipulation and adaptation to space means she looks slightly different from the humans of today: beautiful, but weird looking, slightly alien. She has a slightly sad expression.
Caption: ACROSS THE GULF OF SPACE I LOOK ACROSS TO MY LOVE, AND HE LOOKS BACK AT ME.
Panel 3: What Leena can see: A window on the ship opposite, at which stands a man, also apparently human, also slightly alien (though in different ways to Leena). He's staring across the gulf of space back at Leena.
Caption: THOUGH WE HAVE NO COMMON LANGUAGE AND THE MEREST TOUCH WOULD MEAN OUR DESTRUCTION I KNOW I WILL LOVE HIM FOREVER.
Panel 4: Over Leenas shoulder we see Veen, another crewmember of the ship, as he enters the room. He has the same slightly alien characteristics as Leena, but is smaller, and his features are slightly weaslely
Veen: COME HERE TO STARE AT THE DAMN THING AGAIN, LEENA? I DON'T LIKE THE WAY WE'RE SO CLOSE TO IT.
Panel 5: Leena passes her hand over some kind of control and the window begins to close: metal lids move up from the top and the bottom like a gigantic eye closing.
Leena: THE SHIP LIKES TO BE THIS CLOSE. YOU KNOW THAT IT CAN REACT IN TIME TO PREVENT ANY COLLISION.
Panel 6: Same view as panel 5. Leena has turned towards us and is moving out of the frame as she leaves the room. Behind her the window has almost completely closed.
Leena: BESIDES, IT GIVES US SUCH A WONDERFUL VIEW.
Page 2:
Panel 1: Hoffman, an elderly human scientist, is talking with great enthusiasm while sitting at a low table. Tablet like computers showing vast amounts of data are spread out on the table in front of him.
Hoffman: ITS INCREDIBLE. SO FAR OUT INTO DEEP SPACE WE RUN INTO A SHIP THE SAME SIZE AS OUR OWN, OF A SIMILAR DESIGN, WITH A HUMAN LOOKING CREW, BUT NO KNOWN LANGUAGE AND COMPOSED ENTIRELY OF ANTIMATTER.
ITS LIKE LOOKING INTO SOME BIZARRE MIRROR.
Panel 2: Large panel. We're within some kind of lounge area within the ship. Hoffman is seated at a coffee table, while Veen approaches, holding a cup full of some kind of liquid. Behind him we see Leena getting a similar cup from a machine in the wall. Everything impossibly high-tech, beautifully designed, clean. These people are living a very refined life, all the basic problems of space travel were solved centuries ago and they are long past the point where there would be ducts and dirty machinery everywhere.
Veen: WHAT WORRIES ME. THE PRESENCE OF SO MUCH ANTIMATTER SUGGESTS ITS MUCH MORE ABUNDANT OUT HERE. WHAT IF WE SHOULD DRIFT INTO A CLOUD OF THE STUFF?
Hoffman: BOOM! WE'D BE VAPORISED. BUT THAT'S HIGHLY UNLIKELY. I THINK ITS MORE LIKELY THEY'VE CROSSED OVER FROM SOME KIND OF ANTIMATTER UNIVERSE. WE'LL KNOW MORE ONCE WE'VE ESTABLISHED COMMUNICATIONS WITH THEM.
Panel 3: Leenas face. She's curious.
Leena: HOW IS THAT COMING?
Panel 4: Back to Hoffman sitting in his chair. He loves to talk.
Hoffman: SLOWLY, SLOWLY. THEY LOOK SO HUMAN, AND YET THEIR LANGUAGE IS LINGUISTICALLY DIFFERENT FROM ANYTHING WE'VE EVER ENCOUNTERED.
Panel 5: Leenas face. She's slightly surprised.
Hoffman (offpanel): STILL, WE'VE MADE GOOD PROGRESS ELSEWHERE. I'VE JURY RIGGED A MATTER CONVERTER. IT'S A MODIFICATION OF OUR PERSONAL FORCE FIELD TECHNOLOGY: IT'LL CONVERT THE WEARER INTO ANTIMATTER SO THAT THEY CAN SAFELY INTERACT WITH THE ALIEN SHIP.
Page 3:
Panel 1: Leenas room at night. The sleeping quarters are as high-tech, aesthetically pleasing and clean as their living area. Leena lies sleeping, suspended about a foot off the ground by a force field. Her sleep is restless.
Caption: "...OF COURSE WE'RE A LONG WAY FROM THAT."
Panel 2: Large panel. Leena and the man from the other ship are embracing each other. They float together in space, in the gap between the two ships. Neither of them are wearing any kind of space-suit or visible means of keeping them alive. Probably this should take up most of the page, with panels 1 and 3 inset into it.
Caption: I DREAM I MEET MY LOVE OUT IN SPACE, BETWEEN THE TWO SHIPS. WE WEAR NO FORCE-FIELDS YET THE VACUUM DOES NOT KILL US, WE HOLD EACH OTHER BUT THERE IS NO EXPLOSION.
Panel 3: Close up of their faces as they kiss.
Caption: WE KISS.
Panel 4: Close up of her eyes as they snap open and she wakes up. Beads of sweat are dotted over her brow.
Caption: I AWAKE. OBSOLETE SWEAT GLANDS UNUSED SINCE CHILDHOOD HAVE REACTIVATED AND IT TAKES ME A WHILE TO IDENTIFY THE WETNESS ON Y SKIN.
Panel 5: Leena has gotten up and dressed and is leaving her room.
Caption: I DRESS QUICKLY AND GO TO THE LAB. I KNOW NOW WHAT I SHOULD DO.
Page 4:
Panel 1: Leenas hands as they pick up a piece of equipment: The Matter converter, its an octagonal metal device about 10 cm in diameter, and has various straps attached to it.
Caption: MY HEART POUNDS IN MY EARS LIKE THUNDER.
Panel 2: Elena is walking down a curving metal corridor, the matter converter tucked under her arm.
Caption: I'M DOING A TERRIBLE THING, I HAVE STOLEN, I AM ABUSING PEOPLES TRUST. I AM PLACING MYSELF IN DANGER. ALL BECAUSE OF SOMEONE I HAVE ONLY EVER SEEN ACROSS A GULF OF VACUUM.
Panel 3: We're in one of the ships airlocks, at the far end we see the airlock doors. Leena has strapped the matter converter onto her body, the octagonal box sitting in the centre of her chest. She is holding a clear face mask, attached by a tube to a tiny gas cylinder which she is clipping onto her belt.
Caption: AND YET I MUST, I AM DRIVEN. I KNOW THAT THIS IS RIGHT.
Leena: DEPRESSURISE.
Panel 4: Leea is fixing her air mask on, it fits over her nose and mouth, and is made out of a clear plastic material so we can see through it. As she does this she is having a conversation with the disembodied voice of the ship.
Disembodied voice: LEENA, THIS IS THE SHIP. I'M AFRAID I'M GOING TO HAVE TO STOP YOU. DON'T KNOW WHY YOU WANT TO GO OUT THERE, BUT AT THIS STAGE I DON'T THINK ITS A...
Leena: SHIP, EMERGENCY OVERRIDE CODE POLYHEDRAL DELTAL FIVE.
Panel 5: Same view as before. We see "steam" at the air vent as the air whistles out of the chamber. The voice of the ship fades out.
Disembodied voice (trailing off at the end): LEENA - *
Leena: I'M SORRY. I HAVE TO DO THIS.
Page 5:
Panel 1: Leena floats out of the airlock and into space. She touches a control on the matter converter and a glowing aura surrounds her. We see the surface of her ship and the open airlock door behind her.
Caption: I WAIT UNTIL I AM CLEAR OF THE SHIP BEFORE ACTIVATING THE MATTER CONVERTOR. MY BODY TINGLES AS PROTONS AND ELECTRONS REVERSE THEIR CHARGE. I AM ANTIMATTER NOW.
Panel 2: Over Leenas shoulder we see the surface of the Antimatter ship. A similar airlock has opened and out has come the alien man. He too is wearing a air mask and is surrounded by a glowing force field, though his technology is of a different design.
Caption: ACROSS THE VOID MY LOVE HAS COME OUT TO MEET ME, AS IF DRIVEN BY THE SAME MAD IMPULSE.
Panel 3: They meet each other in space. Leenas hand reaches out to touch his. We can see that the alien man is wearing a device on a his chest that looks roughly similar to Leenas matter converter
Caption: FINALLY I SHALL BE IN HIS ARMS. I REACH OUT TO TOUCH HIM, AND THEN I REALISE WHAT HE'S DOING OUT HERE...
Panel 4: Small panel. Close up on the alien mans matter converter.
Caption: HE'S WEARING A MATER CONVERTER TOO.
Panel 5: A massive explosion in space, totally destroying the two lovers. Massive damage is also being inflicted upon the two huge spaceships.
END