Over your clothes. Holy shit.
Embarrassed, Pavel pulls his trousers back up. While he puts his egg basket on, Bacho continues to smoke. And talk.
BACHO
You ever go hunting?
PAVEL
No.
BACHO
Well, today's your lucky day. You, me, that one-eyed Armenian in the tent? Garo? We do animal control.
PAVEL Animal control?
Bacho makes a gun gesture with his hand.
BACHO
They're radioactive, so that's that with them. And the best part? It's mostly pets. They're happy to see you, they run right up to you! Bang! Load the bodies on a truck, dump them in a pit, bury them in concrete... and then we drink.
Pavel finishes tying the egg basket on.
BACHO
As much vodka as you want, plus a thousand rubles. It's almost worth it, you know?
Without warning, he SLAPS his hand hard against Pavel's crotch. Right in the egg basket. Pavel flinches in pain.
BACHO
Good. Let's go get you a gun. Bacho strides off, and once again, Pavel follows.
418 EXT. MOSCOW UNIVERSITY LIBRARY - DAY 418
The foreboding building, with its jutting central tower covered in bone-white tile, looks more like a prison fortress than a repository of knowledge.
419 INT. SECURITY CHECK-IN - CONTINUOUS 419
Khomyuk waits by a check-in desk in front of a security gate. A SECURITY OFFICER - male, 30's, has her credentials in front of him on his desk.
He painstakingly records her information into a LOGBOOK. No sound but the scratching of his pen, a tunk-tunk-tunk of an unseen clock, and the hum of overhead lights.
Finally, he hands her credentials back, then hits a button. There's a BUZZ, and the security gate clicks open.
420 INT. LIBRARY ARCHIVE - LATER 420
A large, two-level reading room. Long wooden tables run the length of it. KHOMYUK sits alone at the end of one of the tables. Stacks of books. Journals. Maps. Notepads.
And a THICK BINDER with page after page of a dot matrix printout... an infodump from a computer, no doubt.
We catch bits of her work as she progresses. Mathematical calculations. Notations referring to time of day. Marked-up diagrams of a nuclear reactor. Photographs of control room instrumentation... panel schematics...
She circles A3-5 (AZ-5 in Cyrillic) on a schematic.
Leans back. Thinks. Then checks one of her books. No. What she's looking for won't be in there. She tears a blank page from her notepad and starts writing.
421 INT. LIBRARY ARCHIVE - REFERENCE DESK - LATER 421
An elderly male librarian sits behind an open window... a bit like a bank teller. Behind him, a few desks and walls of card catalogs. The secure reference section.
He looks up from his work. Sees Khomyuk waiting.
LIBRARIAN
Yes?
She hands him the piece of note paper through the window.
KHOMYUK I need to see the following documents. They're listed as permission only.
He takes the paper... and then a LETTER she hands him.
KHOMYUK
I'm working for the Central Committee.
He puts on his glasses. But before he can even read the letter, a MAN IN A SUIT, 40 comes into view behind him.
The KGB agent takes the list from the old man, who meekly looks down without protest. He walks back to a desk. Picks up a phone. Dials.
While he mutters to someone on the phone, Khomyuk waits quietly. The old librarian still keeps his eyes down. Doesn't want to know her. Doesn't want trouble.
THE AGENT - has a BLACK PENCIL in his hand. Whoever he's called is giving him instructions. He swipes the pencil across her list. Once... twice... three times...
Khomyuk holds her anger in. The agent finally hangs up. Walks back to the librarian. Puts the piece of paper down.
Every single request has been CROSSED OUT except for one.
AGENT
She can have that one.
The agent lifts his head to stare at Khomyuk. A challenge for her to argue. But all he gets back is:
KHOMYUK Thank you, comrade.
He gives a little smile. Oh well. Perhaps next time.
422 EXT. FARMLAND - DAY 422
Over SCORE... no other sound... SLO-MO... dreamlike...
BIRD'S EYE VIEW - an enormous, wide-open cabbage field. NEAT ROWS of vegetables. Then:
THREE BULLDOZERS - enter frame, moving in a line, perfect unison, destroying the harvest in rows just as neat.
423 EXT. VILLAGE - DAY 423
SCORE/SLO-MO continues:
THREE CHOPPERS glide like mosquitoes over a small, abandoned village, each dumping FOUR EVEN STREAMS of BROWN DECONTAMINANT, which land on everything like paint.
424 EXT. PRIPYAT STREET - DAY 424
SCORE/SLO-MO continues
PUMP TRUCKS roll down the main street, each spraying an arc of BROWN FOAM DECONTAMINANT to the side.
MEN IN PROTECTIVE SUITS - hoods drawn tight, faces covered in GAS MASKS, walk in front of the procession of trucks, spraying the road in a waving motion with handheld-nozzles connected to TANKS strapped to their back.
It almost seems celebratory. Some kind of sick parade...
FADE TO BLACK
OMITTED 425
OMITTED 426
A DARK BLOB AGAINST BLUE - OUT OF FOCUS - RESOLVES TO: 427
EXT. ROOF - KATYA - DAY 428
A chunk of GRAPHITE. Scattered beyond it, more of the same. The bits of rock sitting on the scorched pitch-covered roof give the impression of an alien surface.
And adding to that eerie sense... in the B.G., we see a FOUR-WHEELED VEHICLE - like a retrofuturistic go-cart, sitting on the roof.
The LUNAR ROVER. It's about eight feet long. Steel piping. Cameras mounted on articulated arms. The tires are paper thin, with barely-there hubs made of needle-like spokes.
A BULLDOZER ARM AND BLADE have been welded onto its front.
429 INT. REMOTE COMMAND CENTER - CONTINUOUS 429
A small, undamaged room under the roof.
OPERATORS sit at a small table. Control equipment and small, square TELEVISION MONITORS are stacked. And a COMPUTER. On the walls, PHOTOS of the roof.
A boxy CONTROL MODULE sits on the desk. Cables running in and out. Two switches. Two rows of LIGHTS. The lights are all currently RED.
Legasov and Shcherbina watch, nervous, as Tarakanov waits with a walkie-talkie by his ear. Then:
WALKIE-TALKIE
We're clear.
Tarakanov takes a breath. Then to his operators:
TARAKANOV Bring up the cameras.
The lead operator, JUGHASHVILI, hits the first switch on the control module. THREE RED LIGHTS - turn GREEN. The other three remain red.
THE MONITORS - flicker to life. Different IMAGES of the roof from the rover's cameras. And ONE REMOTE SITE CAMERA showing the LUNAR ROVER ITSELF.
TARAKANOV
Signal?
JUGHASHVILI Acceptable. Running onboard diagnostics.
TARAKANOV Tell me when we can start moving it.
Shcherbina moves in closer to stare at the montior.
SHCHERBINA To think that's what they put on the moon...
LEGASOV Well, not that one.
SHCHERBINA (glares) I know not that one.
Legasov shrugs. Sorry.
TARAKANOV This rover was in storage, and I'm told they can build two more. That should cover Katya and Nina.
SHCHERBINA
And Masha?
TARAKANOV
The Central Committee has informed me they've found something that can work up there. From the outside.
LEGASOV
American?
TARAKANOV Of course not. No, it's a German police robot. West German, though. You can imagine that wasn't easy.
JUGHASHVILI Diagnostics complete, ready to engage main power and motor.
Legasov and Shcherbina get ready. If this doesn't work...