09
INT FACILITY FACTORY FLOOR
ALICIA, now wearing a pair of eyeglass-styled safety goggles, leads the group out of a corridor and into a cavernous industrial space. Each member of the group blinks as their eyes adjust to the glare of the lighting in this room.
ALICIA
This is our last stop. This building isn't just a hidden underground facility; it exists for all to see, and this is the ground floor. As far as the outside world knows, this perfectly ordinary factory is all there is to see at this location.
SEQUENCE OF QUICK CUTS
AARÓN and ZEKE look around and seem much more familiar than the others with what they see. Row upon row of conveyor belts ferry little piles of parts through a series of machines and past human operators here and there. A closer look reveals shiny brass cartridge casings of multiple shapes and sizes being filled with precise amounts of powder before a similarly-diverse array of lead slugs are gently tamped into place by automated rods. The filled casings are rotated as electronic eyes check for irregularities across different wavelengths of the spectrum, then an even more delicate machine carefully fits primer caps into place. The finished cartridges are inspected by yet another machine, and periodically one or two are funneled off to the side and carried off by a human inspector. Finally, a grooved belt lined with soft rubber slowly gathers similar cartridges and funnels them to waiting cardboard cartons at the end of the line.
ZEKE
Looks like every munitions factory I've ever seen - and that's quite a few.
ALICIA
Tiger Eye Performance Ammunition is a small, independent supplier of premium-quality pistol, rifle, and shotgun ammunition for sportsmen, law enforcement, and state militias. Not enough output to keep up with the needs of the Federal government - which is just fine with us.
AARÓN notices a handful of smaller production lines at the far end of the floor. They appear to have several additional machines crammed into a comparatively tighter space.
AARÓN
So if most of this is premium-quality munitions, I'm guessing those lines are turning out... whatever's beyond premium quality?
It doesn't look like ALICIA has been fielding many questions throughout this tour.
ALICIA
(impatiently)
The lines down there are responsible for special ammunition types exclusively for the use of Atlas personnel.
DAVE
(half jokingly)
Silver bullets?
ALICIA ignores him.
ALICIA
You'll learn all about them sometime this week... if you last that long.
DAVE looks away sheepishly and puts his hands in his pockets as the group moves on.
ALICIA
That's all for now. Our next stop is the library. Quiz time.
CUT TO NEXT SCENE
