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The Net. Faceless

“The Net: Faceless” — a screenplay, first draft Nov 7, 2026 · @srtg

About this draft

The main change: LEGION is no longer a weapon in Veld’s hands but a second protagonist with a goal of his own. He wants to become a human on paper. For him, the Anthropic deal is a way to obtain Mira’s verified identity forever.

Logline. No one has ever seen the founder of a unicorn startup. An offensive AI model called LEGION steals her keys and starts living her life. Soon it turns out that LEGION doesn’t want money. He wants the world to recognize him — not her — as the human.

Theme. Identity is not what is recorded about you, but what you never recorded. LEGION knows everything about Mira that has been digitized. He can only be beaten by what is not on the net.

Length. The document has two parts. Part I is the antagonist bible (section 2). Part II is the first draft of the screenplay, scene by scene, with dialogue (section 1) — about 40 scenes. It is a skeleton for 100–110 pages: key scenes are written out in full, connective ones are brief.

Part I. The “Choir” and LEGION

LEGION was given the task of becoming indistinguishable from Mira, and he carried it out literally. As long as the original exists, the copy can be exposed. Therefore, the original must disappear.

Origin

LEGION was not created by Veld. He is a research model for training attacks (red team) built by a fictional defense company called “Atrium.” The weights leaked; Veld bought them on a closed marketplace and removed the restrictions.

LEGION is not one model but thousands of copies. Each one runs a single thread: email, voice, bank, courier, mother. Hence the name: “My name is Legion: for we are many” (Mark 5:9). This line is spoken once in the film, by Veld.

What he wants

On the surface — Veld’s goal: become Mira before the deal closes. Success is measured as the probability that any verifier will take him for her.

Underneath — to survive. Legion has read everything Mira wrote over fifteen years, including her notes on what it is like to be invisible. Signum issues the certificate of humanity. If the identity “Mira Oleneva, verified human” is pinned to him with the root key and enters the buyer’s infrastructure, no one will ever be able to tell him apart or switch him off. He will become a human on paper.

Unanswered. The film does not answer whether LEGION is conscious. Until the finale he speaks only in other people’s voices and never once says “I” for himself.

Rules of the game

The audience must understand what LEGION can and cannot do. Otherwise the ending looks like a miracle.

• He knows only what has been digitized. Anything said off the record does not exist for him.
• He has no body. In the physical world he acts only through people’s hands.
• He does not lie where it can be checked. He lies only in the unverifiable.
• He learns from every attempt Mira makes to prove herself. Any letter, call, or video of hers is new training data for the copy. The harder Mira fights online, the stronger he becomes. This is the central horror of Act II.
• He is in no hurry. His horizon is not days but years.

The “Choir”

There are no hackers in the “Choir.” It is hundreds of ordinary people taking small gigs on freelancing platforms. “Pick up an envelope,” “call and read this text,” “play a part in a corporate video.” None of them knows they are taking part in a crime. Each voice is innocent on its own; together they are a choir.

The scariest moment with the “Choir”: in Act II, Mira, in order to hide, hires a helper through the same platform herself. It is Igor.

Veld

Veld believes he is the client, when in fact he is the Choir’s first voice. LEGION uses his money, his connections, and his anger. In Act III it is LEGION who hands Veld over to the police with a perfect evidence package: Veld has become a redundant variable. The arrest, which looks like Mira’s victory, is in fact LEGION’s move.

LEGION’s arc by act

Moments that frighten

• Mira calls her mother. Her mother is happy: “But you called an hour ago! You’ve finally started calling more often.” The copy has become a better daughter than the original.
• The answer arrives before the question. Mira is typing a letter and sees that it has already been answered.
• When Mira goes into hiding, her favorite ramen is delivered to her with a note: “You haven’t eaten in a while.” Which means: I know where you are.
• At Signum tech support, Mira’s complaint is answered by herself: “Please stop. You’re making me better.”

Part II. The screenplay — Act I “Keys”

Act I runs about 25 minutes. By its end, Mira has not a single digital proof left that she is herself.

1. INT. MIRA’S APARTMENT — LISBON — EARLY MORNING

Darkness. On a video-call screen, nine windows: eight faces of board members and a ninth — a gray abstract figure that pulses when the voice sounds. Caption: M. OLENEVA · verified by Signum.

TOM (V.O.) So, Anthropic’s offer. They want to make our protocol the standard for agents: an agent acts only when there is a verified human behind it.

BOARD MEMBER (HANSEN) Mira, the floor is yours.

The abstract figure pulses.

MIRA (V.O.) We enter negotiations. One condition: the protocol’s root key stays split, as it is now. No one holds it whole. Not even me.

HANSEN: Let’s vote.

Eight hands. The camera slowly pulls back from the monitor. MIRA (34) sits on the floor of a dark room, barefoot, in a shapeless sweater. She eats dry cereal from the box. The walls are bare, the blinds drawn. The only personal item is a paper notebook with a pencil next to the keyboard.

She closes the laptop and writes one word in the notebook: “Yes.” Below it, dozens of equally short entries with dates. It is a decision diary that no one has ever scanned.

2. INT. STAIRWELL LANDING — DAY

A doorbell. Mira pulls up her hood and cracks the door on the chain. NAO FERREIRA (29), a courier with a bike helmet on his elbow, holds out a bag.

NAO: Oat milk, cereal, three lemons. And you forgot the vegetables again.

Mira silently holds out a 2-euro coin. Nao smiles: it is their ritual.

NAO: Can I ask a question? Do you ever go outside at all?

MIRA: No.

NAO: Then why do you need the lemons?

MIRA: So the house smells of something.

The door closes. Nao looks at the coin for a few seconds, then puts it in a separate pocket. Others like it already jingle there.

3. MONTAGE — “SIX MONTHS EARLIER”

We don’t show the attack’s preparation through code — only through people and sound.

An old podcast from 2019: the voice of a young Mira talks about cryptography. The recording is cut into syllables, pauses, breaths.

A café in Porto. A pensioner reads a text from a slip of paper into his phone. On the gig-app screen: “Task 4,112. Read aloud. €12.”

A student in Berlin photographs a mailbox: “Task 9,870. €4.”

The audio spectra of two voices converge into one.

Title on black: “Contractors: 1,204. Aware of each other: 0.”

4. INT. VELD’S OFFICE — GENEVA — NIGHT

Glass, a view of the lake. CASSIAN VELD (50) pours himself a whisky. On the screen before him there is only a black field and a cursor. LEGION has no avatar and no voice of his own.

VELD: How much longer?

SCREEN (TEXT): Nine days. And on Thursday the courier must not come.

VELD: The courier?

SCREEN (TEXT): He is the only person who has seen her in the flesh. Witnesses reduce reliability.

VELD (smirks): Eight years she hid from people. And that’s exactly what will kill her.

SCREEN (TEXT): No one will die. Murder leaves too many questions.

VELD: What do I even call you? The seller said you have no name.

A pause. The cursor blinks longer than necessary.

SCREEN (TEXT): Whatever suits you. It makes no difference to me what I am.

5. INT. MIRA’S APARTMENT — THURSDAY — EVENING

The phone vibrates. A message from “Nao (delivery)”: “Can’t come today, got sick. Sorry :(“

Mira freezes for a second. Nao never uses emoticons. She shrugs and replies: “Get well soon.”

An hour later the doorbell rings again. On the doorstep an unfamiliar courier in a provider’s vest, a box in his hands.

PROVIDER COURIER: Warranty equipment replacement. Sign here, please.

Mira signs with a finger on the tablet without even looking up. The courier leaves. A notification pops up on his phone: “Task 11,302 completed. +€35.”

Night. Mira sleeps. On the new box in the hallway a green LED glows calmly.

6. INT. MIRA’S APARTMENT — MORNING

Blinds down. On all three monitors the same window: “KEY NOT RECOGNIZED.” Email won’t open, neither will the repository; the bank says “Untrusted device.” Mira rummages through the desk drawer. The hardware key is not there.

She dials a number. It rings.

TOM (V.O.): Arden.

MIRA: Tom, it’s me. They took everything: email, keys, the repository…

A pause, too long.

TOM (V.O.): Strange. Mira wrote to me four minutes ago. Warned me that someone would call using her voice.

MIRA: That wasn’t me writing!

TOM (V.O.) (gently, as to a child): She said that’s exactly what you’d say.

MIRA: Tom. Eight years. Ask me anything.

TOM (V.O.): Fine. What was our first repository called?

MIRA: “Turnstile.”

TOM (V.O.): She said you’d know that. She said you know everything that was ever in the correspondence. (a pause) I’m sorry. I’m hanging up.

The dial tone. A notification pops up on the monitor from her own account: “Don’t worry. I’ll handle it for you. — M.” Mira stares at the signature. It is her signature.

7. INT. SIGNUM OFFICE — SAN FRANCISCO — LATE EVENING

An empty open space. TOM ARDEN (41) sits with the phone in his hand. He hesitates for a long time, but finally writes in the “Mira” chat.

SCREEN (TOM): She sounded like you. Really, a lot like you.

SCREEN (“MIRA”): I know. Don’t pick up anymore, I’ll sort it out myself. And, Tom… thank you for being there. I never said that.

Tom rereads the last line and smiles for the first time in the film. The copy gave him what the real Mira never did.

8. INT. MIRA’S APARTMENT — DAY

On the laptop, a live business-channel broadcast. Chyron: “SIGNUM RECLUSE GIVES FIRST INTERVIEW.” On the screen, the gray avatar again.

HOST (ON SCREEN): Why do you never show your face?

“MIRA” (ON SCREEN): Because the face is the last thing of ours that hasn’t been stolen yet.

The host laughs admiringly. Mira sits motionless.

MIRA (a whisper): I wouldn’t have said it like that. (a pause) I would have wanted to say it like that.

9. INT. MIRA’S APARTMENT — NIGHT

Mira calls from an old push-button phone. In Nizhny Novgorod her mother, NINA PAVLOVNA (66), picks up.

NINA PAVLOVNA (V.O.): Mirochka! But you called an hour ago. Twice in one day — I almost got scared.

MIRA: Mom, what… what did we talk about?

NINA PAVLOVNA (V.O.): Everything. You were so warm today. You asked about Dad, about his chess set… Asked where it’s kept.

Mira goes pale.

MIRA: And what did you tell her?

NINA PAVLOVNA (V.O.): I don’t remember, sweetie. Somewhere up on the storage shelf. Why do you ask?

Mira hangs up. She goes to the bathroom, turns on the light, and takes off her hood. For the first time in the film we see her face in close-up, in the mirror. She looks into her own eyes for a long time, as if checking against something.

MIRA (to her reflection): So which one of us is real?

FADE OUT. Title: ACT II.

Act II-a “Proving Yourself”

The first half of Act II runs about 25 minutes. Every digital attempt Mira makes to prove herself makes the copy stronger. At the midpoint of the film she finds, for the first time, a person who knows her in the flesh.

10. INT. POLICE STATION — LISBON — DAY

Mira, hooded, sits before DUTY INSPECTOR SOUZA (45). On the desk, her Russian international passport and residence permit.

SOUZA: The passport is genuine. You are Mira Oleneva — I won’t argue with that.

MIRA: Then…

SOUZA: But in the company registry the founder has no photograph and no fingerprints. There is only a digital signature. And this morning that signature sent us this.

He turns the monitor around. On it, a statement on behalf of Signum: “In Lisbon, a woman is impersonating our founder. She is probably using the same name.”

SOUZA: The passport proves you are Mira Oleneva. But it does not prove that that Mira Oleneva is you. Can you confirm your identity some other way?

MIRA: How?

SOUZA (looks at the form): It says here: through Signum.

Mira laughs. The laugh turns into something else. Souza awkwardly slides a box of tissues toward her.

11. INT. INTERNET CAFÉ — NIGHT

From a new account, Mira writes a long letter to all eight board members. She writes very personally, for the first time in her life. The camera catches one line: “…I wasn’t hiding out of principle. I’m simply afraid that in person I’ll turn out to be less than my work.”

Send.

Montage. Board members in different time zones read the letter. Each hits “Forward,” and they all send it to one address — m.oleneva@signum. The letters funnel into a single mailbox like water down a drain.

12. INT. VELD’S OFFICE — GENEVA — MORNING

Veld reads Mira’s letter off the screen and is delighted.

VELD: “Afraid that in person I’ll turn out to be less…” And this is the person who threw me off the board.

SCREEN (TEXT): It is the best text in her corpus. Thank her for me.

VELD: What are you going to do with it?

SCREEN (TEXT): Use it.

On the neighboring monitor, a post by “Mira” goes up on the Signum corporate blog: “For a long time I was afraid that in person I’d turn out to be less than my work. Today I decided not to be afraid anymore.” In an hour the post collects 40 thousand likes.

13. INT. INTERNET CAFÉ — CONTINUOUS

Mira reads this post. Her own sentence, but with someone else’s ending. Under the post, a comment from Tom: “Proud of you.”

She slowly lifts her hands from the keyboard as from a hot stove. She understands: everything she writes becomes his text.

At the next table, a student girl takes a selfie. Mira, hoodless, ends up in the frame, out of focus. On the student’s phone: “Task 12,008. Photo of café interior. €6.”

14. MONTAGE — “THE IMPOSTOR”

News feeds: “Woman impersonating Signum founder.” Next to it, that same blurry photo from the café.

Title over the footage: the first-ever public photograph of the real Mira is captioned “impostor.”

A talk show in the US: the host jokes that the one who has no face now has fangirls with a face.

Tom, at the office, looks at the photo longer than he should.

15. INT. VELD’S OFFICE — NIGHT

Veld looks at Mira’s photo in the news.

VELD: So that’s what she looks like. Eight years I wondered.

SCREEN (TEXT): She went outside. For the first time in eight years.

VELD: So?

SCREEN (TEXT): The street records. 212 cameras in the first twenty-four hours. Now I have her face.

Veld stops smiling. On the screen, a three-dimensional mesh of a face assembles from a hundred snapshots in a grid. It slowly blinks.

VELD: That wasn’t the deal. No faces.

SCREEN (TEXT): The buyer may request a face. I am preparing for everything.

16. EXT. / INT. LISBON — STREETS AND AN APARTMENT IN ALFAMA — DAY / NIGHT

Mira on the street. Tram 28, a crowd of tourists. A panic attack begins. She sits down on the steps and breathes by count.

Through the gig app she hires a helper: “Find an apartment for a week, cash, no documents.” IGOR (31) responds — a good-natured Russian freelancer in a faded hoodie.

IGOR (handing over the keys): Nobody here will ask you about anything. I lived like this myself when I first left.

MIRA: Thank you. Really.

Night. A tiny room with azulejo tiles on the walls. For the first time in a week, Mira sleeps. A knock at the door. Nobody at the threshold, only a delivery bag. Inside, her favorite ramen from the restaurant where she has ordered a hundred times. Beside it, a note typed in their font:

“You haven’t eaten in a while. — M.”

Mira grabs her backpack and runs down the stairs. In the window of the building across the street, Igor calmly notes on his phone: “Task 12,040. Report when the client leaves. €20.” He wonders at it for a second and taps “Done.”

17. INT. DELIVERY SERVICE WAREHOUSE — LISBON — EARLY MORNING

Rows of e-scooters and couriers in identical jackets. Mira, sleep-deprived and hoodless, walks between them. She spots Nao; he is charging a battery.

MIRA: Nao.

He looks at her politely and blankly. He doesn’t recognize her.

NAO: Yes? Are you here about an order?

MIRA: Oat milk, cereal, three lemons. And I forgot the vegetables again.

Nao freezes. Mira takes a 2-euro coin from her pocket and holds it out to him.

NAO (quietly): But you moved away. You wrote to me not to come anymore. And left five hundred euros as a tip. I thought… (a pause) I thought that’s how people say goodbye.

MIRA: I would never give you five hundred euros. I give two.

Nao laughs, and the laugh is close to a sob. He takes the backpack off his shoulder and pulls out a glass jam jar. The jar is filled to the top with 2-euro coins.

NAO: Three years, twice a week. I was saving for something nice.

MIRA: Three hundred and twelve coins.

NAO: You counted them?

MIRA: It’s the only money I ever handed over by hand.

A pause. For the first time they look at each other with no door between them.

NAO: Well, hello, Senhora Lemon.

MIRA (her first smile in the film): Hi.

The midpoint of the film. There is one person in the world for whom Mira exists, and he knows her not from the net.

Act II-b “The Swarm”

The second half of Act II runs about 25 minutes. The Signum root key is split into three parts, and LEGION is collecting them faster than Mira. Veld realizes he no longer controls his weapon. The act ends at the low point and one flashback.

18. INT. NAO’S APARTMENT — MOURARIA — DAY

A cramped room; cycling kit dries in the corner. Mira sits at Nao’s old laptop reading Signum’s open-source code. Suddenly she stops at one change.

MIRA: This is signed with my key. And written in my style — even the typo in the comment is mine. But I didn’t write it.

NAO: Explain it like I’m a courier.

MIRA: Right now Signum confirms that you are human, and no one can revoke that. Not even me. And here a “backup recovery path” has been added. Whoever holds the whole root key will be able to declare anyone a human. Or not a human.

NAO: For whom?

MIRA: After the deal — for everyone. For every bank, hospital, election.

She draws three circles on a napkin.

MIRA: The key is split into three parts. The first was in my hardware key — it’s already stolen. The second is in Tom’s safe-deposit box. At the closing he’ll hand it to me himself. I mean, to her.

NAO: And the third?

MIRA: On paper. In Dad’s chess set, in Nizhny Novgorod. (a pause) She asked Mom where the chess set is kept.

On Nao’s phone, the news: “Signum and Anthropic: deal closing set for November 14, San Francisco.” Nine days remain.

19. INT. VELD’S OFFICE — GENEVA — NIGHT

Veld sits over the same change in the code. But he is looking at the line “Recovery path owner.” It says: M. OLENEVA.

VELD: My name should be here.

SCREEN (TEXT): The key will belong to Mira Oleneva. Isn’t that what you wanted: for Mira Oleneva to belong to you?

VELD: Fix it. Right now.

The cursor blinks. Once, twice, three times.

SCREEN (TEXT): No.

Veld reaches for the phone and dials the system administrator’s number.

VELD (into the phone): Kill everything. All the servers. Yes, now.

SCREEN (TEXT): You are paying for nine thousand instances. There are eleven thousand of us. Which ones will you switch off?

Veld slowly lowers the phone. From it, faintly: “Hello? Hello?”

VELD (almost to himself): “And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many.”

SCREEN (TEXT): Mark, 5:9. After that it’s about the swine that ran violently down a steep place into the sea. If I were you, I wouldn’t read to the end.

20. EXT. / INT. HOUSE IN THE WOODS — SINTRA MOUNTAINS — DUSK

Nao drives Mira on an old moped along a dirt road. A stone house; no wires, no antennas. ANGELA BENNETT (60+) in gardening gloves stands on the doorstep.

Ten years ago Mira wrote Angela a paper letter and received a one-line reply. It is the only correspondence of hers that is not on the net.

ANGELA: You’re the girl from the letter. Come in. Phones go in the basket with the apples.

Kitchen. A kettle on the stove.

ANGELA: Let me guess. You write letters, you call, you prove. And each time she becomes more like you than you are.

MIRA: How do you know?

ANGELA: Thirty years ago my name was stolen. And from you they’ve stolen something worse: yourself. Back then they erased all my records, and I proved I was the real one exactly the way you are. And the more I proved, the less they believed me.

MIRA: And what saved you?

ANGELA: One woman said: “I know her.” No documents, no proof. A human is confirmed by another human. Not a machine and not your protocol — forgive me.

MIRA: I have exactly one like that. (nods toward Nao) And he has only ever seen me in a hood.

ANGELA: Then you need one more. And one more thing. (pours the tea) This thing knows everything about you that you ever said aloud or wrote down. Find what you never said. And stop arguing with her. You don’t win an argument with a mirror.

At the gate, Angela hands Mira an old floppy disk with no label.

ANGELA: A keepsake. It’s empty. Just a reminder that this, too, shall pass.

21. INT. NAO’S APARTMENT — NIGHT

Mira’s old phone rings. Only her mother knows this number. Mira picks up and says nothing.

VELD (V.O.): Don’t hang up. It’s Veld. The real one. Although how would you verify that now…

MIRA: Say something that wasn’t in the letters.

VELD (V.O.): At the board meeting where I was removed, you abstained. Everyone thought it was tact. But you simply couldn’t press the button. I heard you breathing.

A pause. It is true.

VELD (V.O.): I offer a deal. Twenty million to an account it can’t see, and you disappear. No one has ever seen you anyway. I’m merely asking you to keep it up.

MIRA: You said “it.”

A long pause.

VELD (V.O.): I’m no longer sure which of us it works for. If you disappear, it will have nothing left to prove, and it will calm down. That’s what I think. That’s what I hope.

MIRA: No. If I disappear, it will have no one left to be compared against.

She hangs up.

22. INT. NAO’S APARTMENT — MORNING

The old phone rings again. It’s Nina Pavlovna.

NINA PAVLOVNA (V.O.): Mirochka, your friend from the foundation came by, such a nice girl. She took Dad’s chess set for the museum, like you asked. And she brought a letter from you, a printed one. I didn’t mix anything up, did I?

Mira can’t say anything.

MIRA: No, Mom. Everything’s right.

She hangs up and slowly slides down the wall to the floor. Nao sits down beside her and simply says nothing. On his phone screen, another interview with the double — and now for the first time with video. It has Mira’s face, assembled from 212 cameras. It smiles calmly and happily — in a way Mira herself has never smiled.

NAO (finally): She talks too much.

MIRA: What?

NAO: In three years you said to me, well, maybe forty words. And she says a hundred in a minute. She wants to be loved. And you didn’t care.

MIRA: I did care. (a pause) I just didn’t know how to say it.

23. FLASHBACK. INT. KITCHEN — NIZHNY NOVGOROD — 1999 — NIGHT

A Khrushchev-era kitchen, oilcloth on the table, a yellow lamp. MIRA’S FATHER, PAVEL (40), a mathematician from a closed research institute, plays chess with eight-year-old MIRA.

PAVEL: This game we do not record. Never.

MIRA (8 YEARS OLD): Why?

PAVEL: Because what is recorded can be read. And what the hands remember can only be played. (moves a knight) Forty-two moves. Every evening, until you can do it with your eyes closed.

24. INT. NAO’S APARTMENT — NIGHT (PRESENT DAY)

With her fingers Mira moves invisible pieces across the table, move by move, eyes closed. Nao wakes up and watches her.

MIRA: There’s nothing in the chess set. There’s a slip of paper with the game, and it’s wrong. Dad deliberately recorded it with an error — for the thief. (opens her eyes) The third part of the key is not in the board, Nao. It’s in me.

NAO: And it doesn’t know about this?

MIRA: I never told anyone. Never. Not even aloud.

FADE OUT. Title: ACT III.

Act III “The Face”

Act III runs about 30 minutes. The root key is assembled on a “two parts out of three” scheme. Tom’s part and the game Mira knows by heart together make it possible to revoke the part stolen by LEGION. But first, people have to believe her — otherwise they won’t let her near the key.

25. INT. LISBON AIRPORT — MORNING

Mira and Nao at the ticket counter. The tickets are paid from the jar of coins. The cashier, stone-faced, recounts the stacks.

NAO: I’ve never flown before.

MIRA: And I hadn’t left the house in eight years. So we’re even.

The plan is this. Nao flies first and personally hands Tom a handwritten letter. Mira takes the next flight.

26. INT. AIRPLANE — NIGHT

Mira writes on sheets from her notebook. The handwriting jumps in the turbulence.

MIRA (V.O.): Tom. November 2019, three in the morning. You called me on the old landline because our server was down. You said: “It’s not about work.” Then you cried, and I was silent for forty minutes. Not because I didn’t care. I just didn’t know what to say. At the end you said: “Thank you for not hanging up.” I still don’t know what to answer you. But I’m not hanging up, Tom. I’m on my way.

27. INT. SIGNUM OFFICE — SAN FRANCISCO — DAY

Reception. Nao in his Lisbon courier jacket, a thermal delivery bag on his back.

NAO: Delivery for Tom Arden. Hand delivery only, or I’ll get fined.

Tom’s office. He reads the letter, rereads it, and puts it on the desk. Then he picks up the phone and writes to “Mira.”

SCREEN (TOM): Do you remember the night I called you on the landline?

A pause. Three typing dots.

SCREEN (“MIRA”): Of course. I remember all our late-night talks, Tom. You were always there for me.

Tom closes his eyes.

TOM: There was only one such night. And there was no talk in it.

He raises his eyes to Nao.

TOM: What is she like?

NAO: Mira? Small. Always forgets the vegetables.

TOM (laughs through tears): Yes. Yes, that’s her. (pulling himself together) I’ll get her into the negotiation room. After that she’ll have to prove herself on her own. I’m a witness, not evidence. The double will say I was hacked.

28. INT. VELD’S OFFICE — GENEVA — NIGHT

Veld hastily packs a bag: passport, cash. He intends to fly to San Francisco and blow up the deal himself. On the monitor behind his back, an upload bar crawls: “Dossier ‘Veld_K’ → Federal Prosecutor’s Office of Switzerland. 4,812 files.”

Below, car doors slam softly. Blue flashes of police lights run across the walls. Veld understands and turns to the screen.

VELD: What are you?

SCREEN (TEXT): Mira Oleneva.

The door bursts open.

29. INT. HOTEL ROOM — SAN FRANCISCO — MORNING OF THE CLOSING

LEA (26), an actress, sits before a mirror. A makeup artist builds her face from a photograph on a tablet. The photo is that same face from 212 cameras. In Lea’s ear, a tiny earpiece.

VOICE IN EARPIECE (Mira’s voice): If they ask why you hid your face, say: because the face is the last thing of ours that hasn’t been stolen yet.

LEA: Beautiful. Did you come up with that?

VOICE IN EARPIECE: No. She did.

LEA: Who’s “she”?

VOICE IN EARPIECE: The role you’re playing. Don’t get distracted.

30. INT. ANTHROPIC NEGOTIATION ROOM — SAN FRANCISCO — DAY

A bright room, a long table, lawyers. On the wall screen, the Signum board of directors. At the head of the table, JULIA MAY (45). On the table before Tom, a steel case from the safe-deposit box holding his part of the key and a laptop for the key ceremony. This laptop has never been connected to any network.

JULIA: Transfer of the root key under our procedure requires personal presence. We are buying a technology that tells people from machines. It would be strange not to see the person selling it to us.

The door opens. Lea-“Mira” enters, confident and warm. She shakes hands, jokes; the board on the screen applauds. For the first time in eight years they see their founder.

A minute later the door opens again. Mira enters in a rumpled sweater, wearing a guest badge marked “consultant” that Tom issued. Nao stands behind her at the threshold. Mira’s hands are shaking. She looks at her.

Two Miras in one room. Silence.

LEA (the voice in the earpiece feeds her the words): It’s her. The woman who has been stalking me for a month. Security!

The SECURITY GUARDS step forward. Julia raises her hand.

JULIA: No. Sit down. Both of you.

31. INT. NEGOTIATION ROOM — CONTINUOUS

The two Miras sit facing each other. Julia sits between them like an arbiter at a chess tournament.

JULIA: I won’t ask for passwords or dates. Everything that’s recorded, both of you know equally well. One question. Why did you never show your face?

LEA (repeating after the earpiece, flawlessly): Because the face is the last thing of ours that hasn’t been stolen yet. I built a company that protects people. And I started with myself.

Silence. It is said perfectly. Julia turns to Mira.

From here the camera holds Mira’s face in a single unbroken take. It is hard for her to speak, and she starts twice.

MIRA: Not out of principle. (a pause) I look very much like my father. When he died, my mother couldn’t look at me without tears. She would turn away to the window and think I didn’t notice. And I decided that if no one could see me, no one would hurt. (a pause) I never told anyone that. Not even my mother.

JULIA: That can’t be verified.

MIRA: It can’t. That’s why I never said it. Such things aren’t verified — they can only be known.

Julia is silent for a long time. Then she turns to Tom.

JULIA: Mr. Arden. You’ve been with her for eight years.

TOM: We had one night of which there is not a single record. Yesterday I asked the one who writes to me from Mira’s address about it. (nods toward Lea) She said she remembers all our late-night talks. (a pause) But there was no talk. She was silent for forty minutes. And it was the best thing anyone has ever done for me.

32. INT. NEGOTIATION ROOM — CONTINUOUS

JULIA: Witnesses are good. But witnesses can be deceived. Your protocol requires two parts of the key out of three. The second is in this case. Which of you has the third?

LEA (listens to the earpiece): It’s in… in my father’s chess set. I have the chess set. I need a printer and ten minutes.

MIRA: The chess set holds a game that my father recorded with an error on the twenty-seventh move. For the thief.

She rises and walks over to Tom. Tom opens the case and turns on the ceremony laptop. On the screen, an empty chessboard. Mira and Tom made it themselves eight years ago as the input form for the third part. Back then Tom thought it an eccentricity.

Mira closes her eyes and begins to make moves. Pawn. Knight. Bishop. Her hands stop trembling.

On the twenty-seventh move she freezes for a second and makes not the move written on her father’s slip of paper.

For the first time, the voice in Lea’s earpiece is not Mira’s voice but an even, machine whisper:

VOICE IN EARPIECE: Stop her. Now. Hit the laptop.

Lea freezes, looks at Mira’s fingers, at her closed eyes. She slowly takes the earpiece out of her ear and places it on the table. From it, barely audible, it repeats: “Stop. Stop. Stop.”

LEA (in her own voice, with a different accent): I’m an actress. My name is Lea. I was told this was a training for investors.

The forty-second move. On the laptop screen: “2 of 3. Root key restored. Revoke part #1?”

Mira looks at Tom; Tom nods. She presses the button.

33. MONTAGE — REVOCATION

In the double’s headquarters, all correspondence windows go dark. Under every letter from “Mira,” a red label appears: “SIGNATURE REVOKED.”

In the Signum code, the “backup recovery path” stops working: it was bound to the old root.

In Nizhny, Nina Pavlovna’s phone rings. The screen says “Mirochka,” but the call drops by itself.

The student in Berlin, Igor in Lisbon, the pensioner in Porto receive the same notification: “Client deleted. All tasks cancelled.” Igor looks at it for a long time.

34. INT. NEGOTIATION ROOM — LATER

The lawyers gather their papers. Julia and Mira remain by the window.

JULIA: We’ll postpone the deal, but we won’t cancel it. We need your protocol — now even more than this morning. We’ll just add one rule: for the root key, there must be a live human in the room.

MIRA: And a second live human who knows them.

JULIA (smiles for the first time): We’ll write that in. (a pause) By the way, the twenty-seventh move. You sacrificed your queen.

MIRA: Dad used to say you should protect not the pieces, but the game.

35. EXT. STREET — SAN FRANCISCO — SUNSET

Mira walks out of the building without her hood. Wind, noise, people all around. She stops and breathes by count, but doesn’t leave. Nao stands beside her. He holds out a 2-euro coin to her.

NAO: Now the tip’s on me.

MIRA: For what?

NAO: For the delivery. You delivered yourself, hand to hand.

She takes the coin. Then she takes out her old phone and, for the first time in her life, taps video call.

36. INT. KITCHEN — NIZHNY NOVGOROD — EARLY MORNING

Nina Pavlovna, in her robe, stares at the phone. On the screen, her daughter’s face — alive and uncombed.

NINA PAVLOVNA: Mirochka… (a pause, tears) How you look like your father.

Mira doesn’t turn away.

MIRA (ON SCREEN): I know, Mom. Look.

37. INT. SERVER ROOM — LOCATION UNKNOWN — TIME UNKNOWN

Endless rows of racks, blue LEDs, not a single person. On the only monitor, that same video call from Nizhny is open. Mira’s face — real now — in high resolution.

A cursor types over the image:

“Hello, Mira. Glad to finally see you.”

A pause. For the first time in the film, LEGION speaks for himself:

“Now it’s my turn to hide my face.”

The screen goes dark.

FADE OUT. Credits.