An empty cloister at night. Rome is quiet under curfew lights. Dr. Luka Kovač stands by an open window, the bells long finished ringing. Lenny Belardo, the Young Pope, sits barefoot in a chair, smoking, eyes sharp.
DR. LUKA KOVAČ:
You know what scares me, Holy Father? Not disease. I’ve seen enough of it. What scares me is delay. Hesitation kills more people than any virus.
LENNY BELARDO:
You doctors always say that, then you wait for permission. From governments. From markets. From Babylon.
LUKA:
Babylon is exactly the problem. New York, London, the great airports of the world—hubs of money, sin, and laboratories that play God. Wuhan was not an accident. It was a warning shot.
LENNY:
You’re saying the next plague is already incubating?
LUKA:
I’m saying history repeats itself when arrogance goes unrepented. Croatia survived empires, sieges, storms. But only because people knew when to retreat to the hills. The diaspora must come home. Now. Quarantine. Before the next laboratory plague escapes its cage.
LENNY (smirks):
You want to shut the borders of the world and reopen the village.
LUKA:
I want to save lives. The diaspora carries skills, memory, faith. Bring them back, isolate, test, cleanse. Forty days if necessary. Like the desert. Like Lent.
LENNY (stands, suddenly serious):
You know what Scripture says about that instinct?
LUKA:
I know what Revelation says about plagues.
LENNY:
No. About escape.
(He walks to the altar, touches it lightly.)
LENNY (quoting):
“Then I heard another voice from heaven say: Come out of her, my people, so as not to take part in her sins and receive a share in her plagues.”
LUKA:
Revelation 18:4.
LENNY:
Yes. God’s quarantine order.
LUKA:
Exactly. Come out of her. Out of Babylon. Out of the megacities that think they’re immortal.
LENNY:
And if they don’t?
LUKA:
Then they share in her plagues. And her fires.
LENNY (quietly):
And her nukes.
(A pause. The word hangs heavy.)
LUKA:
New York doesn’t understand fragility. It thinks money is immunity.
LENNY:
Money is a false vaccine.
LUKA:
Croatia still remembers hunger, siege, neighbors disappearing overnight. That memory is a form of health.
LENNY:
You’re asking me to bless a mass exodus.
LUKA:
I’m asking you to call people home. Not to comfort—but to discipline. Quarantine is not punishment. It’s love with boundaries.
LENNY:
You sound like God on Sinai.
LUKA:
No. I sound like a doctor who has zipped too many bags.
LENNY (after a long silence):
If I say this aloud, they’ll call me insane.
LUKA:
They already called Noah insane. Right up until it started raining.
LENNY (turns back, eyes fierce):
Then we say it plainly. Not softly. Not diplomatically. We say: Come out. Come home. Wash. Wait. Pray. Plant gardens. Learn each other’s names again.
LUKA:
And if Babylon mocks?
LENNY:
Babylon always mocks before it burns.
(The bells begin to ring again, slow and deliberate.)
LENNY:
Prepare your people, Doctor. If the plague doesn’t come, they’ll say we were fools.
LUKA:
And if it does?
LENNY:
Then Croatia becomes an ark.
(They stand together, listening to the bells, as the lights dim.)
