A grief-stricken Downwinder's son wins a small-town New Mexico election by forty-three votes—then discovers the town's newest neighborhood was built on fill sand from settling ponds that collected fallout from the Trinity test, and one crossed-out number is all it takes to keep a disaster from becoming "real."
The Engine
Visible Violation
A missing handrail / obvious code break in public space. The audience can see it.
Invisible Violation
The foundation fill—sand from Trinity settling ponds under homes. The audience lives on it.
A ruler, a code book, and Rosa's Geiger counter become the "action" props.
Key Plot Beats
- Gil inherits his mother Rosa's Downwinder file: four denials and a death that never became "official."
- Gil wins the mayoral election by 43 votes and starts pulling records.
- He discovers a material requisition: Oak Street foundation fill, 1,638 cubic yards, reclaimed—no certification on file.
- After a quake, Gil and Elena collect water samples and dust from basement cracks; Rosa's Geiger counter clicks.
- A storage unit reveals purchase orders and a government plume map labeled "Baseline Wind Path."
- Lab results show contamination in water and in foundation dust: the betrayal is structural.
- Dolores confesses she changed the count from 42 to 43—because 43 is the number that forces eyes to turn toward Aguaverde.
The Revelation
Gil explains to Destiny what's under the foundations—fill sand from the settling ponds they drained after Trinity. The wind carried fallout down the baseline for twenty years. The injection wells didn't create the contamination; they cracked the slabs. The cracks let it up. "We're on it right now."
Ending Image
Destiny comes home. Steps she's climbed a thousand times. She stops. A crack in the concrete. Pockets her keys. Turns away. Cut to: asleep on Gil's couch.
"Forty-three. Or forty-two. Depending on who you ask. Did you see it?"
End card: hegot43votes.com — “What’s under your steps?”
Camera drifts down through the trailer floor into the crawlspace: raw sand. Foundation fill. Ordinary grit. The Geiger counter begins to click.
The ending is confirmation, not mystery. The audience knows what that sand is. They were told. The horror is recognition.
Themes
- Who gets counted; who gets crossed out.
- The social contract of safety (codes, inspections)—and what happens when it's a lie.
- Geography as accomplice: wind + mountains as a predictable "kill zone."
- The geology of betrayal: Trinity isn't history—it's still ticking beneath their feet.
- Redemption through attention: refusing denial, insisting on the truth with proof.