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Last updated 5-jul;30-jun;2-may;24,19,9-apr;19-mar-2001
Sci-Fi Channel original production, syndicated to broadcast one week later.
THE AGENCY is a chronically-underfunded highest-secret arm of US law enforcement, led by a portly secretive man called THE OFFICIAL (and his accountant, EBERTS), and officially attached to the Department of Fish and Game. (In season two it's reassigned to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, then the Department of Health and Human Services, and each time The Official changes his office decor.) Scientist KEVIN FAWKES devised a chemical called QUICKSILVER that bends light around a coated object, and an artificial gland to secrete it. He convinced his brother DARIEN, a convicted thief facing life imprisonment, to volunteer as a test subject. The gland was implanted in his brain, he began training to use it -- and then Kevin was killed, along with the expertise to remove the gland; and hence Darien is permanently tied to the Agency. Moreover, he must receive periodic doses of a counteragent drug to blunt its psychosis-inducing effects, administered by THE KEEPER, the Agency's scientist. Darien is partnered with BOBBY FAWKES, an attitude problem that's been kicked out of all the reputable intelligence agencies.
We later learn that Darien was actually the second recepient of the gland, that the Chinese and an a genius international terrorist (ARNAULT) are trying to duplicate Quicksilver, and Kevin may have been inspired by a Sasquatch carcass.
Each episode is sprinkled with voiceover commentary by Fawkes, including multiple apropos quotes from poetry and literature (he's a very well-read thief, it seems).
Season One
Hobbes sustains a severe head injury and develops anterograde amnesia, the inability to form new memories. A fantastic new procedure by a specialist restores his abilities. Then they discover the doctor has been harvesting brain cells from the indigents treated by the hospital, reducing them to near-zombies -- including a bright young woman who works at a nearby shelter. They round up the victims and force him to restore the cells, but he runs out before their friend is treated. He then tries to escape, falls off the building and dies, so they use *his* cells to treat *her*.
In THE OFFICIAL'S office, CIA SPECIAL AGENT MILLER is insisting to see the Agency's invisible man, while the Official and Eberts deny such a man exists. FAWKES hides in the office, and does poltergeist tricks while Miller's back is turned (hovers a pencil, plays with the flag); the Official's not amused. Miller phones president, gives it to TO; defeated, he asks Fawkes to reveal himself. He does so, shocking Miller.
Miller briefs them on "File 012-24 (Bio-X)", a mission to SANTO RUEGO, a South American country between Venezuala and Guatemala. Its current prime minister, JUAN CARLOS ARIAS JR., is the son of the man who masterminded the overthrow of the prior government. (HOBBES volunteers that he actually worked there once.) They have a new missile-based biological weapons system, BIO-X; it's meant as a deterrent on their northern border, but the missiles could be easily retargeted, posing a threat to the U.S. The parliament is evenly divided whether to deploy the system; Arias has the deciding vote. He's known to be very suspicious; Fawkes is to pose as a ghost, and frighten him into voting against it. Fawkes and Hobbes will be reassigned as special advisors to the US Embassy, under AMBASSADOR HALLIWELL. Hobbes starts at the name. "Is there some reason you don't want to go back there, Bobby?" the Keeper asks. "Ahhh... it's hell."
A parallel-but-opposite briefing occurs at CHRYSALIS, where female agent ALIANORA is directed to use "her unique abilities" to persuade Arias to vote *for* deployment
The Agency team arrives at the US Embassy, and all the locals are very nice; the Keeper (posing as CLAIRE KEEPSLEY) doesn't see Hobbes' opposition. Halliwell meets them, and glares at Hobbes. "If I didn't have orders straight from the White House, you'd be in a cell right now." Apparently something happened with his daughter...
They drive to the PM's mansion/office and are ushered in. Arias enters, and Halliwell introduces Fawkes and Hobbes. The PM is suspicious: what exactly is their expertise? Economic advisors, Hobbes extemporizes; the US is prepared to make very favorable loans in multiple areas -- and in return wants an agreement noto deploy Bio-X. Arias insists it's just for defense, and Hobbes repeats the line that it could retarget the US. Arias walks over to the window to consider the offer. The curtains rustle in the breeze -- and suddenly he refuses. He apologizes, dismisses them, and leaves.
That night, Arias is working alone, at the desk in the office adjoining his bedroom. The double doors to the corridor open themselves. He gets up to close them -- and they slam shut. Behind him, the lid of a music box opens; swallowing, he claps in closed. The French doors open, and he starts shouting in fear. (V/O Burmese proverb.) He backs away as a candle floats across the room towards him. A pair of disembodied eyes appear in mid-air. "I'm US Marine gunnery sergeant Josilin," the eyes introduce themselves. "Should I know you?" Arias asks. "Yeah, you should. I was guarding the US embassy the night your father decided to attack it. I was the first one to die." Arias pleads that he doesn't agree with his father's methods, but "Josilin" pushes about Bio-X. Arias defends the plan... "YOU DON'T KNOW HOW IT'LL BE USED IN THE FUTURE!" the ghost shouts. "I can see more than you. I can see ahead." Cowed, Arias agrees to vote against it; the eyes vanish, and the candle drops to the floor. (Outside the French doors a dark-garbed woman witnesses, then leaves.)
At the embassy, the Keeper gives Fawkes his shot of Counteragent. He's proud of his performance, but she scolds him: 15 more minutes invisible and he'd've entered second stage madness. He's ready to leave, but Hobbes recommends they stay for the vote in two days. Halliwell enters, having made sleeping arrangements. It's a small embassy, he apologizes: Claire will be in his vacant daughter's room, Darien in the guest room, and Hobbes -- Hobbes can sleep in the bathtub.
Hobbes ends up draped over the armchair in the guest room. He flees Fawke's snores at 04:00 and sneaks down the hall, knocking on Claire's door. Awakened, she opens the door, clad in pajamas, and he reminds her there are two beds; no way. Finally she relents. He lies down and starts talking to himself, fishing for a sympathetic ear. "Well, this is room it happened in." Claire finally surrenders: "If I let you tell me what happened, will you let me get to sleep?"
He begins: five years ago he was stationed at the embassy, and Halliwells 19-year-old daughter RACHEL flirted mercillesly with him. One night, combing the building for bugs, he knocked on Rachel's door. There was no answer, so he entered -- and there she was, naked. He hurriedly stepped back out, but -- uh oh, another guard is approaching! He dashes back in, and begs her to cover up, but she just writhes teasingly. He grabs a blanket to throw over her, and then her father enters. Oops. "That's *it*?" Claire asks in exasperation.
The next day, Halliwell and the two "advisors" are summoned to the PM mansion. Arias asks if they've heard of a man named Josilin -- why yes, Halliwell responds; he was one of the marines at the embassy. Arias shifts the topic, and cites the legend of LA LLARONA. One of his guards was killed the night before; he was found in the hallway, drowned -- 200 meters from the closest body of water. But about Bio-X...? the Americans push. The PM claims he made this decision weeks ago: Bio-X is very important to the future of his country, and the deployment will proceed. He departs.
Back at the embassy, Halliwell explains La Llarona: "the destroyer of life, the woman who wails". It's an old Spanish legend of a beautiful young seńorita who, spurned by her married lover, drowned her infants and herself. She rises from bodies of water to kill. The trio convince him to exit his own office to confer. Darien: obviously someone else posing as a local ghost.
That night (#2), Fawkes returns to the mansion, and arrives while Arias is receiving a massage. He suddenly starts, and asks the masseuse, "Did you hear that?" He goes into the hall, finds wet footprints, and follows them outside to the outdoor swimming pool. Fawkes watches from a balustrade. There's a ghostly female voice, and a woman springs out, grabbing Arias' neck from behind. Subtitles: "I sense that your[sic] thinking of changing your vote Senor." To show him the consequences if he does, she pulls him into the pool. Fawkes goes visible in shock. Arias climbs out and calls for guards, while the lady stays at the bottom of the pool. The guards arrive, and she's gone.
Back at the embassy, getting his Counteragent, Fawkes reports the incident to the other two, and admits he can't explain what he witnessed -- but she's good at her job. Claire speculates about a concealed miniature breathing tank. He'll return a third time the next night, just before the vote.
That night (late #2), the lady slips into Fawkes' bedroom. She leans over his sleeping form and kisses him -- then starts spraying water from her mouth. He wakes, rolls off the bed and instantly goes invisible. "Who are you?" she asks. "Funny, I was just about to ask you the same thing." "I am La Llarona," she declares. "And I'm the ghost of Christmas Past." She regards him appraisingly. "It appears that we are kindred. Tell me, are you genetically engineered or synthetic?" "Oh... that stuff goes way over my head," he demurs. "What about you?" "A little bit of both." She considers the muscles of his bare torso. "The work is exquisite." He asks: is she with the Russians? Chinese? Arnaud? "Your country has enemies you don't even know exist," she says mysteriously. He leans toward her. "You feel the same attraction I do," she concludes. "Maybe it's because we're both manufactured freaks." "That's not a big turn-on for me," he replies. She turns to leave. "I really enjoyed the kiss. Pity." She leaps out the window into the lily pond below. He runs out, finds nothing but her sodden dress.
Fawkes relates the incident to the other two. Claire hypothesis: maybe she regurgitates the water ("Ugh," reacts Hobbes), or perhaps her lungs have been modified; it would require a lot of surgery. Hobbes is more concerned about her backers. In any case, Arias is truly frightened.
Invisible, Fawkes returns to the mansion and apologizes to two guards before punching them out. Inside the PM suite, he finds a third, water dribbling from his mouth; and a fourth being kissed-drowned by La Llarona. She threatens Arias, and Fawkes warns him that she's just a saboteur. She reverses the accusation, but Arias asks, "How can he be human if I can't see him?" LL spits water a Fawkes, briefly outlining his form. "Okay, I guess I'll just have to prove to you that she's mortal," declares FAwkes, taking a gun from the guard. "You wouldn't harm family," she says, confident. If she's a ghost (he points out), why is she so concerned about the gun? She leaps out the French doors. (Outside, she meets Hobbes, knocks away his gun, spits water, and runs to the ocean.) Inside, the hovering gun falls, and "Sgt.Josilin's" eyes appear. "Howdy," they say. Arias thanks him. "Will I regret it?" asks/threatens the ghost.
At the embassy the next day, the ambassador reports to the trio that the vote to deploy Bio-X was 135-for, 136-against. Arias is a very stubborn man; he asks how they changed his mind. Fawkes shrugs. "I guess you could just say it was a freak thing."
Departing, Fawkes spots "an old friend" watching from a nearby building. He leaves the others to chase after her, and meets her on a portico. She's perfectly inconspicuous now, a dark-haired young lady in black tank top and jeans. "You were pretty good last night. How'd you do that? The disappearing act?" He denies any such ability. "My Organization is much more dangerous than your Agency," she warns him. Defeated once, they will now pay much more attention to him. "And dead is not the state I want you in." Fawkes turns to leave, but she pulls him back and kisses him.
"I could've just killed you," she says when they break off. "Uh huh," Fawkes acknowledges. She turns to leave; "How you gonna stop me? That's another thing we have in common. Neither of us carries guns." He asks if she ever regrets what they did to her. "All the time," she says sadly. Hobbes runs up, leers at the pretty lady. "Aren't you gonna introduce us, Fawkes?" She introduces herself as HELEN BLACK. Is it "the friend?" Hobbes asks, meaning La Llarona; Fawkes says no, she just looks like her. She leaves again, uninterrupted.
"Oscar Wilde once said that sometimes it takes courage to give into temptation. Well, I think I'm gonna work on getting my courage up."
In the Chrysalis boardroom, Helen is debriefed at the situation map, and is dressed down for her poor performance. She retorts that she wasn't prepared, but insists she's the best means to take out the Agency's Invisible Man. She's dismissed. The chairman turns to the other board members. "Now, let's talk about Kazakhstan."
They investigate a university researcher performing dangerous research in intelligence-enhancing drugs. His test subjects become dangerously erratic. Hobbes is accidentally injected with the serum, goes brainiac, then withdraws from the Agency to pursue his own projects.
Arnaud funds his terrorist operations with a casino in Las Crucis, Mexico. The Official plans to go there and use Fawkes to cheat. (Just "knocking it off" would be illegal.) *Of course* he's thought of doing this (Fawkes answers); but he's never had anyone to play the table while he adjusted it.
"Shakespeare wrote, Neither a borrower nor a lender be, and to thine own self be true. Well, I was neither a borrower nor a lender; I was a thief, and I hadn't been true to myself in a long, long time." When the moneycounters leave, Fawkes Quicksilvers a rolling safe and drops several bundles of cash into it.
The Official demands that Fawkes turn of the five million dollars. When he refuses, he confiscates the Keeper's supply of Counteragent. Fawkes leaves, and he commissions a bounty hunter (with whom Hobbes has a bad history) to find him. Thermal specs. Arnaud phones, says the money is crucial to his operations, and offers Fawkes the formula for Counteragent.
Photo of Alianora attempting to bribe a congressman to vote on a particular issue. Chrysalis uses Alianora to infect Darien with a nanotech spy transmitter. A Chrysalis turncoat is killed. "The leak got plugged. They plugged the leak. The leak has a leak." They fake executing Fawkes to shove a signal-damping helmet on him. Chrysalis plans to infect the students at an elite academy (children of the country's movers and shakers) with the probes, in a tainted batch of flu vaccine. The headmaster is in on it. They fake out Stark's henchman, but Fawkes is careless and gets punched unconscious, then rolled into the school's pool. Alianora saves him, then Stark shoots her. The Keeper derives a "nano-antibiotic" from her tissue to cure Fawkes.
DF demands decision. "Alright. What's our next move, partner." "It's nice to have a thorn back in my side." Need to find Arnaud, and formula of Counteragent. First, Dr.Rendell, whom brother said A had been seeing. Trio come round corner, BH expln. DF qs. Get stuck behind guy who lost parking validation ticket. DF pulls driver out, tosses him into parking guard, drives sedan through gate. BH cover story, drives out, talks to "little bitty guy" in car, opens it: shurgs to audience. Leaves. Free -- of the Agency, of pain, giving a damn "all the crap that just held me back for so long." BH pulls over, not sure likes. No regulator, no scruples. Jabs counteragent hypo in leg. BH celph TK. Stage 5, hypothetical, would CA work? Lies not have him. What try next -- "I'd have no choice but to salvage it."
Spec Agent Ryan shows photo to nurse who DF had clobbered, asks. Dr.Eliz Rendell, head of neurology.
He catches up with duo. Run. BH tries to cimb gate; DF just pushes it open. Trio corners. DF turns, and Ryan warns: first sign of silver, will pull trigger.
Instead DF, QS dumpster and hides behind. It de-QS under fire, guy falls from ricochet, QS DF punches other. Ryan follows into hardware store, starts spraying purple across room. Calls police; Ryan advises leave. "Looking for a very dangerous creature." "Whooee. Boy, do I like purple. Gun. Fire. DF burns, unharmed. Shakes off QS and flame, exits. "Where's O'Ryan?" BH goes back to fire while DF enters building. Claims to be Arnaud Defone, doorman no. Brother, *Arnold* Defone. "Then why don't you have the same accent?" "Oh com'on, you don't think that accent is real, do you?" Leaves. Funny noise, revolving door starts spinning -- then backwards. He watches, then is dragged into it.
Eberts, TO and TK. OR in hospital. Any suggestions, TO? TK: "I think we should just trust Bobby to do the right thing." "That's like trusting my dog not to pee on the carpet."
ER's apt, "Arnaud sent me." Backs away. "You're that Darien Fawkes person... he told me to be on the lookout for you." A claim DF on top of wanted list for his Agency, secret govt. Grabs her. "Actually, I am a brain surgeon." Don't have his num or addr -- "he's a secret govt operative, remember?" Pages him. Hands her phone. He reaches for knot on her robe. How long? He pulls off glasses. "I hate waiting. What shall we do while we wait, eh?" She asks about eyes, gland. Been developing a "new one with Arnie since you stole the first one." "Really... he wasn't very gentle and delicate when he murdered my brother and ruined my life.... MURDERED! I am gonna take everything he has; I may as well start with you." Presses lips. A enters, notes Stage 5. "Feels great. Almost as good as this is gonna feel." Kicks over A, starts punching. RH enters, wrestles him off. A QS, then glows. DF eyes start to smoke, RH hides. A drags ER out.
Eyes burn, QS protected. "because we need him alive, genius" "I don't want the stage-five counteragent. I like it here, it's nice." Tell it to O'Ryan and the doorman. "Same reason you wouldn't abandon me; we're partners." Babble. DF punches RH.
Struts down street, shoves into bike rider, walks back and QS, flips lever so tire falls off, kid almost run over by car. Skips away. Mime in park. QS, shoves through crowd, pushes mime. Punches him. Crowd thinks it's part of the act. Mime stays silent. He gets pulled off ground, theny cheer. On grond, getting punched till bleeding. Crowd reacts.
RH catches up, sees. ER walks up. "Arnauld let you go?" "I'm nobody's prisoner." Wants to see you. He follows.
Nothing from team 1 or 2-6 (don't exist). TK, RH has turned off celph, can't triangulate.
ER leads RH to AD in whale museum. "I never hurt people whose help I need." His hand glows. Longer goes, closer to irretrievable. Banter. AR dev'd QS madness to control people with the gland; why'd he make it irrev? Needs help. He *has* a gland, identical to DF, pieced together enough data to dup. "My fault", ER admits. Grafts incorrect, but correctable -- use him as a map. Don't need to cut him open, ER. After get help, will give him 5CA and let him go. He'll eventually murder, and will come to enjoy killing. "Do you really want him to become that person?"
DF sees AD. Leads him around bldg, into lot. Jacket still covering right hand. "I must say you look positively growing." "You look bright eyed." Pop! "And bushy-tailed." Tranq dart in butt - fired by RH.
DF awakes in PET in lab in scrubs, eyes covered, AD across from him, head shaved. "Fascinating, isn't it? As I lie here talking to you, Dr.Rendell is performing a craniotomy." Screen. Brain itself no pain, no need for general anes. "No that we both have glands, I rather feel like your brother. I don't need to hurt my own brother." "You betrayed me, Robert." BH expln use map. Agency want a lunatic like him with working gland? Just want my partner back. "God, I shoulda killed you when I had the chance." "This hurts me, but, I'm gonna let it slide, because I know it's just the qs talking." don't kill $; no, Found the $ in car at hosp -- again insists coop, map. AR not cut. See which synapses fire for which fcns. And then track grafts into the endocrine system. "I don't trust him. I understand him, but ... I understand how all you crazy people think." BH. Insurance: 45-cal colt model 1911. Any funny busin, AD first bullet betw the eyes. BH wander over to DF, "you get the injection, I untie you, what you do after that is your business" whispers. Into PET. QS r leg. AD follows. Deqs r, qs l.
AD up. Recog ER less than perfect, rpt perf, best int to keep you alive. He goes to get CA, tosses it to ER. Poison? DF. She inject. Pull away eye cover. He starts spasming, she and BH pull off bonds. "What did you do to him?!" BH. AD calmly -- interrupts endless DF talk; just takes time. DF gets up, but AD qs, df qs. bh swings arm thru room, trying to find them. Each sees the other as outline. Pulls IV stands as staffs. Glassware breaks. "Tell me, Fawkes, when you bleed does the blood stay invis?" df 3 scalpels at bh, pulls loose, throws, duck, narrowly misses ER. Guy with rifle comes in, bh holdspistol to him, df gets gun, points at ad, er drags aside. df deqs, eyes red, "it's working?" qs again. bh carry rifle into hall, noone, but blood slowly droplets deqs. Outside, car has rushed away.
Inside, df next to er floor wall. "I'm sorry." eyes still r. He passes out against ER. "Is he okay?" "Yeah," she says resigned.
TK lab, tk checks eyes. Vitals all back to normal, she reports: and prelims indic gland too. TO: shoulda brought him in, Bobby. NO word on AD "He's disap'd. Pardon my choice of words. You're sure the gland's alright?" to TK when bh steps aside. df asks about guy and revolving door -- is he okay? And this dude on a bike. The mime. "I beat the hell out of a mime. Is he okay?" "Relax. He did not recover." "Thank god. You're kidding, right?" high fives
A lawyer named Francis Bacon said that, "A man who studies revenge keeps his own wounds green. yeah, sure, Arnaud messed up my life, but I almost messed it up worse by going after him. Lesson learend."
Knock at ER door. Answers in nother robe. Black cloak there. "What did you do wrong?" "What do you mean?" Hood back, invis. Shocked. Maybe still in stage 5? "Maybe?" drop cloak, door slam, scream.
Season Two
Fawkes, Hobbes and the Keeper are called to California by the BIA to investigate several mysterious killings. They find Bigfoot/Sasquatch/Wendigo, and an obsessed cryptozoologist. They lose a $950 Iridium satphone.
"If men had to have babies, they'd only have one. Well, truer words were never spoken." In a hospital, a woman gives birth, and a watcher triggers a remote control. That night, A NURSE enters the mother's hospital room, checks that she and her husband are asleep, and steals away with the infant. Escorted by two men in EMT uniforms, she absconds in an orange ambulance. The mother awakes, finds her child gone, wakes her husband; they run into the hall, but no-one's there.
DARIEN FAWKES and BOBBY HOBBES enter the office of THE OFFICIAL, and find EBERTS once agian changing the government agency seal behind the desk: to Health and Human Services. Who initiated the change in funding? An attractive dark-haired woman enters the room and explains it was she: MS. ALEXANDRA MONROE, the Agency's new agent. She hands over her dossier and directs them to the signature. (The four veterans crowd around the desk.) The Official objects that he doesn't have the budget (and Hobbes is briefly anxious that he's been cut), but she explains that an amount slightly greater than her weekly salary has been deposited into their account.
Hobbes tries to ingratiate himself, and Monroe rattles off his record: Robert A. Hobbes, "AA" class, clearance level 4, former CIA, former NSA; psych work by Dr.Josifax, Dr.Hallion, Dr.Shelby. She turns to Fawkes: spent time in San Quentin, in Fulsom for AR, in Densom for molesting an old man. She continues to be mysterious about her own qualifications, and leaves to settle into her new office. We get *desks*, Hobbes points out; no, it's one floor up, on the side of the building with a view.
Fawkes peeks in, and finds a crew furnishing the spacious room in luxury: fashionable desk, wet bar, sitting area with table and leather couch. She overrides his attempts at conversation by continually moving about the room, and finally settles on the couch. "You have basically just used whatever connections you have to force yourself into what I've come to know is about the crappiest agency in the intelligence world." He takes the armchair. Why? It's the only "transient" agency she could find, and she needed one to be reappointed under HHS, to support *her* investigation (which she doesn't describe). He moves to join her on the couch, and tries out his charm. "I'm sure many women find you irresistable... but right now, I find you totally *re*sistful," she says sweetly. He gets up to leave, and Hobbes pokes in, goggling at the furnishings. He wants to know: who do you have pictures of, and what are they doing?
In the Official's office, they examine her dossier. She has a five-star "A" rating, meaning proficiency in all skills, very rare; the Official has seen only two in his entire career. Those skills include (Eberts reads) surveillance, sabotage, sniperwork, hand-to-hand combat, weapons combat, acting (French royalty, Israeli Air Force colonel, UK socialite), and CTS -- corruption/temptation/seduction. "They have a name for that?" Fawkes asks. The Official admits she could be a real asset to the Agency -- *and* she's a freebie. Fawkes reminds them of her own agenda, but the Official and Eberts just repeat, grinning: "a *freebie*."
In Monroe's office, she briefs Fawkes, Hobbes and the Keeper. Over the past eleven years, several thousand babies have been stolen from hospitals. The Keeper interrupts, ogling her computer: "Is this a K-21 station?" Despite endless requisitions, she can't get a machine even half as powerful. "You really need it? You'll have it by the end of the week," promises Monroe. Hobbes starts to ask for a new vehicle -- "forget it," she says. Anyway -- she's been searching for commonalities among 1357 babies, but hasn't found any. You're asking the wrong questions, Hobbes says smugly: what about the *dads*? The Keeper agrees this isn't a crazy idea: she read a news story about one California fertility doctor who inseminated 250 women with his own sperm. "That's a lot of frequent flyer miles," objects Fawkes, but (after the Keeper grabs the keyboard): 1239 matches. They were all artificially inseminated -- by fertility clinics all owned by one company, THE STORK CORPORATION.
Driving to a clinic, Hobbes is still fishing for a new van, but Monroe thinks the current one is perfect: it's inconspicuos. Impatient with the sparring, Fawkes asks: do they have a plan? Monroe and Hobbes will pose as an infertile couple. Hobbes objects: nobody will believe *he's* infertile. "I mean, look at me, and look at her, and..."
They arrive. Hobbes warns Monroe about the shock of seeing Darien go invisible. With a flourish, he Quicksilvers. "Nice," she says.
Inside, the two interview with a scholarly blonde in glasses (but they haven't quite worked out a consistent story).
Meanwhile, Fawkes prowls. He opens the door of one examining room, and finds an intern (husband?) hesitant to make an injection into a woman's gluts. "Just think of it as a big orange," the attending doctor reassures him. A second room: a man in a chair scoops a fingerful of cream from a jar -- notices the door and hurriedly slams it. (Woody Allen quote.) Inside a room marked "Authorized personnel Only" he finds two men watching multiple flatscreens, filled with delivery dates. One entry starts flashing, and they dispatch a team to the hospital.
Monroe asks: how can we be sure it's *our* sperm and egg? The clinic is very careful, they're assured. And 99% of babies are perfectly healthy at birth. What about later -- say, two or three years? No, Stork doesn't track that far. "What if they get, y'know, all -- weird?" Hobbes asks. She gets flustered at the notion, insists nothing of the sort happens. "So you *do* track them," Monroe concludes. "Yes," the lady admits. With a ruse, Fawkes retrieves them.
At HIRCH MEMORIAL HOSPITAL, they wait. Hobbes' mind has wandered off onto the topic of Bert and Ernie on "Sesame Street". "Hobbes, they're puppets," says Fawkes. "That's what they said about Reagan." The delivery room doors open, and the trio follow the baby to the neonate corral -- and Monroe seems oddly moved (Fawkes notes). They wait. Wait some more, with coffee. Fawkes goes invisible, checks the mother's room, and sees the nurse (the same one) take the infant. He follows her and the EMTs outside, goes visible, and inquires why. One punches him: "ouch." He punches back, the second spin-kicks, Monroe arrives with a gun. He kicks the gun away, she kicks back. She takes the baby from the thief-nurse (who quickly climbs in the ambulance and drives off) and hands it to a second nurse. Fawkes pulls up and they follow.
Fawkes: how do we know they won't take the baby again? Monroe: because that nurse was FBI, and three more agents are watching it at all times. They arrive at a timber gate marked CAMP TEANAUSTAWE (Hobbes and Fawkes can't pronounce it: tee-a-noss-tah-way) -- a summer camp, but it's not summer. Monroe pulls a black knit cap from her jacket pocket and shows Fawkes the camera and transmitter hidden in the appliqued turtle.
In the van's back, Monroe opens the hardcase with the receiver, and shoos away Hobbes' eager hands. He asks if she's single, then hurriedly explains he'd "never fish off the company pier." "Neither would I," she agrees. "It's a pity though," she adds, her mood changing. She starts tracing his hairline. "Generally, bald guys turn -- me -- on." "Are you playing me?" Hobbes asks. "Oh yeah," she answers, suddenly professional again.
Inside the camp, Fawkes finds kids (in sweatsuits with the camp logo) running, doing jumping jacks, crawling under barbed wire, and practicing archery -- getting bullseyes on human targets. The occasional adult guard/counselor with a rifle strides past. He follows one (MASON) into a windowless warehouse-sized building, and finds a well-furnished office. At the end of the hall is a classroom full of attentive kids. "You are the future of tomorrow," the instructor indoctrinates. "The leaders to make this country what it is when all else has fallen away... We are changing, evolving, like an insect changing from larva to adult, which is called -- what?" He stands beside a poster of a butterfly emerging from its cocoon. "Chrysalis!" they all answer.
In the van, Monroe asks: what's Chrysalis? "Be glad you don't know," says Hobbes grimly.
Now visible, Fawkes sneaks back down the hall (and is almost seen) and exits the building to an arched inflated basketball enclosure. It's filled with row upon row of wheeled basinets, each with a screaming infant.
In the van, Monroe is shocked, and moves to assault the place alone. Hobbes stops her, and (since he's read her file) knows it's not like her to go off half-cocked. "My son's in that room," she explains, controlled. "Don't. Pity. Me."
Back at the Agency, the Official reminds them they need *grounds* for a warrant. Can they get proof of kidnapping? Monroe storms out; Fawkes follows, and is sympathetic to her pain. He reminds her *she* can't rush in, but *he* can turn invisible.
In the lab, the Keeper is fiddling with a loose fluorescent bulb in the freezer; Fawkes startles her. He needs a counteragent booster and so info: genetics of the kids. She should be able to access their amniocentesis records -- why? "Tell you later," he says as he rushes out with Monroe.
The trio return to the camp. Fawkes enters -- the kids are off the playground. (V/O, comments how DNA evidence was used against him, and this is the first time he's glad it exists. He just wishes it weren't so disgusting.) He goes through the trash for used cotton swabs and tissue, swabs a urinal, collects diapers.
Back in Monroe's office, the Keeper uses the K21 and finds plenty of matches. The Official (staring at a carton of beansprouts with distaste) turns to get a warrant, when she interrupts with more news: the DNA shows no introns. Some theories connect introns with aging; in any case, it implies these kids have been engineered by Chrysalis.
Outside the camp are gathered the trio, plus the Official, plus hordes of FBI agents. Fawkes goes in (a bit of tension -- who's giving the orders?) to scout the camp, and sees Mason receive a report from a kid. Oops. The counselor declares Code Red and starts handing out rifles to the kids. Fawkes returns, and the Official calls off the raid, but they'll continue to surround the camp.
Monroe is impatient, and insists she can go in alone as a surgical strike. Fawkes points out that he's "the only one who can go in under the radar here." She reluctantly agrees, and takes out her frustrations by shoving a gun into his pants. He admits he has no idea what he'll do.
Inside, the gun-wielding kids are in a wooden guardtower, behind netting, around the corners of cabins. He follows Mason into a lecture hall to meet with two others -- including the interviewer from Stork. Going visible, he takes Mason's rifle, and insists on speaking with STARK. Mason claims he doesn't know any such man, but Fawkes calls his bluff: get him here in one hour or you die.
Outside, Chrysalis executive Stark (as the Official explains) arrives in a limo, escorted by two SUVs. Hobbes sends him in through the gates. "Sometimes, rearely but on occasionally, my partner's a genius," he concedes in admiration. Monroe is amazed: how'd Fawkes get him here so quickly? "They have history," says Hobbes darkly.
Stark and two guards enter the hall, where Fawkes is lounging in a plastic chair, covering the three camp personnel. He orders Stark to send out the two guards, and two others -- but not Mason (as insurance). He orders Stark out of his coat -- and pants and shirt too. "Why?" "Because I want to see your hot naked body," explains Fawkes sarcastically. "To make sure you don't have any weapons." As soon as Stark's in his skivvies, Fawkes sends Mason out. They argue about the kids. Shouldn't they be with their parents? "That's what the mothers think: we're only using them as incubators, for *our* children." Just check their DNA against their so-called parents.
(In the van, Monroe watches through the cap, and almost loses it. The Official stops her before she blows it.)
"They should be raised in homes, with real bickering stressed-out parents, like normal kids," Fawkes argues. They're *not* normal kids, Stark begins. "I know. They don't have the old senior-citizen discount to look forward to." Stark congratulates his homework: "Five gold stars for the Agency." One of the campers is Stark's own son -- his sperm and his wife's ovum -- and he honestly believes he's better off here.
(Outside, pistol drawn, Monroe sneaks through the woods.)
"Who will protect him?" Stark argues. "Not your government, obviously." Fawkes doesn't buy it, and says the FBI will be barging in soon. One hour: that's all he could get from the Official. Does Stark these kids' blood on his hands?.
(Monroe evades a tripwire, then crosses a laser.)
Alarms go off. Stark. "Why does everybody always think I'm bluffing?" asks Fawkes. "Is it my face?" Stark capitulates, and announces over the camp PA system: proceed single file down the driveway to surrender. "But remember, our time will still come."
At the gates, the Official and Hobbes watch the kids arrive. Hobbes whistles the FBI forward.
At the camp hall, Stark is back in his limo. "You know I'm gonna catch hell for letting you go, right?" says Fawkes, alluding to their bargain. "Oh, likewise." "You break our deal, I'm personally gonna take you out." "Listen," sneers Stark. "A, I keep my word, and B, you couldn't touch me if I didn't." Monroe finally runs up, and is shocked by Stark's escape. Better than letting a kid get shot, right? She thinks a moment, then agrees. He waves her off to find her son.
At the Agency's briefing table, the Official reports that the older kids have been taken to a secret place in Virginia to be deprogrammed, and the babies have been returned to their parents. Fawkes adds that Stark agreed Chrysalis would leave them alone till adulthood. The Keeper enters, with bad news for Monroe: they cross-referenced the DNA, and matched all the freed kids with parents -- but Monroe's son was not among them. Hobbes guess Chrysalis must have other camps. Keeping a stiff upper lip, Monroe asks: will the Agency be sticking with this Chrysalis angle? Well, she'll stick around then. She exits, and in the backlit corridor is a silohuette of agony.
The poet Kahlil Gibran once wrote: "Your children are not your children. They come through you, but not from you. And though they are with you, they do not belong to you."
A hacker has been attacking the Agency's computers, and thanks to BOBBY HOBBES' "web of contacts" (a concept that amuses DARIEN FAWKES), they've traced him to a corporate park. They enter an office, find the cubicles in disarray. DF goes invisible and enters a back room. There's a stack of PCs along one wall, discarded styrofoam burger clamshells, a mattress, and a man seated at a desk with three flatscreens. Suddenly he leaps up and runs, as though he could sense DF.
"Blond guy, satin jacket, red hat," DF tells BH as they pursue. They find the hat. Then the jacket. Then the blond hair. The trail goes cold in an outdoor food court; their quarry could be any one of these people "Alright, federal agents, everybody freeze!" yells BH, drawing his gun and badge. "We're federal agents; you're all under arrest! Drop that spork, ma'am!
At the Agency, THE OFFICIAL is dressing down BH and DF. Never in his 38 years in this business has he seen such a debacle (but the duo cite three situations in the past year.) No results! The computers were breached again last night, and 50 innocent IT professionals are under house arrest. Eberts has a suggestion: perhaps BH's "old-school methods" can't cut it against today's high-tech criminals. "The master of field experience speaks..." BH sneers. E continues: they should "identify the hacker's idiosyncracies; how often does he run a port scan, what pings have been effective against our server? Does he employ IP masking software or a more insidious means?" "Nerd," whispers BH. "Mmmm," considers TO. "I think you're right, Bobby." To their surprise, he assigns E to them. He's fully trained, and just passed his Aetna physicals.
In the hallway, BH seethes, and denies E's capability. "There's no backspace in combat!" "You really should embroider some of these sayings and put them on a pillow," suggests DF.
In the van, E explains his strategy to the others, paging through a two-inch pile of form-feed output. Annoyed, BH opens his window and it begins to fly out. *He* knows where they should look -- how? The old-school method of finding receipts in the pockets of the jacket.
At the WORLD WIDE WELL CAFÉ, the MANAGER is unresponsive to BH's blunt approach. He asks for a closer look at the badge: Deptartment of HHS? Yes, his computers are all networked. DF pulls BH back and pushes E forward for a more conciliatory attack, but BH shoves forward again. The manager stands his ground, and refuses to open his logfiles without a warrant.
In the alley behind the cybercafé, E is forced to agree with the manager; without a warrant, they really can't proceed. "Eberts, why do you think they picked an ex-con to be the next invisible man?" asks DF. E is shocked; he's used *illegal* methods in prior investigations? The three argue about who sneaks in; BH is upset to be left behind guarding the alley. DF Quicksilvers himself and E. "Holy Toledo; I'm invisible!"
They sneak into the server room and decloak. E sits at the terminal and checks: no match for the hacker, which means he's not logged in today, or is on another network. This doesn't satisfy DF, but E suggests they can just wait, and go "shoom!" again. DF reminds him he goes crazy, and indicates his ouroboros meter: three ticks left. Suddenly, the manager and THUG NUMBER ONE grab DF. E disables THUG NUMBER TWO, and then mysteriously falls down. DF cloaks, punches another, and then BH enters. E gets up. "We got caught; it happens," he says calmly, straightening his jacket. "Let's get out of here."
The Official is not pleased: $7500 in damages and still no hacker. How did this happen. E jumps to explain -- "not you, Eberts." "Why not me?" he asks, uncharacteristically assertive. "Because I say so." He asks DF, but E interrupts: there were four assailants. BH disagrees: definitely three. E: a fourth, watching the alley, could've watched and alerted them. BH: there was no-one in the alley. E asks how he got this bump on the head; you fainted, proposes BH. Nothing to be ashamed of, he says magnanimously; your first mission and all... E exits.
TO lays down a deadline: if the hacker is not caught in 24 hours, the Agency will close -- *he* will close it. The iT department says their most critical systems haven't yet been penetrated, but the longer they wait, the more vulnerable they'll be. DF suggests just shutting down the computers -- *but*, TO points out, the computers run *everything*. "But not the Counteragent production, right? Right?" asks DF hopefully. TO glares at him. "Everything."
In the hall, BH points out to DF that E is acting different -- the TO told him to shut up, and he didn't. DF ascribes it to the bump on the head, and asks: what's the feud between you? What's your history? BH ignores the question, and presses his theory: *Eberts* himself is the leak.
In her lab, THE KEEPER fusses over E, sitting in the examination chair with a coldpack on his head. He confesses he's not so good at real action, but he just wanted to see it. She tries to attend to a "speck of dirt" in the bump on his forehead, but he resists, taking her hands -- just as the duo enter. They're instantly suspicious of the pose. E gives up the seat to DF and wanders over to inspect TK's computer gear; BH watches through the fishtanks. She gives DF his shot of Counteragent. The duo leave -- and E winks at BH. TK calls him over to treat his hand wounds, and he takes a moment to respond, distracted. He apologizes.
Outside, BH asks DF to do the "invisible sneak-and-peek." "I am telling you, Charlie Brown is a spy," he says. DF decides BH is jealous of E, and teases him. BH repeats his policy of not "fishing off the company pier." "First he doesn't shut up, then he hits on the Keep, then he, y'know, he winks at me--" This is new to DF, who changes his evaluation. He agrees to look; "and if I don't find anything?" "Then seventeen years of intuition and experience has failed me."
Late that night, E takes a cab home, and DF-invisible steps out the other side. He doesn't quite follow him through the front door, so he sneaks in an unlocked window. While E changes into casual clothes, DF checks the kitchen: it's a mess of unwashed dishes and rotten food. The bedroom's also a disaster. E leaves, and DF checks the medicine cabinet, then the trash can. There's a green plastic bag containing a mysterious fleshy substance.
At the Agency, E enters TK's lab, and plugs a box into the keyboard port of her computer.
TK is typing away as DF enters her lab and asks about E. "Did Bobby send you?" she starts. "This is ridiculous--" No. She has indeed noticed the change in his behavior: "it seems fieldwork's had a very positive effect on him," and despite the minor head trauma he's fine. DF is blunt: he and BH think he's the hacker. TK just stares at him for a few seconds. "Wow. That's a very serious accusation." He tells her of checked the house, and the mess; she finds that odd. "He iron his underwear," she reacts, and then, "well, he seems the type to." Moreover, he left the house almost immediately -- "where's Ebert going at ten after midnight?" He hands her the bag -- she guesses chicken breast, then recoils slightly when he tells her he found it in the bathroom. She promises to examine it.
Exiting, he runs into an excited DF, who has a new lead. He explains how he's managed to avoid E tagging along.
They arrive at a warehouse situated amid a field of stacked building materials. BH is suspicious of E's motives for not coming, and DF breaks the news: "you're not exactly a pleasant work environment." BH isn't sanguine about their chances in this place; "the punk" no doubt knows they're onto him. He doesn't like traitors: "Brutus. Benedict Arnold. Judas Ichariot." "It's Iscariot," DF corrects.
They descend into a system of masonry tunnels, and discover a room full of PCs and telecom patchboard -- this is promising. They follow the heavy braid of cables up a staircase, DF chatting nervously. "These are pretty. This is not good, I tell ya somebody's gonna blow a fuse here. Would make a nice necklace, though, a big like Mister T thing--" They reach a door, DF reaches for the knob -- stop! BH has a bad feeling (he saw this in a Chuck Bronson movie). DF fetches a piece of cardboard and bends it into a chute (this from Macgyver), pouring Quicksilver across the door's surface. It turns invisible -- so the man imprisoned in the room beyond is visible; as is the huge bomb hanging on the other side of the door.
On the roof, BH pulls open a man-sized air vent, and they play rock-scissors-paper to pick the first man in. "Scissors cuts rock," says BH. DF gives him a withering glare; BH surrenders and enters. The room is clear, he calls for DF. Duct tape-gagged and tied to a chair, the prisoner is -- Eberts.
Returning to the Agency, DH explains to E about his double. The switch must've occured at the café. Why Eberts? The hacker must've needed access to something else, something he couldn't reach. DH and E start arguing over who has greater access.
Fake-E enters an office with five flatscreens on the wall. He connects to TK's machine, and starts trying passwords (which he records on a Casio PocketPC). It's not "keep", "glandkeeper" or "keepsilver". The fourth try works -- "keepsake".
TK is reporting to TO on the flesh-goo as the other three rush into the lab. "Where's Eberts?" they ask, get a strange look, then clarify. "It's true, sir. There are two of me." This is the missing piece for TK -- she had thought the goo was synthetic dermaplast, but it contained human DNA. A clone? No, but cloned pieces -- skin, bone, cartilage -- the pieces of a face. Again, why? -- BH wants an example of what E has access to. There's TK's computer, on a dedicated network with no outside access -- he rushes to the desk and starts inspecting the keyboards, explaining: the remote hacking was just a decoy. He finds the box; a keytrapper. "Bloody -- how did that get there?" TK exclaims. It's linked to only two other machines: the one next to it and one upstairs, to which only TO and E have access. E checks: there's a hard disk backup proceeding from 21.32.144.32[sic] -- 75% complete. He can't stop it. TO orders BH to call Security and seal all the exits.
Upstairs, Fake-E steps out of the office, pocketing the PPC. BH and DF cover different halls. E and Fake-E meet, attack -- and DF comes upon them. He grabs the first body, realizes he can't tell them apart -- exactly the same suit and tie. "Okay, both of ya, you're under arrest." BH runs up, gun aiming uncertainly. TO and TK arrive while the "Ebertses" profess their respective innocence. Finally, one gives up; his voice patterns change, and he begins pulling off his necktie and shirt. "I'll kill him," swears DF as the fake makes a break. TO wants him alive, then makes the same connection -- it's ARNAUD DEPHONE. "Shoot him!" he orders.
Divested of his clothes, Arnaud is now invisble. At the exit, the two guards are shoved aside. "Dammit, Fawkes!" they say. He comes round the corner and protests -- it wasn't him this time. Then he cloaks to get a view of his quarry, and shoves them aside anyway.
Outside, AD steals a bike (freezes the lock with QS). He runs over a skateboarder's foot, and DF grabs the board. They chase through crowds, past a bus, across traffic, into a parking lot. DF throws a rock and hits AD, who drops the PPC -- it shatters. DF evades a baby carriage but runs into a car. "So long, sucker!" yells AD, riding into the street -- and gets hit by a truck. BH and DF-visible run up to the wreck; DF didn't see if AD had still been on the bike. "Two bucks says we don't find a body, eh?" says BH, unaware of the pun. DF shakes his head. "I'm not taking that bet."
Eberts sits on a lab stool, next to the empty cloned-mask, inspected in turns by TK. [We learn his first name is Albert.] "Thank you, Darien. Now everyone can have another laught at my expense," he says ruefully. BH rolls the name around his tongue, then explains: it's his middle name. "So we do have something in common--" begins E excitedly, till BH shushes him.
"The Gilbert of Gilbert & Sullivan once wrote, 'Things are seldom what they seem; skim milk masquerades as cream.' Well, 'course he was then promptly beaten up by every kid in the schooyard. Look, the point is, we probably learned more about Eberts when he was Arnaud, then we ever would've from Eberts himself."
Guest star Joel Bissonnette, Catherine Dent, David Burke as voice of KF. Dir Greg Yaitanes.
"In Memory of Kevin Fawkes 1968-2000" Thomas Mann said that a man's dying is more the survivor's' affair than his own. Now, my version of that would go great on a T-shirt. My brother was murdered, and all I got was this lousy gland." Grave, df, bacon cheeseburger, bh walks over sensitive "private meal". "A lot of people like to talk to the dead" "A lot of people are pathetic" "Maybe they just have hope" "Then they're way ahead of me" "Leave it to you to out-depress a cemetary." What's on your mind? Simon Cole - the invis assas, afraid will end up like him, crazy then dead. As spk, ck coming up with way to get out. No hope of that. bh's shrinks. past pres fut.
df vs to in to off. "That is the most reckless, unsound, and depraved idea I have ever ehard." ck bh ae in back. Diagram. Simon cole, memory RNA, q-gland and pineal gland, memories took over. His brain supersensitive to effects of mem-RNA, so take Kevin's and inject into me. Will know how to take it out. CK shakes head; dead almost a year, it'd have degreadd. df: DNA tests on mummies. Must be residue. AE dig up might not be nec; each mem QS team reqd to make don for posterity: blood, sperm, marrow, plasma. In Lab 3. "Shut up, Eberts" TO. df reminds to: do missions till figure way to degland him. SC almost killed. "Not on my time, and not on my dime."
Storm, CK bets out of her black Jeep SUV, runs into df. Figured he'd come calling. "You promised me somethign once:" if ever found way, i'd be first to know - would put me ahead of the agency. She shakes head: TO would've locked it up by now. No, he got it.
Her lab. She swabs his left arm. Melatonin - sleep hormone. Helps RNA, df. Only at night, so will have to keep admin'g shots to maintain effect. BH gets RNA. Lights go out. Reminds him to be careful with it. Takes second syringe. Turns over. Into back of neck. BH covers eyes. Lighning "Why does the weather get like this ever time someone tries to screw with the boundaries of science?" Lights go out. CK: should be getting tired. Ow! Gah! Covers eyes, pinches nose. Drops the water bh gets him, convulses, falls back. No, he's not dead. Sudden remorse from bh, shoulda been me, "what's he gonna do, operate on himself?" While exam'g him, CK remind him it only works with qsg. "Alright, Sarah Burnhardt, calm down." While talking, try to calm him, df eyes open. "Hello? Claire? Haven't seen you in 10 years. Where am I?" "It's Kevin. Kevin Fawkes, from Caltech, rmemmber?"
df/kf gets to floor. "How does it know your name?" bh. ck: went to grad school. "We dated for a year" kf. Intro himself to bh. What happened? "And what in god's name am I wearing?" 18-jun-2001. on 9-aug-2000 "you died". "I don't follow." today is 1-apr. Think's it's Apr Fools. BH takes him to mirrow: "Darien." "Claire, what the hell is going on." Francine Jefferson Memorial Cemetary, row 5, plot 2, 10 min from here. Expln, inj mem RNA. Aware of concept, just a theory, pop sci from 60s. She expln qsg. "How do you know about--? Omigod. They put it in Darien. And it works." He gets exceited. "Of course it comes off! I can see him in the mirror now." CK realizes: from KF pov it hasn't happened yet. Tries to get it to work. Breathe, have to be cool, BH expln. CK brings snake. "Ah!" jumps and reflexively. "Are you okay?" CK. "This is so cool. This is my dream." KF. TO walks in. "What the hell is going on?" KF decloaks. "Charlie." "Excuse me?" "You've lost weight. You been taking that metabolism supplement?" "You did it. Undo it now." "You want us to kill him?" Asks, how did I die? CK in serious trouble. BH: shot, murdered, "by a piece of trash called Arnaud." "Surely not Arnaud Detille?"
Face. Feeling. "Arnaud, you're more handsome than I remem."--lady Tear away lower face, void, then head. Punches mirror. "Ah! Merde." Music. "I know how you feel--" Do you? Dodging people left and right, living like a shut-in, forbidden favorite restaurants. Holds up Interpol wanted file. "This man -- is gone. Destroyed!" "Cut out the Greek melodrama. You're not destroyed." While invis, may as well be dead. Lady "If we could get the qs file..." "Useless! Like you." Only one man who can help -- KF. ... "Next idea."
TO to CK adn BH. assures him mem-rna stable, can ctrl when and how long effect with melatonin. Looks pensive, bites lip. Door, in rush KF in suit, with folder, folded by AE. "Excuse me, what are these toxicity levels?" An abberation in g never accounted for, counteragent, qs madness. CK stands up. Arnaud engineered mutation in its genetic code: the qs hormone cerebral disinhibitor, toxic, flushed out with ca. He's stunned. AE gets him chair to fall into. "I can't figure out how to remove the gland without knowing exactly what Arnaud did to it." TO outta luck, deep undergrnd. Can use invis himelf, now. Can't find him. BH not entirely true: thinks knows someone who can lead to.
Binocs: DR.ELIZABETH RENDELL, who put the gland in AD, bh expl to kf. Doesn't belv her story that thr'd and helpd him of fear. Puts ph in ear, pushes him out; reluc; to follow her. In door to apt bldg.
Inside, rising, frght elv, #4. BH tells him to stay put, wait for me. Doesn't ack. She enters double door, then pounds -- ow! Decloak, fall. "What the hell are you doing?" AP. Led Fawkes here? Didn't know till elev - felt chill like told me. "This is my mortal enemy and you brought him to my house?" Stands, breathes rapidly -- arms vanish. "What the hell are you doing?" "Oh crap." Arms reappear. "Here's where I kick your ass again." Gets kicked, punched, falls, reaches blindly for. Eliz told to get out. Meat cleaver rises from block. Any last words? "What genetic cap coding did you use to induce remote toxicity?" Huh "Y'heard me, Doogie. What ghost wrote your code for you?" Wrote my own. And last person to call me that was your bro - look what hap'd to him. "You sure seemed proud of it after that biotech confernce in Prague." BH shows up, gun, meat cleaver thrown, hit door. Tells KF to qs eyes. What? BH punched. Tries. BH looks out door.
In lab, CK treating cut in forehead kf while bh steams, can't work under these conds, refuse. *you* don't have to expln to TO lost AD. KF can't believe bh and df actually get along. Wants him back. KF agrees; should give the body a rest. Would just go dormant; only want to destroy mem-rna is with antipeptide soln. BH leaves. Know how to make it, kf asks ck. Shows him syringe red. Made this too, pts to ouro on R wrist. She expln - and ca would flush out the mela. It reminds him of a doodle she use to make. "It really is you, isn't it?" Why didn't you ever call me? She grins. Because on a topsecret govt pjt and # unlisted - and ph works 2 way. "Oh, yeah." Except she was too [joke?]. Would've called and warned about Darien if knew would be tfd here. "He's come a long way from the petty larcenist you grew up with." "Don't tell me he's starting to act responsible." Their hands. "It's hard to belv you're gone," her voice straining. He leans forward, head on her shoulder; embrace. Slowly, kiss. More urgent, then "I can't" ck. Leaves.
AD chainsmoking, talk with ED. Knows KF is back, said things only he could know. Old files? They found his Diary -ED. Even sounded like him. "You're a man of science. Elim the improbable, and anything that's left that's not imposs is the truth." "With kf you can never elim the impossible!" Leaves. Talks to self. He's back, good, "cause that means -- I'm back."
Light, CK and BH, "who are you?" "Darien." "Are you sure?" -bh. He sits up. Asks how long out - 21h 3m -ck. So it worked? Anxious to know. Hasn't figured a way yet -- sudden ow. "and what in god's name am I wearing?" when notices suit. BH explains excursion. Angry: brought him back one reason, get gland out, "not for his own personal agenda." Slap! "You have NO IDEA what kevin has been though" BH tries to placate her. Breathes. "I can't deal with either of them right now." Leaves. DF has to talk to KF, leaves.
FB, lab corridor, door, black-masked, push DF aside, shot. Wakes up in bed. Feels forehead, looks around apt -- sees camcorder and "PLAY ME" taped to TV, a r/c taped t hand. Untapes, play. DF begins, uncertain. Entreats him to get gland out. Proably don't remem this -- got me out of prison to test, it works, now time to pass on the torch. If you need ally, bh -- "he's nuts, but you can trust him." "To be completely honest man, at the end of the day, it's just you and me." Like when Mom died. Before go to sleep -- want to thank you. "I don't know how much they told you, but you died saving my life. And if I could go back in time -- ah." Gets up, off. Stares. Clap clap, looks across rm. "And the Academy Award goes to Darien Fawkes. Bravo." Whap! "Really touching stuff." _Philosophy's Greatest Hits_ fall to floor. "Makes me feel like I should visit my brother more often."
"I just thought we should talk, face to face, for old time's sake." Seated across table in apt #2, pink bed behind, plants, curtains. Round table, laptor. Black turtleneck, bathrobe. "I just don't understand." "Why I betrayed you?" "Why someone would go to the trouble of crafting a face that's uglier than his real one." "Right. Well, now I underand why pleasantries have always been dispensed with." Pulls automatic, gestures at screen. Model of gland in his brain, wants to work more like yours - incl shutoff. Gets up. And if don't, what kill me again? "Of course not. I'm gonna kill your brother." Starts tapping. Notices gauge: halfway. Taps -- uh! Ugh! Falls on floor. "Calm down, you baby, I've got just the thing..." briefcase "five more minutes of this, your id starts exploding, you start choking and slapping me and trust me I've seen it all before." Injects into neck. "Enough Greek melodrama, just get up." Kicks. Frustr, kicks again, a thrid time -- grabs. "Thanks for the shot, Arnie." Throws him aside. Scrambles back. Grabs him. "You can pick on me all you like, but don't you ever, EVER, mess with my brother." Throws him out window -- lands on car roof. DF goes to window, sees clothes cast aside. Turns back -- laptop.
Laptop in lab, ck. Code for qs madness. Can't unwrite -- but if KF saw, he'd know how to remove it. Rolls up sleve. "Bring him on."
Stopwatch 5:00, smelling salts. "Kevin?" "Claire? I made it." Didn't DF tell you? Called from AD's hotel room. Figured kidnapped him. Has gone permanently invis, like SC. "Good." BH. "No. No, it's not good, none of it's good. Everything that I -- of the gland, the sum of my life's work, (noise door) it's caused so much pain, for so many people. I should never have gone thru with it." TO: "I have a whole stack of case files that say otherwise... to which I say: thank you." Asks: fig how to safely extract? Thinks so. First part involves gene therapy - would like private. CK offers lab 4, bh show.
In hall, kf asks bh about df. "When I first met him, I just thought he was a lazy, selfish, snot-nosed punk." "Believe me, I used to live with him." Chuckle. He's changed -- "now he's just a snot-nosed punk. A little less lazy." Have seen him moer than once risk his life for other people. Does he ever visit my grave? All the time -- sometimes even plants a little Amer flag. Well. BH keys open the door. Asks a favor: take care of him for me. Enters, door closes between them.
Lab table, binoc micro, plates, etc writing. "Darien: James Bevill wrote, if a man doesn't find anything to die for, he probably hasn't anything to live for."won't understand why I did this. HOpe forgive, until you do. (CK opens case, finds anti-pep syringe gone. Runs.) Bottle on table. "I've decided not to tell them how to remove the gland." (run hall) "Even though you may fear it, I believe it makes you a better man, closer to your true self." (CK and BH, run. She punches, shakes door.) "I know you'll get there. I'm proud of how far you have already come." (BH hotwires) Break in. "Kevin!" -ck. Spin chair, notebook, closes. "Kevin's gone."
Cemetary "Leonarda DaVinci said that our life is made by the death of others. That may be harsh, but I've learned it's true. Twice." Grave. DF, bh walks up. "Just talking to the dead." "Ah. This means you have hope." Shakes head. "I'm just tryin' to understand." Feel like on his own again. You're not - lots of people looking after you. A good man - anything did for you, out of love. "Hobbes, no offense, but -- don't tell me about Kevin, okay? You didn't know him." Strides off. BH puts flag at grave.