Photon Bullet (2)
(seaQuest DSV - Lucas's room)
(Bridger is looking through Lucas's music discs. O'Neill beeps in on the loudspeaker.)
O'Neill: I've got Lucas, sir.
Bridger: Put him on.
O'Neill: (on loudspeaker) Aye, aye, up on visual.
Bridger: Hey, Lucas.
Lucas: (on screen) Hi. What're you doing inside my room?
Bridger: Oh, I came to see if I could find that Sidney Bechet collection that you never returned to me. And, uh, (turns the screen to face bed, sits down) Darwin wants to say hello.
Lucas: (on screen) Hi, Darwin, how's it going?
Bridger: He misses you. Everything OK?
Lucas: (on screen) Oh, this is the greatest place on Earth.
Bridger: Ah. (laughs)
Lucas: (on screen) All the kids are great, I love it.
Bridger: How long you think you wanna stay there?
Lucas: (on screen) A while.
Bridger: OK, but I think you ought to tell your parents.
Lucas: (on screen) Oh, my parents don't care.
Bridger: Well, that's immaterial. It's appropriate for you to tell them what you're going to do. That's your responsibility.
Lucas: (on screen) Yes, but they don't care.
Bridger: But you have to care. That's what we're talking about.
Lucas: (on screen, kid knocks on door) Yeah, I'll, uh, think about that.
Bridger: I'll check with you tomorrow, all right.
Lucas: (on screen) Bye bye.
Bridger: Bye. (screen goes blank.
Darwin: Lucas leave pod?
Bridger: Yeah, maybe.
Darwin: Big ocean, big fun.
Bridger: Did sound like he was having fun, didn't it?
(Node Three - Julianna's Room)
(Julianna and Lucas kissing, Nick enters)
Nick: I got some brain food.
Lucas: Great.
Julianna: Thanks.
Nick: (sits down) Mycroft said we'll be ready to grab control of the World Bank tomorrow.
Julianna: It's so exciting.
Lucas: Yeah. Have you ever wondered what Mycroft did when he disappeared?
Nick: All the time. The man's a complete enigma.
Julianna: The past has already happened. Today is always version 1.0. I don't want to know.
Lucas: Would be a great hack. Finding out his past, what he was up to.
Julianna: You guys are nuts. Who cares?
Lucas: Oh, I do. The man's a giant. Mycroft was the ultimate hacker. No one knows what he did or even where he was for three years of his life. Don't you want to find out if the stories are true?
Nick: Yeah, like if he really did exomegacyphers for the CIA.
Lucas: Nah, I heard he worked for NORPAC, running multiple object pathogens against the CIA. They never liked each other. We could go in through the Fednet, then down through the layers.
Nick: We write a sweeper. It follows along behind us and erases our trail.
Julianna: I don't wanna hear this. (Lucas and Nick smile, go to door) Hey, you guys, (they stop) this is dangerous.
Lucas: Yeah, we're hackers, we live for this. You can't tell, it's part of the code. (both leave)
(Command Center)
(Nick and Lucas enter and sit down at two vacant terminals.)
Nick: Let's go.
Lucas: I'm in.
Nick: Right behind you. Initializing sweeper object code, now.
Lucas: Searching, Clemens, Martin. Not getting any hits.
Nick: Try the Defnet bridge.
Lucas: Got it. Look at this. Clemens did work for NORPAC . . . no, the CIA. (Julianna enters) Both of them, they had him working both camps. Had him connected to the Chinese border closing nine years ago. My parents were scared then. Weird to see your parents afraid.
Nick: My mother used to cry all the time.
Lucas: I'm trapped out of here, Nick, there's too many defenses.
Nick: Go under the Defnet.
Lucas: There he is, Mycroft, code name only. He was working a hack to countermand the Chinese military computer network. This information's confusing.
Nick: The Chinese had a team of programmers working as Mycroft's opposition.
Lucas: Oh man.
Nick: What is it?
Lucas: He, uh, he killed somebody.
Nick: What?! No way, it's not possible. Mycroft removed re: neutralization of enemy asset. That could mean anything.
Lucas: No.
Clemens: (appears on screen) Give me the room. Frankenstein, Wolfman, stay.
(The room clears except for Nick, Lucas, and Julianna. Clemens walks in a minute later and calls up an image of one man killing another man.)
Clemens: I put a photon bullet, in his head. It was a time of great fear. The Chinese closed their borders, NORPAC and the other, newer confederations were strapping on their guns. But the speed of battle had outpaced human capacity. The new war would be waged by computers, and the fastest computers would win. But they needed a new kind of soldier, me. My job was to sneak inside the Chinese military computers, crash their programs, destroy their ability to fight. But every time I'd find a way in their programmers slammed it shut. I couldn't break into their machines, so I decided to break into their people. I created a series of false communiqués, orders, memos, all designed to make the junior member of their team think his boss was working for our side. He reported it to his superiors but I intercepted everything and responded as though I was those superiors. I became his reality, and he had no idea. It was a game, as disembodied as Wolfman and Frankenstein on the Internex. It's easy to order an issue to kill when it's just another point in a game. My team thought I was a hero, but when I wouldn't give them specifics on how I did it, and at the debriefing they removed me from the team. They told me there wasn't any room for morals in a time of war. Tomorrow, I'll answer them. Leave me.
(Julianna's Room)
Lucas: This whole World Bank hack is so Mycroft will feel better about killing that guy. He has lost touch with reality.
Julianna: You're scared.
Lucas: Yeah, yeah, I am, and you should be, too. It's too complicated, we'll never be able to contain the variables, even if it is morally right.
Julianna: It is right. Control of the World Bank could let us stop a country from going to war. Imagine how many people we'll be able to help.
Lucas: Don't you think we ought to ask first? And what happens if we screw up?
Nick: If we're smart enough, and we're careful enough, it'll work. No one'll even know.
Lucas: And what if we're not, Nick? The entire transaction network will collapse, money will stop moving. A company will go bankrupt, a whole army won't get paid, a government will be overthrown. I can't even guess how many people we might hurt. But it's wrong to let this happen without at least trying to do something. Otherwise, we're as guilty as he is.
(seaQuest DSV - Bridger's Room)
(Bridger's comlink goes off.)
Bridger: (into comlink) Yeah.
O'Neill: (on comlink) Captain, Lucas calling for you.
Bridger: (into comlink) Oh, put him on.
O'Neill: (on comlink) Aye, sir, on visual.
Bridger: You all right?
Lucas: (on screen) Yeah, yeah, I'm, uh, yeah I'm fine. Captain, do you remember what you were telling me about responsibility?
Bridger: Yes.
Lucas (on screen) Well sometimes I can't figure out if I'm doing the right thing.
Bridger: We all have to deal with that, even with experience and age. You learn by trying, you make mistakes, and you correct them.
Lucas: (on screen) What if you hurt somebody?
Bridger: Hurt them? How?
Lucas: (on screen) Not, not directly, not like you hit them, but, but affected their lives somehow?
Bridger: The way we affect other people is all we leave, Lucas. It's the message we send forward into the future.
Lucas: (on screen) OK.
Bridger: I think that once you know what that message is, what you want to say, then you'll know how to behave. You got it?
Lucas: (on screen) Yeah, I got it. Thank you. (screen goes blank)
(Node Three - Command Center)
Clemens: Waiting time is over. Today, we transfuse this web of blood with the pure light of morality. Capture every link, control every nexus. Then we write the rules. Better rules, for a better world. Initiate trap codes for the African Confederation. (group works at computers) It is . . . the Lagos Center. Excellent, excellent.
Nick: I'm losing band width out of Geneva. The node's reset, I can't trap the loop agents.
Clemens: Trap the interframe tags.
Nick: Coming back. (quietly, into headset) Can you hear me?
Lucas: (quietly, into headset) Yeah, I got ya. Julianna?
Julianna: (quietly, into headset) I'm here.
Nick: (into headset) I almost lost that, there. Lucas is right, the network is too unstable.
Lucas: (into headset) If we let it come apart it'll be chaos.
Julianna: (into headset) We're almost there, we'll make it.
Lucas: (into headset) Yeah, and then what? I'm gonna stop it.
(He works at computer)
Clemens: (laughs, triumphantly) The World Bank Transaction Network, fully trapped . . . mine. (screens all go blank) What?
Lucas: I shut down the Node.
Clemens: Put us back online.
Lucas: No, no, it's wrong.
Clemens: We're on the doorstep of global synchronisity. (points to Lucas) You can't stop me. I will not fail. (pushes kid out of way and sits down, works at computer) I've been here before.
Lucas: Yeah, you killed a man.
Clemens: I made a mistake.
Lucas: You're making us do it all over again. Am I nuts? We are affecting millions of lives, real people's lives. This isn't some game on the Internex where you see every consequence in neat 3-D graphics.
Clemens: I'm destroying war, corruption; I'm ripping the heart out of greed.
Lucas: You can't do that by changing numbers. These things won't go away until we know each other, one by one, face to face. You said it yourself Clemens, it hurts in here. This is where you have to make it better.
Clemens: You're a child; you've never felt pain. I took a life.
Lucas: I'm not gonna let you take any more.
Clemens: (screens all go blank again) No, no.
(He runs at Lucas and begins to choke him.)
Julianna: Mycroft. No!
Nick: Get off him.
(Nick pulls up the video of one man killing another, Clemens notices, lets go of Lucas, looks scared.)
Lucas: It hurts because you can see his face. You knew who he was.
Clemens: No, no I learned that lesson.
Lucas: You learned the hard way. But we don't have to, we don't want to. I don't wanna hurt anyone.
Clemens: If I could stop it, is it wrong to wanna help?
Lucas: No, no, if you're willing to accept the responsibility. But you've been hiding behind machines, behind photons. It's a magic trick, it's not human.
Clemens: I just wanted to make it better, to help people.
Lucas: You can't help someone, until you know who they are.
Clemens: (thinks) I know who he is.
Lucas: Let the network go.
Clemens: (types something into computer) So, it's done. I'm sorry.
(Docking Bay)
Nick: Are you sure, I mean, are you sure you won't stay?
Lucas: I left some people behind I really didn't mean to, Nick.
Nick: Well, it'll be quiet, without you.
Lucas: I'll see you on the Internex.
Nick: (as they shake hands) See you, Frankie. (they hug) Kay, bye. (walks off)
Lucas: Bye. You'll be OK?
Julianna: I'm jealous, Mycroft's hitching a ride on seaQuest.
Lucas: You could come.
Julianna: I have to stay until his replacement gets here.
Lucas: Oh, yeah, we'll be a long way off by then.
Julianna: You helped me a lot, Lucas. It was really wonderful having you here.
Lucas: I'm sorry I'm leaving.
Julianna: No you're not, but I'm glad you came. (they hug)
Lucas: Me too.
(The door opens, Bridger and Ford exit launch)
Julianna: Bye.
Lucas: Bye. (Julianna leaves)
Bridger: She's cute.
Lucas: Yeah, she is.
Clemens: (walking over) All set, Captain, I appreciate the lift. I hope it's not out of your way.
Bridger: Well, you've been more than hospitable to Lucas. And besides, that order came direct from UEO Command. (shakes hands with Clemens)
Clemens: Of course, but it was a pleasure. He's a remarkable man. (enters launch, Lucas goes to follow)
Bridger: It went well?
Lucas: I learned a lot.
Bridger: I'm glad you decided to come back.
Lucas: Thank you.
Bridger: Commander.
Ford: (pulls out envelope, hands it to Lucas) Lucas.
Lucas: (looks inside envelope) What's this?
Bridger: It's your salary, retroactive. Let's go. (enters launch, Ford follows)
Lucas: (following into launch) Captain, I don't think this is enough.