The Regulator (2)
(Regulator's Launch)
Regulator: Come on, boy, come on, come on, boy, come on. (releases net, catches Darwin) All right, now just hang tight for a couple of minutes. We can pick up some air and head on home.
(Regulator's Lair - Madagascar Plateau, 130 meters deep)
Regulator: No mind is advanced as yours. Complex communication cycling faster than I can blink; send and receive information simultaneously, process and respond to it before I can even construct a valid question. And I am in the top one percentile of intellectual development based on any acceptable standard of measurement. (pauses) Something your species probably surpassed forty-five million years ago. But what really matters here and now is that you can talk. Speak to me, Darwin, open my eyes. You see, I have no idea what you are saying. But you speak English. Look, (draws circle) sphere, (draws line) vertical, (draws another line) horizontal, (punches paper with marker) center, center. You know what I'm saying. Verne, get the tub. Don't deny me, you can help me comprehend. I have fish. (Verne drags tub over to Regulator) You see, you see, you understand. You're just toying with me, and don't think I don't know I deserve it, but I'm only searching for the truth. Tell me, on the scale of evolution, that the truth is beyond my grasp and I can accept that. (Verne throws fish in water)
(seaQuest DSV, Sea Deck)
Crocker: (entering with Ortiz and Lucas) Captain, Darwin is, uh, missing.
Bridger: Since when?
Ortiz: Twelve hours ago. Second shift let him out to feed.
Lucas: I've been calling him all morning.
Westphalen: Could he have … encountered a shark?
Ortiz: I've got my WSKRS out searching. We haven't run into a shark big enough to be a threat. There is a tuna fleet, about a hundred miles north. They say they're safe-netting, but …
Bridger: How far have we gone since he was let out to sea?
Ortiz: Sixty miles.
Bridger: (thinks) Keep calling him. (shrugs) I don't know what else to do.
Crocker: Aye, sir. (leaves with Ortiz)
Lucas: Is that it? You two are just going to keep on working?
Bridger: Yes, Lucas, that's it.
Westphalen: Lucas, you may find this interesting.
Lucas: Yes, well, I would rather find Darwin, OK.
Westphalen: Yes, well listen anyway. Look, a sponge lives off microorganisms in the sea water. A single sponge can pump six hundred gallons a day of water through its pours to extract its daily nutrients. It's a natural filtration system. Now hold this a minute … here's the water in the moon pool and also in the
corridor tubes are drawn from the sea. We are considering the possibility of using sponges to provide a secondary filtering system to help keep the water clean, for Darwin.
Lucas: Yes, but since Darwin's gone maybe I can use this to wash my car, if I ever get a car, (angrily) if I ever get off this whale.
Bridger: (angrily) That's enough. Come with me.
Lucas: What?
Bridger: (into comlink) Bridge.
O'Neill: (on comlink) Yes, sir.
Bridger: (into comlink) I want Lieutenant Krieg in the ward room with his supply binder, immediately.
O'Neill: (on comlink) Aye, sir. (Bridger leaves, Lucas follows)
(Ward Room)
Bridger: (knock on door) Come in.
Krieg: (entering) Sir.
Bridger: I need Leslie's phone number.
Krieg: Leslie?
Bridger: The Regulator.
Krieg: Yes, sir.
Lucas: You think he can help us find Darwin?
Bridger: I think he took Darwin.
Lucas: Took him! No, he wouldn't do that.
Bridger: Oh, you've known him for two minutes and you're able to make that judgment?
Lucas: He said it was wrong to keep creatures against their will. You saw how protective he was of Verne.
Krieg: Sir.
Bridger: It's the least he owes Verne.
Regulator: (off screen) Speak to me.
Bridger: Speak to you? I want my dolphin back, Leslie.
Regulator: (sits down in chair on screen) He's not your dolphin, Bridger. He doesn't belong to UEO and you have no right to conduct experiments on him. I know that first hand and better than you can imagine. I set him free.
Bridger: Leslie. (screen goes blank) Lucas, the dolphin information that was in the vo-chorder, was that erased when we blew the chip?
Lucas: I was, it was scattered. When things get too hot on D-Deck the program became unglued.
Bridger: So it's in there somewhere, right?
Lucas: Yes, but it could be in single bytes.
Bridger: But you're going to find it for me anyway. (into comlink) Mr. O'Neill.
O'Neill: (on comlink) Yes, sir.
Bridger: (into comlink) Display the transmission in the ward room. I want you and Mr. Ortiz to isolate a frequency for me.
O'Neill: (on comlink) Yes, sir. Is there a specific frequency we're looking for?
Bridger: (into comlink) Yes, Darwin's. (leaves)
(Bridge)
O'Neill: There's not enough information. I can't match it with Darwin's.
Bridger: Can't match what?
O'Neill: The dolphin.
Bridger: There's a dolphin?
O'Neill: It's faint, but it's there.
Bridger: (to Crocker) I think we'd better check out the Regulator's operation. (goes to leave)
Lucas: Why would he take Darwin?
Bridger: Spherical evolution.
Lucas: I wanna go.
Bridger: Oh, of course you do. Come on.
(Launch)
Crocker: Mars, ear plugs. (puts in hand) Ear plugs. (puts in Olden's hand)
Lucas: (Bridger laughs) What's the matter with you?
Bridger: Tell me something, Lucas. Are there times when you feel separated from the rest of this crew? More like an observer than a participant?
Lucas: Yes, all the people I'm with are adults and I'm sixteen.
Bridger: Yeah, a very normal sixteen. And then there's another part of you…
Lucas: Now what?
Bridger: Wait a minute, I'm just saying that the normal sixteen part of you hangs out with Krieg and Ortiz. But the more imaginative part of you hangs out with Westphalen. I think you've got a neural drip you can't shut off. Some people see that as a behavioral problem. Probably why your father unloaded you on the seaQuest and I'm wondering whether being here contributes to the separation.
Lucas: Captain, you want me to leave? Is that it?
Bridger: No, did I say that? I want you to listen. I'm saying that who you are and what you are and where you are makes you a very smart observer. I just don't know if you're lonely.
Lucas: My father put me here so that he didn't have to deal with me.
Bridger: Yes, maybe so. I think he was afraid that without the discipline that comes from working with people who have to function well together, that you would become some kind of weird genius. Too weird for your own good or anyone else's.
Crocker: Captain, we're coming up on the air lock. (hands him ear plugs)
Lucas: You mean like the Regulator. (puts plugs to ears, Bridger stops him)
Bridger: You got it.
Crocker: We're docked and locked, sir. (Bridger opens door, puts in plugs)
(Regulator's Lair)
Regulator: You know your likeness is stamped in a Greek coin? At the temple of Delphi the Greeks called Apollo Delphinios. You sleep with one eye open. You know things. (hears pounding on door) Go away, Bridger.
Bridger: (outside door) Open up Leslie, Leslie.
Regulator: Leslie's dead. I heard it on the news.
Bridger: Listen, Mr. Regulator, open this up or we'll drill it open.
Regulator: (runs to Darwin) Watch this, tell me the truth or tell me I'm wrong.
Bridger: Verne, listen, we've got bananas.
(Verne quickly gets up and goes over to the door.)
Regulator: Verne, you'd turn on me for bananas?
Bridger: (Verne opens door, all enter) He's an orangutan, Leslie. What's the big surprise?
Lucas: Darwin. (Regulator holds up voltage disc) You stole Darwin.
Regulator: We were having a conversation.
Lucas: What's this? Spherical evolution?
Regulator: Oh, he tell you I was crazy?
Lucas: He told me you were searching for the center of the universe.
Regulator: That's right.
Lucas: How can Darwin help you find it?
Regulator: Harmony can only exist in perfection, and perfection can only be found in the sphere. The Earth is a sphere turning on its axis, revolving a perfect sphere around the spherical sun, like all the other spherical planets.
Lucas: That's incorrect, the planets turn an elliptical path around the sun.
Regulator: An illusion of nature. The solar system circles through the galaxy and the galaxy circles through the universe, eventually ending its journey where it began. No beginning, no end, a perfect circle, and at the center of the circle, the center of the universe, is harmony. And so it is with man. In order to evolve, he must finish where he began. That is spherical evolution.
Lucas: I've got a bulletin for you, pal. This guy here, his name is Mars.
Regulator: You bought the mainstream, didn't you pioneer?
Lucas: I don't have to fake suicide to sleep at night.
Regulator: You're young, there's still time.
Lucas: How do you justify stealing my dolphin?
Bridger: Spherical evolution, Lucas. If you believe that man marched out of the ocean a billion years ago, than to complete the circle he has to march back in again.
Regulator: Dolphins did. Fifty million years ago they walked on the land, then they returned to the sea. Darwin's ancestors leaped up the ladder of evolution.
Bridger: And you think that by talking to Darwin he's going to tell you where the center of the universe is.
Regulator: It stands to reason.
Bridger: He can't talk.
Regulator: I heard him.
Bridger: He doesn't speak English, he speaks dolphin.
Regulator: What is this, Bridger? Some kind of military project? Talk to the dolphin, tell him where to plant the bomb?
Bridger: That was you, Leslie.
Regulator: I've left it behind. You've still got your feet in it.
Bridger: (motions to guns) You'd sell those to almost anyone who met your price. You've still got your feet in it. Now I want you to open up those pool doors and let the dolphin go.
Regulator: (grabs gun) We're not finished, back off. (to Bridger) Make him talk. (Bridger motions for Darwin to go) No. (Mars goes for Regulator, gun goes off, Regulator falls to ground in pain) What is that thing?
Crocker: It's a sonic stun gun. Plays havoc with your inner ear, doesn't it? Unless of course you happen to be wearing some of these. (pulls out ear plugs)
Bridger: How's Verne?
Lucas: He's OK. Captain, look. (pulls up Verne's shirt revealing gills)
Bridger: You tried to give him artificial gills. You still haven't learned to breathe underwater, have you Verne? That's because you're an orangutan, and Darwin is still a dolphin. He doesn't speak English. But you're trying to do the same thing all over again, aren't you?
Regulator: I heard him talk. It's, uh, classified.
Bridger: Let it go, Leslie, you have no idea what you heard.
Regulator: You're wrong, Nathan, I know exactly what I heard. But like everything else in my life, what I know doesn't seem to matter. (opens pool door)
Bridger: Go home, Darwin.
Lucas: You think it's possible that I could end up like him someday.
Bridger: He was sixteen once.
Lucas: Tell him about Darwin, please.
Bridger: (to Regulator) Lucas would like you to come back to the seaQuest. Someone there he wants you to talk to.
(seaQuest DSV, Sea Deck)
Lucas: Every step with this program is total R and D. Basically I'm flying blind, but it's self modifying.
Krieg: What's self modifying?
Lucas: It teaches itself. Once the program has a base language for translation, it can begin to instruct itself.
Bridger: Lucas, let him try it.
Lucas: I don't know if it's gonna work.
Bridger: Failure is no stranger in this room.
Lucas: All right. Darwin, this is …
Regulator: Leslie Ferina.
Lucas: Leslie Ferina.
Darwin: Leslie Ferina.
Regulator: Hello Darwin. (to Bridger) Can I ask him something?
Bridger: Sure, sure.
Regulator: Darwin, do you, do you have a sense of history? Do you know why the dolphins returned to the water? Why did the dolphins go back in the water?
Darwin: Dolphin.
Darwin: Swim.
Bridger: That OK, Leslie?
Regulator: No, no wait. Darwin, help me find the center of the universe. I need to know what's there.
Bridger: Darwin, do you know where the center of the universe is?
Darwin: Yes.
Regulator: See. Where is it? Where is the center of the universe?
Darwin: Inside you.