"Are you all right?" "You need to get out of the street, honey." "You need to get out of the street." "Watch out!" "Watch where you're going!" "Keep moving!" "Go on." "Hey!" "Excuse me!" "?" "Champagne, please." "I'll have the same." "Yes, ma'am." "Here you go." "Thank you." "You do know it's free." "Nobody tell you this is a charity concert?" "Well, it can't be that charitable if they force you to sit through the damn thing." "Cheers to that." "Cheers." "I'm Jacob." "Hi." "Elizabeth." "Pleasure to meet you." "So what do you do?" "I'm special science advisor to the FBI." "How intriguing." "Job description would be...?" "Well, scientific advancements have greatly benefited humanity, but... if those advancements are abused, could be very dangerous." "My job... is to make sure that never happens." "And what kind of science crimes do you like to handle, Jacob?" "Kind of classified." "What about your phone number?" "That classified, too?" "Hood." "We have some place to be." "Let me give you my card." "Duty calls." "I always wanted to say that." "Sorry to interrupt." "The FBI is holding two seats on a flight that leaves in half an hour." "So what's this about, Rachel?" "Okay." "Teresa Kimsey." "She's 16." "Went missing July 7." "Suddenly showed up August 9." "Unharmed?" "Physically." "Benjamin Gonzales, 15." "Disappeared August 11." "Reappeared September 8." "And Reggie Leinhart, 17." "Missing September 10, back October 15." "When the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children detected the pattern, they contacted the FBI." "Well, the approximate age is the same." "Duration of abduction is roughly a month..." "That's not what they're focusing on." "Or why they want you involved." "All of the children are severely autistic." "At least, they were when they were abducted." "Were?" "Now they're exhibiting symptoms of savant syndrome." "From mentally challenged to mentally gifted in the space of a month?" "That's extraordinary." "When they found Reggie Leinhart, he'd carved 657 squares in the side of an 18-wheeler with a screwdriver." "Perfect quadrilaterals." "Benjamin Gonzales's mother found her recently abducted son frantically building that." "Which means these must be Teresa Kimsey's." "I find it hard to believe that these children were diagnosed with Heller's syndrome." "It's a relatively rare form of ASD." "Autism spectrum disorder." "I have a cousin who's autistic." "But he has a mild form." "So, what were you saying about Heller's syndrome?" "Well, it's one of the most severe." "A child can be developing normally and then sometime between the ages of two and four, they start to regress." "They lose skills that they've already developed like, uh, language, motor skills." "Some of them even stop communicating altogether." "Savantism is an even more uncommon condition where a developmental disability coexists with an extreme ability in other areas like mathematics or art." "Yeah, I never understood how that works." "Well..." "Okay." "Um, wait." "Look." "Wait." "That's mine." "This is an ordinary person's brain." "By ordinary you mean incredibly charming and full of personality." "Ordinary people organize." "They sort things." "They make connections." "It's called logic." "Now, this..." "Um, what are you doing?" "!" "Is the brain..." "Hood!" "...of an autistic person." "You see, although types and degrees of autism vary widely across the spectrum, most of them have trouble with connections." "The ability to organize that I was talking about." "Now..." "Hood!" "This is the brain of a savant." "It's the ability to focus on one thing to the exclusion of everything else." "Now, if you have nothing but toothpaste in your suitcase, what would happen?" "You'd know a hell of a lot about toothpaste." "Exactly." "You know everything there is to know about toothpaste." "You'd be a toothpaste expert." "The question is:" "how does a severely autistic otherwise ordinary person become a savant inside of a month?" "What happened to these children?" "And why?" "Well, we'll start with Teresa Kimsey." "She's our first victim, with the thickest case file." "And next time, use your own luggage." "I didn't know the FBI had a science division." "They don't." "They have a Science and Technology branch- deals with all manner of intelligence-gathering and criminal investigation." "And then there's me." "Is this Teresa?" "Yes." "She was two when that picture was taken." "She was such a funny baby, always smiling." "About six months later, she just stopped." "No more smiling, no more hugs." "Sometimes she'd look at me like she didn't know who I was." "Before we go in, I should warn you." "Usually Teresa doesn't like visitors." "She can get anxious and upset." "But then... she hasn't exactly been herself lately." "Wouldn't even go near a coloring book before she went missing." "Hi, Teresa." "Now I can't get her to stop drawing." "Mmm." "And not that I want to." "Mrs. Kimsey, would you mind if we spoke to Teresa for a few minutes?" "Well, actually, you see," "Teresa doesn't really talk." "Oh, it's okay." "She doesn't need to." "There was a 13-year-old girl with autism at Syracuse a few years ago." "She never spoke." "Certainly didn't think she could read or write, and when they gave her a computer keyboard she typed out the words "I love Mom. "" "So Teresa's preferred method..." "Would appear to be drawing." "Hiya." "This is me." "Sort of." "I like science." "That's an atom." "this is..." "Rachel." "She likes to beat up bad people." "Hey!" "And this is you." "Can you show me what happened to you when you went away?" "You were sleeping?" "Were you sleeping?" "You're being very helpful," "Teresa." "Thank you." "What is that?" "Some kind of tube." "Is that a tunnel?" "Were you in a tunnel?" "Where'd they take you, honey?" "Is that a..." "Was she in an MRI machine?" "Were you in a machine?" "You see, these are, uh, these are surface coils." "They increase the magnetic sensitivity." "And... these..." "Rachel, can I have the sidewalk picture, please?" "These are DTIs" "Diffusion Tensor Imaging." "DTI is a specific type of MRI that tracks the movement of water through the brain." "Teresa, you're drawing what's inside your head?" "But... the last time she had an MRI was when she was but five years old." "Where?" "Well, the Autism Institute of Chicago." "We're meeting with the chief administrator," "Catherine Bonatelli." "Both kidnap victims" "Benjamin Gonzales and Reggie Leinhart had MRIs taken here." "They were also five years old at the time." "That's got to mean something, right?" "Means we're getting closer." "I don't understand." "Why are these children being taken?" "That's what we're trying to find out." "Well, I want you to know that the Institute will do whatever we can to help." "Thank you." "Rachel." "Do you have the picture of Benjamin's sculpture?" "These were taken of Teresa over ten years ago." "I hope they still pertain to your investigation." "Miss Bonatelli, we'll also need to see the scans for Benjamin Gonzales and Reggie Leinhart." "Excuse me." "Do you mind if I take over for a second?" "Oh, sure." "These scans are almost exactly the same." "Even if these patients have the same type of autism, it doesn't mean their scans would be this close." "Brain patterns are as unique as fingerprints." "You have so many kids with the same distinct brain pattern." "I'm going to need to see all the DTIs you've taken here." "Oh, I'm sorry, but we've confidentiality issues." "Without express permission from every patient involved..." "Or a court order." "Our facility's been taking DTIs since '94." "We're talking thousands of patients." "And if any one of those matches the three we just found, they're in real danger of being abducted." "So the sooner we get started, the better." "Hood..." "Yep." "I think I've got one." "Scott Butler." "He doesn't have Heller's syndrome like the other three victims." "But his scans were also taken when he was five." "He's 18 now." "And they're almost identical to the others." "Yeah, that's a match." "If these MRIs were taken over ten years ago, then it's not these MRIs that the kids are remembering, is it?" "No, I don't think it is." "I'm going to try Scott's contact number." "Yeah." "Voice mail full." "We'll need to go check on him." "Hold on." "I found another one." "Cameron Stewart." "Five years old when he had the scan done." "Now he's 16." "Let's give it a try." "Hello?" "Hello." "Is this..." "Mrs. Stewart?" "Yes." "Who's this?" "Hi." "I'm Jacob Hood." "I'm-I'm with the FBI." "Is your son home, please?" "Hello?" "Did the police call you?" "No." "Is he all right?" "Then, how did you know?" "Cameron went missing from school this morning." "All right now." "We have to be real quiet." "Okay?" "Don't want to upset our new friend Cameron." "Hello, Cameron." "You're going to be very comfortable here." "I promise." "Missing Persons Unit is at Cameron Stewart's residence, getting a full report." "Dr. Hood and I found four more potential victims." "Are they accounted for?" "Yeah, they're all accounted for." "Placing undercover units at each one of their houses, 24-hour protection." "Mr. Butler?" "Scott Butler?" "Scott?" "Scott?" "Hood, look at all of his mail." "There's at least a month's worth." "He's already been taken, Rachel." "Taken and returned." "Clear." "Looks like he lives alone." "Well, that explains why no one reported you missing, Scott." "Scott... we're with the FBI." "Do you mind if I, if I just make a recording of that?" "Scott, would you mind stopping playing for a moment." "I'd like to ask you some questions." "Scott, are you all right?" "He's bleeding." "Get an ambulance!" "Code Eight." "Ambulance needed at 146841st Street," "You hear that?" "What?" "Music." "The same notes." "Same as what?" "Full sentences, Hood." "* Hear that?" "Now listen." "Same notes." "Scott's phrase used the same notes as a common anesthesia machine." "You don't need one of those to get an MRI." "I don't think someone was taking pictures of his brain." "I think they opened it up." "I don't think he was the only one either." "Look at the back wall." "It's a clean room filter." "You don't need one of those to get an MRI either." "You only need them for operations." "Time of death is 3:47 p. m." "'Cause of death:" "rapid blood loss due to a trauma to the carotid artery." "Cause of trauma:" "yet to be determined." "Perhaps I can help with that." "I'm sorry." "Who are you?" "FBI." "I'm Dr. Jacob Hood." "If you don't mind," "I'd like to take a look at the body." "What is this about?" "What are you looking for?" "A scar." "Would you mind if I, uh..." "What kind of scar?" "Can I borrow a nasal probe?" "Right here." "Thank you." "This should just take a second." "Okay." "I got it." "There's the scar." "Have you taken X-rays yet?" "Cameron?" "Cameron!" "Cameron?" "The operation was done through an incision in the gum, and then you walk the bone up to the pituitary gland." "It's a new kind of brain surgery that doesn't leave any visible scars." "Wait." "You're saying someone secretly performed brain surgery on this boy without consent?" "That's exactly what I'm saying, Dr. Fisher." "Someone tried to alter Scott's brain neurons by surgically implanting some kind of microfilament." "That sounds risky." "The brain is highly prone to infection." "Or you can nip the carotid artery during the procedure and the clot wouldn't hold." "One sneeze would dislodge the clot, and you'd bleed to death." "Which is exactly what happened to Scott." "Hood, Teresa and the other two boys could be walking around with these wires inside their head." "Cameron Stewart could be undergoing the same procedure as we speak." "We need to go." "Can you check the wires for serial numbers when you do the autopsy, please?" "No problem." "Don't send me somewhere else, please." "This is the third place that I've been to in this hospital." "Now where is he?" "Where's Scotty?" "I want to see him." "I just..." "I want to see my son." "You're Mr. Butler?" "Do you know something about what's happened to Scotty?" "What's happened to my son?" "It was a month." "A month." "The most he'd ever gone without calling me back was two weeks." "I should've flown out to check on him." "Why didn't I fly out?" "It's not your fault." "Yeah..." "Yeah, it is." "I never should have let him move away." "He had no business living by himself." "How long was he on his own?" "I lived with him the first six months to make the transition." "He was high-functioning in terms of his autism." "He had been on his own about a year now." "He only wanted to be normal." "What did I do?" "I promise you, Mr. Butler, it was nothing you did." "Whoever took Scott would have done it whether he was with you or not." "Still no answer at Teresa's." "I hope she's all right." "What is up with this damn traffic?" "You okay?" "I'm fine." "I just..." "I just keep thinking about Cameron Stewart, out there somewhere." "Who would do this, Hood?" "Put kids through this?" "What would their motive be?" "Well, some people believe that autism, specifically savantism, is like some sort of clumsy step forward on the evolutionary path to the ultimate potential of the human mind." "And if someone could figure out how to recreate what gives them certain advanced abilities while preventing the disabilities... then you can significantly advance human intelligence." "How does sticking wires in somebody's brain do that?" "By forcing the neurons to find alternate paths to their destination." "Those alternate paths could be better paths." "I'll try her cell." "No!" "Miss Young." "Hi." "Dr. Hood, hi." "Teresa, look who's here." "She spoke yesterday." "She said," ""Thanks, Mom." "Do we have any ice cream?"" "And "Where's Bob?"" "Who's Bob?" "Our dog." "Oh." "Mrs. Kimsey... um, we'd like to take Teresa to the hospital." "Why?" "What is it?" "She needs an X-ray." "No." "No, she's not going anywhere." "Mrs. Kimsey." "Teresa might have been, um, subjected to an experimental neural implant." "Her health could be at risk." "But Teresa's never been better." "Look at her." "I mean, she's talking." "Not a lot, but she is talking." "She called me Mom for the first time in 16 years." "Do you know what that's like?" "No, I don't." "And that horrible month." "No, uh-uh." "No, I don't want to lose her again." "Of course you don't, Mrs. Kimsey, but this is happening to other teenagers, too, just like Teresa." "One died yesterday." "Another was taken from his home." "Kidnapped." "His name's Cameron, and he's 16 also." "You see, the more we know about what happened to Teresa... the better chance we have to find him." "I'm sorry." "She's not going with you." "Yes, I am." "?" "Cameron's gone." "He must be hiding." "I searched his room." "He's scared." "It's not unusual for them to find refuge in extremely confined spaces." "I looked everywhere." "He's gone." "You okay back there, Hood?" "You're awfully quiet." "It's nice, but I'm starting to worry." "There's probably only 50 or 60 doctors in the Midwest capable of this kind of surgery- maybe we should just visit them all and see if Teresa recognizes anybody." "You can't just go around confronting upstanding members of the medical community without probable cause." "Why not?" "I have to go to the bathroom." "Cameron?" "Cameron?" "Cameron?" "Teresa?" "You okay?" "Come on, Teresa." "You're scaring me." "What's going on?" "Teresa?" "You okay?" "Hood." "You're drawing again?" "Well..." "I suppose it is still her dominant form of communication." "Teresa, what is this?" "Looks like a pattern." "It's definitely some kind of sequence." "I wonder..." "What?" "Synesthesia." "Or, actually, a specific kind of synesthesia called grapheme." "Okay, back up and start with the first word I don't understand." "Um, many people with savant syndrome experience something called synesthesia where one sensory experience triggers an overpowering response in another." "Like, um, every time you hear a door slam, you get a taste of mint in your mouth or vice versa." "Okay... and grapheme?" "Well, it's the most common type, where letters or numbers are perceived as inherently, uh, colored or textured." "So, like, an A could be red?" "That's right." "Okay, so she could be writing a name." "Yeah, or a place." "Teresa, do you mind if I borrow one of these?" "Seven letters or..." "or numbers." "Could be a phone number." "It's hard to see what you're doing with all the graffiti, Teresa." "Graffiti." "No, that's it." "She's not writing around the graffiti." "She's using it." "If she's intentionally incorporating it, we can use it as a key." "That's brilliant." "Okay, okay, Teresa, so the first color in your sequence is... yellow- what's yellow?" "I got a four here that's yellow." "There's yellow scribbling over a four over there, too." "Uh-huh." "Okay." "Red's next." "These two Os are red." "It's not a phone number." "It's a license plate." "I have to be honest with you." "The very idea that you're considering me some kind of suspect is... well, incredibly insulting, not to mention absurd." "This is your license plate number, isn't it, Miss Bonatelli?" "And you got it from a girl who has a severe case of Heller's syndrome." "It may be a simple coincidence, or she may actually remember it from her earlier visits to the facility." "When she was five?" "Do you have any idea how long we've been doing research on autism here?" "Do you?" "Over two decades, and we still don't know what causes it." "Right now, one out of every 150 children has autism." "That means one and a half million in America alone, and it's growing." "Which means we'll have four million in one decade." "The research has to continue." "What happened to Scott Butler isn't research." "It's murder." "If that's the case..." "I certainly hope you capture whoever is responsible for all this." "I can't believe we just let her go." "We don't have any proof." "Proof?" "It's obvious." "Law is like biology, Hood." "You can't just decide something's true." "You got to dig up some dirt, find a few nasty little microorganisms to prove your point." "Good use of a scientific analogy, Rachel." "Hey, speaking of digging up dirt..." "I just got a text." "My friend at the Bureau who's running a background check for me." "It seems Miss Bonatelli did some consulting work for a company that was a cover." "A cover for who?" "The CIA." "You weren't easy to find, Mr. Whittier." "Means I'm fairly good at my job, Agent Young." "Means you are, too, I may say." "Must have friends in high places." "What we have is a dead 19-year-old boy and a 16-year-old who is missing as we speak." "Somebody's operating on autistic children without their consent." "Catherine Bonatelli did some consulting work for you in '05." "I'm assuming it involved her work at the Autism Institute of Chicago." "If this person in question did do some contract work for us, those records would be part of our HCS." "Human Control System." "But HCS info is accessible on a need-to-know basis only." "Well, unless the health and well-being of innocent teenagers means nothing to you, we need to know right now." "If the person in question, this Catherine Bonatelli, did contract work in '05, it would have involved an interest in a common trait of autism:" "superior memory." "We would have used her as an easy access route for information, statistics." "Possible test subjects?" "Never got that far." "People realized that it would be decades before we got anywhere useful on this, not to mention the potential for a public relations disaster of epic proportions." "So, if this... theoretical pilot study ever did exist... it was shut down." "So, basically, you're telling us nothing." "If someone is doing what you say to these children, I'd like to help." "The Agency would like to help." "So, prove it." "When it comes to passing sensitive information, the trick is to make sure that you didn't leave behind physical evidence of any kind:" "notes on paper, phone records, voice recordings, that kind of thing." "The best way to leak... is simply lean forward and whisper in another person's ear." "What?" "What did he say?" "Catherine Bonatelli's coded cell phone number - we can use it to trace her movements." "Stay here." "I'm gonna go check this out." "Rachel?" "!" "Rachel." "Are you okay?" "I'm okay." "I'm okay." "But Miss Bonatelli isn't." "Building was rented in Miss Bonatelli's name." "Do you think she's our mad scientist?" "No." "No, she didn't even go to med school." "Brain surgery's not the kind of thing you learn on the internet, no matter what they say." "Probably wasn't her idea to blow herself up, either." "It's pretty clear there was someone else." "Bonatelli provided the test subjects based on the DTIs from the Institute, but I don't think she knew the medical details of what was going on." "Or how far they'd go to cover their tracks." "No." "We've gone over the whole site." "She's definitely the only casualty." "Cameron?" "Cameron?" "Cameron?" "What did you find?" "He's nearby." "They weren't just doing the surgeries in this building." "They were holding them in here, too." "So, where's Cameron?" "If he's still alive, they've moved him somewhere." "Hey, Hood." "Or maybe he escaped." "I need an immediate door-to-door search for a special needs 16-year-old named Cameron Stewart." "Yes, ma'am." "Have you seen this boy?" "In this place?" "No." "You're welcome to look around if you want." "We won't be long." "Take your time." "Rachel... he was here." "Are you sure?" "We have no other choice." "Are you really going to do this at the hospital?" "There's nowhere else left." "I can't believe we did that at the lab to Catherine." "We have to stop." "It's too risky." "Don't think about the risk." "Think about the reward." "Now what?" "We've got one clue left." "It's not here." "What do you mean, it's not here?" "How do you lose a brain?" "Well, the brain is here, but the wires- they were in a specimen cup." "Okay, who has access to this area?" "Hospital staff, cleaning crew." "I'm sorry." "Somebody must have made a mistake." "It wasn't a mistake." "The wires are gone for the same reason they blew up the building." "Whoever's behind this is getting rid of the evidence." "I need to find out what the wires were made of." "The compound could tell us where it was made, and right now, we have nothing." "No." "No, we do have something." "Or more specifically, someone." "You're doing great, Teresa." "Just remain still." "And thank you for helping us." "You're very brave." "The composite of the wires in Teresa's brain is primarily platinum." "As in wedding bands?" "As in nerve stimulators." "They're like small defibrillators that are surgically implanted in the chest to shock the vagus nerve and prevent epileptic seizures." "If somebody's dismantling them to make neuroconductors, they're gonna need more than a few." "We need to find out what local hospital is ordering an abundance of these things." "Hold on." "Those missing wires." "It's not easy to swipe something from a hospital morgue without clearance." "You're right." "Our doctor must have privileges at this hospital." "?" "@@@" "I have eight doctors who requisitioned nerve stimulators in the last year." "No." "Hang on." "Seven." "Hmm." "That's strange." "Why?" "It's okay." "It's just, the stimulators usually go through the thoracic department, but I've got 25 of them assigned to a surgeon in neurology." "What?" "Why would a brain surgeon be implanting nerve stimulators?" "What's the surgeon's name?" "Dr. Edward Fisher." "The doctor who tried to save Scott Butler?" "I'll have Chicago PD pick him up." "Do you have his address?" "Don't need one." "He's upstairs." "Scheduled for surgery about 15 minutes ago." "Nobody move." "Put that down slowly, Dr. Fisher, and step back from the table." "You don't understand." "You don't know what I'm doing." "Then tell us." "What are you doing?" "Trying to save my son." "Your son?" "Noah." "He's four." "Diagnosed with Heller's syndrome a year ago." "He's autistic." "So you're trying to fix him?" "Find some kind of cure?" "Who are you to say he needs fixing?" "Just 'cause someone's mind works atypically doesn't mean they can't experience happiness?" "Or thrive on their own terms?" "In fact, one of those atypical people helped us find you, Dr. Fisher." "You remember your patient" "Teresa Kimsey?" "I'm so close to a breakthrough, I can't stop now." "You don't understand." "I understand you can't conduct deadly experiments on other peoples' kids to save your own." "Noah deserves... a normal life." "I have to finish now." "Get any closer to that boy's head, and I'll put a bullet in yours." "Why was Fisher working on teenagers when Noah's only four?" "Our brain stops maturing around 15 or 16." "If you operated any younger, there'd be no way of telling if the changes were due to the operation,or simple maturation of the brain." "Poor kid." "Let's hope he has more family." "If they're anything like Mom and Dad, maybe not." "Any news on Noah?" "I wonder if he has an aunt, an uncle." "Actually, I've filed for a friend-of-the-court brief for adoption." "Not for me." "I love kids." "I'm a big fan, but all that traveling we do, along with all the scientific crimes and crises." "Then who?" "Mr. Butler, Scott's dad." "He has the experience, and, uh, I don't know." "It seemed like a good idea." "What?" "That's very thoughtful, Hood." "Sensitive." "What, scientists can't be sensitive?" "She hasn't spoken in a week now." "I understand why they had to remove the wires, but I miss her." "She's still in there." "We're going to start therapy at the" "Son Rise Institute in Massachusetts next week." "Teresa?" "We wanted to thank you for your help." "Now, we wouldn't have found the bad doctor if it hadn't been for you." "You're an amazing girl."