"Doesn't look good." "Richer or poorer, baby." "Just like the midget Elvis preacher said." "Mm-hmm." "Everyone get down on the floor now!" "Open the register!" "You, is that your Beamer?" " Down." " Give me the keys now." "Keys." "Hey!" "We got any descriptions?" "No one was in any shape to talk, so we're pulling the security tapes now." " Robbery?" " Call it that." "Made off with $122." "Plus the car." "That Mustang was hot-wired; there's, uh, gun oil in the glove compartment, so they probably took something else." "I'll go find out what the victims were driving." "Get anything." "Get an APB out on them, alright?" "It's not about the money." "Not exclusively, anyway." "Check this out." ""Our love is like a flower, it grows with every hour."" "It's just awful." "At least he got it to rhyme this time." " Hey." " Well, what do you know, Ian?" "Buck likes burritos; he eats them frozen, like Popsicles." " Buck...?" " Winters." "The other one is Crystal Hoyle." "If she left prints, they're on the cash drawer." "Thanks for making the drive." "I know we're out of your AO." "No problem." "We owe Ian a favor or two, don't we, guys?" "11 hits in the last 17 days." "Violent, but strictly small-time." "And crossing state lines throws it to us." "Hey, let me grab a coffee." "I haven't been able to get out ahead of them yet." "There's no rhyme or reason to their moves." "They seem to go for whatever's in front of them." " And the girl's a teacher?" " Yeah." "Winters was in her 20th Century Europe class." "His father found out she'd been corrupting little Buck's morals since the homecoming game." "Only thing a teacher ever gave me was detention." "Yeah, well, however the conversation went," "Dad ended up with a full clip of 9mm ball ammo in his chest." "Just seems like a pretty extreme reaction." "Well, look, I mean, she's facing a statutory rape charge." "They tucked Dad in Buck's garage, hit the road, started robbing their way across the country." "What do you say, guys?" "Hey, you know, so, spree killers usually derive exhilaration from the act itself." "Now, if they're lovers, there's gonna be a strong sexual component to it also." "Yeah, he's 17, and... take a look at her." "Still, that's a pretty big career change for a 30-year-old teacher with no priors." "Actually, Crystal Hoyle has a sealed juvenile record that the Texas school system didn't know about." " Aha." " Yeah, she was picked up for a misdemeanor drug possession in 1992, right here in L.A." "Track someone five, six days, you start getting hunches that you can't exactly explain." "Mine says that she's making her way back to your neighborhood." "All right." "Why don't you get their pictures out and then check the overnights for anything that looks like them." "How about you and I go see if we can get these dots connected." "Charlie." "Whoa, whoa!" "No, no, oh." "Yeah, this isn't what it looks like." "Well, that's a relief because it looks like your friend there was about to perforate you." "Actually, Professor Eppes is protected by the most impenetrable armor of all, physics." "That's right." "My weight is distributed amongst the spikes at an even 1.7 pounds each." "With the kinetic energy of the hammer..." "Charles, I think the drama of demonstration would be most instructive here." " Wait, wait." "Hold, hold." " I think you're right let me just..." "Whoa, whoa, whoa..." "You all right?" "Yeah." "Wait, wait, wait." "Hold on, hold on, hold on." "Yeah." "I'm..." "...fine." "If you don't mind my asking, what exactly does all that accomplish?" "The unwavering attention of my Faith and Physics class." "Hello." "Dr. Larry Fleinhardt." "This is Agent Ian Edgerton." "My pleasure." "He's got a couple of killers on the run." "He thinks they might be headed to L.A." "Or already here." "I remember how that voodoo of yours helped to tighten the search grid the last time around." " Voodoo?" " In spite of my invaluable assistance, on two instances, mind you, Agent Edgerton maintains some skepticism about the analytical approach to manhunting." "And yet, here you are." "The instinct part of me says not to miss any bets." "Well, hey." "Let's hope we can come up with something a little more substantive than instinct." "All right, these dots, representing...?" "Black are confirmed sightings, red are robberies, yellow are killings." "They're hitting like every day or two, then they fall off the grid, they show up a couple hundred miles away." "I can tell you what they eat, what they drink, what car they'll steal;" "what I can't do is tell you what they'll do next." "Right." "We got amateurs, you know." "I mean, for us, it 's easier to find pros." "Did you..." "forget to mark a point here?" " No." " No?" "No." "We had no sightings anywhere in Wyoming." " Okay." " Did you see some sort of pattern here?" "A Langevin-like equation, maybe, or..." "I just thought that there should be a point there." " What, you got a hunch?" " I don't..." "I don't have hunches." "You know, when I hypothesize, really what it is, is just an intuitive synthesis of established mathematical principles and theorems." "Knowledge plus a guess..." "where I come from, that's a hunch." "Crystal is clearly the alpha." "You see how all the spoils go to her?" "She clears the register." "Even Buck throws her the car keys." "That's pretty sloppy, though, leaving this video." "Well, unless it's deliberate." "I mean, he fits the profile for the classic teenage thrill-killer in which case, all he wants is credit for every crime." "The poem." "She's working off something entirely different." "She's focused and intent." "It says here she ran away from home at age 15 and came to Los Angeles." "And that she got picked up 18 months later on a drug charge." "18 months alone on the streets." "It's not hard to fill in those blanks." "No." "Then she went back to Texas and totally cleaned up her life, right?" "She goes to college, she gets her teaching degree." "And sex education for a high school senior." "Buck's dad finds out about it." "She's facing exposure, even prison." "Yeah, but this response is totally disproportionate to the catalyst." "There's something else." "Yeah." "Like why a hot history teacher goes for a high school football player." "That's a question only a 30-year-old man would have to ask." "Don." "That dot that Charlie saw in Wyoming?" "I don't know how he did it, but he did." "Robbery on the 15th of this month." "A bar outside of Red Desert, Wyoming." "A couple fitting Crystal Hoyle and" "Buck Winters' description hung around till closing time." "They put the bartender in the hospital." "They hit that gas station in Colorado, what was that, like the 14th?" "I know the next sighting was Salt Lake City the 17th." "That's plenty of time to cross in and out of Wyoming." " It fits the map and the timeline." " Definitely." "Buck always signs his robberies... poems, smiling at the security camera, dropping their names." "Well, maybe he didn't want to brag about this one." "Could be they had friends close by, somebody who could hide 'em out?" "Yeah, why don't you check with the Austin office." "See if either of them had any connections in Wyoming." " All right." " And then do a phone dump on that bar." "I mean, maybe they called someone while they were sitting around." "And the beach." "I've never seen the ocean." "Sure, baby, I'll take you to the beach." "And that place with the footprints in the cement and the movie stars." " Cris?" " What hon?" "That place with the cement footprints..." "what's that called?" "Chinese Theater." "We'll go there, too." "I though you didn't like Porsches." "Gas tank's almost empty." "What do you figure the boss drives?" "Nicest car on the lot." "Hey, Dad." "Oh, hey." "I was looking for you." "Not that difficult to find." "Either the living room or the kitchen." " Ooh." "Condos, huh?" " Yeah." "All that money I made selling the house has just been sitting in the bank doing nothing." "my accountant said I should reinvest." " You know what about real estate." " No, what do they say?" "Actually, I don't know." "I've never owned anything, but, you know, you read about the bubble." "They say it can't hurt to wait, so..." "Well, you know, actually, um..." "It's not about reinvestment, actually, it's, uh..." "Do you realize I haven't lived by myself for over 40 years." "What?" "You're talking about actually moving out?" "I'm considering it." "Well, this looks like pretty serious considering, Dad." "I would just like to do some things on my own." " Mm-hmm." "Charlie?" " I haven't told him yet." " A-And I would rather you didn't." " Yeah, well, you're on your own there." "Actually, you should get one with a tennis court." " I don't play tennis." " Yeah, but I do." "Hey." "I'm not a hero." "Take anything you want." "What do you think we want?" "Hundred-thousand-dollar car." "Cris?" "Crystal?" "Get his keys." "I thought you said we didn't have any secrets!" "That's not a secret." "Really?" "What the hell do you call that?" "Pile of dead bones." "All you need to know is that you have my heart." "Now get the keys." "This is Pierce Brenner." "His name's on the sign." "Sent all the employees home at 8:15, locked up." "Salesman forgot his wallet, came back and found the body by 9:00, and now Brenner's car is missing." "Makes sense." "They've been switching cars every day or two." "Yeah, but always a subordinate act to a more flamboyant violent one." "These dealerships are like fishbowls at night... it's easy to see in, hard to see out." "They watched from over here." "Spree killers act on impulse; they don't generally stalk their victims." "You think they targeted this guy?" "She was here in L.A. in '92." "Awful long time to hold a grudge." "Bad memories last a long time." "This is the second crime they haven't signed." " New MO." " Something's changing." "I can't help but thinking that the very things that elude me about this particular case are- are pivotal to helping Don." "You know?" "You know, because the knotty problem with spree criminals is that their actions most closely approximate true randomness, with such a wide range of variables." "So much so that it's usually only their mistakes that lead to their apprehension, you know, not- not some sort of a predictive analysis, not-not, uh..." "I'm rambling." "Yeah." "I'm rambling because, um, you invited me here to this dinner most likely to tell me that you have accepted Harvard's offer." "And I guess I'm just trying to fill the air with noise to keep you..." " from... telling me that..." " Charlie." " but..." " Charlie," "I've accepted Cal Sci's professorship offer." "I'm staying." "Well, that's great." "Well, that's great news for Cal Sci, of course." "You know..." "No, I-I do believe we-we have a far superior program..." "It's a great opportunity, and, um... hopefully, it's a great opportunity for us as well." ""Us."" "Charlie, over these last few years, you and I have stopped and started so many times." "I just..." "I know I for one would... very much like to see what happens." "I'm just not sure how to break it to Charlie." "Well, might I suggest directly?" "He doesn't take change that well, you know." "When I tried to sell my house, he bought it." "Eh, don't underestimate Charles' ability to adapt." "You know, over the last few years, he's made some very striking changes, overwhelmingly for the better." "Mm-hmm." "I suppose you're right." "I mean, after all, I would expect him to be just as candid with me." "By the way, since you've sold your house, where have you been living?" "Oh, just various people's sofas, the car, my office sometimes." " You mean you're homeless?" " No, no, no, just without an address." "Intentionally so." "You know, I've just come to realize that committing oneself to a permanent space just constrains one's intellectual vista." " Hmm." " Last week, I spent several nights in the mountains, contemplating the heavens... and just from a non-cosmological point of view... for the first time in years." "Hmm." "And, uh, how does Megan feel about this vagabond style of yours?" "Well, I've had to explain to her that there's got to be some sort of a firewall, if you will, between one's romantic aspirations and the larger life goals." " Mm-hmm." "You're in check." " Oh, yeah, so I am." "Larry, I'm going to give you the same advice that I've given to all the geniuses I know." " Which is?" " Don't be an idiot." "Yeah." " Hey." " Hey." "Two hours before Crystal Hoyle and Buck Winters robbed that bar in Wyoming, a call was made from the bar's pay phone to Venice, California." "Number came back to a Lydia Campos." "Possession and intent to sell." "Look at May 13, '92." "Picked up on a drug sweep with" "Crystal Hoyle." "Now, there's a coincidence." "Fortunately, a judge didn't think so." "He gave us a Title 3 wiretap." "I figured we'd give it some time before we brought Lydia in, see if Crystal tries to contact her." "We have a call coming in." " Yeah?" " I'm here, in L.A." "You going to help me out?" "Do I have a choice?" "Yeah, always." "I remember once I had a choice between getting busted and letting my best friend O.D." "Hold on, come on, come on." "So, you'll help." "I'll ask around." "Pay phone, Washington and Broadway." "What about the other thing?" "You really going to do it?" "Watch the news tonight." " We got the phone, but they're gone." " Copy that." "Wonder what they were doing in this area." "New car." "That's the Porsche they stole from the car dealership." "Two in one night?" "Maybe they didn't like the upholstery." "Blood on the bumper." "Two cars, two dead bodies." "No robbery, no poem." "Reeves is right..." "something's changing." "Hoyle and Winters have now switched to a 1978 Trans Am, license plate 3X722H2." "Copy of vehicle description." "Come back in an hour." "Hey, do you know who you're playing with?" "Do you know what you're standing in?" "91 octane." "I knew a guy lit a cigarette in a lab." "He's still in the burn ward." "Open the door." "Put it away." "On your knees!" "Get on your knees!" "No trouble, lady." "Sure there is, man." "People like you screwing up kids, someone's children." "It's here, just like she said." " What?" " Feels like we forgot something." "No, Cris, come on." "Let's just go." " You love me or not?" " Of course I love you." "Go." "Witnesses saw a male white and female white flee the scene in a Trans Am." "Size-nine workboots." "See the star-shaped scuff on the insole?" "Buck picked that up between Kansas and Missouri." "You know, meth labs like to use users as workers 'cause they can pay them in product." "Lydia Campos... you figure she worked here gave them the setup?" "Right." "They got to have $50, $100 Gs in cash around here, double that in product." " It's never been about the money before." " Yeah, but drugs are what got Crystal arrested and sent back home." "Maybe this was symbolic or retributive." "Or it's all about grenades." "Hey, I got a whole cache of weapons up here, guys." "Do I, do I have something on my..." "on the side of my mouth?" "I'm moving out." "Okay." "What I mean is, it's a good time to buy, and, no, it has nothing to do with you." "I" " I like living with you." "It's just that I'd like to try living by myself." "Yeah, no, okay, I can, I" " I can see that." " You can?" " Yeah." "Well, you haven't lived alone in, what, 50 years?" " 40" " OK." "How can a math genius not know how old his father is?" "Of course I'm going to miss you." "Well, I mean, its not like I'm moving out of the city or anything." "I mean, uh, we're going to see each other all the time." "Look at this, this is pretty, pretty nice." "You know, you got a swimming pool and a tennis court." "You going to play tennis?" "Are you sure you're all right with this?" "Yeah, sure." "Sure, I'm sure." "Why would I not be all right, right?" "It's just that you seem a little bit more all right than..." "I would expect." "No, go, go, uh, sow your wild oats." "Right?" "Ah, the elusive mystery dot." "Point." "And the reason I found it is still eluding me." "Yeah, you know, Otto Loewi spent 17 years searching for proof that nervous impulses are chemically transmitted?" "It came to him one night in a dream." "And he wrote it down, but the next morning, he woke up, he couldn't read his own handwriting." "Now fortunately, he had the same dream the next night." "Good for Otto Loewi." " What do you want me to say..." " My Dad is moving out." " You know that?" " Yeah." "He's moving into one of those singles, you know, bachelor..." " You knew?" " Yeah." "He was concerned about how you'd react." "I don't know why, you know." "If this is something he wants to do," "I want him to be happy." "You know?" "Granted, it is weird; it seems like in less than 24 hours, I lost a housemate and kind of gained a girlfriend." "Girlfriend?" "Wait, I knew that Amita had accepted the job at Cal Sci, but..." "What if she stayed here for me?" "I don't know." "I'm not one to, you know, interpret the innermost workings of the female psyche, but girlfriend?" "I mean, I'm happy, but, uh... but..." "But what?" " It's a lot of responsibility." "You know?" " Yeah." "What if we don't work out?" "You know, we've only been on a few dates, really." "What if she gave up this job for..." "Oh, my God, what if she wants to move into my house now that my Dad is gone?" "You're getting a little ahead of yourself here, aren't you?" "I mean..." "Well, but still..." "Now, see, there's "still." Still, still what?" "This could be the old saw." "You chased her till she caught you." "I chased." "So really this map is telling us a story." "It's the story of two people traveling across the country, committing crimes." "But that's only half the story." "You see, it's like as if we're looking at a plane flying across the sky banking and spinning." "Now, if we follow its flight path, we may be able to discern a pattern." "Perhaps even an eventual destination." "However, there is something that this map isn't showing us." "What we're not seeing is that there is a second plane chasing after that first plane." "It's affecting its movement." "It's weighing in on each of the pilot's decisions." " I'm that second plane." " Exactly." "When we plot your movements against those of your targets..." "the pattern makes itself known." "Oh, some pattern." "They hit, I chase." "Oh, not exactly, I mean, for instance, you came to Los Angeles before you even knew they were here." "Well, on a little bit of information and a big hunch." "And when we plotted your path, against Hoyle and Winters'," "we got this." " The missing Wyoming dot." " Yeah." "This is the Red Desert robbery." "The missing point on a curve that I didn't even realize I was looking at." "It's a variation on something called a pursuit curve." "It's created when one point chases after another." "You see, if a fighter pilot aims straight at the point where he sees an enemy plane, by the time he gets there, that plane's going to be gone." "So, in order to maintain his following distance, he has to adjust his direction, matching the movements of his quarry." "Now, if he wants to catch that plane, he has to anticipate its movement, aim his nose ahead of the lead plane." "You have been locked in a pursuit curve with the killers." "Charlie, can the curve tell us where they're going to turn up next?" "Well, Laplace said that if he knew the velocity and position of every particle in the universe, he could predict every future event." "Sure." "I mean, the same principles apply to human behavior." "Right?" "Megan, we will need to see all of your profiling data." "And, Ian, we're going to need more data on your tracking methodology." "You get the feeling that everybody's forgotten about us?" "I get that feeling a lot." "She's getting a call." " Yeah?" " Did you see the news about the meth lab?" "Yeah." "It was just like I told you, wasn't it?" "Yeah." "Listen to me." "Maybe you should just leave well enough alone, you know?" "Just, uh... go." " Leave well enough alone?" " I just meant that, uh..." "Look, there's a bag for you." "It's under the mailbox on the corner." "You're a good friend." "Lydia Campos just got a call from Crystal Hoyle." "Yeah, yeah." "We heard." "The mailbox she's talking about is visible from the front door." "If we go for it, she's going to see us." "She's still our best lead." "We've got to let her run." "What if the bag that Crystal just left for her is full of hand grenades?" "I agree." "I don't think we can risk it." "Risk?" "What about letting these two run loose for even one more day?" "Ian, there's no decision here." "Take it!" "David, take the bag!" "How you doing, Lydia?" "Come on." "I'm not carrying." "No, you were just going to mail a letter, right?" "I don't know what you're talking about." "Things that people leave under mailboxes." "No way you can say that's mine." "No." "Not anymore." "Turn around and put your hands on your head." "You got the drugs back." "What else do you want?" "We want Crystal, and the grenades you virtually handed her from the meth lab." "This girl is supposed to be your friend, right?" "You've known her since '92." "You were waitresses together." "We were both just kids." "No." "She was just a 15-year-old kid who had run away from home." "Her parents were pushing her for grades." "They wouldn't let her hang out." "Look, it didn't sound like a house I would have run away from." "And how long was it before you got her into drugs" "It wasn't me." "She got involved with this married guy." "You know, the kind that... comes on like he's a friend, finds her an apartment." "And, before he says what he really wants, it's too late for her to say no anymore?" "Six months later, she and Billy turned up on my doorstep, looking for a place to crash." "Billy being the married guy?" "Billy being the rebound guy." "He was a total loser." "I tried to tell Cris that, but this married guy, he screwed her up real good." "Billy's the reason we got busted, though." "They were his drugs." "After, she was sent back to Texas." "So why did she call you 15 years later?" "She said she met someone... someone who was going to help make things right." "When I told her about the meth lab and all the guns, she got real interested." "What about Billy?" "Where am I supposed to find him?" "I don't know." "Crystal asked me the same thing." "Billy Rivers, arrested for dealing, banko, steeling." "Jack of all trades, master of none." "Nobody's heard from him for about two days." "Right." "Right around the time Hoyle hit town." "If Reeves is right about the meth lab hit, Crystal's on some payback kick." "The guy who got her busted would be up on the list." "Yeah, along with Pierce Brenner." "The dead car salesman." "Yeah." "In 1992, he was working at a car dealership three blocks from where Crystal and Lydia were waiting tables." "Lydia said that Crystal disappeared with a married guy." "All right, so what?" "She runs away, she hooks up with Brenner, rebounds with Billy Rivers and drugs." "This isn't about a rebound." "This girl has crossed a threshold." "She is 15 years old, and there are no more boundaries." "Wait." "But she moved back home, right?" "Straightened her life out, and became some kind of model citizen." "Yeah." "Until Buck Winters, and the unfulfilled fantasy of innocent love, and the way that her life could have gone." "Until she killed the kid's father." "Right." "Destroying any boundaries she had left at all, plunging her into this even darker fantasy, where she kills the older guy who used her, and destroys the drugs that sent her back to this middle class lifestyle that she never even wanted." "She's erasing her mistakes." "Billy Rivers is one of those mistakes." "Well, we better find her before she does, right?" "I mean, we've been through his known associates, his favorite hangouts, right?" "The guy is hiding." "And Hoyle and Winters are out there looking for him." "What do you think about, you know, like, adjusting the pursuit curve for that?" "Uh... for Crystal chasing Rivers." "If we can find him fast, he'd be good bait." "You know, I've..." "I've been running expressions assuming a dog chasing a cat." "It's actually a dog chasing a cat chasing a mouse." " I thought I was an airplane." " Oh, cats and dogs work better now." "The cat has two sets of points affecting it now:" "the way she adjusts her angle of pursuit to overtake the mouse, and the strategy she employs to evade the dog." "Obviously, the dog's optimal strategy is to head for the mouse and let the cat come to him." "Then we don't have to know his location, right?" "Just where Hoyle is going to be looking for him." "Exactly." "So, if we adjust, and weight values for Rivers' previous known locations... so old addresses and sites of arrest and such, eliminating places that we know Hoyle has already searched, while using them to infer her decision patterns..." "Voodoo." " Hey, Charlie." " Hey." "You ready?" "We're supposed to go to dinner." "Yeah, but if you're in the middle of something..." "I am." "I'm in the middle of pursuit curves." "I'm just trying to reduce Don's search options for those spree killers." " Okay." " Yeah, but you know..." "I can take a break." "As long as we go someplace close, you know?" "No." "Charlie, this is clearly more important than dinner." "It is important, but you are important, too." "Look, Charlie, we'll both have to eat again." "Anyway, I have a seminar on Thursday on the adaptive enumeration of implicit surfaces, and I should probably go over my notes." "Yeah." "You sure?" " I'm sure." " Okay." "Warrant's a go on the cousin's house, get in there." "Charlie's math says Crystal should show up here next." "Guys, intel has Billy Rivers' cousin in the back bedroom." "Copy that." " What?" " FBI, sorry about this." "Two occupants secured:" "Rivers' cousin and girlfriend." "Clear to extract." "Even with all of Charlie's math, your psych profiles, we're putting a lot of eggs in this basket." "You know that Crystal's looking for Rivers." "She's been on the streets talking to all the same people as us." "It's amazing." "When somebody starts with all the advantages:" "good home, good parents, ends up here." "I don't think she wanted advantages." "I think she just wanted to see what was out there." "A little advice?" "When you get into heads like theirs, make sure they don't get into yours, too." "You're probably right." "Trans Am is coming up behind them." "We've got Winters;" "It looks like he's alone." "Trans Am is parked two houses up." "She must be in a second car, they never split up." "Yeah, but the streets are empty." "She's not in the zone." " He's coming into the backyard." " Copy that." "He's making his way to the back door." "Copy that." "Two more seconds, we're going to have to take him." "Everybody, go now." "FBI!" "FBI, don't move!" "That was a hell of a shot." "Better than he deserves." "I'm not telling you where she is." "He doesn't know." "He's bait." "She almost got him killed." "You don't understand her." "Cris loves me so much, she never lets me out of her sight." "I had to wait for her to fall asleep just to leave." "She shot his father 14 times, right?" "Fourteen." "My mother drank herself to death over that old bastard's abuse, and Cris was the only one who was there for me." "He wanted to get her fired for that." "And she killed him to protect your secret?" "You're not listening." "I killed him." "I'll kill anyone who tries to hurt her." "The things she's already been through in life." "You didn't tell her where you were going, did you?" "You wanted to get to Rivers before she did?" "Cris wants to talk to him." "This guy who lied to her, he used her, he got her arrested." "Look, you see what she did to Brenner?" "What almost happened to you, huh?" "If you love her, Buck, you have to help us take her safely." "Take her?" "You can't lock up a force of nature." "Hey, how'd it go?" "Any new information?" "He's young, stupid and in love." "I don't think he's going to budge." "You got any juice left on those pursuit curves?" "I'll take another look, but I suspect we're no longer looking at anything like a classic pursuit." "You know Dad's planning on moving out, right?" " You okay with it?" " Of course I'm okay." "I mean, no, I'm going to miss him, I'm going to miss the guy, but I can certainly understand his point of view." "Yeah, watch, he'll become this big stud, you know?" "Yeah, right." "Something else?" "Oh, um, Amita, she decided to stay at Cal Sci." "Oh, no season tickets for the Bruins?" "What?" "Dude, I wasn't ever going to move to Boston." " Well, so what's the problem?" " There's no problem." "No, no, no, don't get me wrong." "No, she's amazing." "She's an amazing woman." "It just seems like I keep wondering if she's thinking, "Is this what I gave up Harvard for?"" "Ah, she stayed." "She wants the same things you want." "Maybe I don't want those things, though, you know?" "Hmm." "Yeah, look, I don't know." "I mean," "I don't know if relationships are ever exactly what we want." "I mean, me and Robin..." " You like her?" " Yeah, I like her, I just..." "I don't know." "Look, you say you wanted a second chance." "You got it, you know?" "The only thing that'll screw that up..." " Is me?" " Yeah, exactly." "17 years old and his future is already a forgone conclusion." "You know how fearsome a thought that is that a single choice can determine a destiny?" "Buck Winters' or Crystal Hoyle's destiny?" "One's essentially a child, the other's a fully-formed adult." "Formed around a 15-year-old girl who made the kind of bad decisions that 15-year-old girls make, and then those decisions stay with you for the rest of your life." "I am detecting here an authority that transcends the theoretical." "Well..." "I didn't run away from home, but I didn't walk, either." "And unlike Crystal, I can live with all of my decisions." "I don't even regret most of them." "Does that make you uncomfortable?" "Listen, I live in hotel rooms and sleep on office sofas." "Does that make you uncomfortable?" "No, I find it oddly attractive." "You continually put me in mind of the M57 nebula." "Both of you with these layers upon layers of endless complexity." "You know, I don't think I'm ever going to tire of being compared to the M57 nebula." "And thank you for breakfast." "I was... way too wound up to go home." "Hey, you should give me a call when your orbit comes back around." "Maybe towards my place sometime." "Not exactly the kind of guy I pictured you with." "I really wouldn't if I were you." "You know who I am, so you know what I'm capable of." "We live or we die, it's your choice." "What do you want to do?" "Do you want to live or do you want to die?" "What I want is you to get in the car and drive."