"He's waking up." "He's coming to." "We need to talk." "How the hell did he survive Ruskov's ship?" "He managed to grab a life raft." "Washed up on the Florida coast, where a group of American survivors took him in." "I don't suppose he told them that he was contagious." "No." "After that, he moved from camp to camp, taking what he needed." "It was either fate or bad luck that led him to the immunes." "And the labs?" "Did he lead the Ramseys to Dr. Hunter?" "He wouldn't say." "At least, not to me." "So what are you gonna do with him?" "I haven't decided yet." "And he only made one request." "He wants to speak to you." "No." "It's not gonna happen." "You said you were having trouble nebulizing the vaccine." " Absolutely not." " He started it." "The primordial started it." "He perpetuated it, weaponized it." "I have his blood samples." "Once I see what happens to the rats," "I'll be able to find the stability sequence he used to bind his D.N.A. to the virus." "That will be the sum total of his usefulness." "You said that can take months." "Captain..." "He killed my wife, and was able to talk to him." "So unless you have a better idea..." "I know he's a snake, but if he can help, you have to talk to him." "Come in." "Mr. President." "How are you feeling this morning?" "I better get my sea legs soon." "You ready to meet the crew?" "And what exactly is expected of me?" "Am I to make battle decisions?" "You'll be consulted on relevant matters, anything that falls under the executive branch or anything pertaining to national security..." "Which, given the circumstances, touches about everything." " He's not ready..." " Not yet, at least." "He's come a long way in a short time, Sir." "And I want you to get him the rest of the way there." "Be his guide, his preacher, his father, his friend..." " Whatever he needs." " Aye, Sir." "Kathy, do you think I could borrow some condensed milk?" "Sounds like you're making cheesecake again." "At, uh, 30 degrees..." "Hey, y'all." "Does anybody have extra diapers?" "I can't believe how normal it all sounds, like a functioning community." "Sounds like the president's intel's good." "New Orleans may be the safe place to go." "And there's been no word about an immune army gathering." "Nothing about immunes at all." "Well, if they think we're listening, they might be communicating another way." "Bullet missed all my major organs." "Perhaps I have nine lives." "Like a cat, no?" "More like a cockroach." "Dr. Scott." " You wanted to see me." " Yes." "Well, I mean, it seems congratulations are in order." "You found a cure." "Well, I'd by lying if I said that it was easy." "Well..." "And strictly scientifically speaking," "I found your work to be rather impressive, the way you fused your D.N.A. to the virus." "If nothing else..." "It was elegant." "Thank you." "It was never my intention to spread it." "It's important you know that." "Niels, I've been working on this idea of nebulizing the cure, and I'm having a little bit of trouble, so I was just wondering if you'd be at all curious to..." "Take a look at my research." "So you wanna hear about the life of a gun for hire." " Yeah." "Capping oil Wells in Kuwait." " Hmm." "Babysitting third-world princes." " Wow." " I mean, you even have a worst?" " Oh, he was at Gitmo for 18 months." " Ouch." "Yeah, I got my stories and the scars to prove it." "Ah." "Give me some of that." "I'd show you, but there's a lady present." "Big talker." "All right, sweetheart, what's the worst you ever seen?" "You call me "sweetheart" again," "I'll make you eat that pathetic pair of 9s you're holding." "Oh, wow." "You'll never know." "No, no, no." "Hang on." "Answer his question." "Worst story ever." "What makes one war worse than another?" "Death is death." "Bet you're a riot at parties." "Oh, don't even get her started." "Raise you 5." "Okay." "We raise." "What do you think, Burk?" "Do I have the goods?" "And what am I looking at here?" "This is the vaccine compound before nebulization, and here it is after it's been sprayed into the air." "Yeah, it falls apart." "Have you tried reducing the particle size?" "I've considered it, but then it wouldn't be heavy enough to drop into the lungs." "And you're sure the physics are sound?" "Dr. Hunter worked it out." "Julius Hunter." "You must have heard of him, from palm coast." "Um, only by, uh, reputation." "I've thought about adding an extra component to the outer coat to prevent the vaccine from drying out." "Yeah, it would need to be..." "Particularly resilient." "Precisely." "Well, what about Anthrax, you know?" "It's strong enough to survive for decades in any environment." "One epidemic at a time, Niels." "Right, right." "Probably best." "What we need is an environment that's been untouched by the pandemic and yet severe enough to promote adaptive activity in bacteria." "How about water?" "That's just what I was thinking." "Mussels?" "Freshwater mussels, to be exact." "Mussels carry bacteria, and in order to survive harsh environments, the bacteria adapts." "To do this, it protects itself with a sort of intracellular suspended-animation chamber called spores." "Now if I could get my hands on some of those spores," "I could add their proteins to the outer coat of the cure, making it Hardy enough to survive the nebulization process." "This is Niels' bright idea, right?" "No, it's mine, actually." "I led him to it, and he..." "He played ball." "So we find you a bunch of mussels, and you'll be able to aerosolize the cure?" "Not quite." "I still need Niels' stability sequence." " Which he hasn't given you." " I haven't asked him yet." "And if he doesn't give it up?" "Well, then I'll have to do it the slow way, by which time millions more people will be dead." "But for right now, I really need those mussels." "So where exactly do we find them?" "The closest freshwater lake is here, Sir." "St. Andrew bay, about a mile inland." "Good." "We'll get the mussels and be back by sundown." "I want this ship close to shore, somewhere the sub can't and won't dare go." "O.O.D., recommend course 3-4-7." "Very well." "Helm, right..." "T.A.O., bridge." "T.A.O." "I want the all-clear for our landing party." "Anything on subsurface search?" "Negative, Sir." "All's quiet." "We can support the landing party with the .50 cals and the 25-Mike-Mike." " CIWS is in air ready." " Very well." "Attention on deck!" "At ease." "This is the finest messdecks afloat." "If you can dream it up, our chefs can whip it up." "Mr. President." "Bernie Cowley, culinary specialist second class." "I'm happy to prepare anything for you." "Gosh, um, I don't know." "What did you have for lunch?" "Oh, you don't want my diet, Mr. President." "Nothing but grilled vegetables as of yet." "But for you, name it." "Well, uh, let me see." "Uh..." "I got prime rib, chicken cordon bleu." "Well, it, uh, it all sounds so... so very good." "I just..." "I don't know where to start." "Mr. President." "Sorry to interrupt." "Uh, Lieutenant Mejia, ship's navigator." "We're honored to have you aboard, Sir." "Just wanted to tell you I'll do whatever I can to make this ride as smooth as possible." "Well..." "Actually just came down here to say hello to everyone." "Um..." "I-I think we have to get to that briefing now, don't we?" "Yes, Sir." "I'm walking around a ship full of 20-year-olds who know exactly what they're doing at all times, on a mission to save a country that's barely recognizable." "And me, Mr. President," "I can't figure out what to eat for lunch." "Sir, how many people did you have working under you when you were secretary of H.U.D?" "I know where this is going, Master Chief, but the last time I made a decision..." "The last time you made a decision was yesterday, Sir, when you decided to move forward." "And I'll tell you this..." "The Navy's been studying leadership since 1775." "Between the captain, the X.O., and myself, we have 67 years' experience." "Leaders aren't born." "They're made." "And we all believe in you, Sir." "Just give yourself time." "I'd like to have a plan as to how we'll engineer the spore protein into the vaccine once the mussels arrive." "I was thinking perhaps a stabilizer, very much like the one that you used to bind your D.N.A. to the virus." "Ah." "The real reason I'm here." "You know that viruses don't like to be tinkered with." "They'll loop out any added foreign genes, and somehow, Niels, you managed to sidestep the recombination process." "Yeah, well, it was so long ago, you know, and I tried so many." "I mean, honestly, Rachel, who can remember these things?" "You know that I took samples of your blood while you were recovering." "You're not really gonna make me truffle this out myself, are you?" "Someone special?" "No, not particularly." "It's an old computer." "Never got around to changing the screen saver..." "He is a handsome fellow, no?" "So what I'm mostly interested is the chiralit..." "Doesn't really seem like your type, though." "Not much going on upstairs." "I suspect that you tired of him quickly." "You see, I remember this about you." "Dr. Rachel Scott..." "Always the smartest person in the room, the unstoppable force in search of her immovable object." "Am I right?" "All right, perimeter sweep first." "Check for survivors." "Once the marina's secure, we look for keys to something with wheels." "We got a runner!" "United States Navy!" "Come on out!" "I'm not gonna hurt you!" "It's okay." "You're okay." "You can take off your mask." "I'm not sick." "Neither are we." "Hey." "Easy." "All right, easy." "Nobody has to die today." "That's right." "You're worth more alive than dead, anyway." "Hey!" "Hold your fire!" " Don't be stupid, kid." " Ray!" "What do we do now?" "Ray." "Put the guns down." "Ray!" "Lower your weapons." "Come on." "Back against the wall." "We're not gonna hurt you." "What did you mean when you said we're worth more alive than dead?" "Wolf and Cruz went to the lake to gather the mussels for Dr. Scott." "They should be back soon." "And they won't tell you who set the bounty?" "No, Sir." "It's gotta be the immunes, right?" "I understand you're the man." "Tom Chandler, Captain, U.S.S. Nathan James." "Ray Diaz." "Sophomore." "What's this?" "It's what leaders give each other." "You find yourself in a Navy bar, and of legal age, that'll earn you a free drink." "There's no Navy, no law, and no bars." "Other than that, this will really come in handy." "Cut 'em loose." "Let's you and I have a talk." "These are good." "You mind?" "My son's a huge comic book fan..." "Goes to conventions, whole nine yards." "Not anymore." "So what's his story?" "During the outbreak, he crashes his car trying to save a town from the virus." "Wakes up, realizes he has superpowers, but can't remember who he is." "He uses his powers to help stranded people get home, even though he can't go home himself." "And where are your parents?" "Dead, we assume." "We were at the summer camp up the coast when the virus hit." "One by one, counselors bolted, trying to get to their own families." "We stayed until we ran out of food, and no one ever came for us." "And the bounty on my people?" "A few days ago, these dudes in trucks showed up." " Were they American?" " Yeah, of course." "They said, uh, the Navy was going around offering the cure, and really they were injecting people with the virus." " You believed 'em?" " Didn't surprise me." "There's all kinds of conspiracies going around..." "That the government was behind the plague in the first place." "Anyways, it doesn't matter what I believe." " They were offering food." " And guns." "Look, man, nothing against you and your people, but I got mouths to feed." "Well, there is no conspiracy, and we do have the cure." "Matter of fact, we have enough doses for every one of you." "What I need from you is help finding these bounty hunters." "If the cure is real, then what do these people have against you?" "They're a cult, naturally immune to the virus." "They see the cure as a threat to their beliefs." "If you help us, we'll bring you aboard our ship, find you a safer place to settle." "I mean, how do we know if we can trust these guys?" "What else are we gonna do?" "Come on." "Permission to speak freely, Captain?" "I don't like putting these kids in the middle of our fight." "They're already in the middle of it, Lieutenant." "Immunes saw to that." "Rest assured they'll be on the ship and out of harm's way" " as soon as possible." " What about reprisals?" "We don't know how far the immunes have spread." "Dropping them somewhere else now could be just as dangerous." "We have the mussels, Captain." "We should leave now before the immunes ever find out we were here." "We're over 300 Miles away from their camp in Florida, and yet somehow their reach stretches here." "We have to find out how they're doing this." "It's a deal." "You give us food and shelter, we'll give you the bounty hunters." "Good." "Only one condition." "I stay and fight with you." "Absolutely not." "In six months," "I'll be old enough to enlist and fight alongside you." "Besides, you can't do this without me." "Nobody knows this place better than I do." "And you still need me to tell you how to signal the bounty hunters." "Give me the lay of the land." "How can she work with that creature?" "I can't even look at him without seeing my brother dead in my arms." "I'm just praying he does something stupid so I can shoot him." "So this is the spore sequence right here." "Fascinating, isn't it?" "The way it's regulated." "This bacteria... when it needs to turn into a spore, it uses D.N.A. scissors." "D.N.A. scissors." "Yeah, I've heard of this." "This is like a CRISPR system." "Exactly." "So we'll use this to add the spore protein into the vaccine." "Of course, we'll still need something to hold it in place." "I don't remember the stability sequence." "I don't." "I told you, I wish I did." "I don't." "Come in." "You wanted to see me, Sir?" "I understand the mission on land is going well." "I may drop by the combat center to watch for myself, if, uh, that's all right." "Of course, Mr. President." "Anything else, Sir?" "The intel you found at the White House..." "I'd like you to bring it to me, along with any debriefs related to the immunes." "Absolutely, Mr. President." "All yours." "That's the only road in." "There's a perch right there you can scout from." "You'll see them long before they see you." "Look, these guys are packing some major firepower." "They had guns I didn't know existed, and I play a lot of video games." "Well, we don't have to worry about that." "We're bringing a Navy ship to a gunfight." "We need intel, which means we'll need prisoners." "Copy that." "Hey, Tex, have you ever killed anyone?" "Yeah, I have." "Cool." "No, it isn't, squirt." "Ask him, Jake." "Yeah, I got it, Cody." "Hey, uh, we were wondering, maybe you could ask the captain if he'd let us stay and fight." "He said yes to Ray." "Not a chance." "Scat teams are manned and ready, Sir." " CIWS?" " Set to auto-fire on." "What's the status of the RHIBs?" "Loading PAX now and will notify when inbound." "Music to my ears." "Watch your step." "Be careful." "I got the rest of us loaded up on the other boat." "All right, thanks, Jake." "Everybody's accounted for." " Good to go." " Good job." "Let's go." "It's been three whole days." "Niels' blood's been coursing through their veins." "How the hell are they still alive?" "The virus has to be somewhere in his body." "He was using it to poison those Teddy bears." "The virus must have adjusted inside of him, migrated exclusively to his lungs." "That's why he's so contagious." "Probably happened months ago, at the beginning." "Then it's hiding out in there, below the radar of his immune system, along with his stability sequence." "Which he may not even remember." "Oh, he remembers." "It's his shining bloody achievement." "How are you feeling?" "Uh, your doctor here thinks I need rest, but, uh, I'm actually anxious to get back to work." "Can we have a moment?" "I've identified the conserved core sequence in your stabilizers." "You have?" "I recognized the same 20-base pair on both sides of the virus." "The odds of that happening in nature, as we both know, are next to impossible." "So, I took that as your brilliant handiwork." "Well, you've eliminated a few trillion possible combinations." "Can I ask you something?" "Yeah." "I just think about what you went through, working to find the cure and fighting your own infection and the self-imposed quarantine on the Vyerni, literally isolated, with no human contact, in this bubble, and..." "I guess what I'm asking is..." "Do you ever get lonely?" "Yeah." "God, I know my situation isn't nearly as difficult, but..." "There are sometimes on this ship..." "Well, no one who understands me and this..." "Unsolvable puzzle." "And now, being..." "So close to the very mind that created it." "Perhaps you were right." "Perhaps my immovable object is closer than I thought." "It's the three-prime end." "Pardon?" "The, um, conserved core element you found, it's the very end of the stabilizer sequence." "You just go upstream from there, and the entire sequence is yours." "Status report." "Green's good to go." "Hired gun ready and waiting." " Taylor... rock and roll." " Burk and Bivas, good to go." "CIC standing by to support, Sir." "All right, Ray." "This is it." "So how are you supposed to signal the bounty hunters?" " What the hell are you doing?" "!" " Come on, I hand this to you," "I'm on the next ride back to your ship and you start the party without me." "You can't bench me now." "Watch me!" "Now, I don't plan to lose this fight, but this door opens, and it ain't me, tell those assholes you shot the flare and try to collect the bounty." "Bad move, Ray." "Hey!" "Come on!" "All teams be aware, Ray is still on land." "I say again, Ray is still on land." "He's locked in the trailer." "Guests of honor are arriving." "Come on, kids." "Hey, where's Cody?" "He wanted to stay and fight." "And you let him?" "You let him?" "!" "Captain, Cody wasn't on the RHIBs." " Jake covered for him." " I'm Oscar Mike." "Gotta go find Cody." "Captain is out of pocket." "Keep an eye out." "Can we get a fix on them?" "Can we triangulate?" "Cody!" "Burk, I read two tangos falling back up the road." "We'll try to capture them alive!" "Cody!" "25 Mike-Mike has hostiles in range." "Batteries release mount 2-5-2." "T.A.O., prepare mount 5-1 for fire support." "Aye, Sir." "Cody!" "Uhh!" "Clear to move, Captain." "Tangos captured." "Copy that." "Guys, I'm taking heavy gunfire up here." "Hostiles are 20 yards north of my whiskey." "Give me a fire-control solution and engage." "Cobra team, stand by for one round inbound." "Can't find Cody anywhere." "Look in the cannery." "That's his go-to spot." "Surface, T.A.O." "Adjust 10 yards east." "Fire one round." "Cody?" "Gotcha." "Bosses want you alive..." "Unless you put up a fight." "Please?" "Put up a fight." "Tangos neutralized." "We have prisoners as requested." "Repeat, tango is neutralized." "Find what you were looking for?" "The mussels." "Oh, y-yes." "They were a tremendous help." "Thank you." "And I'm sorry to hear about the boy." "And what about Niels?" "I think we're on the verge of a real breakthrough." "Well, then don't let me slow you down." "Can't blame the captain for what happened to Cody." "I can't blame anyone." "That's the point." " Hey." " What?" "What do you want from me?" "Nothing." "Never mind." "Okay." "I was stationed in the west bank for three years, another two in gaza." "Thought I'd seen everything." "Then this pandemic broke out." "And I thought, you know, maybe now we have this common enemy." "We even have this cure that we want to give to people." "Maybe, just maybe, we'll stop killing each other." "But nothing's changed." "It's all the same." "We captured three immunes." "They were all carrying these." "You ever see any of Ramsey's people use one?" "I didn't realize cell towers were up and running." "They're not, Mr. President." "We haven't picked up a signal in months, and none of these phones have a single call or text." "But they were charged." "They're using them somehow." "You said they were trying to set up a communication network." " This must be it." " Our techs are on it." "Meantime, we're gonna lean on our prisoners, see what else we can get out of 'em." "This is good work." "But if we're gonna win this war, we need a plan." "First order of business..." "Show our fellow Americans that we aren't the bad guys, despite the lies that Sean Ramsey's spreading." "Once in New Orleans, we inoculate the survivors." "We make it clear that the American government is back and that we're on their side." "The survivors most likely are living offshore on boats." "We need an evacuation plan in case the Ramseys are closing in." "By now, those boats may have exhausted their fuel supplies, so I suggest that we stockpile fuel from local stations..." "We got some intel on a safe zone not far from here." "Could be a good place for you and your people to resettle." "Helo's warming up." "I was gonna check it out." "Wanna take a ride?" "I knew Cody was amped up to join the fight." "He never would have stayed behind if I'd gone along like you said." "There's an old saying." ""Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm."" "Being a leader is not about being perfect." "It's about weathering the storm and carrying on." "I just wanna go home." "I know, son." "We all do." "Feel better?" "Yes." "Thank you." "My arm was really bruising." "You know, there was much times on the Vyerni when I thought about a moment like this." "Did you?" "Well, I must admit, we're quite a team, you and I." "A team with cause for celebration." "We solved our nebulizing problem." "Yes." "Well, I mean, we still need to find a factory somewhere we can mass-produce the powder." "And we need planes, lots of planes." "You know, I always wanted to get my pilot's license." "Actually, we don't have need for any of that..." "No planes, no factories, no powder even." "I don't understand." "How do you want to spread the vaccine?" "Well, if you think about it, you were able to kill 5 billion people" " simply by breathing." " I..." "So the key to transmission lies within you." "If I could teach healthy lungs to hold and reproduce the cure the same way yours do with the virus, well, then I could..." "You could make the cure contagious." "Of course, the trick would be understanding just how your body does it, to be able to compare the D.N.A. sequence change between yours and the primordial." "You have my blood samples." "I do." "The problem is, is the virus." "It resides exclusively in your lungs, as we both know." "That's the reason why it's so contagious." "So, what do we do?" "You wanna to take a biopsy?" "No." "No, no." "No." "See, that wouldn't work, because it's likely in the deepest recesses of your lungs, mixed in with thousands of other innocuous viruses, so what I'm gonna need to do is just flush out the poisonous one." " Flush it out?" "How?" " Well, you remember those brilliant little D.N.A. scissors?" "Well, they're not only capable of adding a gene." "They can also remove one." "So I'm gonna undo what you did." "I'm gonna separate your gene from the virus inside your body." "I'm sorry, but that would never work." "Well, yes, actually it will, if they have identical stability sequences on either side, and..." "You gave me yours." "That would kill me." "The gene would be liberated, and the virus would explode out of your lungs and into the rest of your body, and, well..." "There's just so much of it." "If you think I would just allow you to..." "I mean, you are completely insane!" "I've already done it, Niels." "The virus is doing its work as we speak." "What's going on in there?" "The people on this ship will sleep better tonight, knowing that it died with you." "Dr. Scott, are you all right?" "I helped you." "Yes, you did." " Dr. Scott!" " You're gonna help all of us."