"Previously on Taken..." "What do you want from me?" "!" "Leave my family alone!" "You really do need to see someone." "There is something in my head." "I think the things are tracking devices." " Dad?" " He isn't me, Charlie." "He's making me from the picture in your head." "They'll come for Charlie next." "You gotta go." "Charlie, we're gonna move around for a while." "Is this because of what happened to dad?" "What are these?" " Tom Clarke." "The Tom Clarke who ruined my father, who thought our entire program was a lie." "Kind of ironic, Jake." "The country's leading debunker turns out to have a half- alien half brother." "Don't you want to know what changed his mind?" "You're sleeping with Eric Crawford, Owen Crawford's son, the son of the man who ruined your mother's life." "How could you do that?" "!" "He's not his father." "He's covering up the biggest secret in American history, he's lying to the public on a regular basis" "What in the hell makes you think that he's not lying to you?" "!" "We believe you're carrying the evidence of a spacecraft that crashed in the New Mexico desert in 1947." "What kind of evidence?" "We believe you recovered bodies and that you're transporting them." "You and your friends here will be detained for interfering with a move of Air Force personnel." "Look!" "Look!" "How long you think you can cover something like this up?" "The crates." "Get these people onto the trucks." " Do it now!" " Yes, sir." " Step up." " Let's go." "All right, everybody into the trucks!" "Move it!" "This way!" "This way, please." "Let's go." "That's it, move it up." "What are you gonna do with all these witnesses?" "Hold them for 72 hours, convince them what they saw was the Goodyear blimp." "They're not gonna believe that." "They're gonna talk about this." "Let them." "The more people talk at once," "The more it sounds like nothing but noise." "They took your bodies, too, didn't they?" "Now what are you gonna do now they've taken back all your proof?" "It didn't have to be this way." "How could it have been any different?" "It's all gone." "You gotta love it." "We must have been getting close." "Why do you say that?" "Remember I said I thought they had an organic transmitter?" "I think it was one of the bodies." "We missed that." "It was right in front of us, and we missed it." "They couldn't afford to have us figure it out, so they just..." "Took it all back." "Every last bit of it." "Not quite everything." "Well, as expected, they pulled our plug." "eric:" "What are they going to do?" "All our evidence, all our research is gone." "I thought I made a pretty good argument." ""Senator," I said," ""the reason we have nothing to show you" ""is that it was plucked from our slimy little hands" ""by a flying saucer." "You can't deny that." "Right out of the sky, and pluck."" "Too bad we couldn't find Charlie Keys." "You know what burns my ass?" "I'll tell you what burns my ass." "If we'd gotten any funding at all," "I could have gotten that positioning system running." "We could have tracked Keys by that thing in his head and found him or anyone else taken in 24 hours." "What are you going to do now?" "Couple of buddies of mine from Yale are going into biotech." "How about you?" "I just keep picturing Tom Clarke smiling that smug smile of his and saying, "Still don't know how it flies, do you?"" "What you keep picturing is his sister dumping you." "I still want to know what made Tom Clarke a believer." "You could have had your answer, but you thought with "little Eric."" ""Hey, little buddy, where do you want to go?"" ""Over to Becky's house."" ""Okay."" ""Hey, let's take her to see the alien."" ""Good idea." "That'll really impress her."" "My own personal foibles aside, I still want the answer to that." "I want to know what changed his mind." "ALLlE:" "Is every moment of our lives built into us before we're born?" "If it is. does that make us" "less responsible for the things we do." "or is the responsibility built in. too?" "After you hit the ball. do you stand and wait to see if it goes out." "or do you start running and let nature take its course?" "If that ball had been another couple of inches, it would have gone out of the park, end of story." "I swung too late." "I thought it was gonna sink." "That's why I like baseball- you can't make assumptions." "I thought you liked it because it was impossibly hard and there are useless statistics you could memorize." "Yeah, that, too." "Ohh" "Are you all right?" "Yeah, I'll be fine." "We'd better get home." "This was your grandmother's." "Love you, sweetie." "Every day and twice on Sundays." "Honey!" "Stay with him." "I'm gonna call 911." "It's beautiful." "So are you." "He's gonna know it, too." "Who?" "The guy you're gonna meet one day." "He's gonna take one look at you..." "And he's gonna know there is nowhere else he wants to be." "# I gave you my time #" "# Why you wanna... #" "Sorry it took so long, honey." "Charlie?" "Charlie?" "Charlie?" "Honey?" "Charl" "Honey." "Honey!" "You can't run off like that." "I thought" "What's wrong?" "Where were you, sweetie?" "Where'd you go?" "Oh, Charlie." "He'd been, um..." "Getting weaker since your grandmother died." "I kept asking him to see someone, but..." "He wouldn't." "He was so...resigned." "I guess he understood what was happening to him." "That sounds just like something he would say." "Damn it!" "Damn it, Danny!" "Hey, Danny!" " Danny!" "Carol, what's up?" "My husband just died is what's up." "My husband is dead, and I'd appreciate it if you'd stop making all that noise." "Oh, man." "I'm so sorry." "If there's anything I can do..." "ALLlE:" "People say that when we grow up." "we kick at everything we've been told." "we rebel against the world our parents have worked so hard to bring us into." "that part of growing up is kicking at the ties that bind." "But I don't think that's why we kick at all." "I think we kick when we find out that our parents don't know much more about the world than we do." "They don't have all the answers." "We rebel when we find out that they've been lying to us all along." "that there isn't any Santa Claus at all." "Hey, do you like Hüsker Dü?" "I think Bob Mould is probably as deep as it gets." "I saw them last year in Sacramento." "He was great." "I'm Nina Toth." " I'm Lisa." " Hi." "So how was your first day?" "Brutal?" "This place is totally harsh, so I'm gonna make a suggestion." "You wanna be friends?" "For life." "Lisa!" "And that's my stepdad." " Really?" " Yep." "My mum's in Berkeley taking a class in alternative nutrition." "Oh, cool." "So it's just me and Danny." "Well, I gotta go." "Okay." "Make sure you call me." " All right." " Okay." " Bye." " Bye." "Think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world." "And yet." "I ask you..." "What could be more alien..." "Wait till she forms her own band." "All right." "Lisa!" "Dinner's ready." "Lisa, come on." "Dinner's ready." "Potatoes..." "Lise?" "Lise?" "Lisa?" "I'm in here." "Oh." "Sorry." "Everything all right?" "There's a phone number in my jacket pocket." "Could you get it for me?" "Yeah." "Number one..." "And number two." "That ought to hold you." "Mr Holding, do you have any champagne?" "I've got some Pepsi." " Pepsi will do." " All right." "Just don't expect me to give you the "today you are a woman" speech." "Please don't." "I'm really glad you called me." "I'm really glad you came." "Ladies." "Thank you." "Here you go." " Thanks." " Lisa..." "Today you are a woman." " Well said!" " Cheers." "You're the very first person I ever met who's lived in a trailer park." "My stepdad's a musician, and the lady who owned a bar he played at owed him money, so we just wound up with this trailer." "Don't apologize." "It's very, um..." "Rockford Files." "I know, I'm totally strung out on television." "Hey, Nina, thanks again." "It was a pleasure meeting you." "No problem." "Next time Lisa needs anything from the store, give me a call, I'll tell you which aisle." "I'll see you at school." " Bye." " Bye." "You sure you don't need a ride?" "My mum's picking me up." "So..." "Guess you're gonna go out and get all grown up now, huh?" "Your mum would be sad she was missing it." "You're getting really good on those drums." "Thanks." "Danny, I'd like to take Watson for a walk now." "I'll leave the door open for you." "Thanks." "Come here." "Come on." "Watson, come on." "Shh!" "Watson!" "Watson!" "Watson, what is it?" "Watson!" "Watson!" "Watson!" "Lisa..." "Today you are a woman." " Hi." " Hi." "Why do you think the aliens took all their stuff back?" "Well..." "What makes you think they took it all?" "Ha ha ha!" " Enjoy." " Thank you." "I hear this was quite a show." "Oh, w" "What do you want?" "I find I have a lot of free time on my hands." "Imagine that." "How's Becky?" "You want to have a conversation that doesn't end up with me coming over this table and stuffing my fist down your throat, you stay off of that subject!" "We're not enemies anymore, Tom." "We're on the same side." "I'm a private citizen now." "Our friends saw to that when they took all our evidence." "What do you want?" "You went from a sceptic to a believer in a nanosecond." "That happened months before the Mojave Desert sightings." "I want to know why." "Maybe I just saw the light." "What do you know that you're not telling?" "Say hello to your sister for me." "Tell her I miss her." "So, there was a lot of excitement around here while I was away." "I'm sorry I wasn't here." "I'm fine, really." "Your Uncle Tom has a lot of pretty weird ideas." "You're not starting to have the same ideas, are you?" "What if I am?" "You come from a special family." "Your father had an amazing mind." "He could look at things and figure them out." "With people, too." "He could see things other people couldn't see." "There was a lot about him that..." "There was just a lot about him." "Honey, your life is changing because you're growing up." "You're not being abducted into a spaceship." "You're being "taken" into adulthood." "Of the two, I'd say that's far and away the scarier proposition." "Hi." "For Austin, Texas, please." "Yeah, the number for Tom Clarke." "Thank you." "How's Pasadena?" "You've seen one genome, you've seen 'em all." "How's Julie?" "You two still haven't gotten divorced?" "Mary got into Yale, huh?" "Thank you for that letter." "I told you, they love me." "Directed a play there my senior year, won a couple of awards." "Gave Harry Hamlin his first part." "How the hell you been, man?" "Good." "Really good." "So, uh, what's all this about?" "They said they'd tell us when we got here." "Probably some investigation to find out how we lost a flying saucer." "After 12 years, I think it's about something a little bit more current than that." "This is Mission Control." "Do you copy?" "Argonaut 1, come in." "Argonaut 1, come in." "Damn it. you guys." "where the hell are you?" "Mission Control." "this is Argonaut 1." "What's going on up there." "Argonaut?" "What do you mean." "Houston?" "You've been off-line 2 hours and 20 minutes." "Houston. our last transmission was only four minutes ago." "We were at coordinates" "Oh. my God!" "About three weeks ago, we sent a manned mission into space." "This launch was unannounced." "The purpose of this mission was to put certain sensitive equipment into orbit." "What sort of equipment?" "Do you remember a program of President Reagan's, the Strategic Defence Initiative?" "Yeah." "Star Wars." "As you probably remember, there were some questions about whether or not this program was feasible." "Before President Bush revisits the project, we need to know that it's viable." "So what did you send up?" "A reactor?" "One of the drawbacks to getting the program off its feet was finding a compact power system that could put out enough kilowatts to power both particle beam weapons and rail guns." "You did!" "You put this thing into orbit, didn't you?" "Our payload was highly classified." "The capsule had been in orbit for 14 hours." "It was two hours away from being in a position where the payload was to be delivered." "The astronauts went dark for almost 21/2 hours." "They disappeared." "No contact." "Nothing." "Then they were back, clear as day." "They had no idea they'd lost 21/2 hours of their lives." "The payload?" "Gone." "I guess they didn't want a reactor messing with whatever they've got going on up there." "This is a waste of time." "The people in this room represent $286 billion a year in defence spending." "We need your help, gentlemen." "Stop playing games and tell us everything you know about whoever it is who's out there and what the hell they want." "I assume you ladies and gentlemen have all seen E. T." "They're nowhere near that nice." "We are back, baby, we are back!" "I don't think you get how big what just happened here is." "We are reinstated, fully funded, blessed for as long as Bush is in." "Probably after that!" "Would you mind getting into this without me?" "I'm gonna keep on the Tom Clarke thing." "He keeps getting calls from someone in Los Altos, California." "The phone is registered to a Danny Holding." "I thought I'd run out there and take a look." "For a while, I thought all this was a bluff." "I thought you had something big, but you've been on this Tom Clarke thing 12 years now, and the best you can do is check his phone bill?" "Forget Tom Clarke, will you?" "I've looked at other things, but it keeps coming back to him." "The Clarke family, they matter." "They're the key to this." "This is about your father, isn't it?" "You're just trying to finish something he started." "What exactly you trying to atone for here?" "You might as well be looking for Charlie Keys." "You're not gonna come in?" "I said good-bye to your father 13 years ago." "This is something for you to do yourself." "Dad?" "He isn't me." "He's making me from the picture in your head." "He's lying." "What do you want from me?" "!" "Leave my family alone!" "Dad." "Aah!" "They're coming for you!" "We've lived here for the last seven years." "eric: "We" would be?" "Myself, my wife, and my daughter." "Do you rent, or do you own?" "Who rents a trailer?" "Are you interested in this sort of thing?" "That's my daughter's." "Well, it's actually my stepdaughter." "Is that important?" "Sure it's important." "Everything's important." "Your stepdaughter?" "Yeah, from my wife's first marriage." "She was married to the brother of the guy who wrote that book-Tom Clarke." "Your wife's first husband was..." " Jack." " Jack." "Jack." "That's Lisa's dad." "We call him Jack, but I've heard my wife refer to him as Jacob." "Is this all part of a regular census questionnaire?" "This is a follow-up, Mr Holding." "It can never hurt to follow up." "Well, here she is now." "This is my daughter Lisa." "This is Mister..." "Jones." "Mr Jones from the Census Bureau." "I'm very, very glad to meet you." "Do you own any pets?" "Oh, come on." "Pick up, pick up." "Tom Clarke." "Uncle Tom, it's Lisa." "Lisa!" "There's a man here." "I get a really bad feeling about him." "You said I should listen to my feelings because they were from my dad." "That's right." "You should." "He says he's from the Census Bureau, asking Danny a lot of questions." "In civics, we learned about the census." "It happens once every ten years." "There's not supposed to be another one until 2000." "What does he look like?" "Blondish hair..." "Shorter than you..." "Kind of old, like 40." "He's dangerous." "You have to get out of there." "Right now?" " Yeah. right now." " Okay" "Do you remember our plan?" "Yes." "Go to your friend Nina's." "I understand." "I can be there by tomorrow night." "ALLlE:" "My mum told me once that when you're afraid of something." "what you want more than anything else is to make it go away." "You want your life back to the way it was before you found out there was something to be afraid of." "You want to build a high wall and live your old life behind it." "But nothing ever stays the same." "It's not your old life at all." "but your new life with a wall around it." "Your choice is not about going back to the way things were." "Uncle Tom, thanks for coming." "Your choice is about hiding or about going right to the heart of the thing that scares you." "That was so awesome." "Schooled that guy." " Got the hands for it." " All right, Charlie, see you." " Good night, Charlie." " See you, Charlie." "See you guys tomorrow." "It's homey." "A person starting college, a life of their own, they need homey." "Homey." "I kinda like it." "How much?" "I'll give your mum a call and let her know we got you settled, but I don't want you calling her or anybody else for quite a while." "Tell me about these people, why they're looking for me." "The man that came into your house, his name was Eric Crawford." "His father was an army colonel." "His name was Owen Crawford." "And he came after your father... came after Jacob." "Your Aunt Becky and I fooled him into thinking that Jake was dead, but I guess that Eric figured it out." "But why was Owen Crawford looking for my dad?" "This has to do with the things you write about." "See?" "You already knew." "You knew the first time you called me." "And you said one day, you'd explain it all." "Yeah, well..." "I think you've had enough excitement for one day." "Don't you?" "Listen, if you ever need me, this is what I want you to do." "I want you to take out a personal ad in the national edition of the New York Times and have it say," ""Drummer seeking gig with..." "Texas country band."" "You're young." "You could still develop decent taste in music." "Listen." "I know." "But you're gonna be okay." "Okay." "Our first date, your dad and I went for hot dogs." "You know, your dad never kept his own medals." "I don't think he ever went to collect them." "But he carried your grandfather's with him every day of his life." "They were in his pockets when he died." "Your grandfather was a hero, Charlie, just like your dad." "How's your job?" "I like teaching." "I think I'm pretty good." "I'm sure you are." "What's this?" "That is a picture of your father." "He must be about eight." "This guy with him is his stepdad." "Your father used to talk about this." "It was the most scared he'd ever been in his life." "Yeah, yeah." "This is definitely that." "What?" "Well, his stepdad took him to a carnival, one of those travelling kind they set up in vacant lots." "Some games, some rides, that sort of thing." "Those rides, they can be pretty scary." "They spin you around, turn you upside down, drop the floor out from underneath you." "But none of that scared your father, uh-uh." "It was the carnies..." "The guys who ran the rides." "He said there was something about them that just gave him the creeps." "Well, like this guy." "I guess if you were eight, he'd seem pretty creepy, huh?" "What was wrong with dad?" "He had a" "He had a brain disorder." "Made him believe certain things." "What kind of things?" "He's dead now." "Do you really want to remember this part of him?" "I want whatever I can get." "He believed he'd been taken... by aliens." "Lots of times." "And the men?" "The people we were hiding from?" " I guess they believed that, too." " How about you?" "I don't know, sweetie." "I don't know what I believe." "Your dad said once they were like his guardian angels." "He thought they were protecting him?" "No, he thought they wanted him for something." "He believed they had saved him from dying in Vietnam." "I think, in the end, he thought they were coming after you." "They have come for me." "More than once." "That's why he screamed the last time he saw me." "He could see that they were already taking me." "If you were eight, yeah, maybe this would scare you." "But you know what, mum?" "None of this scares me anymore." "Now it just makes me mad." "If they come again, I'm not going without a fight, and if that lands me in some hospital room, staring out some window, screaming, then that's what it does." "What was he like, my grandfather?" "I didn't really know him that well." "He kind of frightened me." "How come?" "He was always nice to me." "I" " I don't know." "I guess he just terrified your father so much." "All your father ever wanted from that man was a pat on the back." "It's amazing how not getting something so simple can do so much." "When did you get in?" "Night before last." "I had a few days before fall quarter starts." "Good to have you home." "I'm sorry, honey." "He's got a lot on his mind." "Why don't you leave him?" "What?" "Leave, as in pack your bags, walk out the door, and don't come back." "It's not as simple as that." "Yes, it is." "He's thoughtless, insensitive." "If he can still get it up, he's doubtless unfaithful." "Honey" "You know it's true." "I have my compensations." "I have you." "So move to New Haven." "You'll have more of me and less of him." "I can set you up with my "Perspectives on Science" professor." "He's very cute." "You're terrible." "It's in the blood." "Do you think I look anything like him?" ""Home is the sailor home from the sea and the hunter home from the hill."" "I've got something important to tell you." "It can keep." "I've got earth-shattering news." "You ready?" "You wanna sit down or..." "What's your news?" "I was wrong." ""About what?" you ask." ""It's like this," I answer." "I take all the money the generals threw at us, and I tell my guys, "Build me something that will pick up the impulse signals from those implants"" "The signals that were being amplified by that transformer." "The transformer I said was the body we had stored at Groom Lake." "Y" " Yes." "They build the thing." "They turn it on." "Voilà!" "Lights up like a Christmas tree." ""Now, why does this make me wrong?" you ask." "Okay." "These signals are big and bad and boosted." "Somewhere on this planet, there's still a transmitter going strong, as if when they grabbed all their stuff, they deliberately left it behind." "What does this give us?" "What I always said it would." "We can track any implant, anytime, anywhere." "Look at this." "Find Alan for me, will you?" "Remember that chip we took out of the girl from Cleveland?" "We put it into the head of a guy named Alan." "Works for the Department of the Interior." " Thinks he went in for a root canal." " Found him, sir." "Get him." "Motel 6." "May I speak with Mr Alan Stewart?" "One moment." "Hello?" " Mr Stewart?" " Yes." "Hold for Dr Lamarr." "Who's on the phone?" "Quiet." "It's Dr Lamarr." "Just wanted to check on your root canal." "Is that your wife?" "!" "How does she know where you are?" "I" " I'm fine." "Dr Lamarr." "how did you find me?" "Mr Stewart, I'm a dentist." "That's my job." "If you're gonna talk to her." "what's the point of being here with me?" "I have to go." "I've got a patient in the chair." "You understand." "I still don't understand how this helps us." "Oh, yeah." "This sea of blinking lights, our very own galaxy of abductees." "How do we know who goes with each blinking light?" "Exactly." "We cross-reference known abductees, their movements, et cetera, with the implant data." "We name them and eliminate them." "That leaves unidentified abductees." "If there's someone we're looking for, we feed in everything we can- data from field agents, all of that-compare patterns." "Amazing what you can do with a modern computer and a couple of billion dollars in taxpayers' money." "Can you find Charlie Keys?" "Yeah." "How would you like to find somebody else?" "You kinda suck." "Do you think you can unsuck by a week from Wednesday?" "We've got a gig at the O.K. Hotel." "I'm in the band?" "No one else answered the ad." "No way, man!" "Didn't really mean it." "About you sucking." "You're no worse than the rest of us." "Thanks, I guess." "Just felt kinda bad, like I hurt your feelings or something." "I'm tougher than that." "First time away from home?" "Yeah." "I remember the first time I slept on my own in my new apartment." "When I woke up." "it took me a minute to remember where I was." "I'm lying there thinking how weird it is." "Yesterday. when I woke up." "everything was normal." "Today. it's gonna be different forever." "That's exactly what happened to me." "I expect to wake up any minute and be back in my old room..." ""It was all just a dream."" "Thanks for being so nice." "It makes all of this a little less heavy." "Anytime." "No, you are not gonna take me!" "You are not gonna take me again!" "You get the hell away from me!" "Get the hell away from me!" "It's open." "What are you doing?" "Sorry, Naomi." "I'm sorry." "Nothing." "Sorry." "This is how you're spending your leave of absence?" "Sitting in the dark, reading, with a baseball bat by the door in case anyone drops by?" "I just needed a little time by myself." "I've been principal at Lincoln for ten years, and I taught there before that." "Charlie, you're the best teacher I've ever seen." "I'm not gonna lose you without a fight." "What is all this?" "That's nothing." ""The Alien Agenda:" "What The Abductions Really Mean"?" "Compendium of Alien Races?" ""Adopt An Alien"?" "What is this all about?" "Oh, my God." "You think you've been abducted by aliens." "Do you have any idea how many people say that they've been abducted every year?" "Charlie..." "People believe in those things because they have to believe in something." "If that's all it is, how come all the stories are so similar?" "Because we see the same movies, we read the same books..." "They've been taking me since I was nine." "The last time they took me was only six weeks ago." "They came into this house, and they took me." "I tried to fight back." "I kicked and I hit and I bit." "It did nothing!" "They ripped me right through the living room wall!" "No!" "You are not gonna take me ever again!" "You're not gonna take me!" "You're not!" "Charlie." "There's no reason at all why you should believe me." "So I'm gonna get proof, and I'm gonna show you and anyone else who will listen that I'm not crazy." "Okay, Charlie." "Okay." "It took us almost two months before we found her." "Something wrong with your system?" "No, the system's fine." "She just doesn't have an implant." "Why would she?" "She's Jacob Clarke's daughter." "What do you do for an amputee?" "You build them a fake hand." "From their point of view, we'd be psychic amputees." "We're missing something they take for granted." "So what did they give us?" "Implants." "They've given us electronic versions of what they have biologically." "Pull up the images of the brain tissue samples we took from that fire in Alaska." "Spectrographic analysis turned up some weird trace compounds." "Colour code for density threshold." "This sample comes from the brain of that twin who died in the fire with your brother." "The twins were failed attempts at crossbreeding, but we worked from the assumption their cellular structure is almost identical to Lisa's." "Good." "Now zoom out." "The tissue is doing double duty- spirals of neurons acting as antennae." "We found her." "She was just broadcasting on another frequency." "Hey, dude!" "Bye." "Hey, Lisa, how you doing?" "We got so much to talk about." "Don't stand there- do something!" "Unh!" "The national edition of the New York Times. please." "I'd like to place an ad in the personals." "I never told anyone about your father." "I didn't put it in any of my books." "But when Eric Crawford came after you," "I should have told you." "I don't know if I would have believed you." "So..." "This Crawford came after me because I'm..." "One-quarter alien?" "Does make you pretty interesting." "Wow." "From what I have experienced, and I'm only talking about what I've seen..." "They don't want to hurt anybody." "They saved you." "They walked you home." "Your father was very important to them." "And I guess that you are, too." "I think I know why." "These are the matched repeaters." "We started with anyone who had been taken more than once." "We noticed there was a subset" "People repeatedly taken on the same day as others." "We found Charlie Keys." "Let's assume he's part of pair number 55." "Why 55?" "Numbers thing." "Go with me for a moment." "Charlie's last abduction, right after we started tracking him, came on September 8th." "If we backdate Lisa's pregnancy, we can give her a conception date of September 8th." "They're breeding him with a girl who's..." "One-quarter alien already." "It's beautiful, isn't it?" "I'm not quite getting it." "That's 'cause you don't have my years of experience in the private sector." "See, in the biotech world, most of our research goes into recessive traits- things we can breed out of a species or into it." "What do we know about the Keys family?" "The grandfather, Russell, is a bomber pilot." "His son is a Vietnam vet and rescue worker." "These men are strong, brave, extremely resilient." "One other thing" "When they're taken, they fight back." "And the Clarkes- Jacob, he could do things." "My father was terrified of him." "But he was physically weak." "In a way, he was no more suited to survive than those mutant brothers in the Alaskan woods." "And Lisa..." "And Lisa, she doesn't seem to have inherited her father's gifts or his physical weakness." "She seems to be nothing more than a carrier." " You ever cook with tarragon?" " Hmm?" "It's a very strong spice." "One pinch is all you need." "Otherwise, it overpowers the dish you're making." "Genetics is a lot like cooking- little pinch of this, little more of that." "But what are they cooking?" "That, my son and heir, is one hell of a whopper, isn't it?" "Super weapon or saviour, take your pick." "ALLlE:" "Sometimes the best way to move into the unknown is to take familiar steps." "small steps." "to do ordinary things to deal with something that is in no way ordinary." "We're always going someplace new. all the time." "Familiar things just let us pretend that we aren't moving into unfamiliar territory." "You take those small. familiar steps." "and you try to be honest." "not to live as if nothing had changed." "but still to go on with your life." "But there are times when what you need is a piece of how things used to be." "Aah!" "Mum!" "Nina!" "This guitar player, Tony..." "I was auditioning for his band." "I don't think I like this guitar player." "I went back to the rehearsal studio the next day to see him." "He'd left for L.A." "Prick." "No, that's not what I mean at all." "He'd left for L.A. right from the rehearsal studio that night." "A friend of his came by and got him." "He hadn't followed me home at all." "Well, you went home with somebody." "No, I didn't." "Honey, come home." "The people you were hiding from, the same people who were looking for your father," "Tom says they know where you are." "They're not gonna bother me." "Because beings from another world are looking out for you?" "Yes, mum." "That's exactly why." "You weren't here." "You didn't see what happened to me." "Mum, I" "Mum." "This is gonna be all right." "I know it." "I can feel it." "You can, can't you?" "You're your father's daughter." "You know that." "Sooner or later, you two are gonna have to tell me what this is all about." "It started when I was eight." "I used to have these... at the time, I thought they were dreams." "There was always the same guy..." "What's he saying?" ""The craft are leaving."" "This man is a farmer in Tierra Del Fuego." "He's reported sightings for the past eight years." "We think many of the craft stay out of sight around the Antarctic." "One day, two weeks ago, he sees the ships, sky full of them, all above his field, middle of the day." "Then that's it." "Hasn't seen 'em since." "Woman from Siberia has a similar story." "And Norway, Alaska, Zanzibar, Australia." "144 multi-witness, confirmable reports from all over the world." "How long has this been going on?" "About six weeks now." "One big rush, then zilch." "Absolutely no activity." "Not one sighting." "Nothing." "Six weeks, and you never mentioned this to me?" " I'm mentioning it now." " This is still my project." "Abso-friggin'- lutely." "Eric, this is me, Chet." "We've been through the wars, buddy." "I was just giving you a little space," "letting you come to terms with your divorce and all." "How you liking the single life, by the way?" "What do you think this means?" "It's the calm." "The calm?" "Yeah." "The one that comes before the storm." "Speculation continues in the Pacific Northwest over the many reports of lights in the sky." "The government will neither confirm nor deny the rumours..." "They're beautiful." "...of secret aircraft being tested as part of a new Strategic Defence Initiative recently funded by Congress..." "It's gonna be okay." "Is it?" "Definitely." "What if there's something wrong with the baby?" "Honey, really." "It's gonna be great." "No, it's not that." "I think my water just broke." "You're gonna be all right." "Yeah." "Less than a minute apart." "Will you call my mum?" "Good, here's the general." "Gentlemen." "General." "We feed directly off the Cheyenne Mountain computer." "This grid shows the actions of every known man- made object in space- screws from a 1984 shuttle mission, a screwdriver the Russians dropped off Mir." "and thousands- thousands-of satellites." "You didn't bring us up from Washington to see screws." "We've had unidentifieds before, but nothing like this." "Look." "We eliminate the ones we've I.D.'d, and we're left with these." "Earlier tonight, there were hundreds of new objects." "We thought the system had gone down." "And then the objects... coalesced." "That's the only way I know how to explain it." "There were lots of little ones, and now there's one very, very big one." "You'd better have a good cover story, General." "No one's gonna believe this is marsh gas." " That's right, a little more." " There you go." "Can you scootch up a little?" "What do you have in the way of drugs?" "See if the doctor's available." "The mother's b.p. is high." "You'll feel better in a couple of minutes." "She's nine centimetres." "Stop pushing." "I can't." "Listen to me, you have to stop." "We have to bring your blood pressure down before you can have this baby." "Get Dr Catrell." "You'll have to step out." "It's a slight complication." " What's going on?" " You have to go now!" "Sir, it's coming down." "Surface velocity, 388.1 meters per second at 249.4 degrees local." "Altitude, - 75.2 meters per second." "Deinclination and speed on this thing- they're impossible." "It's over Seattle and coming down fast." "Flash alert to ClNC-NORAD." "Move to Defcon 2." "If it's what I think it is, none of that'll matter." "Her blood pressure's 200 over 100." "She's had two seizures." "There's protein in her urine." "She's eclamptic." "Let's stabilize her." "Two grams magnesium, five milligrams hydralazine." "Altitude, - 37.0 meters per second." "54.4 at 231.2, alt - 33.6." "52.8 at 229.0, alt - 30.1." "What's happening to you is called eclampsia, but we've treated your seizures, and we're bringing down your blood pressure." "Why is this happening?" "52.8 at 229.0, alt - 30.1." "51.2 at 227.8, alt - 26.7." "It's slowing down." "It's levelling out." " She's stabilizing." " Okay, very nice." " No sign of foetal distress." " Here comes another contraction." "If you can work with me, we can bring this baby into the world without a C-section, okay?" " Yeah." " Okay." "We're gonna try some pushing." "1...2...3...and push!" "Push, push, push, push!" "Okay, good girl." "Stop." "Nice job, Lisa." "Vitals?" "B.P '. s down to 120." "She's stabilizing." "Very nice." "We're gonna do it again, Lisa, okay?" "30.6 meters per second at 213.8 degrees local." "Altitude, - 9.3 meters per second." "Great." "Let's just wait for another contraction." "Just a second, and we'll go again." "Ready?" "On three." "1...2...3...push!" "Push, push, push, push." " Stop!" " Vitals still stable." "Way to go, Lisa!" "Estimated hover point- 47-39-14 north, 122- 18- 34 west." "You're almost there." "Just a few more pushes, okay?" "Oh, my God." "My God!" "Why is there so much blood?" "It's all right." "Doctor, there's foetal distress." "I'm taking this baby now." "Forceps." "Prep suction." "She's in D.I.C." "She's bleeding out!" "Hurry up!" "Hurry up!" "We're losing the baby, too." "25.2 at 211.0, alt - 4.9." "It-it stopped!" "It's disappeared." "What?" "It's gone." "It can't be gone." "We have the mother's heartbeat." "Baby is stabilizing." "She's stopped bleeding." "I want a teal-amber search, code red, right now." "Go." "Find the damn thing." "Go!" "Hey." "You're not supposed to be here, you know." "You were bleeding to death." "What happened?" "The bleeding stopped." "Nobody knows why." "I told you they'd look over you." "My baby?" "She's beautiful." "Seven pounds, three ounces." "Perfect little baby girl." "Oh... hi." "nina:" "Do you know what you're gonna name her?" "Allison." "Allie." "Her name is Allie." "Hey there, Allie." "ALLlE:" "My mum says that life is like a roller-coaster ride." "There are ups and downs." "there are big scares and slow builds and places where it levels out." "The only difference with this roller coaster is that every time it stops." "you get off in someplace totally different from where you got on." "How's your mother?" "She's fine." "She does not send you her love." "Thanks for coming." "You said it was important." "Your grandfather found this in Pine Lodge, New Mexico." "He found it at a crash site." "So it's all true." "What does it say?" "No one's been able to translate it." "Maybe it's a grocery list." "He gave it to you?" "Your father?" "Left it for me." "I found it after he died." "And there was a note." "My father and I..." "We weren't very close." "Well, he left this for you." "He must have changed his mind." "My brother died." "And your father just after that." "Before he died," "I think my father got a better look at me." "What does Uncle Chet say about this?" "Dr Wakeman hasn't seen it." "Why are you showing it to me now?" "There's a great deal of power that comes with the kind of knowledge I'm privy to." "I anticipate change." "I want you to join me in the program, Mary." "This is something that shouldn't go outside the family." "Hello, Thrillseekers." "Look at you, little Mary, all grown up and beautiful!" "How's the quest for the Nobel Prize coming?" "I got very close on a genomic mismatch scanning technique." ""Close" like "should Miss America fail to fulfil her duties" close?" "Close as in Patrick Brown got there first." "You're just a grad student." "You'll get there." "Lisa had her baby." "Little girl." "Are we going to try to pick her up?" "What would be the point in that?" "God!" "I've been wanting to do this since you were 13." "Me, too." "Why don't you pick up the baby?" "You don't waste any time, do you?" "She's clearly important." "In fact, I'd say she's the point of all this." "Definitely." " So pick her up." " Take her." "No, they'd just take her back." "They're way better at that than we are." "So what are we gonna do?" "We watch and wait." "And we figure out a way to take her that will work." "Watch and wait." "That sounds a lot like my father." "I'm nothing like your father!" "I have a theory about who she is." "You want to hear it?" "Evolution tends to eliminate, or at least, uh..." "Subjugate emotion." "The limbic brain is still down there." "But it's way..." "Down... under." "Why we don't run through the streets killing people- at least most of us." "Imagine their abilities combined with the energy of our strong emotion." "They'd be cherry bombs... she'd be a nuclear explosion." "Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you White Shadow." "White Shadow comes to us after spending the last three years jumping through a flaming hoop at a sea show in Florida." "Hopefully, over time, as we come to know and understand these creatures a little better, we'll become more caring and compassionate in our behaviour towards them." "Here at the aquarium, it is our hope that we can bring you that one step closer to truly knowing another species." "Any questions?" "Once the dolphin's been in captivity, is it possible to return the animal to its native environment?" "Not in most cases, although it depends on how long the animal has been away and under what conditions it was kept, but in most cases, once an animal has been taken, there's little hope of an uneventful return." "What's the matter with them?" "I remember the first time that I ever saw dolphins." "I was three." "It was the first time in my life" "I can remember knowing that something was beautiful... and it was the first time I had the feeling there was something about me that was different from everybody else."