"Looks like they dug the main tunnel back about 1,000 feet." "Lots of drops and side tunnels." "Before those Graboids ate all the miners, I'll bet, right?" "No, this mine was played out long before those things showed up." "You ready?" "Yeah." "Down again." "Same spot as last month." "Damn El Blanco." "Yeah, he's just a subterranean pain in the butt." "You know, we can move this whole fence line back along those rocks over there." "I could get a roll of wire when I head into town." "I can't afford a new fence." "Let's just fix it." "Someone's in the mine." "Wait here!" "I'm not waiting anywhere." "Take it easy, buddy." "Take it easy, buddy." "We got you." "Oh, my God." "What's wrong with him?" "We got you." "Rosalita, I'm gonna go get the truck." "Now, you talk to him, all right?" "Talk to him so he doesn't go into shock." "Got it?" "All right." "Be right back." "Okay, we're gonna get you to the hospital." "It looks like a ghost." "A ghost!" "It's coming." "It's coming!" "Let me help you." "We need to get out of here, Harlow." "Go ahead and get the horses." "I got him." "No, no, no." "You'll get them later." "Let's go." "Right." " Success." " Really?" "What?" "My first wine and cheese tour." " Great." "Burt, did you hear that?" " Oh, yeah." "A little wine, a little cheese, some Ry Cooder." "And to top it off, El Blanco showed up for a sighting." "I had myself one jeepload of happy newlyweds." "Even got some nice tips." "What's wrong with Burt?" "He has been here every day monopolizing my seismo monitor." "Playing back old data of El Blanco's movements around the valley." "Somehow, he's looking for the underground lab." "And finding it." "There." "There, look at that." "Look." "Three weeks ago, El Blanco moving along as he normally does." "Right there, he makes a 90-degree turn then goes perfectly straight." "Yes, he does, Burt." "Don't humor me." "My point is there are no right angles in nature!" "As the Native Americans say, everything in nature wants to be a circle." "They don't exist, practically speaking." "A right angle is a manmade conception." "Now, the lab was built underground." "And because it was a military secret, no one could know." "It was abandoned." "The entrance was sealed." "I found no trace of it on the surface." "But El Blanco may have just found it for me." "By making a turn?" "And following a straight line." "Now, there's obviously something manmade under the ground at 36 north 49, 114 west 40." "Maybe he's just following an old pipe or something." "Or a wall." "You gotta get a life here, Burt." "The place was shut down for 30 years." "Even if you find it, what's gonna be there?" "Empty rooms?" "Broken test tubes?" "Proof!" "Proof the government covered this place up and endangered our lives." "We are pawns of the military industrial complex and I say it's about time..." "Precisely." "I gotta go." "My ratatouille is done." " Anybody hungry?" " Sounds good to me." "Whatever it is." "Here, it's for the beer." "For all the other beers." "And what was that, a ratahooey?" ""Touille." It's a French dish." "Jodi, Harlow here." "Do you copy, over?" "Yeah, Harlow, I copy." "Go ahead." "We're bringing in a badly injured man." "Need you to call an ambulance." "You got it." "What's wrong with him?" "Over." "Well, kind of hard to explain." "Why does everything new in this whole maldito valley come after me first?" "Rosalita, what did you see exactly?" "It was a ghost, Burt." "Oh, for the love of Pete!" "Listen to me." "It was green, it was glowing." "It was making this awful noise." "It was chasing me." "I could see right through it and everything." "Rosalita, that is preposterous." "I know what I saw, Burt." "Rosa..." "Nice going, Burt." "Obviously, she saw something." "Yeah, something scary." "You know, she hauled that big guy out of the mine" " all by herself." " I'm not saying nothing happened." "I'm just saying it wasn't a ghost." "Can we at least agree on that?" "Of course." "I've been thinking that we're developing a vortex." "In the valley, I mean." "A concentration of energy, like at Stonehenge" " or the Great Pyramids." " Don't you start." "No, it's not just me." "In Sedona, they have at least five of these energy fields." "Thousands of people go there every year just for the positive vibes." "Well, I think we may have a vortex, too." "Look at all the strange occurrences that occur here." "Much more going on than meets the eye." "That's what I've always said." "She's not talking conspiracies, Burt." "Right." "Masculine, or feminine, cosmic forces." "If we can't remain rational, we are lost." "Look." "We're going to that mine first thing tomorrow." "Find out what the hell's really going on." "Whatever." "Yeah, women and their imaginations." "Coyote can fool them so easily." "Coyote, the trickster." "You know, he takes on different forms, so he can mess with your head." "I'm heading into Bixby, cowboy." "I'll see you Thursday." "You fellas go near that mine, watch yourselves." "Watch your step." "There can be vertical drops, loose timbers." "I'm more worried about anything that's green and glowing." "Personally, you couldn't pay me enough to poke around places like this." "I wouldn't be a bit surprised if whatever's going on is somehow linked to that lab." "Come on, Burt." "You can't blame it for every weird thing that happens." "Remains to be seen." "Explain why the government's rejected every Freedom of Information petition I've filed." "'Cause maybe you've exceeded your limit." "Is this all you have?" "You've been through every guidebook in the store." "With everything that goes on around here, you'd think there be at least one ghost legend." "Nothing!" "It sucks." " Do you need a hand?" " I got it." "Oh, Burt's back." "Hey." "What's wrong, guys?" "The guy they brought in" "Wasn't alone." "What could be doing this?" "I bet we're about to get the official explanation." "Twitchell." " Gummer." " Hey!" "Damn!" "Wow, two more, huh?" "Got the initial coroner's report on the first fella." "Coroner?" "Yeah." "Guess he died on the way in." ""Death due to severe dehydration."" "Oh, really." "They noticed that?" "Yeah." "I, uh..." "I sent a sample tissue into the Department of Mines." "Apparently, they've seen this kind of thing before." "They're waiting on toxicology, but, in the past, the cause was" ""probable exposure to heated methane gas."" "Methane gas?" "Yeah." "Something about thermal events in the mine." "Somehow the gas dries things out." "So..." "Come on." "They're totally mummified." "And they were barely in there a day." "And what about the other guy?" "What'd he do, just stand there while some poisonous gas dried out his arm and his face?" "Hey, hey, hey!" "I'm not the expert here, guys." "Read it yourself." "Rosalita, could it have been some kind of green gas?" "It was movingall by itself, like if it was alive." "Not like any smoke or anything." "Freaking worm." "You drove all the way out here to hand-deliver this?" "Doing an assessment of the mine." "Assessing what?" "You know, to see how much it cost to seal it up or whatever." "Seal it up?" "Did you hear that?" "Just so no one gets hurt, Gummer." "That's all." "Really?" "And we'll go assess with you." "Mine's off-limits to the public." "You gonna try to stop me?" "Down, Burt." "You know what?" "Why don't you come along?" "Both of you." "The more, the merrier." "I don't know how you guys put up with him." "Day in, day out..." "Twitch." "You're really playing the gas thing to the max here." "I mean, we were in there." "If it was gas, it would have gotten us, too." "You've been warned." "Reports say methane gas." "Reports also say there's no underground lab." "Damn it, Gummer." "I've asked a dozen times about that." "No one knows anything." "They all think I'm nuts around the office." "You know, the only conspiracy out here is you keeping me from being reassigned someplace where people are normal!" "He just insult us?" "Yes, he did." "Right here is where we found those two." "Hey, hey, guys!" "We gotta stick together here." "That's how you do it." "Guys?" "You think they went this far?" " Footprints." " Oh!" "Here's where they started running." "That's the woman falling, crawling." "Okay, all right, Tonto." "Got you, thanks." "Funny thing is, though, there's no methane reading at all." " What a surprise." " Hey." "What?" "An airshaft." "Well, yeah." "They gotta get the air into the mine, right?" "It leads down." "I can't seethe end of it." "It's long, though." "Ventilation shaft." "Pulls the air in from the mine." "Very clever." "What's clever?" "Don't put the airshaft on the surface where it might be discovered." "Hide it in an abandoned mine." "They gotta breathe down there, don't they?" "Right?" "In the lab?" "I'm telling you, Twitchell." "Your bosses are playing you just like they play the rest of us every day." "Yeah." "It's scary when Burt starts being right about things." "Cul-de-sac." "Oh, sweet mother." "Is that it?" "Is that what mummifies people?" "Let's see." "Hey!" "What do we do?" "We gotta do something!" "Maybe we could run through it real fast." " Did you see the apple?" " No, wait a minute." "We don't have a minute, Burt." "I'm going for daylight." "Come on." "Come on." "Okay." "Okay, squeeze up against the other wall." "Yeah, yeah, yeah." "Real fast." "Why do I..." "Why do I go first?" "Not following us." "Maybe it just stays in the mine." "Let's hope so." "Methane gas." "Sons of bitches!" "What the hell is that thing?" "Whatever it is, it's obviously hydrophilic." "It likes water." "Well, I can see that!" "Why is it chasing people?" "We're 90% water." "You know, high-school biology?" "Whatever." "What the hell is it?" "You tell me, government man!" "I can sure see why Rosalita thought it was a ghost." "Don't you start!" "Hey, excuse me, but if it looks like a ghost and acts like a ghost..." "What we're dealing with here is obviously some diabolical water-absorbing agent that most likely had its genesis in our very own long abandoned, government-supported secret biotech laboratory!" "For God's sake, be rational." "Check out the article on page 8 on Sedona." "So, if we do have this vortex around here, that means that this thing could be a paranormal event?" "Could be." "You know, blocked psychic energy, vibratory emanations..." "There's a bunch of different things." " Hey, you guys." "Did you see anything?" " Hey." " Well, Burt owes you an apology." " I do not!" "You saw it, didn't you?" "Damn right we saw it!" "Methane freaking gas." " Gentlemen." " Hey, folks." "Gene Fallon, Charlie Wilhelm." "Environmental Protection Agency Emergency Taskforce." "Boy, word travels fast." "Yeah, we're here to deal with a methane leak in an old silver mine?" "Hey, buddy." "We just ran into the..." "The thing that killed those people." "It's no methane leak." "W.D. Twitchell." "Interior." "You fellas are way out of the loop on this one." "I don't know what the hell it was, but when I file my report..." "I suggest you check with your superiors before filing any report." "Can you say cover-up?" "Yeah, if it looks one and acts like one..." "Let's walk." "Hey, pal." "Now, we both work for the same great superpower, right?" "So, how about giving me a freaking heads-up here?" "Well, we're on a strictly need-to-know basis here." "Well, I'm in charge of this little garden spot." "I think I have a need to know." "No." "You don't." "What have you got?" "About 15 years in?" "You're maybe GS 11?" "Twelve?" "Wanna keep it that way?" "Play it smart." "This is off your plate." " Have a nice day." " You, too." "By the way, pal," "GS 13." "Something tells me Twitchell just forgot everything he saw in the mine." "Whatever we're dealing with, it's just gone up the ladder." "Well, folks, methane gas can be pretty dangerous, so we're asking you to remain in town until we've dealt with the problem." "You mean the problem that floated out of the air vent that connects to the hidden underground biotech lab?" "Poker-faced sons of bitches." "What do they really think it is?" "You know, my grandmother used to tell me, in China, people believe that there are demons everywhere." "They call them kwei." "They're mostly invisible, but sometimes you can see them, and they're green." "You live with people, you think you know them." "Burt, let's follow those dudes." "Guys, I don't think that's wise." "Yeah." "Don't mess with them." "All right, stay sharp." "According to the lab work, at this stage of its development, the microbe migrates, voraciously." "My God." "Look at the size of that thing." "That's the wrong color." "It's supposed to be orange, isn't it?" "Well, just stick with the game plan." "Damn!" "It's out of the mine!" "And twice as big as it was." "What's it doing way out here?" "Searching for more water." "You've got more toys..." " Okay." " Yeah." "Get a read on wind direction." "Yeah." " Aha." " "Aha"?" " It's bacteria." " The ghost?" "I mean, ghost-like thing." "The formula on those canisters." "Aerophobia extirpatus." "A powerful antibacterial agent developed for the military." "You're making this up." "All right." "I've got a reading." " Got it." " Great." " What is it?" " Wind speed's five knots out of the northeast." "Perfect." "Let's move." "Yeah." "You got pressure?" "You're damn right I do." "Okay." "Let's go get this baby." " Okay, you set?" " Yeah." " Let's go." "Do it." " Got it." "It's not doing it." "Keep it up." " I'm telling you, it's not working!" " I don't get it!" "Something's really wrong down there." "Yep." "There's no reaction or nothing!" "All right, we have to bail!" "We have to figure out what's going on with this thing." "We have to bail, Charlie!" "Now, Charlie!" "Charlie, turn and run now!" "Get in the car!" " Get in the car, Charlie!" " I..." "Charlie!" "Charlie!" "Give me your hand, Charlie!" "Get out of the way!" "Get out of the way!" " Easy, man." "It's not coming." " At least not yet." "It's heading west." "We saw what happened." "Yeah." "Sorry about your partner." "What went wrong?" "It's classified." "That hardly seems relevant." "Look, man, you've been through hell." "I get it." "But your stuff didn't work." "Let us help." "We know where it came from." "We know what kind of spray you used." "We know the cloud's a bunch of bacteria." "Trust me." "There's no secrets with this guy." "Now, damn it!" "Other people are gonna die if we don't start getting answers instead of getting stonewalled." "It's genetically engineered bacteria." "Intensely hydrophilic." "Gains its energy by breaking down water molecules." "And 30 years ago, it was engineered in a laboratory that never existed." "The stuff must have survived all this time and then escaped, eventually into the environment." "But our spray should have worked." "Fine-tuned specifically to kill this particular microbe." "Why was something like that engineered in the first place?" "Typical Cold War BS." "Secret weapon intended to wipe out hostile forces, maybe even entire populations." "Actually, to preserve food." "Come again?" "They wanted a low-tech method to remove the moisture in food products." "They figured it would be a big seller in countries without refrigeration." "I guess not everything in the lab was an evil plot to destroy the world." "Unfortunately, it was so deadly it had to be shelved." "Just don't know why the aerophobia didn't neutralize it." "Or why it was a different color." "Different color?" "They spliced in genes encoded to fluoresce, to make it easily identifiable." "But our data showed that it would glow orange, not green." "So I can't figure what triggered it to change wavelengths, unless it mutated or something." "Mutated?" "What about Mixmaster?" "That's what I'm thinking." "Do you think Mixmaster could've somehow modified the bacteria?" "Mixmaster?" "What the hell are you talking about?" "Mixmaster!" "The compound developed in the lab to mix DNA of different species?" "Who are you people?" "We get around." "We hear things." "Your bosses sent you out here uninformed." "Typical." "Look, meet us back in town." "There's someone we need to talk to." "An expert." "Who?" "It..." "It's classified." "Been too long, my dear." "Wouldn't know where to start." "Cletus?" "Nancy." "My favorite good Samaritan." "Jodi, you still don't have an action figure of my late lamented 4-12?" "Isn't that supposed to be a secret, along with you?" "I guess we did say that." "Where's the EPA guy?" "Oh, he's, like, sealed up in his van." "Yeah, he's pretty freaked out in general." "Who could blame the poor guy?" "Fallon, this is Cletus Poffenberger." "Something of an expert on the flora and fauna around here." "Whoa!" "I used to be a lot like you." "A real rule man." "So, son, you got yourself a runaway microbe, resistant to good old knockout spray CHBNO3?" "You just tell everybody everything around here?" "Now, what you want to do is get a sample over to, say, NTS or NSA." "Whoever." "Have them run it through a mass spectrometer or a nuclear magnetic resonance unit." "No need." "I've already run the tests myself." "I've got an NMR right here." "Get out of town." "In my day, they were the size of a Buick." "But the readings don't make sense." "It's like it's not the same bacteria." "Mind if I take a peek?" "What does it take to get through to you people?" "I'm not supposed to have anybody in here..." "Tell them you were forced at gunpoint." "Oh, my God." "I was so hoping you were wrong, Burt." "Burt's been on a roll lately." "Wrong about what?" "It is Mixmaster." "That's what mutated the bacteria." "Crossed it with some other bacteria in the lab." "Come on, Cletus." "We figured that much already." "You're missing the scope of the problem." "So, given the circumstances," "I can only assume the fools left some Mixmaster behind when they abandoned the lab." "Eventually the containers leaked and Mixmaster contaminated the bacteria." "But if we can kill the bacteria, problem solved, right?" "No." "The bacteria is only the beginning." "Any organism discards old, dead cells." "Bacterial cloud is no different." "The floor of the mine is no doubt littered with them." "Any insect that eats those cells will have Mixmaster in its DNA." "That insect's DNA will mix with the next animal that eats it." "And so on." "The result," "Mixmaster is loose in your valley." "Are we all gonna be contaminated?" "No, it has no effect on humans." "That was the one thing we made sure of." "But it will keep spreading, mixing willy-nilly the DNA of every plant and animal that ingests it." "There'll be countless, unimaginable mutations." "Grasshoppers with scorpion tails," "Gila monsters with bat wings." "Well, it ought to be good for the tour business." "Now, the valley's natural barriers will most likely keep it from spreading to the rest of the world." "A sort of Shangri-La in reverse." "And I bet most of these mutations won't survive." "Absolutely correct." "99% will simply die at birth." "But that other 1%..." "No, sir." "No, sir." "The situation is still active." "Right." "The countermeasure was totally ineffective." "Yeah, I uploaded the genetic data." "No, sir." "Sir," "I think you need to know that this landline is not secure." "Right." "Here's the mine." "Dried-up cactus all along here." "And here's where the EPA guy was killed, then it went west." "I bet it was headed for those cottonwoods along the creek bed." "And right here is where I have a stock-watering tank." "It was full yesterday." "This morning, bone-dry." "It's almost a straight line headed for town." "It'll keep heading for the highest concentration of water it can find." "The more it finds, the bigger it's gonna get." "We are so very screwed." "Okay, people, I need to talk to you." "Just got new orders from headquarters." "What did they say?" "Well, they can't risk having the bacteria escape the valley, so they've made this job priority number one." "Sounds good to me." "It's not so good." "They analyzed the data that I sent, and they identified the bacteria that it's combined with." "One that only exists in the volcanic vents on the ocean floor, an extremely rare silicon-based life form." "Where the hell'd they find the DNA for the ocean?" "We had it in the lab." "We had a lot of DNA in the lab for Project 4-12." "The silicon toughened his hide." "Now, you gotta understand." "Almost all life on Earth is carbon-based." "So we can't kill a silicon-based one with any toxic agent known." "Whoa, whoa, whoa." "The point is?" "The point is, the only way to kill this thing is with extreme heat." "There's an A-4 Skyhawk on the runway at Edwards," " loaded with napalm." " Come again?" "When the bacteria is concentrated on the water tower, they'll make a surgical strike." "A surgical strike?" "With napalm?" "Define "surgical."" "It'll incinerate about four square miles." "Look, come on." " You're crazy." " That's a surgical strike?" "That's the best that we can do." "The best you can do is destroy our whole town?" "Now, look." "This could jeopardize the whole damn country." "I'm sorry." "But you're now ordered to vacate the valley immediately." "We live here because we choose to." "This is our home." "We're the kind of people who'll fight for our home." "We know." "That's why they just dispatched a National Guard unit to make sure that you do evacuate." "They'll be here in three hours." "We can't let them run us off." "But what if we somehow dump over the tower and get rid of all the water?" "No good." "The ground would still be soaked with it." "Burt?" "Can't you blow it up?" " You're good at that." " No!" "You'd just spread it out." "Now, we've considered all these options." "We have to get going." "That's enough, Fallon." "It's right over the ridge." "Headed this way." "And it's even bigger than before." "You come up with anything yet?" "Not yet." "If it went into the water tower couldn't we somehow throw something over it, a big tarp, and seal it in?" "Wouldn't be airtight." "You'd need an airtight container for something like that." "Isn't that airtight?" " Yeah, but..." " What is it?" "It's a toxic-waste container." "But you're not gonna get any bacteria in there unless you have a 50-amp toxic-cleanup vac." "And I don't happen to have one right now." "What did you say?" "Vac?" "Like vacuum?" "Yeah, a vacuum cleaner, basically." "So what?" " Come on." " "Come on" what?" "How about this?" "A garage vac?" "Sure." "Only we hitch it to the output of your container." "It's gotta be airtight." "Duct tape!" "Duct tape can do anything." " Yeah!" " You people don't get it, do you?" "No, no, no, no, no." "If we keep the motor running till the cloud is all inside, back pressure will keep it from escaping until we can seal his container." "But even if it worked, who's gonna get close enough to it to use it?" "I'll do it." "That's why you're gonna loan me your hazmat suit." "No way." "I am not in on this." "We're about the same size." "I'll go get the suit." "Extension cords." "Lots of them." " Coming up." " Good, good." "Good here, Cletus." "This is hopeless." "The National Guard will be here in a half an hour, and when they come, they're gonna make you leave." "We'll go stop them." "We will?" "Get back here." "They can't stop the National Guard!" "Yeah, with those two, I'd call it even money." "Come on." "How are we gonna block the road with your pathetic little truck?" "We're gonna use El Blanco, get him to chase us." "That's a garden hose." "That's not going to work." "How's that?" "Looking good." "You don't have the power." "In order to maintain enough back pressure that motor needs to be going at least three or four times as fast." "Do you have anything positive to add to this equation?" "I am trying to get you people to understand reason." "Too late for that." "Can we hook that up to 220 volts?" "No, burn out the motor." "Maximum RPMs." "The power take-off on my truck!" "You think it's gonna work?" "There's a thin line between genius and insanity." "Which side of the line are they on?" "So!" "What is the plan?" "Run the vac motor off my power take-off." "Supercharge this little sucker." "Move out!" "We may not make it." "It'll be all over the tower in 30 seconds." "Once it gets there, it'll be gigantic." "Don't give up yet!" "What are you doing?" "It's a decoy!" "Be careful!" "It works!" "Don't get too close!" "Don't let it touch you!" "Great, Cletus." "Brilliant." "Just buy us a couple more minutes." "Please, some help here!" " Burt, Jodi here." " Got you, Jodi." "What's up?" "Over." "I'm stuck in Baker Pass." "El Blanco chased my truck and now he's, like, reaching across the road with his tentacles." "And this whole long line of National Guard trucks can't get by." "How unfortunate for them." "You know how stubborn El Blanco can be." "Over and out." "Why don't they just drive the hell over the damn thing?" "He's an endangered species, jerk." "Where you been?" "This is the last of it." "Ready." "Okay, let it come!" "It's coming!" "Good luck, son!" "Come on." "Hurry up, son!" "The motor's about to blow!" "Come on, come on." "Do it." "You're looking at a genius, Burt!" "Turn the valve all the way clockwise!" "Water-sucking bastard." "One toxic waste canister of methane gas." "To be retained for analysis." "Thank you, Captain." "What is this, Fallon?" "You just gonna sweep it under the rug?" "Course!" "No doubt he's forgotten where the lab is, too!" "Why don't you guys do yourselves a favor, forget a few things?" "Have a happier life." "Don't worry, boys." "Mixmaster's on the loose." "They can't keep the lid on a pot that's boiling."