"Hi." "Oh, hello." "Are you just watching me sleep?" "Oh, well, you know, just... patiently waiting for you to wake up." "So, uh... we could do this?" "What's wrong?" "I'm fine." "It'll pass." "Marcy, you're bleeding." "Oh, hi." "It's Grace Day, calling to confirm my appointment for 11:45." "Great." "I'll see you then." "Thanks." "Trevor!" "David..." "I'm scared." "It's okay." "I've got you." "You're gonna be fine." "No, no." "Marce..." "No." "Come on, hon." "Marce!" "Coffee?" "Well, it's the least I could do." "The least you can do is nothing, and then leave without telling me, which is what you usually do." "I'm... gonna get better." "Are you?" "Mmm-hmm." "Here." "Try it." "Is it good?" "It's coffee." "Sorry." "Just, uh..." " Don't let me stop you." " MacLaren." "David?" "Yeah, of course I remember you." "What?" "Okay, I'll be right there." "I'm sorry." "You have your priorities." "And you are one of them." "No!" "No!" "Stay calm." "Ms. Day, I can explain." " What the hell are you doing?" " I'm not gonna hurt you." "I'm trying to help you." "Please, just relax." " Help me!" " Stop!" " Please, stop yelling." "Stop!" " Help!" "There's nobody for miles." "This is all happening for a reason." "You drugged and dragged me into the woods?" "I sedated you, yes, but only because I had to get you out here." "Off the grid." "Away from all technology." " This was the only way I could be sure." " Sure of what?" "What are you gonna do to me?" "In the historical record, Grace Day dies at 11:27 a.m." "on the corner of Westlake and Harmon Avenue." "That's by my dentist." "How... how would..." "I scouted the location." "It was impossible to determine what would kill you, and if I had intervened..." "Well, the traffic cams would've allowed the director to take you." "The director?" "Look, I know how it sounds, but I'm not a crazy person." "Well, do you know this director?" " The director sent me here." " To do what?" "Perform missions." "Like this?" "No." "No, I'm breaking protocol by doing this." "Our mission... is to save the world, Ms. Day." "I'm from the future." " Agent MacLaren." "Hey." " David." "Thanks for calling." " Yeah." " You mind giving us a moment?" "Yeah." "No, of course." "I'll..." "I'll just, uh..." "Thanks." "What happened?" "I'm sorry." "I told him a thousand times not to..." "Not to take me to the hospital." "No, that's okay." "It's fine." "This is exactly where you should be." "Have they told you what's wrong?" "I mean, do you..." "Do you want to check your charts?" "I know what's wrong." "There's too much pre-existing damage." "I don't understand." "My host's brain was congenitally underdeveloped." "I came up with a treatment that I thought was working." "I'm sorry that I didn't..." "It's all right." "We're gonna fix this." "I don't think that it's... possible." "You just helped to practically bring me back from the dead." "Anything's possible." " Hello?" " Carly, hi." "I wasn't sure I'd be able to reach you." "Oh, I've been off the grid for a day or so." "I'm sorry." "Are you in any danger?" "It's okay, you can tell me." "Uh, no, I'm fine." "Why?" "What is it?" "Well, to be honest, I was... hoping you might have reasons beyond your control for why you abandoned your son at his father's." "Abandoned?" "He's the father." "I'm well aware, but as he tells it, you asked him to watch Jeffrey for a couple of hours, and haven't returned since." "That was two days ago." "I'm..." "I'm heading there right now." "Your actions indicate that you trust him as a caregiver, so I have acted accordingly and filed a recommendation for his father to take custody until the hearing is settled." "Jacqueline, please!" "Have a good day, Ms. Shannon." "Wait!" "Traveler 3468, please greet arriving Traveler 0014 today." "Where's my mom?" "Uh, excuse me." "This... this boy's looking for his mom." "It's a calculation, really." "The director studies the historical record and then assesses which actions to take, some big, some not so big, that will best mitigate the conditions we left behind." " And how's it going?" " That's hard to say." "See, a while ago, we deflected an asteroid that would've caused a huge disaster 18 months from now." " Yeah, well, that's very big." " That's what we thought!" "We expected that it was gonna impact the future so much so that we might even cease to exist, but nothing's changed!" "So if... if something doesn't work out the way you want it to, why don't you just go back and try again?" "That's an excellent question." "We tried that, of course." "But for some pretty complicated reasons having to do with ripples in space time, we can only go as far back as the arrival point of the most recent traveler." "There's no do-overs." "Anyway, now you know why I've missed so much school." "I appreciate your honesty, Trevor." "I know you don't believe me." "That's okay." "Neither would I." "I still wanted to tell you I was doing this to preserve your life, because you're a good person, and the director will just have to find another candidate." " Philip?" " Over here." " Anything show up?" " No." "Nothing yet." "We've only got two potential hosts for today." "First one gets hit by a truck here in about an hour, and the second one dies streetside just before that." " These are the locations." " Okay." "You take that one, I'll take the other." "Sorry, but what is our mission exactly?" "To greet Traveler 0014." " 0014?" "That's a low number." " No kidding." "Why is the director sending back someone so important?" "I'm hoping it's to help Marcy!" "Hey." "Here you go." "We gotta make sure we keep fluids in you." "Yeah, that apple juice is really gonna make all the difference." "Sorry, I just..." "I know you're trying to help." " That's okay." "Nobody likes hospitals." " Hey!" "That's not a very nice thing to say." "How are you feeling?" "Uh, I'm..." "I'm okay." "I'm just tired." "Can I..." "Can I..." " Can I go yet?" " Mmm." "Afraid not." "We still have a number of tests we'd like to run, and unfortunately, your MRI didn't turn out." "What do you mean?" "Well, it's just that if the scan was accurate, you'd barely even be able to communicate with me right now, but it's no big deal, we just need to do it again, and I'll put a rush on this one for you." "Don't worry." "Everything else appears stable." "So I will let you know as soon as we get you slotted in, okay?" "Thank you, Doctor." "All right." "Look out!" "Damn it, Morrison, you were on that!" "This is the list of potential host candidates?" "Not all of them, obviously, but yeah." "Then all these people are gonna die?" "Yeah." "Why?" "What's wrong?" "I know this person." "Shit." "It wasn't my fault!" "Trevor?" "Trevor, where are you?" "Trevor, what the hell have you done?" "There." "That should do it." "We passed your time of death." "You feel fine?" "Other than the obvious discomfort." "Good." "Then it wasn't anything medical." "Okay..." "Uh, what is that?" "I'm gonna take you back now." "You can claim a sick day and stay home." "That doesn't answer my question." "See, this is gonna erase the last 24 hours from your memory." "To you, it'll be like you overslept and none of this happened." "And if I refuse?" "I'm afraid this is part of the deal for saving your life." "Not to mention, I told you a whole lot of things no one can ever know." "Okay, but so what happens next?" "You knock me out and you drag me back out through the woods?" "You've been favoring your side like it hurts." "Stitches." "I had some surgery the other day." "Organ donor." "Well, ow!" "Why don't I just walk back out with you?" "You know, you don't want to tear those stitches, and it couldn't have been easy carrying me all the way out here." "Okay." "But I have to keep your hands tied." "I understand." "Boss, you there?" "Yeah." "Nothing's happened at my T.E.L.L. yet." " Any luck with yours?" " No, nothing." "I guess that's one less candidate." "No, I mean nothing happened." "A crane dropped its load on the sidewalk." "No one died." "No traveler arrived." "You sure you had the time right?" "It's possible the historical record was off." "Some of my bets didn't turn out," " a few race results I'd memorized changed." " What?" "Why didn't you tell me?" "It was just a few races." "Boss, to be honest, I don't think that's it." "I think Trevor might have intervened." "What makes you think that?" "Back when I wrote all those T.E.L.Ls on the front door of ops, he said he knew one of them." "Grace Day." "No." "No, Trevor wouldn't break protocol." "Oh, shit." "Okay." "You look for Trevor." "I'll work on a backup plan for Marcy." " We need to talk." " Carly!" " What a... a pleasant surprise." " Don't." "Don't?" "Don't what?" "Don't do what you're doing." " Playing these games." "They won't work." " Okay." "You're not gonna get Jeffrey from me." "I don't have to take him from you when you straight up hand him over." "Look, you are manipulating the wrong person!" "Jeffrey is my blood!" "My son!" "And I could not be more serious when I tell you..." "You're trash." "What the fuck you just say to me?" "I said you're trash." "And it's only a matter of time before your son sees it, too." " You watch your mouth." " Or what?" "You know you don't deserve to be a father." "You're a mess." "And yet I'm the one taking care of him while you bail for days at a time?" "Yeah, well, someone had to make me feel like a woman." "God knows you never could." "You know, when you're close to me like this," "I can really smell what a failure you are." "I see what you're doing." "When will you learn that I am not an idiot?" "You come to my work like this again, and I'll file a restraining order." "David?" "Can you get me some more juice?" "Yeah, no problem." "Thanks." "Just push that if anything happens while I'm gone." "Guys, get me out of here." "They want... to run more tests, and if my MRI comes back with the same results, they'll be doing experiments on me till I die." "Philip, hack their database and get my file, okay?" "You got it." "Sit tight, Marcy." "Hi." "I was called in to speak with an Agent Forbes." "Uh, Forbes is my partner." "I'll take it from here." "Thanks, man." " Uh, come on in, Officer..." " Boyd." "Boyd." "You really need to stop making a habit of this." "Protocol 6." "This is an emergency." "Our medic's in the hospital, and her condition might be beyond 21st-century medicine." "The director will send help if the intention is to save her." "Well, help hasn't arrived, and she's getting worse." "And you're coming to me why?" "I just want access to your team's medic." "No." "Could you at least ask your medic, let them decide for themselves?" "I just did." "I'm the medic." "And team leader?" "Yeah." "We lost ours along the way." "Someone had to step up." "Well, then you, of all people, should understand." "We're just trying to do everything in our power not to lose one of our own." "Just have a look at her." "That's all I ask." " Hello?" " David, I need your help." "We gotta get Marcy out of the hospital." "Is that a good idea?" "I wouldn't be asking, okay, if this wasn't serious." "Well, she's... she's got doctors and nurses coming in every five minutes." " I have a way around that." " Okay, look, I wanna help, but you said so yourself, this is exactly where she needs to be." "Well, the situation has changed." "If the doctors continue to test Marcy, her cover will be blown." "I don't care about her cover." "This is important work, David." "She told me she was dying." "And I have no intention of letting that happen." "I have a plan." "But the only way I can pull it off is with your help." "What do you need me to do?" "I need you to be in her room at exactly 1:07 sharp." " Can you manage that?" " Yeah, of course, then what?" "Stand by." "So why haven't you gone back and stopped Hitler and Stalin?" "I love the way your mind works, but actually, we're only able to come back to the modern age of computers because we need the precise time and location of the host's death." "Close doesn't work." " Then you're not really Trevor?" " No." "You remember my concussion?" "When my consciousness arrived, it supplanted his just before the last punch would have killed him." "Instead, I conceded the fight, and here we are." " Here we are." " Yeah." "Whoa, whoa, whoa." "Grace, are you okay?" "Grace?" "Grace!" "Grace!" "Okay." "Oh, God." "All right." "Okay." "Grace!" "Grace!" "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!" "Grace!" "Grace!" "Grace!" "Hey, hey!" "Hey, hey!" "Stop!" "Grace!" " Grace!" " 0115, are you out of your mind?" "You do not get to change history on your own!" "But I saved her." "How could you possibly..." "She made a phone call." "GPS, voice recognition." "Oh, great, I'm bleeding." "Been here less than a minute, and already my body's damaged." "Well?" "Knock, knock, Marcy." "It's time for you to head into your MRI..." "I am so sorry." " You murdered her." " Oh, get over yourself." "Historically, Grace Day died today." "Don't get mad at me because you got caught trying to play God." "Well, candidates shouldn't be taken after their T.E.L.L. has passed." "It happened." "It's forever." "So get over it." "Are you here to deliver the repercussions?" "No, I didn't jump here to spank you." "I have a mission to complete." "If I can get this goddamn car started." "Huh." "Now what?" "Home lumbar puncture is pretty unorthodox, but looks like it helped relieve some intracranial pressure." "What the hell did you do with the CSF?" "She made a serum to help stabilize the neurotransmitter levels." "Smart." "Kept you alive for this long." "But you know it could only buy you so much time." "I know." "Of course you do." "You've known the whole time." "It must have been brutal." "Okay, I can give you a neurotransmitter stimulant I developed for a mission" " that should help you short-term, but..." " Thank you for the second opinion." "I wish it was a better one." "What?" "That's it?" "That's all you can do?" "What about nanites?" "There are a number of medical traveler teams capable of amazing things." "Yeah, we know." "But that takes orders from the director." "That should start working right away." "You okay?" "Thank you." " How long does she have?" " Not long." "The shot I gave her should help her feel more or less normal for a little while, but... her neurons are still going like fireworks." "But, hey, if the director wants her saved..." " Yeah." "Thanks." " You're welcome." "Check in with your team." "Why?" "Because I'm also on a mission to locate 0014, and by now, they should have his coordinates." "They were sent a messenger this morning." "So check in and use this so I can hear both of you." "Trevor, where the hell have you been?" "I'm sorry, I felt like I had to do it." "You broke protocol!" "But the new traveler showed up anyway." "Yeah, we'll talk about that later." "Is she 0014?" "Oh, for God's sake!" "They haven't located him yet?" "If he didn't arrive after the messenger, check the T.E.L.Ls from before." "Why would the director order us to greet someone who had already arrived?" "Who am I talking to now?" "Call me Grace." "We share the same mission, Agent MacLaren, and it involves Marcy." "There's one potential T.E.L.L. from earlier today." "Uh..." " A farm outside of town." " Is that it?" "Obviously." "Send us the coordinates and meet us there with your whole team." "Here." "Philip, follow when you can." "Carly?" "You're with me." "Come on, 014." "Open the damn door." "It's safe!" "My name's Ellis!" "Get off my property!" " I'm not gonna hurt you." " What about the kid?" "He's nobody!" "Come on." "We don't have much time." "Why should I trust you?" "'Cause without me, you'd still be writing shitty script prompts in a leaky dome like the grumpy, no imagination, old bastard you are." "027." "I'd recognize that tone in any century." " Call me Grace." " You here to hide, too?" "Partly." "Your defenses are up?" "With you?" "Always." "Got 'em up just after feeding the pigs." " I got pigs!" " Okay." "I want your code." "What makes you think I'm gonna give it to ya?" "And you are?" "Trevor." "You look like somebody shot your puppy, Trevor." "Do I?" "She's not a real people person, but her heart's in the right place." "You'll see." "Come on in." "All right." "Come on." "Get in here." "So, how'd you find me?" "My team did." "They'll be here soon." "Your reinforcements." "014 needs protection." "He wrote a backdoor hack that a faction in the future is desperate to get their hands on." "What faction?" "A group is trying to topple the director, and they wanna use my code to do it." " I came here to hide it, so it's useless." " Not useless." "How's it gonna help you in the 21st?" "I'm trying to save somebody's life." "Hmm." "Is that so hard to believe?" " Yes." " Definitely!" "I made a mistake that needs to be corrected." "Hacker with a heart of gold." "You're programmers." " This one's the director's favorite." " Only when you're not around." " So how's my code gonna save a life?" " You'll see." "And don't worry." "I'll destroy it as soon as I'm done." "Wait." "You need it now?" "I was just gonna start on supper." "Oh, he can do that." "Do you know how to prepare food?" "Yeah, sure." "Well, hurry up." "I haven't eaten in centuries." "You've reached Special Agent Grant MacLaren." "Please leave a message." "Agent MacLaren, it's, uh, David Mailer." "I really stuck my neck out back at the hospital, and I'll probably run into some of these people again, and now I'm just waiting on a Marcy update, so I'm not gonna lie to you..." "Feel a little pissed off." "Which isn't to say that I'm unwilling to help, obviously I am, but there's a difference between helping someone and being used by someone." "So, call me back." "Trevor?" "Trevor?" "Who is it?" "3468." "I received a message to greet Traveler 0014." "Well, then... greetings!" " Uh..." " And you!" "Greetings!" "So what's the mission?" "You tell me." "We just told you." "Our mission was to greet you." "Then mission accomplished." "You folks hungry?" "Your friend's cooking supper, though I think he was expecting a couple more." "Yeah, they're on the way." "Finally." "Where is she?" "You must be Grace." "What's going on?" "There's a plan you need to be aware of." "These two are programmers." "They want to try an experimental procedure on you." "What sort of procedure?" "Well, they say it could correct your condition." "Table isn't gonna set itself, folks." "Grace wants to talk to you." "Over here, Marcy." "Uh, my team said you think you can help me?" "Well, Marcy, nice to meet you." "Just give me one second here." "I'm almost done." "There we go." "Sit." "How conversant are you with the theory of quantum entanglement?" "Um, I know it's the basis of how we transfer consciousness." "And in order for that to happen, an alignment has to occur." "Unforgiving precision." "A misfire will kill the incoming consciousness." "We need to be 100% locked in." "That's great, Marcy." "Thanks." "What was that?" "Oh, just a calibration test of sorts." "Now, let's eat!" "Not only was I part of the programming group," "I was the team lead on the social media research." "You found the host candidates?" "Yes." "The early successes made us overconfident in our analysis, so when we came to Marcy's host..." "What's this one again?" "Carrot." " Carrot." " Mmm-hmm." "This is spaghetti squash." "My host has a refrigerator full of something called bacon." "When I realized what it was, I cried for a good five minutes." "You would." "Where was I?" "You were saying how you got Marcy's life wrong." "Oh, right." "Well, I can't tell you how much I regret that, Marcy." "Uh, people make mistakes." "I understand." "But you don't understand how I intend to fix it." "No." "I don't." "By repackaging your original upload in order to bypass the damaged areas in your host brain." "It really is brilliant." "How does this process not lose information?" "Oh, it does." "Of course it does." "I had to prioritize." "A few memories, some life experiences will be lost, but the human mind is full of useless things." "You won't even be able to tell the difference." "What about all my memories of the 21st?" "Well, obviously none of that." "I didn't have access to it, did I?" "Just think about this as a reboot of the original." "A reboot?" "What will happen to her current consciousness?" " Same thing that always happens." " It'll get overwritten." " You mean she'll die." " It will be her." "By any reasonable definition, she will be Marcy." "Just not... this one." "I should have told you." "Would it have made a difference?" "No." "Was it ever a threat to the mission?" "I don't think so." "Privacy might not exist where we come from, but it does in the 21st, so..." "Thank you." "And really, what kind of an asshole would I be if I started yelling at you now?" "We'll brief you after the transition, in detail." "Philip will remember everything." "No." "Not everything." "I'm not the same person today as when I arrived." "Doesn't matter how long ago it was." "It might as well have been centuries." "In a way, it was." "You can tell her events and missions, and everything you can think of in the most minute detail, but... you can't tell her..." "What?" " Doesn't matter." " Why do you say "her"?" "Because she won't be me." "She won't remember... the most important part of who I am now." "I'm not gonna sit here and pretend to know what makes us who we are." "But I gotta figure it's more than just the sum of what we remember." "Yeah, you're right." "And I won't lie to you." "You're important to us, and I don't wanna lose you." "I'm really just... one person on one team." "That happens to be here to save the world." "So there's that." "I'm not gonna tell you what to do." "Oh, there she is." " What if I don't go through with it?" " What?" "What if I refuse the procedure?" "Why wouldn't you go through with it?" "You'll die horribly." "Don't I have the right to die on my own terms?" "No." "Do you have any idea the trouble I've gone through?" "And I'm grateful for that, I'm humbled by it, but I'm asking the question," " is it an option?" " No." "I think it is." "You have a responsibility to the grand plan." "You've taken an oath." "Can I just... have the time to go home and think about it?" "Home." "It's important to me that I see someone before I make this decision." "Fine." "Thank you." "Come on." "We'll take you." "Well, that didn't go as planned." "Are you sure we're safe here?" " Uh, I've taken measures." " Well, will they be enough?" "I also got a shotgun." "Thanks for coming in." "I just didn't really want to be alone right now." "Of course." "David will be home soon, so I'll just go make some tea while we wait." "I'll give you a hand." "I'm gonna give her a hand, too." "What the hell did she say to you to make you consider not having a medic on our team?" "She didn't have to." "I know what she's going through." "Do you?" "What happened to "the mission comes first"?" "She just needs a little time." "I'm sure she'll make the right decision." "You shouldn't have given her the choice." "It's a little more complicated than that, Carly." "Look around." "She has a life in the 21st." "We all do." "Some of us have made sacrifices in order to do what we came here to do." "This isn't about any one person's happiness." "Tell me." "What is it about?" "I have a unique perspective on this." "In the early days of testing the technology, my much younger consciousness was transferred out of my body and back again." "That's not really the same thing." "You still had your memories." "It was ages ago." "Who can remember?" "My point is, I was still me when I returned." "I didn't feel any different." "Neither will she." ""She"?" "You'll be the same person, Marcy." "So everyone keeps saying." "My perspective is entirely selfish." "I just don't want to lose you." "All I know is..." "I just need to talk to David first." "I didn't realize you had someone that important to you in your life." "Neither did I." "I mean, obviously I can't tell him what I have to choose, but I think... just... sitting down and..." "Marcy?" "Marcy!" "No!" " Marcy!" "Stand down." " We're your team." "This isn't where I'm supposed to be." "We know." "You're safe." "What's going on?" "This isn't your original T.E.L.L." "Traveler 3569." "Welcome to the 21st." "Marcy?" " Agent MacLaren?" " Hey, David." "What's happening?" "Thank God." "I thought something terrible had happened to you." "You must be David." "I'm told we're close."