"You holding up okay?" "I'm fine." "You know, i can handle this my... i said i'm fine." "If you think i'm letting you handle explosives after that, you're hallucinating." "Hand it over." "Nice work, clark." "First one kills the building security system." "And the second one destroys the database." "That wire goes to the second board." "You try to get up again and i'll kill you." "The way i feel, you may not have to." "Now that i finally caught up with you, mind telling me what you think you're doing?" "Looks like we got something in common." "Clark, you gotta trigger the second bomb." "That was a big mistake." "And now you have really pissed me off." "We've gotta pull out." "The corporal's down." "We've gotta go now." "Right." "Leave me." "We all know i'm dying." "Nobody gets left behind." "We protect our own at any cost." "Oh, be quiet, you big pussycat." "Looks like a giant hickey." "Yeah, well, trust me:" "It looks like a lot more fun than it actually was." "What the hell were you doing on your own?" "You could've called me on the com-link." "Oh, i'm sorry." "I was too busy having the life choked out of me." "So they were ferals, huh?" "Yep." "I was doing all right with the first two 'til the human mountain showed up." "That big, huh?" "At least." "You know, emma was right." "She picked up a tele-empathic transmission from a renegade pack of new mutants." "Renegades with a serious grudge against tricorp botanicals, huh?" "No." "No." "Hey." "Hey." "Come up with an answer for why these guys have it in for tricorp?" "Not yet." "No." "Alright, i got another question." "Who are these guys?" "I mean, we've just gone through the entire new mutant database." "We can't find anybody who matches the description that you gave us." "I don't know what to tell you, adam." "They were new mutants, and the one who nailed me could've doubled for mount everest." "All right, but are there any other distinguishing characteristics?" "You mean aside from the guy being a seven-foot giant?" "Yeah." "Well, the woman who took me on, she was a professional." "She had combat training." "Huh." "Military?" "Definitely." "And she called the wounded guy corporal." "Any insignia on their clothing?" "No." "But they did have the same tattoo on their wrist." "A red disc with a black, five-pointed star in the middle." "Huh." "Does it look anything like this?" "That's it." "Dark star:" "An international antl-terrorist unit fielded by interpol." "Oh, yeah, i know these bad boys." "They make the navy seals look like a saturday afternoon paintball club." "Yeah, but look." "Dark star doesn't exist any more." "According to this report, they were all killed in a south american drug war firefight two months ago." "Okay, so we gotta figure out how three members of an elite combat unit, listed as killed in action, suddenly turn up with new mutant abilities." "I'm concerned, dr." "Harrison." "This operation was supposed to be tightly contained." "I completely agree." "But it seems dark star refused to lay down and die." "Well, nine of them seemed to have complied." "And i'm guessing the three survivors were responsible for the attack on tricorp last night." "Really?" "And your security branch was able to drive them off." "Security branch." "My security team can barely tie their shoelaces." "We're in the agribusiness." "Security has never been a major issue - until now." "Well, welcome to my world." "I'll assign my staff to take over your security effective immediately." "Goodbye, corporal." "I promise, i'll get those people who did this to you." "You know that woman, at tricorp, she's like us." "She's not like us." "You know what i mean." "Her eyes, they have that same glow, and she matched me, head to head." "Maybe there's others like us, too." "To hell with that." "This is war." "I am a warrior and if we die, we take our enemies with us." "What have you got?" "Adam, i have run background checks on every member of dark star." "There is no indication of any of them exhibiting new mutant abilities." "Okay." "Then you gotta dig deeper." "We've got to find a link that'll tell us where they might be holed up." "Whatever connection there is between tricorp botanical and dark star is directly related to what happened to them in the jungles of bogota." "All right, then, why don't you dig around in the tricorp database?" "How about this, adam?" "Specialist sergeant angel dorn's father owns an abandoned engine plant at westhaven." "Good." "That's it." "And i'll send shalimar and brennan." "You two stay here and research tricorp." "Careful." "They're ferals." "If i can hear them, they can hear us." "Trust me." "I can handle myself." "We're talking about a really big guy." "Yeah, you know, i think you made your point all right?" "Let's not forget, i have the element of surprise." "Yeah, well, save your energy." "You're going to need it." "Yeah." "C'mon." "Turn it off, sparky, or we'll kill you now." "We're just here to talk." "People who just want to talk don't make that kind of entrance." "She's got a dramatic streak, okay?" "You know, we're all on the same side here." "Then why did you interfere with us at tricorp?" "Because when new mutants go on a crime spree you put all the rest of us in danger." "What the hell is a new mutant?" "C'mon." "Children of genomex." "I'm an elemental, she's a feral like you two." "We don't know anything about any children of genomex." "What we know is that tricorp murdered my squad and turned us into freaks." "Freaks." "Well, we certainly know how you feel." "Well, genomex is definitely a silent partner in tricorp botanicals, but beyond the business relationship, i couldn't dig up anything you might call dirty in their database at all." "Yeah, and we also know that genomex's involvement doesn't necessarily mean anything." "Yeah." "The only thing of interest was this." "Seems to be their primary research project." "It's beautiful." "All right." "That's the link we were looking for." "It's a plant called reflisha prisay." "Apparently it's extremely rare." "Only twelve or so plants are known to exist in the world." "And the hydroponic garden at tricorp botanical has three of them housed in their greenhouse." "Why am i not surprised?" "The reflisha prisay is a genetically engineered parasitic plant which spends most of its life as a thread-like infection strand within a host." "Yeah." "What's the big deal with this plant?" "All right." "In the early days of dna research, we were humbled to learn that the genetic difference between a human being and yeast was a single strand of code." "So we all looked for a link between the animal world and the plant world and the reflisha prisay project was a misstep that genomex made in their attempt to manipulate human dna." "The twenty-five-year growth cycle have anything to do with the problems?" "Exactly." "I thought the project was dead a long time ago." "I guess they just put aside 'til the next twenty-five-year cycle came along." "And we have to assume that dark star's attack on tricorp has something to do with it." "So, listen, why don't you two coordinate your efforts, see what you can find out about what tricorp may be up to with this project now?" "Okay?" "Dark star is an incursion drop team." "Was." "Three months ago, we were assigned to a search and destroy mission in the rain forest outside of bogota to take out a landing field serving the cartels." "As always, we had what we figured was the usual run of vaccinations." "But something started happening right away and a few of us began getting stronger, while most of our squad became horribly ill." "My people were dropping like flies." "And that was before the cartel soldiers had us surrounded and under fire." "Over there." "I tried to call it in but we got no response." "The only way we survived was to head deeper into the bush." "A matter of days, only angel, corporal randall, and i were alive." "We buried our fallen comrades and expected the same fate for ourselves." "Instead, we developed incredible new abilities." "We managed to take a prisoner, a cartel drug soldier." "He told us it was tricorp botanical reps who set the whole thing up, to test a new serum and to gauge our abilities to defend ourselves." "We were human lab rats." "And their tests killed my squad." "Except beau and me." "Must've been all those shots before you left." "They had to have been testing some kind of process on you without your knowledge." "Yeah, then they dropped you into what they figured was a controlled environment to observe you." "But they didn't count on you guys getting out." "What they didn't count on was that dark star takes care of its own." "Yeah, well, so do ferals." "Among new mutants, we're a breed apart." "As you can see, the small man is clearly stricken." "Yes." "And the big man, lieutenant longstreet, is it?" "So he looks to be the living incarnation of nietzsche's dictum:" "What does not kill you will make you stronger." "We've passed the ninety day mark on the tests." "Chances for survival at this point increase exponentially." "Then i'd say we're on the verge of success." "I wouldn't go that far." "Nine of our twelve subjects have died." "We only need one survivor to achieve the results we desire." "And assuming lieutenant longstreet does live, all we need is a sample of his dna to take this to the next step." "To genetically alter a human being into a new mutant." "Well, my people should be just about in place to bring lieutenant longstreet in for his interview now." "There's four basic types of new mutant:" "There's elementals, like me;" "psionics, freaks and ferals." "So, beau and i... you have lived with this all your life?" "What?" "You mean my new mutancy?" "Yeah." "But i gotta tell you, it's nice knowing you're not alone." "So you two... teammates." "Teammates." "I let my team down." "It wasn't your fault, beau." "Ten of my best people." "They used them as human guinea pigs." "I have to make sure they didn't die in vain." "We've got company." "Sounds like six men coming from the north side." "Two more in the back." "I'll take the back." "You guys get the rest." "How'd they find us?" "Probably the same way we did." "Hey, c'mon, we gotta jam." "At least a dozen agents out there, maybe more." "I have to get corporal randall." "C'mon, there's no time." "Let's go." "We make time." "Beau." "We have to go." "How long has she been like this?" "About an hour." "You know, i get the feeling from what they told me, this is what happened to all the other members of dark star." "How's she doing?" "She's stable." "Her vital signs are strong." "But it's the blood work that i'm concerned about." "Here." "Take a look." "Her blood cells are trying to fight off a serum derived from a hybridized plant called a reflisha prisay." "Well, they just tricked these poor bastards." "They thought they were getting malaria vaccinations." "The same kind of lies they told your parents, right?" "Parents of all the children of genomex." "Yeah, but these guys thought they were volunteering to serve their country, not participate in some freaky genetic experiment." "Another example of the kind of power mason eckhart has." "Why we've dedicated our lives to keeping that power in check." "Adam gets the living." "And we get the dead." "I'm afraid your gs agents went in with a trifle too much self-confidence." "Which would have been completely justified if not for the annoying presence of adam's people." "Well, at least they were able to return a test specimen to us for future study." "Although i'm far from confident in your ability to wring answers from a corpse." "I'm afraid you're probably right." "Our best hope for a successful resolution to this experiment is a living subject." "And since only two possible candidates remain alive, i've got my agents scouring the city." "Our latest data would indicate the woman, sergeant dorn, who appears to have been stricken with the same pathological illness that's killed the others." "Well, that means that unless lieutenant longstreet survives, you're in a great deal of trouble." "I promise you, if anyone can help her, it's adam." "I believed in my superior officers." "Look where that got me." "Yeah, but it's not like that with adam, beau." "Is he one of you?" "One of us?" "You mean a new mutant?" "No." "Adam made it possible for us to survive what genomex had done to us." "And he's led us on a campaign against the people who experimented on you." "Tricorp botanical?" "Tricorp botanical is just another public face for the genetic security agency." "I'm a good soldier." "It's all i've ever wanted." "To do my duty the best i can." "But you didn't sign up to be experimented on without your consent." "To be turned into some rogue warrior for the gsa." "Lieutenant." "How is she?" "Her condition's stable." "She's resting comfortably." "She's going to die like the others?" "I'm doing everything in my power to keep that from happening." "Oh." "Now, i believe that you and your squad were secretly injected with a serum derived from a hybrid plant called the reflisha prisay." "The serum killed my men." "It's killing angel." "Did this to me?" "Yes." "Can you save her?" "Well, creating an antidote is theoretically possible, but i'm going to need the plant to do it." "The plant at tricorp?" "Yes, exactly." "I want you and jesse to break in there and get me the plant." "Absolutely." "But we're not going in there alone." "Beau's coming with us." "We need him to do the job." "The feral thing's not half bad." "Thought you might get to like it." "I got it." "Not exactly your regular garden variety, is it?" "We've got company." "Beau and i'll take care of these guys." "Gotta get the plant to adam." "Yeah." "This seems a little low-tech for you, adam." "Kind of expected you to laser it or something." "Well, herbal medicine techniques are as valid today as they were a thousand years ago." "Here." "One man's tribal magic is the next man's holistic healing." "We better hope so, because all of our modern technology doesn't seem to be doing any good." "Yeah, but she's stable." "Who knows for how long." "Hey, what about shalimar?" "We haven't heard from her or beau." "Yeah, why don't you see if you can track her down?" "I'll take that." "There's a longstanding tradition in my world of tampering with human nature to create a more perfect soldier." "From the hashishin of ancient persia to the viking berserkers to mk-ultra, men in my position have sought the perfect way to create the perfect monster in the field." "And i believe we're getting there." "This morning, you sounded ready to shout your success from the rooftops, dr." "Harrison." "Are you having any doubts?" "I wouldn't call them doubts, exactly." "Let's just say i have concerns." "What's his condition?" "He's fine." "We've sedated him so i can administer a complete examination to find out precisely why what killed the others seems to have thrived in lieutenant longstreet." "I'm concerned by your concerns, dr." "Harrison." "It's just the scientist in me." "It's all about control." "I'll join you in the examination room to observe the procedure." "This process took a lot longer than i thought." "How are her vital signs?" "Her white cell count is fluctuating, but everything else seems constant." "All right." "Good." "I've isolated the culture from the reflisha prisay." "Next step is develop the antigen." "You'd think someone would notice i was missing." "Shalimar?" "Where the hell are you?" "I'm at genomex." "I don't know how long i can talk, so just listen." "They've got beau in an examination lab." "I'm going to bust him loose." "I need you to bring the helix to get us out of here." "No." "No, you need to get the hell out of there now." "I'm not leaving beau." "He wouldn't leave a team member, and neither will i." "Just be ready to get us out of here." "Hey, adam." "Yeah?" "Just heard from shalimar." "She's inside the gsa." "Have you made any progress in learning precisely why lieutenant longstreet survived the experiment?" "We're getting there." "Getting there." "We can only move so fast, mr." "Eckhart." "A sample of blood taken from the late corporal randall has proven an invaluable tool." "By comparing the two dna structures, we've managed to isolate the precise strand of genetic material responsible for lieutenant longstreet's longevity." "Fascinating." "Then it's true:" "Most great medical advancements point to pathology." "Well, we'll soon find out." "I believe with the reflisha prisay we've got on hand, we should be able to start the next phase of the operation." "If you are correct, we are on the verge of creating new mutants." "Obedient and subservient new mutants." "Completely at the service of your will." "Enough to conceivably make the children of genomex unnecessary in the greater scheme of things." "Well, i guess all we can do now is wait." "Yeah, well, i still think i should've gone with jesse." "Well, you heard adam." "He said he needed two of us here to assist." "Okay." "Well, then why didn't jesse stay?" "C'mon, shalimar needs more than jesse's massing and phasing to get her and beau out of there in one piece." "Well, if you were as close to shalimar as jesse is then i'm sure you'd understand." "Brennan." "Her heart has stopped." "Adam." "There's not enough time." "What are you doing?" "Trying to save her life." "Come on, angel." "Come on." "It's not working." "Okay, three's a charm." "Come on." "Come on, angel." "I guess it worked." "Whoa, hey, hey, relax." "You're going to be safe." "Where am i?" "We've been taking care of you." "You're going to be okay." "Where's beau?" "Shalimar's bringing him here." "Everything's going to be all right." "You've been through a lot." "Easy, easy." "I'm not going to hurt you." "It's okay, we're friends." "Take my hand." "It's okay." "Come on." "Good." "Sit down." "What's going on?" "Angel's heart stopped, but brennan managed to revive her." "I'm glad you were here." "You okay?" "Good." "Here, save your strength." "Come here." "Come here." "I got an idea." "Now that eckhart has beau, i'm guessing that security's going to be lax at tricorp botanical." "What do you say?" "Let's do it." "This may come as a surprise, dr." "Harrison, i'm not a particularly optimistic man." "That said, i have to admit the work you've done here gives me hope for a brighter future." "Thank you, mr." "Eckhart." "That's awfully kind." "To complete our research on this subject, i'll inject him with a drug that will permanently paralyze his brain function." "Is that really necessary?" "I'm afraid so." "There's no telling how strong his mutant abilities have become." "You look a little bit sleepy." "It's time for you to take a nap." "Now, let's not do anything rash." "This is how we're going to play this." "We start by showing a deceased soldier some respect." "Beau." "You don't want to do this." "Why?" "There's nothing to go on for." "That's not true." "My squad is gone." "That's not true." "You got a new squad now." "A new pack." "Oh, you should have seen it, jesse." "I thought eckhart was going to explode." "I mean, touching him must've been bad enough, but taking eckhart hostage in a headlock?" "I gotta tell you, made for a very smooth exit." "But i gotta know:" "Were you awake the whole time you were on that table?" "I woke up when they started poking me." "But one thing i have learned with this feral stuff is turning pain away." "And you're right - it's a lot easier knowing that you're not alone." "Tell me about it." "Angel." "Easy, big guy." "Some of us aren't as feral as others." "You sure she's going to be okay?" "Better than okay." "You guys are both one of us now." "New mutants." "Ferals, to be exact." "You got that right." "What about the experiment?" "The experiment was a failure." "As for tricorp botanical, well, they got some problems of their own." "Right, brennan?" "Absolutely." "Now that we've cornered the market on the reflisha prisay." "As i said, dr." "Harrison, i am not by nature an optimistic man." "The reason is simply that i cannot bear the disappointment that is so frequently the result of heightened expectations." "I have always subscribed to the adage, "hope for the best," "and expect the worst. "" "I understand that, mr." "Eckhart." "I also understand that the trauma of your experience yesterday, along with the loss of lieutenant longstreet, must be very difficult to accommodate." "But we still have the reflisha prisay." "Is that right?" "I gather you haven't checked in at your office this morning." "No." "I came directly here." "And you haven't heard about the security breach last night." "Preliminary laboratory analysis indicates that the last specimen was destroyed by an application of high voltage electricity." "It's most likely the work of brennan mulwray." "He's one of adam's people." "Perhaps we could accelerate the growth rate." "Take some time off that twenty-five years." "Who knows where i'll be in twenty-five years?" "But i have a good idea where you'll be." "This is how it should be." "To all of our fallen heroes, who fought with honour and died with grace." "I know your squad would be really proud of what you've done." "I hope so." "Angel and i, we... we don't know how to thank you." "You don't have to."