"Ladies and gentlemen, tech pioneer Darius Tanz!" "Sir, my name's Liam Cole." "In 186 days, an asteroid's gonna collide with Earth and we're all gonna die." "Previously on Salvation..." "Jillian?" "Liam." "Hey." "The job offer from Darius is an opportunity." " You should take it." " I already did." "What we need is a working EmDrive we can get to our asteroid friend here with just enough time for a gravity tractor to save us all from extinction." "No one has ever built a working EmDrive." "We can't trust the government." "We have to do this ourselves." "Uranium, I know where to get it." "You know that under normal circumstances," "I would never do some of the things I've done." "You've made your choices, Grace." "Now I need to make mine." "The IO Probe." "The plan would be to redirect it from Jupiter's orbit and propel it into the asteroid." "You have an issue with this plan?" "Yes." "In a word, it stinks." "That highvelocity kinetic impact could smash our asteroid friend into several pieces, each of which may cause cataclysmic damage." "But they will land somewhere." "Yes, Russia, China." "Sir, we have a problem." "The probe is no longer responding to us." "We've been hacked." "NASA has been hacked." "Darius, where are you?" "I need to know what you did." "$750, $750." "Do I hear $800 for this remarkable neoclassical petite commode?" "The last toilet used by Louis XVI before he went to the guillotine." "$800." "Do I hear $850?" "$850?" "No, $800." "$800 once, twice..." "Sold!" "For $800,000 to the gentlewoman in blue Chanel." "Up next, today's premier item." "Lot 29." "George Washington's personal copy of the Bill of Rights." "Signed by our first president, this is quite possibly the most important document that the auction world has seen." "Bidding will start at $5 million." "And I have $5 million from Mr. Tanz." "Thank you." "Do I hear 5.5?" "Do I hear six?" "Do I hear six?" "Six from the phone bank." "6.5 from an online buyer." "$7 million. $7 million from Mr. Tanz." "$7.5 million from Mr. Bloomberg." "Do I hear eight?" "Eight?" "Eight from Mr. Tanz." "Thank you." " 8.5 from Mr. Bloomberg." " ." "And back to Mr. Tanz for $9 million." "9.5." "Pick up." "Make no mistake, we are at war." "A war we have 12 hours to win, people." "NASA's been hacked." "The EmDrive's not viable, so this is it..." "Us against whomever hacked the IO Space Probe." "If we don't regain control by then, it goes into free fall, and we will lose it forever, along with our best hope of stopping this thing." "That cannot happen." "Can't sleep?" "No, not so much." "Me, either." "Firstday jitters." "What?" "You are going to be great." "Thank you." "Me, on the other hand..." "Hey." "I'm sorry your EmDrive project didn't go well, but it was just a test." "I'm sure next time will..." "No, I don't think there's gonna be a next time." "When you're passionate about something, time means nothing." "Who said that?" "You did." "The night we met." "Hey, how old was Isaac Newton when that apple bonked him on his head and he came up with the theory of gravity?" "He was 23." "But it took him 20 more years to prove it." "Well, I have faith in you." "You'll crack it." "I know it." "Any progress from counterintelligence?" "Even a shred of hope I can pass along to POTUS?" "We're working on it." "Whoever hacked IO was no amateur." "Well, right now we seem like the amateurs." "We have three government agencies in this room, supposedly the best of the best." "Prove it." "Find whoever did this, now." "Give us the room." "Where is he?" "I don't know." "He hasn't responded." "So Darius Tanz just happened to disappear when all hell broke loose last night?" "Did he give you any indication that he was planning something like this?" "Grace, I know there's not a lot of trust between us right now, but this is not the time to hold back." "He sent me this text last night." "I don't know what it means." "Don't be nervous." "Too late." "But I could use a little pep talk." "Okay." "Okay." "You see these?" "Meteorites." "Darius's coveted collection." "Rare rocks from outer space." "And that beautiful, shimmering guy there..." "That's from the Khatyrka meteor that fell in Siberia in 2011." "It's a quasicrystal with fivefold symmetry called icosahedrite." "Meaning?" "It is the only known object in the universe with that symmetry." "Nothing like it exists on Earth." "Shimmering." "One of a kind." "Like you." "Damn, you're good." "You got this." "Yeah." "Security, please report to the lobby." "Security, please report to the lobby." "Don't make me ask you this again." " Where is he?" " All due respect, sir," "Mr. Tanz doesn't permit me to give out his schedule." "Okay, nothing's private as far as the Patriot Act's concerned." "So with as much respect as I can muster, you will tell me where he is." "Search the building." "And pull all the hard drives." "What?" "What?" "When?" "A few hours ago." "Holy hell." " Where is he?" " I don't know." "I haven't seen him since the EmDrive crashed and burned." "Do you think Darius could have hacked NASA?" "Could he oror would he?" "Those are two different questions." "Has he been acting strange lately?" "He's Darius..." "He always acts strange." "Do you trust him?" "My..." "Liam, where's the uranium?" "The barrels of uranium for the EmDrive." "The EmDrive doesn't need uranium." "What?" "What did he do with it?" "Whoa, whoa, whoa." "That document survived the War of 1812." "It better survive the ride back to my office." "My oldest friend went to New York, and all I got was this lousy copy of the Bill of Rights." "You should have seen the look on Bloomberg's face when he dropped out at 20 mil." "Harris, this is some welcome home party." "I'm touched." "What's the occasion?" "Darius Tanz, you're under arrest on suspicion of high treason against the United States of America." "High treason?" "I'm not the one who's high here." "Take him." "No lawyer, no Miranda, no water." "You really know how to make a guy feel welcome." "Darius, we have ten hours to get the probe back online." "This is no joke." "If you have an alibi, now would be the time to speak up." "I'm not a dog." "I don't bark on command." "Six foreign corporations have sued you for industrial espionage." "Hacking proprietary technology." "If you know that, you'd also know I countersued, because those companies stole from me." "The drives we took from Tanz this morning were wiped clean." "That's fairly incriminating, don't you think?" "They have an automatic kill switch." "Just smart tech designed to prevent espionage." "You're wasting time..." "Time you don't have." " You have the wrong man!" " Do I?" "!" ""It's not over." "I have one more move left."" "What did you mean by that when you texted Grace Barrows?" "Hacking NASA?" "That was your move, wasn't it?" "Amazing how quickly people are willing to believe the worst about others." "Narcissists." "When they fail, first they deny it, then they make sure no one else succeeds." "Darius, I suggest you talk while you still have the ability." "Never seen him like this, have you?" "No." "Funny how men can be one thing in the bedroom and another in the boardroom." "I don't think that's just men." "We've got something." "The deputy secretary is gonna want to see this." "He told me to jack up the power." "That's what made this mess." "Do you think Darius did it, that's he's a... that he's a traitor?" "I don't know." "I'm sorry." "I should have..." "I should have listened to you, notnot him." "No, no, according to these readouts, the drive was gonna fail anyway." "The microwaves were going out of alignment even before you dialed it up." "Why?" "What was causing the electrical turbulence?" "Well, that's the billion dollar question." "We've got to do a forensic analysis on the body and figure out what killed the patient." "We have to reconstruct that?" "It looks like a charred marshmallow, like a s'more no one wants to eat." "Well, I already ordered a prototype from engineering." "Maybe the 180th will be the charm." "You do realize most scientists go their entire lives without that single lightbulb moment." "The only real failures are the ones from which we learn nothing, Mr. Cole." "Have faith." "If not in Darius Tanz, then in us." "Yeah." "What if all this, everything we're doing here, was just a misdirect so that Darius can prepare for his real plan?" "And what plan would that be?" "One... sixty." "160." "Why is this number so important to the task at hand?" "Let's hear from our newbie, Jillian Hayes, a scifi writer from Massachusetts." "Harvard?" "Boston." "Just Boston." "Jillian from "Just Boston." Glad to have you here with us." "Where might we have seen your work?" "Where have you been published?" "Selfpublished." "But hard copies of my novel ShadowSide can be found in some independent bookstores in the New England area." "Familyowned businesses, where they give you a free bookmark with every purchase." "And what does the acclaimed author of ShadowSide have to say about the number 160?" "Well, according to Darius's algorithms, it's the minimum number of humans" " required to reboot our species." " Exactly." "So if we had the chance to repopulate the human species, starting over on a terraformed Mars, who would we bring along?" "How do we cull the vulgus herd of seven billion down to an elite 160?" "Now, this is not the same conundrum that Noah faced when he built his ark, because he had God telling him what to do." "And we don't have God giving us orders." "But like Noah's quest, this project is not just an exercise." "In the coming months, we..." "The intellectuals, academics, scientists and our writer... have been tasked by Darius Tanz to select 160 people..." "to colonize Mars." "Counterintelligence successfully traced the source of the hack." "They call it a mimic signal." "A sat signal that piggybacks alongside a proprietary feed, then overrides it." "That signal was traced to this dish... at Tanz Industries." "Nine hours." "That's all we have left." "Harris." "It's time... to call in a specialist." "I'll handle it." "All right." "A "specialist"?" "Enhanced interrogation?" "This is Darius Tanz we're talking about." "He's guilty, Grace." "The evidence is not circumstantial." "Why are you protecting him?" "It's not him I'm protecting, it's our sense of decency." "You're talking about torture, Harris." "What good is trying to save humanity if we lose ours in the process?" "In a few hours, we may lose our last chance at survival." "Losing my humanity is a highclass problem." "Darius says he's ready to talk." " Finally." " Not to you." "To her." "Grace Barrows." "High time the accused faced the accuser." "Okay." "You said you'd talk to me, so talk." "Why did you do this?" "To beat that dead horse again, I didn't." "Darius, they're gonna bring someone in." "Doesn't that scare you?" "Not as much as it scares you." "Me?" "Other than the world ending, what do I have to be afraid of?" "Of yourself, discovering you're capable of things you couldn't have imagined a few weeks ago." "You mean like trusting someone who turned out to be a liar and a traitor?" "I know the uranium wasn't for the EmDrive." "I never move a piece on the board unless it's for a good reason." "I'm not a pawn you can sacrifice;" "This isn't a game." "I didn't do this, Grace." "What reason would I have?" "Only you can answer that." "Counterintelligence confirmed the hack came from Tanz Industries." "Now who's lying?" "Our analysts found a mimic signal and traced it back to a dish at Tanz." "Now an interrogation expert is on his way from Langley, so I suggest you start talking, because right now, the only thing between you and waterboarding is me." "Grace, if what you're saying is the truth, then there's a mole at Tanz Industries." "Innocent people provide alibis." "I would if I could, but if there's a mole at Tanz, people are in danger..." "Grace!" "I need you to find out who it is." "Find salvation." "Hello, Darius." "Goodbye, Darius." "Hello, Darius." "What the hell?" "I need you to find out who it is." "Find salvation." "How'd you do that?" " Do what?" " Get through the entry gate." "That door, it thinks you're Darius." ""It"?" "Tess." "Our A.I. system." "I don't know." "Where is he?" "Darius?" "He's being questioned." "He asked me to find Liam." "Well, if Mr. Tanz needs a message delivered," "I'll pass it along." "This is official business." "Anyway, you must have your hands full with this wonky A.I. system." "I'll find him." "Hello, Darius." "Any news from analytics?" "Their fastest computing cluster estimates it'll take approximately 52 hours to break encryption, but they're trying to get that number down." "Damn it." "All right." "Well, keep me posted." "Okay." "Time to take off the gloves." "Harris." "You aren't culpable for what's about to happen." "The way POTUS sees it, we're low on time and out of options." "Playing God." "Picking the 160." "What do we look for behind these anonymous faces?" "We know what's critical." "High IQs, genetic health, fertility, skill sets, but..." " what do we prioritize?" " Well, what about artists?" "Musicians, poets." "Do they have a place?" "Can Picasso fix an engine?" "Can Bono birth a baby?" "Yeah, I understand the necessity of utilitarian selection." "But in order to repopulate our species on Mars, don't we want to save the best of what makes us human?" "If we didn't have storytellers in caves drawing pictographs on walls, where would we be today?" "You can't paint if you're dead." "Have you read Andre Bartok's The 360?" "Of course." "Two ships manage to escape a dying Earth only to encounter an alien vessel." "Some passengers want to attack, others want to make contact." "And those who made contact were the socalled creative types." "Or "nonessentials,"" "as Bartok calls them." "They left themselves defenseless trying to make friends." " And got everyone killed." " It's fiction." "No, it's a spoton assessment of the human race." "The pragmatic are the strong, the strong survive." "Andre Bartok is weak, selfish and cruel." "The ravings of that cynical lunatic should hardly be our Bible." "Maybe we should take a break." "Give me a minute." "We don't have time for a minute." "I made a total ass of myself." "Don't beat yourself up about it." "All right?" "The guy sounds like a total jerk." "What am I doing here, Liam?" "These people are Harvard academics and MIT science whizzes, and I'm just a selfpublished nobody." "All I know is Darius has a reason for everything." "And if you're here, it's 'cause he sees something in you that the others can't see." "Yet." "Thank you." "Is there any way that we could go for dinner tonight?" "You and me?" "Come on." "If you take one night off, it's not the end of the world." "Liam?" "There you are." "Grace, this is, this is Jillian Hayes." "Hi." "We need to talk." "Now." "Yeah." "Okay." "I'm sorry." "It's fine." "Go." "We don't have a lot of time." "Do you have any idea what this is?" "This is nearfield comm tech." "It's the kind of RFID implant the super rich put in their bodies for security purposes, or just to show off." "Got it." "This one's GPSequipped..." "It starts cars," " logs movements." " Unlocks doors." "Which explains how he got up here." "And you're sure the hack signal came from here?" " Yes." " So Darius is a modernday Nero bent on watching the Earth burn?" "Or someone else is Nero and Darius is just the fall guy." "Why give me that?" "He wants you to find something only he has access to." "You said it logs movements." "Can it tell us where Darius was the exact moment the probe was hacked?" "Well, it's a... digital diary, so itit should, yeah." "Last night, between 11:30 and 11:40." "He was on the grounds, about a kilometer from here." "What's out there?" "Nothing." "So it's 15 meters this way." "No X, but this is the spot." "Keep looking." "There's got to be something." "Just more of Darius's sleight of hand." "Unless..." "Hello, Darius." "Ladies first." "Thanks." "You have any idea where we are?" "Other than 100 meters below ground, no." "Hello?" "Hello, Darius." "This is it." "Salvation." "He doesn't want to save the planet." "He wants to leave and play space king." "We've been, we've been conned." "A Gutenberg Bible." "Van Gogh's Starry Night." "Shakespeare's First Folio." "Beethoven's Ninth." "That's an original copy of the Bill of Rights." "Why would someone who wants to doom humanity also save its greatest works?" "It doesn't make sense." "He wanted me to find Salvation." "Why?" "Hey, let me see your phone." "Can I see your phone?" "What?" "This hangar..." "This entire facility..." "It's air gapped." "It's cut off from the rest of the world." "You... you can't send a text, access the Net, make a call." "If he was here when the probe was hacked..." "A hack NASA said had to occur live and in realtime." "Liam, there's no way he could've done it." "Exactly." "But why would Darius risk torture when he had an ironclad alibi?" "Because he was protecting me." "My God." "Right, the uranium that could be traced back to you." "He can't save himself without throwing me to the wolves." "The EmDrive doesn't need a nuclear fuel source, but the Salvation does." "All of this is to ensure, in a worstcase scenario, that the best of us survives." "He's not Nero, he's Noah." "How do we clear his name without using his alibi?" "We find the real mole ourselves." "Finally, a conjugal visit." "I usually prefer curvier types, but... you have such pretty eyes." "He left us no choice." "Sometimes the ends do justify the means." "Looks like it's just you and me." "And him." "Hello, Darius." "What are you doing in Darius's private quarters?" "Shouldn't I be asking you the same thing?" "You know nothing about me." "Even less about him." "Then illuminate us." "Quickly." "Or I call the FBI and have you arrested for hacking the U.S. space program." "I'm gonna ask you a question." "Who are you working for?" "What is the encryption key?" "And how do we regain control of the probe?" "That was... three questions, actually." "You're not so good at math?" "Who are you working for?" "What is the encryption key?" "How do we regain control of the probe?" "If there's any humanity left in you, Tanz, you still have time to do the right thing." "You think this is funny?" "Just ironic... to hear you use the word "humanity."" "Well, here we go again." "Who are you working for?" "!" "Stop." "The odds of this yielding accurate information is low, very low." "We both know that." "Harris, I may not personally outrank you, but you have a direct order from your commander in chief." "Stop, and I'll be forced to make a call." "A call that could cost you your job and most likely your freedom." "Proceed." "I checked the history of every secure terminal on our network." "All 2,200 of them." "No known terminal issued that signal." "Unless there's a station no one knows about." "That we don't know about." "Darius hates anything that slows him down." "Once, he shut down a firewall because it was interfering with a holographic conferencing system he was tinkering with." "It's possible he has a private terminal somewhere on the site." "Well, then it's possible that the mole found that and used it to lock us out of the probe." "If we find that terminal, we might regain control." "There's over 500,000 square feet of ground to cover in this building alone." "How much time do we have?" "Less than four hours." "Well, then it's impossible without Darius's help." "And what if Harris won't let you talk to him?" "I'll figure something out." "Right now, the EmDrive is our best chance." "It may be our only chance." "Well, then why is Darius building the ark?" "The ark is Darius's backup plan." "You are plan "A."" "He believes in you, Liam." "So do I." "I need you to run a comprehensive background check on a Tanz employee..." "Name's Lazlo Simms." "That's the longest minute I ever experienced." "I thought you'd had it." "Me, too." "Now, where are we?" "Take a look." "The microwaves are being absorbed by the interior lining." "And they're falling out of alignment because the chamber isn't reflective enough." "And after a few seconds, they stop bouncing and start penetrating the core." "And if the lining isn't perfect..." "Then the whole house eventually collapses." "So if our copper lining was stronger..." "And more reflective..." "Then we'd sustain thrust." " We need a better lining." " Yeah." "Enough." "I'm authorizing chem agent R4." "That's a barely blunted neurotoxin... it's barbaric." "It's also effective." "We're running out of time, Harris." "If you have another idea, I'm listening." "How about letting him go?" "You want a solution, I've got one." "But I need Darius alert and lucid, not the shell of a man he'll be if you stick that needle in him." " Harris, stop this." " It's not his call." "I don't give a damn where the orders come from." "Darius is innocent." " And you know this how?" " I just know." "I swear it on my own life, Harris." "Please." "Right now, I need you to trust me." "Our very survival is at stake, and you expect us to just take your word for it?" "Harris." "Please." "I know what I'm asking, and I know the consequences if I'm wrong." "But think about the consequences if I'm right." "Stop this." "Stand down." "New orders." "Unstrap him." "If you're wrong, they'll burn you for this." "If I'm wrong, we're all going to burn." "Clear out." "Come on." "I got you." "Took you long enough, Harris." "Wasn't me." "Get him some dry clothes." "I'm sorry." "Darius, we don't have a lot of time." "Can you stand?" "You found Salvation." "Yeah." "But not the mole." "Lazlo thinks the hacker used an unsecured terminal on the Tanz network, but if that's true, it must have been installed by you." "What reason would I have to add an unsecured computer to my own network?" "It runs counter to every..." "I need a phone." "Get me a phone." "Okay, so that was platinum." "We've tried dusting the lining with platinum, with glass." "We even tried gold, like in the Webb telescope." "What about a crystalline lattice?" "Right?" "Crystals are highly reflective." "I tried that years ago." "Nothing." "I'm afraid... we're looking for a substance that doesn't exist." "Pentagon." " Hello?" " Liam." "Darius?" "Are you okay?" "I know where the hack came from." "Get your ass to the breakroom now." "Okay." "Okay, I'm here." "Go to the arcade cabinet." "The one in the southeast corner." "Asteroids?" "Yes, that one." "Remove the back panel." "It's locked." "It's locked." "Whoa." "Look for anything out of the ordinary." "Power supply." "Motherboard." "Hard drive." "Graphics card." "What the hell?" "What do you see, Liam?" "Some kind of microPC piggybacking one of the PCI slots." "It looks like it's off though." "Turn it on." "Well, do you even know what it does?" "You have a better idea?" " Whoa." " What?" "I don't know how they did it." "Someone installed this device and used it to tunnel through the Tanz server, accessing Darius's satellite network." "And then they used it" " to send the mimic signal." " And lock out NASA." " So what now?" " II can turn it off." "I think I can turn it off." "I can override the hack." "Sir!" "The probe just phoned home!" "We're back!" "We're back in the driver's seat!" "Initiate correction burn." "Burn in three, two, one." "Mark." "It's working." "If we control the probe..." "We control our future." "Slight vibration here." "Interference?" "Gravitational forces are increasing." "Getting stress warnings all along the hull." "Sir, the gravity from Jupiter is too strong;" "We're going to lose the probe." "It's gone." "We're too late." "Who else knew about the console's ability" " to connect to the outside?" " No one." "No one?" "Do I look like a guy who invites employees to hang during my downtime?" "Yes." "Actually, you do." "Thanks, but I told you," "Wozniak and I have a standing Friday night faceoff." "That firewall was really throwing a wrench into it." "That game was for me and Woz." "And occasionally Bezos and Shakira." "Electronic wire fraud." "Identify theft." "Seven years in a federal lockup for hacking a telecom data vault." "Why didn't you tell us your security chief," "Lazlo Simms, had a milelong record, which, apparently, you paid to have expunged?" "We all have things in our past we wish we could wash away." "Laz is the only person in the world" "I completely trust." "He didn't do this." "People change, Darius." "They change, and they lie." "And sometimes, they do it right under your nose." "Liam, what's going on?" "You wouldn't believe me if I told you." "Does it have something to do with the woman from the Pentagon?" "Yes and no." "I just..." "Tell me something." "Anything good." "Well..." "I was thinking about what you said earlier..." "How Darius does everything for a reason..." "And I think maybe the reason I'm here is because I'm not like any of those people." "They're all head." "No heart." "No, you're not like anybody, Jillian." "You're the icosahedrite." "Otherworldly." "He tried crystals." "But he didn't try the icosahedrite because that doesn't exist on Earth." "What?" "Inspiration comes when you're not looking." "I know what I have to do." "Tess?" "Unlock the trophy case now." "Please." "Karissa, where's Lazlo?" "I can't reach him." "He last swiped into the Treehouse." "Lazlo, we need to talk." "Laz." "He knew the walls were closing in." "Who the hell was he working for?" "Darius Tanz brought all of us together to find the 160." "160 people worth saving." "Or to play God, as Mason so aptly put it." "But if we truly want to endure, we can't just focus on what it takes to merely survive." "We have to focus on what it takes to truly live." "And that doesn't just come from the head." "It comes from the heart." "So the nonessentials, as you call them..." "The writers, the artists, the dreamers..." "They are essential, because in our darkest hours, they give us the most essential ingredient to the survival of our species:" "Hope." "And in the end, it is hope and only hope that will save us." "Hey, Professor Croft?" "Professor Croft, wake up." "Hey, wake up." "The EmDrive." "It works."