Last updated: Sept 24, 2020
WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD.
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UKRANIAN 1
[Wake up the Americans.]
UKRANIAN 2
Hey!
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PROTAGONIST
We live in a twilight world.
We live in a twilight world!
ACTOR
And there are no friends at dusk.
PROTAGONIST
You’ve been made.
This siege is a blind for them to vanish you.
ACTOR
But I established contact.
PROTAGONIST
Bring you in or kill you.
I have 2 minutes, make up your mind.
PROTAGONIST
Where’s the package?
ACTOR
Coat check.
----------------
PROTAGONIST
Stay!
UKRANIAN SWAT #1
[Grab his!]
UKRANIAN SWAT #1
[What are you doing? What are you doing?]
UKRANIAN SWAT #1
[Who are you? Who are you?]
SWAT #1
No friends at dusk huh?
PROTAGONIST
You'll do. Get him to the rally point.
----------------
PROTAGONIST
Swap clothes! Ukrainians are expecting a passenger.
I’ve never seen encapsulation like this.
ACTOR
We don’t know how old it is but it’s the real deal.
PROTAGONIST
Did you have an out?
ACTOR
Service tunnels to sewers.
PROTAGONIST
Take this. Take him. Take his exit.
I don’t trust ours anymore. Can you defuse that?
SWAT #2
It's centrally synchronized. Are there more?
PROTAGONIST
They’re covering their tracks.
SWAT #2
Take out the audience?
PROTAGONIST
It’s just the cheap seats.
SWAT #1
Not our mission.
PROTAGONIST
Mine now.
----------------
PROTAGONIST
Walk away.
You don’t have to kill these people.
SWITCHED ACTOR
That wasn’t one of us.
PROTAGONIST
I’ll take the help.
PROTAGONIST
Go, go, go, go, go!
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UKRANIAN 1
[That’s not him!]
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UKRANIAN 1
A man can be trained to hold out for about 18 hours.
So your colleagues will be clear by seven.
He didn’t last 18 minutes.
But he didn’t have anything to hide.
You were smuggling a nobody. That’s risky.
Or were you counting on this? Death. CIA issue.
Spare yourself once they're clear.
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UKRANIAN 1
Almost seven.
Uh-oh, running fast.
We have to put it back 1 hour.
UKRANIAN 1
Get it out!
----------------
VICTOR
Welcome to the afterlife.
You’ve been in a medically induced coma
while we got you out of Ukraine and rebuilt your mouth.
PROTAGONIST
The suicide pills are fake. Why?
VICTOR
A test.
PROTAGONIST
A test? They pulled my teeth out.
Did my team get clear?
VICTOR
No. Private Russians, we think.
PROTAGONIST
Somebody talked.
VICTOR
Not you.
You chose to die instead of giving up your colleagues.
----------------
VICTOR
We all believe we’d run into the burning building.
But until we feel that heat, we can never know. You do.
PROTAGONIST
I resign.
VICTOR
You don’t work for us, you’re dead.
Your duty transcends national interests. This is about survival.
PROTAGONIST
Who’s?
VICTOR
Everyone’s. There’s a cold war, cold as ice.
To even know its true nature is to lose.
This is knowledge divided.
All I have for you is a gesture, in combination with a word.
“Tenet”. Use it carefully.
It’ll open the right doors, but some of the wrong ones too.
PROTAGONIST
That’s all they told you?
VICTOR
That test you passed? Not everybody does.
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BARBARA
With a hi-viz vest and a clipboard you can get almost anywhere.
Almost.
PROTAGONIST
An obscure tenet.
----------------
BARBARA
No small talk.
Nothing that will reveal who we are or what we do.
PROTAGONIST
I thought I was here to find out what we do?
BARBARA
You're not here for “what”, you’re here for “how”.
“What”, is your department. And none of my business.
PROTAGONIST
Well to do what I do, I need some idea of the threat we face.
BARBARA
As I understand it, we’re trying to prevent World War III.
PROTAGONIST
Nuclear holocaust?
BARBARA
No. Something worse.
----------------
BARBARA
Aim it and pull the trigger.
PROTAGONIST
It’s empty.
BARBARA
Aim it.
BARBARA
Check the magazine.
PROTAGONIST
How?
----------------
BARBARA
One of these bullets is like us, traveling forwards through time.
The other one’s going backwards. Can tell which is which?
How about now?
It’s inverted. Its entropy runs backwards.
So to our eyes, its movement is reversed.
We think it’s a type of inverse radiation triggered by nuclear fission.
PROTAGONIST
You didn’t make it?
BARBARA
No we don’t know how yet.
PROTAGONIST
So where’d it come from?
BARBARA
Someone’s manufacturing them in the future.
They’re streaming back to us. Try it.
BARBARA
You have to have dropped it.
PROTAGONIST
How can it move before I touch it?
BARBARA
From your point of view, you caught it.
But from the bullet’s point of view, you dropped it.
PROTAGONIST
But cause comes before effect.
BARBARA
No. That’s just the way we see time.
PROTAGONIST
Well what about free will?
BARBARA
That bullet would have never have moved if you hadn’t put your hand there.
Either way we run the tape, you made it happen.
Don’t try to understand it. Feel it.
PROTAGONIST
Instinct.
Got it.
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PROTAGONIST
Why does it feel so strange?
BARBARA
You’re not shooting the bullet…
You’re catching it.
PROTAGONIST
Whoa.
I’ve seen this type of ammunition before.
BARBARA
In the field?
PROTAGONIST
I was almost hit.
BARBARA
Then you were exceedingly lucky.
An inverted bullet passing through your body would be devastating.
Not pretty.
PROTAGONIST
These look like todays.
BARBARA
They’ve only been made today and inverted years from now.
PROTAGONIST
Where did you get them?
BARBARA
Came with the wall.
I was assigned it, like all the material I’m studying here.
PROTAGONIST
Do you have an analysis on the metals?
BARBARA
Sure. Why?
PROTAGONIST
The mixture of alloys can tell me where they have might have been made.
Look… I’m not seeing Armageddon here.
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BARBARA
The bullet may not seem like much but it’s a simple machine.
Lead bullet, brass casing, gunpowder.
If they can invert that, I see no reason they couldn’t invert pretty much anything.
Even a nuclear weapon can only affect our future.
An inverted weapon might be able to affect our past as well.
Now that we know what to look for,
we’re finding more and more inverted material.
Remnants of complex objects.
PROTAGONIST
What do you think we’re seeing?
BARBARA
The detritus of a coming war.
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MAN ON PHONE
Yup?
PROTAGONIST
We live in a twilight world.
MAN ON PHONE
No friends at dusk.
Was told you'd left the building.
PROTAGONIST
Even the dead need allies.
MAN ON PHONE
Specifically?
PROTAGONIST
I need an assist in Mumbai, I need to get to Sanjay Singh.
MAN ON PHONE
Singh? He never leaves his house, and his house is umm… his house.
PROTAGONIST
Yes it is. I’m looking right at it.
MAN ON PHONE
I’ll see who’s on deck.
Bombay Yacht Club in two hours.
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NEIL
It seems you need an introduction to a prominent Mumbai local on short notice.
I’m Neil.
PROTAGONIST
I need an audience with Sanjay Singh.
NEIL
That’s not possible.
PROTAGONIST
Ten minutes, tops.
NEIL
Time isn’t the problem. Getting out alive is the problem.
Would you take a child hostage? A woman?
PROTAGONIST
If I had to. I’m not looking to make much noise here.
WAITER
Yes?
NEIL
Vodka tonic… and a diet Coke.
What? You never drink on the job.
PROTAGONIST
You’re well informed.
NEIL
Ah. It pays to be in our profession.
PROTAGONIST
Well I prefer soda water.
NEIL
No you don’t. How’s your parachuting?
PROTAGONIST
I broke an ankle during basic training.
Singh’s house isn’t tall enough to parachute off of.
NEIL
It’s bungee jumpable.
PROTAGONIST
I don’t think “bungee jumpable” is a word.
NEIL
It may not be a word but it may be our only way out of that place.
Or in to it, for that matter.
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PRIYA
I know you’re tired. So am I.
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PRIYA
Hey!
PROTAGONIST
Stay back.
I was almost taken out by a very unusual type of ammunition in Ukraine.
I want to know who supplied it.
SANJAY SINGH
My name is Sanjay.
And you are? No chit-chat?
PROTAGONIST
There’s no one at the other end.
No one who’s gonna help you anyway.
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NEIL
Don’t let it get cold.
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SANJAY SINGH
Why should I know who supplied it?
PROTAGONIST
The combination of metals is unique to India.
If it’s from India, it’s from you.
SANJAY SINGH
Fine assumption.
PROTAGONIST
Deduction.
SANJAY SINGH
Deduction then.
Look, my friend.
Guns are never conducive to a productive negotiation.
PROTAGONIST
I’m not the man they send in to negotiate.
Or the man they send to make deals. But I am the man people talk to.
SANJAY SINGH
I can’t… I can’t tell you.
PROTAGONIST
You’re an arms dealer, friend.
This may be the easiest trigger I’ve ever had to pull.
PRIYA
To say anything about a client would violate the tenets he lives by.
PROTAGONIST
If tenets are important to you, then you can tell me.
Everything.
PRIYA
Not while you have a gun to my husband’s head.
Sanjay, make a drink for our guest please.
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PRIYA
Cheers. Priya.
PROTAGONIST
This is your operation.
PRIYA
A masculine front in a man’s world has its uses.
The dealer you are looking for is Andrei Sator.
PROTAGONIST
The Russian oligarch.
PRIYA
Do you know him?
PROTAGONIST
Not personally. Made his billions in gas.
Moved to London, said to be on the outs with Moscow.
PRIYA
Very good.
Except the gas he made his billions from was actually plutonium.
PROTAGONIST
None of which explains how or why you sold him inverted munitions?
PRIYA
When I sold him the arms they were perfectly ordinary.
PROTAGONIST
So how did he get them inverted?
PRIYA
We believe he’s functioning as some sort of a broker.
Between our time and the future.
PROTAGONIST
He can communicate with the future?
PRIYA
We all do, don’t we. Emails, credit cards, texts.
Anything that goes into the records speaks directly to the future.
The question is, can the future speak back?
PROTAGONIST
And I’m supposed to find out?
PRIYA
To get anywhere near Sator would take a fresh-faced fresh protagonist.
And you are fresh as a daisy.
Get close, find out what his receiving and how.
PROTAGONIST
Is it safe to involve British Intelligence?
PRIYA
I have a contact, who’s out of Sator’s reach.
PRIYA
You must have had a plan for getting out.
PROTAGONIST
Not one I love.
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MAÎTRE D'
May I help you sir.
PROTAGONIST
I’m Mr. Crosby’s lunch.
MAÎTRE D'
I presume you mean “Sir” Michael Crosby’s lunch.
PROTAGONIST
Presume away.
MAÎTRE D'
If you’ll follow me.
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MICHAEL CROSBY
Started without you. Hope you don’t mind.
PROTAGONIST
I’ll catch up.
Same for me, please.
MAÎTRE D'
I’ll send the waiter.
PROTAGONIST
No, just pass on the order.
MICHAEL CROSBY
I gather you have an interest in a certain Russian national.
PROTAGONIST
Anglo-Russian, so I have to watch my step.
MICHAEL CROSBY
Indeed, he’s tapped in to the intelligence services.
I’ve warned them his feeding them rubbish, but…
they don’t seem to care.
PROTAGONIST
Tell me about him.
MICHAEL CROSBY
I assume you’re familiar with the Soviet-era secret cities.
PROTAGONIST
Closed cities, not shown on maps. Built around sensitive industries.
Most of them have been opened up and renamed as regular towns.
MICHAEL CROSBY
Not the one Sator grew up in. Stalsk 12.
In the seventies it had a population of about 200,000.
Thought to be abandoned.
PROTAGONIST
Abandoned?
MICHAEL CROSBY
Some kind of accident. After which it was used for underground tests.
Two weeks ago, same day as the Kiev opera siege,
we spotted a detonation in northern Siberia just where Stalsk 12 was.
Sator emerged from this blackspot on the map…
with ambition and enough money to buy his way into the British establishment.
PROTAGONIST
Through his wife?
MICHAEL CROSBY
Katherine Barton. Eldest niece of Sir Fredrick Barton.
She works at Shipley’s. Met Sator at an auction.
PROTAGONIST
And happy marriage?
MICHAEL CROSBY
Practically estranged.
PROTAGONIST
Well how do I get to Sator?
MICHAEL CROSBY
Through her, of course.
PROTAGONIST
Well, you may have an inflated idea of my powers of seduction.
MICHAEL CROSBY
Hardly. We have an ace in the hole.
PROTAGONIST
You’re carrying a Goya in a Harrods bag?
MICHAEL CROSBY
It’s a fake by a Spaniard named Arepo.
One of the two we confiscated from an embezzler in Bern.
PROTAGONIST
What happened to the other one?
MICHAEL CROSBY
It turned up at Shipley’s. Authenticated by Katherine Barton.
Put on auction, and who do you think bought it?
PROTAGONIST
Her husband? Does she know it’s a forgery?
MICHAEL CROSBY
Oh, it’s hard to say. Rumor has it, that she and Arepo were close.
PROTAGONIST
Uh huh.
MICHAEL CROSBY
Look, no offence…
but in this world where someone is claiming to be a billionaire…
Brooks Brothers won’t cut it.
PROTAGONIST
I’m assuming I’m on a budget.
MICHAEL CROSBY
Save the world, then we’ll balance the books.
Can I recommend a tailor?
PROTAGONIST
I’ll manage.
You British do not have a monopoly on snobbery you know.
MICHAEL CROSBY
Well, not a monopoly.
More of a controlling interest.
PROTAGONIST
Can you box that up for me?
MAÎTRE D'
Certainly not.
PROTAGONIST
Goodbye, Sir Michael.
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RECEPTION
How can I help sir?
KAT
Sorry, I wasn’t notified of any appointments.
Mister…?
PROTAGONIST
Goya.
KAT
Mr. Goya?
PROTAGONIST
No, I’m told you’re the person to see about Goya.
KAT
That’s extraordinary.
PROTAGONIST
What’s it worth?
KAT
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Lots of work to do before any kind of valuation.
Provenance, microscopic examination, x-rays…
PROTAGONIST
But what does your heart tell you?
KAT
So where did you say you acquired this drawing?
PROTAGONIST
Tomas Arepo.
----------------
PROTAGONIST
I bought my Goya for cents on the dollar from an irate Swiss banker.
Traced it back to Arepo and then realized I’d scored a bargain,
when he told me who paid top dollar for another of his pictures.
Your husband.
KAT
Where's your bargain.
Your drawing’s an obvious fake.
PROTAGONIST
My drawing’s a very good fake.
You know that better than anyone.
The information is the bargain.
KAT
The information that I helped defraud my own husband?
PROTAGONIST
He and I are in related businesses, but he’s a very hard man to meet.
If you and I were to make an arrangement…
KAT
An arrangement? You mean blackmail?
You can’t be afraid of the word. My husband isn’t.
I’m sorry to tell you he got there first.
PROTAGONIST
He knows, and he’s never done anything about it?
KAT
Why would he?
PROTAGONIST
He paid 9 million dollars for it.
KAT
Would barely cover the cost of the holiday he just forced us on.
PROTAGONIST
Where’d you go? Mars?
KAT
Vietnam, on our yacht. His yacht.
You’ve got the suit. The shoes, the watch.
But I think you’re a little out of your depth.
PROTAGONIST
People who’ve amassed fortunes like your husband’s,
generally aren’t ok with being cheated out of any of it.
KAT
The drawing is his hold over me.
He threatened me with police. Prison. The works.
He controls me. My contact with my son. Everything.
Leaving would never have been easy but now it is impossible.
You can’t fight. Just beg.
In Vietnam I tried to love him again.
I thought if there was love there he might give me my son back.
We sat, on that bloody boat watching the sunsets,
imitated some earlier time in our lives.
He seemed happy, so I asked him, and he made me an offer.
He’d let me go, if I agreed never to see my son again.
I expressed myself, and took Max ashore. He called us, contrite.
And when we got back I glimpsed some other woman diving off the boat,
and he'd vanished.
I’ve never felt such envy.
PROTAGONIST
You don’t seem the jealous type.
KAT
Of her freedom. You know how I dream of just diving off that boat.
PROTAGONIST
But you share a son.
KAT
That’s my life now.
PROTAGONIST
Did you know that the drawing was a fake?
KAT
No. Tomas and I became close, maybe too close. I failed.
Andrei can’t conceive of failure. Only betrayal.
But I didn’t betray my husband. In retrospect maybe I missed my chance.
PROTAGONIST
And he let Arepo walk free?
KAT
If you’d actually met Arepo as you claimed,
you’d understand that he no longer walks… anywhere.
PROTAGONIST
We spoke on the phone.
KAT
He can’t do that either.
PROTAGONIST
Where’s the drawing?
KAT
Why?
PROTAGONIST
Get me an introduction. I’ll take the drawing out of the equation.
No picture, no prosecution, no more hold over you.
I might just be your second chance.
KAT
I don’t need redemption.
PROTAGONIST
At betrayal.
PROTAGONIST
Friends of your husband’s?
You knew this was going to happen?
KAT
Don’t worry, they won’t kill you.
Andrei dislikes tangling with local law enforcement on that level.
PROTAGONIST
You must have really not liked the look of me.
KAT
The look of you is fine.
It’s best to get to the nasty part before I care, one way or the other.
PROTAGONIST
There’s a number in your left coat pocket, don’t call from home.
KAT
You won’t be taking my call.
PROTAGONIST
I might surprise you.
----------------
PROTAGONIST
I ordered my hot sauce an hour ago.
----------------
KAT
Can we get going?
----------------
KAT
Please!
DRIVER
He wants you to see it.
----------------
DRIVER
And he gets what he wants.
KAT
Not always, apparently.
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MAX
Anna says we’re going to Pompeii and see lava.
KAT
We will, we’ll go together. I’ll be there too.
----------------
PROTAGONIST
I told you I’d surprise you.
He’s a cute kid.
KAT
He’s everything.
PROTAGONIST
Where’s the drawing?
KAT
Oslo, at the airport.
PROTAGONIST
The airport?
KAT
Do you know what a Freeport is?
PROTAGONIST
A storage facility for art that was acquired…
KAT
But not yet taxed. We started a network.
Rotas, his construction company, built them. I brought in the clients.
The facilities are tax havens.
----------------
PROTAGONIST
The clients can view their investments without importing them,
so they avoid paying tax.
NEIL
So it’s sort of like a transit lounge for art?
----------------
KAT
Art, antiques. Anything of value really.
PROTAGONIST
Anything?
KAT
Anything legal.
----------------
PROTAGONIST
But it’s not unlike the Swiss banking system. Opaque.
----------------
FREEPORT BROKER
As I’m sure you are aware, most Freeport’s are just warehouses,
but here we ensure that you can truly enjoy…
----------------
KAT
Rotas has assets in the Oslo Freeport. I’m guessing it’s there.
----------------
FREEPORT BROKER
And this way to the vaults.
----------------
PROTAGONIST
Guessing?
----------------
NEIL
Guessing?
----------------
KAT
We make trips there four, five times a year.
PROTAGONIST
To view art?
KAT
And whatever it is he does.
Turns out art’s of no importance to Andrei.
PROTAGONIST
But the Freeport’s are.
----------------
FREEPORT BROKER
The structure of the vaults is based on the Pentagon.
Each vault a separate structure within the other.
Damage to one structure won’t compromise the other.
Some customers choose biometric access control.
You can go straight in… off the tarmac.
NEIL
From the terminal?
FREEPORT BROKER
From their private planes.
NEIL
Of course.
FREEPORT BROKER
Our logistics department ships to and from any other
Freeport in the world without customs inspection.
----------------
NEIL
What are you hoping to find in there?
PROTAGONIST
Do you really want to know?
NEIL
I’m not sure.
PROTAGONIST
Bring some lead-lined gloves.
NEIL
Jesus. It’s nuclear.
PROTAGONIST
When you’re on the tour, pay attention to the fire precautions.
----------------
NEIL
Documents are vulnerable to…
FREEPORT BROKER
Fire? Absolutely!
NEIL
I was going to say, water damage from the sprinkler systems.
FREEPORT BROKER
We don’t use sprinklers.
The facility is flooded with Halide gas,
displacing all the air within seconds.
NEIL
Can you show me?
FREEPORT BROKER
Well if I did, we’d suffocated.
NEIL
What about the staff?
FREEPORT BROKER
Halide only fills the vaults, they just have to get into either corridor,
and there is a 10 second warning.
NEIL
At least you give them 10 seconds.
FREEPORT BROKER
Haha-ha. Well sir, our clients use us…
because we have no priorities, above their property.
NEIL
Blimey.
----------------
NEIL
Vault doors are fireproof. Hydraulic closers, simple key and electronic triggers.
Surprisingly easy once there’s a locked down.
PROTAGONIST
Why a locked down?
NEIL
Power switches to failsafe, sealing the outer doors.
But the inner doors revert to factory settings.
And pickable locks, its child’s play really.
PROTAGONIST
Child’s play? They're inside airport security.
They have to worry about climate control, not armed raids.
----------------
NEIL
So how do we get enough firepower through the perimeter
to trip their lockdown procedure?
Back wall of the Freeport.
PROTAGONIST
You’ve got something?
NEIL
You’re not gonna like it.
----------------
PROTAGONIST
You want to crash a plane?
NEIL
Not from the air, not so dramatic.
I want to run a jet off the taxi way,
breach the rear wall, start a fire.
PROTAGONIST
Well how big a plane?
NEIL
Well… that part is a “little” dramatic.
----------------
NEIL
This is Mahir. His team will work the plane.
PROTAGONIST
There can’t be passengers.
MAHIR
Norsk Freight. They use the hangar on the west side of the Freeport.
PROTAGONIST
You want to crash a transport plane? What about the crew?
MAHIR
We'll pop the slides, chuck ‘em off.
PROTAGONIST
On the move?
MAHIR
What’s the problem, they’ll be fine.
PROTAGONIST
Well it seems… bold.
MAHIR
“Bold” I’m fine with. I thought you were gonna say “nuts”.
PROTAGONIST
And if you get caught?
MAHIR
We won’t.
PROTAGONIST
And if you do?
MAHIR
Everyone assumes terrorism, but no one’s died, so…
a swift extradition and lost in the system. It’ll barely make the news.
NEIL
That’ll all depends on the size of the explosion.
MAHIR
Well actually the gold bars might get some play.
PROTAGONIST
Gold bars?
NEIL
Norsk Freight ships treasury gold once a month.
MAHIR
Blow the back, drop it out on the runway.
NEIL
No one will be looking at the building. I guarantee you.
----------------
PROTAGONIST
The space at the centre of the pentagon is too big.
There’s something there. I can’t figure it out, it’s just not marked.
MAHIR
It’s 45 seconds.
NEIL
Ample.
MAHIR
Won’t you be running?
Alright, it’s your turn. Start packing.
----------------
FREEPORT BROKER
Gentlemen, if you would, through the detector please.
Sir. And Sir.
----------------
FREEPORT BROKER
Can I offer you perhaps a coffee? A water?
PROTAGONIST
I’ll take an espresso.
FREEPORT BROKER
Sir?
NEIL
No thanks.
FREEPORT BROKER
Excellent.
----------------
MAHIR
Is everybody on this plane vegetarian? Cause all I got here is vegetarian.
So that, looks like meat, but, I think that looks vegetarian.
I think they both look vegetarian, I don’t know. Okay.
----------------
FREEPORT BROKER
This way, gentlemen.
----------------
FREEPORT BROKER
Gentlemen, you’re central compartment…
----------------
MAHIR
Carry on. Not the radio.
Let’s go.
----------------
NEIL
Yoga.
----------------
MAHIR PARTNER
Let’s go! Now!
----------------
NEIL
You said ten seconds, right?
----------------
NEIL
There’s someone in here with us.
NEIL
Need a hand?
PROTAGONIST
Actually, yes.
----------------
PROTAGONIST
Don’t touch them!
NEIL
What the hell happened here?
PROTAGONIST
It hasn’t happened yet.
----------------
NEIL
Don’t kill him!
We need to know if we've been compromised.
PROTAGONIST
Why are you here? Who are you?
How’d you know we’d be here?
NEIL
We need to go.
PROTAGONIST
What happened to the other guy?
NEIL
I took care of him.
----------------
NEIL
Well I’ve seen too much.
I’m still alive, which must mean you’ve decided to trust me.
PROTAGONIST
Or maybe I lost my edge?
NEIL
You’re edge is still intact.
PROTAGONIST
There’s a Cold War.
NEIL
Nuclear?
PROTAGONIST
Temporal.
NEIL
Time travel?
PROTAGONIST
No.
Technology that can invert an object’s entropy.
NEIL
You mean reverse chronology.
Like Feynman and Wheeler’s notion that
a positron is an electron moving backwards in time.
PROTAGONIST
Sure, that’s exactly what I mean.
NEIL
I have a masters in physics.
PROTAGONIST
Well try and keep up.
NEIL
I mean the implications of this, are…
PROTAGONIST
Beyond secret.
NEIL
Then why'd you bring me in?
PROTAGONIST
I thought we’d find a drawing and a couple boxes of bullets.
NEIL
You were as surprised as I was.
PROTAGONIST
I’m going back to Mumbai to get some answers.
I’ll set you up as a go between, but remember to you…
it’s all about plutonium. Or when we’re done, they’ll kill you.
NEIL
Won’t you have to do that anyway?
PROTAGONIST
I’d rather it be my decision.
NEIL
So would I… I think.
----------------
PRIYA
Your work?
What did you find in the vaults?
PROTAGONIST
Two antagonists. One inverted.
We took out the regular one, but the inverted one got away.
PRIYA
Both emerged at the same moment?
PROTAGONIST
Yeah.
PRIYA
They were the same person.
Sator has built a turnstile in that vault.
PROTAGONIST
A turnstile?
PRIYA
A machine… for inverting.
PROTAGONIST
You told me that technology hasn’t been invented yet.
PRIYA
It hasn’t, he’s been given it by the future.
PROTAGONIST
For what?
PRIYA
You have the best chance of finding out.
----------------
PRIYA
Have you met him?
PROTAGONIST
I was close.
PRIYA
What if you have something… he needs?
PROTAGONIST
Such as?
PRIYA
Plutonium-241.
Sator tried to lift the only used 241 from under the CIA team at the opera siege in Kiev.
He got the team. Not the 241.
PROTAGONIST
Who did?
PRIYA
Ukrainian security services.
It’s moving to Tallinn in a week.
PROTAGONIST
Helping an arms dealer steal weapons-grade plutonium is unacceptable, Priya.
I’m just gonna take him out.
PRIYA
No, no, no, no. No, Sator has to stay alive.
He has to stay alive until we know his part in things.
Manage the situation, without losing control of the 241.
PROTAGONIST
It’s too dangerous.
PRIYA
A terrorist bomb, even one that can kill millions,
is nothing compared to what could happen if you don’t stop Sator.
PROTAGONIST
From doing what?
PRIYA
We… have been attacked by the future.
And Sator’s helping. We have to find out how.
----------------
KAT
I saw the news from Oslo.
Do you have the drawing?
PROTAGONIST
You don’t have to worry about it anymore.
KAT
You destroyed it?
PROTAGONIST
I didn’t think you’d want it back.
KAT
Does he know?
PROTAGONIST
Not yet. So sit tight.
KAT
Sit tight?
Every day my son spends with that monster,
he thinks a little less of me.
PROTAGONIST
It won’t be long. In the meantime, introduce him.
KAT
As what?
PROTAGONIST
I’m a former First Secretary from the American Embassy in Riyadh.
We met at a party last June.
KAT
We were at a party in Riyadh, but I don’t think it was in June.
PROTAGONIST
June 29. 7 for 7:30.
Salmon was on the printed menu, swapped for sea bass on the night.
Sator left early, that’s when we met. I came into Shipley’s in London.
You ran into me here, and wanted to show me your yacht.
KAT
He’ll think we’re having an affair.
PROTAGONIST
And he’ll want to meet me.
KAT
Or have you killed.
PROTAGONIST
Let me worry about that.
KAT
Did I look worried?
----------------
KAT
Sleeps 70 with crew.
Two helicopters. Missile defenses.
PROTAGONIST
Afraid of pirates?
KAT
Andrei loves playing one government off the other.
The day they turn, that’s his refuge.
PROTAGONIST
May I join you?
KAT
Not sure Volkov taking passengers just now.
PROTAGONIST
Then we’ll take mine.
----------------
KAT
Max?
SATOR
Who’s the American?
KAT
He’s a friend.
SATOR
The man from Shipley’s.
KAT
Who you tried to have beaten up.
SATOR
I ask again. Who is he?
KAT
We met in Riyadh last June at the American Embassy.
SATOR
Good with fists for a diplomat.
KAT
Paranoia is your department, Andrei.
He seems nice. I invited him to the dinner.
KAT
Max?
SATOR
He’s visiting Pompeii and Herculaneum.
KAT
You just sent him off?
I promised him I’d go with him.
SATOR
I explained you were busy. With your friend.
----------------
PROTAGONIST
Hey! Easy fella.
Where I'm from, you buy me dinner first.
PROTAGONIST
Mr. Sator.
SATOR
Don’t bother.
Just tell me if you’ve slept with my wife yet.
PROTAGONIST
Uh, no. Not yet.
SATOR
How would you like to die?
PROTAGONIST
Old.
SATOR
You chose the wrong profession.
There is a walled garden up the road.
We’re going to take you and cut your throat.
Not across, in the middle like a hole.
Then we take your balls and we stuff them in the cut,
block the windpipe.
PROTAGONIST
Complex.
SATOR
It’s very gratifying to watch a man you don’t like…
try to pull his own balls out of his throat before he chokes.
PROTAGONIST
Is this is how you treat all your guests?
SATOR
We’re finished.
PROTAGONIST
Do you like opera?
SATOR
What?
PROTAGONIST
Not here.
SATOR
You sail?
PROTAGONIST
I’ve messed around on boats.
SATOR
Be on the dock at 8 ready to do more than mess around.
PROTAGONIST
8 am.
----------------
KAT
Max missed too much school this year.
I’m taking him back to England.
School won’t be ok with him missing so much.
SATOR
Yes, they will.
KAT
Can I finish? You bought the trappings of a king.
But we both know you’re a grubby little man playing power games…
with a wife that doesn’t love you anymore.
SATOR
You seem… spirited today.
KAT
Do I?
SATOR
Yes you do.
SATOR
Were you worried it had been destroyed?
Rest assured instinct told me to remove it from the vault.
I’ve always had instincts about the future.
That’s how I built this life you no longer value.
----------------
PROTAGONIST
Sailing or diving?
----------------
KAT
Right glide!
----------------
SATOR
What do you know about opera?
PROTAGONIST
In 2008, a remote Russian missile station
was overwhelmed and held for a week.
When the station was retaken,
241 on one warhead was three-quarters of a kilo lighter.
PROTAGONIST
The missing 241… surfaced at the Opera House siege in Kiev on the 14th.
KAT
Coming about!
----------------
SATOR
What do you propose?
PROTAGONIST
Partnership.
SATOR
I wouldn’t partner with you.
You can take care of yourself. You have no record.
PROTAGONIST
Someone in the arms trade with training,
who covers his tracks? Not that shocking.
SATOR
For an intelligence agent.
KAT
Right!
KAT
Burn in hell, Andrei!
----------------
KAT
You can’t jibe a boat like this!
PROTAGONIST
You can if you have to!
----------------
KAT
Why didn’t you let him drown?
PROTAGONIST
I need him.
KAT
To sell guns?
PROTAGONIST
I’m not who you think I am.
KAT
Of that I know. He showed me the drawing.
PROTAGONIST
I’m sorry. I had to get close to him.
I don’t know what you think your husband does…
KAT
Oh we both know he’s an arms dealer.
PROTAGONIST
He’s so much more.
KAT
What, then?
PROTAGONIST
Andrei Sator holds all of our lives in his hands. Not just yours.
VOLKOV
Mr. Sator wants to see you.
PROTAGONIST
Okay.
VOLKOV
Now.
PROTAGONIST
Uhh… he wants to see me without pants?
PROTAGONIST
Trust me.
KAT
Save it. I’m not falling for it twice.
PROTAGONIST
You have a better option?
KAT
Whatever it takes to get what you want.
Not a second's thought for me or my son.
What do you think he’s going to do to me now?
PROTAGONIST
Try not to use it. On anyone.
----------------
SATOR
Enough.
SATOR
See? Pulse of a man half my age.
Drink with me.
It seems I now owe you my life.
PROTAGONIST
It's nothing.
SATOR
My life is not nothing.
And I don’t like to be in debt.
PROTAGONIST
Then pay me. No retribution against your wife.
SATOR
You think she released my harness?
Hmm. It was my own mistake.
PROTAGONIST
Then help me steal the 241.
I need resources, it’s weapons-grade plutonium.
That means special handling, containment facilities.
SATOR
I know what it means.
You lecture me about radiation?
Andrei Sator.
Digging plutonium from the rubble of my city as a teenager.
PROTAGONIST
Where?
SATOR
Stalsk 12. My home.
One pod of a warhead exploded at ground level, scattering the others.
They needed people to find the plutonium.
It became my first contract. Nobody else even bid,
they thought it was a death sentence.
But… one man’s probability of death…
is another man’s possibility for a life.
I staked my claim in the new Russia.
Even now, my company’s the only one to operate in the ruins.
PROTAGONIST
The 241 is being transported through Northern Europe.
On its way to the long-term nuclear storage depot in Trieste.
I’m told you have resources in Tallinn.
SATOR
Stay with us tonight. I insist.
----------------
KAT
What do you want?
SATOR
We’re going to talk about today.
KAT
No we’re not.
SATOR
No? We’ll see.
KAT
Don’t think for a second you can treat me
like you treat your other women.
SATOR
And uh… how do you imagine…
I treat these other women, huh?
Do you think I force them into conversation?
You want to be quiet, fine.
You can bite down on that.
KAT
Even a soul as blank and brittle as yours needs a response.
Is fear and pain enough, Andrei? It’s all I have to offer you.
SATOR
Well then, it’ll have to do then.
KAT
Why didn’t you just let me go?
SATOR
Because… if I can’t have you…
no one else can.
KAT
And if you touch me, I scream so loud he hears.
SATOR
You think I’ll let him interfere?
KAT
If he tried, you’d have to kill him.
End of deal. So you leave me alone.
SATOR
Not now!
----------------
SATOR
98. Not bad for such exertion.
----------------
VOLKOV
He was at the window.
PROTAGONIST
I was curious.
SATOR
My property should not concern you.
Who are you?
How you come by your information about the opera?
PROTAGONIST
You wouldn’t do business with someone who wasn’t savvy enough to be recruited.
Hell the CIA provides 2/3rds of the market for fissile material.
SATOR
They’re usually buying, not selling.
But we do live in a twilight world.
PROTAGONIST
Is that Whitman? Pretty.
SATOR
Next warning is a bullet in the brain.
PROTAGONIST
No balls in my throat?
SATOR
There will be no time for such things.
In Tallinn. You make your way there.
I want Volkov on your team.
PROTAGONIST
No.
I spring the material. You pay me off.
Your wife does the exchange.
SATOR
I never involve her in my business.
PROTAGONIST
Yeah that’s why I trust her.
SATOR
Put him ashore.
PROTAGONIST
How do I contact you?
SATOR
You don’t.
PROTAGONIST
How do you advance me the funds?
SATOR
Handle the plutonium better than that.
----------------
PROTAGONIST
What did you find on the gold?
NEIL
No franks, no mould marks. Nothing. How?
PROTAGONIST
Dead-drops.
He buries his time capsule, transmits the location…
then digs it up to collect the inverted materials they send.
NEIL
Seemingly instantaneous.
Where’s he bury it?
PROTAGONIST
Some place that won’t be discovered for centuries.
What’d the soil samples show?
NEIL
Northern Europe, Asia.
Radioactive.
----------------
SATOR
Everything salvaged from Oslo has been shipped here.
KAT
Why am I here?
SATOR
I don’t trust anyone else to assess the pieces.
----------------
PROTAGONIST
High convoy through downtown, what’s the thinking?
NEIL
A crowded, unpredictable traffic patterns.
It’s almost impossible to plan an ambush.
PROTAGONIST
They have a point.
Is the convoy monitored from the air?
NEIL
Tracked by GPS.
One wrong turn, in come the cavalry.
PROTAGONIST
We need big guns.
Guns that make the point without being fired.
We need a fast car that doesn’t look fast.
Four different vehicles. All different.
A bus, coach, an eighteen wheeler.
One of them has to be a fire truck.
Most of all we have to set this up with nothing in the record.
Nothing electronic. No nothing paper.
I don’t want Sator ambushing us once we’ve sprung the material.
His ignorance is our only protection.
----------------
SATOR
You see, Kat? Some of my favorites.
Singed, but ah, salvageable, wouldn’t you say?
KAT
It’s not my area of expertise.
SATOR
Ah that’s right.
You would never have anything to do with such things.
But this is where our worlds collide.
KAT
What is this, Andrei?
SATOR
You know perfectly well what it is, Kat.
The filthy business…
That put those clothes on your back, and our boy in his school.
But you thought you could negotiate your way around it.
GUARD (IN RUSSIAN)
[The convoy’s in ten minutes]
SATOR
We’ve got to go.
KAT
I’m not going anywhere with him.
SATOR
Look at me!
And understand… you don’t negotiate with a tiger.
You admire the tiger. Until it turns on you...
and you feel its true, fucking, nature!
KAT
Don’t.
You stay right there.
----------------
NEIL
Green, two minutes.
----------------
SATOR
You’re not going to kill me.
KAT
I already tried.
SATOR
You pushed me off a boat,
you are not going to shoot me in cold blood.
KAT
My blood’s not cold, Andrei.
SATOR
No, but you’re not angry enough.
Because anger scars over into despair.
I look in your eyes… I see despair.
SATOR
Vengeful bitch! Living off me!
Thinking that you’re better! Enough!
SATOR
Tell me everything as it happens.
Seal me in this side.
----------------
NEIL
Yellow, 60 seconds.
YELLOW PASSENGER
60, check.
----------------
NEIL
Blue, 45 seconds.
BLUE PASSENGER
Blue, 45, check.
----------------
NEIL
Okay, Red. We are coming to you.
----------------
VOLKOV
The transport vehicles are in place.
SATOR
Watch everything.
Give me all the details.
----------------
NEIL
Alight, about set?
In Five. Four. Three. Two. One.
BLUE VEHICLE PASSENGER
Now, Yellow!
241 CONVOY VEHICLE
[We have a problem!]
[We need reinforcement! Shit!]
241 VEHICLE
[The radio is down!]
241 RADIO OPERATOR
[Are they still in motion?]
[Yep] [-OK]
----------------
PROTAGONIST
Check the radio chatter.
I’ve seen samples of encapsulation in every weapons class.
This is not one of them.
NEIL
That’s what he’s after.
NEIL
I can’t understand this.
THE PROTAGONIST
You said you spoke Estonian!
NEIL
It’s not Estonian. It’s backwards.
NEIL
What the hell is that?
PROTAGONIST
Go, go, go, go!
----------------
NEIL
Don’t give it to him.
PROTAGONIST
This isn’t plutonium.
NEIL
It’s worse than that goddamnit!
NEIL
He’s getting away.
PROTAGONIST
He left her in the car!
I’m going for her! Go, go, go, go, go!
PROTAGONIST
Pull up along side.
Come on, come on. Closer!
PROTAGONIST
Keep it steady! Keep it steady!
----------------
NEIL
Just sit tight. Sit tight, I’m calling in the cavalry.
PROTAGONIST
What cavalry?
----------------
SATOR
If you are not telling the truth, she dies.
PROTAGONIST
I don’t know what you’re talking about.
SATOR
You left it in the car, not the firetruck, right?
PROTAGONIST
Who told you that?
SATOR
Tell me now, is it really in the BMW.
PROTAGONIST
I don’t know.
SATOR
Tell me or I’ll shoot her again.
PROTAGONIST
Leave her alone!
SATOR
I don’t have time to negotiate.
PROTAGONIST
Listen to me.
SATOR
Three.
PROTAGONIST
I can help you.
SATOR
Two.
PROTAGONIST
Don’t!
SATOR
One.
SATOR
Next time’s a bullet to the head.
PROTAGONIST
No!
SATOR
One, two, three.
PROTAGONIST
Okay! Okay.
The car. The BMW. I left it in the BMW.
SATOR
We’re going to check this is real.
PROTAGONIST
It’s in the glove box!
SATOR
Where did you leave it?
In the car or fire truck, which one?
Which vehicle did you leave it in,
I need to know before I go out there.
PROTAGONIST
I already told you.
SATOR
I believe you.
You wanted her here?
I hope you’ll be happy.
----------------
WHEELER
Clear!
IVES
Wheeler, we’ll have to check the other side.
WHEELER
You two!
PROTAGONIST
Where did he go?
IVES
The past.
----------------
PROTAGONIST
It’s in the glove box!
SATOR
We’re going to check this is real.
SATOR
Three, two, one.
PROTAGONIST
Okay! Okay.
SATOR
Next time’s a bullet to the head.
SATOR
One.
PROTAGONIST
No. No!
SATOR
Two, three.
PROTAGONIST
I can help you.
SATOR
I don’t have time to negotiate.
SATOR
Tell me or I’ll shoot her again.
PROTAGONIST
Leave her alone!
SATOR
Tell me now, is it really in the BMW.
PROTAGONIST
I don’t know.
SATOR
You left it in the car, not the firetruck, right?
PROTAGONIST
Who told you that?
SATOR
If you are not telling the truth, she dies.
PROTAGONIST
I don’t know what you’re talking about.
----------------
WHEELER
Medic! She’s out.
MEDIC
Bring her back this side.
IVES
Was she shot with an inverted round?
NEIL
This is Ives. He’s one of us.
PROTAGONIST
“Us”? Who are these guys?
NEIL
Priya’s. Ours.
PROTAGONIST
How did Sator know about the ambush?
NEIL
Posterity.
An ambush in the middle of the street can’t stay out of the record.
PROTAGONIST
Bullshit! He knew every move we made! Every one of them!
Somebody talked! Who was it? Was it you?
NEIL
No. No.
PROTAGONIST
At every stage, you’ve known too much.
I’m going to ask you again. Did you talk?
IVES
Nobody talked.
They’re running a temporal pincer movement.
PROTAGONIST
A what?
IVES
A pincer movement. But not in space, in time.
Half his team moves forward through the event.
He monitors them, and then attacks at the end moving backwards.
Knowing everything.
PROTAGONIST
Except for where I stashed the plutonium.
Which isn’t really plutonium, is it?
NEIL
I told you it was what he was after.
And you just told him where it was.
PROTAGONIST
I lied.
NEIL
Jesus, you lied about it?
PROTAGONIST
He couldn’t verify inside the room.
He’d have shot her anyway.
Lying is standard operating procedure.
MEDIC
It’s spread too far.
PROTAGONIST
Meaning what?
IVES
She’s gonna die.
NEIL
Standard operating procedure.
PROTAGONIST
Can’t, can’t you help her, can’t you do something?
NEIL
Can you stabilize the inverse radiation by inverting the patient?
IVES
It takes days.
PROTAGONIST
Let’s go!
IVES
We took control of this machine minutes ago.
Before that, it’s Sator’s.
PROTAGONIST
How long is she going to live on this side?
MEDIC
Three hours tops.
PROTAGONIST
I’m taking her through.
I’m not gonna let her die. I’ll take my chances.
NEIL
There’s no way of bringing you back.
PROTAGONIST
We find another machine.
IVES
A week ago? Where?
PROTAGONIST
Oslo.
IVES
That facility is inside an airport security perimeter.
It’s impregnable.
NEIL
Mmm... it wasn’t last week.
PROTAGONIST
We’re going in.
You might as well help us.
IVES
This is the proving window. As you approach the turnstile,
if you don’t see yourself in the proving window,
do not enter the machine.
PROTAGONIST
Why not?
IVES
If you don’t see yourself reverse-exiting the machine,
then you ain’t getting out.
PROTAGONIST
Is that going to work?
IVES
Yeah. See for yourself.
There’s your answer. Let’s go.
MEDIC
She’s stabilized, slowly.
I'll clean and close. The rest is time.
PROTAGONIST
How long does she need?
MEDIC
Four or five days. A week to be sure.
PROTAGONIST
Neil, find a way to get us to Oslo.
I’m going back out there.
NEIL
To do what?
PROTAGONIST
To stop Sator from getting away with whatever it is I just gave him.
NEIL
You didn't. You lied about where it was.
Wait. You’re going out there for her.
PROTAGONIST
He threatened to kill her, in the past.
If he does, what happens to her here?
NEIL
It’s unknowable.
If you’re there to make a change,
you’re not here to observe its effect.
PROTAGONIST
But what do you believe?
NEIL
What’s happened's, happened.
We need to save her, here and now.
If you go back out there,
you might hand him exactly what he’s after.
PROTAGONIST
Don't let them take her back through there.
IVES
Okay you can’t stay here.
NEIL
And we don’t have a lot of time.
So why don’t you find us a nice, cozy shipping container,
who’s just come off the ship from Oslo.
IVES
This is cowboy shit.
You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into if you go through that door.
PROTAGONIST
Well I’m going, so any tips would be welcome.
IVES
Wheeler, brief him.
WHEELER
You’ll need your own air.
Regular air won’t pass through the membranes of inverted lungs.
Number one rule: don’t come into contact with your forward self.
That’s the whole point of these barriers and protective suits.
PROTAGONIST
Well we don’t have time.
WHEELER
Well if your particles come into contact…
PROTAGONIST
What?
WHEELER
Annihilation.
PROTAGONIST
That would be bad, right?
WHEELER
When you exit the airlock, take a moment to orient yourself.
Things will feel strange.
When you run, the wind will be at your back.
You encounter fire, ice will form on your clothes.
The transfer of heat is reversed.
Gravity will feel normal, but they’re reversed for the world around you.
You may experience distortions in your vision and hearing.
This is normal.
PROTAGONIST
Can I drive a car?
IVES
Cowboy shit.
WHEELER
I can’t vouch for the handling.
Friction and wind resistance are reversed.
You are inverted. The world is not.
PROTAGONIST
Was the transponder on the case?
NEIL
We’ve tossed that case.
PROTAGONIST
I’m moving backwards. It’s the ball I have to follow.
Give me the reader.
WHEELER
You ready?
----------------
SATOR (RECORDING)
The material is not in case.
Get the other sections of the algorithm to the Hypocenter.
He was lying. It wasn’t in the BMW.
VOLKOV
So where is it?
----------------
SATOR
I saw the hand-off.
You made me shoot her for nothing.
You did get my pulse above 130.
No one’s done that before. Not even my wife.
----------------
NEIL
You left Ives and his team one hell of a clean-up.
The heat transfer was reversed.
You might be the first case of hypothermia from a gasoline explosion in history.
PROTAGONIST
At this point nothing surprises.
We’re headed back to Oslo?
NEIL
In a Rotas shipping container.
PROTAGONIST
He’s got the material, Neil.
I handed it to him on a plate.
NEIL
I warned you.
PROTAGONIST
What’s happened's, happened. I get it now.
But it’s hard to take things on trust when people’s speaking half-truths.
NEIL
That’s not fair.
PROTAGONIST
You were a part of this before we met.
Were you working for Priya?
NEIL
No.
PROTAGONIST
Who recruited you, Neil?
NEIL
It can’t possibly do you any good to know that right now.
NEIL
When this is over, and we’re still standing,
and you still care, then you can hear my life’s story, okay?
PROTAGONIST
I’m sorry I involved you.
KAT
You need to tell me what’s going on.
PROTAGONIST
Apparently Neil here knows more about it than I do.
Good luck pal.
NEIL
By telling Kat anything, we’re compromising her in Priya’s eyes.
PROTAGONIST
In Priya’s eyes, she’s already compromised.
She has the right to know why she might die.
KAT
Am I going to die?
PROTAGONIST
Not if we have something to say about it.
NEIL
And we do.
KAT
Who are you?
NEIL
Let’s start with the simplest stuff.
Every law of physics…
----------------
SATOR (RECORDING)
The material is not in the case.
Get the other sections of the algorithm to the Hypocenter.
NEIL
You injured?
PROTAGONIST
What’s the algorithm?
NEIL
The 241 is one section of it. One out of nine. It’s a formula.
Rendered into physical form so it can’t be copied or communicated.
It’s a black box with one function.
PROTAGONIST
Which is?
NEIL
Inversion. But not objects or peoples.
The world around us.
KAT
I don’t understand.
NEIL
As they invert the entropy of more and more objects,
the two directions of time are becoming more intertwined.
But because the environment's entropy flows in our direction,
we dominate.
And we’re swimming upstream. It’s what saved your life.
The inverted explosion was pushing against the environment.
PROTAGONIST
Pissing in the wind.
NEIL
And the algorithm can change the direction of that wind.
It can invert the entropy of the world.
KAT
And if that happens?
NEIL
Oh… end of play.
PROTAGONIST
End of play, can you be a little more precise?
NEIL
Everyone and everything that has ever lived…
Destroyed. Instantly. Precise enough?
KAT
Including my son.
NEIL
The more you sleep, the faster you’ll heal.
----------------
NEIL
We're on a truck.
It shouldn’t be long now.
PROTAGONIST
I’ve been thinking. We’re their ancestors.
If they destroyed us, won’t that destroy them?
NEIL
Bringing us to the grandfather paradox.
PROTAGONIST
The what?
NEIL
If you went back in time and killed your own grandfather,
how can you have been born to commit the act?
PROTAGONIST
What’s the answer?
NEIL
There’s no answer. It’s a paradox.
But in the future,
those in power clearly believe they can kick grandpa down the stairs,
gouge his eyes out, slit his throat… without consequence.
PROTAGONIST
Could they be right?
NEIL
It doesn’t matter. They believe it.
So they’re willing to destroy us.
Can I go to sleep now?
PROTAGONIST
No, I thought of something else.
NEIL
Great.
PROTAGONIST
This reversing the flow of time…
Doesn’t us being here now, mean it never happens?
For we stopped them?
NEIL
Well, optimistically I’d say that’s right.
PROTAGONIST
Pessimistically?
NEIL
In the parallel-worlds theory we can’t know the relationship
between consciousness and multiple realities.
Does your head hurt yet?
PROTAGONIST
Yes.
NEIL
Try to sleep.
----------------
PROTAGONIST
Shit. They didn’t take us inside.
NEIL
What do we do?
PROTAGONIST
We use the breach. The chaos right after impact, get ready.
PROTAGONIST
Has she healed enough?
NEIL
I don’t know.
I’ve never done this before.
PROTAGONIST
The fire crew’s there. You take Kat through the breach.
I take care of Sator’s men and secure the vault.
Then you bring her.
NEIL
How’s the arm?
PROTAGONIST
Not good.
PROTAGONIST
We move as soon as we hear the engines.
NEIL
Oh no, no.
PROTAGONIST
What?
NEIL
You’re bleeding. Let me take a look at it.
----------------
PROTAGONIST
Wait here. I’m going in.
----------------
PROTAGONIST
Go! Go!
----------------
PROTAGONIST
You knew it was me coming out of that vault.
Why didn’t you say?
NEIL
There’s a lot of explaining when someone’s
about to put a bullet in their own brain.
PROTAGONIST
But afterwards?
NEIL
Wit things the same. I knew you’d be okay.
What’s happened's, happened.
If I told you and you'd acted differently, who knows?
The policy is to suppress.
PROTAGONIST
Whose policy?
NEIL
Ours my friend.
We’re the people saving the world from what might have been.
----------------
PROTAGONIST
Kat?
KAT
I’m here.
NEIL
There’ll be quite a scar, but you’ll be okay.
NEIL
You did it.
KAT
You did what? Andrei has the algorithm.
You don’t know where he is.
NEIL
Or when.
PROTAGONIST
Get Priya here to Oslo.
NEIL
Why?
PROTAGONIST
If I don’t do something in two days
she tells me about the 241.
NEIL
Nothing can change that.
PROTAGONIST
We’ll see.
Just get her here.
----------------
PROTAGONIST
Hello Priya.
PRIYA
What’s going on? Where’s Neil?
PROTAGONIST
Nursing Katherine Barton,
who almost died because of you.
PRIYA
What did I do?
PROTAGONIST
It’s what you’re going to do.
In two days, you’re gonna have me dangle plutonium-241
in front of the world’s most dangerous arms dealer.
Now I want to know why.
PRIYA
You let Sator get hold of 241?
PROTAGONIST
No, I let him get a hold of the algorithm.
So tell me about it, Priya.
PRIYA
It’s… it’s unique.
The scientist who built it took her own life
so she couldn’t be forced to make another one.
PROTAGONIST
A scientist in the future?
PRIYA
Generations from now.
PROTAGONIST
Why does she have to kill herself?
PRIYA
You’re familiar with the Manhattan Project?
As they approached the first atomic test,
Oppenheimer became concerned that the detonation
might produce a chain reaction, engulfing the world.
PROTAGONIST
They went ahead anyway and got lucky.
PRIYA
Think of our scientist as her generation’s Oppenheimer.
She devises a method for inverting the world.
But becomes convinced that by destroying us,
they’re destroying themselves.
PROTAGONIST
The Grandfather Paradox.
PRIYA
But unlike Oppenheimer, she rebels.
Splitting the algorithm into nine sections
and hiding them the best place she can think of.
PROTAGONIST
The past. Here. Now.
PRIYA
There are nine nuclear powers. Nine bombs.
Nine sets of the most closely guarded materials in history of the world.
The best hiding places possible.
PROTAGONIST
Nuclear containment facilities.
PRIYA
Sator’s lifelong mission. Financed and guided by the future,
has been to find and reassemble the algorithm.
PROTAGONIST
Why did they choose him?
PRIYA
Because he was at the right place at the right time.
PROTAGONIST
The collapse of the Soviet Union.
PRIYA
The most insecure moment in the history of nuclear weapons.
PROTAGONIST
How many sections does he have?
PRIYA
After the 241, all nine.
PROTAGONIST
Jesus Christ.
And that’s why you’re going to do things differently this time.
PRIYA
To change things?
So Katherine won’t get hurt?
PROTAGONIST
So Sator won’t get the algorithm.
PRIYA
If that universe can exist… we don’t live in it.
PROTAGONIST
Well let’s try.
You’re going to warn me.
PRIYA
No I’m not. Ignorance is our ammunition.
If you’d known what the algorithm was,
would you have let it fall into Sator’s hands?
PROTAGONIST
You want Sator to get the last section.
PRIYA
That is the only way to bring together the other eight.
PROTAGONIST
I was supposed to steal it… then lose it?
PRIYA
Mission accomplished.
PROTAGONIST
You used me.
PRIYA
As you used Katherine. Standard operating procedure.
You’ve done your part.
PROTAGONIST
My part?
I’m the protagonist of this operation.
PRIYA
You… are a protagonist.
Did you think you were the only one capable of saving the world?
PROTAGONIST
No. But I am.
Because I haven’t told you where he’s assembling the algorithm or when.
PRIYA
You’re about to.
PROTAGONIST
No. I’m not. So deal us in.
PRIYA
“Us”? Why would you want to involve her again?
PROTAGONIST
Because she can get close to him.
PRIYA
Does he still trust her?
PROTAGONIST
He thinks she’s dead. But he used to.
PRIYA
You have started looking at the world in a new way.
PROTAGONIST
And now it’s your turn.
Assuming she makes it out alive,
whether or not you feel she knows too much…
PRIYA
I can’t.
PROTAGONIST
If you don’t have the authority, then talk to whoever is in charge of loose ends.
I need your word that she and her son will be safe, Priya.
PRIYA
What good is someone’s word in our line of business?
PRIYA
They’ll be safe.
PRIYA
There’s a rally point offshore at Trondheim.
Get yourself to there. Ives has a team ready to invert.
PROTAGONIST
You have a turnstile?
The exact technology that we’re trying to suppress.
PRIYA
Fighting fire with fire is a treacherous existence.
But there are some people, in the future,
who would continue the algorithm’s journey to the past.
You see… Tenet wasn’t founded in the past.
It will be founded, in the future.
----------------
KAT
I can’t get over the birds.
PROTAGONIST
How are you feeling?
KAT
Tell me you’re going to kill him.
PROTAGONIST
I can’t.
KAT
Why not? I think you’ve probably killed a lot of people.
NEIL
Not with a dead man’s switch.
PROTAGONIST
The fitness tracker he wears.
KAT
He’s obsessed about his health.
NEIL
It could be linked to a switch.
Probably a simple email burst that reveals the location of the dead drop.
Set the fire, if his heart stops.
PROTAGONIST
His death activates the algorithm.
He dies, the world ends. No one dares kill him.
KAT
No, you’ve missed the point.
He’s intending to end his life.
PROTAGONIST
Why?
KAT
He’s dying. Inoperable pancreatic cancer.
PROTAGONIST
He’s taking the world with him.
KAT
If he can’t have her, no one can.
NEIL
He gets to choose a time and place for the end of the world.
What moment does he choose?
PROTAGONIST
You told me about a holiday where you let him feel loved?
KAT
Vietnam.
PROTAGONIST
You said he vanished. What day?
KAT
Well I went ashore with Max and he flew off.
But I don’t know what day it was.
NEIL
It was the 14th, ten days ago.
He was in Ukraine.
PROTAGONIST
At the Kiev Opera siege.
How do you know about that?
NEIL
The point is he wasn’t on his yacht, so that’s his window.
KAT
To go back to that golden moment and have it be his last.
PROTAGONIST
Everyone’s last.
We have to lift the algorithm from the dead drop without Sator knowing.
If he believes it’s there, he kills himself.
NEIL
But not the rest of us.
Where’s the dead drop?
PROTAGONIST
Knowledge divided my friend.
NEIL
You’re not going to tell me?
PROTAGONIST
Ignorance is our ammunition.
But I need you back on that yacht, Kat.
KAT
Why?
PROTAGONIST
You have to stop him killing himself
until we know the algorithm is out of the dead drop.
KAT
But if I’m caught there, my son sees.
I don't want those moments to be full of anguish if they’re going to be his last.
PROTAGONIST
They're not.
----------------
IVES
It's time. We’re working our way back to the 14th,
but without knowing where the dead drop is,
there’s only so much I can do to prepare.
PROTAGONIST
Do you know what a Hypocenter is?
It’s ground zero for an underground nuclear test.
Sir Michael Crosby told me about a detonation in Stalsk 12 on the 14th.
The dead drop is at the bottom of the Hypocenter.
That explosion seals up the algorithm.
IVES
Then we better pull it out of that hole before the bomb goes off, eh?
----------------
KAT
Where’s Neil?
PROTAGONIST
He must have gone through already.
KAT
I didn’t get to say goodbye.
This is goodbye, isn’t it?
PROTAGONIST
I’d like to say, that you don’t have to do this, Kat.
KAT
Worst thing Andrei ever did to me was that offer he made me.
Let me go if I agreed never to see my son again.
I shouted and… swore.
But he’d seen on my face just for an instant.
I considered it. I don’t know if I hate him more for what he has done,
or because he knows that about me.
A chance to help save my child.
You can’t know what that means to a mother.
PROTAGONIST
No.
KAT
You’ve killed people you’ve hated before.
PROTAGONIST
It’s not usually personal.
KAT
Well he’s dying anyway. Maybe it doesn’t even count.
PROTAGONIST
It always counts, Kat.
You’re not there to kill him. You’re the backstop.
If we don’t lift that algorithm and he kills himself,
he takes us all with him.
KAT
You just keep up your end, okay?
PROTAGONIST
Today’s the 14th.
Offshore of Siberia. Time for us to go.
You keep moving back another day,
give you some time to get back into Vietnam.
KAT
Who gets me on the yacht?
PROTAGONIST
I’ve got somebody good in mind.
When it’s over, and you’re raising your boy, carry this.
There may be a time and place you feel threatened.
Hit “talk”, state your location, hang up.
KAT
Who gets the message?
PROTAGONIST
Posterity.
----------------
IVES
Stalsk 12. Hidden from world.
A city, where anything can happen.
And today, ladies and gents, for ten minutes,
it most assuredly does.
You’ve been divided into two teams
for a temporal pincer movement.
We are Red Team moving forward.
In order to distinguish the teams, you’ll wear these.
Our friends over there, Blue Team?
Led by Commander Wheeler, are inverted.
RED SOLDIER 1
Why don’t they let us see them?
RED SOLDIER 2
Maybe we won’t like what happened.
IVES
One hour from now, they had this briefing.
Then we dropped them on the ridge above the Hypocenter
as close in time to the detonation as possible.
Their objectives were clearance and clarification.
Now this briefing has the benefit of their experience.
IVES
Both teams have countdown watches.
And ours counts down from ten from landing to zero to the explosion.
Blue Team is reversed.
----------------
WHEELER
If you are not at the LZ at zero, you are not going to leave.
Do you understand?
----------------
IVES
We drop in, clear LZ’s for Blue Team evacuation.
Make our way into the city proper.
These buildings are abandoned, but we learned there’s a turnstile.
Expect a bi-temporal response.
RED SOLDIER 1
They’ll have inverse ordinance?
IVES
Inverse, conventional…
forward antagonists, inverted antagonists, they have it all.
On the other side of the city,
ground rises to the ridge above the Hypocenter.
A splinter unit will take this tunnel from the city to the floor of the Hypocenter.
Blue Team located an entrance here.
The bomb is in this rock.
High above, trigger a collapse, sealing the cavity.
RED SOLDIER 2
How do we diffuse the bomb up there?
IVES
We don’t. The explosion takes place as planned.
Now our job, is to fail to diffuse that bomb,
while the splinter unit achieves its task undetected.
RED SOLDIER 3
Which is…?
IVES
Need to know, and you don’t.
Any other stupid questions?
Good. Well let’s go. Let’s get ready.
PROTAGONIST
I wanted to be on the first wave.
IVES
There is no first wave.
Red Team and Blue Team operate simultaneously.
Look, don’t get on the chopper
if you can’t stop thinking in linear terms.
Now do you want to be on the team
that lifts the contents of the capsule?
PROTAGONIST
Absolutely.
IVES
Yeah, that’s us. We’re splinter unit.
PROTAGONIST
Just us?
IVES
No one who knows the contents of that capsule can leave the field.
I thought we’d manage ourselves.
----------------
MAHIR
There’s 40 feet from the private deck to the water.
Can you jump it?
KAT
I can dive it.
MAHIR
Until you see my signal, you don’t let him die.
----------------
IVES
30 seconds!
PROTAGONIST
Move!
----------------
WHEELER
We’re coming in on the shock wave. Hang on people!
On your feet!
----------------
DECK HAND
Ma’am, we thought you’d gone ashore.
KAT
Well I snuck back to surprise Andrei.
DECK HAND
But the boss left.
KAT
Help Mr. Sator find me here.
And don’t tell the others. I’ll get the mess.
----------------
SATOR
They told me you’d gone ashore.
KAT
They told me you’d flown off.
SATOR
I came back to see you and Max.
KAT
Max is onshore with Anna.
We need time just you and me after what happened.
SATOR
I was joking, it was just a stupid joke.
KAT
You think I’m a terrible mother.
SATOR
We both know my opinion of you is higher than yours of me.
KAT
I want things to get better, Andrei.
----------------
PROTAGONIST
Take cover!
IVES
Get me a fucking AT4! Take him down! Now!
Move, move, let’s go!
Move, move, move, move!
----------------
IVES
Wheeler! Get out of the way!
----------------
PROTAGONIST
Ives!
The smaller unit. Here.
----------------
SATOR
You know it’s going to be a beautiful sunset.
I’ll get Max brought back.
We should share the moment with him.
KAT
I’ll making you a drink.
SATOR
Bring my son back to the boat.
----------------
PROTAGONIST
Where are their eyes on the field?
IVES
If they see us, it’s all for nothing.
PROTAGONIST
We need a distraction.
IVES
Don’t worry about it.
----------------
WHEELER
On my mark!
RPG hit the base!
----------------
IVES
That building on my go!
IVES
Three! Two! One! Fire!
----------------
WHEELER
Fire!
----------------
IVES
Fire!
IVES
Move! Move!
PROTAGONIST
We’re pinned down. Come on!
----------------
KAT
What’s that?
SATOR
I borrowed it from the CIA.
KAT
What is it?
SATOR
The way the world ends.
Not with a bang, but a whimper.
KAT
I don’t understand.
SATOR
When I take this, it’s all over.
KAT
Then don’t take it yet.
SATOR
Why not?
KAT
Because we have the sunset coming.
And there’s a little vodka left.
SATOR
And Max will be here soon.
They said, they thought it was you,
not Anna, ashore with Max.
KAT
As long as you can tell the difference…
SATOR
A moment’s business, my love.
----------------
IVES (RADIO)
Mahir, do you copy? Not clear!
I repeat, not clear!
MAHIR
Copy that.
----------------
IVES
I repeat! Not clear!
----------------
WHEELER
Neil! Neil!
WHEELER
Go!
----------------
IVES
We don’t have anything big enough to blow this.
IVES
Try him, see if he’s got a grenade.
IVES
Anything?
IVES
Did you try the lock. Can you pick it?
SATOR (RADIO)
I hope not.
I paid a lot for that lock.
How do you like where my journey began and yours ends?
PROTAGONIST
A little radioactive for my taste.
SATOR
My fate was always bound up with radiation.
We'd worked where no one else would.
I made a bargain with the devil.
Money for time. We sold our futures.
PROTAGONIST
And now you’re about to make the same mistake.
For the entire world.
SATOR
It wasn’t a mistake. I made the bargain I could.
What was yours? You fight for a cause you barely understand.
With people you trust so little you’ve told them nothing.
When I die, the world dies with me.
And your knowledge dies with you.
Buried in a tomb like an anonymous Egyptian builder,
sealed in a pyramid to keep your secret.
You’re faith is blind, you’re a fanatic.
----------------
PROTAGONIST
What’s more fanatical than trying to destroy the world?
SATOR
I’m not, I’m creating a new one.
Somewhere, sometime, a man in a crystalline tower throws a switch,
and Armageddon is both triggered and avoid.
Now time itself switches direction.
The same sunshine we've basked in,
will warm the faces of our descendants generations to come.
PROTAGONIST
How can they want to kill us?
SATOR
Because their oceans rose, and their rivers ran dry.
Don’t you see, they have no choice but to turn back.
We’re responsible.
SATOR
Knowing this, do you still want me to stop?
PROTAGONIST
Yes. Each generation looks out for its own survival.
SATOR
That’s exactly what they claim.
PROTAGONIST
But not you, you’re a traitor.
Bringing death to all because you have no life of your own left.
SATOR
When I’m done, life continues.
PROTAGONIST
Not your son’s.
SATOR
My greatest sin was to bring a son into a world I knew was ending.
Think God will forgive me?
----------------
NEIL
Wait! Wait!
----------------
WHEELER
Cover me!
Go! Go! Go!
----------------
PROTAGONIST
You don’t believe in God, or a new future,
or anything outside of your own experience.
SATOR
The rest is belief.
And I don’t have it.
PROTAGONIST
Without it, you’re not human.
You’re just a madman.
SATOR
Or a god. Of sorts.
PROTAGONIST
Like I said…
Don’t do it, jesus!
SATOR
Our time is up.
PROTAGONIST
No, no, no!
SATOR
I’ll give your love to my wife.
PROTAGONIST
You're forgetting. I haven’t met her yet.
SATOR
That’s right. After you meet her, she dies.
I’ll just give her my love instead.
PROTAGONIST
Don’t do it!
SATOR
Volkov. [Shoot him in the head.]
----------------
KAT
Enough business, my love.
SATOR
You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?
KAT
But it sounds terribly important.
SATOR
Where are you going?
KAT
Aren’t you hot?
----------------
SATOR
What are you doing now?
KAT
Well, I spilled sunscreen.
SATOR
So what?
KAT
It’s slippery.
SATOR
Just come here.
KAT
Turn around. You’ll like it.
----------------
KAT
I can’t do this.
I can’t let you think you’ve won.
SATOR
Don’t spoil this moment, Kat.
KAT
I’m not letting you go to your grave thinking we’re coming with you.
You’re dying alone, Andrei.
----------------
PROTAGONIST
Come on, come on!
IVES
The tunnel’s sealed, gate’s closed.
Mahir, do you copy?
MAHIR
Yeah.
IVES
Hold. I repeat. Hold.
----------------
KAT
Look in my eyes. Which do you see?
Despair or anger?
I’m not the woman who could find love for you
even though you'd scarred her on the inside.
I’m the vengeful bitch you scarred on the outside.
SATOR
You!
----------------
MAHIR
Shit!
Kat just killed him.
Ives, you copy? She killed him.
IVES
She jumped the gun. She killed him.
----------------
BLUE SOLDIER
Come on! Come on! Do you think they made it?
NEIL
Blast, fuck it.
----------------
PROTAGONIST
Kat, you jumped the gun!
KAT
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let him die thinking he’d won.
I knew you‘d find a way.
Wait you found a way, we’re okay, right?
PROTAGONIST
Yeah, found a way. Be safe.
----------------
PROTAGONIST
I thought you were inverted.
NEIL
Changed gears halfway.
You look like you needed help here.
IVES
Neil, we needed help down there.
How’d you get that lock open?
PROTAGONIST
It wasn’t me.
Didn’t your team need you?
NEIL
I’ll get them on the next pass.
Right, Ives?
IVES
Once I’ve caught my breath.
PROTAGONIST
No one who’s seen this leaves the field.
IVES
Alright. We hide it. We end our lives.
It’s the only way to be sure.
But as to when…
Well maybe that’s every man’s decision to make for himself.
NEIL
You’re not going to kill us?
IVES
If I ever find you, I will.
NEIL
But you won’t look too hard?
IVES
Yes, I will.
NEIL
You’re not going back to London to check on Kat, are you?
PROTAGONIST
No. It’s far too dangerous.
NEIL
Even from afar?
PROTAGONIST
Even from afar.
NEIL
Ives! Wait.
PROTAGONIST
Are you really going back in?
NEIL
I’m the only one who could've got that door open in time, right Ives?
IVES
I don’t know any locksmiths as good as you.
NEIL
See? That's me in there again.
Weaving another pass in the fabric of this mission.
PROTAGONIST
Neil, wait!
NEIL
We just saved the world.
Can’t leave anything to chance.
PROTAGONIST
But can we change things if we do it differently?
NEIL
What’s happened's, happened.
Which is an expression of faith in the mechanics of the world.
It’s not an excuse to do nothing.
PROTAGONIST
Fate?
NEIL
Call it what you want.
PROTAGONIST
What do you call it?
NEIL
Reality.
Now let me go.
PROTAGONIST
Hey you never did tell me who recruited you, Neil.
NEIL
Haven’t you guessed by now?
You did. Only not when you thought.
You have a future in the past.
Years ago for me. Years from now for you.
PROTAGONIST
You’ve known me for years?
NEIL
For me, I think this is the end of a beautiful friendship.
PROTAGONIST
But for me, it’s just the beginning.
NEIL
And we get up to some stuff.
You’re going to love it. You’ll see.
This whole operation is a temporal pincer.
PROTAGONIST
Whose?
NEIL
Yours! You’re only halfway there.
I’ll see you at the beginning, friend.
----------------
NEIL (VOICEOVER)
We’re the people that saved the world from what might have been.
The world will never know what could have happened.
And even if they did, they wouldn’t care.
Because no one cares about the bomb that didn’t go off.
Only the one that did.
----------------
PRIYA
Do it before the boy comes out.
PROTAGONIST
That's your idea of mercy?
You gave me your word.
PRIYA
And I told you then, what it would be worth.
Here… today. How did you know?
KAT (RECORDING)
Cannon Place. Three o’clock.
It’s probably nothing, but…
PROTAGONIST
Posterity.
KAT
Cannon Place. Three o’clock.
It’s probably nothing, but…
PROTAGONIST
I told you you’d have to start looking differently at the world.
PRIYA
I… have to tie up the loose ends.
PROTAGONIST
That was never your job.
PRIYA
Then who’s was it?
PROTAGONIST
Mine.
I realized I wasn’t working for you.
We’ve both been working for me.
I’m the protagonist.
PRIYA
Then you’d better tie up those loose ends.
PROTAGONIST
Mission accomplished.
----------------
NEIL (VOICEOVER)
It’s the bomb that didn’t go off.
The danger, no one knew was real.
That’s the bomb with the real power to change the world.