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The Capture (2018)
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- How're you feeling? - Like I made a mistake. - Why? - This just doesn't seem-- - Like it will work? - Right. This doesn't seem right. - I'm here. You wanna tell me anything about how you're feeling? Anything? - I'm scared. I'm fucking scared. And I don't wanna do this. - Don't forget the reason you're here. - My family. - This is about them. About providing for them when all of this is over. They're gonna be taken care of for the rest of their lives. They'll have you to thank for that. For taking a horrible situation and turning it into something positive. - What if I don't go through with this? - We can't force you to do anything. But your family will get nothing. And nature will take its course. Stage four cancer moves fast. We've seen it before. - I can't. - You can. - Let's get this over with. - We're set. All okay? - Yeah, we're stable. Let's get the power levels up to what we need. Go. Go. - As we rehearsed. Take the cup next to you. Drink the liquid whole. There will be no taste. - How long? - What? - How long? - 10 seconds. - Now! - Wait! - Now or we'll miss it! Now! - You still running? - Every day. What're you doing here? Trust fund run out? - Ah, God. - Yeah, I'm a bit sweaty. - That trust fund's the reason why we didn't have a college job. - Yeah, well don't forget what you got in return. - I could've aced thermal dynamics without your help. - You think? - All right, it was a good deal. It was a good deal. So what you been up to? - Ah, nothing much. Took some time off. Been working on some advanced virtual reality stuff. - Yeah? - How about you? Seen any of the other guys? - I know Matt's teaching over at the university. Oh, Randy's got his own lab now. - You serious? Randy's got his own lab? - Somebody trusts him. You talk to anybody? - No. I know that look. - I know you do. - What? - It's a breakthrough. It's big. - Yeah, what is it? - It's a little hard to explain, but I want you to see with your own eyes. You in? - Uh... Yeah. Sure, why not? - Cool. Just gotta go see someone first. - Who? - Just a quick interview. - All right. Well, let me take a shower. You want a coffee? - Yeah, I'll take a coffee. Make that show quick though, you know? - Always in a hurry, huh? - Well, yeah. - Take the cup next to you. Drink the liquid whole. There will be no taste. - How long? - What? - How long? - 10 seconds. Now! - Wait! - Now or we'll miss it! Now! - We're looking for a local drug dealer named Ronnie Pierce. - Drug dealer? Great way to start the day. - Whoa. What the fuck are you? - Ronnie Pierce? I have a few questions about Dina Taylor. - Cops? - No. - Then who the fuck are you? - This has nothing to do with any legalities or anything like that. You're not gonna get into any trouble. - Legalities? Who talks like that? - I'm sorry. - Fuck off! - Come on, let's go. - No, hey, I can pay you. All right, a thousand dollars for 30 minutes of your time. - Two minutes. - All right. A thousand for two minutes. - Let me see it. What do you wanna know? You guys from the insurance company or something? - Who we are isn't important. - Oh right. - Is that Dina Taylor? - Yeah. - Yeah? When was the last time you saw her? - You said you weren't fucking cops? - We're not. When was the last time you saw her? - Two years ago. The day before she did it. - Did it? Could you elaborate? - She jumped. Jumped off a bridge. Committed suicide. - Why'd she do it? Are you sure it was a suicide? It wasn't an accident? - You know, all you need to know is that she was a junkie who was always threatening suicide. So suicide. Probably. Are you sure you're not fucking cops? - Ronnie, do we look like cops? - Whatever. - So... What caused it? - Fuck, I don't know. I broke up with her the night before. So I guess she hit it hard because of that. - She was trying to end it? - What're you doing? Research on suicides? - Yeah, preciously, that's it. Have you noticed anything weird, strange, after she passed? - Like what? - Premonitions? Visions? - What? - Like anything out of the ordinary. - She always had problems. She was always on edge about everything. I tried. I couldn't take it anymore so I ended it. The next day, gone. Hey. Everybody thinks I'm a fucking monster now. I'm the one who caused her to commit suicide. I don't know. She ruined my life. Time is up. - Thanks, Ronnie. - Oh, anytime. - Louis. Louis, wait up. I haven't talked to you for what? - Three years. - You show up in my driveway, you bring me here to talk to some guy about his dead girlfriend. What the hell's gotten into you? Just take me back. - No, no, no. Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm sorry. Okay, I'm sorry. There's a lot on my mind. There's a lot to process. I just don't know where to start. Come on. Come on. Come on. All right, take a seat. Before we go to the big show, let's catch you up. What do you know about the Angel of Mons? - Soldiers seeing sightings of angels in the battlefield, right? - Right. 1914, the Battle of the Mons. If was the first time the British soldiers saw combat like that in the first World War. Many of the soldiers, during the fighting, reported seeing visions and apparitions. Now here's the kicker. Some of the survivors all claim to have seen the same vision. Something came down to shepherd the large amounts of dead into the afterlife. More than five thousand men died during that battle. Throughout history there have been hundreds and hundreds of reports seeing the same visions, apparitions. Angels. Whatever you wanna call them. Okay and this isn't just isolated to warfare or battles. This happens anywhere where death comes to many. Okay, gas explosion, India. Tsunami in Fiji. All these events have a thread of commonality to them. - Is it just a coping mechanism? Possibly sensory overload due to extreme circumstances. - Yeah, possibly. But... What if there was proof? Something to show us what these people actually saw. - We were under heavy fire. Extraction wasn't coming anytime soon. So my guys and I just dug in and tried to hold our ground. As I heard the bullets whizzing by us, I could start to hear their screams and then one by one they stopped. And then that's when I saw it. That light. That light right above them. - I'd never seen anything like it before. It was right there above them. It just lit up the sky. And then it was gone. - This is a fake. - No, it's not. - Louis, you're getting played, man. I mean, what's next? UFOs? Ghosts? - I get the skepticism. But I bought this tape, which is highly classified, for a large amount of money. - From who? - A friend in the Department of Defense. - You have a friend in the Department of Defense? - I got many friends, Isaac. You once told me that I was the best theoretical physicist that you have ever met. - Yeah, still do. - But? - I said you lacked vision. - Hmmm. You're right. I didn't want to hear it at the time but you're right. I was all caught up in minutia. I never really let myself see the big picture. It's okay. Alex said the same thing. But then she showed me her vision. - Wait. Who's Alex? - I keep forgetting you guys haven't met. She's a physicist. Damn good one. - You two dating or something? - Yeah, yeah. - Nice. - She's in there now with it. Are you ready to see the greatest discovery in the history of science? Come on. - Whoa, hey, hey, hey! Alex, relax. - Sorry about that. Things have been a bit heightened around here. Isaac, hi. Nice to meet you. Louis has told me a lot about you. - Hi, Alex. - So what do you think? - Ah. - We have four Tarkowski drives underneath the floor. - Tarkowski drives? - Mhmm. - Do they work? - Perfectly. - Take a couple of zettawatts to power. - Yeah. - How did you? - Come here. Check it out. We're pulling power from five separate grids across three different states. - That's impossible. - Not if you're smart enough to hack the system, which Alex, here, is. - Four drives set up like that, pointed in one spot. You could theoretically bend time and space for a second, maybe even a second and a half with that configuration. - Correct. - What're you using it for? What is this? Is she okay? - That is Dina Taylor. Ronnie's girl. The one that died. - No more bullshit. What's going on? - We don't know what she is. She hasn't moved or spoken since she arrived. - What do you mean, arrived? - Well, we brought her here, so, yeah, arrived. - From? - The other side. - We bent space and time as we simultaneously euthanized four people. - Euthanized? - Don't say it like that. - They were all terminally ill. - We gave each of their families two million dollars. The attorneys handled all the legalities. It's all in the up and up. - Up and up? Are you out of your fucking mind?! You kill people for an experiment. Do I really need to explain to you why that's wrong? - No. If the experiment had failed, I would agree with you. But it didn't. So no, we weren't wrong. - Where are the bodies? - Locked in a freezer in the back room. We'll deliver them to the families soon enough. But first we have to record all of this. - This is a joke, right? This is a really shitty, fucked up, joke. Miss! - Do not touch her. - Why? - I did. It was unpleasant. - What happened? - She burned me. - I know this is a lot to process. That's why I gave you such a preamble. She's a 99.9 percent match in the facial recognition database. This is Dina Taylor, who, as Ronnie so eloquently put, jumped off a bridge two years ago. They never found the body but I guarantee you she's dead. It would be an elaborate hoax for someone who lived a rather unremarkable life. - Let me recap what you're saying as I'm trying to process this. You took the life of four people. - Euthanized. - Same fucking thing. - It's crazy, huh? - No, this is dangerous and illegal. Not to mention, highly unethical. - I get it, I get it. It's hard to digest but if you think about it, we may have answered the greatest question ever posed to mankind. - Possibly come up with some evidence is all I see so far. The world doesn't know you, Louis, I do. I'm having a hard time with this. They're gonna call bullshit on this. - Well, it's not. It's not bullshit. I'm gonna prove it to you, then I'm gonna prove it to the world. - How? How can you explain this to science? You realized you euthanized four people, right? Four living, breathing human-fucking-beings. - They all were very sick and we paid each of their families a lot of money. - Oh, so that makes it okay? Why're you doing this? - You remember that one semester we were assigned super CDMS? - Dark Matter, yes. - We spent months in that underground lab looking for any proof of dark matter. Experiment after experiment, nothing. Until, that one spike. That one small spike that barely showed up on the spectrum. It was point 001 of change. - Yes, it confused the fuck out of everyone. What's your point? - I haven't stopped thinking about it. For years. Going over and over in my head. Why that one time? Why? Until it hit me. Stop looking for what happened inside the lab, start looking for what happened around the facility. Know what I found? - Do something. Come on. Just open your eyes, fly across the fucking room, I don't know. Fuck. Anything. I have so many questions. - 19 miles away, 27 people died in a bus crash. Guess when it happened. Please, enlighten me. - Right as we recorded that spike, any fluctuation of dark matter happened when 27 people died 19 miles away. - The same time they died. - Matter never disappears. You can burn a piece of wood and then that turns into energy then it goes up into the universe and it dissipates but is it gone? No. You just can't see it. Everything leaves a mark of information on this world. We just need to know where to look. - So you think that's what Dark Matter really is. Some form of the afterlife? - Yes and no. It's just "afterlife" is-- - Unscientific? Irrational? Arbitrary? - Okay, yes, whatever you wanna call it. I think what we did in there is gonna change the world. - What happened, man? - I grew up. I grew up. But I need your help on this. I need you to help me table this and get it out to the world. - I can't be involved with something like this. - I need your eyes on this one. Okay? Imagine what we can discover. No. Imagine what you can discover. - I'm impressed. - Thank you. - Not just with what you've done but how you got there. Tarkowski drive was designed to be one large drive that can bend time and space inside it. But you took four smaller ones and pointed them in on each other. - Making them more powerful than the large one. - Exponentially. Is that your idea? - Yeah. - How'd you come up with it? - I don't know. Same way I always do. Big ideas don't seem so big when you break them up into small pieces. Look at them from a different point of view. I guess... I've always looked at things from a slightly skewed perspective. - Hey, dad, it's me. Guess you're busy. Missed you. I know we haven't talked in awhile. Last time we did, I didn't... So anyways, I have something really important going on. I think that you'd like to talk about it. So when you get this just give me a call and I'd love to chat. Okay. So yeah. Okay. Bye. - You know, you're nothing like Louis said you were. - And how did Louis say I was? - Fun. What happened to that guy? - Wow. First of all, thank you. - Welcome. - Second, I'm fun. Ish. It's not exactly like we're having a party here. I know Louis. He's a brilliant physicist, but this wasn't his idea. Why this? - When I was eight, something happened. I don't want to go into too much detail. But there were several people that... - It's okay. Whatever happened, I'm sorry. - I think she's a Psychopomp. A guide of souls. - Like an angel? - No. Don't get them confused, they're not the same thing. An angel is believed to be a celestial being that can take many forms. A Psychopomp is strictly a guide. Not an entity that makes judgment. Their only purpose is to guide the deceased safely to the other side. Spirits, deities, whatever you wanna call them. The Greeks had Charon who would ferry souls across the river sticks. Romans had Mercury. Egyptians had Anubis. The Hindus had Yama, the God of Death. They were all believed to take souls from one existence to the other. And now we can add Dina Taylor to the list. - So why a group? Couldn't you get the same results by just murdering one person? - Euthanizing. - This isn't Switzerland, but sure. - A single soul has no problem finding the light. When a group passes, like in a plane crash, a fire or battle, the souls get confused, lost. They need a guide. - Calvin 27. Used to medically induce a coma. - Take a few drops, you're out for a few hours. A larger dose, everything shuts down. - It's quick and painless. - Your disapproval of our methods, it doesn't bother me. This is my life's work. I always knew this discovery was out there. I just had to prove it. - An expensive discovery. - Don't imply that I used Louis and his inheritance to do this. You guys used to be close but you haven't been around for awhile. - I'm here to support a friend. Observe, give a scientific opinion if need be. That is all. What am I doing here? - I'm not supposed to be here. - Where are you supposed to be? - Not here. - I need to tell them you're awake. - No. - Why? - They trapped me. - Okay. I won't wake them. What's your name? Can you remember your name? Are you... dead? How did you get here? Do you remember that? Do you remember where you came from? Do you remember what you were doing before you came here? - I was guiding the others. - What others? - The others that passed on here. There were four of them. I have to bring them home. - What's home? Where is home? Can you describe it for me? Please, anything. Have you done this before? Do you take people somewhere? Where do you take them? Please. I'm sorry for asking so many questions. - Hey, wake up! - No, no, no! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey, I'm Louis. What's your name? Where are you from? - What the fuck? Why didn't you tell us? - I'm sorry, everything happened so fast. Louis was asleep. - Isaac, what did she say? - That she shouldn't be here. - What else? - That she came for the others, the ones you put down. - I knew it. What else did she say? - That was it. - Was it? - I'm not hiding anything from you. - You're here to help give your scientific opinion, not interview-- - Alex! Alex! Let's talk. - If you don't trust me, I'll go. - No, no, no, no. I need you here. I don't know where this is going but outside of Alex, you're the only one that I trust. But this is our experiment and you do not keep us from a major breakthrough. - Did you ever think she didn't want to talk to you? - What does that mean? - She said you captured her. - She? She was a junkie. A suicidal junkie. - Who has been places we can only imagine. Maybe this is something we can't figure out. Or shouldn't. - No, I have to figure this out. I don't have a choice. - We always have a choice. - I'm broke. - What? - Trust fund's empty. I put everything that I had into this. The house, the investments. They're all gone. Why do you think the place looks like such a mess? We've been living in here for the past three months trying to reach a breakthrough. These results, it's the only thing I got left. - I'm sorry about the money, Louis. But that's not what this is about. This is about your father. - Excuse me? - You heard. Louis, I heard you for years complaining about how he paid you no attention. I was there at graduation when he didn't show up because he was too busy at some charity event in a far off place. - Yeah, so what? - So this is about proving to him, proving to yourself that you don't need him anymore. Because he was never there for you. - Doesn't matter right now. I need you. I need you to help me figure out what she is in the pure expression of matter. If there was ever a time that I needed you, it's right now. Please don't go. - What have you tried? - Everything. Everything under the sun. We just can't make heads or tails of the results. - Sounds like we're back in thermal dynamics again. - Right back. You staying? - I'll think about it. - I'll take that. Isaac is staying. - You sure? - Yeah. He has his own way of looking at things but trust me, he's staying. - Where is he? - Thinking. - We did it. We really did it. - We did. - We never got a chance to celebrate. - Well. Let's celebrate. - Oh wow. This looks expensive. Where'd you get this? - I stole it from my dad's vast collection that he's so fucking proud of. It's a five thousand dollar bottle of wine. - Five thousand dollars? - Yeah, whatever. Let us toast... To our legacy. - Legacy. I like the sound of that. - That's what a five thousand dollar bottle of wine tastes like? - Yeah. I shoulda stole the Mascota. I always believed you. - I couldn't have done any of this without you. Your support. When I met you, I had just been fired from RND. I had no one. Then you came along. Thank you. - You okay? - Do you believe in God? - Nah. Think about it. If God existed, do you think he would've let us do this? - I always thought there was something more out there. That we would never understand it. - Well, now maybe we can. - I don't know if I wanna understand it. I don't think it's something for me to understand. For anyone to understand. - Yes, but that's what we do. We figure things out and then figure out how it relates to us and to everything else. It's who we are. You know, Alex has to prove this. Has to. Something happened to her when she was young. - Yeah, she tried to explain but-- - But it was too fucked up? Really. It was Alex's stepfather. Her mother had recently broke up with him. He had issues. There was a restraining order against him. One day he snapped. Came to the house, shot her brother, her sister, her mother, her entire family. Gone like that. He didn't shoot her. - He turned the gun on himself. - Then he pulled the trigger. - Fuck. - But Alex swore, for a second or two, she saw something. The same something those soldiers saw, the same something they saw at the Battle of Mons. It came to shepherd them away. Everyone thought she was crazy. This traumatized kid overcompensating for a traumatic event. It ruined her life. She just couldn't let it go. They sent her to psychologists, therapists after that. This girl saw how the universe actually works and they ostracized her for it. They called her a freak, a fucking freak. All right. So can you blame her for trying to prove everyone wrong? - Look, I get that she went through a tragic event. But I still think this was a bad call. I mean, you might have just found the breakthrough that will change everything we know about the universe. - Yeah, tell me about it. Complete mind fuck. I'm over here thinking, I've got to find the key to dark matter. Never thought I'd get an angel at my doorstep. - You're gonna do this again? - Next time, we invite several of our contemporaries to witness the experiment. - You don't even know if it will work. - We need to recreate the same results. - You meant putting more people down. - Yes. - Who? - We have a database of potential subjects. - You've done this before. How many times? How many? - This was the third time. - Three times? So what? Like a dozen people? You left that part out, Louis. - Yeah because I knew what you were gonna say and give me some fucking lecture-- - About life? - Yeah. - I don't wanna hear another pollyanna speech about how precious life is. I didn't create the world or the diseases that take people too soon. And if we can use that to benefit science, then why not? - You're on a slippery slope, Alex. It gets easier and easier to justify things when you see the world as a victim. - Oh is that it? I guess you told him what happened. - I thought he needed to know. - Well now you know. - Why not just bring them here? Show them what you showed me. Dina, the recordings of the experiment. - Because you said it yourself. They're gonna call bullshit. The scientific community is gonna be the first ones to dismiss all of this. - We need to show them that we can do it again. It worked once, it'll work again. - Come, come, come, come. - I need you to help me. - With what? - Getting back. - Back to where? - To the other side. - What is it? What's on the other side? - I can't explain. - Do you remember how long you've been there? - No. - How do you know to come for these people? Are there others that do what you do? - Yes, there are many. I don't know who they are. I have their thoughts. They aren't mine. I hear them all the time. - Do you mean like a shared consciousness? - Or hive connection. Ask her. - You're connected through a hive mind. - You lost your wife. - Yes. - How? - We were hiking. It was just a regular trail. I ran for 23 minute until I got a signal. Paramedics said if they had got there two minutes sooner, they might have saved her. - It wasn't your fault. - I should've been there. Should've stayed with her. Still make her a cup of coffee every morning, just the way she likes it. Even created this virtual reality program so I can keep her close. To remind me of what we had. I just can't let her go. I can't let her go. Can you get a message to her? - I don't know where she is. - Can you find her? - No. - Have you ever loved someone? - Ronnie. - You don't remember anyone else? Parents, friends. Just Ronnie? - We get one memory to hold on to. One thing to remind us why we're here helping others. Guiding others to the other side. - What do you remember about him? - Love. - Sometimes I think about doing what you did. Killing myself. - I wouldn't do that. Not now. - Why? I'd be with her again, right? - No, you wouldn't. - Seeing you here, right now, it proves to me that I'm gonna see her again, right? - The gateway is fractured. The passage is broken. - What gateway? - As long as I'm stuck here, so are the others. I'm trapped so they're trapped. If I don't go back, the gateway will be broken forever. You have to send me back. - I don't know how. - Yes you do. - That's it? You're just gonna swap sob stories? - Alex. - No! No! You're completely hijacking our test subject, you selfish asshole! - You brought me here. I didn't ask to be a part of this. - He's the only one that she's gonna talk to. - No. No. You're jeopardizing our experiment. I want you out of here. I want you out! - Can we please talk? She's not supposed to be here. - But she is. - Fire up the drives again. You bent time and space once, just do it again. Send her back. What? What now? - Last time we tried, the drives were only about a second or two away from spinning completely out of control. - If we hadn't shut them off in time, we would've been obliterated. - Talking about an explosion the size of five square miles. - We didn't push hard enough the first two times. - So you just did it three times? - We had to get the right calculations. - Three. Three. Fuck! You lied, you asshole. You didn't bring me here to see this breakthrough. You just needed a third person to manually input the adjustments into the drive as they happen. So you don't blow the shit out of yourselves. - You're right. We knew once the experiment worked, we'd have to recreate it for external review. So yes, we need a third pair of hands. Ones with thermal dynamic experience. - Me? - Yeah, who else was I gonna get? - We didn't realize you'd be such a self-righteous bastard. - You used me. And the reason you can't use her is because they never found the body. Am I right? - Next time will be different. - So you were hoping for proof of the afterlife but what you actually got was some suicidal junky with no answers. Great job, guys. Looks like the cosmic joke's on you two. - You want to talk to your wife again? - Don't. - We may have the power to do that. Just need your help. - We can't do it without you. - Come on. Just like college. A little help goes a long way. Don't deny it. You wanna speak to her again. Just help me. - Okay. I'll help you. - How long will it take to get the calculations? - Maybe three or four days now that Isaac is here. - While you do that, I will check the database. Thanks. - Take a look at these readings. Last time we were close to losing control, but if we power up slower, change some of the calibrations. What do you think? - No, power up faster. I think I can control it manually. Stop from going in the red. - All right, let's do it. - See? - What are you doing? - Sending you back. I just don't know exactly how to recreate the variables. - Do what they did. - It's not that easy to just do what they did. If there are any miscalculations, it could wipe out a five mile radius. - It doesn't matter. All that matters is that you send me back. If you do, the gate will be fixed. - What if it doesn't work? - Then the universe as we know it will be forever changed. Souls will wander the plane, lost and confused. Confusion will turn to anger. Anger will turn to something else. Then souls of the dead will overtake the living. - Okay, I got it, thank you. I get the picture. Gotta get you back. Just take a couple minutes to reach peak performance and the new can activate the drives again. Okay, we're good to go. - Turn it off! - I can't. - Step away from the system before you blow us all to high Heaven! - I'm not gonna blow us up, Alex. Just gonna send her back to where she belongs. - I will shoot you. - You're not gonna shoot me, Alex. - Power it down. Isaac? Look at me. Don't do this. - I'm sorry, Louis. You should never have done this. - He locked us out. I can't get in! I can't get in! Louis? Louis? We don't have time! Louis! - I can vibe this. I can vibe this. - Hurry. Hurry! Hurry! - I can't do it. - Here, let me try. No, no, no, no! - There was confusion. There was a lot going on. Shots fired, men down. I was focused on my unit. Who was hit, who was firing back. Night vision didn't help. But I saw something. At the time, I was so busy I didn't have time to think about what I saw, but a couple days later, after the attack, after I talked to some of those other men, I had time to think about what I saw. That light. That figure. I don't know what it was. - Did these soldiers suffer from mass hysteria or did they actually see something? I interviewed each one of these men individually but not before they had time to discuss it with each other, which, as we know, from previous cases such as the June Bug Epidemic or the Birmingham Incident, that these internal discussions can lead to collective hysteria. Do I think they actually saw something? |
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