SeaQuest 2032 (1993–1996): Season 1, Episode 11 - Photon Bullet - full transcript
Lucas, dissatisfied with his job, is invited to stay with a group of IT workers - who moonlight as hackers stealing money for humanitarian purposes - and their charismatic leader.
The 21st century.
Mankind has colonized the last
unexplored region on Earth: the ocean.
As captain of the seaQuest
and its crew, we are its guardians.
For beneath the surface
lies the future.
I need you to get all its transmissions
down to Westphalen and Levin.
I need you to record
Lucas, you're distracting me. All right?
I need you to get all the forward sonar
sweeps. Send them over to Carlton.
- Excuse me.
- Sorry.
- Get those two other screens up
right away. - Aye, sir.
Excuse me, Lucas.
Sorry.
Lucas, do you mind?
Well if it goes down again, try
re-routing the system. You never know.
Do me a favor,
stand back there
behind the pool.
- Please. - Yeah.
- Thanks. - Thank you.
We're gonna need a sound wave pattern
on the latest whale pod.
There are humpbacks
heading south, southeast,
but I don't think that
should intersect seaQuest.
Please wait for full stop. Bridge.
No contest. He had
the best arm in baseball.
You never saw Nolan Ryan.
Oh, Lucas.
You got that new routine program
for the security system yet?
No, Chief, actually
Don't tell me you're going to
do something if you don't intend to do it.
- All right?
- Yes, sir. - All right.
Mag-Lev engaged.
- Was that Lucas?
- Yeah, Cap. Sure was.
I asked him to stay on the Bridge.
It's supposed to be part of his training.
Welcome to lnternex.
Identify yourself, please.
Thank you.
Wolf man?
Wolf man, you lurking?
You gonna ignore me, too.
- How now, Frankie?
- Another game?
No. I'm still licking
my wounds from the last game.
Please. I've got
some wounds of my own.
Who beat you?
Nobody. I'm sick
of being pushed around.
Push back.
- It's not that easy where I am.
- Fine. If that's the way you want it.
Wolf man.
Wolf man!
Thank you for using lnternex.
See you soon.
Yeah, sure.
You got it easy.
You can swim out of this trap.
Take off whenever you want to.
Exactly.
Lucas,
I need you on the Bridge.
- Why did you leave?
- Nobody wanted me here.
I did.
Did you mention that to anyone?
- No.
- Maybe you should have.
This message just came in.
It's got a top UEO security clearance.
SeaQuest is being ordered
to Node Three,
a communications installation.
Lt. O'Neill?
This is the central nervous system
for all the major fiber optic highways
across the Pacific.
Everything from telephone
calls to encrypted military information
gets routed through there.
Even the entire lnternex.
They also made a priority request
for some OLAI5 modules.
Optical logic arrays.
We've got plenty of them.
There's also been a request
for a visit from a Mr. Lucas Wolenczak.
I see.
So as soon as there's a computer
problem, I'm back in favor.
Well, I'm not going there,
and you can't make me.
There are such things
as child labor laws, you know.
- Where's this coming from?
- I want to get paid.
- Everyone else gets paid. Why not me?
What's wrong with that? - Okay.
And I don't want an allowance.
I want a salary.
- Okay. - I'm the one
that keeps everything running.
Oh, really? Everything?
Capt. Bridger, welcome to Node Three.
- I'm Martin Clemens.
- How do you do? Thank you.
This is Lieutenant Krieg,
Chief Crocker, and Lucas Wolenczak.
Frankenstein.
- Frankenstein?
- Well, it's hacker's tag.
We use it online like a nickname.
Frankenstein's a legend.
- Those must be the modules.
- Yes. - Thanks.
Hey, I've gotta show you
something.
You all can hang while
we check out the modules, right?
Not many people get a chance
to see this. Come on.
I've got 21 sysops here.
Every one a genius.
Teen talk room
will have an open forum.
Computers. The young learn
on what their elders have built,
find the keys
to the next door.
Who else is going to enjoy being trapped
in a bubble on the ocean floor
for a couple of years?
They think they're in a candy store
where everything's free.
Adults want more.
Families, cars, houses.
They never last
more than a couple of months.
- Hi.
- Nice to meet you. Hello.
- Lucas.
- The interstellar virtual combat finals
continues tournament play
over network access three.
Martin Clemens.
Voice code, please.
Mycroft.
Mycroft?
Mycroft, identity confirmed.
No one knows how much
bandwidth we've got.
The last time we tried to figure it out,
we got lost at 100 exabaud.
Unbelievable.
The highest
information density anywhere.
Have a seat.
- Some of the interface is voice-activated.
- Thank you.
All yours. Walk around,
check out the neighborhood.
You're cleared to level dot-one.
You can't do any damage.
- Look at this!
- Wow!
Incredible!
- The man's a legend.
- The chips are okay.
- The modules check out fine,
Captain. Thanks. - Good.
Lucas, I hate to interrupt.
- Oh, I don't want to leave.
- He's more than welcome to stay.
Come on, Captain. We're basically
in the area, you know, with the whales.
We're just going around in circles.
Why can't I just stay for a little while?
- I understand that, but
- Where can he go, Cap?
It looks like fun.
- Maybe a few days.
- Great.
Let me walk you back.
- Have a good time.
- Yeah.
I'll call you tomorrow.
Oh, it's great for him
to be with kids his own age.
- He doesn't even have
a toothbrush. - Captain.
Once he sits in front of
a computer, he won't even eat.
The captain wants to know
Shouldn't you have some chaperones
around here, or something?
We've got a support staff
of five, plus Wendy.
They clean up for us, make sure
we've got enough food and air
and generally take care
of the administrative drudgery.
There's nothing
to worry about, Captain.
- Okay. You know where to find me.
- Okay, we'll see you.
Come on, come on, come on.
Meeting and greeting later.
Hacking and cracking now.
Let's go.
Julianna, Nick.
Frankenstein, meet Red Menace.
- Hi.
- Hi. My real name's Julianna.
Lucas.
And Wolf man.
- No!
- Yeah. How now, Frankie?
- It's really you?
- Yeah, but my name's really Nick.
- Nick.
- Work. - Okay, see you in a bit.
Photons zipping around
inside tendrils of glass.
Our job is to make sure
they go where they're supposed to.
The money's moving.
Fifty seconds.
We sift the light through our fingers
like pure, white sand.
- Forty-five. We're gonna miss it.
- What do you think of the world, Lucas?
Is it good? Bad?
- It sucks, basically.
- If you could make it better,
would you try?
- Well, yeah. Sure I would.
- 30 seconds.
- 25! - This is a foreign aid
fund account in the States.
The money was intended for
humanitarian purposes in Asia
but it's moving
to a blind account in Geneva,
- Fifteen!
- held by a defense minister
- of the East Asian Confederation.
- 10 seconds!
- Five! - Got it!
I'm putting it where it's needed.
In a hospital in rural China
where it'll buy vaccines
and bandages.
You don't even worry
about being caught.
The money's already stolen.
Who's going to complain?
In a world
where people are hungry,
people are greedy,
people kill each other,
we're taking a quiet stand.
It's social engineering.
What do you think of the world,
if you could make it
a better place?
When my daughter was 17
she shaved off half her hair
and dyed
the other half bright orange.
And to this day, I'm convinced she only
did it to irritate me.
I mean, they have to irritate you.
It's their job, however bright they are.
Well, Lucas is bright all right,
and I can't stop falling into
the trap of being parental.
You'd think after having done this once
before, I'd know better.
He just wants to be
with kids his own age.
It's an age when any decision is better
than the ones we make for them.
In fact, the less we like it,
the better.
- Why don't you give him a call?
- Oh, no, no, no.
He'd think I was looking
over his shoulder.
How is he doing?
Is he having any fun?
"You behaving yourself?"
it just bothers me that right now I know
more about those whales.
Maybe you'd like a WSKRS
to follow Lucas around?
- That's not a bad idea.
- Nathan!
I know that being on your own
is on every teenager's agenda
- but it doesn't stop you from worrying.
- Oh, no. That never stops.
One of my daughter's degrees
is nutritional biochemistry.
And every time she comes to see me
I can't stop myself from telling her
what she should be eating.
Pizza and burgers are good but the
sushi never thaws right in a microwave.
- How'd you get here?
- I was always good with numbers.
I skipped a couple grades and graduated
from college when I was 16.
- Yeah, it sounds like me.
- And every other kid here.
This is a great place for me to be
on my own for the first time.
Well as for me, I didn't fit into my
parents' idea of a lifestyle.
So they put me on seaQuest.
Capt. Bridger sends them a report card
every couple of months.
I don't even think
they read them.
- What about Wolf man?
- Well, he's a slow learner.
They didn't let him out of MIT
until he was 17.
Scared you this morning,
didn't I?
You really are Mycroft.
You were two years old
when I crashed the ARPANET.
That was the first
auto-immune virus.
Brought down the entire US defense
system for 24 hours.
Well, they were talking peace.
But they freaked
when their weapons stopped working.
- I spent three years in juvenile rehab
for that hack. - Then?
Then I got cozy with corruption.
Then I came here.
That's all.
What's "cozy with corruption"?
The government.
He worked for them for a while,
and then he just disappeared,
sort of flamed out.
He saw something bad.
Anyway, then he got the job at Node 3
when they went online 3 years ago.
Doesn't this "social engineering" stuff
scare you guys?
Well, it's not really worth doing if it
doesn't scare you, right?
- I mean, that is why we came here.
- Right.
Oh. You should stay away
from that sushi. I mean.
Menu three, function one.
- Vocal command.
- Menu three, function one.
Brazil. After the civil war, old blood
started seeping up through the earth.
Graft, corruption,
intimidation.
- Brazil?
- Brazil.
This function monitors all our data traffic
for items relating to Brazil.
Diplomatic messages,
bank transfers, news reports.
Everything is synthesized into
a topographic map of social stress.
The higher the peaks, the more intense
the colors, the greater the stress.
Now filter
for election fraud.
- These are areas where the data
indicates trouble. - Right. Pick one.
- They're cheating.
- Make it right.
I'm inserting a monitoring virus
into their voting systems.
It'll alert us if there are
any more problems.
Very nice.
The people speak
and now they're heard.
You made a better world.
How did you get into the local nets?
There must've been five bridges
between them and us.
- Did you see how he did that?
- Yeah, I was there, actually.
- Bye, Nick.
- Oh, right.
- You were terrific.
- Thank you.
This is my stop. Bye.
Okay, come on in.
- It's so great to have you here.
- Yeah. Incredible.
I had no idea, you know.
When you're just words in cyberspace,
you imagine what someone's like.
- I had this image.
- An image? What kind of image?
I expected brilliant,
not cute.
You think I'm cute.
Yeah, but all I had was your little
Frankenstein figure on the screen.
It's not a positive
reinforcement.
When Nick and I were hacking the UEO
codes we'd guess what you'd look like.
What UEO codes?
We didn't need any OLAI5 modules.
We've got a rack of spares.
Nick and I sent that message
to bring you here.
That's impossible.
You can't break the UEO codes
or even get onto
their encrypted data link.
We didn't need a data link
'cause it never went through UEO.
- And the codes are just numbers.
- Yeah, they're in triple keys,
- each 4O digits long. I don't believe it.
- It's true.
Why?
Wolf man wanted to meet you.
- So now I'm cute and stupid.
- Don't you like being here?
I just want to know
what's going on.
Julianna.
You said you were sick
of being pushed around.
- He's great. - You reprogrammed
these games so that I couldn't win.
- Try this.
- Got ya.
No!
' Mycroftg
I
Has anyone ever beat you?
I was like you. Too smart,
too young to know it.
And it hurt, too. In here.
I didn't have
the same places to hide.
My sanctuary
was in the streets
so I probably see things
through different eyes.
You know what this is?
- It's my apology.
- You mean the ARPANET crash?
No, I got more than even for that.
Three years in juvie.
I've seen bad things, Lucas.
Bad things
at the ends of my fingertips.
- What bad things?
- Pain.
Death.
Right out there.
Then I said "enough"!
What I do now
is to end the pain.
I need you to get access to
the World Bank transaction network.
That's the best engineered, best protected
network ever built. It's impossible.
- Like hacking UEO codes?
- No. That's just hard.
This isn't a pleasure cruise
where you can hack simple things
like the Brazil voting nets and show us
how good you are at games.
Games are over.
I brought you here for this.
The World Bank transaction network
is the arterial channel
through which
the real money flows.
Money with a capital
It's not a mortgage on your house or
even Apple Computer buying Microsoft.
This money controls armies,
governments,
even confederations.
It is the fulcrum
on which our world balances
and through which
we can reshape civilization.
And war.
And end greed and hatred.
Money is their fuel.
If we can control the World Bank
we can make them unaffordable.
- What do I have to do with this?
- You're better than us.
We've all tried and failed.
Make the world better, Lucas.
Open the door for me.
It's impossible.
Come on, Lucas.
You're so close.
I know you can do it.
- Hysteresis signaling?
- Specifically trapped.
- Anthorder derivative.
- No, too many solutions.
Try a reduction algorithm.
That could work.
- We're in! - Yes!
Good work, Lucas.
You did good.
You can stay.
- I've got Lucas, sir.
- Put him on.
Aye-aye. Up on visual.
- Hey, Lucas.
- Hi.
What are you doing
inside my room?
Oh, I came in to see if I could find
that Sidney Bechet collection
that you never returned to me.
And
- Darwin wants to say hello.
- Hi, Darwin. How's it going?
He misses you. Everything okay?
Oh, this is
the greatest place on Earth.
All the kids are great.
I love it.
How long do you think
you want to stay there?
- A while.
- Okay.
- But I think you ought to tell your
parents. - My parents don't care.
Well, that's immaterial.
It's appropriate for you
to tell them what you're going to do.
- That's your responsibility.
- Yes, but they don't care.
But you have to care.
That's what
we're talking about.
Yeah.
I'll think about that.
I'll check with you tomorrow,
all right?
' BYE-bye.
- Bye.
- Lucas leave pod?
- Yeah. Maybe.
Big ocean. Big fun.
It did sound like
he was having fun, didn't it?
- I got some brain food.
- Great. - Thanks.
Mycroft said we'll be ready to grab
control of the World Bank tomorrow.
- It's so exciting.
- Yeah.
Have you ever wondered
what Mycroft did when he disappeared?
All the time.
The man's a complete enigma.
The past has already happened.
Today is always version 1.0.
- I don't want to know.
- It'd be a great hack.
Finding out his past,
what he was up to.
- You guys are nuts. Who cares?
- I do. The man's a giant.
Mycroft was the ultimate hacker.
No one knows what he did
or even where he was
for three years of his life.
Don't you want to find out
if the stories are true?
Yeah, like if he really did
x-omega ciphers for the CIA.
No, I heard he worked
for Nor-Pac
running multiple-object
pathogens against the CIA.
They never liked each other.
We could go in through the Fednet
then down through the layers.
We write a sweeper.
It follows along behind us
and erases our trail.
I don't want to hear this.
Hey, you 9W5
- this is dangerous.
- Yeah. We're hackers. We live for this.
You can't tell. It's part of the code.
Let's go.
- I'm in. - Right behind you.
Initializing sweeper object code now.
Searching Clemens Martin.
- Not getting any hits.
- Try the Def net bridge.
Got it!
Look at this.
Clemens did work
for Nor-Pac.
No. CIA.
Both of them. They had him
work in both camps.
I have him connected to the Chinese
border closing nine years ago.
My parents were scared then.
It's weird to see your parents afraid.
My mother used to cry
all the time.
I'm trapped out here, Nick.
There's too many fences.
Go under the Def net.
There he is.
"Mycroft."
Code name only.
He was working a hack to countermand
the Chinese military computer networks.
- This information's confusing.
- The Chinese had a team of programmers
working
as Mycroft's opposition.
- Oh, man.
- What is it? - He
- He killed somebody.
- What? No way.
It's not possible.
"Mycroft removed
re: neutralization of enemy asset."
- That could mean anything.
- No.
Give me the room.
Frankenstein, Wolf man.
Stay.
I put a photon bullet
in his head.
It was a time of great fear.
The Chinese closed their borders.
Nor-Pac and the other newer con-
federations were strapping on their guns.
The speed of battle
had outpaced human capacity.
A new war would be waged
by computers.
And the fastest computers would win.
But they needed a new kind of soldier.
Me.
My job was to sneak
inside the Chinese military computers,
crash their programs,
destroy their ability to fight.
But every time I'd find a way in,
their programmers would slam it shut.
I couldn't break into their machines,
so I decided to break into their people.
I created a series
of false communiques, orders, memos,
all designed to make
the junior member of their team
think his boss
was working for our side.
He reported it to his superiors,
but I intercepted everything and
responded as if I were those superiors.
I became his reality
and he had no idea.
It was a game
as disembodied as Wolf man
and Frankenstein on the lnternex.
It's easy to issue an order to kill
when it's just another point in a game.
My team thought I was a hero.
But when I wouldn't give them
specifics on how I did it
in the debriefing,
they removed me from the team.
They told me
there wasn't any room for morals
in time of war.
Tomorrow
I'll answer them.
Leave me.
This whole World Bank hack is so he
will feel better about killing that guy.
- He has lost touch with reality.
- You're scared.
Yeah, I am, and you should be, too.
It's too complicated.
We'll never be able to contain the
variables. Even if it is morally right.
It is right.
Control of the World Bank
could let us stop a country
from going to war.
Imagine how many people
we'll be able to help.
Don't you think
we ought to ask first?
And what happens
if we screw up?
If we're smart enough,
and we're careful enough, it'll work.
- No one will even know.
- And what if we're not, Nick?
The entire transaction network
will collapse. Money will stop moving.
A company will go bankrupt.
A whole army won't get paid.
A government
will be overthrown.
I can't even guess
how many people we might hurt.
But it's wrong to let this happen
without at least trying to do something.
Otherwise
we're as guilty as he is.
- Yeah.
- Captain, Lucas calling for you.
- Put him on.
- Aye, sir. On visual.
You all right?
Yeah. Yeah. I'm fine.
Do you remember what you
were telling me about responsibility?
Yes.
Well, sometimes I can't figure out
if I'm doing the right thing.
We all have to deal with that.
Even with experience and age.
You learn by trying, you make mistakes,
and you correct them.
- What if you hurt somebody?
- Hurt them? How?
Not directly, not like you hit them
but affected their lives somehow.
The way we affect
other people is all we leave, Lucas.
It's the message we send
forward into the future.
Okay.
I think that once you know
what that message is
what you want to say
then you know how to behave.
- You got it?
- Yeah. I got it.
Thank you.
- Come on. - Lucas, it's on.
Everybody's in the room. Let's go.
Waiting time's over.
Today, we transfuse
this web of blood
with the pure light
of morality.
Capture every link,
control every nexus.
Then we write the rules.
Better rules for a better world.
Initiate trap codes
for the African Confederation.
There it is.
The Lagos Center!
Excellent! Excellent!
I'm losing bandwidth
out of Geneva.
The node's reset!
I can't trap the loop agents.
- Trap the interframe tags.
- Corning back.
- Can you hear me?
- Yeah. I got you.
- Julianna? - I'm here.
- I almost lost that, the
Lucas is right. The network
is much too unstable.
If we let it come apart,
it'll be chaos.
- We're almost there. We'll make it.
- Yeah, and then what?
I'm gonna stop it.
The World Bank
transaction network fully trapped.
Mine.
- What?
- I lost my monitor.
- I shut down the node.
- Put us back online.
No, no. It's wrong.
We're on the doorstep
of global synchronicity.
You can't stop me.
I will not fail!
I've been here before.
Yeah, you killed a man.
I made a mistake.
You're making us
do it all over again.
Am I nuts?
We are affecting millions of lives.
Real people's lives.
This isn't some game on the lnternex
where you see every consequence
in neat 3-D graphics.
I'm destroying war,
corruption.
I'm ripping the heart
out of greed.
You can't do that
by changing numbers.
These things won't go away
until we know each other,
one by one, face to face.
You said it yourself, Clemens.
It hurts in here.
This is where
you have to make it better.
You're a child.
You've never felt pain.
I took a life.
I'm not gonna let you
take any more.
No. No!
Mvcroft!
- No!
- Get off him!
It hurts because
you could see his face.
You knew who he was.
- No, I learned that lesson.
- You learned the hard way.
But we don't have to.
We don't want to.
- I don't wanna hurt anyone.
- If I could stop it.
- Is it wrong to want to help?
- No.
No, if you're willing to
accept the responsibility.
But you've been hiding
behind machines, behind photons.
It's a magic trick.
It's not human.
I just wanted to make it better.
To help people.
You can't help someone
until you know who they are.
I know who he is.
Let the network go.
So
it's done.
I'm sorry.
Are you sure you won't stay?
I left some people behind
I really didn't mean to, Nick.
Well, it'll be quiet
without you.
I'll see you on the lnternex.
I'll see you, Frankie.
Okay, bye.
Bye.
- You'll be okay?
- I'm jealous.
Mycroft's hitching a ride
on seaQuest.
- You could come. - I have to stay
until his replacement gets here.
Yeah, we'll be
a long way off by then.
You helped him a lot, Lucas.
It was really wonderful
having you here.
- I'm sorry I'm leaving.
- No, you're not.
But I'm glad you came.
Me, too.
- Bye.
- Bye.
- She's cute.
- Yeah, she is. - All set, Captain.
I appreciate the lift.
I hope it's not out of your way.
Well, you've been more than
hospitable to Lucas.
And beside, that order came direct
from UEO command.
Of course.
But it was a pleasure.
He's a remarkable man.
It went well?
I learned a lot.
I'm glad you decided
to come back.
Thank you.
Commander.
- Lucas.
- What's this?
It's your salary.
Retroactive.
Let's go.
Captain,
I don't think this is enough.
Hello, I'm Bob Ballard from the Woods
Hole Oceanographic Institution.
The highways of tomorrow are being
built underwater right now.
They're made of
fiber optic cable
and will carry vast quantities
of information.
And when that fiber
finally reaches your home
it will revolutionize the way you work,
learn, and entertain yourself.
It holds out tremendous promise
and should greatly enrich our lives.
See you on the next exciting
episode of seaQuest DSV.
Mankind has colonized the last
unexplored region on Earth: the ocean.
As captain of the seaQuest
and its crew, we are its guardians.
For beneath the surface
lies the future.
I need you to get all its transmissions
down to Westphalen and Levin.
I need you to record
Lucas, you're distracting me. All right?
I need you to get all the forward sonar
sweeps. Send them over to Carlton.
- Excuse me.
- Sorry.
- Get those two other screens up
right away. - Aye, sir.
Excuse me, Lucas.
Sorry.
Lucas, do you mind?
Well if it goes down again, try
re-routing the system. You never know.
Do me a favor,
stand back there
behind the pool.
- Please. - Yeah.
- Thanks. - Thank you.
We're gonna need a sound wave pattern
on the latest whale pod.
There are humpbacks
heading south, southeast,
but I don't think that
should intersect seaQuest.
Please wait for full stop. Bridge.
No contest. He had
the best arm in baseball.
You never saw Nolan Ryan.
Oh, Lucas.
You got that new routine program
for the security system yet?
No, Chief, actually
Don't tell me you're going to
do something if you don't intend to do it.
- All right?
- Yes, sir. - All right.
Mag-Lev engaged.
- Was that Lucas?
- Yeah, Cap. Sure was.
I asked him to stay on the Bridge.
It's supposed to be part of his training.
Welcome to lnternex.
Identify yourself, please.
Thank you.
Wolf man?
Wolf man, you lurking?
You gonna ignore me, too.
- How now, Frankie?
- Another game?
No. I'm still licking
my wounds from the last game.
Please. I've got
some wounds of my own.
Who beat you?
Nobody. I'm sick
of being pushed around.
Push back.
- It's not that easy where I am.
- Fine. If that's the way you want it.
Wolf man.
Wolf man!
Thank you for using lnternex.
See you soon.
Yeah, sure.
You got it easy.
You can swim out of this trap.
Take off whenever you want to.
Exactly.
Lucas,
I need you on the Bridge.
- Why did you leave?
- Nobody wanted me here.
I did.
Did you mention that to anyone?
- No.
- Maybe you should have.
This message just came in.
It's got a top UEO security clearance.
SeaQuest is being ordered
to Node Three,
a communications installation.
Lt. O'Neill?
This is the central nervous system
for all the major fiber optic highways
across the Pacific.
Everything from telephone
calls to encrypted military information
gets routed through there.
Even the entire lnternex.
They also made a priority request
for some OLAI5 modules.
Optical logic arrays.
We've got plenty of them.
There's also been a request
for a visit from a Mr. Lucas Wolenczak.
I see.
So as soon as there's a computer
problem, I'm back in favor.
Well, I'm not going there,
and you can't make me.
There are such things
as child labor laws, you know.
- Where's this coming from?
- I want to get paid.
- Everyone else gets paid. Why not me?
What's wrong with that? - Okay.
And I don't want an allowance.
I want a salary.
- Okay. - I'm the one
that keeps everything running.
Oh, really? Everything?
Capt. Bridger, welcome to Node Three.
- I'm Martin Clemens.
- How do you do? Thank you.
This is Lieutenant Krieg,
Chief Crocker, and Lucas Wolenczak.
Frankenstein.
- Frankenstein?
- Well, it's hacker's tag.
We use it online like a nickname.
Frankenstein's a legend.
- Those must be the modules.
- Yes. - Thanks.
Hey, I've gotta show you
something.
You all can hang while
we check out the modules, right?
Not many people get a chance
to see this. Come on.
I've got 21 sysops here.
Every one a genius.
Teen talk room
will have an open forum.
Computers. The young learn
on what their elders have built,
find the keys
to the next door.
Who else is going to enjoy being trapped
in a bubble on the ocean floor
for a couple of years?
They think they're in a candy store
where everything's free.
Adults want more.
Families, cars, houses.
They never last
more than a couple of months.
- Hi.
- Nice to meet you. Hello.
- Lucas.
- The interstellar virtual combat finals
continues tournament play
over network access three.
Martin Clemens.
Voice code, please.
Mycroft.
Mycroft?
Mycroft, identity confirmed.
No one knows how much
bandwidth we've got.
The last time we tried to figure it out,
we got lost at 100 exabaud.
Unbelievable.
The highest
information density anywhere.
Have a seat.
- Some of the interface is voice-activated.
- Thank you.
All yours. Walk around,
check out the neighborhood.
You're cleared to level dot-one.
You can't do any damage.
- Look at this!
- Wow!
Incredible!
- The man's a legend.
- The chips are okay.
- The modules check out fine,
Captain. Thanks. - Good.
Lucas, I hate to interrupt.
- Oh, I don't want to leave.
- He's more than welcome to stay.
Come on, Captain. We're basically
in the area, you know, with the whales.
We're just going around in circles.
Why can't I just stay for a little while?
- I understand that, but
- Where can he go, Cap?
It looks like fun.
- Maybe a few days.
- Great.
Let me walk you back.
- Have a good time.
- Yeah.
I'll call you tomorrow.
Oh, it's great for him
to be with kids his own age.
- He doesn't even have
a toothbrush. - Captain.
Once he sits in front of
a computer, he won't even eat.
The captain wants to know
Shouldn't you have some chaperones
around here, or something?
We've got a support staff
of five, plus Wendy.
They clean up for us, make sure
we've got enough food and air
and generally take care
of the administrative drudgery.
There's nothing
to worry about, Captain.
- Okay. You know where to find me.
- Okay, we'll see you.
Come on, come on, come on.
Meeting and greeting later.
Hacking and cracking now.
Let's go.
Julianna, Nick.
Frankenstein, meet Red Menace.
- Hi.
- Hi. My real name's Julianna.
Lucas.
And Wolf man.
- No!
- Yeah. How now, Frankie?
- It's really you?
- Yeah, but my name's really Nick.
- Nick.
- Work. - Okay, see you in a bit.
Photons zipping around
inside tendrils of glass.
Our job is to make sure
they go where they're supposed to.
The money's moving.
Fifty seconds.
We sift the light through our fingers
like pure, white sand.
- Forty-five. We're gonna miss it.
- What do you think of the world, Lucas?
Is it good? Bad?
- It sucks, basically.
- If you could make it better,
would you try?
- Well, yeah. Sure I would.
- 30 seconds.
- 25! - This is a foreign aid
fund account in the States.
The money was intended for
humanitarian purposes in Asia
but it's moving
to a blind account in Geneva,
- Fifteen!
- held by a defense minister
- of the East Asian Confederation.
- 10 seconds!
- Five! - Got it!
I'm putting it where it's needed.
In a hospital in rural China
where it'll buy vaccines
and bandages.
You don't even worry
about being caught.
The money's already stolen.
Who's going to complain?
In a world
where people are hungry,
people are greedy,
people kill each other,
we're taking a quiet stand.
It's social engineering.
What do you think of the world,
if you could make it
a better place?
When my daughter was 17
she shaved off half her hair
and dyed
the other half bright orange.
And to this day, I'm convinced she only
did it to irritate me.
I mean, they have to irritate you.
It's their job, however bright they are.
Well, Lucas is bright all right,
and I can't stop falling into
the trap of being parental.
You'd think after having done this once
before, I'd know better.
He just wants to be
with kids his own age.
It's an age when any decision is better
than the ones we make for them.
In fact, the less we like it,
the better.
- Why don't you give him a call?
- Oh, no, no, no.
He'd think I was looking
over his shoulder.
How is he doing?
Is he having any fun?
"You behaving yourself?"
it just bothers me that right now I know
more about those whales.
Maybe you'd like a WSKRS
to follow Lucas around?
- That's not a bad idea.
- Nathan!
I know that being on your own
is on every teenager's agenda
- but it doesn't stop you from worrying.
- Oh, no. That never stops.
One of my daughter's degrees
is nutritional biochemistry.
And every time she comes to see me
I can't stop myself from telling her
what she should be eating.
Pizza and burgers are good but the
sushi never thaws right in a microwave.
- How'd you get here?
- I was always good with numbers.
I skipped a couple grades and graduated
from college when I was 16.
- Yeah, it sounds like me.
- And every other kid here.
This is a great place for me to be
on my own for the first time.
Well as for me, I didn't fit into my
parents' idea of a lifestyle.
So they put me on seaQuest.
Capt. Bridger sends them a report card
every couple of months.
I don't even think
they read them.
- What about Wolf man?
- Well, he's a slow learner.
They didn't let him out of MIT
until he was 17.
Scared you this morning,
didn't I?
You really are Mycroft.
You were two years old
when I crashed the ARPANET.
That was the first
auto-immune virus.
Brought down the entire US defense
system for 24 hours.
Well, they were talking peace.
But they freaked
when their weapons stopped working.
- I spent three years in juvenile rehab
for that hack. - Then?
Then I got cozy with corruption.
Then I came here.
That's all.
What's "cozy with corruption"?
The government.
He worked for them for a while,
and then he just disappeared,
sort of flamed out.
He saw something bad.
Anyway, then he got the job at Node 3
when they went online 3 years ago.
Doesn't this "social engineering" stuff
scare you guys?
Well, it's not really worth doing if it
doesn't scare you, right?
- I mean, that is why we came here.
- Right.
Oh. You should stay away
from that sushi. I mean.
Menu three, function one.
- Vocal command.
- Menu three, function one.
Brazil. After the civil war, old blood
started seeping up through the earth.
Graft, corruption,
intimidation.
- Brazil?
- Brazil.
This function monitors all our data traffic
for items relating to Brazil.
Diplomatic messages,
bank transfers, news reports.
Everything is synthesized into
a topographic map of social stress.
The higher the peaks, the more intense
the colors, the greater the stress.
Now filter
for election fraud.
- These are areas where the data
indicates trouble. - Right. Pick one.
- They're cheating.
- Make it right.
I'm inserting a monitoring virus
into their voting systems.
It'll alert us if there are
any more problems.
Very nice.
The people speak
and now they're heard.
You made a better world.
How did you get into the local nets?
There must've been five bridges
between them and us.
- Did you see how he did that?
- Yeah, I was there, actually.
- Bye, Nick.
- Oh, right.
- You were terrific.
- Thank you.
This is my stop. Bye.
Okay, come on in.
- It's so great to have you here.
- Yeah. Incredible.
I had no idea, you know.
When you're just words in cyberspace,
you imagine what someone's like.
- I had this image.
- An image? What kind of image?
I expected brilliant,
not cute.
You think I'm cute.
Yeah, but all I had was your little
Frankenstein figure on the screen.
It's not a positive
reinforcement.
When Nick and I were hacking the UEO
codes we'd guess what you'd look like.
What UEO codes?
We didn't need any OLAI5 modules.
We've got a rack of spares.
Nick and I sent that message
to bring you here.
That's impossible.
You can't break the UEO codes
or even get onto
their encrypted data link.
We didn't need a data link
'cause it never went through UEO.
- And the codes are just numbers.
- Yeah, they're in triple keys,
- each 4O digits long. I don't believe it.
- It's true.
Why?
Wolf man wanted to meet you.
- So now I'm cute and stupid.
- Don't you like being here?
I just want to know
what's going on.
Julianna.
You said you were sick
of being pushed around.
- He's great. - You reprogrammed
these games so that I couldn't win.
- Try this.
- Got ya.
No!
' Mycroftg
I
Has anyone ever beat you?
I was like you. Too smart,
too young to know it.
And it hurt, too. In here.
I didn't have
the same places to hide.
My sanctuary
was in the streets
so I probably see things
through different eyes.
You know what this is?
- It's my apology.
- You mean the ARPANET crash?
No, I got more than even for that.
Three years in juvie.
I've seen bad things, Lucas.
Bad things
at the ends of my fingertips.
- What bad things?
- Pain.
Death.
Right out there.
Then I said "enough"!
What I do now
is to end the pain.
I need you to get access to
the World Bank transaction network.
That's the best engineered, best protected
network ever built. It's impossible.
- Like hacking UEO codes?
- No. That's just hard.
This isn't a pleasure cruise
where you can hack simple things
like the Brazil voting nets and show us
how good you are at games.
Games are over.
I brought you here for this.
The World Bank transaction network
is the arterial channel
through which
the real money flows.
Money with a capital
It's not a mortgage on your house or
even Apple Computer buying Microsoft.
This money controls armies,
governments,
even confederations.
It is the fulcrum
on which our world balances
and through which
we can reshape civilization.
And war.
And end greed and hatred.
Money is their fuel.
If we can control the World Bank
we can make them unaffordable.
- What do I have to do with this?
- You're better than us.
We've all tried and failed.
Make the world better, Lucas.
Open the door for me.
It's impossible.
Come on, Lucas.
You're so close.
I know you can do it.
- Hysteresis signaling?
- Specifically trapped.
- Anthorder derivative.
- No, too many solutions.
Try a reduction algorithm.
That could work.
- We're in! - Yes!
Good work, Lucas.
You did good.
You can stay.
- I've got Lucas, sir.
- Put him on.
Aye-aye. Up on visual.
- Hey, Lucas.
- Hi.
What are you doing
inside my room?
Oh, I came in to see if I could find
that Sidney Bechet collection
that you never returned to me.
And
- Darwin wants to say hello.
- Hi, Darwin. How's it going?
He misses you. Everything okay?
Oh, this is
the greatest place on Earth.
All the kids are great.
I love it.
How long do you think
you want to stay there?
- A while.
- Okay.
- But I think you ought to tell your
parents. - My parents don't care.
Well, that's immaterial.
It's appropriate for you
to tell them what you're going to do.
- That's your responsibility.
- Yes, but they don't care.
But you have to care.
That's what
we're talking about.
Yeah.
I'll think about that.
I'll check with you tomorrow,
all right?
' BYE-bye.
- Bye.
- Lucas leave pod?
- Yeah. Maybe.
Big ocean. Big fun.
It did sound like
he was having fun, didn't it?
- I got some brain food.
- Great. - Thanks.
Mycroft said we'll be ready to grab
control of the World Bank tomorrow.
- It's so exciting.
- Yeah.
Have you ever wondered
what Mycroft did when he disappeared?
All the time.
The man's a complete enigma.
The past has already happened.
Today is always version 1.0.
- I don't want to know.
- It'd be a great hack.
Finding out his past,
what he was up to.
- You guys are nuts. Who cares?
- I do. The man's a giant.
Mycroft was the ultimate hacker.
No one knows what he did
or even where he was
for three years of his life.
Don't you want to find out
if the stories are true?
Yeah, like if he really did
x-omega ciphers for the CIA.
No, I heard he worked
for Nor-Pac
running multiple-object
pathogens against the CIA.
They never liked each other.
We could go in through the Fednet
then down through the layers.
We write a sweeper.
It follows along behind us
and erases our trail.
I don't want to hear this.
Hey, you 9W5
- this is dangerous.
- Yeah. We're hackers. We live for this.
You can't tell. It's part of the code.
Let's go.
- I'm in. - Right behind you.
Initializing sweeper object code now.
Searching Clemens Martin.
- Not getting any hits.
- Try the Def net bridge.
Got it!
Look at this.
Clemens did work
for Nor-Pac.
No. CIA.
Both of them. They had him
work in both camps.
I have him connected to the Chinese
border closing nine years ago.
My parents were scared then.
It's weird to see your parents afraid.
My mother used to cry
all the time.
I'm trapped out here, Nick.
There's too many fences.
Go under the Def net.
There he is.
"Mycroft."
Code name only.
He was working a hack to countermand
the Chinese military computer networks.
- This information's confusing.
- The Chinese had a team of programmers
working
as Mycroft's opposition.
- Oh, man.
- What is it? - He
- He killed somebody.
- What? No way.
It's not possible.
"Mycroft removed
re: neutralization of enemy asset."
- That could mean anything.
- No.
Give me the room.
Frankenstein, Wolf man.
Stay.
I put a photon bullet
in his head.
It was a time of great fear.
The Chinese closed their borders.
Nor-Pac and the other newer con-
federations were strapping on their guns.
The speed of battle
had outpaced human capacity.
A new war would be waged
by computers.
And the fastest computers would win.
But they needed a new kind of soldier.
Me.
My job was to sneak
inside the Chinese military computers,
crash their programs,
destroy their ability to fight.
But every time I'd find a way in,
their programmers would slam it shut.
I couldn't break into their machines,
so I decided to break into their people.
I created a series
of false communiques, orders, memos,
all designed to make
the junior member of their team
think his boss
was working for our side.
He reported it to his superiors,
but I intercepted everything and
responded as if I were those superiors.
I became his reality
and he had no idea.
It was a game
as disembodied as Wolf man
and Frankenstein on the lnternex.
It's easy to issue an order to kill
when it's just another point in a game.
My team thought I was a hero.
But when I wouldn't give them
specifics on how I did it
in the debriefing,
they removed me from the team.
They told me
there wasn't any room for morals
in time of war.
Tomorrow
I'll answer them.
Leave me.
This whole World Bank hack is so he
will feel better about killing that guy.
- He has lost touch with reality.
- You're scared.
Yeah, I am, and you should be, too.
It's too complicated.
We'll never be able to contain the
variables. Even if it is morally right.
It is right.
Control of the World Bank
could let us stop a country
from going to war.
Imagine how many people
we'll be able to help.
Don't you think
we ought to ask first?
And what happens
if we screw up?
If we're smart enough,
and we're careful enough, it'll work.
- No one will even know.
- And what if we're not, Nick?
The entire transaction network
will collapse. Money will stop moving.
A company will go bankrupt.
A whole army won't get paid.
A government
will be overthrown.
I can't even guess
how many people we might hurt.
But it's wrong to let this happen
without at least trying to do something.
Otherwise
we're as guilty as he is.
- Yeah.
- Captain, Lucas calling for you.
- Put him on.
- Aye, sir. On visual.
You all right?
Yeah. Yeah. I'm fine.
Do you remember what you
were telling me about responsibility?
Yes.
Well, sometimes I can't figure out
if I'm doing the right thing.
We all have to deal with that.
Even with experience and age.
You learn by trying, you make mistakes,
and you correct them.
- What if you hurt somebody?
- Hurt them? How?
Not directly, not like you hit them
but affected their lives somehow.
The way we affect
other people is all we leave, Lucas.
It's the message we send
forward into the future.
Okay.
I think that once you know
what that message is
what you want to say
then you know how to behave.
- You got it?
- Yeah. I got it.
Thank you.
- Come on. - Lucas, it's on.
Everybody's in the room. Let's go.
Waiting time's over.
Today, we transfuse
this web of blood
with the pure light
of morality.
Capture every link,
control every nexus.
Then we write the rules.
Better rules for a better world.
Initiate trap codes
for the African Confederation.
There it is.
The Lagos Center!
Excellent! Excellent!
I'm losing bandwidth
out of Geneva.
The node's reset!
I can't trap the loop agents.
- Trap the interframe tags.
- Corning back.
- Can you hear me?
- Yeah. I got you.
- Julianna? - I'm here.
- I almost lost that, the
Lucas is right. The network
is much too unstable.
If we let it come apart,
it'll be chaos.
- We're almost there. We'll make it.
- Yeah, and then what?
I'm gonna stop it.
The World Bank
transaction network fully trapped.
Mine.
- What?
- I lost my monitor.
- I shut down the node.
- Put us back online.
No, no. It's wrong.
We're on the doorstep
of global synchronicity.
You can't stop me.
I will not fail!
I've been here before.
Yeah, you killed a man.
I made a mistake.
You're making us
do it all over again.
Am I nuts?
We are affecting millions of lives.
Real people's lives.
This isn't some game on the lnternex
where you see every consequence
in neat 3-D graphics.
I'm destroying war,
corruption.
I'm ripping the heart
out of greed.
You can't do that
by changing numbers.
These things won't go away
until we know each other,
one by one, face to face.
You said it yourself, Clemens.
It hurts in here.
This is where
you have to make it better.
You're a child.
You've never felt pain.
I took a life.
I'm not gonna let you
take any more.
No. No!
Mvcroft!
- No!
- Get off him!
It hurts because
you could see his face.
You knew who he was.
- No, I learned that lesson.
- You learned the hard way.
But we don't have to.
We don't want to.
- I don't wanna hurt anyone.
- If I could stop it.
- Is it wrong to want to help?
- No.
No, if you're willing to
accept the responsibility.
But you've been hiding
behind machines, behind photons.
It's a magic trick.
It's not human.
I just wanted to make it better.
To help people.
You can't help someone
until you know who they are.
I know who he is.
Let the network go.
So
it's done.
I'm sorry.
Are you sure you won't stay?
I left some people behind
I really didn't mean to, Nick.
Well, it'll be quiet
without you.
I'll see you on the lnternex.
I'll see you, Frankie.
Okay, bye.
Bye.
- You'll be okay?
- I'm jealous.
Mycroft's hitching a ride
on seaQuest.
- You could come. - I have to stay
until his replacement gets here.
Yeah, we'll be
a long way off by then.
You helped him a lot, Lucas.
It was really wonderful
having you here.
- I'm sorry I'm leaving.
- No, you're not.
But I'm glad you came.
Me, too.
- Bye.
- Bye.
- She's cute.
- Yeah, she is. - All set, Captain.
I appreciate the lift.
I hope it's not out of your way.
Well, you've been more than
hospitable to Lucas.
And beside, that order came direct
from UEO command.
Of course.
But it was a pleasure.
He's a remarkable man.
It went well?
I learned a lot.
I'm glad you decided
to come back.
Thank you.
Commander.
- Lucas.
- What's this?
It's your salary.
Retroactive.
Let's go.
Captain,
I don't think this is enough.
Hello, I'm Bob Ballard from the Woods
Hole Oceanographic Institution.
The highways of tomorrow are being
built underwater right now.
They're made of
fiber optic cable
and will carry vast quantities
of information.
And when that fiber
finally reaches your home
it will revolutionize the way you work,
learn, and entertain yourself.
It holds out tremendous promise
and should greatly enrich our lives.
See you on the next exciting
episode of seaQuest DSV.