Original subtitles

I don't know about the rest of you, but nothing I heard in that chamber did

anything but validate the opinion I had going in. You know, that's what I love

about you, Ollie.

You're predictable as loaded dice.

I'm just being true to my sense of ethics, Madam Justice.

Those ethics make it easy for you to send a woman to her death for doing her

damnedest to save the human race.

Oh, let's stop the posturing.

There's nobody here but four walls and five cantankerous old fools.

Nobody's posturing, Gretchen.

As Hayden says, this decision will reverberate from now till doomsday.

the appellant is right, is about 35 years tops.

This court is now in session.

Before I poll the members of the court, I have a few words for the appellant,

Dr. Givens.

I'm impressed by the way you've conducted yourself in this proceeding,

I admire your intelligence, your courage under fire.

Before this court makes its ruling, I wanted you to know that.

Thank you, sir, Chief Justice.

That being said, I'll explain the procedure we'll follow once every

been polled.

Excuse me, Your Honor.

I think there's one more voice that you really should hear from before you can

make an intelligent verdict.

I'm afraid that's entirely out of order.

I'm sorry, sir, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave the court. Oh, I'm

afraid I can't do that.

Who the hell are you?

I am your conscience, Justice Harbison.

But you can call me Ezekiel.

Bailiffs, stand down.

No, no.

Technically, it's not a bomb. It's a cold fusion device.

And I strongly advise that you listen to what I have to say. Otherwise, I may

just have to set it off.

And then you can say goodbye to this courtroom, this city, and what?

Maybe half the eastern seaboard?

There is nothing wrong with your television.

Do not attempt to adjust the picture.

We are now controlling the transmission.

We control the horizontal and the vertical. We can deluge you with a

channels or expand one single image to crystal clarity and beyond.

We can shape your vision to anything our imagination can conceive.

For the next hour, we will control all that you see and hear.

You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the deepest

inner mind to the outer limits.

The outer limits.

Please stand by.

Now, I'm sure that all the members of the gallery will spread the word when I

tell you that there's a second bomb secreted somewhere out there.

It's on a timer, and there's only one person who can disable it.

Yours truly.

All I have to do is send a little transmission code to the device and we

rendered impotent.

About as impotent as I'm sure that you're all feeling about now.

If anyone tries to intervene, that's it. Game over.

Now. Get out!

Everybody out, now!

Ellis, leave the court.

What is it you want?

You allow interested parties to file briefs either for or against the

in these acts.

Friends of the court statement.

What's the term?

Amicus curiae. Ah!

That's it. I most humbly submit my amicus curiae.

I mean, I hope that doesn't sound too unreasonable.

You're threatening us with a fusion device capable of killing millions of

and you want to know if you sound unreasonable?

The court reporter is not writing.

Please instruct her to take all of this down.

Do as he says, Marine.

Thank you very much.

How do we know this thing strapped to your body is a bomb at all?

Ah, a skeptic. I like that.

Jurisprudence 1A.

Never accept a fact without corroborative evidence. Well, if any of

students of cold fusion, you may remember the young man who invented it

the turn of the century. His name was Seth Todman.

Brilliant young man.

Troubled, yes, but brilliant. Now, Seth... Seth had the same

problem. He had a classroom full of students held hostage with a fusion

ticking away.

The problem was that nobody believed him.

At least not at birth.

Nobody wanted to listen to me.

But now, you're going to.

Every way in and out of this building has a trash can.

And every trash can is wired with an explosive device which I have just

You won't get away with this, Seth.

Really?

Define cold fusion.

What? I said define cold fusion.

Cold fusion is a release of thermonuclear energies by devices that

ordinary room temperatures and pressures.

Such devices are totally impossible.

We've proven that. Really?

I made this one all by myself.

I did it on my kitchen table.

The people who said it was impossible were wrong.

And today, I get to prove that.

Look out the window!

Look out the window!

Now, unlike that young man, I have faith in your native intelligence. No.

Make that faith in your ability to judge the difference between a credible

threat and a bluff.

You said you wanted to go on record in this case.

Why? Well, ma 'am, because I care.

I care deeply about the issues.

Does that sound corny?

No.

Well.

Where do I begin?

Perhaps the beginning.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

And being rather enamored of his own skills, he looked down upon his creation

and he deemed that it was good.

And it was good.

It was damn good.

And then he created the beasts in the forest, the dogs in the dogwoods. And

feeling his oats, he set about to create man.

Well, actually, man and woman.

to be politically correct, although I don't believe that God was. But, hey, it

was his ballgame.

And then he plunked his creation down in the Garden of Eden, where they barely

had enough time for a round of croquet and a conversation with the serpents

before they found themselves pissing God off.

You see, they violated his one admonition.

Don't. I say don't eat from the tree of knowledge.

But Adam and Eve, they weren't buying any of this, and they paid dearly for

As a matter of fact, we have all paid dearly for it, because you see, paradise

was off -limits to the newlyweds, and it's been off -limits to us ever since.

What is my point?

My point is, it wasn't the snake in the grass, and it wasn't the big, red, juicy

Washington delicious, and it wasn't our innate perversity that draws us to

things that we are told to shun. That was the problem. The problem was

knowledge. The problem was that we were thrown headlong into the same

contradiction that made protoplasmic stew out of 6 .8 billion people back in

June of 2059.

The problem was we thought we could handle knowledge.

You're a Luddite.

An anti -technology zealot. I am also living proof of my own argument.

All the best intentions of the world can be erased in the blink of an eye at the

hands of one madman, armed only with impulse and capability.

Aren't you forgetting that your side won?

There was a deafening roar of anti -technology sentiment after the new

holocaust. A million -man chorus that drowned any voices of opposition.

And that's how we wound up here.

With 200 years of progress systematically dismantled and placed on

heap?

So I would ask you, why do you feel a need to put a nuclear gun to our heads

beat a drum that hasn't stopped pounding for almost 20 years?

Excellent question, Brother Clayton, and I think I have an equally artful

rejoinder. You see, I have got a terrible feeling in the pit of my

I've got the sense that we're about to piss on the closest thing to paradise

since Hotel Eden.

So all of this is to make sure that Dr. Givens' conviction is upheld?

Dr.

Givens isn't important.

I am not important. There isn't a soul in this room who is important.

What is important is that we don't kick God off one more time because as smart

as he is, as good as he is, I get the feeling he's just about run out of

patience with his rather iffy creation.

You were wrong about one thing, Ezekiel.

Dr.

Givens, I was waiting for you to chime in.

You said this wasn't about me. I said that you weren't important.

How about the truth, then?

Is that important?

The truth is about the only thing that I have left in my kit bag, Doc.

Then tell them where you came from, how you got here, and maybe

you should tell them that you were rather infatuated with me once.

The schoolboy crush on his mentor.

Sentiments alas, unrequited.

I believe your last words were, go to hell.

Well, I took your advice, Teresa.

And now I'm back.

The Outer Limits.

Please stand by.

May I address the court?

I think I may be able to shed some light on what's going on here.

I'm glad somebody can.

Go ahead, Dr. Givens.

Ezekiel wasn't always his name.

He took it from the prophet who implored the Jews in Babylonia to return to

their godliness and faith.

Daniel Faraday is his real name.

When I started developing my temporal transporter, I enlisted a number of

specialists in various fields.

It was a little like the Manhattan Project of the 20th century.

An apt analogy, I must say, Teresa.

Everybody's responsibilities were compartmentalized. No one knew.

How the parts would be put together, but me, Daniel Vigil, was a biophysicist

for a company that had some highly classified government contracts.

I believe there's a shorter job description.

I believe the word whore is what you're looking for. And so the two of you

collaborated? No, I think that would be overstating it. We did share

information, yes.

But I made a critical breakthrough that the government and Daniel never could.

And that's when all hell broke loose.

Shall I tell them, or would you like to? Oh, no, by all means, go ahead.

I always say, why let the facts get in the way of a good story?

That's when Daniel became Ezekiel.

I had no idea what was going on.

What? His behavior became erratic?

He would go on these rants, rants against the government, against science,

against technology.

Dr. Gibbons, I must confess that I'm confused. You say that Batman used your

machine to enter our time, but was this with or without your cooperation?

There was no cooperation on my part.

Daniel and I had a terrible falling out, and then he disappeared.

First sign that he had surfaced was when there was an experiment that was

sabotaged at the government lab where he worked. The wormhole's expanding!

Shut it down.

Abort! Abort!

The old variety's been working.

Ezekiel claimed credit for it.

But I knew who was responsible.

Ezekiel was making the world date for democracy.

And damned if he still isn't.

And then there was a break -in and my lab papers were stolen.

Most of the key documents were my transporter.

They belonged to me as much as they did her. I was only taking what was mine.

I knew there was only a matter of time before he developed his own device.

Just a matter of time. I like that.

He took a number of trips through time.

with little or no regard for how he might be affecting history.

Ladies and gentlemen, I believe the pot has just called the kettle black.

Did you get our types at 11?

You don't see the irony here.

Oh, I see irony everywhere.

It's like x -ray vision.

Well, here you were.

revolutionary, railing against the evils of technology, and you were employing

the most sophisticated product of that technology.

To what end am I using that technology? That is what you have to ask yourself,

Mr. Chief Justice.

Sometimes it is necessary to take up the arms of the enemy to defeat him.

You see technology as enslaving mankind.

Is that a fair statement?

Well, if it's fair, I'd say it's pretty damn prophetic.

Look at these things.

Holographic generator.

Reanimation lasers.

Artificial intelligence arrays. The new golden calf.

A little bowing and scraping music. Please, maestro.

If you believe machines are the problem, then I can only assume you place your

faith in man's innate goodness.

Only when he is not being crushed by the heavy boot of science and government.

Only when he has a fighting chance.

If that's the case, then I have to ask you, Ezekiel.

Why do you feel the need to force our hand here?

Isn't the highest court of the land, by definition, a place where human judgment

reigns supreme?

That presumes that you haven't been corrupted.

What evidence is there that we have?

That's funny, Chief Justice, because to answer that question...

I'm going to put you on the stand.

You want to interrogate me?

Interrogate's such a nasty word. No, I just want to question you.

Hayden, don't fall into this man's trap.

He's already got his finger on a nuclear trigger. Don't give him any more power.

And here I thought you were the only cool head in this chamber, Justice

Harbison. I stand before you as only a lowly private citizen advocating his

point of view. A point of view that I believe you share.

I don't believe in using violence to undermine the legitimate authority of

court.

Boilerplate! Isn't that what you call it? When you have to plug in standard

legal language when all else fails?

You want to question me.

I have no problem with that, but I think it's only fair that you give up

something in return.

Oh, now we're negotiating, are we? Well, I hope you'll excuse my coarse language

when I ask you, do I look like a gosh darn fool to you?

We're just spinning our wheels here.

I've put a proposal to you, Ezekiel.

Disarm that device, and I will do as you wish.

As a sign of goodwill, I will disarm this bomb.

To tell you the truth, it's getting a little uncomfortable for me anyway.

But I will warn you.

I hold a transmitter that is capable of setting the one off outside within a

millisecond of my touching any one of these buttons.

Or we can just let it tick down on the timer till it goes off of its own

Now, it's your turn to show me some goodwill.

All I ask is that you answer my questions fairly and honestly.

Now then.

What did you do in the war, Mr. Wainwright?

I was in the military. Three -star general attached to NATO troops.

Then I can assume that you had a hand in the strategizing?

There was very little value.

A few skirmishes in Eastern Europe and Pan -Africa.

The submarine was sunk in the Atlantic.

So, you weren't consulted on the possible use of a nuclear arsenal?

I was in communication with the Pentagon, yes.

Such humility, Hayden.

Scuttlebutt, I heard was you were personal advisor to the press.

What was your recommendation?

That we not give in to nuclear blackmail.

Tough it out, huh?

Give as good as you get, bomb them back into the Stone Age and let God sort it

out?

That's your characterization, not mine.

Sir, Mr. Chief Justice.

You were safely ensconced in a bunker two miles below the Earth's surface

four -fifths of the world was reduced to radioactive jelly.

You're hardly the one to be sanctimonious. Well, I learned from the

Why don't you tell him that you traveled through time to other wars and I don't

recall you telling me about any heroic efforts to stop the bloodshed? Well,

was your job, wasn't it, Teresa?

in hell.

Those were your exact words.

Well, I'm making up for it now, aren't I?

History will number me among the greatest of all humanitarians.

Excuse me, Mr. Chief Justice.

We were talking about the Great War.

Now, in the aftermath, after all the bloodshed, when the bodies were being

counted, what was your job?

I was appointed by the President to a task force to examine our options.

Would that be the task force that recommended the elimination of all

mass destruction?

That's correct.

And when the mandate of that task force expanded to include the consideration of

the anti -technology codes, where did you come down on that issue?

I was in agreement that they be considered.

And when the codes were implemented and when the moratorium on all scientific

research was adopted, you were relieved.

I was in support.

And that support was unwavering.

Shall I repeat the question?

I'm sitting in judgment on that question in this court.

I think you know that.

I think it's inappropriate for me to comment.

All right.

Let's change the subject.

Are you familiar with research done by Drs. McCamber and Houghton at the early

part of this century?

They were two doctors who discovered a way to revive necrotic tissues and

and repair them.

Uh -huh. Not just to revive dead tissue, but to revive...

Dead people.

Zombie time. Isn't that right?

It proved to be a flawed technology.

Oh, that is quite an understatement.

Because it did have the ability to restore human life, but not the quality

that life.

Catalysis reversed.

Rebuilding neural networks.

I don't think so.

Hello, Mr. Reynolds.

Welcome back.

You lost your wife, Julia, to cancer ten years ago, am I right?

I don't see that's relevant here.

Well, it's relevant, Mr. Chief Justice, because you went to the scientific

underground and tried to illegally bring her back to life.

The Outer Limit.

Please stand by.

She was my life.

Nothing I'd ever achieved.

And anything after she was gone.

I was inconsolable.

A friend told me about these renegades in the underground. They'd actually

achieved the promise of Lazarus.

What else could you do?

You plucked the apple.

I would have given my life to save her.

They weren't successful, I take it.

She had a few moments of consciousness.

She looked terrified.

Bewildered.

I'll never forget that look.

And I'll never forgive myself.

Never forgive yourself, Your Honor.

Or never forgive science.

There's always been a double standard, hasn't there, Brother Gannon? One set of

laws for the privileged and another one for the average, Joe.

Do you honestly believe?

That any ruling made under threat of blackmail, let alone nuclear

could have any validity.

You're making an assumption, Justice.

You're assuming that I've threatened to use force if the decision doesn't go my

way. And you're saying you're not?

I'm not a fool.

I'll grant you my acceptors, my passions, my unorthodox protocol. I did

threat to gain access to this court so that you would hear my testimony.

But the final decision still rests in your hands, untainted by any sort of

intimidation. Now, whatever you decide, I'll accept.

I can't be stupid enough to believe that I can dictate the future.

Isn't that exactly what you're doing?

No, Teresa.

It is exactly what you were trying to do by bringing this poisonous technology

into the present.

Oh, oh, oh.

Excuse me. This is just a little more irony than I can take right now.

Aren't you the one with the bomb?

Actually, no.

There is no bomb.

There never was a bomb.

Now, surely, you won't begrudge me this little bit of insurance.

No, the only bomb here is the incendiary ignorance that permeates this

courtroom, this culture.

Ignorance that would allow you to sink into the mire once again.

Are you telling us that that transmitter you're holding is not capable of

triggering a cold fusion device?

Boo!

You almost seem disappointed, Chief Justice.

If what you're saying is true, then you won't mind surrendering it.

Well, there are 20 bucks worth of perfectly good electronics in here, but

sure that once the court assures itself as to its harmlessness...

I'll be justly compensated.

Put the device down.

You realize the gravity of your actions here today?

I absolutely do, Chief Justice.

I only wish that I could be assured that you did.

What's that?

That's a time travel controller, Your Honor. She's right. It operates the

temporal transporter.

If you're all foolish enough to return to a world where machines reign over

humans, then I will humbly take my leave through that device.

And go where?

Oh, so many destinations.

Ancient Greece, Renaissance Italy, anywhere but the future.

If we let him go now, what's to prevent him from coming back later on, creating

the same havoc?

If he leaves the controller here, there is no way that he can return.

What about the damage he could inflict in the past?

He could affect the world for generations.

Unlike the charade of this appeal, I am not putting this up to a vote.

I say get him the hell out of here.

Not quite yet, Justice Woods.

I haven't completed my presentation.

What does that mean?

It means that I have special knowledge, too.

Knowledge of the future of mankind, of a world far ahead of the one visited by

Dr. Givens.

I want you to be able to make the most informed judgment that you can.

Why should we believe you, Ezekiel? Because to not believe me would spell

absolute and irreversible doom.

Go ahead.

You have five minutes of this court's time.

Thank you, Your Honor.

That's all I need.

If time travel has taught me anything, it is that the future is malleable.

It can be shaped by our choices.

It's really futures, plural.

The number of possibilities is infinite.

We can change our actions today and then visit those consequences 10, 50,

hundreds of years from now.

Not long ago, I went tripping through one of those possibilities into a future

where technology was not outlawed.

Deep into the 24th century, about 100 years after we started to colonize other

worlds, one civilization that we tried to oust from its home planet declared

on us.

It not only defeated the human invaders, but then it came to Earth to finish us

off.

This is impossible.

They have no technology.

It was our false sense of superiority, our sheer willfulness, our arrogance

defeated us.

It is our arrogance that will defeat us.

How does Shakespeare put it?

Screw your courage to the sticking place, and we'll not fail.

I guess I agree with old Will.

Screw your courage.

Teresa, I believe you're familiar with this.

It's set. I just need you to flick the switch.

You can come with me. You do know that.

If they let your conviction stand, you'll face the death penalty.

I know that.

You're so confident that you'll be vindicated.

No.

Not at all.

Outer limits.

Stand by.

Is he really gone?

Yes, he's gone.

In the light of these remarkable developments, I'd like to hear from the

consuls.

Approach, please.

I assume that these proceedings will be declared null and void.

Is that your feeling, too, Miss Whitley?

I don't know. The question is, has the judicial process been compromised?

Well, of course it's been compromised. It's all poison fruit.

How can the justice's fair hearing not be compromised by the presence of a

madman? A madman who'd advocated your position, I'd remind you, Mr. Gannon.

Look, isn't the real question here not whether we can unring the bell?

But whether we can make a fair decision in the wake of all this.

What's the alternative?

Put the nation on hold? Put the whole damn world on hold?

While we start over from scratch?

And then run the risk of the decision being called double jeopardy? I say we

take a deep breath and make our decision.

Mr. Gannon.

I would like to make some final remarks.

before it's decided.

It's quite late.

I'd like some time as well.

I'll allow a brief summary from each side.

And the appellant?

Yes.

She can speak.

To

say

that... Technology is a double -edged sword.

It's beyond dispute.

But to forego all of technology's gifts because we have suffered

the consequences of its misuse may be the greatest miscalculation of

our time.

Your Honors, I believe the time for retreat is over.

We have to stop burying our heads in the sand.

Society must act now out of love rather than fear.

The same kind of caring and compassion that the Chief Justice himself

showed when he looked to science to rekindle the spark of life in his

wife.

It's time to show that same compassion for the future still

unwritten.

You all witnessed Dr.

Gibbons' choice to face judgment rather than plea.

She acted out of that very love for humankind.

And I hope...

That will guide your ultimate decision.

Thank you.

Mr. Gannon, your final thoughts?

The state has responded, Miss Peel, has been accused,

in effect, of killing the messenger.

As fate would have it today, we heard from another messenger, one with a very

different vision of the future.

And while we all deplore the barbaric way in which this man foisted

his testimony upon this august body, ignore only at your peril, at all our

peril, what his appearance here signifies.

A few computer chips, a mingling of rare elements, a bit of electronic

alchemy, and lo and behold, our cities are held hostage to the threat of a

sociopath.

Now, are we really ready to believe that what happened here today won't happen

again? It is we who are insane by definition.

If we continue to conduct the same experiment, see the same results, yet

to heed its lesson.

Gentlemen and Lady Justices, we have already

found a refuge from the plagues that science and technology have

visited upon us.

We have found a haven.

Are we ready to give up that sanctuary and tempt fate?

I pray that we are not.

Dr. Gibbons?

Before you reach your verdict,

Ask yourselves this.

Were human beings put on this earth to witness the wonders of the universe or

to become one of them?

I believe that our innate goodness and strength

are greater than our innate weaknesses and our innate

evil.

Are the fears of science re -emerging as an

uncontrollable monster legitimate ones?

Maybe so.

But I'm naive enough to hope

that we can overcome whatever obstacles that await us, that we

can take control of our destiny.

in ourselves.

The real miracle, the miracles at the outer limits of our

imagination are yet to come.

The outer limits.

Please stand by.

Just so we're clear, can we consider the words of a terrorist who threatened to

blow us to kingdom come?

Every case we hear, we draw upon the body of the law and a lifetime of

experience. I don't think we can exclude from that experience what we went

through today.

So, what does a strict constructionist make of all this?

We pulled the world back from the brink once in this generation. I'm not about

to push it back in.

If I do nothing else in my remaining days on this earth but negate my good

friend Ollie's vote, I will consider it a life well spent.

I will not send that woman to her death.

Much less every child who goes to bed at night praying for a better world.

You're all so full of surprises.

So surprise us.

Tell us you weren't moved by that woman's plea.

Oh, I was moved.

Thick as a stomach. But you cannot erase the lessons of history with one

emotionally charged speech.

When I came on this bench, I made one solemn promise to myself, and that was

always put justice first.

What the hell good is some abstract notion of justice in the face of

you've just seen and heard?

Now, you know better than to cross rhetorical swords with me, Kendall.

You're gonna have to break the tie after all, Hayden.

Yes, I know that.

So, what do you think, old friend?

We have invented and created and sought answers to the mysteries of the universe

since we first emerged from the cave.

Some of those inventions were used to enlighten.

Others were used to destroy a rose, no matter how enticing has its thorns.

How are we to know when the torch we've been handed will be used to light our

way through the darkness or to burn down our homes and cities?

The truth is, we can't know.

Machines themselves have no intrinsic morality.

It's up to society to invest them with a higher purpose.

In the opinion of this justice, the danger of denying our true nature, our

natural curiosity, of denying our thirst for unencumbered freedom is

one we can no longer ignore.

May we always seek the light.

The vote is three to two in favor of the appellant.

Congratulations, Dr. Gibbons. You are a free woman.

I wish that I could be there in person, but I left behind this holographic

message.

Consider it a codicil tower debate.

I'm sure that Teresa's persuasiveness and your own gullibility were such...

then her cause prevailed. Well, unfortunately, that victory will be

-lived. Maybe now the world will heed my warning.

Oh, God, no.

What is it? What's happening?

Do something. Use your machine.

To the future!

Beware of false gods, false promises, but most of all, beware

of me.

If we fail to be vigilant, we may find that the same miracles which define our

greatness as a species will one day spell our doom.