Original subtitles

NARRATOR: In the city of Betaville, in the near future,

the technology we developed confronts us.

The science we created seduces us,

but will our dreams of tomorrow be turned into a nightmare?

Welcome to Paradox.

But be careful what you wish for.

Nothing is impossible anymore.

When winning matters more than anything else,

everybody pays a price.

In Betaville, two scientists, Vincent Cloak and John Hammet,

are locked in a battle for supremacy

to see who can create a more perfect human being.

And Vincent's wife Barbara, will pay the highest price of all.

Hi, Josie.

Beautiful morning, Mrs. Cloak.

Having your Friday lunch with Dr. Cloak?

I wouldn't miss it.

Thanks for taking care of that pension problem for me.

What a load off my mind.

That's my job, Josie.

Just make sure you let me know when it gets finalized, OK?

Yeah.

OK, see you later.

Hello, Cecile.

Your husband asked you to wait in his office, Mrs. Cloak.

He's with Dr. Hammet.

Oh, well, thank you.

Helen.

Barbara, hi.

Hi.

John just wanted to go over this with Vince.

Oh, they're discussing the Omega Project?

I'm sorry, Barbara.

John just wouldn't listen anymore.

The point of our work was to advance the human condition.

It can't go on like this, Vince.

Year after year, I see absolutely no change

in your failure rates.

Something has to give.

The more advanced the species, the fewer the failures.

I've explained this time and time again, John.

A marginal difference on your first injection,

yes, but on your second and third, there's nothing.

How can I explain this to any more simply.

You don't need to explain it to me, Vince.

I understand.

Each time you inject the new specimen with your Omega serum,

you boost its evolution a million years.

No, no, no.

With each shot, the time leap increases.

2 million, 4 million, 6million, 8 million, 10 million.

The slow but continual mutation

of a species' genetic material is not the only factor

in its evolution.

Nature selects those rare examples

of mutations that are successful and kills

off the millions that aren't.

Excuse me?

Are you lecturing to a hall full of students here?

Speed up genetic evolution without natural selection,

as your Omega serum does, and you go racing down

the evolutionary back alleys that nature never

intended in the first place.

The more advanced species have narrowed the number of pathways

available to them.

Now, you deny my request for primates and human subjects,

and then you blame me when I fail to come

up with a more selective serum.

Dead amphibians aren't enough for you, Vince?

You've have to have dead humans as well?

We are talking about creating a new life form here, John.

Don't you see that?

This billion to one shot you speak of with such contempt

make all your tinkering look as obsolete as a steam engine.

The board met last night to discuss

our financial condition.

If you'd come to more meetings, you would have

been able to defend yourself.

God.

Effective immediately, your Omega Project is terminated.

Now, you can either stay here with us

or you can follow it out the door.

Your choice.

Vince, don't do it.

No other company will look at you.

May 23.

I now have joined a company of scientists I have

always regarded with dread.

Those with no one left to experiment on but themselves.

Vince Vince?

Vince, what happened?

I waited almost an hour upstairs,

and finally I called John's office,

and they said that you had been finished ages ago.

Friday.

Lunch.

I'm sorry.

Vince, what's happened?

John killed the Omega Project.

The board belongs to him now, my good friend John.

We'll find another company.

No.

If I can't get approval for human testing here,

I won't get it anywhere.

Right on the brink of refining the serum,

cutting through the randomness that John

was so critical of, but now, now I'll

never have the means to do it.

I will not listen to you give up.

Not after all these years.

Do you hear me?

No, he's right.

I belong to another time, when there was more to science

than nano circuits and software.

And money.

This is his time now.

You cannot let him do this to you.

Oh my God, you're shivering.

Come.

I am taking you home now.

Come.

Maybe you'd be better off looking after yourself

from now on?

Ladies and gentlemen, the people that you see here

are just the most obvious of the examples.

Mark here, young Mark had a genetic disorder.

His body wouldn't manufacture an essential enzyme.

Basic processes were being disrupted at a molecular level.

Mark was dying.

But thanks to our intervention, his life expectancy

is now twice what it would have been

had he been born without the defect in the first place.

Then is extending life expectancy

for the general population a focus of your research?

Not a focus, a biproduct.

We're talking about genetic repair, genetic assistance.

Nano machines and tools repairing DNA chains,

remaining in the body enhancing the bodily functions

that they inform.

And the ramifications for this are endless.

I want nothing less than to equip our species

with the ability to keep pace with our own technological

innovation so that at no time in the future will anyone

need to say we lost control of our destiny.

Dr. Hammett, there are those who are concerned

that the dangers involved in tinkering with genetic material

outweigh the possible benefits.

If the effects of my work are ever

shown to degrade rather than enhance

the quality of human life, I will personally

ask every person in this city to come tear this building down.

Dr. Hammet?

Don't you want something to eat?

No, thank you.

I'm fine, I'm just--

a little anxiety.

I feel like I'm 18 again with no future.

That wasn't true then, and it is not true now.

I had so many plans for the future.

We could set up a little lab in the study?

And experiment on what?

You said that you could adjust the serum

according to human response, why not use it on me?

No, Barbara!

Absolutely not.

Promise me, you'll never mention that again.

Why?

Because you're the one perfect thing that I have left.

And I wouldn't change you or put you at risk for anything.

You understand?

We'll find a way.

We will find a way.

[coughing]

Vince is your friend, John.

He and Barbara have been our friends since before Research

Alpha ever existed.

Why do you think I've persevered

with him for so long?

But I have a board to answer to now with shareholders.

You know, we're not working out of our autoports anymore.

Do you really think his work is so worthless?

You used to think he was a genius.

What changed?

What is that supposed to mean?

His work means as much to him as yours does to you.

If I thought it had any value, do you

think I would have let him go?

I guess I'd better keep my value up.

Helen.

I'm running a business here, not a charity,

a business that happens to do a lot of people a lot of good.

I'm going home.

I'm sure you still have a lot of work to do.

Helen.

It's not about working late.

You used to know that.

You know, if you stayed, you could still be part of this.

If you stop, you could still be a part of us.

Don't wait up.

I'll be late.

John?

John.

Barbara?

What are you doing here so late?

I forgot to do something.

I do the same thing.

Drive myself crazy.

Is Vince all right?

What do you expect?

Where's he supposed to go from here, huh?

I'm sorry.

What's wrong? Are you all right?

I'm fine. I'm fine.

Are you sure?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was just dizzy for a second.

It's been a rough day for everybody.

I guess I just better go home.

Helen, I know it's not you, but you're married to John,

and you, out of everyone, must know how much he's changed.

John believes his work is too important to be

held back by personal concerns.

I can't leave him in trouble any more than you would Vince.

Of course not.

I know.

[coughing]

I've done it, Vince.

I've done it for you.

Vince.

Vince, wake up.

Leave me alone.

I'm sleeping.

Vince, call me.

We have to talk, OK?

Second shot.

There's no going back.

Have to go forward.

Barbara?

Is there something I can help you with?

Good morning, John.

Anything wrong?

No.

Vince asked me to bring home some lab notes,

if that's all right with you?

Vince isn't coming in today?

I thought he would be anxious to collect his things.

No, he doesn't feel very well.

I heard you were a little under the weather

yourself yesterday.

Are you all right now?

Helen told you?

Of course, she did.

She's concerned about you.

It was nothing.

Well, don't let me get in the way of finding

whatever you came for.

What did you come here to check up on?

I came to get a rough idea of how much there was to move.

And to let Vince know to collect whatever he wants by Friday.

I'll do that.

They're up to something.

I'm going to find out what.

Who is?

What are you talking about?

The Cloaks, of course.

I found Barbara in Vince's lab.

They're married, remember?

Perhaps if you'd told me last night that she was here,

I'd already know what she was doing down there.

Do you have monitors in every office now.

I've installed a new security system, active intervention.

Corporate espionage is not going to happen to Research Alpha.

Yesterday, you couldn't stop talking about how completely

worthless Vince's research is.

Those are the Omega files.

What could she want with those?

Unless--

What do you think you're doing?

New security systems or some sickness?

Stop it.

I have to find out.

I must learn Vince's secret.

Barbara, can you hear me?

Yes.

Why did you come here today?

Vince asked me to pick up some files

so he could go over the data.

Files?

Concerning what?

He didn't say.

What about yesterday?

Why did you come to the research office so late?

I'd forgotten to review a medical claim for a woman's

daughter down in maintenance.

Had to be taken care of by this morning,

or the treatment would have been denied her.

Has Vince succeeded with his Omega serum?

Is he hiding his success From me?

Planning To sell it to another firm

and cheating Research Alpha?

No.

Vince hasn't succeeded in his research,

but he wants to prove to people that he can succeed.

In a minute, you'll wake up, think you've

had another fainting spell.

Impossible.

She wasn't hypnotized.

Then she won't wake up and think she

just fainted either, will she?

Look at her brainwaves.

Waking state.

She must have resisted the trance.

That's something that no human brain can do.

No ordinary human brain.

Maybe you made a mistake?

Or is that something you can't even imagine anymore?

JOHN: Vince is using her.

HELEN: He's not kind that kind of man.

JOHN: No.

He's the kind of man that inspired loyalty in his woman.

Helen, if you could just bewith me, like you used to,

we could do all this together.

Do you realize that Vince has succeeded?

Or that Barbara is that one success in a billion.

Despite all of his blundering that what we have on our hands

is a gene map of a human being from a million years

in the future, a new human life form.

What doors wouldn't open for us?

I hope for your sake it isn't so.

Is it so wrong to want to know?

That what makes us human.

What are you going to do about Barbara?

Watch her.

Make her think we don't suspect anything until we know more.

Vince?

Vince, are you OK?

Where have you been?

John tried to knock me out.

He tried to hypnotize me.

What's wrong with your voice?

What have you done? - Don't touch me.

Oh my God.

I had to know.

I couldn't just through it all away without knowing.

I already did it last night.

I can hear things, Vince, right through walls.

I think I can hear people's thoughts.

My body, my walk.

Why did you wait for me?

Look at you.

You're-- you're the one in a billion.

The impossible chance.

A second shot can get you past this.

We can make adjustments.

You.

I never thought of you being more perfect.

Now, who knows what you can become.

No.

We have to deal with what is happening to you, Vince.

Forget about me.

No.

I can help.

My mind, it grasps things.

I can--

Barbara!

I already took the second shot.

And it's not finished with me yet.

Look at me.

Do you think I can turn this back?

You have to go--

you have to go to the lab, and get the rest of the serum

before John does.

As soon as he finds out about you, for certain

he's going to do anything in his power to control you.

What for? What for?

For your genes.

Your DNA.

So he can synthesize it for himself.

There has to besomething that we can do.

I can't adjust anything.

I can't control the direction this serum will take you.

You're all that's left.

There's nothing else.

Who knows what you can become?

You can prove my life wasn't for nothing.

Is that what you think?

That it was for nothing?

No, stop.

Stop before it goes any further.

One more shot.

Another 10 million years, maybe you can change the serum.

Save me.

Maybe.

Security?

Breach in corridor seven.

Lock it down.

Barbara, give me that.

Barbara, we can this, but if you take more,

who knows what you'll become?

Did you see her speed?

John, stop now while there's something left in you

I still know.

Get out of my way.

Find her.

I've got to have this.

I won't be here when you get back.

Where is she, Vince?

Your secret is out.

Where is your wife?

John?

There he is.

He's dead.

Let's get him out.

Maybe I can still use his biologicals.

Vince.

Take him to the lab.

Not a progressive gene in the mix, Vince.

You're hopeless to yourself and you're useless to me.

Guess you weren't hiding any kind of great breakthrough

for me after all.

Jarilla?

Yes, Tom, it's me.

It's been so long.

Well, you've got to come home and see Mom.

She's missed you so.

She hasn't been the same since you--

Sh.

There's something I have to do, and you have to help me.

What is it?

Let me inside.

What?

Here?

I don't understand.

There's no time to explain.Please, Tom.

I'll be right out.

All right.

The stairwell door two.

I asked Helen to let me enhance her at the same time

I was working on myself.

She refused.

Did you know I've reprogrammed just about every one

of my genes sitting right here in this chair?

There's nothing my brain can't handle.

Was that such a terrible thing to want for her?

So Helen's left me.

And Barbara, well, you two don't seem

terribly compatible either.

Barbara and I, on the other--

did you push her or did she volunteer?

I thought you weren't coming back?

I can't give up on you.

I know the man I love is still in you somewhere.

You just stop all this while you still can.

And what?

Abandon all the things I've done for people?

All the things I will do?

There has to be a limit or you go

past being able to understand that you've gone too far.

If you'd have continued to work with me like I'd asked,

if you had changed with me like I begged,

you'd know we hadn't gone nearly far enough.

And with Barbara, we could be gods.

Who could?

Humanity or you?

Dr. Hammett?

Dr. Hammett, this is Coach.She's here.

She's in the building.

Impressive.

You can alter your appearance.

I've reconfigured the Omega serum.

Maybe it will help him. - No.

Maybe it'll--

If I let you do that, you'd have

no reason to cooperate with me.

Look at him.

He's lost almost all ties with humanity, just like us.

I won't let this slip away.

Get in the chair, or I put him out of his misery.

What do you think you'll become?

More than I am, or could be without you.

That sounds like a declaration of love.

I can't let you do that, Barbara.

Get your hands away from that switch.

I only want to help Vince.

No.

Get up.

There is no John Hammet anymore, Barbara.

This is just a machine interested in nothing

but acquiring greater and greater power.

What would you become with her synthesized genes in you?

That is what I intend to find out.

Vince.

Barbara?

What are you doing?

I can't go back.

Barbara, please, we're still here.

I want nothing more to do with anything.

Anything human?

Two men, two different approaches

to perfecting the human race.

One through accelerated evolution, the other

through bioengineering.

The results, failure, death, four lives destroyed.

Arrogance is frightening, but technological arrogance

can be deadly.

Welcome to Paradox.