Original subtitles

Oh.

Ah, there you are.

Finally we reach you, oh high holy one.

I knew I could finally find a way to communicate with the ultimate being.

Now I have.

So nice to finally meet you.

As you no doubt are aware, my people have conquered and made sterile nearly

all the worlds in our galaxy.

Now they reach beyond.

Now the student displaces the master.

Next.

Does this dream entity have a name?

The words that he speaks are unintelligible, but somehow I understand

them.

He's the general.

Like a military general, or as in concerning most people?

Military, I think.

I sent my receptionist home early so that you would feel free to speak

openly. Only you and I are here now.

I know these dreams are disturbing, Cassie.

And they are a key to something deeper.

But always remember, they are just dreams.

Aren't they?

What else could they be?

I'm not even sure I'm asleep when they come on.

The fact that you are hazy about it suggests that they are dreams.

You are, after all, a person who has made a living with her vivid

imagination.

I know the difference between my inventions and reality.

Your stories cover the gamut of science fiction tropes, from classic

reinventions to hard science fiction.

are so successful as a science fiction writer, is it not?

Some sympathetic critics have said so.

Yes.

And I agree with them.

I have been giving this a lot of thought.

I have read a number of your stories in preparation for our session.

Another fan is not what I need.

Perhaps.

But consider your early story.

Frankenstein's Confession.

What about it?

You tell me.

Really?

Is that the best you can do?

Well, why begin your career on the back of another storyteller?

Because Frankenstein is the story that influenced me the most.

In my opinion, it's the first science fiction story.

And let's not forget it was written by a woman.

We invented the genre.

Isn't it right that I pay homage to it?

Perhaps. But in consideration of your recent diagnosis, your feelings may

naturally be morbid ones.

Fear of your body rejecting itself.

But could this not be the very human search for

a deeper truth beyond the purely medical?

Oh, good day, my son.

I thought I was alone.

It is no matter.

You need not be afraid.

All are welcome here.

Frankenstein! Call me not by that name.

How should I address you?

The whole countryside knows me by that cursed name.

That is the name of he who gave me life.

It is not mine.

I was not even blessed with a name.

I mean thee no harm.

This is a sacred place.

You must go.

All are welcome here. Those were thy words.

Cry out, and I will break my promise of not harming thee.

Why have you come here?

Thou must hear my confession.

If thou cryest out before I am finished, I will crush thee.

Sit.

I have not long to live.

In spite of my cursed countenance, I am as mortal as thee.

Before I die, I wish to confess and to receive the right

of baptism and absolution.

I must die with a name.

Thou must give me one.

What is your confession, my son?

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.

Is that not the customary preamble?

What is your confession?

Yesterday I killed my creator.

Your creator?

Aye.

Frankenstein. The one who made me.

I ask him once more.

Why hast thou made me?

He answered with a bullet.

The sight

of his crushed form brought not the satisfaction nor the closure

I sought.

I must know how great was my sin.

Was he my god or my father?

And which is the darker sin?

He was neither god nor father. He was my creator.

He gave me breath.

And then left me naked with no instruction, no direction,

and no glove.

He was a blasphemer who harnessed the power of the devil.

For his rejection, I swore to destroy him and all that he loved.

And so I did.

From mother to brother to bride.

all put to death by these hands.

These are mortal sins.

I could not serve my creator.

He would not have me.

Hence, my solitary, loveless existence has been devoted to his destruction.

Now I have done.

I am rudderless.

Yes. How can I possibly give you absolution?

You must.

It would be an abomination before the true creator.

You were not born of woman.

How then, in a moral universe, am I still breathing and not made

to pay for such blasphemous deeds?

Your creator sought to bypass the laws of God, and for that he has been

punished by the weapon of his own making, yourself.

You, you have been an instrument of the Lord.

He has a plan for me then.

How shall I serve him then?

Why hath he not whispered to me of his presence?

No, no, you do not understand.

Your existence is a mockery to the true resurrection.

You, you can only be the pawn of Satan.

An instrument of God.

And yet, a pawn of Satan.

Both.

How can this be?

God shuns you, monster, and therefore so must I.

You will find no salvation here.

You must go.

Name me, man of God.

I cannot.

He who says to the wicked, thou art righteous, peoples will curse him,

nations shall abhor him.

Name me!

Very well.

Thou shalt be Frankenstein.

Now and always, prideful monster, for thou art the creation of a heretic.

Like him, you remain abhorrent to the Lord.

Thy God shuns me too?

How then is he any different from my creator?

I ask for none of this!

I fear thee not.

I trust my creator.

Now... I spit on thine.

He cowers before me, like thou is his quivering

servant.

Blasphemy! Be baptized!

and servants.

All turn their backs on me. Why am I not made of the same mortal dust

as thee?

You are not the same.

Abomination! Then I damn thee, priest.

Thy creator lacks the grace of love, as did mine.

And so I curse him and his house.

Please, help me, my lord and savior, please.

Mercy!

Thou art christened Dust, for so are we all.

Is it not possible that this obsession, in the wake of such bodily trauma,

might simply be yourself gazing into infinity and wondering what your

place in it might be.

My cancer is not curable.

I have accepted that. This is not a crisis of faith, Doctor.

Are you sure?

I've never had that kind of faith to begin with.

Really?

You doubt me?

It's a theme that keeps recurring in your work.

It's ironic. It's a metaphor for my lack of religious conviction.

Isn't that obvious?

Well... I know what you're getting at, but I have a solid, concrete reason to

refuse treatment.

Tell me then. What is it?

Look, I only came here because my agent begged me. She made the appointment for

me.

She has been the driving force behind my career.

And I couldn't refuse her.

But my mind is made up.

I know what I'm doing.

Enlighten me.

I don't want to dredge it all up before a stranger who won't believe me anyway.

What about your story, Amityville Woods 1928, the one about the hillbilly lady?

That's an obscure one.

You really have done your homework.

Okay, what does that one say about me?

Genius?

As you may recall...

Dang, Ma, put the gun down. It's me.

Y'all okay here?

Everything good?

No, Ma, I didn't come for supper. I just came to tell you something.

Old slaughterhouse Otis done escaped.

Killed the sheriff and everything.

Take it to hell, Ma.

Why don't you just come stay with me and Zelda in the village until they capture

him I'll kill him this time Yeah, yeah, of course not well I just came

to warn you so now you can worry All right, I'm gone sorry I gave

a damn

Howdy, ma'am.

Name's Otis.

Just stopped in for a little snack.

And it's off you go.

Prayers time, Granny!

He just stopped by for a little snack.

Black.

Sticking to your guns, following your gut.

These are prime values to you.

They run through much of your work.

If you don't follow, what your gut mandates, you will rue the day.

Right?

Isn't that the point of the story?

Partially.

But what if your gut is interpreting the signs incorrectly?

Or more likely, what if there really are no signs at all?

Why are you refusing to fight this thing?

You could likely beat it with some vigorous chemo and radiation.

You could have so many more years ahead of you, so many more stories to write.

Now you remind me of one of my stories.

Did you ever read The Cosmological Constant?

I haven't gotten around to that one yet.

It's a gentler story, which is probably why it's one of my less well-known ones.

It's about the dichotomy between science and religion.

It's about a priest and his crisis of faith.

You got no job, I told her. No place of your own.

How are you going to raise a child?

Move in with me, I says. We can raise the baby together.

But that's not what happened.

No.

She ain't pregnant no more.

She's not.

I didn't even find out until I got the bill.

I ain't spoken to her since.

It is not always wrong to give up on something.

Or someone.

Well, yeah, but... What she did is a sin.

An abomination to God. The Church is adamant about that.

Yeah.

It's not your forgiveness she needs, Edna.

It's God's.

Thank you for your time.

Not at all.

Feel free to come to me any time.

Finally.

Kevin, I... Hello, Vincent.

Mary.

In the flesh.

You look surprised.

Shouldn't I be?

I never thought I'd... Come in. Come in, please.

I took the liberty of paying for your pizza.

Oh, don't worry. I haven't got a big tip.

The hold-up artist.

He should have been here 20 minutes ago.

Thank you.

Please, sit.

Pizza? No, thank you, but don't let me stop you.

I, um...

I'm sorry to hear about Kenan.

Thank you.

So was I.

So, what is the, um... They give him about three months.

And then his lungs will give out completely, and that...

Well, that will be that.

I don't know what to say.

I was going to leave him last year.

Mary.

I was getting my ducks all in a row.

I was damned if I was going to spend the rest of my days propping up his

ego.

But then his diagnosis came.

And...

I couldn't do that to him.

He's obsessed with you.

He ordered your book.

He reads your blog.

He thinks I don't know.

He misses you.

He doesn't want to see me, Mary. He made that clear. He does.

He just doesn't want to admit it.

and i think maybe you could just use some healing as well

vincent you two have to

forgive each other isn't that what you guys do here

Kenan, are you awake?

I am now.

There's someone here to see you.

Hello, Kenan.

I apologize.

I'm sorry for calling you out in public and rejecting all your ideas.

It was wrong of me.

You were so brilliant.

Yes. Your hand was all over that paper.

You should have been a part of it. It was a terrible time for me. You know

that. I thought you were a scientist.

Father had just died.

I hadn't seen him in over two years because of my work with you.

My dad loved the church. He gave that to me.

I felt like... Maybe I owed it more.

you were dropping out of the university abandoning all our hard work on black

holes just when we were ready to publish to join the seminary that was not an

easy decision to make you knew that yes yes here it is his notoriety aside i

regret to work with dr page and i hold no stock in the validity of his findings

in his work these so-called open-minded scientists

want to lock you up in a dungeon and throw away the key if you but whisper

the word god

why is that

such a sacrilege god is at least one possibility newton believed in him so

did eddington einstein invoked him all the time faith and science are

both Paths in quest for the truth.

Faith is accepting something as true without evidence.

It's the complete antithesis of science. They are entirely incompatible.

Mary, would you mind stepping out of the room?

Just for a bit.

Please. Hey, what is this?

Hey, don't leave me alone with this guy, Mary.

I have a confession to make.

Well, there's a switcheroo.

Confess that you may have been right.

I am not sure I did choose the right path.

Huh?

Long ago, I believed all the things you taught me about.

Quantum physics, cosmology, the Big Bang, the expanding universe, were all

the tools and methods of God's creation.

And now?

Galileo proved the Earth orbited the Sun, then publicly recanted to avoid the

Inquisition. Now the Church says he discovered God's truth.

Right. Then Darwin challenged creation, evolution.

The Church reviled.

It still does.

So can I jump through yet another hoop to hang on to old ideas and traditions?

At some point, you have to question the doubts, Kenan.

They are crowding me. They have been for years.

I had no idea.

Did I make the wrong choice?

I don't know what to think anymore.

Oh, now.

Don't kick yourself too hard.

those beliefs run through the spine of western civilization how can such a

thing be easily shaken remember einstein's cosmological constant

refresh me come now einstein's general theory

of relativity indicated that the universe was not static that it was

indeed expanding but einstein couldn't bring himself to believe such an

inelegant finding so He devised a formula to compensate for it, the

Cosmological Constant, which put everything back into a sane and static

universe.

Years later, he called it his greatest blunder. Yes, but the Cosmological

Constant was revived in the 90s to help explain the acceleration of the

expanding universe.

Oh, so you have kept up.

I have a blog to write.

Well, the thing is...

He was riddled with doubts.

All along, he's questioned his own findings.

Even he.

Even you?

I'm a scientist because I don't know everything.

Not because I do.

There must be a god.

You just proved it.

How's that?

You admitted you could be wrong.

Well... In the darkest parts of the night, I wrestle.

I fear.

What do you fear?

Sometimes it just feels so hollow.

What was here before the Big Bang?

What exists outside of our universe?

So much confusion.

Clueless.

Clueless.

Are you all right?

Kenan. I'm fine. I'm fine.

You must have been listening at the keyhole.

Descending upon the first sound of trouble.

No. I just saw a report about the Odysseus probe on Enceladus. I was

coming to tell you about it. What happened? What did he say?

Here, let me show you. Quick, Vince.

Here it is. Here.

I'll read it.

The unmanned Odysseus spacecraft has sent scientific data from Enceladus,

Saturn's sixth largest moon.

Analysis of the content of a sample of water extracted from the subsurface

ocean NASA scientists Have confirmed the finding of several

dozen different types of microbial organisms While these microscopic

creatures still need to be studied and classified It is proof that we are

indeed not alone and

Their pictures...

Well,

I find it personally comforting to know, finally... I mean...

Where's the comfort in being alone?

Who wants to be alone?

Help me.

Not me.

Me neither.

For a quarter of a year now, for the time it has taken our Earth to travel

586 million miles on its course around the sun, we have known with certainty

that life was not made merely for our earthly shores.

Indeed, it is sprinkled among the stars.

Now many were shaken by this monumental news. It rocked their faith and

challenged their beliefs.

But science tells us that these extraterrestrial life forms are much

like others found on our planet.

Nothing about them is chemically or physically unique to that cold and

remote satellite.

There are no monsters here.

They have been brought into the light, and we see they were made by God.

Out of the same stuff as we are shaped, welcome them into your hearts with all

other living creatures, for they are also God's children.

Mary?

Mary, what's wrong?

I need to come in.

Now. I'm on my way.

Hi.

I rushed over as quickly as I could.

He's close now.

He said he needed to see you before he could go.

Oh, Vincent.

Go, stand by him.

Speak gently in his ear.

He'll hear you.

Hello, Keenan.

Hello, my boy.

Hi, Professor.

I need you to do one last thing for

me.

Anything, my friend.

I think it might be nice if you would

recite last rites

for me.

No, no, my love. No, no.

It'll be okay.

I'm not prepared.

I didn't bring any scriptures. I don't... Please.

Just the words.

The best you can remember.

It's... It's best that way.

Are you sure?

My doubts.

I'm not sure it would mean anything coming from me. You are the only

one it would mean anything from.

Through this holy unction, may the Lord pardon thee

for any sins or faults thou hast committed.

I don't have oil for the anointing of the sick, but I will recite the

catechism.

By the sacred anointing of the sick and the prayers of the priests,

the whole church commends those who are ill to the suffering

and glorified lord that he may raise them and save

them

Come in.

Father Marshall.

Edna. Come in. Come in. I hope you're well.

I am. Thank you.

I gave a eulogy today for a very great man.

Somebody who meant a great deal to me.

I'm so very sorry.

Don't be.

It's good.

Really.

I told you last time we spoke that your daughter committed an absolute sin. Do

you remember that?

Well, I have now come to believe that nothing is ever entirely absolute.

Do you understand?

I'm not sure.

For 200 years, we believed Newton's laws were the final word on motion.

Then came Einstein and proved they are meaningless to the fundamental particles

of creation.

Rules are inventions of man.

Not absolutes.

And the church urges compassion above all.

So I should reconnect with my daughter.

I think you should do what is right for you.

But remember, there's a terrible cost in severing ties.

Cutting them can leave you adrift in an uncaring void, lost and unconnected.

This. is what really matters.

These connections we share with each other, nurture them always, for they are

the true cosmological constant.

Learning to face with dignity what we cannot change, that is one of life's

truest lessons.

Why do you cling to impending finality when there may be a way to stave it off?

It's inevitable for all of us. Why pretend otherwise?

Yes, but most of us want to hang on to life for as long as we can.

Especially since none of us can know for certain if there's anything more.

I have my reasons.

Enlighten me.

Very well.

This man in my so-called dreams.

Yes?

I believe, in fact, he is the warlord of a conquering world. A world that has

laid most of his universe to ruin.

His universe?

Not the one we are in?

No.

Is this a parallel universe?

Another dimension?

These are common themes in science fiction, as you know.

Yes. And many top physicists believe it to be a probable reality.

Uh-huh.

And where is this alternate dimension located, in your view?

Inside of me.

Inside you?

Yes.

Time is different for them.

For them, millions of years have come and gone. The only goal of this race is

to crush all the other worlds and living beings within their universe.

Now, does that sound probable to you?

They've nearly done so already.

Now they have their sights set on what is beyond their known universe.

Me.

So you are saying that this universe is actually... My cancer.

Yes.

Somehow this monstrous genius has found a way to see beyond the edge of their

reality.

Do you hear yourself?

Quite clearly.

Don't you see that if this warlord came to destroy you, it would also be

destroying itself?

Why would it do that?

Such is the extent of their hatred and hubris.

Even knowing it will end them too, they must see their mission of destruction.

To destroy their own god would be their ultimate victory.

One worth dying for.

This...

is a grim and nihilistic delusion.

Think what you like.

There is a marked increase of pessimism in your work of late. You do realize

that.

You are not the first critic to point that out.

What about your most recent story, The Color of Outer Space?

Such a cynical and nihilistic view.

Can this not be the expression of your growing depression?

Not depression.

It is a story directly expressing this growing realization.

Really, a trained clinician such as yourself should be able to read between

the lines.

The Discovery Six is approaching the end of the most ambitious journey.

ever undertaken to reach the edge of our known universe.

George Cardillia and myself were kept in stasis while centuries have passed on

Earth. We were revived one year ago in order to record our approach.

What question is that? What color is outer space?

You got a better topic?

I mean, look out there.

What colors do you see?

Absence of color.

Empty black nothingness.

It's not, though.

I mean, look.

I mean, look.

There's blues in there and reds.

Every color.

It's not just one thing.

Have it your way, Marco.

But no color in there for me.

What the fuck is that?

Some kind of energy anomaly.

Scanners won't read it.

What colors you see now?

All of them.

None of them.

I'm not quite sure what the fuck I see.

There must be a whole bridge.

Life supports are fading fast.

We're going to have to get in our suits and go search for Pronto.

I can't see.

I'll get in suits.

You seeing any better?

Yeah, kind of.

Okay. You get your seat on.

Fast.

Ship's oxygen won't last much longer.

I'm gonna go get the pressure sealer.

Go find that breach.

Hopefully in time.

I don't even know why I decontaminated.

It's too late now.

The plug didn't hold and life supports are depleted.

My air will only last a few more hours.

Nothing to do now but to see what's at the end of the universe.

Fuck it.

You see the universe as flying apart into chaos.

But your life doesn't have to be.

You can have a purpose and find a meaning.

I'm now certain that nothing is truly permanent, except maybe nothingness

itself.

What meaning can there be?

All right.

I am going to level with you, Cassie.

Your visions can only be delusions.

If you say so, Doctor.

And I think I can prove it to you if you are willing to submit to hypnosis.

Are you kidding me?

Not even a little bit.

You're now in a deep sleep, the deepest you can ever recall having.

Now the next time you hear me say the words, chaos no more, I want you to

wake up.

Is that clear?

Yes.

Good.

You may open your eyes now and speak with me.

How do you feel, Cassie?

Cassie. Tell me how you are feeling right now.

Fascinating.

This is the language that the general speaks

Sit

back down Cassie and speak to me in English only and open your eyes, please

Do you see now why it has to be this way?

If I undergo treatment, I will be killing all of those innocents who still

live in that universe.

If I do that, how am I any better than the General?

I think it's better to let the universe have its way.

Now remember, I didn't want to do this.

Send me your doctor bill.

Woo!

Woo!

oh