Tara? Tara!
Help! Help!
Science experiments
- Wow, thanks, Uncle Jacob! - That's okay.
- You've had this since we were kids. - Remember that?
You practically slept with it.
Yo, birthday boy. Come here.
I got something for you.
What could that be?
- Wow, thanks. - Do you want to go play?
- Yeah. - Okay. Come on.
What?
So, Jake, speaking of chemistry.
You and the lovely Rachel?
Strictly professional.
Well, of course she is.
Look, all I'm saying is that if she
is dragging you around by those shiny big handcuffs,
well, at least then, I would understand why you took the job.
You know, some people might think that
special science advisor to the FBI is a kind of cool job.
I'm a big brother.
You're cool no matter who you work for, even if it is the man.
What you doing, Uncle Jacob?
I was wondering. What do you think happens
if I put this into that?
- Shall we see? - No.
Oh, go on.
Wow, awesome! How'd that happen?
Well, I'm not really sure, but I think you might find the answer...
on page 29.
Sorry, guys, but we've got to go.
No. Why?
A Tulsa State College student just died of the bends.
- The bends? - Second this month.
In Oklahoma?
Thought only scuba divers got the bends.
That's right, And Oklahoma's 500 miles from the nearest ocean,.
so I guess they weren't scuba diving
It gets better.
One of the victims couldn't even swim.
Corrections were made by Isocrate[SubScene]
Here's our latest victim: Tara Binghamam.
She died a few hours after getting off this plane.
You see this, Rachel?
It's nitrogen in her heart, lungs, liver and brain.
It's caused by rapid decompression. It's, uh...
It's basically... It's bubbles.
It's like this, uh, ginger ale.
You think this is a fizzy drink, right?
Right now, there's no bubbles in it. Why?
'Cause the top is keeping the ginger ale under pressure.
The gas is dissolved in the liquid.
All you need is a sudden drop in pressure.
And you get the bends.
Nice work.
Sorry I made a bit of a mess there.
Excuse me? Were you the attendant on this flight?
Yes.
Can you tell me did anyone complain about pressure on their
- ears or head? - No.
There's something she's not telling us.
O2, go!
Emergency seat system is working
See, if there had been rapid decompression,
that would have happened...
but it didn't.
So I don't think the plane's our suspect.
Okay, back to square one.
So we'll have to start with Tara Bingham, our victim from this plane.
She has a sister who also goes to Tulsa State College.
Maybe we can get some details from her.
Told you. Is there something you want to tell us?
Right before her seizure, she was in the galley with a guy.
- They were... - Making a sandwich? What?
Joining the Mile High Club.
Who was the guy?
In the gospel group. 21C.
Wade Earlham.
- Thank you. - Thank you.
Mile High Club. Do they really use that expression?
Don't knock it till you tried it Rachel.
But it's actually six miles, not one.
Way to go, Hood. I'm impressed.
Special Agent Young, Dr. Hood
I'm Blake Miller, Tulsa State College's Head of Security.
And a former FBI agent
I've read your file
Why the change of career?
Uh, less stress, more stability
Besides, I-I used to play football here
I found out that the first victim, Tom Cassidy,
stayed on campus during the break and moved into a new apartment
That's about it
He didn't go anywhere or do anything that would cause a pressure change
We'd like to talk to Tara Bingham's sister, Vivian, and to Wade Earlham
Yeah, they're probably over at Tara's memorial
appreciate you taking the time right here
this is vivian bell
- Hello - Hi
This is Dr Hood
I'm Special Agent Rachel Young
Very sorry about what happened to your sister
Looks like a lot of people loved her
Loving Tara wasn't difficult
She was always fun, you know?
A happy person
We wanna know what happened to Tara
We're trying to piece together the days before she died
We know she was at the choir competition in Reno with her boyfriend,
Wade Earlham
Actually, we were hoping he might be here
No Um, Wade hasn't left his dorm room since Tara
Thank you
We spent the whole time in Reno just studying
She had her psych paper, and I prepped for my calculus final
But we even pulled two all-nighters
Dragged our tired butts to the rehearsals and e concert
I'm Phi Beta Kappa
And she was
Um, she was on track to be in next year for sure
Well, you definitely get a 40 in lying
I I-I don't know what you're talking about
Zolpidem Prescription's in your name You filled it last week
There should be 30 pills I count ten
And people abusing sleeping pills are usually trying to come down
'cause they're wired on some other drug
Look, Tara and I were in love I mean
But doing drugs, having sex on airplanes
That doesn't really go with the whole Phi Beta Kappa, choir thing
You know about that?
Now, Wade,
we need to find out what happened to Tara before it happens to someone else
If you cared about her like you said you did, then you'd help us
Oh, sorry
Bought 'em in Reno
The guy said that they're brand-new, just synthesized
And he told me that they made sex incredible
Yeah, but probably not worth dying for
I don't recognize this symbol
He called it Pearl
Do you think that those pills killed Tara?
Well, if they did and that's still an "if" then
you'll be in danger, too
Need to get you under medical supervision
Can we get him to the college clinic, please?
sure wade go with me
We need to get to the morgue immediately
Why?
Well, I don't think bubbles hang around long in corpses
Bubbles in bodies are always nitrogen
What you're proposing is medically impossible
Not impossible Unprecedented
Now, Wade said that Pearl made sex incredible
And you think it made an excess of nitric oxide in the blood?
And nitric oxide is
Uh, it's the bodys natural chemical signal,
and, uh, opens up the arteries and floods the tissues with blood
I'll be damned
The bubbles in Tara Bingham are nitric oxide
Looks like whoever made this drug over did it.
Producing so much nitric oxide, it overwhelmed Tara's blood
Making bubbles, which became the bends
Just like the ginger ale, but without the pressure change
Exactly
Well, we have a new recreational drug, and it's a killer
Let's find out what it's made of
You play like a six-year-old
If I dedicated one tenth as much time to this game as you do,
I'd kick your sorry ass
You know what? I'm going out for a run
if I dedicated one tenth the amount of time that you spend working out,
then I'd whoop your sorry ass
Then tag along Man, for real
when was the last time you broke a sweat since you grew hair on your little chest
Hey, well, look, I prefer brain sweat
All right, that's it
You're coming with me,or this Xbox goes to charity
Hey, it's just two miles, if you can handle it
- Can you handle it? - Yeah, I can handle it
- Can you handle it? - I can handle it!
All righ you know, screw that Let's do ten miles
Nah, man, we got team film to watch tonight
Texas runs this spread offense
It's super-hard to read, so I got to study up on it
Not worried about that
But I do smell, Smell that?
Smells like cotton candy or something
- It's the The Cotton Bowl, baby! - The Cotton Bowl, baby!
First time in Tulsa history
- Yeah, baby! - Are you ready for it? - I'm ready
Right on, man You're doing great
I got to get back, though
No, no One more lap
Whoever loses does laundry for a month
Isaac Come on, man You all right?
Isaac Hey, what's wrong?
Help!
Isaac Stay with me Come on, come on
Help! Help!
- Heart rate is steady - Get him strapped down - Pulse oxi at 99
Come on Let's get him stable
- Easy, easy - seizure is orizmic too. Stay with us Isaac.
Push Two more migs of Lorazepam
pushing but he's unresponsive with 4 and 4 already
It's not Tonic-clonic it's AEG, let these take the bends
Get him into a pressure chamber!
What are you doing here?
FBI We were notified you have a patient with bends-like seizures
Get him into a pressure chamber
Hopefully, we'll shrink the bubbles and we can stop his seizures
- This is a land-locked state, we don't have a pressure chamber - stay with us Isaac
This is Special Agent Rachel Young
I need to find a decompression chamber ASAP
No, Florida is too far Look into Texas: Galveston, Port Arthur
Get it here now
Rachel it's working
the chamber pressure is set to 100 meters under water Dr Hood
Pressure stopped the seizures
Well, I wish it were that simple
We've ruled out pressure change as a cause, this is just a temporary solution
If Isaac's body keeps on making bubbles,
we're gonna have to keep on lowering the pressure
There's only so low we can go before the pressure kills him
So, how do we stop Pearl from churning out nitric oxide?
We don't, Pearl isn't our problem
Just got the chem analysis back
crystalline solid disaccharide?
It's table sugar
Pearl is a total fake
- Common narcotics scam - Really?
Dealer seeks out a naive mark like Wade,
takes his money leaves him with a dud
Well, the clinic's releasing him
- At least he's out of danger - Yeah
That leaves us at zero
The victims have to have something more in common
Studying, Xbox, sleeping and more Xbox
Isaac's sort of been in that routine since our folks died
What happened?
Drunk driver
He walked away without a scratch
Dr Hood
Isaac is all I've got, so I need you to be straight with me
What's gonna happen to him?
Well, Isaac's suffering from something we've never seen before,
so I honestly can't tell you,
but we are doing everything we can to find out what it is
Other than the run you took, had he changed his routine in any way?
No
Let's go
Go ahead, Lawrence Right there
He can hear you Just talk
Hey, bro
Shouldn't you be at practice?
Come on, with you in there like that?
What kind of brother you think I am?
Isaac
It's not your fault, bro
Or maybe it is
Maybe you owe me front row seats at the Cotton Bowl
Lawrence, go play
Mom and Dad would have wanted you to
Yeah
Take care of him
We'll do everything we can
So, Lawrence Richmond is a big football star
So it would seem
You play any sports in college?
throwing the occasional Frisbee count as a sport?
It's kind of a sport, I guess
Yeah, well, my dad didn't think so
He was a high school football coach, so, naturally,
he wanted a jock and wound up with me
Well, we have that in common
Really, how so?
My dad wanted a son to follow in his legendary FBI agent footsteps,
and instead, he got me
So, anything you need, we'll have it brought in
Oh, and the, uh, Coast Guard guys hooked us up with this
- Thanks, Agent Miller - Blake
Right, Blake
Hood? What are you thinking?
I was thinking, uh, there's another connection here
Tara collapsed after sex
Isaac Richmond after jogging
And Tom Cassidy collapsed moving heavy furniture into an apartment
That's it physical exertion?
But that doesn't cause nitric oxide bubbles, does it?
No, but maybe the physical exertion triggered what did cause the bubbles
I thought exercise was supposed to be good for you
Yeah, but exercise can sometimes worsen a viral infection
- Do you mind if I, uh - Yeah, right here
Thank you
Um, Isaac?
- Uh, yeah, it's, uh, Jacob Hood - Yeah.
I want to ask you a question
Have you had a cold recently?
No
I've been fine I got a flu shot and everything
All three victims got flu shots
So,you think this flu shot vaccine was mutated to make nitric oxide?
Crazy amounts of nitric oxide
- Here's what we have left over - Thank you
Um, I got to ask you What you're talking about that's a theory, right?
You sound like the administration
Worried about liability, too?
Of course not It's just, we gave out over 4,000 of these flu shots
We'll need all those records
Coach says take it easy, all right?
Rest up for the big game
How's the knee?
It's still bugging me
Yeah so let me help
Little shot of cortisone might help that
Nah, man, I'm good
Yeah, why leave it to chance?
Hear there's a couple pro scouts coming to this game
All right You're right, man
Lawrence
you know you're single-handedly lifting TSC out of the second tier, right?
Cotton Bowl and national TV exposure
Here you go
Just make sure you don't forget about us when you go pro All right?
yo, I got you Ellis
What are you doing, man?
You crazy coming anywhere near here?
Well, look, Ellis
we got to delay phase two
What are you talking about? I thought you said we were good to go
New and improved, you said
You, uh you didn't start, did you?
You let me worry about that
Hey, why do you want to delay?
The FBI's on campus, Ellis They're asking questions, smart questions
We dropped Isaac down to 300 feet because the seizures came back
just like you predicted
It's not a time I want to be right
They're all normal
Whatever's causing the bubbles, it's definitely not the flu vaccine
But something's making enough nitric oxide to kill them
Rachel, Dr Hood
Dr Cogan asked me to give you this virology report on 3 victims' blood
Thanks
It is a virus
It's just not the flu
There's not even a trace of actual flu vaccine in tara's blood work
Meaning someone switched the flu vaccine with something else?
Pretty big mistake
Unless it wasn't a mistake
You're saying this was intentional?
I'm saying it was murder
Thanks for letting us access your genetics lab, Dr Ruscillo
What exactly are we looking at here? Bioterrorism?
Well, we don't know yet, but, um, two students are dead;
one's fighting for his life as we speak, so we have to decode this DNA
And we need backgrounds on everyone who administered flu shots
You're reading my mind
Okay, better bring me up to speed here, Dr Hood
Healthy students get injected with that
It's dormant for a couple of weeks, then the student exercises
All of a sudden, there's enough nitric oxide in their blood to kill them
Are you familiar with gene therapy?
Yeah, take DNA, piggyback it onto a virus
Catch a cold, cure a genetic problem
Didn't they do it with, uh, hemophiliacs, give them the gene that clots blood?
Exactly
This is the virus for gene therapies targeted at muscles
Yeah, that's all the student volunteers who administered flu shots
Clean files on all of them
Four of them took genetics courses,
but that's no big thing since they worked in student health
Yeah, we'll question them all in the morning, starting with those four
Yeah
Tough detail?
Fascinating detail
I mean, Hood is
Very smart
Yes
Very smart
But, you know, you're not so bad yourself
Oh, thanks
Creative
Intuitive
Pretty
I knew you were going to say that
You did?
Intuitive
Yeah
Yeah, nice
No, I was, I was talking about the the detail, you know?
The grind. The road
The endless hotel beds and, you know, rental cars
It's all a blur
No, it's
it's hard when I get back to my real life
- You know? - Yeah I hear you
I mean, uh, no, that's, that's what ended my marriage
Part of the reason why I wound up here
How are we supposed to have relationships in this job?
Well, I guess you,
take what you can get and be thankful
That makes us sound desperate
Not me I'm a civilian now
- I, I have a, a car - Oh, right
And an apartment
Your own bed
Yeah It's nice
Must be nice
Text message from Hood
I can't bear this
Much lower, the pressure's going to kill him
If only there was some way to take the DNA out
Adding genes is the new biomedical revolution
Removing them we just don't know how to do yet
Yeah, I know
Did you identify your carbonating DNA?
We did
It's two genes
One gene makes nitric oxide
The other one acts like a control knob turning on
the nitric oxide in response to lactic acid
That's what you get when you exercise, right?
Exactly
I think this is a gene dope giving athletes and improve them
But with this gene-dope, there was a design flaw, which made it deadly
Caused when the virus migrated
If you get a flu in your nose, it's a cold
Get in your lungs, its pneumonia
This gene took a detour and ended up in the arteries
Should have been in the muscles
Making superior athletes
Like a steroid
Better than that
See, the thing with gene-doping
as opposed to steroids it should be undetectable
Those athletes out there they want to transform themselves into Greek gods
Having something like this in your muscles,
like having an extra pair of legs
Wait
Am I crazy? Or was
one of our four flu shot volunteers a sports medicine major?
Do you remember this guy?
Dylan Petraneck
The guy who had access to the flu shots at the medical center
But it doesn't make sense
None of the victims were athletes
Why dope them?
How you holding up, Viv?
Okay, I guess
I just
I just miss my sister, is all
I know
Listen, Viv
There's something I got to tell you
Life at 800 feet underwater
not so bad
I think I'm going to enlist on a Navy submarine when I get out of here
You will get out
Isaac, you do know that, right?
Absolutely
I'm just glad I'm me in here and not my brother
Neither of you should be in there
I know, but
my brother's talented, special
I checked you out
You're an American Engineering Club scholar
Most people here don't even know what that is
Well, they should
It's pretty impressive
What, maybe 20 students in the country get that scholarship?
Twelve
Exactly
They go on to make buildings tall and bridges safe
And may not be as glamorous as other jobs,
but doesn't mean it's less important
Thanks
How you holding up?
Not so good
I'll-I'll be better tomorrow though
I'll have someone roll up a TV to this porthole
so we can watch my brother kick ass on that field
Isaac
hang in there, okay?
Dylan Petraneck
FBI Open up!
Petraneck!
Blake
Check this out
Lawrence Richmond Isaac's brother
Vivian Bingham Tara's sister
Andrew Cassidy brother of the first victim
Son of a bitch
I'm going to call Hood
- Yeah? - Hood
All of the victims have siblings who are athletes
Similar genetics, similar results
They're guinea pigs
Dylan's testing his gene-dope?
Right, on someone more disposable to them than an athlete
A regular student, no one notices if something goes wrong
But a star athlete, under constant scrutiny, that's a different matter
Siblings have the closest blood relations, makes sense
I'll call you back
Get this
Our victims were test subjects for Dylan's deadly gene-dope
Unwitting test subjects
Isaac thinks he got a flu shot
But did the athletes know?
Well, at least one of them did
Take a look at that
"Olympic Diver's Dreams Die in Steroid Scandal "
Tara's sister, Vivian Already busted for doping
Along comes the promise of an undetectable gene-dope?
Irresistible
She greenlights the test on Tara
And ends up sacrificing her in the process
You!
You told me it was harmless!
Dylan said it was!
We had to make sure it didn't show up on any tests before we gave it to you!
But it killed her, Ellis
Oh, my God!
Those FBI people need to know this
I've got to tell them
No, you are not telling anybody, okay
You made a choice, Vivian!
You did!
You jumped at our offer
Confirmed that it's undetectable,
so that you could keep doping without risking your scholarship, your Olympic bid
You told it would be safe!
I thought it would be!
Okay!
Honestly, Viv, if I could give you your gene-dope and your scholarship
and your sister and an Olympic gold medal all without any risk, I would
But I'm not a miracle worker
And if you go squealing
your scholarship is the least of our problem
If I had thought that there would be any risk
It's not like I wanted her to die either, okay?
We'll get through this
Together
I'm lowering the pressure to 900 Feet under the water, Agent Young
it's close to the maximum
it was a gene-dope that killed my sister Tara
viv, come on, i did this for you
unsend and Delete
your message has been deleted
I had a feeling she knew what happened to her sister
And this confirms it
Yeah, I think you're right
This isn't grief
This is guilt
This is screwed up, Ellis
Viv's dead
Uh, the feds searched my apartment
- Now they're looking for me - Relax, okay?
Listen to me
We'll say that Viv planted the stuff in your apartment
I'll hack her e-mail again, send out a new and improved suicide note
She can take credit for all this
We play this right,
it'll all look like athletes testing their siblings with gene-dope they want for themselves
Nobody'll know where they got it
We can regroup, improve the product, and try it somewhere else
All right?
You, you really think this will work?
You think Viv's way is a better option?
No
Teams win all the time on Hail Marys, Dylan
This is our Hail Mary
Is he going to die?
I don't know, Lawrence
I'm working with the school's top geneticist
to undo what's been done to him
How much do you want to win this season, Lawrence?
Enough to take a performance enhancing drug regimen?
What are you talking about?
An undetectable gene-dope
Maybe you agreed to test it on your brother
Maybe you thought it wouldn't hurt him
Football's all you got, isn't it?
You win, everything changes for the better
Stop winning
you're just another college jock who doesn't quite have what it takes to go pro
You're wrong
Isaac is all I got
Alright, we just picked up Petraneck at a bus station
He was trying to sneak out of town
No, I don't I don't know what thats
Even though we found it at your apartment?
Someone must have planted it in my apartment
I'll tell you what
Why don't we try it out on you and we will find out exactly what it does, huh?
No
All right, all right
You sure?
All right
Some of the jocks they wanted me to test the gene-dope on their brothers
and sisters so they wouldn't get caught if it didn't work
Including Lawrence Richmond?
Then why'd you test it on his brother Isaac?
Lawrence was our meal ticket
The closest thing to a superstar
TSC's got it
If I could bring it to him fully tested,
if my dope made him into one of the very best, there'd be no limit
Next stop: other colleges
pros even
And no limit to how much money you would have made either
It wasn't just about the money
It's about science
I'm a scientist
But your gene-dope didn't work, did it, Dylan?
Three people are dead because of it, and Isaac Richmond is dying as we speak
We never, uh, wanted anyone to get hurt
We?
Who's "we," Dylan?
Or would you rather just sit in a cell alone?
It's up to you
Sit in a cell
That's it
Dr Ruscillo, couldn't we
make a new gene that would sit in the
artery cells and trick the control-knob gene into thinking
the lactic acid was low?
And stops the gene-dope from producing nitric oxide
I don't see why not
It's just
adding a gene
All right, Dylan I'm gonna ask you one last time
Who's "we"?
He's the only one who ever believed in me, believed in my work
Give me a name
Ellis Brockton, stop! FBI!
Ellis Brockton, you are under arrest
Are you sure about this?
Don't have time to be sure
put in the oxygene it would take him 5 mins to equalize the chambers
I've got him at a thousand feet, Dr Hood,
'cause right now that's the only way we can keep him alive
But a healthy person should not be doing this
I'm well aware of the risks, Officer Thank you
When I've got you down to depth,
you can twist that lever and go to the next chamber
Just get me down there quickly, please
You can't play
What are you talking about?
Listen to me Listen to me!
You've been injected with the same thing Isaac has
Ellis Brockton confessed that he gave you a shot of cortisone
Yeah
But it wasn't cortisone
What?
They tested it on your brother first to see what would happen to you
Now
if u have a seizure out there
we might not have time to get you to a pressure chamber
You could die
Or I could make it
Man, y'all, y'all don't understand
I feel strong, man
Man, this game is my future, man!
No, you don't understand
All right, you go out on that field, you may not have a future
- Rachel? - Hood!
- You with Lawrence? - Yeah
Yeah, we got him
Who is this?
Lawrence?
It's me, bro
I'm better
I'm coming to see you, bro
Yeah, man, I'm
I'm coming
They're doing well
Oh, they're doing awesome, especially Lawrence
Thanks to you, he should be able to keep playing football
Well
if you ever have any other weird scientific crimes happen around here
you know who to call
yeah, well, you know
I'll see if I can arrange something weird with the physics department then
Yeah
yeah
All right
It's been a real pleasure
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