Light, in the absence of eyes, illuminates nothing.
Visible forms are not inherent in the world...
but are granted by the act of seeing.
Though the world and events do exist independent of mind...
they obtain of no meaning in themselves.
None that the mind is not guilty of imposing on them.
I bid my people follow, and like all good equations, they follow.
For full endowment of purpose they do submit.
In turn, they resign me to a role...
inhuman, impossible, and unaccountable.
But I can no longer stand the sleepless nights.
I think I am learning to love the Demiurge.
Ground engagement effective.
The enemy resistance has failed.
Monican launch effort has been scrubbed.
Target payload is secure.
Dismantle that cheap rig...
and let the Demiurge bring us to peace eternal.
Yes?
I didn't want this either, but you're alive, Rubio.
I'm as good as dead, sir.
You're not as good as dead.
I'm not as good as I would be dead?
Understand why. What we're doing here.
Sir?
Aeon.
Sir.
What are you waiting for? Regroup and take apart the launch vehicle.
- Wait! - Sir?
I remember now.
Sir, I can't...
Let no Monican near the missile.
Do you see how the blue light is making those patterns on the joints?
Yes. It's beautiful.
It's delusion. Come on. We launch now.
Celia, you can make it out of here without me.
There's a box under my bed. Destroy it.
Crush it, burn it, anything. But don't open it.
You mustn't look inside.
No, please don't go.
Promise you won't look inside.
Fine. You know the sequence?
Yes. I'm ready.
- Do you have enough ammunition? - Trust me.
Almost there.
Nader.
You shot Rubio and not me.
Now why is that?
Trevor, don't trouble me with your thin smile.
Stop!
There's a pain in my back.
Can you describe it in words?
- What? - I want you to tell me about the pain.
Sharp.
Stabbing. Piercing.
You're telling me nothing.
It feels like...
a nail twisting into my spine.
- Yes, but there is no nail. - No.
And so there is no pain.
Nader.
You bastard! I thought he was dead.
I think he is.
No!
Yes, it is that which is!
It is not.
What?
No!
Nader, how are you?
Aeon Flux, stop and think.
It could have changed everything.
Not the ways that we are.
Everything!
Family members are reminded to have identification ready...
when entering the morgue area.
Weapons and personal effects may be reclaimed in hanger 12.
Have you found this man?
Zenith, Nader.
You were out there. You were...
Weren't you with... I'm sorry.
This man's body is missing.
- Listen, please! - I'll listen later.
- After I find my gun. - Your gun?
Yes. Is this...
This one looks good.
Please, tell me what you know.
We won. We must have been right.
You know something.
- Tell me what you know. - What I know?
He said the light was beautiful. Yes, it was.
No use, see? Because the truth isn't even pretty.
What else? Oh, right.
Love isn't the answer, it's the problem.
You don't know anything about us.
- Your friend Nader? - Yes, Nader, Zenith.
I'm sorry about what happened.
It was that gun. It was you!
Nader is dead. Nader's worse than dead.
You saw it yourself.
I know what I saw. You...
Got it.
There's a box under my bed. Destroy it.
Crush it, burn it, anything. But don't open it.
With the perdition of dreams, the rights of youth fade like pale smoke.
And on embers doused by blood of loss...
we ask, "For whom serves this vantage of hideous strength?"
To reap another harvest and...
Address to the public, number 41961, take 1.
Fellow citizens, at 4:20 this morning, the 39th division special forces...
carried out a daring strike against those Monicans...
who have conspired to deprive us of a great event.
An event that could usher in a new era of peace.
As planned, our precise tactics have kept...
casualties on both sides to minimum levels.
May we all hail a great victory.
To those who have lost sons and daughters...
we express our deepest gratitude...
Sir, excuse the interruption.
Yes, what is it?
There seems to be a disturbance.
Incoming Monican aircraft are releasing projectiles of some sort.
Sending us our own dead.
Erase take 1, record take 2.
The height of tension in any game occurs...
when the rules allow for the influence of human judgment.
The advantage in this instance is held by the player who drops the ball...
to allow the opponent a hollow victory.
Half of eternity is still eternity.
Infinity and zero are different degrees of the same value.
Pain isn't real beyond the individual who feels it.
But the nail is real.
Trevor, what are you up to now?
Who was that?
Damn.
That's it, forget the damn bird.
Nader!
Natural evolution should amount...
to nothing by now but a vicious cycle of obsolescence.
A world unaccountable to its own past and doomed to repeat it indefinitely.
Oblivious of any consequence.
- Sagittal dilator. - Huh?
Quickly, damn it!
Oh!
Hernial contractions! Scalpel.
I said, scalpel!
Not you again.
Trevor, you looked better before.
You don't know what you're doing. That thing...
Is your salvation, and mine.
It is the everywhere, the everything, the every all!
You!
You drove it out!
All right, you got it. You got what you wanted.
So you answer to no one.
Are you out of your mind?
The only reason I don't shoot you has nothing to do with duty or principle.
It's simply a matter of knowing who I am.
Is that why you won't let it see you? Why you can't bear the gaze?
Because you've done terrible things.
Then there are the transgressions you never even knew you committed.
Those are the worst because those you can never forget.
All you can do is suspect.
I'm not in the habit of arguing over the colour of red herrings.
Help me save your friend.
Maybe you were wrong to have shot him.
Just check his breathing.
Celia.
You didn't look in the box, did you?
Just keep breathing.
- What's so funny? - I don't... Nothing.
- Am I making you uncomfortable? - I'm fine.
No, I don't think so. See, I think you just gave it away.
You laughed but you caught yourself.
Why? Because you're conscious of it. You didn't drive it out. It's still here.
I forgot something.
You can't hide from it, Aeon, it's everywhere.
What? Now this is odd.
What?
Get out!
This is all wrong.
It must still be down there.
And it knows we have its best interests at heart.
Let it go.
Funny how things work out.
No! Don't let go!
- Trevor, I can't keep... - Don't let go!
If but the cosmos could possibly have come about innocent of history...
and not wholly ignorant of all its potential.
- Celia! - Unprejudiced but aware.
Nader!
- You didn't look in the box, did you? - No.
- I didn't see it. - It?
Yes. No. I didn't look. I never saw it.
Rather than that its only trial be performed...
at the mercy of all its error.