Original subtitles

Good evening.

Dobriy vecher.

Good morning.

Dobroye utro.

Dobroye utro.

Thank you!

Spasibo.

Spasibo.

Lanthanoids, lanthanum,

Cerium, praseodymium.

During viral transcript...

During the influenza's viral transcription.

Jonah, you ready to head out?

All set!

During the viral...

Dad?

Da...

Jonah?

Jonah, are you all right in there?

Jenkins?

What are you doing here? It's our day off.

Is that a brain in a jar?

My research doesn't have a day off.

And it's a brain jar,

What else would one put in it?

What are you doing here?

Have access to every art portfolio in history.

Where else would i be?

Jenkins, do you have any more yellow pens?

Second drawer under the thing that looks

Like a space helmet but is not.

She's making her own map of the ley lines

Based on the observation you've made since

Taking up residence here, blighting my work.

Why are you blighting me today?

I'm researching magical threats,

Getting a little sick

Of blindly fighting minotaurs and giant trolls.

Why is everybody here?

Isn't this our day off?

- Yeah. - Yes.

What is this?

Someone left it on that doorstep.

Has it ever done that before?

No.

Must be a magical threat of truly epic proportions

Or something absolutely apocalyptic going on at the...

The chicagoland stem fair

Sponsored by the mccabe learning foundation.

What the hell is a stem?

Stem? Stem?

Science, technology, engineering and mathematics!

It's a science fair! Yes!

Jenkins, give this baby a spin, we're going to chi town.

Whoo!

Stem fairs are the cutting edge of the amateur research.

I'm just saying, what kind of magical world-ending apocalypse

Could possibly happen at a cheesy high school science fair?

Robotics.

These kids take science very seriously.

God, yes.

Blood on the floor, best mind wins.

Participants and spectators,

Welcome to the 6th annual chicagoland stem fair,

Brought to you by the mccabe learning foundation.

Please welcome our title sponsor and foundation president,

Science education expert lucinda mccabe.

Whoo-hoo!

- Hi. - Whoo-hoo!

Hello, everyone.

Our organization, the mccabe learning foundation,

Is committed to encouraging and rewarding academic excellence.

This is why, along with our corporate partners,

We support the chicagoland stem fair and other

Science events like it throughout the country.

We will not only be rewarding the winners today

With full college scholarships

But also internships and even research grants.

Like we always say in stem world, "science..."

"works!"

Whoo!

I love that.

I know.

Robots, semiconductors, virtual reality.

Whatever happened to a good old fashioned baking soda volcano?

Paper mache volcano with baking soda, a little vinegar, psss.

Okay, stem fairs are where the best and brightest

Come to show off the future.

They are so far beyond baking soda volcanoes.

I like a baking soda volcano.

Hello. Hi, there.

I'm lucinda mccabe.

Are you all parents or family members?

Oh, hi. How are you?

- Yeah. - Good.

We are the librarians.

Oh, you're the judges from the county library. Welcome.

I'm so glad you were able to find it okay with the directions.

Your welcome packs are right over with mrs. Schwager.

So enjoy.

Someday, that cover story is not going to fly.

All right. Split up.

Find something magical.

Climatological changes environmental impact

On shifting migratory patterns of enhydra lutris.

As you can see, i'm combining a multistage ultraviolet

Treatment with hybrid silicon nitrate materials

In the water filtration system.

So cool.

In molecular cloning, the dna of the target molecule...

By which she means the subject of the experiment,

Not the target replication molecule.

Mom.

That dna is treated with enzymes and broken down

Into smaller dna chains.

Both ergodic theory and statistical physics will be

Revolutionized by my approach to extremal combinatorics.

It's a baking soda volcano.

Finally!

Hello and welcome to the world of magma.

My project today is a... i can't do this.

What's wrong?

I'll tell you what's wrong.

He brought a paper mache volcano to a...

I'm not even supposed to be here.

I'm way out of my league.

Uh-uh, no way.

You know what you are, leonard?

You are an underdog.

I am?

Yes. And all the greats were underdogs.

Come on, show us what you got.

Good hustle on the nonradioactive isotopes.

Ooh, vibrational multidynamics, that's a little hacky.

You were one of these kids.

I don't mean to brag, but i was a monster.

I had this whole, like, wall full of trophies.

And i bet you still own every single one of them.

No, no.

You know, things change.

And some things never change.

- Look at all these. - Why are we even here?

Nice glasses.

Goths and geeks should be friends.

High school's like prison.

You find a crew to run with and keep all the other crews down.

Which crew were you in?

Hey, is that supposed to do that?

No, i mean were you a goth, a geek or a cool kid?

Well, is that magical enough for you?

All right, everything's fine.

Looks like one of our contestants got

A little too enthusiastic with his display and

Mixed his chemicals a little too strongly.

It's like we always say, it's not science until something's on fire.

Even now, that contestant is getting a firm talking to

By some librarians

Who are judges and also librarians.

Tell us what happened, leonard.

What happened?

My volcano freaking exploded. I mean, did you see that?

It was insane.

I need to sit down.

You are sitting down.

Leonard, you know what i think?

I think you created an amateur-looking project,

So no one would suspect you were actually competing

And then you used, let us say,

Unnatural means to create an amazing effect to win.

But we're not mad.

You're not?

No, leonard, we're not. We're here to help you.

I'm here to help you.

You are?

Yes, leonard.

I'm here to work with you to fix this.

I just need you to take a deep breath,

And tell me the absolute truth.

When you say my name, it's like a thousand angels singing.

About the volcano, leonard, i meant...

- Oh. - The volcano.

Hey, man.

Her eyes are like opals.

I know, buddy.

Now, what did you mean when you said you weren't supposed to be here?

I was, like, the fifth alternate.

I hate these fairs, but my dad made me enter.

What happened to the five students ahead of you?

I don't know.

When i got here this morning, i heard a bunch

Of freaky stuff happened to them.

Jonah gordon, he's like einstein.

He got paralyzed by a virus.

And this other kid, i heard that she got

An allergy so rare only like one in ten million people ever get it.

He's telling the truth.

Are you sure?

Yeah.

Hey.

Okay.

Colonel baird says that whoever's doing this is still out there.

Leonard isn't the source of the magic.

A hundred contestants, twice as many spectators,

Really narrows things down.

Okay, we need to move methodically through all

Of the displays and find one that doesn't belong.

Or, we could follow my hunch.

Hunch?

No, no, no, no, no.

Hunch is not a scientific method.

It's my method.

I'm a librarian, too.

I even had some trophies myself back in the day.

What did you win?

Win? No. Stolen.

A whole wall of 'em.

That? It's a newton's cradle.

It's an exercise in conservation of momentum.

Magic.

Oh, i rather doubt that.

- Huh. - You're out of the annex.

Yes. I was just going to stand around all day

Waiting for you to call,

And then i remembered, i have free will.

Besides, a science fair?

As an underappreciated, albeit innovative scientist myself,

I admire these clever young people.

Splendid.

All right, check it, this last ball here,

Right before the volcano, it was all floaty-like.

Looks normal now.

- Oh. - What the?

Huh.

Magic is rewriting local reality.

The laws of physics in this auditorium are starting to bend.

So this thing's magic.

No, this is sort of an early warning device.

But this makes no sense, i mean, there's already enough power

In play than could be summoned by a single amateur.

You're looking for a coven, a group of magic users working together.

How do we find a coven?

Three. Look for the pattern of three.

Fructose and water poured over frozen water.

Let's go.

Miraculous.

Good spot?

Perfect.

Did she say where they went?

Who? Stem-head?

Yeah, she said they passed the dynamic something project,

And then turned behind the blabidee blah, blah math theory thingy.

Two lefts and a right.

Okay, remember, magic is power,

Focus, and effect.

The power in this case comes from the desires of the coven,

The focus, that could be an artifact,

It could be a spell, and the effect...

Is like that?

They were all focused on one girl.

It's time. Get your instrument.

Excuse me. Excuse me.

Hi. Yes.

That girl who was here, where is she?

Hi. Oh my, you're the judges, aren't you?

This is amy meyer's booth.

Don't worry, i can take you through the project.

Please, don't dock her any points.

Okay. So...

- Ouch! - The molecular cloning...

Hey, stop what you're doing.

Stop what you're doing.

What are you doing?

I'm asking amy to put the past behind us,

And move into the future with me,

Holding only each other's hands and hearts,

For all eternity.

Dashell, you know i can't date right now.

School is too important.

Winning this stem fair comes first.

Just prom, please.

We had something great.

Nothing is more important than getting into a good college and i...

Excuse me, amy meyer, do you know her?

Are you kidding?

You're not kidding. Of course.

Yeah, i...

I guess i swallowed a...

Holy shit.

So, what we have established is that the insects

Were in a nest below the auditorium floor

And they were attracted to the chemicals

In the student's experiments, probably.

So the student is now resting comfortably,

He's at the hospital.

Shouldn't we cancel the fair?

If we do that, we will have to forfeit

All of these projects and unfortunately,

We will disqualify your students

From the scholarship competition.

Or you could just award it to amy.

We all know who's going to win.

I think in the true spirit of science, we will soldier on.

Oh, the librarians.

Have you turned in your judging slips yet?

Oh, so much to see.

And some distractions.

Can you believe this year's luck?

First, the entire top rung of competitors drops out sick,

Then there's that chemical explosion,

And now tim is swarmed by bugs?

I swear, it's almost like there's a curse on the stem fair this year.

Hah! Magic, that's funny.

That's it. Nobody's trying to win.

They're trying to get everyone else to lose.

That would be an extraordinarily bad idea.

So, the rule of three amplifies the spell,

For good or bad.

Any direct harm you do unto others with

Malicious intent will be visited back upon you threefold.

We think there are multiple victims.

Then somebody has a wallop of a backlash coming.

Fatal, at least.

All right, here.

This will help you find the focus.

There's no way that amateurs, i don't care how many,

Are wielding that kind of power without a focus,

Either artifact or spell.

Are we even sure somebody would go to these lengths to win a science fair?

Yes. Yes.

These kids live for this competition.

I mean, it can define your whole future.

Whoever is using this magic doesn't know about the rule of three.

They're just trying to break out from the pack,

Make their parents proud.

Look, i know the pressure that these kids feel.

When i was in school, if someone had given me a magic wand

Or a spell that would've helped me win the stem fair

Or get into a good college, i would've used it.

But where'd a bunch of science kids get a magic focus?

Well, it's like tracking a wmd.

Figure out who's using it, trace it back to the source.

We need intel and all the kids who might be involved

But from a source who isn't part of the suspect pool.

I got this.

Hey.

How'd you know i was in here?

Well, this is her place, right?

I mean, this is... this is her world.

This is where it all started.

You guys had a lab together.

Probably dissected a frog, hmm?

She's reaching for the scalpel, you...

It was a dumb idea. She's an alpha kid.

I'm going through the most cliched

And un-ironic of all teenage phases.

I don't belong with her, the alphas or the sports

Or the 420s or the bees.

"she walks in beauty like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies,

And all that's best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes."

That's lord byron, technically a romantic,

But then he pretty much gave gothic tradition a boost in the early 1800s.

So, what you kids think gothic is with the...

With the painted fingernails and the pale...

You know what i'm talking about,

But i mean, he was a badass.

You see, so the jocks and the alphas and the geeks

And the goths, those are all the roles we play.

Those are costumes we wear, and it's just to fit in

With whoever at the time you want to fit in with.

I bet nobody ever beat you up for saying poetry.

No, they didn't. Not for that.

Not for reciting poetry.

You know why?

Because i wore my costume.

I wore it like a second skin.

And i wore it for too long.

- Do you like the girl? - Yeah.

So then, don't let your costume, yours or amy's stop you.

You think?

Yeah.

Tell me about amy.

Tell me about amy and her friends.

All right, so, tim, the bug boy

Who also dated amy, by the way

Who zahir hates because she won last year,

Had forced elysse to break up their partnership

So she could go for the gold solo

Against the ortiz twins,

Who allegedly, now, i said allegedly

May or may not have stolen research from kneisha

Which forced her to switched projects,

So she's going direct competition with, again,

Tim, silas and a girl known only as "the robot chick."

Okay, i take it back. It's easier to find wmds.

There is one common link.

Everybody except dashell hates amy.

Because she's the frontrunner.

Most likely the target just hasn't been hit yet.

Huh.

Excuse me. Hi, we're here for some follow-up questions.

Oh, ask amy anything, we're ready.

Everyone says she's the frontrunner.

Oh, we've been winning these since first grade.

Mit and dartmouth have been after us since middle school.

Well, balance is also important.

You make sure you have hobbies and social life.

Distractions, ma'am. Distractions.

My amy is laser-focused and we will not stop

Until we get what we want.

What is that, that thing?

This is the jones-o-meter.

It calculates based on stem fair criteria

Using algorithms and vertical compliance.

It predicts the winner, 99% accuracy.

Oh, well, please jones us as much as you want.

Oh.

Some people use the term "tiger mom."

I'm the wolverine of mothers.

Oh, wow. Nice.

That's admirable.

What about you, amy?

I'm totally ready to kick butt and take names.

Okay.

Well, i think we've seen enough.

Thank you.

Oh, you saw enough the second you laid eyes on our booth, huh?

Yeah.

They loved us.

All right, show me the magic.

What do you got?

You got a wand, a jewel, a monkey's paw?

You sure?

I mean, jenkins said we need a powerful focus,

That thing's barely registering.

And who's the third? Rule of three.

Amy, her mom, they want the same thing.

Not so sure about that.

Who's the third member of the coven?

What'd you do?

I just hit this page here, this app.

A.L.B.

It's a magic spell.

Someone turned a magic spell into an app.

So, are you familiar with the quote,

"any sufficiently advanced technology

Is indistinguishable from magic?"

Uh-hmm.

It turns out, any sufficiently disguised magic

Is indistinguishable from technology.

That is a wish fulfillment spell.

It's disguised as one of those brain trainer things,

The "advanced learning buddy."

You know, list how many words that rhyme with "mash"

In under a minute, and your iq goes up 20 points.

Mash, lash, dash, rash, crash, slash.

Right, distracts you with the test, but each level,

As you advance, it tells you to focus on a goal,

Before kicking you up to the next level.

And the player has unknowingly performed basic rituals

Embedded in the code, once that is completed successfully

Is prompted to "wish."

Structurally, it's witchcraft,

Without all the "eye of newt" nonsense.

How did a teenager create something like this?

No way amy built this.

I mean, if you look into the code,

Even looking past all the glowy bits,

It's way more complex than anything i've ever hacked,

And i've hacked the nsa.

Allegedly.

The magic, too, is powerful, even brutal.

An expertise in the craft that i have not seen in a very long time.

And this is what's hurting these kids.

Certainly. I mean, you wish that you defeat your opponent,

Even subconsciously,

The spell is so powerful,

It amplifies that wish and makes it so.

Cassandra was right.

Amy's using this to get ahead

But she has no idea the blowback that's coming.

No, she's not.

Well, the harm will return to her, mr. Jones.

No, what i mean is, look at the usage data.

I mean, this is a powerful magic spell

Transformed into an app but amy has never, ever used it.

So, the one person i can prove is using magic is not using magic.

Great. So who is?

Excuse me.

Dashell.

No, but wait. Please don't go.

You're not librarians, are you?

You saw leonard's volcano.

What happened to tim, everybody else,

All of the weird sicknesses and accidents?

This is going to sound crazy,

But you have an app on your phone...

I knew it.

My mom gave it to me but i didn't use it.

Your mom made it?

No, no.

She got it off this website for proactive parents.

That's what they call themselves, get together

And talk about being awesome parents.

I opened it once but it felt wrong,

Like, greasy in my head.

Everyone else was using it, and the more they used it,

The more they focused.

And the more they focused,

The more their wishes came true.

But you still didn't use it.

Because my wishes weren't about being smarter,

They were about being normal.

I mean, i didn't want to not be smart, i just didn't...

Want it to be the only thing that you were.

You wanted another adjective.

You were one of us.

I had a whole wall full of trophies.

So, were your parents the same?

No dates.

No movies.

No social life.

No hobbies that don't look good on a college application, just...

Working towards the perfect future

That they had in their minds.

Yeah, pretty much.

Did it get better?

No.

It just ended.

I think they dreamed that they had in their head

Was too big for me to carry.

I think they loved it more.

She gave me the website for the app.

How much did you hear?

Hmm? Didn't hear a thing.

Whatever happened to your wall full of trophies?

When this went from super-math to hallucinations,

I dropped out of school.

I came home one day, my parents had just tossed all of my trophies.

They thought they'd be a painful reminder

That i wasn't who i used to be.

We should be finishing the judging.

Which room did we put the trophies in?

Why are you asking me?

No, i'm dodging one of the crazy mothers.

Oh, my.

I'm in through the main website.

There are thousands of downloads,

But at this location right now there are...

27 active users.

Three times three times three, that's a rule of three thrice over.

So...

- So, any backlash? - Increases exponentially.

Jenkins? We found something.

There's some sort of accidental super-coven...

What, right now?

Okay. Okay.

Jenkins freaking out about something.

Okay. If all of those kids are using

That spell against each other,

Then a giant feedback loop is building inside that stem fair.

Okay, i'll handle jenkins.

You make sure these kids don't turn this school

Into a smoking crater.

Whoa.

Yes.

Hi, there.

Oh, hi. This is amazing.

Is she meant to be here as in the library recruited her?

Assuredly not.

I'm assuming we have one of those memory-wiping doohickeys.

You might want to get that.

Colonel baird...

Miss mccabe, i'm sure you must be very confused right now.

No, actually.

You fell, you bumped your... no, actually?

No, actually.

Everything just got much, much clearer.

Colonel baird.

I would like you to meet morgan le fay.

Lucinda mccabe is morgan le fay.

I know that name.

And you're a librarian?

I sort of know that name.

Oh, guardian. Sorry, i'll talk slower.

Hey.

Sister of king arthur,

Responsible for the downfall of camelot.

Oh, come now.

We both know that's not true, galeas.

The most powerful witch on the planet

Raised an army and killed arthur.

No, i prefer sorceress.

"witch" has too much gender baggage.

Oh, you found one.

It's lovely, isn't it?

A word to the wise, i'd stay in here

For the next few minutes if i were you.

It's all about to begin, the feedback loop.

All this magic flying around,

The rule of three

Coming to punish all those naughty little boys and girls.

Now, if you'll excuse me.

Colonel, shoot her.

Don't tell me who to shoot, jenkins.

Thank you, guardian.

Oh, i will shoot you, but not because he says so.

What happens to those kids when the backlash begins?

She is one of the most evil creatures...

Hold your tongue.

Please. If shooting me was an option,

How do you think i would've survived the 19th century?

When tennyson became popular, it was a nightmare.

She has left a trail of blood a thousand years long.

Go, get her whatever the cost.

Morgan le fay, she's the one who built the app.

Actually, ukrainian programmers built the app;

I just built the wish spell.

You hurt kids. That's awful.

I never hurt anyone, darling.

That's the scam.

You put magic in the hands of mortals, and they will,

Inevitably, destroy each other.

I just sit back and wait for the rule of three

To kick out its backlash.

So you're doing it for a cheap thrill then?

Please.

All that magic floating around, all that destruction,

I just skim off the top,

Recharge my powers, stay young.

Whoa.

She could be anywhere in history.

No. She's still here because she's not done yet.

I'll go north, you go south.

All right, pull the fire alarm, evacuate everyone.

No, those 27 kids, they're linked by magic.

The rule of three can find them anywhere.

So, we got to protect them from here.

A faraday cage.

It's like a container that energy can't get into or out of.

Right, protects everything inside from an electrical charge.

We don't have time to construct something like that.

Somebody already did.

Hey, hey. What are you doing?

Are you crazy?

You were assigned this booth, this table, weren't you?

Yeah, we're all assigned our booths

By the mccabe foundation.

Why...

Okay. Stone, look at this.

Five legs on a round table, it's a pentagram.

Le fay wanted to keep amy in the fair.

The longer you're in, the more hostility be thrown at you.

More backlash, better harvest.

Okay. So, we need to take the legs off the table,

Spread them out,

And then get everyone inside the pentagram.

And you think that'll work?

It will if we supercharge it.

The app, it's a focusing spell.

So, if we plant the stakes and then use it

To focus all of our energy on creating the faraday cage,

Protecting the kids.

Do you think you can map out the pentagram?

I was a surveyor for 10 years,

I can estimate distance like a tachymeter.

- Just do it. - I'll find jones.

Get some more phones.

Five legs but there's only four of us.

No, five. You have me.

No, they most certainly do not have you.

You never used the app for bad.

Look, i don't know what's going on here,

But you are trying to make us lose this...

Mom, stop. Stop.

It's me. Not us.

It's my life.

Magic's real?

Magic's real.

Awesome.

Okay, let's break this table.

Hi, there.

I'm a very important judge.

Impress me.

Oh. Oh, okay.

The sea otter is generally considered adorable,

But it is in fact history's greatest monster.

And if we don't take action immediately,

They will take over the planet and destroy us all.

Sorry, what?

This stops right now.

I've always wondered whether guardians were envious of or annoyed by the librarians.

What are you going to do?

We've already established you can't shoot me.

How did you touch me?

There's no magic in the world stronger...

Except your magic.

Your advanced learning buddy helped me visualize

Something i wished for, an even playing field.

Ow.

You've got about five seconds to stop what's going on out there.

Tick tock.

Stop the tricks.

I'm not doing it.

This is blowback for all their evil deeds coming for them,

Multiplied by three by three by three.

I couldn't stop it if i wanted to.

Looks like you have a choice, guardian.

Either you kill me or you save the kids.

No time for both.

I do believe you have a chance.

It's the first time i've hurt in centuries.

But you still have to make a choice, kill me or save them.

This isn't over.

Promises, promises.

All right, it's marked.

The final x is on the stage.

They're not all inside the pentagram.

If they're not in the middle, it won't work.

Attention, everyone.

I'm amy meyer, and the electrical disturbances

You're seeing are just a side effect of

My last minute project, a five-sided tesla coil field.

One hundred thousand volts will soon pulse through this room.

Now, there is a downside to my awesome experiment.

If you're not all in the center of the room, you may be electrocuted.

Sorry.

No way. That's impossible.

I'm amy meyer.

I've won every ribbon, every medal, every trophy

That you've wanted since we were five years old.

Do you really think i'm bluffing?

So, center of the room, right.

All right. Center of the room, in the middle.

Hey, good job, kid.

Go to your spot.

Go.

Wow.

More power than forever.

Where is everyone?

Don't worry, you did it.

You saved them all.

They're out there somewhere in the world.

And where are we?

We're stuck between the seconds,

Between the tick and the tock.

So, let's finish this then.

Guardian, on your best day,

You might be able to muss up my hair.

And you already had your best day.

So now what?

You bring magic back to the world, rule it?

Bring magic back?

Oh, my.

No.

Thanks to you, i finally have enough power

To hide.

You did all this so you could hide?

Maybe even open a door to the fae or the mirrorlands,

Anywhere but this doomed little world when it happens.

- When what happens? - You'll understand.

You've already been woven into the loom of fate.

Noli timere malum,

Sed time heroa.

Tell that to, what did he call himself?

Jenkins?

He'll understand.

With the disqualification of amy meyer's project

For its flagrant disregard of the safety

Of her fellow students and bystanders,

And lucinda mccabe,

According to this note,

Taken away to the hospital for her injuries,

We will award the winner of the fair based on the decision

Of our remaining judges, the county librarians.

The winner of the 6th annual chicagoland stem fair is...

Leonard cole.

Yes.

Where's that trophy?

Yes.

Oi.

Hey.

Good job with the pentagram.

That was easy, maybe too easy.

Well, that was science project of the day

And you saved everybody's lives,

So i think that deserves...

Wow.

First place in?

In the category of mathemagics.

Mathemagics.

I like it.

You stole this, didn't you?

Yeah, i stole it,

But you won it, without a doubt.

So, focus on that.

That was a mistake.

We saved a hundred lives.

And doomed her next thousand victims.

You had her.

For the first time in centuries,

She was caught off-guard.

I'm a guardian. I'm not a hired gun.

I'm not here just to kill.

And if she's so terrible, why are the two of you so cozy?

We've both lived a long time.

Paths crossed.

My experience, you don't hate strangers quite that much.

She said the end of the world is coming.

Well, morgan has many vices, but she never, ever lies.

She also had a little love note for you.

Noli timere malum, sed time heroa.

What does that mean?

"do not fear the villain, fear the hero."

The end... an end, is coming, colonel.

And trust me, if you do not learn how to fight the war

Instead of just winning the battles,

None of us will survive.