Original subtitles

[theme music]

-Cool.

NEWSCASTER: Further updates

throughout the city and around the country.

Emergency services have been swamped with calls.

-Gryffen, where are you? Driver.

Why aren't we moving?

-The whole city is in chaos.

This, in turn, it causing huge cues,

making it impossible for emergency vehicles

to get through to the hospital.

-Gryffen.

-June!

-Where have you been?

-I was fixing your leak in the attic.

Apalling weather we've been having.

-Where are Jorjie and the boys?

-Doing homework, last I looked.

Why?

Is something wrong?

JUNE: Get them, please.

-Uh, I don't think they're doing anything--

-Just do it.

Driver.

On my order, be prepared to proceed with

maximum speed to Professor Gryffen's.

-Yes, Inspector.

-Jorjie.

Jorjie, your mother's on the, uh-- So, this

is what you call doing homework, is it?

Jorjie!

Jorjie.

June.

You better get over here.

-Darius!

There you are, I've been bellowing all day.

I need your help.

K9!

Starkey!

Chess room, pronto!

-Gryffen!

GRYFFEN: June!

In the chess room!

-Gryffen?

-Don't touch it.

It's razor sharp.

-What's wrong with her?

-I don't know.

I'm not a doctor doctor.

We need to get them to a hospital.

-She's got a ruddy steel claw around her head.

No, she needs a scientist, not a doctor.

-K9.

Starkey!

What if-- What if Starkey's in the same state as these two.

Starkey!

-What is it, Professor?

-Oh.

Thank goodness.

-What's happened to them?

-Vital signs are strong.

No apparent tissue damage.

-If we could just get these ghastly things off.

-D-don't-- Don't touch it.

-Headset self defense capabilities are in operation.

-Yes, it is.

What is this?

-Are you serious?

Where have you been the past few months?

-I don't get out of the house much.

It's a networked virtual reality game.

Massive.

Kids are mad about it.

-It's a VR headset and interactive game controller.

-If this device is causing this reaction in Jorjie and Darius,

then every child who's playing it is--

-It's a national security matter.

Parents are beseiging hospitals with their kids.

-Calls received by emergency services

in the last 30 minutes, 21 million.

Calls featuring keywords son, daughter, little green man,

VR game have appeared 19.98 million times.

-20 million?

20 million children like this?

-I detect a slight weakening of the VR signal.

-No!

-Jorjie?

Honey?

Where are you?

-It's as if their minds have been wiped clean.

Obviously some of the signal is being delivered by the game,

which is disrupting their neural processes.

But what on Earth could do that?

-Nothing on Earth.

Or in the rest of the cosmos, for that matter.

My sensors are programmed to detect 22 million systems

of transition from 9,000 worlds, and across 10,000 sanctuaries.

This unit detected nothing, therefore it doesn't exist.

-Perhaps it's something you haven't encountered.

-Unlikely.

If it existed, the transmission would be of such power

and sophistication that the architect could not

possibly be unknown to this unit.

-Brought to you by Green Room Entertainment.

I think I'll pay a visit.

-Me, too.

-It's a national security matter.

The department will handle this.

-So are we going to sit here and do nothing, K9?

-Negative.

[doorbell]

FEMALE VOICE: Thank you for visiting

Green Room Entertainment.

How can we be of assistance?

-My name is Inspector June Turner of the Department.

FEMALE VOICE: I'm sorry, but Senior VP

John is unavailable at this time.

-I said of the Department.

-The custodian.

-Hi.

Hello, there.

This is Senior Vice President John.

I'm so, so sorry I can't take your call at the moment,

but leave a message, and we'll catch up real soon.

Fantabulous.

-30 seconds before I order this lethal cyborg

to level this place down to its foundations.

Help us out, here.

-Doomsday weapon online.

Armageddon mode activated.

These are the end of days.

-Let us in, Senior VP John.

19, 18--

[ding]

-You said custodians?

-They run juvenile containment centers.

I spent some time strapped in their VR education systems.

They mess with your head.

-Hi.

Hello, there.

Fantabulous to meet you.

-I've got some questions, and you

get one chance to answer right.

Your company makes a game called The Little Green Men.

-That is one of Green Room Entertainment's

flagship properties.

-Do me a favor.

Wipe that smile off your face.

This game of yours appears to hav ehijacked

the minds of millions of children.

Now, how do we stop it?

-Green Room Entertainment is aware of the situation,

and is diligently working to resolve the problem.

Normal programming will resume shortly.

-K9?

-These are the end of days.

-Where is the signal being delivered from?

-Presentation.

-And where's that?

-I have become Death, the destroyer of worlds.

Despair you all.

-Level three.

It's on level three.

-Apocalypse averted.

But only just.

Alien detected.

Species, species, species--

-Starkey.

-I have to go.

-Species, species, species--

[ringing]

-Gryffen, how's Jorjie? -Stable.

Except for-- there appears to be sort of infection.

Hardening and discoloring of the skin.

-What's happening to her?

-I don't know, June.

I told you, I'm not a doctor doctor.

-They've got no one else.

Gryffen-- I've got no one else.

-Yes.

Of course. JUNE: Keep me updated.

Right, John.

You and I are off to level three.

We're going to shut this broadcast of yours down.

-There's no need.

We're on level three.

-There's nothing being broadcast from here.

I mean it.

Don't mess with me.

-I wouldn't dream of it.

Except, of course, that you're messing with me.

-This is your operation.

-You would need a higher security clearance

than you curently enjoy for me to confirm that.

-Alien detected!

Species, species, species--

-K9!

K9!

-Alien detected!

Species, species, species-- Alien detected!

-K9!

-Alien detected.

Species, species--

-K9, where are you?

-Starkey.

-Don't do that, K9.

What is that?

K9, what's that breathing?

Can't you get an ID?

-Negative.

This life form does not match existing

species in my memory banks.

Logic says it should not exist.

-What about creatures that don't exist anymore?

As in extinct ones.

-Obviously that had already occurred to me.

-Really?

-Negative.

Not really.

Scanning memory banks.

[ringing]

-Oh, rat.

Gryffen?

-K9, what's going on?

Are you and Starkey safe?

-Sweet, prof.

How's Jorjie and the other one?

-Starkey, we're losing them.

This is some sort of infection.

I've been doing tests, but I can't isolate it.

This signal is unstable.

-Probably from proximity with the telepath.

-Telepath? Where?

-No time to babble now.

Please examine one of the headsets.

-K9, are you hearing me?

They have an infection.

I'm going mad here, trying to--

-This unit can hear pitches undetectable to any life

form in this galaxy.

I heard you, professor.

Now please examine the headset.

GRYFFEN: What am I looking for?

-Glitches.

-Nobel Prize in science, professorship at MIT, and I'm

taking orders from a dog.

-Come on, K9.

Spit it out. You're on to something.

-I believe I know how the signal is delivered.

I was scanning for machine based modes of delivery,

but omitted to scan for telepathic transmission.

Even the most powerful telepaths in the universe

would not be capable of sending thought impulses

with anywhere near this intensity.

-So it's controlling 20 million kids' minds by telepathy?

-It's an Etydion, the most powerful race

of telepaths that has ever lived.

That's why this unit did not scan for a neural signal.

There's not meant to be a living Etydion left in the cosmos.

-Why?

What happened to them?

Not galactic slavers again?

-No.

Slavers were not needed.

The Etydions willingly sold themselves.

At one time, they were the most valuable

commodity in the universe.

With an Etydion in your invasion armada,

a conqueror could broadcast a wave of fear so intense

that an opposing army would simply drop their weapons

and flee.

-I don't think I like these guys.

-Neither did the vanquished and conquered.

They disliked them so much, they banded together

and vaporized the Etydion homeworld.

-Bummer.

So why's it tied up like this? -Necessary.

Etydions are receivers, as well as transmitters.

If they are to transmit nothingness,

then they must be made to feel nothingness.

-So it's got to be completely cut off from its own sensors.

-Affirmative.

[ringing] Yes, professor?

GRYFFEN: I think I found your glitch.

It appears to be a low level emitter

in the middle digit of the claw.

It's attached to some unidentified DNA.

K9: Cultured Etydion DNA to amplify the telepathic signal.

Ingenious.

[heavy breathing] -Sorry, mate.

Can't help you.

Your neighbors did a job on it a long time ago.

-Quick.

Hide!

-Thorne, what is this?

Humans found abducting aliens, sheltering, or harvesting tech

secrets from an extraterrestrial can be secretly tried

and convicted by the Department.

You ought to know that better than anyone.

-You think?

-Abducting?

Oh, dearie, doodle me.

No.

The creature offered itself to us.

It was frightened and stick with it came here.

We gave it the home that it wanted.

And in gratitude, it's given us a means to reach our target

audience in ways that we never dreamt possible.

-Target audience?

-Children.

The future is our children.

The VR game was the first point in reaching them.

A networked VR broadcast coupled with a mild telepathic signal

to draw and hold our audience.

-For what?

-For the kind of children that ever educator wants.

Every parent wants.

Good children.

Quiet children.

THORNE: And good and quiet children

make good and quiet citizens.

This is what we've both been working for, June.

A population that is happy, content, and untroubled.

-Because they can't think.

-It's an overrated pastime.

-Starkey, don't show yourself.

-And where's Fido? -Starkey?

-June, I thought you knew.

Never work with children or animals.

-Starkey?

Starkey!

Release him.

[ringing] -June.

We're losing them.

I don't think it's an infection anymore.

I think it's bigger than that.

I think the being changed on a cellular level.

-Show me.

-June. -Show me!

Look at it.

This is what your broadcast is doing.

20 million children, including my daughter, turning into this.

Thorne!

-Shut it down.

Kill the transmission.

Did you hear what I said?

Pull the plug.

-What's the magic word?

-Do as your told, or I'll bounce that little head

of yours all over the room.

Is that magic enough for you?

-50 million credits.

-What?

-50 million credits.

That's the magic word.

Well, words, really.

That's how much I want to end the transmission.

-You gem.

You're blackmailing me.

-That's a very non-wonderful word, inspector.

But yes, I am.

And before you bounce my little head anywhere, remember,

I'm the only one who knows how the transmission works.

-What are you waiting for?

-I'm not giving in to blackmail.

-Yes, you are.

You're giving in right now.

Authorize the transfer.

-It'll bankrupt the Department.

-We won't need a Department!

There will be no human population to protect.

Authorize the transfer.

Save my daughter.

-Oh, no.

Darius.

Jorjie.

-The credits will be transferred the moment

that the transmission ends.

-It's been fantabulastic doing business with you, inspector.

-So end the transmission

-She means end it now.

-I'm trying to.

[beeping]

[alarm]

-There's something wrong.

The creature won't respond.

K9: I'm detecting a massive neurological surge.

-I have no control.

I have no control.

I can't understand what's happened.

-It outsmarted yo You thought you were playing us,

but it was playing you.

You never had control of it.

Either of you.

-You'll be seeing one of your containment centers

from the inside.

How's that for fantabulous?

-Release him. -The boy is no threat to you.

The threat is this unit if the boy is harmed.

-Starkey.

-K9: Be careful, June.

-Good advice.

You'll wish you never left it.

-The Etydion is the last of its species.

Irreplaceable.

-You must destroy it.

K9: It's not dreaming of home.

It's making itself a new one here,

populating the Earth with its own kind.

But no one Etydion is that powerful.

It's using the DNA and the headsets to amplify the signal.

-Then it's time we showed it the door.

K9: You're determined on this course.

You are threatening lives.

I have no choice but to stop you.

-Sorry, mate.

-This unit disabled.

Do not reach for the weapon.

Armaments offline.

I am unable to protect you.

-Let me show you my home.

This is my daughter.

My daughter.

Oh, please don't take her away from me.

GRYFFEN: Something's happening.

The alien DNA has stopped spreading.

-The creature is a receiver and transmitter of emotions,

and it is currently receiving very strongly.

GRYFFEN: June, it's working.

Whatever you're doing, keep doing it.

-It's retreated.

-It is very close to the end.

-Safe travels.

-Mom?

-Jorjie.

[ringing]

-June.

We've got our children back.

-Mom!

-Home, indeed.

GRYFFEN: Here she is.

[theme music]