Original subtitles

-What’s today?

-I am taking my first couple to look at houses.

So, if Luke wears this thing,

-he’ll have his tingle back? -You’re somebody special.

-You have no idea.

-Oh, you got another call from that Rochelle something.

Is there a story there?

-I just wanted to let you know that I’m gonna need

a few more days away from the office.

- House! Let me out! - We’ve bonded, Susan.

What a mess.

Danny, I’m working.

Yes, I fired them.

The movers you sent me were hopeless.

I wouldn’t trust them with my coffee table

much less my canvases.

God... God, everything’s fighting me here.

It’s-it’s one thing after another.

Things are going missing. It’s paint and brushes,

packing materials.

I’m misplacing things and--

Danny, I need to call you back.

-No, no, no, no. I can’t do four.

I’m meeting Tandworth at four.

He wants to see the Lewis place, again.

Wish he’d just buy the place. He’d spend less time there.

Can you do two?

I’m meeting Daneel and Holster.

Okay, how about six? Can you do six?

Well, geez, Zooey, what can you do?

-Uh, I can tie a knot in a cherry stem with my tongue

and I can do 4:30 but the client has a hard out at five.

-Well, put it in the calendar.

-Here, have a muffin.

Wait, whoa, whoa, whoa! We gotta talk about Nelgrave.

-Nelgrave, that’s where I’m going now. Right? Right?

-Yeah, okay, but there’s some hotshot art dealer

from New York who knows you, or knows of you.

-Danny Portefoy? -Yeah.

He hired us to help one of his artists pack,

sell and move -- fast. She sounds super stressed out

and I’m quoting here: "Things are getting lost

and moving around by itself."

-Sounds like a Spoon Bender. -Or a Hummel Chucker.

So no big rush!

-I don’t know! August is over there to check it out.

-Whoa. -August...

is their first contact with the agency?

-Yeah. You were booked.

Zooey was booked. They’re in a hurry.

-All right, I need to get over there right now.

-What is the client’s name? -Aurora Nelgrave.

Yeah.

There’s one more thing. I got an email

from Susan this morning. I reached out to her earlier

after the no-show last night, just asking for proof of life.

-She is fine. -Thank God.

-But she is taking a leave of absence. I know.

I have been pushing her to find the work-life balance

since she started and she called me on it.

But I’m glad that she’s taking it seriously.

Really glad.

Really.

-Glad.

-Really.

-Morning. -Morning.

-How’s everything?

-Just finishing up.

-How’s the client?

-High strung. Impatient.

Very much the artist.

-Any sign of our Mug Juggler?

-Inconclusive.

There’s definitely some interesting energy in the house,

but this close to the ocean

we always get a lot of interference.

There’s a software patch to defeat it, but...

it’s not inexpensive.

-The budget’s kind of tight this quarter.

-It seems crucial to keep our technology up to date,

given the loss of our...

more analog systems.

-And that would be me.

You can just say it, Augie.

-You lost your fastball, Luke.

We need to develop your slider.

On a completely unrelated note, I need a day.

-A day? -I know the timing is not...

optimal.

I wouldn’t ask if it were not important.

-Yeah, sure. Of course.

Can I give you a hand?

-Yeah. Thanks.

-Miss Nelgrave?

-Aurora? -Yeah.

-Aurora, I’m Luke Roman. I’m your real estate agent.

-I take it the big guy with the weird glasses is yours?

-Yeah, he’s ours.

-He quoted Plutarch and asked about cold spots.

-It’s what he does.

-Look, I told Danny I could do this on my own.

I really don’t like letting the work out of my sight,

especially with all the weirdness going on.

-That’s why your art dealer reached out.

Weirdness is kinda something...

...we do.

-You’ve worked with Danny before?

-Seven or eight years ago there was a certain gallery

in Connecticut where the statues...

weren’t as static as they might have been.

-Oh, you’re not kidding. -No.

-Okay. Whatever.

Uh, I need to sell this place and get to New York.

-Well, maybe you could start by, uh, describing the weirdness?

-Well, at first it was just annoying.

Then things got a little dark.

-Whoa.

That’s a hell of a thing.

Time for what?

-August Ripley.

-Rochelle Decker.

-I was surprised to hear from you.

You have been ignoring my messages for weeks.

-I’ve been rather busy.

And here you are.

Why now?

-Curiosity. Nostalgia.

This place has changed.

-Mmm. ASDRA’s now the most modern and prolific

defense and technology development agency

in North America.

-And yet you look exactly the same.

-Ha.

I heard about Darla.

I’m so sorry.

-We had everything but time.

-I wanted to reach out, but, um...

maybe if we had parted on better terms?

-It was a complicated time.

-Do you remember what you called me

when you cleared out your desk and stormed out that day?

Oh, dear.

"A willing grease girl for a corrupt war machine."

-I’m sorry. -Oh, don’t apologize.

I almost had it printed on my business cards.

Do you ever wonder... what if you stayed?

What more you could have seen and done?

-Perhaps I’ve seen and done more than you think.

-More than Project Erebuster?

-That was a mistake.

An arrogant young man

shaking his fist at the darkness.

-You took an algorithm

that was designed to retrieve information

and you modified it to gather data from...

-You can say it.

-The other side.

Everyone thought you were nuts. I thought you were nuts.

-It was foolish.

-It’s back, Augie.

And it is asking for you.

Do you remember when we were gonna

solve tomorrow’s problems without kissing the ass

of some VC jerk whose life goal it was to be a 5% stakeholder

in the air that we breathe and the water that we drink?

-Yes, we the purists, the idealists,

searching for new and bigger rocks

to throw at our enemies.

-Grow up, Augie.

Do you know what we’re working on now?

Climate change.

Micro physiology to stop the next pandemic.

Technology that uses infrared light

to extract choice minerals from bedrock

without mining or fracking.

Quantum computers that can answer questions

that we’re not even smart enough to ask.

-All of which

just happen to have military applications as well.

For every plowshare, a sword.

-Oh, all these years later

and the boy scout uniform still fits.

God, I’ve missed you, Shell.

Come on.

I believe you two know each other.

Three weeks ago, our IT people noticed

a bunch of hits on your old ASDRAnet email.

They tracked the IP address to your old machine,

which we had in storage, and it...

It was looking for you.

-This is extraordinary.

May I?

Shit! What did you do?

-I logged in.

Oh, no, no, no!

It’s deleting all of its data and core programming!

-And appears to be hacking through the ASDRA servers.

-My God, six point eight billion dollars’ worth of data.

-Most of it’s irreplaceable! -I hope you have backups.

-The cloud servers are the backup!

-Oh, dear. -I don’t understand.

This is a response to the administrator’s password

that we programmed into it.

-Then you were right.

It is asking for me.

It wants the password I buried in its original code

to make sure it’s really me.

-A root password? Do you remember it?

-Let’s see. So many years ago.

Was it, uh, one, two, three--

-Augie.

-I need access to all of Erebuster’s data.

Everything it knows.

-Oh-ho. No. No, no, no.

That is completely out of the question.

Shit!

Fine!

-I want your word. -You got it.

-Scout’s honor? -Oh, for God’s sakes, just go!

-It started right after I put the place up for sale.

It was like...

Oh! This is ridiculous.

-Yeah?

-It’s like I hurt its feelings.

-It’s not ridiculous at all.

Every house is a living, breathing thing.

Some more than others.

-I was just a kid when I got here.

An art school dropout;

just got divorced; got sober.

-It must have been hard.

-Not compared to what I was leaving.

-Something here resonated, spoke to you.

-Almost immediately.

The brush in my hand had a sense of purpose

I’d never felt.

I don’t know if you could call it confidence,

but it was peace.

I truly became an artist here.

It’s like I could fly.

-It’s always hard to move on.

Sounds like you got a lot of exciting things ahead.

-I haven’t painted seriously anyplace but here.

-What if I can’t? -Yes, you can.

Just because you’re used to doing things a certain way,

doesn’t mean you can’t move on from that,

do the same thing just as well.

Only differently.

Does it?

-I guess we’ll find out.

Okay, call those movers.

Let’s blow this pop stand.

-This is everything we have on the Nelgrave property?

-Skinny, huh? -I don’t understand.

That property’s at least a hundred years old.

-There’s still some ten pounds of footnotes to pore over.

That’s just what I could turn up in a half hour.

-Can you put this on the top of your pile?

-Top of my pile?

What about Pruitt? And Denning?

-Those are normies. Zooey’s got those.

Clock is running on this.

There is something in that house with a weird sense of humor

and I think it could do a lot of damage.

-To the art?

-And to the artist. Look.

-Yikes.

"It’s time?" What’s time? Time for what?

-Dig up those ten pounds of footnotes and you tell me.

-Sheesh.

-No, I am not submitting that offer.

Because it’s 40% below asking, Mister Kerr.

No! He’ll be offended. He’ll be pissed.

People are submitting offers ten percent above asking

just to get in that neighborhood.

If I submit that offer, he’ll think I’m a lightweight

and you’re an idiot and he’ll be right about at least one of us.

I’d be happy to have Miss Ireland call you back

at her earliest convenience.

She is away, though. Lucky her, huh? Okay. Bye-bye.

Ow.

-Zooey, did you just-- -From Susan?

-Yeah. What did you say to her?

-Nothing. -It’s her entire database,

every detail from every listing.

-What is her deal?

I don’t like this feeling.

-What feeling is that?

-This damsel in distress feeling.

-You are nobody’s damsel.

-I told you I came here after I left my husband.

Son of a bitch was never physical.

Just petty,

vindictive, small.

He made me feel small.

That first night that I came to this house,

I promised myself I was never going to let anyone

make me feel that way.

The next day I couldn’t stop painting.

Became my own little monument to my existence.

Something bigger than me to prove I couldn’t be erased.

And now my sanctuary has turned on me.

-Change is tough.

But, uh, change brings possibility.

Eventually,

you stand on one foot, and you squint,

starts to look a lot like destiny.

But you know that,

or you wouldn’t have moved back to this place.

-Looks like that’s the last of it.

-A few days, your art will be on display

in one of the most prestigious galleries in New York.

As far as change goes? Pft.

That’s pretty cool.

-Yeah.

-You know, setting a root password

is against the rules.

-Five demerits! No time in the game room.

-You know what really chaps my ass

is that you didn’t trust me.

-I don’t recall us

ever gazing into each other’s eyes and...

murmuring sweet root passwords to one another.

-What does it mean, "interface not detected?"

-It’s...

seen things.

And it wants to tell me...

personally.

-No.

Let’s see. One K.

Mm.

Yeah.

It’s been a while

since you weren’t the smartest person in the room.

-Rather refreshing. -Mm.

A direct download.

-It’s our only option for a lossless transfer.

-Yeah, but...

we don’t know what it’s going to do to you.

You have a family; four daughters.

-They are grown. And they never call.

It’s no worse than a vigorous VR game.

An immersive form of show and tell.

Besides,

perhaps the data will suggest a military application,

a metaphysical machine gun, an existential bazooka.

-You are such an asshole.

What’s happening?

Finish her!

-Aurora?

-It’s time!

Finish her!

-You all right?

-What the hell was that?

-I don’t know what but I know when.

It wants something from me.

It wants me to paint.

-And it would prefer if you do it

you know...

-It’s the house. It has to be.

-I don’t think so.

That painting.

-Oh.

That hotel puppies and ponies painting?

That came with the house.

I kept it for its camp value.

-I packed it once;

came back.

Painter is Thomas Warner.

Lived in the house with his wife from 1860 to 1890.

He was a... an artist, to a point.

-Unappreciated in his time.

-Well, he was rejected from several art colleges

including the National Academy.

Get this: he spent his father’s inheritance

bribing critics to give him good reviews.

-A bitter, entitled artist. Sounds like our guy.

-Well, I don’t know.

Everything I’ve found says Thomas died rich, fat and happy

of natural causes.

I don’t know that he had the self-awareness

to know how lame he really was.

-This is my house.

And I will not be pushed around

in my house.

-Aurora?

Aurora?

Where are you?

Aurora?

Hey.

You in there?

Aurora?

Aurora, did you do this?

Aurora.

Thomas Warner?

-No!!

-Hey.

We haven’t met.

Oh!

-Augie, are you...?

We don’t know what this is gonna be like.

All this information.

-Isn’t it exciting?

Not... quite yet.

Thirty seconds]

-August?

August, can you hear me?

-Heavens to Betsy.

-August?

August, what did you see?

Wow.

-August, what did you see.

-I saw...

nothing.

I saw...

everything.

I saw life

and what comes after

from the cold...

logical perspective of a machine that can never live nor die.

-You’re scaring me.

-I...

saw Orion...

echoing with spirits crying through eternity.

Atoms...

warping with the weight of souls

striving to be reborn.

All parts of the celestial

ellipses,

the astral ouroboros.

In the end,

Erebuster showed me there are no answers,

only deeper, more...

wonderful questions.

That the best we can do is stop worrying about death

and focus on life, on...

on living.

-So that’s it?

That’s the profound truth from beyond...

YOLO.

It’s gonna be hard to make a cruise missile out of that.

-You’ve embraced me and protected me...

changed me in all the ways that needed to be changed.

Now what do you want?

-"Finish Her." "Now."

"Please."

Every step of the way this house has been

trying to communicate with us.

With you.

It needs something from you.

That is the leverage, that’s power.

-Oh, yeah. Power.

-I think you need to let it in.

Again.

-Says the guy who doesn’t have to be repossessed.

-I get these things.

I can’t hear them anymore, I can’t see them,

but I know them. And something in this house

is hurting and the only way that I could talk to it

is through you.

-You think you can just light up a room and leave.

-Something like that.

-I’m pretty sure this is going to come back to haunt me

on my next performance review.

Come back to ASDRA, August.

Come back to me.

We’ll have so much fun.

You’ll have virtually unlimited resources.

-Virtue has little to do with what happens here.

-So you’re rejecting me?

-Just the job.

For now.

I happened to notice that

all-night diner is still up the road.

Where once we loved

and laughed... and danced

and withheld our root passwords from one another.

Is it still the same?

-Nothing’s ever the same, Augie.

Everything changes.

-Some things...

get better.

This is ridiculous.

-I think it’s more than the house.

I think it’s something in the house

responding to your art, your drawing, your painting.

Let’s use that to connect.

I don’t know what to draw.

-Whatever comes to you.

Aurora?

You owe me.

-Keep going.

I gave you everything!

-You owe me!

- Gave you everything. - You owe--

-You owe me! -Keep going, keep going.

I matter.

Not Thomas.

I am not small!

I will not be erased! I was here!

I mattered!

I was here.

-Whoever you are, you tell her and she’ll tell me.

Not Thomas.

-Aurora, look at me! -Not Thomas, never Thomas--

-Aurora!

Aurora, are you okay?

You’re back.

-Not Thom... I’m not Thomas.

I am not small.

I was here. I matter.

The sketches.

-I know that face.

Her name was Scarlett Warner, she was Thomas Warner’s wife.

According to our records, all she left behind

was a birth certificate, death certificate--

-Mm. Marriage license.

A monument to her existence.

Something bigger than her to prove she couldn’t be erased.

I’ve been drawing that face since I moved in here.

It’s the first thing that came to me.

-She must’ve latched on that first night,

when you swore you wouldn’t let the world

make you feel small or invisible.

-She’s been working through me the whole time I’ve lived here.

But she said there’s something unfinished,

something that I have to do before I can leave.

-Thomas had a thing for horsies and hunting dogs.

But he...

was no more an artist

than I am a synchronized swimmer.

He knew it and it bugged him.

-She was so much better than him.

More talented. More inspired.

She had to hide.

-Finish her.

That’s what she wanted.

Finish her portrait.

Use the gift she gave you and then give it back.

-So, I finish her painting?

I prove that she lived, she mattered.

-She moves on.

-What about me?

What if her gift

was the only thing that made me special?

-It’s always the question, isn’t it?

How much of ourselves do we owe to others?

Where do they leave off and we begin?

-I could lose everything.

-Or you could know that every experience you ever had...

your marriage, your courage, your house and Scarlett --

all combined to make you who you are.

One-of-a-kind.

True original.

Dear Luke.

My time at the Roman Agency has been interesting.

And fulfilling.

Change is seldom easy.

But there comes a time when change is necessary.

I find that time is now.

-Yeah, I can hold.

-Thank the team for their assistance and friendship.

And thank you for the opportunity.

-Thanks.

-Please consider this my resignation

from the Roman Agency.

Effective immediately.

Susan Ireland.