La scintilla Page #2

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in monitors.

I'd like you to meet Gregory.

I have high hopes for Gregory.

I think he will make

an excellent soldier.

Yeah, I'm sure he will.

Despite his obvious drawbacks.

Such as?

Gregory is from the mountains

and his Russian is rudimentary.

He only speaks local dialects

and, of course, Georgian,

as his family are from there.

I forgot...

you are from Georgia yourself,

are you not?

Tbilisi.

I'm from Tbilisi.

It's a lovely place.

Gas. Gas! Gas.

Gas! Move!

Move!

Move! Let's go! Move!

You don't bring a syringe

to a gunfight.

Keep moving!

Move! Move! Get on!

Move! Move! Move!

Let's go.

Jesus.

This is it.

The lab is here.

- The medical facility?

- This way.

This way.

Still a killer, Jim, eh?

Still a killer.

It's okay. It's a clean exit.

Don't wake me up.

Don't wake me up.

Dreaming...

Let's find Irvine.

I suspected it was you.

Down. Down.

Pre-eclampsia, type 19.

I'm trying to control it

with magnesium sulphate.

- Help me get her over there.

- Help me.

- Could I get up, please?

- This is uncomfortable.

I had to risk it.

I warned you this would happen.

Who's the girl?

- Specimen A. Ali. A for Ali.

- Specimen?

- She's the specimen you wanted?

- One of two.

So you're just going

to steal them?

- And yourself too, apparently.

- No.

Not me.

She just wants me dead.

One of my men is missing.

It's easily done.

Miles of tunnels, steps,

no lights.

Yeah, and a few

syringe-waving lunatics.

Oh...

- They alright?

- Yeah, they're fine.

They tried to f***ing kill us,

but they're doing really well.

- Two of them are dead.

- Who are they?

I sense this is some kind

of f***ing game

between the two of you

and I'm not laughing.

Who are they?!

War orphans. I found them

wandering the tunnels, starving.

I train them, they assist me.

And they're also useful

as a deterrent.

They scare those men upstairs

from getting too curious.

What's in the syringes?

Used to be loads of biological

agents stored in the tunnels,

Soviet bio-warfare stuff.

It's an unpleasant cocktail.

Not advisable to get dosed.

How long has she got, Mathesis?

Your timing is perfect, Lyla,

as always. Hours.

- We can't leave.

- The girl is due to give birth.

Mason, keep your gun on her.

Steinmann. Steinmann.

Sit down. You look like sh*t.

Healy, a word.

Now.

Move.

It's okay.

You were the operative

who was here six weeks ago,

weren't you?

So what happened?

Lovers' tiff?

- We disagreed.

- She's your boss.

- We were both employed...

- She was the lead scientist,

and you were under her.

We're leaving in 30 minutes.

- We can't take the girl.

- The move will kill her.

And I can't risk Williams

being crucified by that mob

and our only escape route

cut off!

I'm in charge down here,

Powell. We stay.

And I don't like being lied to.

You have 30 minutes.

Figure it out.

My employers were very clear

that I ask no questions

about you or your work.

My employers, however,

neglected to inform me

about certain pertinent facts

concerning this little jaunt

of ours, which means...

that I have a missing operative,

I have a half-gassed crew,

and I have an old friend

in the next room

with a bullet wound

in his stomach.

So...

Why don't you tell me

what all the fuss is about?

The old Soviet Union

kept many secrets.

They spent a lot of money

on all the sciences,

particularly if they felt

that branch of science

could be weaponized.

For any young scientist,

this was a lure.

I was a young Cambridge graduate

and I was approached

with an astonishing proposal.

The Russians

were and are experts

at the hard sciences,

but genetics,

well, the UK, Switzerland,

the USA, naturally,

had left the Russians behind.

But they had their own program.

This vast country is littered

with the craters

of meteorite strikes.

Some are famous,

like the 1908 Tunguska event.

Some hit this planet

millions of years ago.

Throughout the Cold War,

Soviet scientists

explored each site,

looking for anything

that might help them

against their Western enemies,

anything that might lead

to something handy,

like the atom bomb, for example.

No, it's not that.

This is the Scintilla Project.

It's why they approached me.

This is a 2.4-billion-year-old

meteorite

buried in permafrost

for at least 70 million years.

When this hit the Earth,

dinosaurs were still

romping around.

What the Soviet scientists

discovered

was organic material

inside this rock:

Cells, DNA, genetics.

They needed

a world expert in genetics

to be able to extract the DNA

and to be able to use it.

I was approached for the job.

And they promised you

vast riches.

Lord, no. Anyway,

it wouldn't have interested me.

They offered me

something better.

Complete freedom to work on this

without being constrained

by any rules.

Laws.

Yes, if you like, laws.

- What Mathesis discovered...

- Shhh now.

Why don't I show you?

Why all the kids' toys

and the blackboard?

The specimens

need to be educated

so I can assess their growth,

compare them to normal children.

Children?

That girl's 16 or 17, isn't she?

She's five.

Goethe.

He can't speak,

but can just about understand

basic commands

like a chimpanzee.

He looks normal,

other than the eyes

and the breathing spiracle

in his neck.

He can breathe in our atmosphere

for brief periods of time,

but in here I can adapt the mix

to make it more comfortable

for him.

I'm still checking

his respiratory system, nerves.

He has grown so quickly.

How old?

Goethe is also five.

What the f***?

Let's talk outside.

You okay?

What's wrong with her breathing?

Your f***ing gas.

Thanks.

What the f*** is he?

Half human,

and half is that DNA

from the meteorite.

Half?

I needed the human base

to fill in the gaps in the DNA.

The offspring of the girl will

be a second-generation subject,

more alien than Goethe or Ali.

Purer, brighter, hopefully.

Goethe.

You had to call him Goethe,

didn't you?

Not Joe or Tom.

You really

don't understand this.

I'm not paid to understand this.

I'm paid to do a job,

to honour my clients' needs.

Do you think her plan involves

you and your band of merry men

swanning out of here

with your pockets full of cash?

The progress

of the subjects is remarkable.

In four short years,

they have almost reached

full height

and we have not yet experienced

the usual discrepancies.

The boy shows no signs

of intelligence yet,

but Mathesis is most excited

about the girl

and her breeding possibilities.

Mathesis's ambition

continues to grow.

After years of disappointment,

it is like she is rushing

through this headlong.

I am concerned.

Argh!

He failed even the simplest

sight-recognition tests.

The two subjects

are a year old today.

As these two

look like surviving,

I've given them names:

Goethe and Ali.

Their eyes are still

very sensitive to light

and we have difficulty getting

the atmosphere mix right,

so they have been

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