LABORATORY - Cooperman guides Novak and Ramsey into the lab. The FBI men are impressed, but neither is quite sure what to make of it all. The FBI escort team leader gets Ramsey's signature and Novak undoes the cuffs from Stargher's wrists and ankles. Following Miriam's direction, the escorts guide the gurney carrying Stargher into the procedure room.
As Cooperman shows them out, Henry seals shut the door. Miriam assumes responsibility for Stargher's care and checks his pulse, IV, pupil dilation, and vital signs. She pulls the sheet off Stargher and instantly notices the scars on his back.
MIRIAM: What happened here?
RAMSEY: We removed fourteen metal rings.
Miriam needs a moment to fully take in the scars. Her and Henry examine the flesh.
CATHERINE: You should have left him the way he was. He used to suspend himself, didn't he.
Novak nods yes.
CATHERINE: They're comforted by the feeling of weightlessness. Like floating in water.
Miriam connects Stargher to the suspension apparatus and it hoists him off the table.
MIRIAM: Why don't you give our guests a little tour?
Proud of his computer, but uncomfortable around strangers, Henry directs Novak and Ramsey to the console.
HENRY: Now this, gentlemen, is the catalyst. The Neurological Synaptic Transfer System. It not only maps the mind, it sends the signal to another party. All you need to do is tune in, but you do much more than tune in. You become a part of the show. But we can't record or store the data. The connections between nerve cells are constantly being modified.
Catherine enters from a dressing area wearing the bodysuit. Filled with curiosity, Novak watches Miriam and Catherine fit Stargher into his suit. Novak observes Miriam as she places the electronic mask on Stargher's face.
MIRIAM: He's ready.
RAMSEY: Why the three stations?
HENRY: For awhile we tried joint therapy sessions. Two shrinks for the price of one, but Edward hated it and would only talk to Catherine. She has a gift.
In the procedure room, Miriam finishes getting Catherine prepared.
MIRIAM: Are you sure?
CATHERINE: I'm sure.
MIRIAM: Okay
Miriam places the electronic mask on Catherine's face.
HENRY: Response signal.
Catherine presses the bump on her hand. A red indicator light flashes on Henry's computer screen display.
HENRY: Functioning.
HENRY: We implanted a touch-sensitive microchip in her hand. So if she wants to stop the session or if it gets too intense, she can give the signal and we abort.
The pedestals lower, Catherine and Carl are now suspended. Reluctantly, Miriam retreats to the monitoring station. She "locks down" the procedure room and joins Henry, Novak, and Ramsey at the console.
HENRY: When we were ready for practical testing, Miriam and I auditioned some of the best child therapists in the country.
MIRIAM: And all they did was observe and report. Nothing more.
HENRY: Catherine was the least experienced, but she came so highly recommended, we figured what the hell, we'll give her a shot. Immediately we could tell she was different.
MIRIAM: Catherine has a tremendous capacity for empathy. When we started, there were a number of test subjects who acted as "receivers." But Catherine, she had the ability to feel what was happening. She understood. And the patient responded. Edward engaged her in dialogue, took her places, showed her things. He knew she cared.
The shut off the lights in the procedure room. The session begins.
We follow fibrous wires running from Catherine's mask to Stargher's. Catherine's eye focuses on the mask. As it comes closer, we see the lining is laced with thread-like wires and microchips forming hyper-miniature circuit boards. Catherine's eye blinks. The mask covers her face. Catherine's eye shuts. Vision fades. Darkness. A faint light. Microscopic veins in the eyelid become wires connected to chips. And we're moving, into the circuitry.
ENTRANCE ONE / STARGHER'S WORLD: The pattern of the electronics grows into something more organic, textured, concrete. Evolving into a world. We see Stargher's little plastic dolls tangled in lake vines and we get a glimpse of a boy's baptism. Our journey into this bleak, grim place continues. Black and shadow-filled, it resembles a labyrinthine complex of vertical walls with cubicle like rooms carved deep into its core.
At water's edge, lying on rough, pebble-strewn ground, is a hand. Catherine's hand. We sense movement, but she remains still. After a moment of odd quiet, a drop of blood hits the stagnant water. In macroscopic super slow-motions, another blood droplet sails 64 into the air and comes crashing down on a leaf, catapulting a bug into the air.
The drops of blood continue, one hits the mask and we follow Catherine's hand as it moves to the cloth and removes it from her own face. From the darkness comes a dog. Black in color and featureless, it meanders into a cubicle opposite her, disappearing from view. More drops pound the earth and explode into pools of water...
We begin to realize that this miniature landscape is the world into which Catherine descended. She sits up, shivering, and breathes deeply, acclimating to her surroundings. The "floor" is covered with filth, ash, pebbles, and insects. Water is present in many forms, puddles, moisture, dripping ceilings.
Eyes focusing, queasy, not fully "awake," Catherine notices the crimson stain on the cloth mask and the blood droplets showering the air. She turns and finds the source. The black dog stands in the opposite room next to a tub full of blood, shaking himself dry after his "bath." Still adjusting to this nightmarish realm, Catherine at first doesn't hear it, but then realizes that somewhere, hears the sounds of a child.
She looks around, then briefly catches sight of a boy climbing stairs. We pull back to show a massive landscape of blocks, cubicles, crawlspace, walls, stairs, and ladders. Leading everywhere and nowhere. She calls out to him. As he disappears into corridor ending in "nothing," Catherine spots the boy as he crawls into a specific "room."
Shortly after, a light comes on within the cubicle and she moves to it. We feel as though we're looking at a series of interlocked tenement rooms, some walls of which have been torn away to expose rooms within, rooms with no windows or doors. Following a path of fragile steps, Catherine makes her way to the lighted room and enters.
A mottled horse stands with its head down, nose kissing the floor, allowing the boy to caress its neck. This sweet animal is an incrongruous vision in this hellish world and Catherine approaches with respect.
CATHERINE: Hey you.
The frightened child retreats into a corner of the claustrophobic room, but the horse does not startle. Catherine scratches along the mane and shoulder, much to the horse's delight.
CATHERINE: Yeah, you like that, don't you?
She can see the boy hiding in the corner, stealing glances at her from the shadows.
CATHERINE: Is your name Carl?
The boy - young Stargher - is startled and intrigued by the question - How did she know that?! - but says nothing.
CATHERINE: I know another little boy with a horse. His name's Edward. The boy, not the horse...
The boy reacts to an unusual sound coming from the ceiling.
CATHERINE: His name's Edward.
The boy takes a few steps toward her, out of the shadows, but he seems more concerned about something in the ceiling than "connecting" with Catherine. Very anxiously, he looks at the wall behind Catherine and watches a timer click down.
CATHERINE: What's wrong?
Again, a sharp sound from the ceiling. Young Stargher runs at her and shoves her hard! Catherine falls back just as thirteen sheets of glass drop from the ceiling! Like oversize razor blades, they slice the horse into clean sections. They separate and compact the quadrants until glass-contained sections of dissected horse stand within the room. Catherine gasps, but the mare barely acknowledged what happened. Betraying no emotion, the boy runs. The shaken Catherine takes a moment to collect herself, then gives chase.
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