No way!
You're only 23? Looking like that?
Like what?
I thought you were at least 28 or 29.
So, that makes us the same age.
Huh?! Hold up, you're 23 too?
Sure am.
Seriously? I can't believe this.
I had you pegged being somewhere around 40.
Forty?
Okay, so how old are you, Chris?
Thirty?
Don't be stupid, I'm not that old!
Then maybe 26 or 27?
Nope. No comment.
Anything I say is just gonna let you narrow it down even more.
You kinda paused for a second, though!
That means you guessed right.
All right, so I guess I better start using "ma'am" around you, huh?
No, don't even start with that!
Since we're sharing, I'm 16 years old.
God, could you be any more annoying?
Ow, ow! Cut it out!
Forty?
All done!
Uh, what exactly is that supposed to be?
Something he found lying around the armory, apparently.
And once he saw it, he came up with the idea of using it for a BBQ.
Yikes, isn't that a little too haphazard?
Forty...
Here goes!
Welp...
What was that?!
A fire?
Nah, couldn't be.
Earlier today, the very last ice floe in the Arctic broke apart.
Oh damn...
Wow, so there's no ice in the Arctic anymore?
It's all over the news right now.
Check it out.
This video is going viral.
If my estimations are correct, then precisely three years from now,
all ice in the Arctic will have melted to nothing!
It's actually been three years to the day since he made that speech.
For real?!
So, everything in the world is playing out just as Skinner predicted, huh?
Some people out there are even starting to treat him like a prophet or god.
But they were just calling him a terrorist the other day!
Forget terrorism, it's possible this thing could escalate into World War III soon.
And now, nobody's paying attention to the Hapna problem.
You said it.
Which is crazy, because if Skinner's not lying,
there's only fifteen days left until the first deaths occur...
Hey, a world war might wipe out humanity faster than Hapna does.
That's not even funny.
Oh, Ms. Hersch.
Sorry I'm late.
Let's get started.
Unfortunately, our search has gone back to square one.
Even the FBI agents who raided that cult, the Tower of the Truth,
couldn't find anything tied to Skinner.
The founder, Naga, was indeed an AI modeled after Skinner's brain,
but the Bureau concluded that the man himself
wasn't involved in any way.
So, all that for nothing...
Well, what do we do now?
In times like these, it's best to go back to the beginning.
What do you mean?
For starters, we should take another look at Skinner's video...
Nope. Inedible.
Nor do I intend to unilaterally decide what the fate of humanity will be.
All I am doing is serving as the Seventh Trumpeter.
Wait, pause it.
So hey, what exactly does this "Seventh Trumpeter" stuff mean?
It's part of the New Testament.
John, one of the apostles of Jesus,
was honored with a vision of the future by God,
and then chronicled it in the Book of Revelation.
What kind of future was it?
Volcanic eruptions, meteorite impacts, war, etc.
In the Book of Revelation,
God has become so enraged by humanity's hubris
that he brings all sorts of calamities down upon them.
Yikes!
Sounds like what's happening now.
There are angels who sound their trumpets one by one to warn of each calamity.
And then, after the seventh angel blows its trumpet,
final judgment gets delivered upon humanity.
Ah, makes sense.
So that's why Skinner said he's blowing the seventh trumpet.
Oh, the analyzer's done.
Pardon me a sec.
Hey, so when did the other six trumpets get played?
Dunno.
All right.
The analysis is complete.
The weather's not very good today.
Plus, the sun will be setting soon.
It's better if we leave tomorrow instead, don't you think?
Set sail.
But...
We don't have the luxury of believing in tomorrow.
You know that.
What's this thing?
A memory drive that was extracted from Naga.
And what are these numbers?
The final output of data that Naga ever made, I assume.
So, it's like Naga's dying message?
Possibly.
This may have been its way of trying to pass on a message in the end.
Like sharing the name of its first crush or something?
Take this seriously, please.
Whatever you say, chief.
Looks like a phone number to me.
So, let's call it and find out.
Really, just like that?
Perhaps it's some kind of code.
I'll run it through my decryption software.
Or maybe they're actually map coordinates.
Huh?! Ramen shop?
Sorry, wrong number.
"Hafurrowfoohee minminary furolee"...
What the heck?
It doesn't make any sense.
Bingo!
They're coordinates? Like with the latitude and longitude?
Yup.
This is the UTM coordinate system, which is heavily used in the military.
Here are the four locations they point to.
So, uh...
Are you sure they're right?
They all point to the middle of the ocean.
The Maldives, Manila Bay, the Sakishima Islands, Tuvalu...
I'm stumped.
Hold on, aren't these all islands that got submerged in the last decade or so?
Now that you mention it...
Are you saying these locations used to be islands instead of just a bunch of water?
Actually, these might be...
Yep, I was right.
Skinner bought land in all four of these areas
right before they sunk into the sea.
He did?!
Why would he buy sinking islands?
So is this what Naga was trying to tell us?
Aw, jeez, I have no idea what to make of this.
All this speculating isn't going to get us anywhere.
Let's take a trip.
To Skinner's ocean resort!
What are the odds that Skinner himself is hiding in one of those four spots?
It's hard to say.
But I'm positive there must be some sort of reason
that he purchased all of that land.
Interesting...
The only problem is that the islands are now gone because of global warming.
We don't have many clues left to go on.
Understood.
And while I have you...
are you up for a little outing after this?
I didn't know you liked Rembrandt.
Or maybe you just wanted to go to a place that hasn't been bugged?
No,
Rembrant's work has long been my choice of art to appreciate
one last time before the end.
How sentimental.
I'm just that kind of guy.
The same guy who everybody describes as being a cold-hearted pragmatist
and who actually might be an AI instead of human?
First I've heard of it.
I'll be back in an hour.
Hey, Abel?
Don't let sentimentality kill your career.
You don't have to tell me, Liz.
Okay, see you in an hour.
Reporting in from the Maldives.
Just twelve more minutes until I reach the coordinates.
Roger. I'm currently over the mouth of the Santa Maria River.
The plane's about to land.
I just left Ishigaki Island.
I'll be at the former site of Taketomi Island in ten minutes.
I've already made it to the coordinates in Tuvalu.
I'm gonna go ahead and take a look in the water now.
Alrighty...
What the...
Is this it?
Yessir, right on the mark.
Nothing here. That figures.
So, totally unrelated, but...
Is Lazarus going to get disbanded after we find Skinner?
Of course.
That's the sole purpose of our team.
Well, I was just thinking that'd be kind of a shame, ya know?
And? Are you saying we're better off not capturing Skinner?
Oh, c'mon, that would mean doomsday for all of us, dude.
Yeah, yeah. I know that much!
I gotta say, I totally forgot how blue the sea and sky are.
Yeah, I can't even remember the last time I saw a clear sky.
Cuz Babylonia City is always cloudy.
It's like that everywhere these days.
The only beautiful places left are those without humans...
You know, maybe this is something Skinner wanted us to see.
This is the Earth as nature intended it to be.
But humankind has destroyed it.
All the other trumpets sounded a long time ago.
Who can really say that Skinner is wrong?
How was it?
A buncha nothing.
It's been ten years now.
Everybody here packed up and moved to another island.
What happened?
Oh, a bunch of flying fish jumped out and one of them hit me.
Doesn't it hurt?
Well, I was born with a congenital insensitivity disorder.
Huh?
It makes me unable to feel pain, so I don't know what it's like.
Oh, wow...
So then, you didn't take Hapna?
I never had a need.
Cases like mine aren't uncommon around here.
It's called analgesia.
What's up?
I just found out
a majority of the people who used to live on this island suffered from analgesia.
Really?
The guy acting as my guide is actually a former resident.
He can't feel pain at all.
And guess what?
He remembers Skinner coming to visit the island back when he was little.
We had no money back then,
which made it impossible for us to move anywhere else.
But then, Mr. Skinner came and bought our entire island.
So thanks to him, we had enough money to start new lives.
Eleina, can you trace where the money that he spent on the other islands went?
I'll try.
Dammit!
I seriously can't figure Skinner out.
Rembrandt is the painter that many regard to be the master of light.
In other words,
he understood that the true nature of things
depended heavily on how they are illuminated.
And?
What did you really bring me here to talk about?
I believe that I owe you an apology.
What for?
Because I know how you feel about Skinner,
and it's not a stretch to say I've taken advantage of that fact.
Don't worry about it.
No one forced me to do anything.
I made my own decisions.
Of course.
Why did he start this whole thing?
And why did he leave me behind to do it?
I need the answers to those questions.
About that prison in Arizona...
The intelligence branch of the army has started sniffing around.
For Axel?
Yeah.
Plus, that incident at the Schiphol Airport...
Axel is the one who can shed light on everything.
Skinner first visited that island fifteen years ago
as part of a drive to receive gene donations.
Same story with the other islands.
Skinner bought up their land,
which gave the residents enough money
to move to different places and start new lives.
Whatever the case,
it seems highly likely that congenital analgesia
was the origin of Hapna.
Do you know where he studied the donated genes?
At the Hague Institute. Skinner was a researcher there at the time.
The Hague?
Well, damn, that place got shut down after the Hapna incident.
I'll try finding a list of people who worked there at the time.
I betcha that Naga was curious to know.
Know what?
What Skinner was doing with these islands. Naga probably saw him like a parent.
You know,
it almost feels like we've been
vicariously experiencing Skinner's life by searching for him.
Actually, that might be exactly what he intended.
What do you mean?
He's making us feel what he felt by following in his footsteps.
So what you're saying is,
we're still just dancing in the palm of his hand.
The Raising of Lazarus...
Tell me something.
Do you get the impression
that Skinner sold his soul to the devil and turned into a different person?
No, he hasn't changed at all.
He was always very sincere. Practically to a fault.
But you can't survive in the world like that.
And when I told him as much, he replied:
"What exactly is so wrong about a scientist who is sincere?"
I see...
Here's what I can say for sure.
He wants somebody to come and find him.
Yeah, I'd like to believe that, too.
I've found a data archive.
It includes a list of all the researchers affiliated with the Hague Institute.
What's wrong?
Um, well...
Why?
Alexandra?
I knew it.