Spectral

Acknowledge when in position, Sergeant Davis.

Dagger Team 1, copy. I keep losing you.

- How long till my backup's here? - Working on it. Stand by.

Say eight to ten minutes. Advise you stay put.

I can't wait for backup.

Send them in behind me.

Davis, maintain your position. They're on their way.

Dagger Team 1, you seeing this? There's some kind of disturbance here.

Davis, what is that? What are you seeing?

What the hell?

Davis.

Davis, what's your status?

Davis, come in!

Got you.

... gonna get a late start.

Right, well, it's a closed session.

Most of the specs stayed the same...

Dr. Osbourne, call 204. Dr. Osbourne, 204.

They're issuing temporaries for that R and D, as far as I know.

Is that part of the same badge or...?

I'm pretty sure.

- All right. - How's it going?

- Hey. - Hi.

- We'll get everything. - Marty was already in?

Yeah.

And she's working on that project?

They'll be done in about a week. I was gonna say...

Don Taylor, report to Laser Laboratory Building B, Laser Lab.

Okay, I'll take a look.

- Where have you been? - Solving problems.

You look... dusty.

Sometimes you gotta get dusty, Efrem.

- Test the pulse? - Yeah.

Went down to the vault, asked Johnson for some tetracene,

but apparently, we don't store it.

It's outdated and expensive as shit.

It got expensive. Back in the '90s, it used to be cheap.

So, if you look hard enough... you can still find some lying around.

You find a street gang that slings tetracene?

Industrial printer cartridge, $14.99 back in the day.

- Get me a mount, would you? - Here you go.

Thank you.

You gonna tell the suits you're running this on a 20-year-old part?

I'll show them it works and say:

"That's the difference between a prototype and a production model."

Okay.

Concavity is spun to zero.

Lens track is hot.

Alignment is keyed in.

You are good to go.

I'll let you call it.

If you think about the applications on other materials, it could be significant.

Metals, for instance, can be shattered with very little effort or noise.

Concrete, rubber... they're all vulnerable to violent temperature changes.

Yeah, this project started as a request from SEAL Team 6.

After the siege in Rwanda,

they came to us asking for the capability...

to flash freeze or boil the enemy's water supply.

Now, this device could have driven the enemy out.

And you... tried this on living things?

That wasn't our intent here, initially.

We'd like you test it.

Any volunteers?

Well... we'll give it a try.

Gentlemen, why don't we go sit down? We'll talk over the next steps. All right?

Yeah. Right this way.

What do you want, a clean conscience?

Test it with a slab of beef for all I care.

What I want is to use it for what we originally designed it as.

A deterrent.

Nobody said anything about microwaving people's lungs.

It's war.

It's the business we're in.

Remember what you sold it to me as when you hired me?

Defense.

And that's still partially true.

But war is good business.

So is human trafficking.

We work for DARPA, Mark. We work for the government.

"I don't know what weapons we'll use in World War III,

- but World War IV will be fought with..." - "Sticks and stones." Albert Einstein.

- He worked for the government. - Mm-hm. That's right.

And if you ask him, I don't think he thought that was his finest hour.

I'm sure he has feelings about flash-boiling human flesh.

Ever think about prosthetic limbs with full sensory feedback?

Ah. Prosthetics... don't win wars.

Did you hear that?

That is the empathetic scientist in you dying.

Hmm.

Did you brief your guys on how to operate the ray?

- I did. - Good.

Then you can start packing.

Can you be more specific?

Mm-hm.

About these goggles.

Your... hyperspectral goggles

being deployed by Special Forces in Eastern Europe in the Moldovan War.

- I'm aware. I read the field reports. - No, you have not read this report.

Orland called me personally. General Orland.

He said things are very... sensitive down there.

And they're... seeing things.

Okay. Like what?

They won't tell me.

They won't share the video feed. They won't discuss what they're seeing.

They just want the lead engineer down there to advise and consult.

Look, you invented these goggles to keep our guys safe.

Well, now they need your help.

Think of it as defense.

Let me reboot the guidance system.

It's locked tight. We have to pull it out.

All right, let's go. Move it out.

- Mark Clyne? - What?

You the guy that designed the helmet cam?

- Yes. Mark Clyne. - James Orland. Come with me.

A lot of new boots on the ground here.

The country's in chaos.

The insurgency is mostly remnants of the military dictatorship

that ran this place until about two months ago.

And their popular support is primarily in the north part of the country...

near the Russian border, and here in the capital.

The problem is their forces are well-trained.

They're threatening to turn this whole thing into a civil war.

Moldova. Russians had it, lost it.

It became independent, but it's struggling internally.

On the one hand, you have an insurgency,

made up of the regime's former elite soldiers.

They're well-trained and dangerous.

On the other, you have most of the population,

who are tearing down the regime's flags and demanding a new government.

Civil unrest, as complicated as it is, is a business we're familiar with.

We like to think we're good at it.

But this thing your camera found...

it's a whole new piece of business.

I can't send this video to EUCOM. I'm just afraid they'd think it's a joke.

DOD doesn't have a sense of humor.

Typically not. Hook us up.

I'm sure there's a scientific explanation for what's on these,

but until you tell me,

I'm not sending it up the chain of command.

- You done? - Yes, sir.

- Get out. Seal us in. Wait outside. - Sir.

Nobody here has been able to make heads or tails of this.

It's thrown a wrench into our entire operation

for reasons I'm not at liberty to discuss with you.

I can tell you we need answers fast.

- Do you mind? - You spotted that quick.

Five different helmet cams picked up something similar in the last three weeks.

At first, our signals intelligence tech wrote it off as interference.

That's not interference.

I don't think you'd fly me all the way here for interference.

Wanna tell me what you're thinking?

I want you to tell me what you're thinking.

I don't know what I'm thinking... yet.

But there is an explanation.

That was the first sighting. Three others just like it.

The last was different. It involved a member of Delta Force,

that makes it particularly sensitive.

This is Fran Madison with CIA.

What Special Ops does here is done under CIA covert operations.

You need to sign this before we go any further.

- What is this? - It's an SCI oath.

You're acknowledging it's life in prison if you reveal anything you're told.

- Cue up the Davis file, please. - Yes, ma'am.

Three days ago we conducted a raid in mid-city.

Our communications were intermittent, and a guy got separated from the group...

where he ended up killed in action.

He got closer than anybody.

Too close.

Dagger Team 1, you seeing this? There's some kind of disturbance here.

Davis, what is that? What are you seeing?

What the hell?

Sergeant Chris Davis.

Three-tour combat vet. Best of the best.

In the last few weeks we've been finding bodies around the city

that were killed in the same way.

The autopsies defied all explanation.

Their internal organs were frozen

and yet, their skin was burned and corroded.

The only response from the allied Moldovan military contact is shock, confusion.

And there's anger.

There's teenagers spray-painting "genocide aratare" at kill sites.

- Genocide...? - "Aratare."

It's a local myth. The ghosts of war.

"As nightmarish as." That's the literal translation.

- That's very poetic. - Well, they're superstitious.

They somehow think...

the horrors of the war have kicked up something unnatural.

- We hope you have an alternate theory. - What do you think?

- Think you need a new name for them. - Beyond that.

- Give me a copy of the data, some time... - That's not possible.

You want me to figure this out right now?

- We want your assessment. - I don't have one yet.

Then, I think we have to send our working theory up the chain of command.

- I don't wanna do that. - Okay. What is your working theory?

The agency thinks this is some kind of cloaking technology.

Insurgent soldiers wearing active camouflage.

In this country? Something that advanced?

CIA knows a few groups in Europe and Asia could be working on active camouflage.

DARPA's worked on cloaking technology. We're years away from a prototype.

- Maybe somebody beat you to it. - DARPA is the leader in the field.