Whoa.
I take it you're the ice man from the FBI.
Ice man?
Hmm.
That's a little harsh.
Actually, I'm the science man from the FBI.
I'm Special Agent Rachel Young.
I'm assigned to Dr. Hood.
Well, I'm Detective Cordero, LAPD.
This is Dr. Nash from the coroner's office.
Hi.
Dr. Nash. How are you doing?
This was our case
till the feds showed up,
told us to wait for you.
Why is the FBI so interested?
Uh, you should, uh, put on a mask.
No.
- I don't think so. - Funny, I wouldn't
have pegged you as the "live dangerously" type.
There's nothing dangerous about it.
An airborne pathogen couldn't
have frozen her like this.
- Why not? - It's thermodynamically impossible.
Uh, airborne molecules...
they're too small.
They don't have anything close
to the heat capacity
to cause this kind of damage to a human being.
Well, then, what did?
I mean, there are no wounds,
no puncture marks on the body,no bruising,
lesions, injection marks.
No indication of physical trauma whatsoever.
Who was she, Detective?
Marlena Gower.
Marketing student at Malibu State.
She spent most of last night
at a house about 100 yards from here.
Left near dawn.
Was a big party.
A few noise complaints from the neighbors,
but no reports of screams or signs of a struggle.
39 degrees Fahrenheit.
Seven degrees above freezing.
Her body shows no signs of sub-thermal exposure.
And it appears like she's not warming up, either.
Detective, can you tell me
how a seemingly healthy college student
in the prime of life freezes to death on the beach
on one of the hottest days of the year?
No.
Doctor?
No.
Neither can I.
Which is why the FBI is interested.
Anything unusual on Marlena's body,
maybe in her purse?
We found a near-empty bottle of champagne...
pricey stuff...
a bottle of prescription tranquilizers
and some odd text messages on her cell.
Odd in what way? Well, they
were pretty cryptic, asking her
if she had reconsidered something.
Have you traced them?
To a prepaid cell.
We're trying to track it down right now.
She wrote back some pretty nasty responses,
so whatever it was about, she didn't like it.
And you checked her cell record?
There were three other
"Have you reconsidered?" text messages.
First one came in five days ago.
Could be connected to the death.
I asked Dr. Nash to run a metabolic panel,
also to check the stomach contents,
see if there was anything unusual
in that champagne she had.
Please call us with the results.
Will do.
Thank you.
Also, we should check out
the house she visited last night,
see if there's anything there to give us a clue as to how
she ended up like this.
Or why.
Yeah,she was here.
Too bad... she was a real hottie.
Came with a bunch of coeds from Malibu State.
Real party girls, if you know what I mean.
And I'm sure they were all over 18, right?
All my parties are legal.
Hey.
Hey!
What are you doing, man?
Just checking out your AC unit here.
Yeah, well, it's up to code and state of the art.
You use it very often?
Now and then... doesn't get
over 90 in Malibu that often.
It did yesterday.
Yeah, well, I had it on for a few hours in the afternoon.
Turned it off as soon as the sun went down.
Okay, thank you very much.
Someone slipped our victim a Freon Mickey?
They don't use Freon in air conditioners anymore.
Damages the ozone layer.
Any sign of tampering on the unit?
No.
So we can rule out death by air conditioner.
She was taking
prescription medication.
Maybe we should go talk to her doctor.
She was taking
benzodiazepine for anxiety.
Understandable, of course.
Why, was she having trouble at school or with a boyfriend?
She had bigger problems.
- I assumed you knew. - Knew what?
She was diagnosed last month with severe aplastic anemia.
Unfortunately, we couldn't find it
in time to begin effective treatment.
She was terminal?
I'm afraid so.
Could the illness have contributed
to her freezing to death?
It's a very rare
blood disease with a lot of horrible symptoms,
but fatal hypothermia isn't one of them.
It's amazing.
You can actually see the heart beating.
And now we know what color to paint the nursery.
I've always loved the color blue.
We'll name him after you.
I just wish I could give him more than a name.
Maybe you can.
Honey, I made that appointment for us at the Foundation.
I think you should at least consider it.
We still have some time left before...
It's, uh, been over 24 hours
and the extremities are finally starting to thaw.
Her body is just a,uh,few degrees below ambient.
Autolysis has begun.
The body has started to digest itself.
It's always such a...
brutally efficient process to watch.
Yeah.
Life is a miracle, but, uh,
death, in its own terrible way,
is no less beautiful.
She was only 21.
Oh.
Well,her death is tragic, no question,
but, uh...
I did this autopsy on a guy last month
who had been hooked up to a heart-lung machine
for, uh, 12 years because his family
just couldn't accept the fact that he was brain-dead.
The way our culture tries
to deny death, uh, hide from it...
I just think that's tragic, too.
You got a tissue sample?
Yeah,I got a liver section
right over here.
Thank you.
No frostbite.
But that's impossible.
I mean, she was frozen, wasn't she?
Well, that's
the interesting thing.
She was frozen, but...
but not with ice crystals.
Were there any chemical compounds
in the blood work you couldn't identify?
Well, the tox panel was clean.
There were a few lines in, uh,
the spectral analysis that I didn't recognize,
but of course, that in itself isn't unusual.
Well,I'm gonna need at least 100cc's of her blood,
tissue samples from her major organs,
and a real lab.
Rachel, can you find me one?
Oh, yeah, not bad.
Not bad at all.
Can I help you?
Yeah, I'd like to borrow your facility, please.
I beg your pardon?
Uh, Dr. Hood and I are here to discover
exactly what killed Marlena Gower,
a 21-year-old student from your school, and to ascertain
whether or not it poses a risk to national security.
Now, I can't legally compel your cooperation
or the use of your lab, so I'm asking you
to compel yourself
to do the right thing.
I have good days
and bad days.
I'm set to start chemo treatments next week.
I'm doing everything that the doctors tell me.
I'm glad to hear you're following their advice.
We at the Forever Forward Foundation want
to see you live a long and productive life.
Look, I know that time isn't on my side,
but I don't intend to go out a moment before I have to.
We just found out it's gonna
be a boy.
I may not be around when he's born...
...but maybe, with your help,
when he's grown up,
I could be back and spend some time with him,
Talk to him.
That would certainly be our hope as well.
But...
I have an ethical obligation
to be crystal-clear on this point with both of you.
We can't make any guarantees.
It could be decades
before a cure is found for your illness,Edward,
even longer before the technology
is available to successfully
revive you.
Maybe you'll be able to meet our son
and our grandson.
Now, I'm using
a fluorite substrate instead of glass.
Why?
Glass blocks infrared.
Very good.
And we need infrared data
to get a complete organic profile.
And fluorite is transparent to infrared.
You care to assist?
Sure.
Run this sample, please.
- Mm-hmm. -Thank you.
Is that an ice pack?
Did you hurt yourself? You got a spare one
of those I could borrow for a second,please?
Mmm. Sure. Here you go.
Thank you.
This is an example of an endothermic reaction.
Squeeze it;
water mixes with the ammonium nitrite;
it gets colder than ice.
Exactly.
I have a lot of experience with ice packs.
See, most reactions,
they release heat.
An endothermic reactions does the opposite.
It absorbs it.
Thanks, Dr. Hood.
Bye now.
See you around.
So, you think Marlena Gower
was dosed with ammonium nitrite?
No, because it would've left behind ice crystals.
But it's something similar.
It's a pair of compounds
that absorb heat when they react.
Just got to work out which compounds.
So, who would have a reason to create something like this?
Well, sometimes people need to ship,um,
transplant organs from one state to another.
Refrigeration's a way of keeping them viable, but if ice crystals
form inside the cells, it can cause a lot of damage.
If you could find a way of preserving organs
without freezing them, you could save a lot of lives.
Or take them.
Where's Mr. Science?
He's at the lab.
You two,um,strictly business,right?
- Of course. Why? - Oh, just checking.
Tell you the truth,
I wouldn't mind brushing up on my biology with him.
Janitor found him about a half hour ago.
Name's John Robbins.
Big-time entertainment lawyer.
Coroner's on the way.
Unnaturally low body temperature.
No apparent signs of trauma.
Same text message.
Little less
cold and stiff than the other victim.
But just as dead.
We'll take excellent care of you,
Mr. Grekowski,
when the time comes.
My wife convinced me.
If there's even a one-in-a-million chance
I could see my son someday, I'm gonna take it.
I'll, uh,
I'll bring you the check tonight.
I think you've made the right decision
for yourself, and for your family.
Thank you.
The trunk is still somewhat rigid,
but the rest of him is...
nearly back to room temperature.
And still no puncture wounds.
It took Marlena Gower close to a day to thaw out.
This man's been dead for less than eight hours.
If this is due to a chemical reaction,
the hormonal differences
between men and women could affect its rate.
He's also older than the previous victim.
He was getting the same text messages she was,
asking if he'd "reconsidered," but with no indication
- of what he was supposed to reconsider. - The text message
on the second victim's phone gave us probable cause
to geo-locate the caller's location,
but so far nothing.
Whoever made those calls knows their telecom tradecraft.
What does that mean?
It means they compartmentalized the device.
Never use it for anything but those calls.
And probably remove the SIM card and battery
when they're done sending the text.
These spectrographs from our victim's blood samples
represent half a dozen different compounds.
We've got to identify
the one that caused her to freeze to death.
So, we have to work backwards, right?
Figure out the set of all possible reactions
that could make them.
Yeah, but there's literally hundreds
of possibilities.
Just got the final autopsy report
for our latest victim John Robbins.
He was terminal, too.
Hemochromatosis.
That's a fatally high level of iron in the blood.
The answer is here.
I just...
I just can't see it.
You'll figure it out, sir.
You're brilliant.
Thanks for the vote of confidence,
Janet, but I keep telling you...
please stop calling me "sir."
It's Jacob.
Okay, well, we know what the reaction makes,
but we don't know what makes the reaction.
Maybe I'm thinking of this the wrong way.
I'm assuming that...
...these two or three different compounds
were going together to make the reaction.
That's how chemistry usually happens.
Yeah.
But what if...
the fragments we've identified
are all
part of the same molecule?
But how would that work?
What would it react with?
With itself.
It's like the Ouroboros from the Egyptian methodology
the snake that swallows its own tail.
Eventually, it consumes itself.
But if this is a self-reacting molecule,
there would still have to be some kind of catalyst
to get the reaction started.
Potassium?
It's a catalyst in lots of organic reactions
and there's plenty of it in human cells in mineral form.
There's only one way to be sure.
We have to synthesize the molecule.
Rachel, you hungry?
Not particularly.
I need a hamburger.
Okay.
I'll see what I can find at the cafeteria.
How do you want it?
Raw.
One raw hamburger.
So that's our killer, huh?
Well, if we're lucky,
and my organic chemistry isn't too rusty.
Here's a perfectly raw hamburger.
Now watch.
This'll just take a... a few moments
for the potassium in the meat
to trigger the process.
Do you want me to go back to the cafeteria for some fries?
Where's your team spirit?
Have a some patience, please.
It's 39 degrees.
Same temperature as the first victim.
Frozen solid.
But what about John Robbins?
If the same compound killed him, why didn't he end up frozen?
His terminal hemochromatosis... too much iron in the blood.
Iron reverses the process.
Janet, could you get the iron sulfate for me, please?
Watch this.
You see, Robbins had just enough iron in his blood
to prevent the process from completing.
But not enough to keep him alive.
Unfortunately for him, no.
And now we're back to normal temperature.
Okay, you said the chemical would be developed
to preserve organs for transplant, right?
Absolutely. To that market,
it's gonna be worth its weight in gold.
So, it would definitely be worth patenting.
Janet, there's no Internet on this computer.
Is there a T3 connection anywhere in the building?
Our professor's computer.
Or if you'd like
a little privacy, I have WiFi in my dorm room.
No. Your professor's computer will be fine.
Application No.8293024
An endothermic chemical process
for the purpose of tissue preservation.
It's the same as the molecule we just synthesized.
The patent was filed by...
Adastra Pharmaceuticals.
Biomedical firm in El Segundo.
Now we know where the murder weapon came from.
Agent Young, Dr. Hood, I hope this is important.
You pulled me out of a stockholders meeting.
I need to get back as soon as possible.
Oh, I'm very sorry, Dr. Ramesh.
Were you telling your stockholders
about Trimethyl-cryazine?
Cryazine is still in development,
not nearly ready to bring to the public.
What's your interest in it?
My interest is, I, uh, synthesized it in a lab.
And we believe it's being used to murder people.
I have no idea what you're talking about.
Cryazine is manufactured to preserve organs.
At this stage, the FDA has only approved
of limited clinical trials on kidneys and livers.
Who's conducting your clinical trials?
I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to say.
You know, two people have already died
because of your research.
I hardly believe
anyone associated
with this company is responsible.
Anyone familiar with the chemical is a possible suspect,
including you, Doctor.
If Cryazine
is successful, it could save thousands of lives.
An investigation could compromise our research,
scare off our investors.
Well, we wouldn't want anyone getting cold feet.
We're simply asking
for your cooperation.
Tell us who your partner is
on the clinical side,and we'll be discreet.
And
I'm sure your stockholders
will be relieved when you go back to your meeting
and tell them you avoided a federal subpoena.
The Forever Forward Foundation.
Here at the Forever Forward Foundation,
the idea of immortality
is no longer a fantasy.
Dr. Gregory, there's someone to see you...
from the FBI.
At 320 degrees below zero,
liquid nitrogen can preserve them indefinitely.
A doctor is always present to certify time of death.
It's best that our clients spend their last moments here,
so we can begin the process as quickly as possible.
So how many floating heads do you have here?
We prefer the term de-animated neural suspension.
Each cylinder contains four clients.
There are ten cylinders in this storage unit and five
more units just like this one.
You do the math.
You promise these people that someday
when there is a cure for cancer or whatever else killed them,
you'll just thaw them out?
It was good enough for Walt Disney.
And then what?
You put their heads on wheels?
In the future,
it will be possible
to clone yourself a young and healthy body.
Why bother preserving the old one?
Plus,it's cheaper to just freeze the heads, right?
Do you know a Marlena Gower,
or a John Robbins?
They have contracts with us.
What do those contracts run, exactly?
$80,000.
Our service isn't cheap.
But they both have money.
Robbins is a successful lawyer,
and I believe, Ms. Gower has a trust fund.
Do you know they're dead?
When? How?
A couple of days ago.
Well, they have to be brought here immediately.
The longer we wait,
the lower their chances are for reanimation.
Are you aware of a substance called Trimethyl-cryazine?
How do you know about it?
It killed them both. Do you use it here?
For clinical trials only.
We encourage our neural suspension clients
to donate all of their harvestable organs for research.
If Cryazine proves effective,
it could be a huge step forward.
See, our biggest challenge is preventing cellular damage
caused by freezing brain tissue.
Do you have the chemical on the premises?
Oh, yes.
There are only...
nine bottles.
There should be,
uh... 15.
Who else has access to this cabinet?
Our lead researcher, uh,
two technicians,
uh, security guards.
We'll need all their names so we can run a background check.
I'll also need to see a list of your clients.
Just the ones who aren't dead. Yet.
So, you do have a contract
with the Forever Forward Foundation for...
de-animated neural suspension?
Actually, I'm calling to see
if you've received a threat of any kind recently,
possibly a text message
from an unknown sender asking you to reconsider?
Okay.
Well, if you do receive such a message,
please contact us immediately.
Thank you.
Still waiting
to hear back from a couple of clients,
but no one else got an unusual text.
Not yet.
Rachel Young here.
Something came up on one of the employees
at the frozen head shop.
Security guard named Joey Lux.
He used to be a cop.
Retired?
He was forced to resign.
One too many police brutality complaints
and a corruption charge to go with it.
Sounds like a real upstanding citizen.
I have a search warrant, and I'm
texting you his address. I'll see you there.
Okay.
That was Cordero with a possible lead.
We could use one.
By the way, she likes you.
What?
Police! Open up!
Don't move! LAPD!
What the hell?!
We have a few questions to ask you, Mr. Lux.
You worked security at the Foundation
when they started testing a new tissue-preserving chemical.
So?
So, several bottles of the chemical are missing.
Stolen.
And two people are dead because of it.
- Who's next, Joey? - I don't know what the hell you're talking about.
We're talking about the fact that you're one
of the few people who had access to the chemical.
And a couple of your coworkers saw you
snooping around the room where the chemical is kept
after your shift had ended.
And you think that makes me a killer?
Well, standards for promotion
to detective have seriously dropped since I left the force.
We canvassed the neighborhoods
where the two victims were killed.
We found a syringe with traces of the compound in it
and your fingerprint.
You care to explain that?
Hey, kiss my ass, Detective.
I was a cop, remember?
If you'd found a syringe with my prints on it,
we wouldn't be talking.
Are we done?
We're done.
For now.
But don't leave town.
Rachel?
What?
Not a syringe.
A gun.
I don't follow.
Detective Cordero just tried to trick him into
confessing by suggesting that we had found a syringe.
Well, there are no
puncture marks on any of the victims' bodies.
No bullet holes, either.
I don't mean that kind of gun.
Jet injector gun.
Uses a powerful jet of liquid instead of a needle
to penetrate the skin.
No puncture marks.
We need to subpoena
all medical suppliers of jet injector guns
and get names of any individuals or companies
in Southern California
who've made purchases in the last 12 months.
What is it?
Uh... uh, it's nothing.
I just keep getting
the same junk mail text message.
Uh, it's so annoying.
Do you think there's really a chance
the people in those cylinders...
those heads...
can ever be revived?
Well, the science is debatable
and the ethics are questionable, but sure,
there's a chance.
Just as there's a chance a snowstorm
could bury the East Coast on the Fourth of July.
I'm serious.
So am I.
It happened.
1816.
It was a combination
of low-magnetic activity from the sun,
ash clouds and sulfur aerosols
from a volcanic eruption the year before,
but it... it created a... a summer of snow and rain
across the entire Northern Hemisphere.
So, if there is a chance,
it's probably worth taking it... I mean,
considering the alternative.
Sooner or later, Rachel... everyone dies.
I mean, you can fight it.
My wife did.
But in the end, um...
in the end, I think it's how you face your death that counts.
I don't know about you,
but I wouldn't like to face mine
as a frozen head on a Popsicle stick.
Cordero.
This is Rachel.
We'll be right there.
That ex-cop, Lux...
they just found him dead in his apartment.
Freezing solid.
Nothing says guilty
like killing yourself with the murder weapon.
I'm not so sure.
Drinking this compound's not a very efficient way
of absorbing it into the bloodstream.
The stomach acids would break it down
before it had a chance to reach the rest of the body.
One thing we do know for sure.
Our prime suspect just became our latest victim.
Anything good?
Jet injectors were ordered
by Camp Pendleton near San Diego
and a diabetes research institute in Pasadena.
All of them are accounted for.
Another dead end.
Hang on a second.
I also got a subpoena
for all PayPal transactions involving online purchases
of surplus jet injectors
- over the past six months. - And?
One was shipped to a Malibu PO box less than a month ago.
The user name on the PayPal account
is... Glacialis?
Glacialis.
That's Latin for "frozen."
What's the name on the account?
Eddie?
No, Mrs. Grekowski.
Yes?
This is special agent Rachel Young.
I'm from the FBI.
I'm trying to find your husband.
I've been calling his cell phone,
but he doesn't pick up.
Is something wrong?
He signed a contract
with the Forever Forward Foundation yesterday.
I'm afraid he might be in danger.
And I'm wondering if he's gotten
any odd text messages recently?
No, just junk mail, but nothing.
He's at the Foundation right now dropping off a check.
Dr. Nash.
What is this?
FBI, Mr. Grekowski.
What are you doing here?
We could ask you
the same question,
but we already know the answer.
I'm here to certify a death. That's my job.
"The way our culture tries to deny death is tragic."
Isn't that what you told us
at the morgue?
I'd be happy to have this discussion
some other time, but right now I have work to do.
Whoa, whoa, what the hell is going on here?
Dr. Nash is the one who sent you those threatening text messages.
I don't understand.
There's nothing to understand.
This is crazy.
Cryonics attacks your whole belief system, doesn't it?
Your world view.
I just respect death.
I think everybody should.
Well, that respect is what's kept you going,
helped you cope with your job
day in, day out.
Year after year.
Corpse after corpse.
You know how much money people like Grekowski here waste
trying to cheat death, what that money
could be used for?
A billion children go to bed
on this planet every night hungry
while hundreds of millions of dollars
are thrown away
on ridiculous dreams of immortality.
Joey Lux stole the chemical
for you and provided information on clients.
You killed him to keep him from talking
and tried to make it look like suicide.
And you came here to kill Mr. Grekowski on the premises.
A customer frozen to death
at a cryonics lab?
Well, that's big news.
Could certainly close down this facility for good,
maybe bring the whole field into disrepute.
You're both crazy.
You don't have proof of any of this.
Well,we know
that you took delivery of a jet injector gun,
the type used to administer cryazine
without leaving any marks.
The LAPD's on their way.
I wonder what they'll find
when they search your place.
More missing bottles of cryazine, maybe?
Don't move!
You move...
He dies.
They were all gonna die anyway.
Let's go.
Stay here.
Drop it, Nash.
It's over,
Doctor.
Let him go.
Step back!
Everybody...
Move away.
I mean it!
I will kill him.
Don't do it, Nash.
One more step.
It's over, Lucas.
Everybody back away.
I'm serious.
Come any closer, he dies.
Please...
I just want to see my son.
Nash, listen to him.
Oh, no.
Rachel,
this man needs an iron infusion now!
This is Special Agent Rachel Young.
I need an ambulance at Forever Forward Foundation.
Third and Rosemead.
Temp is 95.7 and falling.
Come on, Mr. Grekowski.
- Stay with me. - Is he gonna make it?
If we keep his temperature
above 86 degrees, he may have a chance.
Temp is 95.2. He needs more iron.
Eddie, you hear me?
I need you to stay awake for me, Eddie.
I need you to stay awake.
We're almost at the hospital.
Now, please, keep your eyes open.
Can you see me?
Now, I want you to think about your little boy.
I want you to think about your son.
Think about how much you want to see your son.
Keep your eyes open. Can you see me?
Stay awake. We're almost
at the hospital.
He's right over there.
- Oh, hi. - Hi.
I'm Emily Grekowski.
Yes, of course, please sit down.
Oh, no, thank you.
I just wanted to let you know
that the doctors say my husband's going to be fine.
For now.
Thanks to you.
Uh,
but I don't even know your names.
Oh, I'm Jacob Hood.
This is Rachel Young.
Hi.
- Hi. - Mrs. Grekowski,
a friend of mine works
for Memorial Sloan Kettering
in, uh, Manhattan.
He's part of a team
working on a new treatment for your husband's illness.
Last I heard they were getting
some positive results.
No worry.
He's expecting your call.
We were going to name him Edward, but...
I kind of like the sound of Jacob.
Thank you.
No, you should, uh,
you should call him, uh, Edward. It's a cool name.
Thank you so much.
What?
Pregnant women, they...
they get really emotional.
Actually, it's more to do with the buildup
of oxytocin hormones in the bodies.
Of course.
So, you said
the ethics of cryonics is debatable,
and it's probably crazy
to have your head
lopped off and preserved for future use.
Does that
mean you agree with Nash?
You think cryonics should be stopped?
Oh, on the contrary.
When, uh, immortality is outlawed
only outlaws will be immortal.