He's out back.
Sitting in the sun with a blanket on his lap.
Nursing a guilty dick, no doubt.
It is not necessary to be vulgar.
Nothing I say could approach the vulgarity
of what you're building in your back yard.
Well, vulgar or not...
...I need him to come through on this.
He owes it to his country. He owes it to himself.
He is the best there is. And he should have whatever he wants.
Don't try to recruit me, general. You don't need my help.
And spare me your homily on being a good wife. I know it by heart.
Why did you put up with her for so long?
Because he's the best there is. He should have whatever he wants.
I don't live very well alone.
Some people don't.
We all have different ways of defending our territory.
Concha, you're late. Peter, hurry up. Didn't I say 2:00?
I'm sorry.
And I am sorry that the news took so long to get to you.
It just got lost in the system censors.
You know...
...you can't be responsible for keeping somebody else alive.
It isn't possible. It's not to be expected.
I can't work on this anymore.
I don't want to.
And I don't need to.
Germany is finished.
It's just a matter of time. They can't pull this together.
- You sure? - I don't want to hear your arguments.
I already know that everything is a risk.
That the war is not over until it's over.
That they're lobbing rockets all over London.
That Germany is desperate. That she's resourceful.
If she doesn't get a device, she could litter England
with radioactive material. We thought of something similar.
The fact of the matter is...
...they're not as good as we are. Or are they?
Christ, I've got rats in my skull.
I'm being asked to throw too many balls in the air at the same time.
When I feel like that, I get down on my knees...
...and I pray.
And that's how I get conviction.
If you let this slip through your fingers, through our fingers,
and somebody else gets it...
...you won't be counting how many balls you throw in the air.
If you need the fire, you find it.
Wherever.
At last, some good news.
Apparently, sufficient uranium is beginning to arrive from Oak Ridge.
But, as brilliant as he is, Oppie's beginning to show the strain.
We all depend on Oppie.
He's our inspiration.
If he were to crack, we'd all fall apart.
Beautiful, isn't it, Michael? Just think...
...a few miles closer to the sun, a few miles farther away,
none of this would be here. Just a cloud of gas
or a block of ice and nobody to enjoy it.
''Odi et amor'', ''I hate and I love.''
- Catullus. Do you know it? - No.
I hate and I love Why, you ask? I don't know
I feel both And I'm in agony
Maybe General Groves is right. Maybe we should just banish thinking forever.
Michael, we have to test the critical mass.
- Are you going to help? - Of course.
I want to show you something.
Come here to see our little toy, huh?
Michael, that's what we call tickling the dragon's tail.
So a slug of uranium about two by six inches
will be pulled by this weight.
It begins here, then accelerates at 32 feet per second per second.
It passes between uranium bricks. We have an instant of criticality.
For a split second, we have a chain reaction.
As close as we come to an atomic explosion in the lab.
- Without blowing up. - Exactly.
It's essential to determine the amount of material the device needs.
Ten years ago I could hardly imagine the stuff.
Ten years.
Each molecule collected out of the air, one by one.
Hello?
What?
I have the rare privilege of speaking for a victorious army
of almost five million fighting men.
They and the women who have so ably assisted them
constitute the Allied Expeditionary Force
that has liberated Western Europe.
They have destroyed or captured enemy armies
totaling more than their own strength
and swept triumphantly forward over the hundreds of miles
separating Cherbourg from Lübeck,
Leipzig and Munich.
These startling successes have not been bought
without sorrow and suffering.
In this theater alone, 80,000 Americans
and comparable numbers among the allies
have had their lives cut short
so that the rest of us might live in the sunlight of freedom.
- Yeah! - Oh, yeah!
What are we gonna do when this is over?
I don't know. Probably start another one.
That's what I love about this job. A guaranteed future. I'm not wrong.
Believe me, we're descended from a long line of noble predators.
You are irrepressible.
I think I'm gonna go be irrepressible down with Fuller.
Come on, baby face.
- You all right? - Yeah, I'm irrepressible.
So, what are you writing?
Something Oppie said today. I don't know.
Well, read it. Go on.
Makes you wonder if there's an intelligence
that isn't descended from a long line of predators.
I want to kiss you.
Come here.
Sir, is it true that since we KO'd Germany, we're gonna go home?
- I'll drink to that. - That might be true, soldier.
Can I have your attention, please? Please.
Excuse me.
Seems to me that we have a shortage of dance partners on the floor.
So as a tribute to our men in uniform...
...l'd like to make available the services
of all the longhairs at Los Alamos on this dance floor.
And to break the ceremonial ice,
I will choose the first dance partner.
General Groves... may I have this dance?
Why not?
- Why do you have that with you? - I keep it as a record for my dad.
If I wrote him a letter, all he'd get is black lines.
This way I can tell him what's going on.
And what are you gonna write about today?
Besides the war being over?
Yeah.
Well, I met this girl.
Did I just kiss you up there?
You gotta bring your heads in out of the clouds. Out of the clouds.
Keep the muttering to a minimum, please, gentlemen.
Some of you dancing...
...close together.
I don't like the look of it.
There are...bosoms in the area.
And this could lead to pregnancy.
Any man getting caught out of hand or getting caught in hand
will have to turn their peckers over to the FBI.
They're having fun. That's nice. They're entitled.
- So long as they don't think it's over. - Isn't it?
I mean, what's all the celebration for?
Perhaps we can find some other use for this work.
Fascism's dead.
You mean in Europe.
What do they think Japan is doing, shooting squirrels?
No, they're not shooting squirrels, and that's not the issue.
What is the issue?
They don't have the technology. They're not capable of it.
So if we don't need it...
...why make it?
I want you to look at something.
It's the largest collection of nothing in the entire world.
Make them work...
...and you've got something.
An irresistible something.
Just the threat...
...and they're ours.
You know, sometimes,
just standing here,
I keep wondering.
Are we working on them or are they working on us?
Give them dignity, doctor. Then we can start talking...
...about who can do what...
...and what they mean.
Oh, what time is it?
Even when I sleep, it's like dogs tearing at a piece of meat.
Robert?
Thinking of resigning?
No.
I'd be written off.
They wouldn't understand. Not in the present climate.
I keep obsessing about the device.
Yes, it's true, but...
...if you think beyond...
...it's a limitless supply of energy. Think about it, Kitty.
The power that drives the universe.
It's beyond imagination, really.
And we'd have tamed it.
A new world.
Go get them, cowboy.
What's going on over there?
Cattle destroyed the entire ground cable run. Ruined two days' work.
Why didn't they herd them outside the site? Anyone suggest that?
The ranchers wouldn't move them. Seems the Army stopped negotiating.
- This is out of control. - Edward, these estimates...
Rush, push, speed, deadlines.
This whole project has gotten out of control.
We haven't thought about the consequences, Oppie.
- Oppie? - Wilson!
We've been waiting for the data for two weeks.
When are we gonna get it?
Wilson is correct.
We have to talk about what we're all thinking but not saying.
This argument is arcane, Edward.
This thing is becoming real.
It's going to affect lives, thousands of lives.
We have to start to talk.
All right. But not here.
At my home tonight.
So now we tickle the tail of the dragon.
All right, take her up.
I can only hope the uranium slug doesn't get stuck in the pile.
If it does, we'll probably all evaporate.
- What's the reading? - 1 .19-K.
- Waiting on your word. - Meter's ready.
Ready when you are.
Let's go.
OK, let's tickle it.
It burst. It burst.
It burst right from here.
All right, add it up.
Cigarette break.
Good job.
Michael. Hey, Michael. You got a moment?
They won't let me in this place. Still going to Chicago?
Yeah, Frisch can't pick the slugs up.
Great. There's something we'd like you to pick up, if you can.
You know Leo Szilard, right? And Ralph Lapp?
Well, about 20 of our other colleagues from Chicago,
they're proposing a petition stating they're opposed to the device.
They're concerned about what they think's gonna happen.
So am I. I got a brother who's in the Philippines right now.
I read the papers. I'm concerned.
I'm not asking you to endorse anything. I haven't even read it yet.
It should be discussed. All I'm asking is pick it up,
let us peruse it and make up our own minds. How tough is that?
- Makes sense. - It's only fair.
I'll pick it up for you.
- See you later. - OK.
How can you rationalize premeditated murder?
Oh, bullshit. Premeditated murder?
- This is a war. It's about winning. - At what cost?
You can't just outlaw a weapon.
The more effective, the more likely it will be used.
We didn't use poison gas. That was stopped.
You got to speak up. The generals won't listen to us.
Yeah, and speak up on behalf of all those kids hiding in foxholes.
I know what they'd say. The Japanese brought this on themselves.
They have themselves to blame.
I wouldn't care if the place went up in smoke...
Excuse me, just for a minute, gentlemen.
And I resent your suggesting
I don't recognize a moral argument.
Why are you still awake? Aren't you supposed to be sleeping?
- I don't like sleeping. - There are lots of things we don't like.
We have to do them if we want to do the things we do like.
- What's the treat tomorrow? - Go horseback riding.
That's right. Now, how are you going to ride a great big horse
if you don't get plenty of rest?
Go to sleep for Daddy?
That's a good boy.
It is hot.
We could go to Carlucci's, get some ice coffee and donuts.
The project is beginning to unravel.
- What? - There have always been questions.
We've always avoided the answers. Now, everything is coming to a head.
- Bronson? - Sir?
- Stop the car. - Yes, sir.
- Get out, take a leak or something. - This is a public park.
Well, pick some flowers. I want to do some shouting.
It's a crisis.
A crisis of conscience.
All right. I'm not shouting.
I'm not even angry.
I am just stumped.
You want to sit on your hands,
polish your conscience,
when we might be able to end this whole thing with one shot?
Crisis of conscience, huh?
All right.
Have it.
Take a bath in it.
Soak in it.
Then tell me whether you're going to deliver them.
Whether you're gonna finish this job.
You tell me how I'm gonna face a senate inquiry
and say we spent two billion dollars on a show that's never gonna open.
Crisis of conscience.
You got one job, doctor. Give me the bomb. Just give it to me.
Atrocious things have been done in Germany
because people didn't speak out.
And we blame them for it. Right, I think, even though it was dangerous.
But it's not dangerous for us to speak out.
That's what a lot of us in Chicago feel.
You don't have to agree with the contents of this petition.
You have to agree it should be discussed.
- Yes, sir. - Good boy, Michael.
Good seeing you again.
- It came in on the wire. - What?
Japanese are feeling out terms for surrender. They made a proposition.
What kind of surrender? Not unconditional?
Not according to my sources, no.
Good.
No one will buy it.
- Sir? - Nothing.
Come on. Come on. Right here.
Mr. Secretary, a brutal question.
Are you and the president
looking to Russia,
figuring they'll come into Japan, assuming there's an invasion?
If you are, you're not gonna get that for nothing.
Russia's gonna want Manchuria, Sakhalin.
I can give the president Japan.
No invasion, no deals.
Can you guarantee that?
Some of your scientists are getting out of line.
I hear they've been maneuvering to see the president.
I didn't know that.
I will take care of it.
- Very well. Do that, general. - Mr. Secretary.
Good night.
Panton?
Dr. Oppenheimer had...
...on three separate occasions, meetings with suspected agents,
communists, whatever.
- He gave us one name, correct? - Yes, sir.
Press him on the others.
- He needs to feel the branch creak. - Yes, sir.
- Ready? - Yeah, we're ready.
They told me you were down here. I was having lunch.
I got a call from Captain Panton. A security problem again.
Well, I'm being harassed, and I'm sick of it.
I had a security clearance. This was a dead issue.
It's never dead with you.
Though I will try to put a lid on it. This is not gonna help.
- What's this? - Some kind of petition
from your boys in Chicago trying to go around us to see the president.
That will never happen.
Do you know about this?
About the ideas, yes.
They want to demonstrate the device, not use it.
Is it containable?
Can you stop it?
My hash is getting cold upstairs.
- Don't let these dodos distract you. - How can...?
Robert, you are this far away from being the man who won the war.
These are important people in Chicago.
You can't ignore what they have to say.
All they want is an opportunity to talk about the demonstration.
- What's his name? Szilard. - Szilard.
Sitting in the bathtub.
I should have drowned that son of a bitch the first day I met him.
What's wrong with demonstrating? What's wrong with not killing?
You vaporize some uninhabited atoll.
Set terms of surrender, then send the Japanese home.
It's mush. It won't work.
They are kamikazes, all of them.
You had money in your background. That explains it.
- What does that mean? - Your optimism.
Faith in human nature. I never had any. Money, that is.
Never had a permanent house. Made me a realist.
The idea should go to the president.
Where do you get these ideas?
You know, those boys in security...
...got a right to ask where these ideas are coming from.
Demonstrations, stopping work, sharing with other countries.
You're gonna have a tough time proving
that those ideas are coming out of Chicago.
- They are foreign, subversive. - They're moral.
- Moral? - Moral.
Was Pearl Harbor moral?
Poland, Munich, moral?
Death March of Bataan, was that moral?
Junk!
Demonstration junk.
I say you show the enemy in the harshest terms
that you can muster, that you play in the same league that they do.
At that meeting tomorrow there's gonna be a vote on this demonstration.
There's gonna be a recommendation going to the president.
Now, listen.
You can help yourself here.
Steer it in the right direction.
You're either for us or against us. Ernest, how are you?
I'd like to introduce Dr. Oppenheimer here.
Well, rumor has it that we might owe you
for shaking those yellow monkeys out of the trees.
Save us a lot, not going to Japan. My boys are gonna be grateful.
Yes, I'm pleased to shake your hand. And thank you.
Doctor, I'd like to add my shake too.
Nice seeing you.
Did you hear what they said?
You keep this on the track, and we are gonna owe you, soldier.
''We are in a completely new situation that cannot be resolved by war.
''A petition to the president of the United States.
''Discoveries of which the people are not aware
''may affect the welfare of this nation in the near future.''
The Russians are our allies. If we drop this without telling them,
we could give them a paranoia that will make us sick.
The Japanese are on their knees. All this kamikaze stuff is a load of bull.
They're wet-pants scared of us just like we're wet-pants scared of them.
This war seems to have forced a lot of guys on both sides
to resign from the human race.
- I hope we're not about to do that. - I agree.
Our blockade will finish Japan by autumn, maybe even sooner.
This device is not an honorable way to win a war.
And I was taught to fight with honor.
If Custer...
...had used the machine-gun...
...his history would have been written differently.
If you go ahead,
particularly, if you drop this thing with no prior warning...
...l, for one, will have to resign my commission.
Perhaps you'll excuse me, gentlemen.
Incidentally, what is the opinion of the committee on a demonstration?
Well, if we should agree to a demonstration
with the attendant Japanese observers
and that demonstration failed,
not only would we be unable to induce the Japanese to surrender,
we would face a critical shortage of material.
The dropping of the device has always been implicit in this project.
So that is the advice I shall pass on to the president.
- Yes, sir. - Yes, that's right.
Yes.
- Sam. - Bob, welcome to Trinity.
- Here she is. - Can I grab one?
- It's all right. - Good trip?
- Are you the accountable officer? - Yes.
- This will be for you. - What's that?
It states that the University of California hands over
a plutonium core of a nuclear device to the United States Army.
Put more simply, it's a bill for two billion dollars.
Now, let me show you what else your money's bought.
The initiator.
And the other half.
Now, all we gotta do is throw them together and...
Well, let's begin final assembly.
OK, Mr. Merriman.
Well, you're quiet.
It's coming close, what you're working towards, isn't it?
Yeah.
I can feel it pressing down on everybody.
There's something going on here.
It's got everybody mesmerized, doesn't it?
Yeah.
There's a regular run on sleeping pills and aspirin.
And it's not just the work, it's something else.
- Look, I know you can't talk about it. - I can't.
Well, then talk to Dr. Oppenheimer.
I mean, if anyone has, he'll have thought it through, right?
OK.
Touch me.
Naked.
Isn't that a beautiful word?
Tonight.
I want to make love.
And I want a future.
That's what I really want...
...for you and me.
So do I.
- Oh, for chrissake, George. - This pitting, must be the mold.
I'm not an explosives expert, but I've been called
to look at something that's unacceptable.
We must use hand lathings.
You should have used hand lathings before.
- Hand lathings, you know what it is? - Yes.
- Michael, what are you doing here? - Chicago, Leo Szilard.
I read it on the train.
- Well, what do you think about it? - It unnerved me.
Are we gonna discuss this ever?
Amongst ourselves?
- Are we going on? - I don't see anyone stopping.
Now, look, we've been asked to solve a technical problem,
to build this device. We're not responsible for its use.
Oppie, it's for you.
Peter's got revised figures.
Look, let me keep this paper.
We're expecting the initiator. We need your lab results, all right?
All right?
All right.
Everybody ready?
- Meter's ready. - Here we go.
Twenty-one.
Twenty-nine.
Thirty-one.
Thirty-eight.
Got it? Forty. Everybody back, right now.
Behind the wall.
Turn it off!
Nobody move! Don't anybody move!
Damn it!
Take off everything metal. Drop it.
Mark the positions you're standing in and get out.
The incident never happened.
If anyone should ask, it did not happen.
Everybody should make it.
Except me.
I'm dead.
Doctor! Doctor! I've been looking all over for you.
We've got a problem.
- Bad allergy. - When?
- An hour ago. They're bringing him in. - Who?
Mr. Merriman.
- Michael? - Yes, sir.
Oh, shit.
Let's go.
- Come on, let's go! - Yes, sir.
This one won't do.
- In here. This one's good. - Take it easy. All right, all right.
- Michael, what's the matter? - Nothing, everything's fine.
- Doctor, how much did he get? - More than 1 ,000 rads.
- Goddamn it. - What's happening?
Sweetheart, it's under control. Everything's under control, OK?
- Steven, what's going on? - You should not be here.
Excuse me, there's no patient here.
No one's to hear about this. Not Oppenheimer. Nobody.
- OK? - Goddamn it, what happened here?
I want this ward sealed off. Come with me.
I want military doctors in here.
Get the hell out of here!
It's the detonation circuits.
I don't know. I would like another 24 hours.
I think so, but I can't be certain.
I said one more day. I need one more day.
No, no, Merriman brought me a copy from Chicago.
Some of the physicists have signed it.
Pinko fruitcakes. Get that thing to work, I'm gonna drop it on Chicago.
I swear I will.
Yes, I hear you. You hear me? Finish the damn thing. That's an order.
Well, I got other business.
But I got a plane. I'll be there.
Every time I turn around, somebody gets to him.
Now they're talking about postponing.
- Cleared for Washington? - Yes, sir. We are.
''Truman, Stimson arrive Potsdam for conference with Stalin.
''Advise results of Trinity Test soonest.''
Stalin's gonna eat Truman alive at this meeting.
- Unless we... - Yes, unless...
...we give the president something lethal to stick in his back pocket.
I'll tell you something it won't be...postponement.
Oh, Lord...so close.
Sir.
Keep going down slow.
His heart looks larger. Could be fluid in the pericardial sac.
- Radiation induced? - Probably.
It's almost doubled in size overnight.
If this continues, his heart will drown.
- Is he lucid? - In and out.
There's tremendous brain swelling from the radiation.
- What happens next? - I don't know. I mean, I have no idea.
No human being's ever gotten this dose of radiation before.
He's dying from the inside out.
Other problems. His gastrointestinal tract has been destroyed by radiation.
Excuse me, doctors.
You've got to believe we're doing everything we know how.
Absolutely everything.
It's not gonna do any good to have you ripping yourself apart.
- You've gotta go home and sleep. - Richard, I can't.
- Some orange. - Sure is.
Hey, Oppie?
Look out!
Hornig?
- Hornig? - It's all right.
The other safety's holding.
Does anybody else need a martini?
- What's the word? - Oppie, it doesn't look good.
We have a chance of thunderstorms over the next five days. I'm sorry.
I'm not telling you what this guy's got up there.
- Why wasn't I told? - Too much panic.
- How is he? - Difficult to tell.
- I'd like to see him. - We're not permitting visits.
But the men who were with him have been spoken to.
Security. Delicate time.
He's a strong young man. He'll pull through.
Schoenfield, how is he?
- Is he conscious? - He's in and out.
He wants to know if you read the petition.
- It means a lot to him. - Yes, I have.
And then, that's it? That's all?
Yes, I have and then now I wash my hands of it?
Now wait a minute, Oppenheimer.
I got a friend falling apart who thinks you got the answers.
That's what you let him think.
Do you know what the Christ is going on, or is the whole thing out of control?
If you're trying to make a point, what is it?
I have spent the last two years of my life
putting up with all your security and your secrecy and your control.
I don't think that bullshit was to keep what was going on
from the Germans or the Japanese or the Russians.
It's to keep it from American Jacks and Jills
because they may not like what's going on.
American people don't want to know what's going on.
They want to know that their sons are alive.
I'm doing everything in my power to see that they do.
Like Oak Ridge, where they're injecting ill and old
people with huge doses of plutonium?
I don't know about Oak Ridge, but if you want to ask
what's happening, ask this: Will it be big enough?
Big enough to scare all of us and make us stop and think?
Big enough to stop all war forever? You want to ask a question, ask that.
Look, I've seen Oak Ridge, all right?
That place wasn't built to make one or two bombs.
It was built to make thousands of them. Thousands.
And soon everybody's gonna have a bomb. They will.
What do they do with them? Sit and wait till they go off, until ''boom''?
Then we got one world full of Michael Merrimans
dying from the inside out. Is that what you're looking for?
Because that's the future you've made for us.
Hey, Oppenheimer! Oppenheimer, you ought to stop playing God
because you are not good at it and the position is taken.
His pressure's falling fast. You've got to get that fluid out now.
Needle, Michael.
OK, you're in. Start to pull it back.
Hang in, Michael.
Hang in, pal.
Come on, doc.
Pressure's starting to rise. It's coming up slowly.
- Robert, you have to get some sleep. - God.
I'm in a dark place.
We've all cooked this stew.
The Germans and the Japanese and the Americans and the Brits.
It's an ugliness that goes back. It goes way back.
I'm not a scientist anymore.
I'm a goddamn functionary.
I've got to stay in control.
I've got to control who gets this thing.
Power and control, it's all I ever hear about anymore.
Doesn't life matter to you?
What about love and understanding?
I thought that's what science was all about.
I just wanted us to work.
Does everything have to be sacrificed to this...thing?
I put up with...
...Jean,
because I thought you needed her.
And I thought you'd give her up because of me.
But she didn't count.
I don't count. Nothing counts for you anymore except this damn bomb.
That's what it is.
But it's not your only creation.
There are the children.
And you need my love and support. I know.
I don't...
I don't know where it is.
Why me?
Why did he pick me?
- Panton! - Sir?
Security's a mess. Nobody at the checkpoint. Nobody up here.
- What do you think this is, a beach? - No, sir.
We've got to call a halt. The weather is unpredictable.
We are not calling a halt on account of weather.
With the wind we could send radioactive junk all the way to Amarillo.
You The New York Times reporter? I want three reports.
One if we succeed, one if we fail and one if we disintegrate.
With the wind blowing this direction, Amarillo could get a fallout.
- Fermi's right. - No, I'm saying no.
The decision is mine!
- Do you understand? - We can't do it.
We go ahead with this. Sergeant, do something about that dog.
You sound like you're planning a railway schedule.
No, you are trying to uninvent this.
I can do it without you.
Well, if you do and I've said no and something goes wrong...
Get in the car.
Hurry up. What are you waiting on?
Sir, it looks like it's clearing up.
You know, you build to a moment,
and then you grab it, or it will go right by you.
You always thought that I would do this, didn't you?
Can you buck your own nature?
What will it be like?
Unimaginable.
It's your baby.
Do it.
Hallelujah.
He said it's a go.
Let's go.
Start the countdown. Come on. It's a go.
- Let's go! Move it out! - Wilson, wake up!
- Wake up the dragon. - Let's go. Let's go.
Power on.
- Power on. - Synchronization relays one open.
Synchronization relay one open.
- Synchronization relays two open. - Synchronization relays two open.
I love you, Michael.
Easy.
Breathe easy.
Easy.
Easy, come back to the ice.
It's OK, here's the ice.
Kathleen, what are you doing in here?
Kathleen? God!
Come on, come on, sweetheart.
- You simply can't be here, sweetheart. - I had to be with him.
I wanted to tell him I love him, because he's going to die.
Detonation relays four open.
Well, it's armed.
- Now it's up to the bunker. - Let's get down from here.
Well, I've always believed that the Lord was on our side.
And I think now we're gonna prove it.
- Must be from the military base. - Enrico, what do you bet on the yield?
I bet we set fire to the atmosphere.
If we're lucky, we only wipe out New Mexico.
If we can ignite the air, we finish off the planet. Any takers?
I kind of hope the damn thing doesn't go off.
What the hell is that?
It's The Nutcracker Suite.
I can't get rid of it.
- Go to six-five. - Six-five.
- OK, try seven. - Seven.
Charging the device.
Robert, over here.
The device is fully charged.
It is now zero minus 60 seconds. Fifty-nine, 58,
57, 56,
55, 54,
- 53, 52, 51 , 50, 49... - Where is that music coming from?
It's a ground channel. I can't get rid of it.
44, 43, 42, 41 , 40...
Goddamn music.
37, 36, 35, 34, 33, 32, 31 , 30,
29, 28,
27, 26, 25,
24, 23, 22, 21 , 20,
19, 18, 1 7, 16, 15, 1 4,
13, 12, 1 1 , ten,
nine, eight, seven, six, five,
four, three, two, one, zero.
Kathleen, my love. You asked me a question once.
Was it instinct to save a life or to take it?
Well, I don't know, my darling.
All I do know is that if we are free to choose,
I hope to God we choose life over death.
Not because I believe the implacable universe cares a damn,
but because as I look at you, my darling,
I realize how glorious,
how magical life can be.