The Satan Bug

Lee Barrett:
He's floating at the bottom of the pool.

[first lines]

Agent Reagan:
[getting out of helicopter] Thanks.

Helicopter pilot:
Yes sir.

Agent Reagan:
See you.

Eric Cavanaugh:
How come you get a telegram here?

Lee Barrett:
Magic.

Eric Cavanaugh:
I'd certainly like to know what it says.

Lee Barrett:
I'll bet you would.

[last lines]

Lee Barrett:
I'll be setting down at LAX, tell the boys to be on the lookout for me, I'm a little rusty at these things.

Gen. Williams:
We'll meet you there Lee, take it nice and easy and for God's sake make a good landing.

Lee Barrett:
I'll put down safely, and I'll give you the flask, and we're right back where we started.

Dr. Gregor Hoffman:
More than forty chemical weapons are being developed at Station 3. I will confine myself to two which we have developed here, at E Lab. The first, botulinus. We have twelve hundred grammes in six flasks. If ten grammes of it were allowed to contaminate a city, that city is a morgue in four hours. It is an ideal weapon, if you will forgive the phrase, because it only destroys people. It oxides itself, and in effect dies after eight hours.

Lee Barrett:
Well, then it's safe to go in there. It's been over eight hours since that vault door was closed. And if all twelve hundred grammes of botulinus were spilled, it would still be safe. The closed-air circulation system is still in operation, so it would be oxidised.

Dr. Gregor Hoffman:
That is correct, but there is something else in there. It is only three weeks since Dr. Baxter refined it, and only three days since he communicated its existence to anyone.

Gen. Williams:
There's something beyond botulinis?

Dr. Gregor Hoffman:
Yes, the second weapon. Also a virus, airborne. But self-perpetuating. Indestructible. Once released it will multiply at a power beyond our calculations. It perhaps will never die. To this virus we have given a highly unscientific name, but one which describes it perfectly. "The Satan Bug." If I took the flask which contains it and exposed it to the air, everyone here would be dead in three seconds. California would be a tomb in a few hours. In a week all life, and I mean all life, would cease in the United States. In two months, two months at the most, the trapper from Alaska, the peasant from the Yangtze, the Aborigine from Australia are dead. All dead, because I crushed a flask and exposed a green colored liquid to the air. Nothing, nothing can stop the Satan Bug.

Lee Barrett:
What would be the last to go?

Dr. Gregor Hoffman:
Perhaps the Great Albatross swinging its way around the bottom of the world. Perhaps an Eskimo deep in the Arctic. But the seas travel the world over, and so do the winds. One day, one day soon, they too would die. The Satan Bug is behind that door! One flask. It has got to be locked up in there, it has got to be! I must make you understand, if botulinus has been spilled then, as Mr. Barrett here says, it does not matter. But by god, if someone were to get in there and the Satan Bug has been spilled and the vault door were opened more than half an inch and left open, then the airlock room is lethal! Open this door for more than five seconds, and everything that I have told you will happen will happen. I beg you sir, seal up the door! You cannot take the risk!

Lee Barrett:
There's three possibilities. Foreign power: possible. Criminals, hijackers: improbable. It's the first and the third that bother me.

Gen. Williams:
What's the third?

Lee Barrett:
Well, you said it. A lunatic.

Gen. Williams:
Psychotics don't generally engage in teamwork, Lee.

Lee Barrett:
Paranoids do, and they're very brilliant, some of them.

Gen. Williams:
What sort of paranoid?

Lee Barrett:
The kind that we grow the most of in this country. A messiah.

Ann Williams:
What kind of messiah?

Lee Barrett:
Take your pick. Extreme right. Extreme left. From the I'd-Rather-Be-Red-Than-Dead fanatics to the Bomb-Moscow-Right-Now fanatics.