Christina Dalcher
1. Jean (43) and her daughter (6) have to wear a word counter. Her husband, Patrick, and sons - Steve (17) and twins Leo and Sam (11) - do not. That night at dinner, Steve asks his daughter Sonia about her day at school, but is sure to only ask questions she can answer with a shake or nod of her head. The boys ask her open ended questions they know she cannot answer without going over her daily word limit. Jean wants to tell them there is a man at the head of the class that lectures arithmetic to them. Girls are not taught to read or write. They are only taught the basic skills they need to run a house. Jean takes … to bed and says goodnight. She hums her daughter to sleep wishing she could tell her a bedtime story. Steve watches from the doorframe with a frown on his face.
2. Jean had been watching videos about what the rest of the world had thought about America. She had seen the broadcasts and knew things were getting bad, but she had not expected what came next. She went to renew her husband’s and two sons’ passports and had planned to get Sonia one while she was already in the website. The new application started with one question regarding gender. When she chose female, the screen went red and she was told to contact them with questions. After not being able to get a hold of anyone by phone, she tried email. It took a dozen weeks before she got a response without any answers in it. She went to the BMV to apply for her daughter’s passport and they asked to see hers to make a copy of it. They invalidated it instead and she didn’t find out until much later. Some women were able to flee the country, but many, like Jean were stuck. she thinks she could have made it out if they hadn’t had four children. She thinks back on how she used to read and be able to hang out with her friends. She thinks of how Patrick had called them “hen parties” and she thought it was just something men say. The president made comments about not losing all their families in the country. Patrick tells her not to dwell on what used to be
3. Jean wonders when Cook was added to her son’s (Steve) school reading list for advanced religion. He says it is Christian theology as he eats ice cream, Doritos, and a brownie. Jean watches Jacky Juarez, a known feminist activist try to warn woman that they wouldn’t have a voice one day. She remembers Jacky from college and how she was always trying to drag Jean to a protest while she was studying. When their lease was up, Jacky decided to move in with a group of other girls. She left a package of sparkling wine, gum, and a few other things for her birthday. Jean never talked to Jacky again, but wished she had because she thinks things with the executive order might have gone differently if she had.
4. Women now have 100 words a day. The books and magazines are locked away so Sonia can’t get to them. Actresses are allotted more words while working with all their lines written by men. Jean used to be able to leave notes for Patrick, but when Sonia saw a message written in lipstick on the mirror and called out the bad words, she had to stop. The boys sit on the back porch and talk about their days and what they are learning in school. She thinks about Jacky’s last words to her, “think about what you have to do to stay free.”
5. The spread of the Bible Belt took over the country. The women’s representation in congress quickly depleted to nothing. Jacky had predicted it would take longer. She pointed out the ROTC students were all Christian’s. The good old boys hate women and are the angriest group of people. She says the “Becky Home-Eckies” would back them up. It was very easy for the men to start denying woman anything they could use to fight what was going on. You can’t protest what isn’t seen.
6. Patrick starts to initiate sex. Jean tries to wordlessly lie to him that everything will be okay. Jean thinks about her first time, her kids being born, and her painful longing for a man named Lorenzo. She had asked her gynecologist if she had thought of sex clinically or if she enjoyed it. She says when she was first studying in med school, it was clinical, but she was dating another med student, so it worked out. Patrick gets off and Jean wonders how the other women in America cope.
7. Patrick sleeps heavily from working 12 hour days that have been made necessary due to cutting the country’s workforce in half. Sonia wakes up screaming a torrent of words from a nightmare. Jean rushes to her room. Her sons Leo and Sam are crying, but she rushes past them to get to Sonia and cover her mouth. She checks the clock and sees it is only 11:30pm. Jean doesn’t have any words left for the day. She has to let Patrick and her sons comfort Sonia. Jean tries not to hate the males in her family, but it is difficult. Jean grabs the Italian moonshine and goes to the back porch and starts drinking. After a few drinks, she is screaming. The neighbors yell back. Patrick pins her to the ground and she is out of words for the day already.
8. Jean regrets her actions in the morning when she takes Sonia to the bus stop in the morning and can’t say anything to her. They blow each other kisses when she leaves. There are cameras all around to make sure they aren’t using anything that resembles sign language. When she walks back to the house, the mailman greets her. She reaches out her hand for the mail, but he says he has to put in in the mailbox. He blinks slowly three times at her and says he has a wife and three daughters. She had been working on ways to help non-verbal people speak again (such as after a stroke), but couldn’t continue her work with the new laws. She blinks three times slowly back at him and shows him the counter and he apologizes saying they will talk another time. One of her neighbors, Oliva, keeps her head scarf on as she goes to drive. She is one of the woman that drank up the mysoginist Kool-Aid. The literature that was sent home talked about how the head of men was like god and the head of women was like man. Her son Steve had to take the course as a requirement for getting into college. The government started sneaking in the ideas and language while they were still young.
9. The President and his wife, Anna Meyers, are on TV. She was a beautiful model that used to be all over magazines. She is constantly guarded by three men. Jean compares her eyes the those of a depressed girl that had lived down the call from her college dorm. Patrick told her about how everything is regulated for the First Lady including medication. There is no alcohol or glass anywhere. Jean is watching golf when the doorbell rings. Olivia is there with a measuring cup. Jean lets her in out of the rain. Jean remembers Oliva’s visit two years previous and her disgust of Jacky on TV. They compared the number of reported rapes and use of antidepressants from the 1960’s to present day. Olivia is impressed by the two woman who point out the uptick in both without realizing antidepressants didn’t exist in the 1960’s.
10. Jean gets Olivia her cup of sugar and she takes off. After a few more hours of boredom, Jean almost wishes she had stayed. She thinks about how Olivia keeps her curls hidden, reads her little pink bible, and bows to her husband when he comes home from work. Jean goes to the kitchen to start getting everything ready to make dinner. She is trying to remember the recipe for biscuits when she hears Patrick coming home from work early. He is followed by three black SUVs. Jean remembers what they look like on the inside.
11. Jean changes the channel from golf to CNN before Patrick comes in with six men. Patrick tells her it is good news. They take the counter off her wrist and tell her she is free to speak. One of the men suggests he is thirsty and Jean asks Patrick to get them some water. Another man is clearly uncomfortable with this behavior. They tell her the president’s brother (who is known to advise the president) had a skiing accident that involves brain trauma. They want her help, but cannot tell her the patient’s medical history. Reverend Carl says she is the leading expert and they want her help. She says she hasn’t worked in over a year. They want her on their team.
12. Jean asks if she has a choice. They have talked to Lynn Kwan as a backup. They say she can set up a lab and continue her research or go back to normal. She thinks back to when Steve had brought home his textbook saying that woman are made for different jobs. She asks him to drop the class and he refuses. Patrick joins them and flips through the book saying it doesn’t look too bad and to let him take what he wants. Jean tells the men she is going to need more information. She wants to go back to work and figure out the serum she had been working on that would allow the old lady, Mrs. Ray, to tell her about the different trees and plants around them. The men wait for an answer and she wants to tell them no.
13. Jean goes to the kitchen to refill her water and asks Patrick to help her. He tells her to do it for the kids to keep the counter off. They tell her the counter will stay off for the duration of the project. There will be a bonus if she finds something within the next 90 days. She asks what happens after. They tell her they plan to raise the quota of words. Jean remembers having to pick out her silver counter bracelet and a red one for Sonia. She went over her limit that night and was shocked. Her brain blocked out all the memories except Patrick and her son’s reactions. She remembers Sonia kissing the bracelet.
14. After the men leave, Patrick paces. Jean says they won’t take off Sonia’s counter. Patrick is the president’s science advisor and she says he can do something about it. She slams down the glass and cuts her hand. She tells him not to touch her and she realizes she doesn’t trust him. He cleans her hand and he gives her a glass of bourbon before he stitches her hand. She asks what game the government is playing and if they are going to use her research for something sinister in the future. He makes a comment about it being better when she couldn’t talk and it cuts her.
15. Dinner is quiet. Afterwards, Patrick leaves Jean to tell her children about what is going on. She asks Steve about school, but his answers are clipped. The twins tell her about her classes and soccer. Sonia asks if she will have another bad dream. Jean tells her she won’t let anything happen to her, but she is still scared. Sonia doesn’t know about the consequences of going over 100 words. She used positive reinforcement to teach Sonia to use signals instead of words. Sonia cries because something happened at school. She asks what happened at school and Sonia looks at Steve. Jean asks Steve to clean up and the twins help. Jean asks Steve what happened at Sonia’s school. She notices Steve is wearing a pin featuring a blue “P.” It stands for “pure.” He says he earned its. She asks him to save some milk for cereal the next morning. He say sit is her job to go get more and she slaps him. He tells that will be a crime some day. He goes on to say he was recruited to go to the girl schools and show how the counters work so girls know what would happen. He tells her not to encourage her to use sign language. He tells her they are making updates to something more like a glove and he volunteered to beta test them.
16. Jean reads Sonia a bedtime story and goes to bed. Jean calls her doctor, but her husband took the phone from her and told her Jean about how it was all their fault for marching for rights. Jean knows she can go to Patrick and tell him what happened, but he is weak and she doesn’t need a weak man. It had been his plan to go back to Italy when her study was done. He had made her coffee while they went over scans. They would start talking Italian to each other, both of their native language. He brought her a music box and that was the first time she thought about him sexual. He was in a category all of his own.
17. After everyone is gone, Jean walks Sonia to the bus stop. She tells her to be good at school and realizes it is pointless. Girls learn only a few things at school: counting, basic math, telling time, and eventually sewing. Jean had toured her school lead by a teacher with a Pure pin. Reverend Carl leads a press conference to tell everyone Jean is the person they have found to fix the president’s brother’s aphasia problem. Jean turns off the TV and says she won’t do it. Patrick asks what he is supposed to say and Jean realizes she hates him.
18. She thinks about getting a pen mark out of Lorenzo’s shirt and him kissing her. Reverend Carl tries to offer more pay, but Jean is not interested. He says there are other incentives, like raising Sonia’s quota. Reverend Carl gives her a new counter that has penalizes her for profanity. There is also a speech she has to read every day that says women were made for men. She can’t say it. She remembers how men and women were separated and when Dr. Kwan resisted, she was beaten. She reads the paper while Patrick goes pale. Reverend Carl asks Patrick to put the counter on her and he does.
19. Sonia is excited when she gets home from school. Jean tells her she loves her. Sonia says she won a prize and shows her the ice cream on her face and an envelope. She had the lowest number of words. She daydreams about how Sonia should be growing up. The school has a contest to keep the girls as silent as possible.
20. Patrick reads the information in the envelope and says the children are giving prizes to the girls with the lowest count on their counters. Patrick gives Jean a letter from the president. Steve comes home and is excited his mother got the new model counter. Jean watches the president say they are looking for a doctor, but she doesn’t think they would allow her to have the team she wants. The letter asks her for her price to help. Sonia brings in a drawing of the family and Jean says it is beautiful, but she hates how she drew mommy smaller than her brothers. She holds Sonia and cries knowing she let all this come down on them. She checks her counter and has enough words left to reply to President Meyers.
21. Jean carefully plans out her words to the president before she calls. Patrick urges her on. She says she wants her and Sonia’s counters removed and for her to teach her daughter instead of sending her to school. The president agrees and hangs up. The phone rings again and Patrick answers. He tells her Thomas will be there in half an hour to take the counters off. Jean remembers when she started dating Patrick and Jacky had hated him because he was a cerebral pussy. Jean liked that they didn’t talk about politics like everyone else. She thinks about how Jacky had kissed her after a party one night and wonders if she converted or ended up in a LGBTQ camp. Reverend Carl paired them up as one man and one woman in each cell. Patrick says in a few minutes everything will be back to normal. Jean knows that is only temporary.
22. Jean tries to tell Sonia she doesn’t have to limit her words again and that she was going to teach her from home. Leo comes to tell Jean that the sauce is boiling over. Steven asks how Jean is supposed to work, teach Sonia, and take care of the house. He points out they don’t have milk. She tells him to go to the store himself. Steve tell her to get with the program and how he and Julia have it all planned out. Jean asks how Julia was able to help him plan anything on only 100 words per day. He says he’s been working it out with her abusive father, Evan. She tells him he is too young to get married and he says the government is coming up with a new plan with incentives for cash and free college tuition for men that are married before 18 and an additional bonus for each child they have. Jean is disgusted. Patrick just says he is too young to get married. Jean tries to call her parents for the second night in a row knowing it is almost midnight in Italy. She hasn’t been able to get a hold of them yet.
23. Thursday, Jean pulls a suit out of the attic. Morgan (idiot that doesn’t know he’s an idiot and took over Kwan’s comes to the house and says he is glad she is joining his team. She signs the documents knowing the funny really matter to her. Morgan is listed as the teams lead. KeanansnLoeenzo are also listed.
24. Jean pulls her folder with her finished work from its hiding place in the sleeper sofa. A lot of the damage can be repaired using the same medication that is already used for rheumatoid arthritis. Lorenzo pulled her into his office one day to show her the statistics. He had isolated the protein that was the last factor they needed. They have everything they need, but Morgan doesn’t need to know it yet. Jean wants to get Sonia back on track first.
25. Jean drives to DC and goes through security to get into the building and makes her way to her small, shared office. When she and Lynn are reunited, they hug. They both joke about what has been going on and how crazy the entire situation is.
26. They go down to Lorenzo’s office. Jean vomits into his trash can and then goes to the bathroom to vomit more. She realizes she is pregnant. She remembers the girl down the street being caught having an affair and being sent off to a convent with a zero word allowance everyday. She thinks about how she had ran into Lorenzo and he had been planning to leave the country in a few months because he was disgusted with how things s were going. He buys condom and tells Jean to meet him at his car. They only use the condom one of three times.
27. Jean is horrified at the idea of being pregnant. She knows she has the potential for multiples and cannot bear the thought of another girl being brought into a world where she couldn’t have a voice. She thinks of how Sonia’s only options will be to become an obedient wife or a whore. Lynn comes and asks how long she and Lorenzo have been having the affair. She admits it has been about 2 years. Lynn doesn’t think Morgan knows, but tells her to be careful around the others because she has more than her voice to lose.
28. They have their pictures taken for security badges. The rules are explained to them that they are only to work in. The building and nothing is to go home with them. They are not allowed to talk to anyone else about the project. They are told they are part of one team, but when asking for clarification, Morgan says it was a mistake and they are the only team. Morgan tells them their deadline is late June before the president’s trip to France. Jean and Lynn are confused and Lorenzo tells them he will explain later.
29. Morgan takes them to the lab. There are already animals for testing and a whole bunch of brand new equipment . They previous had to beg to use MRI machines and now they have two. They think all of this is very suspicious. Jean tells them they need to talk, but looks directly at Lorenzo. He tells her the only way he could get them on the team was to tell them they could complete it before the president’s trip. He says he needs the money for a personal matter. She asks if he knows what happens to her and Lynn when the job is over and he looks at her wrist with rage. He asks if they have a first subject. She says she wants to use her Mailman’s mother - Mrs. Ray.
30. On her way home, Jean thinks about Jacky and where she might be now. A man honks at her and rolls down his window. When she rolls down her window thinking he wants directions, he spits into her car. She remembers she has President Meyer’s candidate challenger in her car. She wishes she could see Jacky. When she gets home, her son is watching the news talk about conversion rates of gays. He believes it works. She thinks Lorenzo has a separate agenda that bears her name.
31. Patrick is cooking when Jean gets home. He tells her that her parents called and they want to talk to her that night. Jean borrows his laptop to FaceTime call them. She tries to urge her mother to quit smoking and go back to the doctor. Her mother insists smoking is what Italians do. Jean notices a Confidential envelope on Patrick’s desk. She looks inside and is able to confirm the project she is working on has three teams: white, gold, and red.
32. Jean feels sick. She knows she can’t keep secret, so she avoids any real conversation with Patrick. Steve comes home from Julie’s next door and stomps to room. Jean goes to his room and asks if he is okay. He asks her if he should tell if he knows someone did something wrong. She tells him it depends on what he knows.
33. That night, Jean wakes up to sirens. When she gets to the window, cars are blocking their driveway. Thomas, Reverend Carl and others come into their house. She wonders what Steve has done. Sonia comes in and Jean holds her saying it will be okay.
34. Patrick says it is bad, but no one has come along. They are at the king’s house. She realizes the men are there for Julia.
35. Olivia is frantically calling for the men to leave Julia alone and take her instead. Jean calls for the men to take the counter off Olivia, but the men just watch. She looks to Steve and realizes it is because they had sex. She asks if Patrick can tell them they didn’t have sex, but Steve says it isn’t true. She tells him her life will be ruined. But Patrick doesn’t think thee is anything he can do and isn’t willing to try.
36. Jean makes coffee and it makes her sick. Steve wants to stay home from school but Jean says he is not sick and needs to go. Jean gets a call from her dad, but cannot understand him. The doctor takes the phone from him and tells Jean her mom had aneurysm, but to call back later when they know more.
37. Jean waits for Del the mailman and when he arrives she says she wants his mom to be the first for the clinical trial. She also asks the mailman if his wife would babysit Sonia. He asks if she is pure and she very discretely shakes her head. He calls his wife, and after a very brief conversation, says she is expecting Jean and Sonia. He gives her an envelope from a locked box and when she open a it tells her not to be surprised.
38. Del’s house is a farm. He disabled the counters for his wife, Sharon, and three daughters. Del delivers messages for the resistance. Jean is surprised by this as she hadn’t though there was a resistance. Sharon knows they will be coming after black people next and they are prepared to fight back. She sends Jean along to work and tells Sonia they will be doing some farming.
39. Jean’s pregnancy is confirmed. The Doctor is confident she won’t have complications even though she is over 40. She wonders if she can smoke enough cigarettes to miscarry. She is terrified.
40. With the cover of the MRI machines, Jean tells Lorenzo she is pregnant and it’s his. He kisses her and says he is working on it. She wonders if he is including Sonia in his plan.
41. Lynn warns them that Morgan is coming and the lovers break apart. Morgan asks Jean to her office and reprimands her for being late. He goes on a tangent about that being why the old way doesn’t work. He says he changed her contract before she signed so she wouldn’t have Fridays off. She tells him they will be working over the weekend to start the first clinical trial early the next week. He is surprised because he has no idea what is going on in the project. She sees a binder labeled Project Wernicke
42. Poe escorts Jean to the elevator. She thinks about the binder and how it could never hold all the papers. She realizes she is speaking and Poe is with her. She trips on the heels and when someone grabs her shoulder, she is relived when it is Lorenzo.
43. Lorenzo and Lynn help Jean out to the car saying she is sick. She tells them the teams are color coded and they are white. Lorenzo tells her he might have more info for his other project on Monday. He asks if Steven knows about the baby and she says no. She knows it can’t be his and as a medical doctor, he will know too. Poe comes out to see what they are doing and Jean drives off.
44. Jean picks up Sonia who loves being on the farm. She thinks back to the day when her husband told her not to go to any women’s marches because they are tracking who goes. She told everyone about it, but none of them thought they would be able to cut out half the population or do it so quickly. When they get home, there is an ambulance with the lights flashing.
45. Olivia is being taken away in a stretcher with her hand and wrist mutilated. When Jean gets inside, she asks Patrick what happened. He tells her Olivia found her voice recorder and recorded an apology to Julia that she played on a loop. The counter shocked her relentlessly and she couldn’t even get up to stop it. Steve is upset because they were made to watch Julia’s TV announcement and call her horrible names. They told them it is usually wrong, but in these kind of cases it was necessary. They all had to write her horrible letters using the same foul language.
46. They order pizza for dinner that night, but it doesn’t go over well as everyone is upset. Patrick ends up drinking. Jean gets all the kids to bed and sneaks to Patrick’s bedside table where all men have to lock up their keys at night. She gets his keys and gets a Manila envelope from the mailbox.
47. In the bathroom, Jean goes through it and finds out the white and gold teams are working on the same thing, but the gold team is also to work on mass distribution. The red team is working on if the serum is water soluble. She puts them back in the envelope, but there is a knock on the door. Patrick opens the door and she hides the she hides the envelope between the wall. She says she doesn’t feel and he is surprised because she only gets sick when she is pregnant. He asks if she is and she lies. She says she is going to get some water before going back to bed . She replaces the envelope, drinks some water and drops his keys on the carpet by his nightstand before going to bed herself.
48. Jean has a nightmare of her children being taken away. The younger kids bring her a bagel with a candle for her birthday. She goes to the bathroom and when she comes out, Patrick says Steve is gone and left a note saying he is going to look for Julia. He embraces her and says he hasn’t been a very good husband, but she pushes him away saying she can’t be late again. He says he thinks he knows where Steve went. There is a news broadcast saying Julia is in South Dakota.
49. Del the mailman takes the envelope from the mailbox and Poe and two other man come to get Delmar’s tase him unconscious. She is waved on to leave. She gets to work and the guard mentions she is late. She says she was working late and he scolds her for taking stuff home. She says she was only using her brain, so he can go ahead and report her to the president for her language and she’ll take a month off for bad behavior. Once in the lab, she tells Lorenzo someone in the government knows there is a resistance movement. She also tells him about what she read about what each team is working on. She realizes the anti-Wernicke project is being called Wernicke. Their work is being reverse engineered to cause aphasia.
50. They continue their work testing on mice. Jean can’t help thinking how they are going to use the Wernicke serum to take away people’s voices. Lorenzo does the injections and Jean is still shaken about it. She tries not to get attached, but she finds herself naming the mice after women.
51. They decide to take ether risk and sneak out to the cabin Lorenzo has rented. They have sex. He shows her his wife’s passport and says he can get her out. She asks about his wife and he tells her she died five years ago. Jean says she can’t leave her children behind. Lorenzo asks her what will happen if the baby she is currently carrying is a girl.
52. Jean remembers thinking vacation wasn’t long enough when she was in college. Jacky pointed out it wouldn’t help if they stayed an extra day. They decide they still have an hour until they have to get back to the mice in the lab. They have sex again.
53. After getting cleaned up in the shower. They know they cannot sneak their work out. She decides if it is a girl, she will leave. If it is a boy, she will stay.
54. Back at the office, Jean is escorted ti Morgan’s office. He asks for progress. She says they will know in about half an hour. She asks where Lynn is. She tells him her mother suffered an aneurysm and she wants to include her in the trials. He says to have her bring her in. She says her mom is in Italy and he points out it is problematic because relations with Europe are “not good.” He says they can’t send her and Lorenzo is one of them so he can’t send him either. Jean accepts this and asks where Lin is. Morgan says he doesn’t know and Jean leaves his office.
55. Back in the lab, they see which group of mice survived and know which one is the anti-Wernecke. They put the dead mice in the freezer for Lin to examine when she returns. Jeans asks Lorenzo if Lin said anything about where she was going. Lin was supposed to be having dinner with her ex-fiancé, Isabel. When everything started happening, they had no choice but to break it off. She wonders if Lin would survive the work camps if she got caught. They think about how the government is planning to put the Wernecke serum in the water supply. Lorenzo asks when she will know and she tells him Monday afternoon.
56. Jean makes it home where Patrick plays a game with the kids. He hands her a beer and says they need to talk. He knows she was in his office. He tells her how he saw a man, Jimbo, from his office executed last September. He noticed Jimbo blinking in threes. Jimbo asked if he was pure and left something for him: a name and number. It was his choice to call or not. The entire office was hauled out to watch Jimbo being shot without a question or trial. He tells her that is what will happen to him when he gets caught. She asks about Steven and he hangs his head.
57. Patrick tells her she has to get out anyway she can. She pours him scotch and herself water. She tells him everything. He tells her to go with Lorenzo and take Sonia. He doesn’t want to talk about it any more. She knows it wonky be long until it spreads to Europe as well. She knows they will keep her on for a while and one day will be taken away. Or she can go pretend to be someone else. She realizes what has to be done and asks what he is willing to do to stop it. He says he would kill for their freedom, but they don’t have to. She says all they have to do is take away their voices.
58. She gets her folder with Lorenzo’s statistics and meets Patrick in his office. One the back of page 4, there is a poem written to Jean. He realizes Lorenzo is in love with her and asks if it is mutual. Her silence confirms. He says it is water soluble and reversible, but he doesn’t have the ability to do it. He asks if she can get to it by Monday morning because that is when the next all-staff meeting is scheduled for.
59. Jean goes to the office with Patrick’s notes. She knows Lin is not coming back. She prepares the room for Mrs Ray and puts a white rabbit for her to see rather than a blank wall. The girls that killed are marked with X. Morgan is there and she asks if he has ever been in the white house. He says he has been invited for this project. Morgan pokes at the rabbit in its cage and it bites him. Lorenzo asks about it when he arrives. She tells him Morgan is going to the White House soon. Lorenzo tells her in Italian he will have to work all night, but he can do it. They go to the lab, but they are both locked out.
60. Jean calls Morgan to say they need access to the lab, but he says if their trial is successful, they aren’t needed anymore. Patrick had told her it was possible to reverse everything without Lorenzo’s notes, but Jean don’t understand his explanation. She asks Lorenzo if her copy of the notes was the only one. He rushes off to the room with the animals.
61. Jean struggles with the procedure that Lin would have done to Mrs. Ray. Now, the serum will be injected through the catheter she has from the nursing home. Morgan brings her in. Lorenzo offers to fill the syringe. They are worried about how the entire country could be talking like this soon. It would destroy society. Lorenzo hands her the syringe. Jean injects it and after a few minutes, Mrs. Ray makes a comment about the rabbit.
62. Mrs Ray is wheeled back to her nursing home. Lorenzo looks at the vials marked x. Jean makes sure they are sealed and in latex before she shoves six into her vagina to get them out. They are told they are done. They are lead out and their laptops have been scrubbed. They are searched and Jean thinks about what would happen if they had found the vials. They are shoved out and told not to come back.
63. She uses Lorenzo’s phone to call Patrick and say she is on her way home. He gives her an envelope. She goes to her car and slips the serum in the sippy cup. Morgan comes running out to say they need to come back. Jean hide the envelope under her seat. Morgan has a gun and says they both have to come back. They are taken to the sub-basement.
64. They are lead through the dark sub-basement. The are taken to a room with cages of primates and 3/4 of the primates are gone. They have been working through them to get to chimps, the closest to human. A chimp grabs at Jean and Lorenzo screams for them to do something. There is a shot and the guard kills the chimp.
65. Morgan screams at the guard for killing the chimp. Lorenzo helps Jean and tells Morgan to get a first aid kit. Morgan leads them to the gold team and says they have just joined that team. Every man is married and not there voluntarily. He says he needs the working serum by morning. He says they have the anti-Wernecke formula. He says he wants the one that causes aphasia. Jean refuses and Morgan says it isn’t a request. He has the guard take them to room one. Three people are in the room. Before she can say Jean’s full name, she is shocked.
66. Jacky is one of the people in there. Jean tells her not to talk. Morgan arrives with the gun. Lin and Isabell are there as well. Lorenzo hadn’t gotten to his notes, but Morgan hadn’t gotten them either. Morgan hands each of the girls a pink manifesto. She promises Jacky she will do everything she can.
67. The TV screen is on and Reverend Carl is reciting the pure manifesto. He introduces a “lost sheep” and has Steve come onto the stage. He was caught in a place he shouldn’t be. He has a metal band circling his wrist. She knows she will kill to make this stop.
68. Morgan leaves them to work. She looks to Lorenzo and he says his work is complete. They decide Morgan should be their first trial. He tells them it is not water soluble and has to be done surgically. They decide to walk around and look at the badges. She asks the guard if she can call her husband to let him know she won’t be home. He has her write down the message. She says Sonia needs her sippy cup form her car. The guard has a wife and daughter. He is concerned about what happens if his one year old daughter isn’t allowed to speak. She tells him by 4 or 5 years they are developed and if they can’t speak, they can’t developed any further. She sees the look of horror on his face and says she has to get back to work.
69. They are in a lab filled with experts. She tells Lorenzo she thinks the guard is on their side. The scientists are all exhausted. Lorenzo tells her to get some sleep. He hands her a tablet and tells her to read certain chapters about primates anatomy and how they will have to drill into its head. She goes to the guard, Petrovski, and says she needs some sleep. He says he made her call and asks if thee is anything he can do. She gives him his instructions.
70. Jean eats a sandwich while trying to study in primate anatomy. It isn’t long before Petrovski is there to get her back to the lab. He says his part is done. She tells him all he knows is doctor … had a headache at 9pm. Lorenzo had made a smoke bomb. They go to a room and a sedated female chimp is on a stretcher. She picks up the drill, but can’t follow through.
71. She tells him to get Petrovski so they can get Lin and the others. Lin speaks American Sign Language to Lorenzo and he translate for her. Lin does the drilling, inserts the needle and presses the plunger before stitching up the skull.
72. They only have a few minutes before the chimps start to wake up. Lin goes to open the cage while Lorenzo and Jean start wheeling the chimp towards the cage. Jean calls for Petrovski and tells him not to shut her unless he has to. They get the chimp into the cage. Jean doesn’t know where Morgan is. She thinks about Lorenzo saying if they tried to inject it or put it in water it would fry half their brain. She goes to find Morgan.
73. Morgan holds the syringe to Lorenzo’s neck. He knows he isn’t a good scientist, but he knows what local injection only means. Jean tells him to get Petrovski to shoot Lorenzo instead because it will look very bad for him if the scientist leaves speaking tongues. Morgan calls in Petrovski and tells him to shoot Lorenzo. Jean takes Petrovski’s gun and shoot Morgan just below his blue P button.
74. Morgan is dead and they all have to go. They clean themselves up and get clean lab coats. Poe comes in and leads them to the service elevator. Inside is a face Jean recognizes.
75. Steven is there. Jean holds him. Poe tells them to keep their heads down and their mouths closed . He gives them fake plastic bracelets and tells them to look tired. They are filed out. someone tells Poe they can’t leave. Poe shows him a presidential seal and they are let through. They are put into a van with benches. Del and Sharon are in the van. They have a key to get the bands off Jacky, Lin, and Isabell.
76. When the van stops and they get out, Patrick is there. They embrace and Steven joins them. They stay in Del and Sharon’s living room on an air mattress and Jean hilds Sonia through the night.
77. Patrick kisses Jean and the kids goodbye. He drives away with one of the vials. Jean goes to lay down while the kids argue over the last brownie. Patrick takes the vial to poison the president, Thomas, Reverend Carl, and some other key men in the water and coffee. He insists on saving a bit for himself in an emergency.
78. Sonia takes the boys around the farm and introduces them to the animals. Jean calls the doctor’s office about her gener testing, but they say they can’t fit her in for another week. She cancels. Patricks car comes back and Poe is the one coming out. He yells a bunch of words at Lorenzo.
79. Jean plans out Patricks funeral. The entire country is locked down as things are being transitioned. She wants to stay and help, but Jacky tells her to go and take care of the kids. Poe tells her the guards on top of the white house saw what was going on, they took down Patrick. He says he died smiling.
80. They arrive in Italy and Lorenzo continues the work on his project. He also spends time with the children and they seem to be getting along with him. Jacky is working as a campaign advisor as the country tries to rebuild after the last year of disaster. Jacky’s says there are a lot of women running for offices and Jean should come back and get in on it. Jeans says maybe next year and she means it.