In the underground colony, Nathan sees a familiar face:
“Carolyn Powell, we finally meet again! I expected you to call us after the escape from your apartment.”
“You're right, Agent Never. But I didn't really know whom to trust, and I feel safer here, after everything that's happened. My father had brought me down here a long time ago, and coming to this place was a tough choice for me. I wanted to try to clear my father of the charge of terrorism. Seeing his name tarnished was terrible, but when I realized that I couldn't do anything about it, I ran away.”
“I'm sorry. But you should have understood that we are on the same side. You know Branko. This is his wife, May Frayn, an Alfa Agent like us. And if we are here, it's because we have your father’s secrets.”
“Hello, Carolyn. Nice to meet you. Can we use the informal ‘tu?’” (Italian has formal and informal pronouns)
“I think we should.”
“So now you know why my father wanted to protect this place, when he realized that the dam would destroy it.”
“Yes. But things could have been different if he had turned to us from the beginning.”
“Nathan, please. Don't you think it's time to let it go? After all, Engineer Powell is dead.”
“All right, May. You're right.”
“Water for New Alamo should not have necessarily meant the end of this spring and this underground paradise. My father realized this too late and tried in his own way to fix it, losing his life.”
“Yes, but now the matter is complicated because the lives of millions of people depend on this water.”
“Our tribe did not create the problem. We are the only ones who have the right to manage our spring. If we decided to share the water with New Alamo, it would be only by our free will.”
“That bastard Bacon wanted to exploit our precious treasure for his own benefit, and we wouldn't have been the only ones to lose out.”
“That's clear. The citizens of New Alamo would have lost out too, destined to have to accept his every whim in order to have water.”
“We will try to fix the situation. What I see down here deserves nothing but respect. But where do you get your light and energy from?
“We get them from Flesya. This luminescent mutant plant is our natural source of energy. Its leaves and flowers bloom here underground, while its roots climb hundreds of meters until they emerge on the surface, like billions of invisible filaments under the sand.”
“Unbelievable… and from those roots sunlight filters down here?”
“Yes. They work like fiber optic cables, carrying sunlight to the heart of plants that release a small amount through their leaves and retain the rest in their core. The whole process emits harmless radiation, which creates an electromagnetic field that prevents satellite observations and the functioning of any probe.”
“That's why this place can’t be found from the outside.”
“Yes. It's really well protected. My father was studying Flesya as a possible energy source, he discovered that the plant grew stronger in the presence of salt water.”
“Now I understand what that pond I saw in his office, at the dam, was for. To test Flesya with salt water.”
“Indeed. But that was just a small-scale model. His real studies were done down here. Over here. Come. I'll show you his real laboratory.”
“Here it is. The laboratory that my father equipped down here to study Flesya.”
“It's really big. Nothing to do with what he had at the dam.”
“In fact. When he could, he came here to work. He was studying how to obtain the greatest possible energy from these plants through a process of mutation.”
“More energy also means an increase in radiation.”
“That's true. But the strong point of my father's project was precisely in increasing the performance of Flesya, keeping radioactive dispersion at low levels.”
“He was creating next-generation alternative energy.”
“In fact, a natural energy derived from the particular relationship between Flesya and the sun.”
“This is the first charge cell with the energy of the mutated Flesya… a kind of small battery that can release immense power.”
“It's strange. It looks like a toy. Besides, its charge is almost at maximum.”
“In fact, a few more hours and it will be complete. I'm really sorry that my father is not here to see his work finished.”
“I understand, Carolyn.”
(Bryan the robot) “You shouldn't have brought these strangers here, Carolyn. The lab was only for Dad and me.”
“Oh, there you are. I was just wondering about that.”
