Alien Code (2018)

Kyle Gallner: Alex Jacobs

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Quotes 

• Rebecca Stillman : We'd like to hire you to decipher an encrypted message.

  Alex Jacobs : Okay, why me?

  Rebecca Stillman : Because you're arguably one of the best cryptographers of your generation.

  Alex Jacobs : No, come on, that's bullshit. Look, I'm good, but the best? No.

  Rebecca Stillman : We like your work, Alex. We were particularly impressed with your Amber algorithm.

  Alex Jacobs : My Amber algorithm.

  Rebecca Stillman : Yes.

  Alex Jacobs : That pissed a lot of people off, that one.

  Rebecca Stillman : It did more than that. Broke countless laws, compromised the security of multinational firms, and folded the company you worked for.

  Alex Jacobs : But I can't take all the credit for that. You see, the NSA pressured us into implementing back doors for the sake of 'national security'. You do know after that information leaked, they turned their backs and they threw us under the bus. Thank you, Uncle Sam.

  Rebecca Stillman : It's business.

  Alex Jacobs : It's conspiracy. So come on, I signed the NDA, what ethically ambiguous scheme is it this time?

  Rebecca Stillman : Two months ago we detected a U.S. military satellite in orbit. A satellite we never sent up. It was retrieved and examined, inside we found an encrypted message, one we've been unable to decrypt.

  Alex Jacobs : What do you mean you didn't send it up?

  Rebecca Stillman : We never sent that satellite into orbit.

  Alex Jacobs : So it's not American.

  Rebecca Stillman : It is, it's ours, just not from now. We believe it's from the future.

  Alex Jacobs : I'm sorry, what?

  Rebecca Stillman : There was a non-encrypted message stating its origin. We were dubious at first, but after undergoing a variety of tests, we've come to the conclusion that it was in fact sent back in time.

• Alex Jacobs : [on his video diary to himself]  God, denial's a bitch, man. But they weren't listening, and I was adamant that there was something sinister at play. I mean sure, you know, there was a part of me that thought that maybe I was losing my mind... but then I remembered I wasn't the only cryptographer they hired.

• Rebecca Stillman : How's your head?

  Alex Jacobs : [after being sedated and transported, groans]  I feel like I was roofied and lobotomized.

  Rebecca Stillman : That'll pass.

• Rebecca Stillman : [on the phone]  What are you doing?

  Alex Jacobs : Rebecca?

  Rebecca Stillman : You were not authorized to memorize that message to memory. That is property of the United States Government.

  Alex Jacobs : Seriously? Are you kidding me? You hacked into my computer?

  Rebecca Stillman : You were informed you'd be under surveillance.

  Alex Jacobs : The fuck are- are you watching me? Huh?

  Rebecca Stillman : You're legally bound to the terms of the contract, Alex.

  Alex Jacobs : This place bugged?

  Rebecca Stillman : Don't let this happen again, you've been warned.

  [hangs up] 

• Alex Jacobs : I was stuck on this one thing on this one equation, right? And I was thinking to myself maybe it had to do with quantum foam because of all the little wormholes in there, or maybe it had something to do with the holographic principle. Maybe it was that and we're in a two-dimensional space because that would explain the size difference.

  Rebecca Stillman : Alex.

  Alex Jacobs : Just wait a minute. I realized that I was being misdirected and that I was too busy focusing on what I was seeing, and not when.

  Rebecca Stillman : What is all this?

  Alex Jacobs : It's an answer.

  Rebecca Stillman : To what?

  Alex Jacobs : Them. You see, if they can travel here through space and time, then that means they can probably control space and time, which means that they can exist in the same space as us, just at a different time.

  [sees Rebecca is skeptical] 

  Alex Jacobs : No, no, no, think about it, they could be in this room, just not right now. They could be 6 hours into the future, 12 hours into the past. They could be in a time where nobody can see them, but in a place where they can watch us. Here's the part I didn't get at first, I didn't understand, but they're watching us. They're watching us through windows in time. They're observing us, they're studying us, and they are fucking everywhere.

  Rebecca Stillman : You need to stop this.

  Alex Jacobs : No, no, no, I'm not the one that needs to stop, you need to stop! You need to stop building that machine, okay? It's not from us. It's not from the future. Okay? It is from them. They put those blueprints on that satellite with that message to start the next war, not prevent it. That's their plan.

• Rebecca Stillman : Good morning.

  Alex Jacobs : Is it? I must have missed the sun rise.

  Rebecca Stillman : Progress? We know this work is taxing and this environment claustrophobic. We've arranged for a weekend leave.

  Alex Jacobs : You keep saying 'we'. Who is 'we'?

  Rebecca Stillman : It's been 5 weeks, get outside, interact with other people.

  Alex Jacobs : Don't need it.

  Rebecca Stillman : We think it'd be good for you.

  Alex Jacobs : Yeah, I don't need it.

  Rebecca Stillman : Human interaction is important and you refuse to speak to our psychologist. Even one conversation a day keeps the mind healthy.

  Alex Jacobs : I don't *need* to hear myself talk. I don't crave comfort through interaction, and I do not feel particularly compelled to play pedestrian psych games with your in-house shrink. So why don't you just let me soak up the 'me' time and get some fucking work done, alright?

• Rebecca Stillman : We have your medical records, we know about the tumor.

  Alex Jacobs : A.R.I.S.T have a compensation package for that one?

  Rebecca Stillman : We're very sorry, Alex.

  Alex Jacobs : You're fucking sorry? You put me in a room with a satellite emitting fucking--God knows how much radiation. That's the thing, right? That's the thing, that's the thing that lets me see them, lets me look at them as they're looking at me.

  Rebecca Stillman : You're hallucinating.

  Alex Jacobs : No I'm not. That's what they want you to think.

  Rebecca Stillman : This won't change anything.

  Alex Jacobs : Yes it will. You cannot build that machine!

  Rebecca Stillman : This is not about any machine.

  Alex Jacobs : Yes it is.

  Rebecca Stillman : You're sick.

  Alex Jacobs : No!

• Alex Jacobs : This could take a little bit.

  Rebecca Stillman : They sent it back this way, to this specific time for a reason. They believed we could crack it.

• Alex Jacobs : Is that--?

  Rebecca Stillman : Yeah, that is the chamber that contained the key.

  Alex Jacobs : No fucking way. It's a vacuum. They used quantum memory?

  Rebecca Stillman : Yeah, but what we extracted was just a lot of noise.

  Alex Jacobs : I'm assuming you guys tried a dictionary attack, yeah?

  Rebecca Stillman : No luck, we think they sabotaged the encryption algorithm.

  Alex Jacobs : They left a back door.

  Rebecca Stillman : Something with which you're uniquely qualified.

• Rebecca Stillman : Alex Jacobs?

  Alex Jacobs : You a lawyer?

  Rebecca Stillman : My name is Rebecca Stillman, I work for A.R.I.S.T. Mind if I come in?

  Alex Jacobs : What the fuck is A.R.I.S.T?

  Rebecca Stillman : Advanced Research Institute of Science and Technology. We're a private company under contract with the NSA.

  Alex Jacobs : NSA, look lady, I've been cleared, so if you want to talk to my lawyer...

  Rebecca Stillman : I'm here to offer you a job.

• Beth Carter : June 4th, that's the day I accepted this job. After that I got sick, I started hallucinating, seeing things that weren't there. I tried to come up with some rational and reasonable explanation but none of them made sense. So I started thinking about the message. About the key and quantum memory. Polarized photons carrying a message from the future. But photons are just packets of light, and light crosses the universe. What if someone or something was sending messages into the abyss? Across space, across time, all we have to do is look for them. I started capturing photons and deciphering codes. I became obsessed. I believed the dead were speaking to me, calling down from the heavens. Then among those voices I heard my own. I was just talking to myself. Neither one of us should ever have taken that job, because it took our health. And who we used to be, it's not who we are now.

  Alex Jacobs : You see them, right?

  Beth Carter : Everything you think you see is just delusions.

  Alex Jacobs : Do you see that one out the window?

  [Beth nods hesitantly] 

  Alex Jacobs : If I'm hallucinating, then how are we hallucinating the same thing? This is real, this is here. They put that message on that satellite and this machine, this is gonna tip the first domino. We have to do something.

  Beth Carter : I just want to die in peace.

• Alex Jacobs : [to Beth]  You know what the difference is in you and me? I'm the guy that doesn't give a shit. The NSA came in and forced the company that I worked for to write backdoors into our algorithms, and I didn't think twice about it. I figured they were going to do it anyway, I might as well be the asshole who collects the check. But you? No, not you. I read your bio. You worked for Everleaf, okay? They told the NSA to go fuck themselves. Rather than compromise the privacy of their clients, they shut down. You, you give a shit. Help me stop this.

• Alex Jacobs : Beth Carter? I'm Alex Jacobs, I'm a cryptographer.

  Beth Carter : Why are you here?

  Alex Jacobs : A couple months ago, I was hired by a company, A.R.I.S.T.

  Beth Carter : I'm sorry, I'm not feeling very well.

  Alex Jacobs : I know, but I need to talk...

  Beth Carter : I have to go.

  [closes door on him] 

  Alex Jacobs : Can I just talk to you for one second? It's important! Listen, I worked on, shit, I worked on the same message as you!

  [going around the house] 

  Alex Jacobs : Listen to me, you don't have to worry, alright? I'm not with A.R.I.S.T. I went to the library to track you down, they won't even know that I'm here.

  [trips] 

  Alex Jacobs : Ow, fuck!

  [gets up] 

  Alex Jacobs : Look! I stayed in the same room as you! I saw- I found your name etched on the bedpost. The message, it's not, it's not... it's not what it says it is. It's not from us!

  [Beth appears at the door] 

  Alex Jacobs : I tried to tell them but they won't listen. And I'm seeing things that I can't explain, but no one believes me because... I'm dying! I'm dying... they gave me six months.

  Beth Carter : [opens door]  I've got two left.

• Alex Jacobs : You never told me.

  Rebecca Stillman : Never told you what?

  Alex Jacobs : I wasn't the first person here. You hired another cryptographer, didn't you? Well, I guess I'm the guy you call when nobody else can get the job done. They're blueprints, designed for a machine of some sort. Not really sure what though, it's incomplete, you only gave me a portion of what you found on that thing.

  Rebecca Stillman : You read through all this?

  Alex Jacobs : Some of it. There's something else, it's a message.

  Rebecca Stillman : This is...

  Alex Jacobs : It's Navajo, keeping it local. It's a warning. Yeah, apparently we are on the eve of World War III and that machine... well the fact is, it's our first line of defense.

• Alex Jacobs : Okay, you're gonna show up on my doorstep, offer me a job, but you're not gonna tell me what it is?

  Rebecca Stillman : Can't divulge specifics until you've signed the non-disclosure agreement. It's only a precaution. No obligation.

• The Man in Black #1 : You agreed to decrypt the code for profit, like your previous work implementing back doors in security programs, the outcomes of your actions do not concern you?

  Alex Jacobs : The outcomes? It's a job. If I'm not doing it, someone else will.

  The Man in Black #2 : Why did they ask you?

  Alex Jacobs : What? What?

  The Man in Black #2 : Why did they ask you?

  Alex Jacobs : Why did -

  [grows suspicious] 

  Alex Jacobs : you know what? Can I see some identification?

  The Man in Black #1 : Identification?

  Alex Jacobs : Yeah, I'd like to see some.

  The Man in Black #2 : Will you feel responsible for h arm that comes from the weapon?

  Alex Jacobs : The weapon?

  The Man in Black #1 : Will ID make you feel more comfortable?

  The Man in Black #2 : The weapon that will be constructed from the blueprints.

  The Man in Black #1 : Will it make you more complaint?

  Alex Jacobs : What are you talking about? What weapon?

  The Man in Black #2 : The blueprints you deciphered.

  Alex Jacobs : I deciphered blueprints but...

  The Man in Black #1 : Is it something you base trust on?

  The Man in Black #2 : You did not know?

  Alex Jacobs : No, I didn't. I did not know this.

  The Man in Black #1 : How do you feel now that you know?

  The Man in Black #2 : Do you feel regret?

  Alex Jacobs : It was a job, okay? I needed the money, so I took the job. There was no, you know, no forethought, no ulterior motive, it was just a fucking job. So whatever I deciphered was not my creation, and I am not responsible for what happens next.

  The Man in Black #2 : Does it scare you?

  The Man in Black #1 : Do you trust us?

  The Man in Black #2 : Have you thought about your own death?

  The Man in Black #1 : About the people that will die?

• [first lines] 

  Alex Jacobs : [narrating]  It's already happened. It's over before it began. You know, the world could end tomorrow, but... You know, but what else is new, right? So maybe you, you can't change how it ends, but you sure as hell can change how you get there.