View of TECHNICIAN #1 and TECHNICIAN #2, sitting side-by-side at two computer terminals (we see them over the screens, so we can see their faces. TECHNICIAN #1 s typing frantically, while TECHNICIAN #2 is staring at his screen in disbelief.

TECHNICIAN #1: Shit! Someone’s triggered an encryption virus.

View of Shackleford, who’s turned around, with an enraged expression on his face. Chen is behind him, cradling his shocked hand. Still further in the background, Edith/Octopus’s tank.

SHACKLEFORD: WHAT?

CAPTION (Technician #1 speaking): It means we can’t get at any of the data, sir.

Edith/Octopus’s P.O.V. Shackleford has his finger jammed up against the glass, with an enraged expression on his face.

SHACKLEFORD: Type this in, Chen…

CAPTION (Machine talk): I can have you made into sushi, Sterling!

View inside the tank. Edith/Octopus has transformed herself (a native ability of Thaumoctopus mimicus) into the form of a lionfish.

CAPTION (Machine talk): Do you want to have only encrypted gobblydegook to show your superiors for data, Admiral?

Another view inside the tank. Edith/Octopus has transformed herself again, this tme into a sea snake.

CAPTION (Machine talk): I think in return for that data, you can come up with the budget to turn those poor girls back.

Edith/Octopus’s P.O.V. Shackleford is looking back into the tank with a shocked, disbelieving expression. Chen has raised an eyebrow.

CAPTION (Machine talk): That’s one of my conditions for getting your data back. Once it’s satisfied, I shall have another. Don’t worry. It will be easy.

View of a half-girl, half-octopus, floating in a transparent horizontal tube, which is half full of liquid. Outside the tube, there are some largish ray-gun like objects pointed at the tube. Technicians in white coats and dark goggles are manipulating the ray-guns.

CAPTION (Edith thinking): I knew, of course, that a little blackmail would be necessary to get this project moving in the right direction.

Another view, from above, this of a more human-looking girl, floating naked on the surface of a now open tube. She has a number of IV lines running into her. Her eyes are closed. A WOMAN DOCTOR is examining one of the IV lines. SHACKLEFORD is standing at the side of the tank, looking at the girl, leaning a little close…

CAPTION (Edith thinking): Their set-up here was just a little too obvious.

Same view as before, except that now the Woman Doctor is glaring at Shackleford, who has straightened up and is pretending to pay close attention to something else.

CAPTION (Edith thinking): I mean, it’s not like I’m really the top person in my field. I had other attributes that made me a good candidate for their little scheme.

View inside Edith/Octopus’s tank. There are a number of screens visible to Edith/Octopus. Some show data, others show video feeds of girls in the process of being transformed back into girls.

CAPTION (Edith thinking): Beyond my ability to monitor the process and offer helpful suggestions from my data.

Flashback view of Edith, sprawled on a couch, the glow of a television set, having fallen asleep.

CAPTION (Edith thinking): They did their homework. A scientist with no close family, no significant other, about to not get tenure…

Another view of Edith, hanging on the cruciform gurney.

CAPTION (Edith thinking): No one would ask too many questions if Edith Sterling were to just drop out of sight

View of the padded room from Page 9 of this script (the one containing the captive Dr. Sin), except that this time the room is empty.

CAPTION (Edith thinking): For all I know, there is no Dr. Sin. They needed help with their own research project that went off the rails.

Two working-class guys, sitting at a working-class bar. A bartender is polishing a mug in the background. Half-finished beers sit in front of both men. One is telling a story to another, who wears an astonished expression.

CAPTION (Edith thinking): It’s pretty difficult to keep local cops hushed up.

Close-up view of the panel under which Edith was working before, and the junction box which she installed.

CAPTION (Edith thinking): But one thing their homework didn’t tell them was that I did a lot of hacking as a rebellious teenaged girl, and I still have my chops.

View from above, looking down at a section of the factory floor. We see down into Edith/Octopus’s tank. We can see her outline. She is surrounded by monitors, but can see out the front of the tank. Arrayed in front of the tank are three pretty young women, wearing white terrycloth bathrobes and slippers. On one end of the line of young women stands a nurse with a clipboard, on the other Shackleford, in full-dress uniform, making a hand gesture as if to indicate “Here they are.”

CAPTION (Upper left, Edith thinking): I insist on seeing my work completed. It’s a good thing that these women are at least physically normal again. I had to do this, because “young woman risks life to save other women” is the sort of sentimental script Shackleford and his crew will be fooled by.

CAPTION (Lower right, Edith thinking): They would have never gone for the real reason…