WEBVTT 1 00:00:27.719 --> 00:00:32.520 The West was one, they say, with grit, gunpowder and 2 00:00:32.600 --> 00:00:35.759 the iron wheel of pioneers. But the land was older 3 00:00:35.799 --> 00:00:38.759 than any nation, and the silence of the prairies was 4 00:00:38.799 --> 00:00:42.880 not always empty. In the vast sun scorched places between 5 00:00:42.920 --> 00:00:47.600 boomtowns and lonely outposts, other forces were at play. Things 6 00:00:47.640 --> 00:00:50.920 that slumbered beneath the salt plats stared from the coal 7 00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:54.600 spaces between the stars, were bled from rocks that fell 8 00:00:54.640 --> 00:00:58.719 from stranger skies. These are the tales the official histories 9 00:00:58.759 --> 00:01:01.640 forgot to write. There are the whispers from the west 10 00:01:01.719 --> 00:01:06.359 that was not just wild but weird. Here the greatest 11 00:01:06.359 --> 00:01:09.079 threat is the bullet in the back, but a truth 12 00:01:09.239 --> 00:01:27.719 that could unmake a man's mind. The sun was a hammer, 13 00:01:28.239 --> 00:01:31.799 and the Arizona bad Lands with the anvil silas gripped 14 00:01:31.799 --> 00:01:34.480 the reins of his dun mare, the leather hot and 15 00:01:34.519 --> 00:01:37.599 slick with sweat. For three days he had been on 16 00:01:37.640 --> 00:01:40.599 the trail of Kyote Jim, a two bit outlaw with 17 00:01:40.640 --> 00:01:43.359 a five hundred dollars price on his head, enough for 18 00:01:43.480 --> 00:01:46.799 months of whiskey and warm beds. The trail was easy 19 00:01:46.799 --> 00:01:50.719 to follow. Jim was careless, leaving a wake of discarded tins, 20 00:01:50.719 --> 00:01:54.319 and spoke to wildlife. But now the trail was leading somewhere. 21 00:01:54.319 --> 00:01:58.640 Silas didn't like. The land itself was growing quiet. The 22 00:01:58.680 --> 00:02:01.760 buzz of chiricadas had traded in the air, once thick 23 00:02:01.840 --> 00:02:04.400 with the scent of dust and chris oat, now held 24 00:02:04.439 --> 00:02:08.159 a sterile, metallic tang, like the air after a lightning strike. 25 00:02:09.000 --> 00:02:11.879 The rocks, too had begun to take on a peculiar sheen, 26 00:02:12.439 --> 00:02:15.840 a faint, sickly luster that wasn't a reflection of the sun. 27 00:02:17.080 --> 00:02:19.960 Silas pulled his mare to a halt, drawing a canteen. 28 00:02:20.800 --> 00:02:23.639 The water was hide enough to brew coffee with. He 29 00:02:23.719 --> 00:02:27.159 scanned the horizon. The landscape was a jumble of scorched 30 00:02:27.240 --> 00:02:31.439 maces and cracked earth. But ahead, nestled in a shallow basin, 31 00:02:31.919 --> 00:02:35.879 something was wrong. It was a patch of wrongness in 32 00:02:35.919 --> 00:02:39.360 a world of harsh rights, a faint, shimmering haze that 33 00:02:39.639 --> 00:02:44.000 wasn't from the heat. He urged the mare forward, his 34 00:02:44.120 --> 00:02:47.199 hand resting on the butt of his colt. The feeling 35 00:02:47.240 --> 00:02:50.960 of unease solidified into a cold knot in his gut. 36 00:02:51.280 --> 00:02:55.039 He found Coyote Jim's horse first. It was dead, its 37 00:02:55.080 --> 00:02:58.639 high drawn tight over its skeleton, its eyes wide and white. 38 00:02:59.400 --> 00:03:02.680 But it wasn't Thursta had killed it. The ground around 39 00:03:02.680 --> 00:03:05.400 the carcass was covered in a fine, gray, brittle dust, 40 00:03:06.000 --> 00:03:08.719 as if every drop of moisture had been violently leashed 41 00:03:08.719 --> 00:03:14.000 from the soil, and the beast itself desiccated. The horse 42 00:03:14.080 --> 00:03:17.759 looked like a forgotten relic, ancient and fragile. There were 43 00:03:17.840 --> 00:03:22.759 no buzzards. One hundred yards further he found the source 44 00:03:22.800 --> 00:03:26.280 of the strangeness. It was a crater, maybe thirty feet across, 45 00:03:26.800 --> 00:03:29.719 and in its center lay a rock, But it was 46 00:03:29.759 --> 00:03:32.560 like no rock Stiles had ever seen. It was a 47 00:03:32.599 --> 00:03:35.879 misshapen lump of something that seemed to drink the sunlight, 48 00:03:36.280 --> 00:03:40.960 and from it something bled. It was a color. He 49 00:03:41.039 --> 00:03:43.800 had no name for it. It was not purple, nor 50 00:03:43.879 --> 00:03:47.319 violet or crimson, but it was a living, shifting hue 51 00:03:47.400 --> 00:03:51.159 that his mind recoiled from, a visual scream that boats 52 00:03:51.199 --> 00:03:54.479 with a soft internal light, seeping into the crater floor 53 00:03:54.520 --> 00:03:57.439 and staining the earth around it. This was the source 54 00:03:57.479 --> 00:04:01.919 of the haze, the metallic smell, profound and unholy silence. 55 00:04:03.479 --> 00:04:06.159 The landscape within the basin was a gallery of cars. 56 00:04:06.919 --> 00:04:10.199 The cacti were no longer plants, but fleshy tuberous things 57 00:04:10.199 --> 00:04:14.120 that twisted into agonizing shapes, their needles replaced with what 58 00:04:14.240 --> 00:04:17.759 looked like fine, glassy hairs. They seemed to writhe in 59 00:04:17.800 --> 00:04:22.959 a slow, constant torment. A lizard scuttled passed, its scales 60 00:04:23.040 --> 00:04:25.879 replaced by crystalline gross that caught the alien light and 61 00:04:26.000 --> 00:04:29.959 fractured it into a dozen more impossible shades. Ain't it 62 00:04:30.079 --> 00:04:34.040 a marble? The voice was a dry rasp, like stones 63 00:04:34.079 --> 00:04:37.800 grinding together. Silas spun his colt cleared the holster in 64 00:04:37.839 --> 00:04:41.040 a single fluid motion. An old man set on a 65 00:04:41.160 --> 00:04:45.959 rock near the crater's edge, daunt weathered like a desert mummy. 66 00:04:46.040 --> 00:04:48.439 He was dressed in the tattered rags of a prospector. 67 00:04:49.240 --> 00:04:52.560 His eyes, however, were the worst part. They glowed with 68 00:04:52.600 --> 00:04:55.360 a faint, reflected sheen of the color from the crater. 69 00:04:56.560 --> 00:04:59.680 Names Jedediah Kane, the old man said, not flinching from 70 00:04:59.680 --> 00:05:04.000 the pis him, and that there, that's my claim. I'm 71 00:05:04.000 --> 00:05:07.439 looking for a man, Silas said, his voice tight. It 72 00:05:07.600 --> 00:05:12.720 was by cowdy. Jem seen him. Jededdiah smiled, the ghastly 73 00:05:12.800 --> 00:05:16.000 cracking of his sun split lips. Oh I seen him? 74 00:05:16.360 --> 00:05:19.560 He came blundering in here, thirsty and shouting. He didn't 75 00:05:19.600 --> 00:05:22.800 appreciate the gift. He gestured with a skeletal hand towards 76 00:05:22.800 --> 00:05:26.079 the crater. He tried to chip a piece off the starstone, 77 00:05:26.560 --> 00:05:30.319 thought it was some kind of jewel. The frostbster chuckled 78 00:05:30.560 --> 00:05:34.199 a dry, rattling sound. The stone just shared a piece 79 00:05:34.240 --> 00:05:37.000 of itself with him. He's part of the garden now, 80 00:05:37.439 --> 00:05:40.639 bertilizing the new world. He pointed to a patch of 81 00:05:40.639 --> 00:05:44.079 ground near the meteorite where the color was particularly vibrant 82 00:05:44.079 --> 00:05:46.839 and the soil seemed to churn with a slow, thick motion. 83 00:05:47.560 --> 00:05:49.519 There was a lump under the soil that might have 84 00:05:49.560 --> 00:05:53.120 been a boot silas felt a cold dread that had 85 00:05:53.199 --> 00:05:57.639 nothing to do with the heat. You're insane, old man, insane. 86 00:05:58.319 --> 00:06:01.879 Jededdiah's voice rose, taking out on a fanatical fervor. I 87 00:06:02.040 --> 00:06:05.560 was blind, and now I see. I came here seeking gold, 88 00:06:05.639 --> 00:06:08.439 the pool's metal, and I found the blood of creation. 89 00:06:09.120 --> 00:06:13.199 It speaks to me. You see, shows me things whirls 90 00:06:13.199 --> 00:06:15.800 for the sky is this color? With the mountains walk 91 00:06:15.879 --> 00:06:19.600 and the rivers singing in geometric patterns. He stood up, 92 00:06:19.800 --> 00:06:23.720 his movements jerky and unnatural. He was unnervingly tall as 93 00:06:23.759 --> 00:06:26.959 if the color had stretched him. It's a gift, a 94 00:06:27.040 --> 00:06:30.160 new genesis for a world that's run dry. The color 95 00:06:30.240 --> 00:06:32.759 will drink the brown in the gray and make everything 96 00:06:32.839 --> 00:06:38.160 new again, everything beautiful. Silas began to back away slowly. 97 00:06:38.759 --> 00:06:41.639 The air was thick, hard to breathe. He could feel 98 00:06:41.639 --> 00:06:44.800 the color on his skin, a tingling sensation, like an 99 00:06:44.879 --> 00:06:47.720 army of ants. In the corner of his eye, the 100 00:06:47.800 --> 00:06:52.759 landscape seemed to shift and bend. The horizon buckled. You 101 00:06:52.839 --> 00:06:56.480 can't leave, Jedediah whispered, his voice suddenly in Silace's ear, 102 00:06:56.600 --> 00:06:59.639 though he was still ten feet away. The sound seemed 103 00:06:59.639 --> 00:07:03.319 to crawl directly into his skull. You've seen it. You 104 00:07:03.439 --> 00:07:05.560 have to be a part of it. You have to 105 00:07:05.639 --> 00:07:09.639 drink deep and let it wash you clean. Silas didn't think. 106 00:07:09.839 --> 00:07:12.959 He fired the colt bucked in his hand, the explosion 107 00:07:13.040 --> 00:07:17.680 deafening in the oppressive silence. The shot struck Jedidiah in 108 00:07:17.680 --> 00:07:20.600 the chest, thrown him back a step. A dark stain 109 00:07:20.639 --> 00:07:23.920 appeared on his shirt, but it wasn't red. It was 110 00:07:23.959 --> 00:07:27.639 a deeper, more intense shade of the alien color. The 111 00:07:27.720 --> 00:07:30.519 old man looked down at the wound with detached curiosity. 112 00:07:31.160 --> 00:07:33.720 Waste the lead. Son. There's no blood left in me, 113 00:07:34.399 --> 00:07:39.079 just the light. He lunged. He was impossibly fast, his 114 00:07:39.199 --> 00:07:42.920 hands hard as petrified wood, clamped onto Silas's gun arm. 115 00:07:43.319 --> 00:07:46.240 The bounty hunter was strong, but Jedediah's strength was not 116 00:07:46.319 --> 00:07:50.279 a musclin bone. It was a rigid, unyielding force. The 117 00:07:50.399 --> 00:07:53.560 very ground seemed to pulse, and a nearby cactus screamed 118 00:07:53.680 --> 00:07:57.639 a high, thin sound like tearing silk. Silas brought his 119 00:07:57.720 --> 00:08:01.000 other fist around, smashing it into the prospector face. It 120 00:08:01.120 --> 00:08:04.160 was like punching the stone wall. He felt bones in 121 00:08:04.199 --> 00:08:08.160 his hand cracked. Jedediah's head snapped back, but his grip 122 00:08:08.160 --> 00:08:13.560 didn't loosen. The color and his eyes blared. Desperate, Silas 123 00:08:13.639 --> 00:08:16.879 kicked out, looking his boat behind Jedediah's leg and throwing 124 00:08:16.959 --> 00:08:20.240 all his weight forward, they tumbled to the ground, rolling 125 00:08:20.279 --> 00:08:23.199 towards the edge of the crater. Silas could feel the 126 00:08:23.240 --> 00:08:26.839 heat from the meteorite, the palpable psychic pressure that made 127 00:08:26.839 --> 00:08:30.240 his teeth ache and his thoughts spray. He saw flashes 128 00:08:30.279 --> 00:08:34.320 of sprawling, non earthly cities under a black starpak sun. 129 00:08:35.399 --> 00:08:38.039 He broke free, scrambling away on his hands and knees. 130 00:08:38.679 --> 00:08:42.200 Jedediah got to his feet, laughing that dry, horrible laugh. 131 00:08:42.720 --> 00:08:45.600 He wasn't looking at Silas anymore. He was looking at 132 00:08:45.600 --> 00:08:49.080 the starstone, his arms outstretched as if to a lover. 133 00:08:50.120 --> 00:08:55.039 It's time he croaked. The harvest begins. He stumbled toward 134 00:08:55.080 --> 00:08:58.440 the meteorite, his wound leaking the impossible color under the 135 00:08:58.440 --> 00:09:01.720 thirsty ground. As he reached the edge of the stone, 136 00:09:02.039 --> 00:09:05.360 he laid a hand upon its surface. The effect was 137 00:09:05.360 --> 00:09:10.360 instantaneous and absolute. The color flared, a silent detonation of 138 00:09:10.480 --> 00:09:14.759 light that bleached the sky. Jedediah Cane screamed, but his 139 00:09:14.840 --> 00:09:17.679 scream was not of pain. It was a sound of 140 00:09:17.720 --> 00:09:22.639 ecstatic release. His body dissolved not into dust or ash, 141 00:09:23.080 --> 00:09:26.600 but into pure color. He became a liquid stream of 142 00:09:26.639 --> 00:09:30.840 the alien hue, flowing into the meteorite, which pulsed once, 143 00:09:31.200 --> 00:09:34.480 a deep, resonant thrum that Silas felt in his marrow. 144 00:09:35.639 --> 00:09:38.960 The ground shuddered. The color surged out from the crater, 145 00:09:39.240 --> 00:09:43.120 no longer seeping but flooding. The gray dust around Cowdy 146 00:09:43.200 --> 00:09:46.519 Jim's horse ignited into a carpet of shimmering alien moss. 147 00:09:47.279 --> 00:09:51.919 The screaming cactie thrashed and writhed. Silas ran. He didn't 148 00:09:51.919 --> 00:09:55.639 look back. He scrambled over the basin's edge, his lungs burning. 149 00:09:56.159 --> 00:09:58.919 The horrifying images from the stone burned into his mind. 150 00:10:00.120 --> 00:10:03.279 He found his mare, her eyes rolling in terror, and 151 00:10:03.360 --> 00:10:06.639 huled himself into the saddle. He rode east as hard 152 00:10:06.679 --> 00:10:09.559 as he could, away from the setting sun and the 153 00:10:09.600 --> 00:10:12.519 spreading stain of wrongness that was consuming the bad lands 154 00:10:12.519 --> 00:10:16.320 behind him. He rode for two days without stopping much, 155 00:10:16.639 --> 00:10:20.080 a man possessed. When he finally stumbled into the dusty 156 00:10:20.120 --> 00:10:23.879 outpost of Redemption, he was hollowed out, his eyes wild. 157 00:10:24.679 --> 00:10:26.960 He tried to tell the sheriff, a fat man with 158 00:10:27.000 --> 00:10:30.639 a sweat stained collar, just what he had seen. It 159 00:10:31.039 --> 00:10:36.759 was a color, Silas stammered, his voice hoarse, a color 160 00:10:36.799 --> 00:10:43.600 from somewhere else. It killed him. It's growing. The sheriff 161 00:10:43.720 --> 00:10:46.120 just stared at him, then told him to get some 162 00:10:46.240 --> 00:10:51.000 sleep and lay off the mescal. Silas gave up. He 163 00:10:51.080 --> 00:10:54.519 never filed the claim for a cowdy Jim's bounty. He couldn't. 164 00:10:55.000 --> 00:10:59.000 He left town that evening, riding without destination. As the 165 00:10:59.039 --> 00:11:01.799 moon rose, he looked down at his own hands on 166 00:11:01.879 --> 00:11:05.919 the reins under the nail of his forefinger, almost too 167 00:11:05.919 --> 00:11:10.240 small to see, was a tiny, persistent speck, a speck 168 00:11:10.279 --> 00:11:13.159 of color, A speck of a color he had no 169 00:11:13.240 --> 00:11:17.600 name for a color that wouldn't wash off. And he knew, 170 00:11:17.879 --> 00:11:20.120 with a certainty that chilled him to his very soul, 171 00:11:20.679 --> 00:11:23.399 that he wasn't running from the color. He was just 172 00:11:23.440 --> 00:11:36.399 carrying its seed to fallow ground. The dynamized roar was 173 00:11:36.399 --> 00:11:39.559 the only higher power Cormick respected. It was a god 174 00:11:39.679 --> 00:11:43.000 progress of shattered rock and brute force, and had paid 175 00:11:43.039 --> 00:11:46.600 his wages. He stood on a precarious ledge, the wind 176 00:11:46.600 --> 00:11:49.240 whipping dust into his beard and washed a plume of 177 00:11:49.320 --> 00:11:52.559 smoke and de bury billow from the mountain side. Below him, 178 00:11:52.559 --> 00:11:55.519 an army of labors, desperate men from every corner of 179 00:11:55.559 --> 00:11:59.279 the earth, cheered another few yards of the whisper's throat 180 00:11:59.360 --> 00:12:03.240 had been calmed. Their employer, the man with a Vision, 181 00:12:03.440 --> 00:12:06.600 stood nearby, standing at the raw wound in the mountain 182 00:12:06.759 --> 00:12:10.639 with eyes that burned with a feverish light. Jefferson Hale 183 00:12:10.879 --> 00:12:15.600 was a railroad tycoon of singular terrifying ambition. While other 184 00:12:15.679 --> 00:12:19.320 men laid track across flat plains, Hale decided to drive 185 00:12:19.360 --> 00:12:22.120 his trans continental line straight through the jagged heart of 186 00:12:22.120 --> 00:12:25.639 the Rockies, through a past the local Ute tribe shunned. 187 00:12:26.120 --> 00:12:28.120 They said it was a place where the world was thin, 188 00:12:28.679 --> 00:12:31.440 where the wind carried voices that weren't the wind's own. 189 00:12:31.960 --> 00:12:36.360 Hale called it a shortcut. Magnificent Cormick. Hale boomed over 190 00:12:36.399 --> 00:12:40.320 the wind, his voice dripping with self congratulation. Every blast 191 00:12:40.399 --> 00:12:43.399 is a hammer blow against the ignorance of geography. We 192 00:12:43.440 --> 00:12:46.279 are not merely laying track, We're imposing the will of 193 00:12:46.320 --> 00:12:50.919 mankind upon this savage landscape. Cormick just grunted and spat 194 00:12:50.919 --> 00:12:54.200 a stream of tobacco juice. He was the foreman. His 195 00:12:54.320 --> 00:12:57.240 job wasn't to believe in manifest destiny. It was to 196 00:12:57.279 --> 00:13:01.000 manage the dynamite the men and the mounting list of problems. 197 00:13:01.559 --> 00:13:05.320 And the problems were getting strange. It had started with 198 00:13:05.360 --> 00:13:10.120 the disappearances. Men vanished, Not just drifters who took their 199 00:13:10.159 --> 00:13:13.919 pay and ran, but Venturan workers who disappeared between shifts, 200 00:13:14.360 --> 00:13:18.080 leaving their tools, their meager possessions, and sometimes a half 201 00:13:18.080 --> 00:13:21.679 eaten meal behind. There was no sign of struggle, no 202 00:13:21.799 --> 00:13:25.720 tracks leading away from the camp. They were simply gone. 203 00:13:26.000 --> 00:13:29.080 Then came the tools they left behind. A pick axe 204 00:13:29.120 --> 00:13:31.759 was found with his head bent into a perfect fluid spiral, 205 00:13:32.360 --> 00:13:35.240 the iron looking more like pull tappy than ford steel. 206 00:13:35.759 --> 00:13:38.679 A sledgehammer was discovered twisted into a shape that seemed 207 00:13:38.679 --> 00:13:41.279 to fold in on itself, a nod of metal that 208 00:13:41.360 --> 00:13:44.080 hurt the eyes to look at. Cormick held it in 209 00:13:44.120 --> 00:13:47.519 his hands, feeling a faint vibration from the object, a 210 00:13:47.600 --> 00:13:50.679 hum that resonated deep in his bones. He had thrown 211 00:13:50.720 --> 00:13:53.120 it into their crevass, and his heart pounding with a 212 00:13:53.200 --> 00:13:58.240 nameless dread. The worst part, however, was the sound at night, 213 00:13:58.440 --> 00:14:00.919 when the generators fell silent and the camp was lit 214 00:14:00.960 --> 00:14:05.279 by flickering fires, it'd begin a low, rhythmic chanting that 215 00:14:05.360 --> 00:14:08.960 seemed to emanate from the freshly blasted tunnels. It wasn't 216 00:14:08.960 --> 00:14:12.840 a human sound. It was metallic and dissonant, a sequence 217 00:14:12.840 --> 00:14:15.919 of clicks, scrapes, and grinding tones that fought a complex, 218 00:14:16.080 --> 00:14:19.559 unnatural pattern. It made the men's teeth ache and their 219 00:14:19.559 --> 00:14:23.679 tempers fray. Fights broke out over nothing. Men woke up 220 00:14:23.679 --> 00:14:27.840 screaming from nightmares of shrinking metal and impossible sharp angles. 221 00:14:28.240 --> 00:14:31.799 It's the mountain. A grizzled irishman named O'Malley had whispered 222 00:14:31.799 --> 00:14:35.679 to Kormick, his eyes wide with tear. It's singing, sir, 223 00:14:36.320 --> 00:14:39.960 and I don't like the tune. O'Malley was gone. The 224 00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:45.159 next morning, his bedroll was still warm. Cormick brought these 225 00:14:45.200 --> 00:14:48.240 concerns to Hale, presenting a crowbar that had been bent 226 00:14:48.360 --> 00:14:51.519 into the shape of a three dimensional figure eight. This 227 00:14:51.600 --> 00:14:56.279 ain't natural. Hail men are spoke, they're vanishing, and that 228 00:14:57.360 --> 00:15:01.879 noise from the tunnels. He snatched the crowbar, his eyes 229 00:15:01.919 --> 00:15:05.799 gleaming sabotage. This is the Union Pacific trying to slow 230 00:15:05.879 --> 00:15:08.960 us down. They hire thugs to scare men, to break 231 00:15:09.000 --> 00:15:12.639 our equipment. He dismissed the channing as wind in the rocks, 232 00:15:12.679 --> 00:15:18.720 amplified by superstition. He would not be delayed. The schedule 233 00:15:18.879 --> 00:15:22.399 was everything. He doubled the wages for the blasting crews 234 00:15:22.440 --> 00:15:25.759 and ordered them to work around the clock. A week later, 235 00:15:25.919 --> 00:15:28.000 a ute elder appeared at the edge of the camp. 236 00:15:28.559 --> 00:15:31.200 He was ancient, his face a road map of wrinkles, 237 00:15:31.720 --> 00:15:34.559 and he leaned heavily on a staff. He spoke to 238 00:15:34.600 --> 00:15:38.519 Hale in broken English, his voice rasping with urgency. You 239 00:15:38.639 --> 00:15:41.360 cut the stone. The old man said, pointing a trembling 240 00:15:41.399 --> 00:15:44.679 finger at the tunnel. But you do not see the veins. 241 00:15:45.279 --> 00:15:48.799 You cut the skin between the worlds. He warned them 242 00:15:48.799 --> 00:15:51.240 of a being that did not walk or fly, but 243 00:15:51.399 --> 00:15:54.440 traveled on the straight line. He said they were not 244 00:15:54.440 --> 00:15:58.039 building a road, but calling its name with iron and fire. 245 00:16:00.039 --> 00:16:03.240 Hale had laughed a harsh, ugly sound. He called the 246 00:16:03.279 --> 00:16:06.080 elder and drunken savage, and had his personal gards run 247 00:16:06.159 --> 00:16:09.360 him off, firing their pistols into the air. The old 248 00:16:09.360 --> 00:16:12.559 man had simply turned and walked away. His shoulders slumped, 249 00:16:12.559 --> 00:16:16.759 not in defeet, but in sorrow. The work continued. The 250 00:16:16.799 --> 00:16:21.679 tunnel grew deeper, the chanting grew louder, more insistent, but 251 00:16:21.720 --> 00:16:24.279 it was no longer just at night. The men could 252 00:16:24.279 --> 00:16:27.039 hear it during the day, a subliminal hum beneath the 253 00:16:27.039 --> 00:16:29.919 clang of hammers and the shouts of the foreman. They 254 00:16:29.919 --> 00:16:33.639 were carving a channel, and something was resonating with their work. 255 00:16:34.960 --> 00:16:37.120 The breaking point came when they were set to blasted 256 00:16:37.200 --> 00:16:40.279 a final section of rock connecting the two main tunnels. 257 00:16:41.000 --> 00:16:45.320 The men refused. The entire Chinese crew laid down their 258 00:16:45.320 --> 00:16:49.600 tools in silent protests. The Irish were drunk and muteness. 259 00:16:49.919 --> 00:16:54.279 Hale was incandescent with rage. Cowards, luddites. I will do 260 00:16:54.360 --> 00:16:58.279 it myself, hebellowed, grabbing a bundle of dynamite sticks. I 261 00:16:58.320 --> 00:17:01.000 will complete this passage of my own hands, and dragged 262 00:17:01.039 --> 00:17:05.680 this continent, kicking and screaming into the modern age. Hale, don't, 263 00:17:06.119 --> 00:17:10.200 Kormick shouted, grabbing his arm. A sudden, terrible understanding had 264 00:17:10.240 --> 00:17:13.480 dawned on him. He'd seen the strange metallic veins in 265 00:17:13.519 --> 00:17:16.680 the rock, how they seemed to converge on this exact point. 266 00:17:17.279 --> 00:17:20.400 He'd seen the drawings in Hale's office, the long, unbroken 267 00:17:20.480 --> 00:17:23.799 line of the track stretching across the map, the straight line. 268 00:17:24.759 --> 00:17:27.960 They hadn't just been digging randomly. They'd been following a 269 00:17:28.000 --> 00:17:31.160 path that was already there, a path of least resistance. 270 00:17:31.759 --> 00:17:35.519 They were completing a circuit. Hale shoved him away, his 271 00:17:35.640 --> 00:17:38.759 mask of face of Zeltry. Get out of my way, Cormick. 272 00:17:39.079 --> 00:17:42.480 History is made by men of action, not doubt. He 273 00:17:42.519 --> 00:17:45.839 stalked into the tunnel, laid the charges himself, and lit 274 00:17:45.880 --> 00:17:49.359 the long fuse. He strode back out, his chest puffed 275 00:17:49.400 --> 00:17:53.519 with pride, as the workers scrambled for cover, The blast 276 00:17:53.839 --> 00:17:58.400 was enormous. The mountain shuddered for a long, breathless moment. 277 00:17:58.839 --> 00:18:00.920 There was only the ring in there and the patter 278 00:18:01.000 --> 00:18:05.680 of falling rock. The silence that followed was absolute, profound. 279 00:18:06.319 --> 00:18:10.519 The channing had stopped. A collective sigh of relief went 280 00:18:10.559 --> 00:18:14.359 through the camp. Maybe it was over. Then a new 281 00:18:14.480 --> 00:18:18.680 sound began. It wasn't the chanting. It was a low, 282 00:18:18.799 --> 00:18:22.319 steady hum, a clean industrial thrum that came from the 283 00:18:22.400 --> 00:18:26.000 darkness of the now completed tunnel. A cold geometric light 284 00:18:26.039 --> 00:18:29.519 began to pulst within, casting sharp edged shadows that seemed 285 00:18:29.519 --> 00:18:33.920 to move their own volition. The men stumbled back. This 286 00:18:34.119 --> 00:18:36.319 was not the warm, flickering light of a lantern or 287 00:18:36.359 --> 00:18:40.759 a locomotive's headlamp. This was a dead light, cold and precise. 288 00:18:42.119 --> 00:18:45.519 Something began to emerge from the tunnel mouth, moving along 289 00:18:45.559 --> 00:18:49.279 the newly laid tracks. It was not a train. It 290 00:18:49.359 --> 00:18:52.319 was a being, if such a word could apply. It 291 00:18:52.400 --> 00:18:56.240 was a conglomeration of impossible geometry, a moving sculpture of 292 00:18:56.240 --> 00:19:00.640 grinding metal plates, razor sharp angles, and shimmering crystaline structures. 293 00:19:01.240 --> 00:19:04.240 It had no front or back, no driver, no engine. 294 00:19:04.640 --> 00:19:08.200 It simply was, and it moved with a terrible purpose. 295 00:19:09.359 --> 00:19:11.799 The air around it warped, and the sound it made 296 00:19:11.920 --> 00:19:15.359 was a distant chanting from the tunnels, now clarified into 297 00:19:15.359 --> 00:19:19.240 a deafening, soul scraping shriek. It moved down the track, 298 00:19:19.759 --> 00:19:24.200 a physical manifestation of a hostile the Orum. The men 299 00:19:24.279 --> 00:19:28.960 screamed and fled, scattering into the wilderness. Only Jefferson Hale 300 00:19:29.000 --> 00:19:32.160 stood his ground, his face a mixture of ultimate terror 301 00:19:32.160 --> 00:19:36.599 and ecstatic triumph. My god, he whispered, his voice filled 302 00:19:36.640 --> 00:19:43.480 with a horrifying awe. It's beautiful manifest destiny. The entity 303 00:19:43.640 --> 00:19:47.440 passed over, and Hil didn't scream. He wasn't torn apart 304 00:19:47.559 --> 00:19:51.799 or crushed. He was simply erased. For a second, his 305 00:19:51.880 --> 00:19:54.839 form seemed to flatten, to lose its depth, and then 306 00:19:54.839 --> 00:19:58.799 he was gone, avoid in reality a patch of air 307 00:19:58.880 --> 00:20:02.359 that the ice slid off. The entity had not killed him, 308 00:20:02.799 --> 00:20:08.000 It had corrected him, removed him from its equation. Cormick ran. 309 00:20:08.839 --> 00:20:11.359 He ran until his lungs burned and his legs gave out. 310 00:20:11.799 --> 00:20:14.400 The shrieking hymn of the thing on the tracks chasing him. 311 00:20:15.119 --> 00:20:17.400 He found a handful of other survivors huddled in a 312 00:20:17.440 --> 00:20:21.920 cave their faces blank was shot from the valley below. 313 00:20:22.079 --> 00:20:24.839 They could hear the sound. The entity had cleared the 314 00:20:24.880 --> 00:20:27.319 pass and was now moving out onto the great Plains, 315 00:20:27.559 --> 00:20:30.880 following the endless iron road they had so painstakingly built 316 00:20:30.920 --> 00:20:35.480 for it. Cormick never went back to civilization. He became 317 00:20:35.519 --> 00:20:38.000 a ghost of the mountains, a wild eyed man who 318 00:20:38.000 --> 00:20:42.839 would occasionally appeared isolated homesteads raving about the railroad. He 319 00:20:42.920 --> 00:20:45.359 tried to warn them. He told them they were laying 320 00:20:45.400 --> 00:20:48.759 down pathways, not for commerce, but for things that travel 321 00:20:48.799 --> 00:20:51.680 on straight lines. He told them of the train that 322 00:20:51.839 --> 00:20:54.680 wasn't a train, the one that ran on the railroad 323 00:20:54.680 --> 00:20:59.400 to nowhere. But no one listened. They just saw a madman, 324 00:21:00.039 --> 00:21:03.720 another casualty of the frontier. And all the while, across 325 00:21:03.720 --> 00:21:07.880 the continent, the hammering continued. Thousands of men laid down 326 00:21:07.960 --> 00:21:11.759 mile after mile of straight iron track, extending a formal 327 00:21:11.799 --> 00:21:20.759 invitation into the heart of their world. Silas rode into 328 00:21:20.799 --> 00:21:24.160 the town of Serenity under a sky bruised with twilight. 329 00:21:24.920 --> 00:21:28.480 The name was a cruel joke. Serenity was a festering 330 00:21:28.559 --> 00:21:32.160 sore on the height of the territory, a place where 331 00:21:32.279 --> 00:21:36.279 men with no pass and no futures came to drink, gamble, 332 00:21:36.400 --> 00:21:39.599 and bleed for silas. It was just a place to 333 00:21:39.640 --> 00:21:41.839 collect the bounty and wash the trail dust from his 334 00:21:41.920 --> 00:21:45.559 throat his face. A road map of scars etched by 335 00:21:45.599 --> 00:21:48.920 knives and bad decisions drew no more attention than a 336 00:21:48.960 --> 00:21:52.720 crack in the boardwalk. Here everyone was scarred in one 337 00:21:52.720 --> 00:21:56.240 way or another. He collected his money from a nervous 338 00:21:56.240 --> 00:21:58.240 sheriff who looked like he had bought his badge from 339 00:21:58.279 --> 00:22:00.960 a mail or in a catalog, then found his way 340 00:22:01.000 --> 00:22:04.279 to the town's largest saloon. The air was thick with 341 00:22:04.279 --> 00:22:08.119 a smell of stale beer, sweat, and desperation. He took 342 00:22:08.160 --> 00:22:11.359 a corner table, his back to the wall, a habit 343 00:22:11.480 --> 00:22:14.079 that had kept him alive longer than most in his profession. 344 00:22:14.920 --> 00:22:16.880 He ordered a whiskey and let the noise of the 345 00:22:16.880 --> 00:22:22.000 saloon wash over him. A familiar discordinate him. It was 346 00:22:22.039 --> 00:22:25.000 when he stepped outside hours later, the whisky warm in 347 00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:28.279 his belly. Then he first saw it. He glanced up 348 00:22:28.319 --> 00:22:31.480 at the familiar tapestry of the night sky, at the cold, 349 00:22:31.480 --> 00:22:35.440 distant diamonds of the constellations. But tonight there was a 350 00:22:35.480 --> 00:22:39.400 new one tucked away near o'rion's belt was a pinprick 351 00:22:39.480 --> 00:22:43.000 of light that didn't belong. It wasn't the warm, twinkling 352 00:22:43.079 --> 00:22:46.240 light of a normal star. It was a dead white 353 00:22:46.359 --> 00:22:49.440 point of cold fire, like a chip of bone lodged 354 00:22:49.440 --> 00:22:52.680 in the black velvetist face. It seemed to stare down 355 00:22:52.720 --> 00:22:57.279 at him, and only him. He blinked, rubbing his eyes. 356 00:22:57.640 --> 00:22:59.839 A turk of the cheap rock, good whiskey, he thought, 357 00:23:00.559 --> 00:23:03.359 But when he looked again, it was still there, a 358 00:23:03.480 --> 00:23:08.720 silent celestial accusation. A faint, irrational chill crawled up his spine, 359 00:23:09.119 --> 00:23:10.920 the feeling he hadn't had since he was a boy. 360 00:23:10.960 --> 00:23:15.079 A further dark. He shook his head, dismissed at his weariness, 361 00:23:15.559 --> 00:23:18.799 and retired to a cheap room for the night. The 362 00:23:18.839 --> 00:23:22.160 next day, the star was forgotten, lost in the harsh 363 00:23:22.160 --> 00:23:25.960 glare of the sun, But as dust fell again, Silas 364 00:23:25.960 --> 00:23:29.119 felt a strange compulsion to look up, and it was there, 365 00:23:30.039 --> 00:23:33.279 the Hangman's star, he found himself calling it, and he 366 00:23:33.319 --> 00:23:37.400 started to notice things. He saw Cutter, a gambler who 367 00:23:37.400 --> 00:23:39.880 had famously shot his own partner over a poker hand, 368 00:23:40.440 --> 00:23:44.000 step out of the saloon, glance around furatively, and then 369 00:23:44.039 --> 00:23:46.599 fix his gaze on that exact same spot in the sky. 370 00:23:47.559 --> 00:23:52.599 A flicker of something fear recognition, cross Cutter's face before 371 00:23:52.640 --> 00:23:56.920 he scurried back into the lamplight. Later, he saw the 372 00:23:56.920 --> 00:24:00.240 saloon owner, a mountain of a man named Thomas, who 373 00:24:00.279 --> 00:24:02.359 was rumored to build his business on the bodies of 374 00:24:02.359 --> 00:24:05.960 his rivals, standing on his balcony, a cigar clamped in 375 00:24:06.000 --> 00:24:08.559 his teeth, staring at the star with a look of 376 00:24:08.599 --> 00:24:14.279 grim contemplation. Over the next few days, the celestial paranoia 377 00:24:14.279 --> 00:24:18.279 began to fester. A silent, unspoken understanding grew among a 378 00:24:18.319 --> 00:24:23.480 certain subset of Serenity's population. The back shooters, the clam jumpers, 379 00:24:23.559 --> 00:24:26.119 the men with notches on their gun belts. They all 380 00:24:26.119 --> 00:24:29.359 carried a new tension in their shoulders. They all cast 381 00:24:29.480 --> 00:24:33.319 speriod of glances at the night sky. The Hangman's Star 382 00:24:33.559 --> 00:24:36.680 was their secret, a shared burden they couldn't speak of. 383 00:24:37.920 --> 00:24:40.319 It was a brand visible only of those who'd earned 384 00:24:40.359 --> 00:24:44.400 it by spilling another's blood. Silas A man who'd taken 385 00:24:44.440 --> 00:24:47.200 out more men than he could remember, saw it brighter 386 00:24:47.240 --> 00:24:50.160 than anyone. It was a constant weight on his soul, 387 00:24:50.640 --> 00:24:54.160 a cold pressure in his mind. He found himself counting 388 00:24:54.200 --> 00:24:57.039 the men he saw looking at the star. There was 389 00:24:57.039 --> 00:25:00.440 at least a dozen in this one street town, and 390 00:25:00.519 --> 00:25:03.720 he began to suspect, with a chilling certainty, that the 391 00:25:03.720 --> 00:25:07.200 star's intensity was tied to them, It was feeding on 392 00:25:07.319 --> 00:25:12.759 their presence. The first demise was quiet cutter. The gambler 393 00:25:13.000 --> 00:25:14.880 was found in an alley behind the saloon with a 394 00:25:14.920 --> 00:25:18.079 knife in his back. The sheriff called her a robber 395 00:25:18.160 --> 00:25:22.240 gone wrong. The silace knew better. That night he looked 396 00:25:22.319 --> 00:25:25.400 up at the Hangman's Star. It was still there, cold 397 00:25:25.440 --> 00:25:29.240 and belovolent, but he could have sworn it was infinitesimly dimmer. 398 00:25:29.880 --> 00:25:35.200 Its accusatory glare had lessened just a fraction. And that's 399 00:25:35.240 --> 00:25:39.160 when the horrifying truth clicked into place. The star wasn't 400 00:25:39.240 --> 00:25:42.240 just a brand, It was a judge, and it had 401 00:25:42.279 --> 00:25:46.480