- Nina Inara: Wha-what's going on?
- Roe Saunders: Nothing. Nothing. Why-why do you ask?
- Nina Inara: Carrie?
- Carrie Wells: Uh... I just got an e-mail. As did a number of other people on the floor.
- Nina Inara: What e-mail?
- Roe Saunders: Hmm?
- Nina Inara: What are you looking at?
- Roe Saunders: [she comes around to look] No. It's just...
- [he laughs as she sees a picture of herself at a crime scene, with an exaggeratedly large animated rat photoshopped in]
- Nina Inara: Oh, very funny, Roe. Yeah, very mature. Thank you.
- Carrie Wells: Can you describe your assailant, Detective? Greasy black hair, whiskers.
- [in a high-pitched voice]
- Carrie Wells: Squeaky little voice?
- Nina Inara: All right, you know what? I am not apologizing for yesterday. That rat came after me! It did! He looked me in the eye! That rat had an intelligence.
- Mike Costello: You know, just, the last time Spence got in trouble, he called you, so I just thought I'd ask.
- Al Burns: And you think just 'cause he changed his Facebook password, he's in some kind of trouble?
- Mike Costello: Well, it's just, I got a feeling, you know? He's just been acting really secretive lately.
- Al Burns: I thought you guys just had a breakthrough.
- Mike Costello: That was last week.
- Al Burns: Mike, I'm sure Spence is fine. Maybe he just got sick of his password.
- Jay Krause: Fire was pretty much contained to this lab. We think this is Audrey Cruz, research fellow. Been at the lab about a year. There's not much left to see.
- Carrie Wells: [uncovering the victim and covering her nose] Ugh. How did you ID her?
- Jay Krause: Right now, just keycard entry, but we're gonna use dental records.
- Al Burns: Where's your point of origin?
- Jay Krause: Right here. Lab had gas cannisters, all kinds of flammable liquids.
- Al Burns: You thinking some sort of incendiary device?
- Jay Krause: Oh, it'd be premature to reach that conclusion.
- Carrie Wells: Well, there's a clear blast pattern, and there's residue.
- Jay Krause: We're gonna have it tested.
- Carrie Wells: Are you considering PETN? High brisance, burns hot, big shock wave, explains the windows.
- Jay Krause: Right, but at this point, that's all speculation.
- Al Burns: I'm sensing a reluctance on your part to use the "B" word.
- Jay Krause: You're sensing right, Lieutenant. If we even suggest there was a bomb involved - New York, post 9/11 - I'm gonna have 48 agencies, federal and state, all over my butt. 90% of the time, it's just somebody sneaking a smoke in the wrong place.
- Carrie Wells: Audrey smoke?
- Jay Krause: I'm telling you, absent some kind of positive proof of a bomb, like a-a chemical test or a detonator fragment, it's just a fire.
- Carrie Wells: [remembering arriving at the scene] So, if I told you where to find a circuit board with a capacitor on it...
- Jay Krause: Yeah, but that's a pretty big "if".
- Carrie Wells: It's out in the hallway, blew right through the windows. This wasn't an accidental fire. We're dealing with a real-life bomber.
- Nina Inara: [Al denies a box of junk is his] Okay, if it's not Al's, then who does it belong to? Oh, hey. Hmm. "The Natural." Mike, it's got your name on it.
- Mike Costello: No, my copy's right by my bed, where I always keep it.
- Roe Saunders: Yeah, right next to his José Reyes bobblehead.
- Mike Costello: Hey. That's not funny. That guy walked, okay?
- Roe Saunders: So sorry.
- Nina Inara: I don't know. We could run some DNA on this razor. Hey, Roe, you want to save us some time?
- Roe Saunders: I'm sorry, Nina. I'm strictly an electric guy. That's how I get the smoothness I demand.
- Al Burns: Sinclair Labs. What do we know?
- Mike Costello: Uh, been around since the mid-'90s. They rent space to a dozen private and public clients. Universities, perfume manufacturers, even some defense contractors.
- Al Burns: Anyone pop?
- Mike Costello: Nothing so far.
- Al Burns: Anything yet on the bomb?
- Nina Inara: Webster's analyzing residue.
- Al Burns: How about our victim?
- Mike Costello: Audrey Cruz. She was a grad student at New York Institute of Technology. She had a grant to study the effects of water storage in plastics.
- Al Burns: Leeching?
- Mike Costello: Yeah, it's probably not about her work.
- Al Burns: Anything on the personal side?
- Roe Saunders: I can tell you that Audrey wasn't supposed to be in the lab last night.
- Al Burns: How's that?
- Roe Saunders: Well, after-hours access is only granted by special request. Security guard said she showed up, wanted to get in for just a minute, saying she forgot something.
- Mike Costello: We know what that was?
- Roe Saunders: Pulled this from the security cams in the parking lot. It's just after she got off work. It was a wide angle. We blew it up a little. Okay. She gets this note, she leaves. Three hours later, she comes back. Could be she suspected something was going down.
- Nina Inara: Or she's involved with what's going down.
- [seeing Mike's look]
- Nina Inara: Well, I'm saying, she's in the lab after hours, right? We got to consider the possibility.
- Al Burns: Hang on. Someone must have left the note. They'd show up on the tape.
- Roe Saunders: Ah, I checked it out. A huge crowd went through around lunchtime. Lots of heads and bodies. Suddenly, there's the note.
- Mike Costello: I'll dump her cell, see who she called after she got it.
- Al Burns: All right, until we learn more, no statements to the press. It's a homicide, that's it.
- Mike Costello: Whoa. We got to fix that microwave.
- Tanya Sitkowsky: CSU found Audrey's purse in the lab. And it was exposed to high heat, but not flame, so the vinyl just melted around the contents.
- Mike Costello: Oh, the note! That's amazing. And... illegible.
- Tanya Sitkowsky: Ah, but it's only baked, not burned.
- Mike Costello: Can you recover any of it?
- Tanya Sitkowsky: Some would call this science, but I prefer the term... magic.
- Carrie Wells: You got something?
- Joanne Webster: I do. A shopping list.
- Carrie Wells: Oh, I'm scared to see it. "Nitric acid, acetone, pentaerythritol, sodium carbonate."
- Joanne Webster: PETN. You were right. All of those things you can get at your local hardware store.
- Carrie Wells: You know, this, a beaker, a stirring rod, and a thermometer. You could make it behind a bar.
- Joanne Webster: Not a very good use of bar space.
- Mike Costello: I've gone through all of Audrey's phone records. She didn't call anybody after getting that note. N-Not the police, not S.P.I.
- Al Burns: And she went back to the lab despite the warning.
- Mike Costello: Yeah. Feels like there's a missing piece to this puzzle.
- Al Burns: I think I know who can fill us in. Our friends at S.P.I.
- Al Burns: I'm Lieutenant Burns. I'm running a murder investigation, and you're not cooperating.
- Thom Muso: What can I do for you?
- Al Burns: My victim, Audrey Cruz, got a threat the day she was killed. A threat related to S.P.I.
- Thom Muso: First I'm hearing of it.
- Nina Inara: We need to know what she was working on.
- Thom Muso: Look, our work - all of it - falls under national security guidelines, and until we complete a full...
- Al Burns: Spare the "cover your ass" speech.
- Thom Muso: Look, I want to help, I really do.
- Al Burns: If she was in danger, she deserved to know about it. Her family deserves to know what happened to her.
- Al Burns: How we doing for prints?
- Jay Krause: Not hopeful. These guys say it looks pretty clean.
- Carrie Wells: Was it linked to a radio or a cell phone?
- Jay Krause: No, it had a timer. A good bomber's part chemist, part electrician, and part toymaker. This guy Faraday, he's a triple threat. Definitely deadly.
- Nina Inara: Talked to their project manager; uh, so Faraday defintely never worked at Sinclair.
- Carrie Wells: Faraday isn't working anywhere anymore. He's been dead for five years.
- Joanne Webster: Persecution, retribution, delusions... all classic paranoid schizophrenic. Onset usually begins late teens, early 20s, when reality and fantasy become interchangeable, almost indistinguishable.
- Al Burns: So, what's his goal?
- Joanne Webster: Think the narrative he's constructing is that little chemical spill at Sinclair was targeted against him. And the routine medical treatment he received at the clinic was a cover-up.
- Al Burns: And Audrey Cruz just got caught in the middle.
- Joanne Webster: Well, I think that part of him that's still connected to reality was actually trying to save her.
- Al Burns: So the bombings are his way of fighting back against imagined enemies, and Faraday is, what, projection, alter ego gone wild?
- Joanne Webster: Very good.
- Al Burns: Date a shrink for a year, something rubs off.
- Al Burns: So... about me and Elaine. It didn't end neat. Fact is... it ended messy.
- Carrie Wells: Yeah, well, the whole "dumping your stuff in a box" thing kind of said 'messy' to me.
- Al Burns: She kicked me out.
- Carrie Wells: Oh.
- Al Burns: The box was her way of saying "don't come back."