Shaw received an impossible radio transmission. Cate and Keiko uncover an ancient link to Titan X. Isabel has a proposition for Kentaro. 

We start with a countdown and see a hand, touching dog tags, the kind of soldiers wear for identification. This is Axis Mundi 1962. The Titan is at 4,000 feet. It is the muddled memories of Old Lee and we see Young Lee as he puts his helmet on and climbs into a sphere that will be lowered into a hole.

Switch to Hiroshi as a child asking, “Are you going far away”?

Young Lee says, “It’s hard to explain, Hiroshi, but I’ll be back really soon.

The three men in the sphere are bracing themselves because the descent is rapid.

Another memory shows Young Lee asking Billy, “Hey, did you ever manage to get that Jeep out of third?” This happened sometime before this expedition into Axis Mundi.

Back in Axis Mundi, the three men are out of the sphere on the surface of Axis Mundi. A pole holds the helmet of Brandt.

This is: Operation Hourglass.

Mission Day: Foxtrot Day 6

Young Lee uses a walkie-talkie in an attempt to contact the control center: “Control, this is Hourglass Primary, Mission Day, Foxtrot, transmitting blind. I buried Burke today. I’m gonna scout higher ground. See if I can’t get a signal there. The camera pulls back so we see that he’s in a forest.

Mission Day: Oscar

Young Lee is digging. Is it another grave? No. It looks like he’s making a primitive shelter. “Control, Hourglass Primary. Mission Day Oscar. Rations are gone. I finished the last yesterday. Hoping I can catch my dinner. If not, I don’t know what I’m gonna do. ” We realize that he has been digging a trap. When he comes back and uncovers it, he sees himself, lying on his back. That’s just his mind playing tricks on him.

Young Lee falls asleep and we see to hear a previous conversation, “Did you catch that? Did you see it?”

The engineer says, “Huh? Catch what?”

“Uh, my instruments are reading something but it doesn’t make sense.”

“Who cares? That’s great.”

“I don’t even know what we just did, do you? It’s picking up an anomaly. I don’t know if it’s a Titan.”

That’s not Young Lee or Old Lee having a memory, but that’s Young Lee, hearing the conversation between Old Lee and Suzuki over his walkie-talkie. Waking up, he tries to make contact.

Young Lee: “Control, do you read me? Over….Who is this? Who am I talking to? Over.”

Old Lee replies, “Who is this? Who am I speaking to?”

Young Lee says, “Oh, my God. Thank God. This is Major Legland Lafayette Shaw. My crew is dead. My vehicle is damaged. My food is run out.”

The scene switches to the other side of this communications: Old Lee who hears Young Lee say, “Control, I need an extraction.”

“What’s happening, Zook,” Old Lee asks.

Suzuki explains, “The device is sending a signal as I posited. It was supposed to bounce around until it found a Titan. Instead, it seems to have picked up the Hourglass Expedition frequency when Monarch thought they had lost you in the rift.”

Old Lee is astounded and stutters, “That was…That was 1962. How is that–”

Suzuki has not time to be amazed and quickly concludes, “As you discovered yourself, time is relative in there.”

Young Lee’s voice comes over again the walkie-talkie again, “Control, please respond. I repeat, this is Hourglass Primary.”

Old Lee hesitates, but Suzuki encourages him, saying, “Talk to him. Talk to him, Lee. What did you most want to hear?”

Old Lee responds, “Hourglass, this is Control. We thought we lost you guys.”Young Lee says, “You did for the most part. But, oh, my God, it’s good to hear somebody. Is Billy Randa there? Can I talk to Bill Randa? Can I speak with Bill?”

Old Lee hesitates and ways, “He’s trying to re-establish contact with you. We’ll get word to him as soon as we can.”

Back in Axis Mundi (1962), Young Lee replies, “You guys working on a plan to get me out of here or…”

Young Lee hears, “We’re working on that, Major…But I can guarantee you one thing: You are gonna make it home.” Young Lee responds, “You sound pretty sure of that.”

Up at the rift site, Old Lee looks at Suzuki and says, “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”

Back at Suzuki’s place in 2017, Keiko asks Cate to look at her findings. “Double pupil. The resonant frequency of the Titan song creates an overlapping pattern in the waveform. How does that make sense?”

Cate responds, “Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe I’m just feeling these vibrations and interpreting it as ‘lost.’ Maybe, I’m just lost and projecting. You’re the only one I can talk to about this without feeling completely unhinged.”

Keiko says, “Cate, you’re not unhinged. The sonic frequency you are hearing is real. The Titan is nearly off its migratory map and no one can find it so however you got to this feeling, I think you’re right. It’s lost. But you could be the key to finding it and sending it back to Axis Mundi.”

Cate knows that if it is lost, it could be anywhere. “I could be in the middle of the Atlantic by now. The vibrations I felt at the dock, they were definitely less intense than on Santa Soledad. What if it’s getting further and further away. ”

Keiko reminds her, “But you felt it here.” Then she remembers, “Billy found a site in Japan. It’s not a migratory route, but he marked it as ‘notable.’ ” When Cate asks, “Notable how?” Keiko replies, “It was cursed.”  Looking through Billy’s notebook, she finds the passage, “Local legend spoke of women becoming possessed with a yokai.” She pauses to explain for Cate that a “yoke” is a “demon.” In this case, it was one “who would lure his victims into the darkness.” There are photos from the village of said women. “This woman said the demon’s voice was a deep-throated vibration.”

Cate asks, “Right. So Billy thought the demon was the Titan?”

Keiko replies, “He thought it was a distinct possibility. If these women were able to interpret what the song was telling them, this connection could help us find the Titan before Lee has a chance to destroy it.

If you’ve been wondering what’s up with Kentaro, we switch to him after we slide by am image of a blue dragon with golden stomach scales and dorsal fins. Kentaro rips the illustration from the wall. There’s a knock at his door. It’s May. “You decent,” she asks. Kentaro replies, “That depends on the definition of the word.”

Kentaro apologizes to May. He’s packing for a trip to Thailand. “You going by yourself?” But he was invited by someone he met. “Why does everyone need to know my business. I met someone and I’m taking a trip. Do I need your permission?”

May seems to be a bit perplexed. Kentaro explains, “I’m just tired of everyone telling me what to do. What’s right. What’s wrong. What my obligations are to my family, to Monarch, to saving the world. It’s my life.”

May leaves the apartment and we don’t see Kentaro’s mother. There’s a White dude getting out of the elevator just as she almost there. He knows who she is: Corah Matteo. He and his friend take May into their custody. One of the dudes has tattoos on the back of his head.

Then we’re back to the mountains with Old Lee and Suzuki. “Zook, I lost him. Can you get him back?” Old Lee asks. “Hourglass primary, do you copy?” There’s no response. “Come on, Zook. Fix it. I know you got a couple of miracles left in you.”

Suzuki protests, “It’s not a miracle. It’s physics.”

Of course, Old Lee comes up with a solution. “Can you crank the power.”

Back in Axis Mundi (1962), a sweaty Young Lee is happy to receive a transmission. “I read you…I thought I lost you.”

“Oh, no. I’m still here,” Old Lee replies. “How are you holding up soldier?”

Young Lee wants to know, “So what’s your guys’ plan to get me out of here?”

Old Lee tells him, “We need to get a sitrep first. Have you observed any MUTO activity?”

“Besides the activity that killed my entire crew, a centipede the size of a subway cars.”

“Right,” Old Lee replies, “and how about Godzilla?”  Young Lee is puzzled and wants to know why Control is interested in Godzilla. Old Lee explains, “This is important. You haven’t seen any sign of Godzilla?”

Young Lee is still confused, and says, “No. Why is that important. How is that gonna get me home?”

“Stand by, Major,” Old Lee replies. Then he remembers and explains to Suzuki, “Godzilla wasn’t there when I was there the first time. Suzuki wonders if Old Lee is remembering things right.”New plan. We don’t know where that Titan is now. But I think I know where it was then,” Old Lee says. “Zook, is there some way we can put a tracker on that Titan?”

Suzuki thinks and replies, “There was a radio in the entry vehicle that…”

Young Lee is worried and asks, “Do you read me?”

Old Lee asks Young Lee to return to the entry vehicle. But is there something following Young Lee?

In Phuket, Thailand, Kentaro is being driven in a black SUV. Who is his friend? It’s Isabel and he finds her being taught defense (boxing). Without a word to her sparring partner, she takes Kentaro up to a spacious kitchen/dining area where she gets him a drink. “Welcome to Thailand.” The compound is where she lives most of the time. “It was one of my father’s pet projects to save the rainforest here. But he got bored with it pretty quickly, much like our relationship and he gave me the house for my 21st birthday.”

To put things in perspective, Kentaro responds, “My dad got me headphones.”

“I’m sorry about your father, ” Isabel says.

Kentaro, ever the downer asks, “Is that the company line?” Isabel doesn’t know because she doesn’t have much to do with the company or her father. Kentaro replies, “Must be nice. Not having to care.”

Isabel says, “It’s not exactly that simple.” What is?

Back in Axis Mundi 1962, Young Lee is at the entry vehicle. He has the circuit board out.

Old Lee responds, “Copy that. Dr. Suzuki is going to take you through the rest of the assembly process.”

Young Lee says, “Zook? He’s there with you.” But he thinks Zook’s voice sounds “a little rough.”

Suzuki replies, “Kansas does not agree with my hay fever and I, our signal is traveling through a rift. And there’s bound to be some distortion…Take the anodes from the integrated circuit you just removed and then connect them to the green wires of the gyroscope from the altitude indicator.”

Young Lee isn’t clear and asks, “The anodes are the golden pill-looking tings, yeah? Can you tell me how this tech is going to get me out of here or is that classified too? ”

Old Lee cuts in, “Uh, Major, you need a Titan to open a rift so we’re trying to find you a ride home.”

Young Lee says, “Yeah, but why risk putting a tracker on it? I don’t understand that.” Old Lee and Suzuki aren’t sure what to say.

Finally, Old Lee says, “This whole mission was a risk and it’s what we expect you to do, soldier.”

Young Lee says, “Okay. Understood. Defense and discovery.”

From there, we go to Outpost 18 which is in the South Pacific Ocean. May is brought into the laboratory where Tim is looking at a specimen. “What the hell?” May asks. “We’re sending goons after people now with no explanation? Are we not friends? Did we not eat noodles?”

“Friends?” Tim says. “I don’t know if you remember this, but, we made a plan together and then you disappeared. Next thing I know you’re standing side by side with Brenda Holland, friend.”

May defends herself. “Yeah, I did what I said I was going to do. I was gathering information.”

An angry Tim responds, “No. You were actively participating! Do you have any idea what is happening right now?  All we’ve got is a piece of Titan X with your device still attached to it. We are n a crisis. This is serious shit. Titan X is on the loose and it killed Hiroshi. I don’t want it to kill anyone else.”

May says, “Do you think that I do? ?

“I do not. That is why you are here. We have a theory that your device threw Titan X off its migratory route and into a rampage. God knows where.”

May asserts, “It’s not my device. It’s Apex’s. So your should ask Apex Cybernetics.”

Tim responds that they have “and Walter Simmons is shocked that a couple of bad actors would engage in an unauthorized and reckless operation. They have vowed full transparency. Now Holland’s playing ball, but she’s being a little cagey….So add to the fact that Trissop’s gone AWOL, that leaves you. Help us figure out what it did, what your code did to Titan X. Maybe you can help us stop it.”

After thinking a bit, May says she’s going to need a lab suit.

Back in Thailand, Isabel like Kentaro has a sister “After the world’s best IVF doctors failed my mom and dad, they adopted me. And the one year later,  my sister Maia. Miracle baby. And then suddenly is was, ‘Isabel who?’ Is that what it was like for you with Cate? You work for years and years with your father, and then all of a sudden, Cate pops out of Axis Mundi and it’s ‘Kentaro who?’ I hate Apex just as much as you hate Monarch. They all want to change the world. I want to create a new one, but I can’t do it alone. What about you, Kentaro? What do you want?”

Back in Axis Mundi (1962), Young Lee is asking “Control,” “So why this specific Titan anyway?”

From above, Old Lee asks, “Oh, are you gonna be picky now?”

Young Lee mutters, “You sound like me.”

Old Lee replies, “We know this one’s big enough to open a rift to get you out.”

Yet Young Lee wonders, “How? How do you know that? How do yo know what’s down here?”

Old Lee replies, “Well, you know, Dr. Suzuki, he’s real sorcerer. He managed to detect that Titan signature close to your landing point.”

Young Lee persists, “Who are you? You said you were classified with Operation Hourglass. I know the whole team up there. Now you can’t find Billy, you’ve got me trying to tag a Titan, and I don’t even know your name. So who are you?”

“Fair enough, Major,” Old Lee replies. “You may call me colonel. I came on board late. Part of the team that’s trying to clean up this mess.”

“Yeah,” Young Lee says. “I guess I should be grateful, sir” now humbled merely by rank. “Okay, so well, then why don’t you tell me about yourself. Let’s try and keep the. connection open.”

“All right,” says Old Lee. “What would you like to know?”

“Let me start with…what about family? You have a family?” Young Lee asks.

Old Lee confesses, “I never married, but recently I came across some kids that thought they’d lost their dad. That kind of feels like family now.”

“I got a similar situation. I got a…there’s a boy up topside. I was good friends with his mom.  Told him I’d be back. Made him a promise, so don’t make a liar out of me, Colonel.”

“No on your life,” Old Lee replies.

Young Lee finds something. He smells something like an electrical fire.

“Run,” Old Lee yells. “Run now!” Things start exploding in the forest. Now Young Lee has a big scratch under one eye and when we look back at Old Lee, we see it became a scar. “Major, are you okay?”

Young Lee is okay, but “banged up pretty good, but nothing that won’t heal.” Then Young Lee seems something that makes him stop. “Control, you’re not gonna believe what I’m looking at. Some kind of encampment. There’s camp. I don’t know what it is. How could somebody be in a camp down here? ”

Old Lee realizes what’s happening. “Major, this is a direct order…You step away from that camp and stay on this mission.” But Young Lee has seen something, a familiar machine. He bends down and picks it up up and says, “Keiko?” He then begins screaming her name.

We change back to 2017 on the topside with Keiko and Cate. They are getting out of a car. Keiko is looking at some papers. “Well, if I’m reading Billy’s handwriting correctly, there should be a path that leads to the rings of…” Cate spots them. There are rings wrapped on trees. They see a wooden sign that says in Japanese: Entry is forbidden. (立入禁止). There is a rickety wooden gate and fencing. Cate kicks the fencing near the gate hard. It easily breaks away. Cate is a bad American tourist. They go through and see rocks with carvings on them like the face of a woman. Keiko explains these are markers or graves. One of the stones has the face of a woman screaming with her eyes closed. 

From here we transition back to Axis Mundi 1962, with Young Lee calling for Keiko.

Old Lee warns, “You need to slow down, son.”

“Slow down? Slow down? She’s alive and she’s down here.”

Old Lee replies, “I know, but this is complicated.”

“What do you mean you know? Huh? What aren’t you telling me? ” Young Lee demands.

“A hell of a lot,” Old Lee replies.

“And you’re not Mission Control, are you?”

“No, I am not,” Old Lee admits. “But that doesn’t matter. Only one thing does: Protecting her al all costs.”

Hearing this, Young Lee exclaims, “Oh, my God. You do sound like me.”

“Say that again, Lee,” Old Lee asks. “Now say that again.”  Young Lee has a realization but believes he is losing his mind. Old Lee admits, “I am your older self. I am you.”

Young Lee says that Keiko was his mission. He was supposed to protect her. Old Lee says it out loud, that Young Lee loved her.

Old Lee says, “I carry your scars, Lee. All of them. Keiko is the most painful. But that moment has passed Lee.

Young Lee says, “If she’s really alive, it doesn’t have to be. She said, ‘In another lifetime, in another world, we could be together. No, if she’s alive, I can change it. I’m gonna change it.”

Of course, Old Lee know that might change the future, the world as Old Lee knows it. Young Lee in Axis Mundi spies on Keiko from afar as she tries to catch something to eat.

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t go to her right now,” Young Lee asks Old Lee. Old Lee explains, “In the near future you will rescue her, and she will live a life that you thought were were responsible for losing…

“What’s behind door number two?”

“I’ll give you three. Those kids I told you about…that came into my life? They’re Hiro’s kids. You like them, Lee. You will like them. But if Keiko comes out early, we really don’t know how seriously that could change everything. ”

Back in 2017 with Keiko and Cate, they find that the fencing contains an old well. Cate insists that she should go in and explains, “You can pull me up if anything happens.” Cate believes that the others went down there and heard the Titan’s call.

But Keiko gets deja-vu because that’s exactly what she said in Kazakhstan. “And I regret that mistake every day, ever since.”

Cate claims that it wasn’t a mistake because Keiko had to find out the answer just as Cate does not. “Sometimes what haunts us is what keeps us safe,” Keiko says. She then adds, “I trust you Cate. Go find what’s down there.”

Back at Outpost 18, May is in a hazmat suit and asks, “So what have you all figured out so far,” while looking at the severed tentacle from Titan X or Krakilla.

Tim reminds us that the device that was implanted tapped into the nervous system.

May continues, “Brenda’s idea was to send rapid fire signals to the brain and back, until we learned language.” May thanks Tim for “making sure I came out of this clean.”

Tim explains that May should really thank Brenda because if May reads the transcript of the Monarch debrief, she see that Brenda doesn’t mention May’s name and makes sure that no one knows about it.  May says, “I don’t know why she would do that.”

Tim replies, “One mystery at a time, I guess.”

Back to Thailand with Isabel and Kentaro. Isabel is accompanying Kentaro as he’s being driven back to the airport. She’s trying to convince him to stay longer. “Honestly, after what happened with your father, I thought you would understand. Both our families have been dealing with the Titan situation for years, and it’s only gotten worse. I believe it’s really time for  new ideas, your ideas. We’ve seen it work from the inside out. We are just as qualified as anyone, and do we not have just as much at stake?”

Kentaro replies, “I get it. You’re rich. You’re used to getting what you want.”

“This has nothing to do with money.” She’s explaining to him that “If we are not successful, I have nothing.”

Back to Keiko and Cate at the well. Keiko is checking to rope and preparing to lower Cate into the well.

Old Lee has convinced Young Lee to leave Keiko alone and find the wasp nest from hell. He’s being chased by a winged Titan (Ion Dragon) when something emerges from the ground. An oversized centipede from your nightmares (an Endopede) tries to eat him.  The winged Titan covers it with slim and takes it away.

Cate is now down in the well but the rope is old and not doubled up. It breaks and Cate falls down as Keiko screams.

Back in Axis Mundi, Old Lee is guiding Young Lee. Young Lee has to hack into rock in order to release. Old Lee describes it as a “sleeping shark.” He puts the tracking device into the creature. Suzuki gets a signal, but the creature emerges. We only get the briefest glimpse of it.

Now we’re with Cate at the bottom of the well which is filled with chittering and cries. There’s a tunnel and Cate is going to follow it to the ocean.

Back to Young Lee in Axis Mundi. Old Lee tells him to get back to the entry vehicle. He reminds Young Lee that he is a good man. Young Lee asks Old Lee to take care of Keiko and Hiroshi’s kids. Old Lee is left thinking.

Keiko follows the sound of Cate’s voice and finds her. Cate has found the way out of the series of tunnels. Cate doesn’t think Krakilla is dangerous. It just needs out help.

Old Lee and Suzuki beat Cate and Keiko back. “So where does destiny take us now?

Not us Zook. Just me.

You think I’m too old to play shotgun on this mission?

Far from it Zook.  I’m afraid this part is a one-man job.

You’re worried this hundred-year-old relic might not make it back? You think you might not make it back.

Goodbye old friend.

Back at Outpost 18, the monitors start picking up a signal: HG01. Tim recognizes as the signal from the very first vehicle to Axis Mundi. “That’s from 1962. Why?”

Tim tells the boss, “As promised, there’s the Titan.” What the hell is it doing? It’s heading toward a deserted beach.

So how does this all relate to string theory?  According to BBC Science Focus Magazine, in theoretical physics, string theory tries to combine quantum mechanics with general relativity. Traditional physics uses three spatial dimensions and one temporal dimension. That would be the x-axis (length/width) with movement left and right, the y-axis (width/length) with movement forward and backward and z-axis (height/depth) with movement up and down. The temporal dimension is a single, irreversible axis. Time is a distinct and measurable coordinate that is used to describe the position and evolution of events. String theory uses many more dimensions and these higher dimensions could provide shortcuts through spacetime. That would include wormholes that would connect separated points in the universe and they would theoretically be time machines. The extra spatial dimensions are rolled up at a subatomic level, and the fundamental laws of physics come through their geometric shapes. In 1992, Stephen Hawking proposed the Chronology Protection Conjecture which prevents macroscopic time travel into the past, protecting the universe from causality-violating paradoxes.

• Superstrings from (NASA), Goddard Space Flight Center
• How the Universe’s Hidden ‘Scars’ Could Unlock Time Travel: Nobody Knows if Cosmic Strings Exist, But if They Do, They Could Change Everything We Know about the Universe. (9 November 2024) 
• Chronology Protection Conjecture (Wikipedia)
• Chronology Protection Conjecture (15 July 1992)

I didn’t take physics so I won’t pretend to understand this but I also don’t understand why Monarch calls something that looks like a Trilobite and not a Scarab beetle is called a Scarab.

Creatures Featured 

Episode 207:

• Endopedilla or Endopede – original to Monarch
• Krakilla or Titan X – original to Monarch
• Endoswarm (and eggs) – original to Monarch
• Ion Dragon – original to Monarch