CENSORED episode 3 - The storm

CHAPTER 3 “The Storm”: Barely 21, Steven has started working as a substitute physics professor, and rushes out into a rainstorm to teach. He gets to school drenched, only to have his class interrupted by the news that Isabelle has been in a car accident and died. Initially stunned, Steven returns home devastated and destroys their house. In haze of pills and booze, his days blend together until her funeral. He attends but, unable to endure the situation, leaves mid ceremony. That night, while finally cleaning up after his tantrum, Steven rediscovers his father’s journal and delves into its knowledge in an attempt to flee his new, awful reality.
He disappears for a few weeks, only to reappears with the journal at Paul and Ingrid’s house while his mother is alone. Steven tries to have Ingrid translate Hermann’s scribbled German, but she doesn’t understand his complicated, mathematical terms… Steven gives up, leaving when he hears Paul come home. Later that evening, a distraught Ingrid admits to Paul that she gave Steven one of Hermann’s books a few years back and now fears for his mental health. The news shocks Paul who, desperate to erase any trace of his past experiment, decides to call in Eddy’s favor after all these years.
Paul finds Eddy and explains the potentially dangerous situation, even offering to pay him for his services. Reticent at first, Eddy eventually agrees to help locate Steven. The next day, Eddy shows up at Paul and Ingrid’s house to question them about Steven, and then proceeds to track him down over the next month.
While waiting on Eddy’s results, Paul can’t stop worrying about who Steven might be sharing highly classified research with… So when Liam pulls Paul aside during an inspection to talk about strange dreams he keeps having, Paul gets paranoid and thinks he’s being threatened. Mistaking Paul’s odd silence for curiosity, Liam decides to show him what he’s been working on for the past 13 years and takes him to the bottom of the base, seeking to initiate Paul into his inner circle. During the ride down, Liam explains that he has been trying to understand what caused the Area 51 monsters to appear all those years ago, and reveals the technology, politics and spy games that led to the earthquake. Liam then admits his ultimate goal of restarting the Bell project under Paul’s supervision, and asks if Paul would like to be promoted back to his old rank of Chief Research Supervisor. Liam opens a blast door to reveal the new Bell that he’s been building and reassures Paul as to the Bell’s secrecy, enumerating the various, vicious steps he’s taken to keep this new experiment quiet. He even hints at some form of personal task force… but this just makes Paul even more terrified, because all he can think about is the peril Steven’s unsanctioned, manic research could be putting him and Ingrid in. When pressed for his answer, Paul responds that he has to think about it and goes back to his (3rd) floor, white as a ghost.
During this time, Eddy has found Steven holed up in a cheap motel, working feverishly on his father’s journal in a drug-fueled rage. He contacts Paul and shows him pictures of Steven’s sprawling calculations, scientific journals and sketches, exacerbating Paul’s panic. Asking for the address, Paul goes to Steven and attempts to talk him down from pursuing his obsessive research but Steven throws him out. Faced with his stubbornness and running out of options to quiet him, Paul once again contacts Eddy.
Paul browbeats Eddy into accepting more cash in exchange for retrieving the journal, but before Eddy can fake a break-in and steal the documents, Steven’s neighbors call the cops on him for a noise complaint. As the officers arrive on the scene they discover Steven inert, having gone on a drug binge after Paul’s upsetting visit. Eddy phones Paul to update him on the situation as it’s happening, and Paul tells him to destroy the journal/research by any means necessary. Eddy manages to set the apartment on fire, injuring himself in the process. He shows up at Paul’s house later that night and holds a gun to Paul’s head. Eddy takes the money and tells Paul to never contact him again, but Paul convinces Eddy that Steven is still dangerous to both of them. Eddy thinks it over and, as he’s leaving, writes down a phone number to contact as a last resort.