Enter the tale of the Crusher Council, a group of rugged individuals known for assignments ranging from transportation to terraforming and everything in between. In the early days of space exploration the Crushers took on the job of destroying asteroids and defining space lanes. Because of their work, they were nicknamed "Crushers" which eventually became their business moniker.
Despite the rough and ready nature of the Crushers' work, they subscribe to a few steadfast rules. Unethical and illegal assignments are taboo, and any Crusher accepting one is barred from the Union. Of course, this presents problems for shady clients who try to trick the Crushers into accepting misleading assignments. They know that once the Union accepts a case the Crushers are honor-bound to follow it through. Among the various worlds, the Crusher Council has a stunning reputation, and among the Crushers, the most elite team is the one led by Crusher Dan and his successor, Crusher Joe.
RAF Culverton, East Anglia, during the Second World War. Alec Whistler, a Spitfire pilot discovers a green crystal in the wreckage left by a bomb which destroyed the RAF base's Mess, killing his fiance...
As a reward for his actions in ''The Three Doctors'' the Third Doctor has had his knowledge of the TARDIS's dematerialisation codes returned to him by the Time Lords. The Doctor has left Earth and is helping the rebels on the planet Xanthos.
Meanwhile, back on Earth, the Brigadier has received a call from his old friend Wing Commander Alec Whistler. Culverton Aerodrome has closed and been purchased by the mysterious Legion International, led by the sinister Bliss. Black-shirted troops guard the base and have begun to terrorise the local residents, and people have begun to disappear. Investigating the base with the young Noah Bishop, Whistler is captured by Legion. Noah escapes, but is injured by a huge worm-like creature living in the marsh behind the aerodrome.
Escaping from Xanthos, the Doctor returns to UNIT HQ, realising this is the closest thing he has to home at the moment, though clearly unwilling to acknowledge this either to himself, Jo or the Brigadier. The Brigadier sends the Doctor and Jo to Culverton to investigate.
Arriving in Culverton, the Doctor and Jo are met by Whistler's housekeeper, Mrs. Toovey. While the Doctor investigates the base, Jo stays at Whistler's house, where she is attacked by a Legion trooper who is searching for the green crystal which Whistler has had since the War and which he regards as his lucky charm. Mrs. Toovey has concealed it in Whistler's restored Spitfire in a lead box, masking its energy signature from Bliss's sensors.
The kidnapped villagers begin to reappear, but acting curiously, and all grinning inanely. They are all carrying the embryos of the alien race the Gaderene in their mouths and are being controlled by the embryos.
The village fete is opened by Scotland Yard's Inspector Le Maitre (the Master in disguise) During the fete the remaining villagers are given embryos leaving the village a ghost town.
The Master has worked with the Gaderene to allow their invasion of Earth and despite Bliss's betrayal, still aims to help the invasion as he wishes to see mankind wiped out. Threatening Noah's life, the Master extorts the crystal from the Doctor. The crystal is the ninth and final key which will allow the Gaderene to cross over from their dying world to the Earth. Meanwhile, Whistler has escaped from his captors.
As the Gaderene ready their invasion force, the UNIT troops storm the airbase with the Doctor assisting in the borrowed Spitfire. The UNIT troops pin down the giant worm (Bliss's brother, whose genetic make-up was damaged in the crossing from the Gaderene homeworld) while the Doctor and the Master fight in the midst of the dimensional transference beam. The Master kills Bliss with his Tissue Compression Eliminator and is caught in the beam as it collapses, destroyed by Whistler's crashing Spitfire. The Gaderene are all destroyed and the Master seemingly destroyed with them.
Whistler survives, having ejected from the plane just in time and is reunited with his friend the Brigadier. The villagers with the implanted embryos are released and the embryos all die. The Doctor walks away, head bowed, expressing regret about the destruction.
Goldratt claims that the current method of generating task time estimates is the primary reason for increased expense of projects and their inability to finish on time. The commonly accepted principle is to add safety (aka: pad or slop) to generate a task time length that will essentially guarantee the step gets completed. He asserts that estimates for a task are based on individuals providing values that they feel will give them an 80-90% chance of completing the step, these estimates are further padded by managers above this person creating a length of time to complete a task that is excessive - as much as 200% of the actual time required. It is this excessive padding that has the opposite effect - guaranteeing the task will run full term or late. As counter intuitive as this seems, he provides examples of why this is the case. This predisposes the people on the project to consume the time estimate by:
The book presents a primer for Theory of Constraints. This is done in the form of a lecture by a professor who has recently returned from a sabbatical at a large conglomerate that uses the Theory of Constraints. The discussion focuses on the current methods of measuring success at a work center (cost and throughput) and shows how they are contradictory to the success of the production line as a whole.
The book enumerates the five principle steps of the Theory of Constraints:
The book points out this conflict with respect to an axiom in the Theory of Constraints that states that if two concepts are in direct conflict, then there is an assumption as part of those concepts that is incorrect.
To illustrate, the book uses an example of a steel mill with significant production problems, excess inventory and cost issues. It methodically assigns all the issues of the plant to the method in which success of a work center is measured. The errant assumption is efficiency being measured by tons of steel per hour. The flaw in the measurement is that not all material takes the same length of time to produce and not all work centers have the same throughput. It concludes the sources of the problems for the steel mill are:
After subordination, the key is to maintain a small buffer of material in front of the bottleneck to ensure it never stops producing due to lack of material.
After laying this groundwork, the book turns to applying this to Project Management. After declaring the constraint to be the schedule's critical path, the book maps out a set of terms. The result is:
It proposes a method of schedule generation where all tasks are estimated at a reasonable time for completion. This would be a time estimate that would give the resource a 50%-60% chance of completing the task on time. The theory being that one task may take less than its estimated time but another may take more - on the average evening out. Since there is no safety, the conditions above that cause misuse of time on the task do not exist.
Safety is not added to individual tasks. Safety is added to the project as a whole (at the end) or to the end of a sequence of tasks feeding the critical path.
Using numerous analogies and examples, the concept of a resource buffer is introduced. This concept claims that one must ensure the resource bottleneck on the critical path is always busy and stays focused. They should be: * Kept on task. In other words, minimize multitasking * Be ready for the assignment; even if it means they are idle waiting for dependencies to complete.
The book introduces increasingly complex situations to remove the non-practical classroom approach until it reaches two common project situations: * A bottleneck resource on the critical path and non-critical paths, * Multiple projects contending for constrained resources,
The book emphasizes that the project manager has to understand that he or she is not working with absolutes. Resolution of these issues are not absolute. The time estimates are just that - ''estimates'' - they cannot be treated as absolute times. This is essential for the following two points.
A project example is given with a single bottlenecked resource on multiple paths. Since this resource is over utilized on multiple paths its tasks need to be considered when determining the project duration. This results in the introduction of the term ''critical chain'' - the aggregate of the critical path and the constrained resource leveled tasks.
Projects are going to use common resources. Organizations need to accommodate parallel projects while adhering to the Theory of Constraints concepts. This requires developing a prioritization scheme for the resource to determine the correct order to do work (i.e. proportion of the project buffer remaining). As before, once the scheme has been developed, the resource needs to be focused (not multitasking) on completing the task as soon as possible.
The book closes by introducing a concept for a method for determining which projects should be selected for execution. It is based on looking at the investment in each project in terms of money-days. Money-days is the product of the investment in the project and its duration.
'''Act 1:''' Orestes, Greek ambassador, arrives at the court of Pyrrhus, supposedly to convince him on behalf of the Greeks to put Astyanax, the son of Andromaque and Hector, to death, for fear that he may one day avenge Troy. Actually Oreste hopes Pyrrhus will refuse, so Hermione will return to Greece with him. Pyrrhus refuses at first, then, upon being rejected by Andromaque, he threatens to turn Astyanax over to the Greeks.
'''Act 2:''' Orestes speaks to Hermione, who agrees to leave with him if Pyrrhus allows it. However, Pyrrhus, heretofore uninterested in Hermione, announces to Orestes that he has decided to marry her, and that he will give him Astyanax.
'''Act 3:''' Orestes is furious over having lost Hermione for good. Andromaque begs Hermione to influence Pyrrhus to spare her son, but Hermione, insanely proud, refuses her. Pyrrhus agrees to reverse his decision if Andromaque will marry him. She hesitates, unsure of what to do.
'''Act 4:''' Andromaque resolves to marry Pyrrhus in order to save her son, but intends suicide as soon as the ceremony is over, so that she remains faithful to her late husband Hector. Hermione asks Orestes to avenge her scorn from Pyrrhus by killing him.
'''Act 5:''' Hermione regrets asking for Pyrrhus' death. Before she can cancel her request, Orestes appears and announces that Pyrrhus is dead, though not at Orestes' hand - his Greeks became enraged when Pyrrhus recognized Astyanax as king of Troy. She thanks him with wild insults and runs off to kill herself on Pyrrhus' body. Orestes becomes crazed and has a vision of the Furies.
The townspeople of South Park are in a panic late one night when they discover that a cartoon is going to show an episode featuring Muhammad as a character. Everyone hides in the Community Center for fear of an Islamic terrorist attack and Randy announces that the cartoon is ''Family Guy''. The next morning, everyone is thrilled to find out that there was no attack and that Fox censored the image of Muhammad at the last minute.
It is later announced that the ''Family Guy'' episode was just part one of a two-parter, and that part two will air the following week—without censorship. Cartman believes that this is insulting to Muslims, declaring that Fox was right to censor Muhammad. Kyle, who likes ''Family Guy'', thinks that he is faking, but, when Cartman gives an impassioned speech about keeping people from getting hurt, Kyle is guilt-ridden and believes him. Kyle agrees to go with Cartman to Hollywood to get the ''Family Guy'' episode pulled.
The people of South Park, meanwhile, decide to literally bury their heads in the sand, so as to show Islamists that they have no part in the insult. On the way to Hollywood, Kyle discovers that Cartman only wants to get ''Family Guy'' cancelled as a way to alleviate himself of the comparisons between his brand of humor and that of ''Family Guy'' and does not care about the Muslims. Cartman decides to go at it alone, but Kyle insists he will not let that happen. The two start racing one another on their Big Wheels, until Cartman successfully loses Kyle.
U.S. President George W. Bush meets with the Fox executives. The Fox president says that there is something secret about the ''Family Guy'' writers that Bush needs to know. At this point, it is revealed this is a two-part episode and that the conclusion will be given in the next episode.
During their summer vacation with their grandfather Mori, 14-year-old Rocky, 13-year-old Colt and 9-year-old Tum-Tum take a test on an obstacle course in pitch blackness. They manage to complete the course, yet fail to learn how to use their other senses, in place of sight. Later that night, Mori overhears Rocky and Colt planning on not returning the next year due to them growing older, leaving Tum-Tum for himself. Mori becomes depressed at this.
Returning home, Tum-Tum also becomes depressed after learning that his favorite TV show, ''Dave Dragon & the Star Force 5'', is going off the air soon from cancellation and not even his favorite sandwich was made to cheer him up, which confuses his mother, Jessica. The next day, they meet a new neighbor, Amanda, who accidentally crashes her remote controlled helicopter into their house's window. To recompense, Jessica invites her for breakfast and to attend Tum-Tum's birthday party at Mega Mountain, an amusement park modeled after Six Flags. Once they arrive at Mega Mountain, Rocky goes to spend time with his girlfriend, Jennifer and her few friends, Veronica, Eric and Doyle while Tum-Tum convinces Colt to join him to watch the performance. While the kids are enjoying themselves, a criminal named Mary Ann "Medusa" Rogers and her henchmen sneaks in and commandeers the park, disabling many rides and shutting the place down to hold the patrons hostage. Medusa and rest of her henchmen infiltrate the park's command center operations as their secret base and she threatens the park's owner, Harry Jacobsons to pay the $10 Million dollar ransom in exchange for the park's guests safety. Meanwhile, Tum-Tum and Colt want to get an autograph from Dave until they witness and save him from being captured by Medusa's henchmen. Rocky rejoins his brothers and Amanda fending off the men after spotting them on the surveillance camera monitors. The boys and Amanda realizes the park has been compromised and reports Dave, who went into actions. The boys and Amanda found a radio to make contact with the emergency services, and the police and firefighters units are sent to investigate the park. However, Medusa and her men spot the police and ambush them, which causes the FBI to arrive at the park for backup. In retaliation, Medusa orders her Jamaican sidekick C.J., to increase the Avalanche ride's speed level. The boys and Amanda rescue the riders by fighting some of the few men with Amanda's special arsenals that she possesses while she overrides the ride control with her laptop.
Knowing that they will interfere with her plans, Medusa sends her three dim-witted nephews Carl, Buelow and Zed to capture them, but they are taken down by the boys, who uses the park's carnival game items and a ride with their ninja skills. Meanwhile, Dave sneaks into the command center, but is quickly discovered and captured by Medusa and her henchmen. The SWAT team arrives and attempts to enter the park, but are stopped by the terrorists with electrical fences. In the meantime, Amanda utilizes the park’s main control systems with her laptop to lock the ride access down with C.J. trying to wrestle the controls from her, but not before Medusa quickly accesses the Zinger roller coaster's emergency brake that stops the ride on the inversion. Dave tries to attack Medusa, but she and her men stops and imprisons him in the middle of the roller coaster bottom with several guests.
Recognizing the picture of Rocky and Jennifer on the ride monitors, Medusa’s nephews capture and tie her to the bottom of the Zinger roller coaster loop tracks, at which Medusa threatens to crush her if they don’t cooperate. Rocky goes off on his own to rescue Jennifer. Medusa sends her second-in-command, Lothar Zogg out to capture the boys so they don't interfere. Afterwards, Dave, regaining his confidence, fights off the guards and liberates the hostages from the roller coaster bottom. Rocky arrives to rescue Jennifer, but he gets attacked by Lothar. After a fight that leads to both Rocky and Lothar ending up at the top of the roller coaster loop, Rocky knocks Lothar off with a yo-yo around his ankle to make him literally bounce out of the park and into the hands of the authorities that are stationed outside of the park. Rocky then manages to free Jennifer before Medusa releases the roller coaster that can crush both of them. Jacobson arrives via helicopter with the several bags of money to pay ransom for Medusa, but Amanda manages to destroy the last bag with her remote-controlled helicopter, causing the money to rain down onto the park and the guests snatches it all.
Amanda is quickly captured by Medusa, who escapes underground with the remainder of the money. When Dave fends off Medusa's ninjas, she knocks him out unconscious. The boys successfully manage to defeat some of Medusa's ninjas until she shoots all of the lights out on sight. After she darkens the halls, Medusa's ninjas fight the boys with their night vision goggles. Despite the disadvantage, the boys overcome their weakness in the dark with Mori's advice about using their senses. The boys successfully defeat Medusa's ninjas, in order to rescue Amanda, who is handcuffed next to a bomb that Medusa activates to destroy the park. They manage to free her, but they are unable to disarm the bomb, due to the short circuited power supply. They attach the bomb to a few oxygen tanks with Dave's help to knock off the tank's valves and send it off like a torpedo down to Medusa's escape ship where she and her remaining men dives from the ship. Medusa's ship explodes on impact. Alerted to the explosion, the Police arrives to arrest Medusa at the beach shore, who resigns herself to defeat.
Now hailed and commemorated as heroes, the boys give the credit to Dave Dragon, hailing him as the real hero, to the press media. After reuniting with their parents and grandfather, Rocky and Colt assure Mori that they will not be leaving their training. They also extend the offer to Amanda to come train with them on the following year and she gladly accepts. The film and series end with them all celebrating Tum-Tum's birthday.
Set in Seattle at a company called Zephyr Holdings Incorporated, the plot is centered in a drab building from which it is difficult to discern the company's type of business. The company's defining characteristic is its obscurity and its heavy reliance on corporate jargon, through which it avoids hard truths and harsh realities.
Stephen Jones, a young graduate, reports for his first day in the Training Sales Department shortly after there has been a theft of a precious resource in the office, a doughnut. Among the overarching plot-lines, Roger's assumption of the role of detective in solving the mystery of the missing doughnut stretches the length of the plot. Jones is promoted from assistant to acting sales representative on the whim of his manager, over the heads of his far more experienced colleagues. As time passes and the inanities mount, Jones comes to believe in the existence of a conspiracy, given the logical fallacies of his work, selling orders to different floors of the same company. A meeting with upper management is impossible without an appointment, an appointment is impossible without the consent of mid-level managers, and managers fire anyone who ask questions outside the lines of preferred company policy. Employees are shuffled about at random or outsourced in cost-cutting maneuvers, and the theme of cost-consolidation is heavy throughout.
Reaching the CEO's floor by using a locked staircase, Jones reaches the epiphany necessary to pierce the veil of the sham that is Zephyr: the CEO's floor is the empty roof, and the real work behind the scenes takes place on the unreachable floor 13. The CEO, Daniel Klausman, poses as a lowly janitor ordinarily but secretly orchestrates lab-based tests on the employees of Zephyr in order to best reach maximum efficiency in a corporate environment. A select group of people, known as the Alphas, remain in Zephyr to analyze if their strategies result in perceivable results, and Jones finds himself swept into the Alphas. The main revenue stream comes from the sale of the Omega Management System series of corporate self-help books, based on the results of the studies done on the Zephyr employees.
Disgusted by its inhumanity and its dedication to impossible and cruel ideals, Jones resolves to bring down the Alpha group and thus Zephyr Holdings from within. Simultaneously, he is both heavily attracted to the beautiful Eve Jantiss and repulsed by her open cynicism towards the employees of Zephyr and her easy disregard for common ethics in the corporate environment. Left to its own ends, Zephyr Holdings continuously down-sizes in cost-saving moves, only to be confused when the company's costs rise per person since there are fewer employees. This spirals out of control until Zephyr holdings becomes a tribal battleground, with each executive seizing the best parts of the pie to control and manipulate, leaving a bloated Senior Management with absurdly small number of actual employees. Sick of the rampant ineptitude and trimming which leaves only the incompetent and corrupt working, Jones organizes a revolt with the remaining employees to force the Senior Management to resign, to which the Alpha group is powerless to respond lest it reveal its actual, devious purpose. However, although left without a head and most of its limbs, the Alpha group continues to believe that the experiment of the Zephyr Corporation does not need to be cancelled and can remain viable. In a final act of defiance, Jones links the secret floor 13 with the rest of the building so all the employees can read the files made about them and tests done to ascertain minute results. Infuriated, the Zephyr Corporation employees riot and storm floor 13, resulting in the implosion of the fake company.
In the aftermath of the fall of Zephyr Holdings Incorporated, Jones and Eve meet again, finding that the two of them never really changed, with the latter bemusedly certain that Corporations would not be able to learn from their own mistakes, and the former adamant that the most essential part of the company was not its profits but the people that made up its lifeblood, the employees.
Mio Aio's death leaves her husband Takumi and six-year-old son Yuji to eke a living for themselves. Takumi is disorganized in household chores, suffers occasional fainting spells, and fears that his health could not fulfill his dead wife's happiness. Yuji overhears relatives gossiped that his own difficult delivery compromised Mio's health, and blames himself for his mother's death. Mio had left Yuji a picture book; in the book, Mio departs for a celestial body she calls "the Archive Star" but reappears in Japan during the following year's rainy season; turning the pages, Yuji eagerly awaits her return.
On a walk in the forest outside their house, Takumi and Yuji find a woman sheltered from the rain, and immediately accept her as Mio. She has no memory or sense of identity; she comes home to live with the father and son anyway. This new Mio asks Taku how they met and fell in love, and he recounts a tale of years of missed chances, beginning in high school and when she encouraged their marriage some time later. As the rainy season draws to a close, Yuji discovers the "time capsule" he hid with his mother before her death. Mio's diary is inside, and its version of the Mio-Taku romance holds the answers to the mystery.
Chyna Shepherd accompanies her friend Laura Templeton to her house for Thanksgiving dinner. A serial killer named Edgler Vess invades the house and kills Laura and her family, as Chyna hides in the killer's vehicle. When Vess stops at a gas station, Chyna escapes and asks the two attendants to call the police.
Before she has time to explain, Vess returns and murders the two workers with a shotgun. Chyna then learns that he is holding a 14-year-old girl named Ariel hostage in his basement. She becomes determined to save Ariel and follows Vess back to his home. On the road she runs into a woman named Miriam and asks her to call the police. The woman does not realize that Chyna is serious about the murders until she sees the two dead bodies back at the gas station.
Unfortunately, she is hysterical on the phone with the police, telling them that they 'need to save Chyna and Ariel,' which the police interpret as the ramblings of a lunatic. Upon trying to fall back to sleep, the policeman, Ethan Trevaine, remembers the name Ariel from a missing person's case and starts investigating. Trevaine starts to find clues on what type of vehicle the killer was driving, and what Miriam was talking about earlier.
Meanwhile, the car Chyna is driving runs out of gas so she leaves it in the middle of the road, forcing Vess to stop and push it out of the way. While he does so, Chyna runs back into his trailer and hides, unknowingly leaving foot prints. Intrigued, Vess decides to have some fun and pretend he does not know she is there. He then kills Miriam when she tries to run him off the road and save Chyna. When they arrive at his home, Chyna attempts to free Ariel from a fortified room but is attacked and subdued by Vess. As a captive, Chyna speaks with Vess and has flashbacks to her traumatic childhood: as a little girl, she witnessed her disturbed, abusive mother and her boyfriend kill her neighbors. In turn, Vess reveals his obsession with the "intensity" of any particular experience and declares his intention to kill both her and Ariel, but offers Chyna a slightly more merciful death if she agrees to aid him in mentally torturing Ariel out of her catatonia.
When Vess finally leaves for work, Chyna seizes the opportunity to free herself and Ariel. After dressing in Vess's dog-training gear and spraying ammonia in the eyes of his bloodthirsty German Shepherds, Chyna attempts to flee with Ariel in Vess's mobile home, but unwittingly triggers an alarm that causes him to return home early.
Before they can make their escape, an unmarked vehicle and a police car arrive. Although Chyna believes Vess to be in the unmarked vehicle driven by Trevaine, it is revealed that Vess is actually a Sheriff who emerges from the police car and opens fire on Trevaine, killing him before turning his attention to the mobile home. Chyna and Ariel manage to escape back to Vess's house, where Chyna ultimately gets the better of Vess. She sets him on fire, confines him in Ariel's old room, and watches as he burns to death.
In the aftermath, Chyna visits Ariel in a psychiatric hospital but is denied custody of her in a hearing; she is told that the young girl will require extensive therapy to recover from her trauma. As Chyna prepares to leave without her, Ariel, speaking for the first time, suddenly calls out to her the name "Badger", a character from a story Chyna had told her about to help bring her courage while escaping from Vess. The two embrace, and it is implied that Chyna's custody of Ariel was granted.
12-year-old Paul would like nothing more than for the magical trolls and mermaids he reads about in his favorite story to be real. He goes searching for a real troll and finally meets one named Ofoeti, who has friends like Kalotte, a mermaid, and Socrates, a talking turtle. Soon the mermaid's home is threatened by an evil bridge builder. Paul also discovers that Ofoeti is dying and has less than a day to live. Paul must see if he has what it takes to risk everything and save his new friends.
Before leaving for the earth, Ultraman Mebius was granted the Mebius Brace by the father of Ultra and told of the importance of the name "Ultraman", a legacy he would have to live up to when he reached Earth. On his way there, Mebius saw a transport ship being sucked into the ultra zone, The crew was saved by the sacrifice of the Captain's son Hiroto ban. seeing his selflessness, Mebius tried to save the young man but was a minute too late. He created his human form after the young man, Hiroto Ban, in his honor.
Evelien is a 38-year-old woman; she has two young daughters, a loving husband Harko and a beautiful house in Amsterdam. But still she feels that something essential is lacking.
Each episode chronicles her daily routine; waking up next to her husband, coming downstairs and telling her two children turn the TV off (Dutch: ''"Tv uit !"''), struggling to the end of the day and going to bed. In the first episode it becomes clear that she has a lover. Theo runs a construction company; he can afford to book a hotel room for himself and Evelien for a year and a half.
When confronted with a fellow divorcing mother—who caught her husband having an affair—Evelien reconsiders her relationship with Theo. In the following episode, she flatly tells Theo that she doesn't want anything to do with him anymore—even though Theo has fallen in love with Evelien and keeps proposing to her. Things come to a head when he makes a phone-call while Evelien's husband is in the room. When she gets called out for her strange behaviour on the phone, Evelien's husband realizes what happens and storms out of the house. The following episodes show the aftermath of this temporary breakup, though the two eventually reconcile. However, all is still not perfect, as Evelien still has some doubts about not seeing Theo anymore. Soon afterwards she learns from Theo's sudden death.
The family moves to a more spacious house in Amsterdam, but things are still not serene. Because the house is largely decorated in a new-age minimalist sense, it causes tension with the children, Evelien and Harko too are struggling to get used to the new furniture. Breaking out of her boring routine Evelien takes a part-time job (which she loses for reasons of bankruptcy), but Harko is now going through the throes of a mid-life crisis. Things only get worse when she finds out that one of her neighbours is an old lover of Harko's. Seeking relation therapy doesn't help and Harko eventually announces that he needs a weekend off in London; away from Evelien, and together with Wendy. Evelien bursts into tears when she discovers the truth, but her marriage turns out to be made of strong stuff and eventually all is forgiven.
Shortly after his marriage to Anastasia, Ivan Sanchin, who works as a projectionist at the headquarters of the state security service (called, anachronistically, KGB in the film), is summoned urgently to the Kremlin. Having proved his skill, he is appointed private projectionist to Stalin and his inner circle, including the head of state security Beria. This makes him proud and happy, for he venerates the dictator as if he were a god.
When a Russian Jewish couple in his cramped apartment house are arrested, their little daughter Katya is left behind. Though Anastasia wants to adopt the child, Ivan forbids it because her parents are "enemies of the people”. However she secretly visits Katya at a state orphanage.
As German troops approach Moscow in 1941, Ivan and Anastasia are put on a train to a safe town. Also on the train is Beria, who gets Anastasia drunk and rapes her, sending Ivan back to Moscow. For a long time he hears nothing of her until she turns up one day, pregnant and abandoned. Her experiences have unhinged her and she commits suicide.
In 1953 the lonely Ivan is visited by Katya, now an attractive teenager, who treasures the memory of Anastasia's affection. Ivan offers help, but she says she wants to go her own way. Following Stalin's death, Ivan, while on crowd control duty to masses waiting to view the corpse, sees Katya being jostled in the crush. He rushes in to rescue her and, this time, she is ready to accept his protection.
Linden Avery is now in charge of a clinic for the mentally ill and is responsible, among other things, for caring for Joan Covenant. Roger, son of Thomas and Joan, comes to visit for the first time in many years and seeks to take Joan out of care, claiming that he wants to assume responsibility for the task himself. Roger also demands from Linden his late father's white gold wedding ring, which she refuses to relinquish. Linden remains suspicious of his intentions, but she is not able to prevent his forceful removal of Joan at gunpoint, and his abduction of Linden's adopted son, Jeremiah. Casualties mount as Joan is taken and - whilst attempting to intervene - Linden, Joan, Roger, and Jeremiah are transported to the Land, where they must adjust to its new demands.
On return to the Land, she discovers that the people have no knowledge of the Earthpower she had so cherished before; this knowledge is denied them by the blight on the land known as Kevin's Dirt. This ancient lore is also kept from them by the ''Haruchai'', who have now taken upon themselves total responsibility for the Land's defense, discouraging the learning of Law and any knowledge of Earthpower or the Land's history. They have become the "Masters” of the Land. Also, the Land has been beset by ''caesures'' (or "Falls") which are strange disruptions created from wild magic by Joan in her madness.
Linden takes under her protection an enigmatic character called Anele, who turns out to have been the son of two people that Linden had known centuries before, which appears logically impossible. He is full of Earthpower, as a result of a pregnant Hollian (from the second chronicles) being brought back to life by Earthpower. Linden also finds an ally in a Stonedownor, Liand, who quickly comes to trust Linden implicitly when she introduces him to his past and the Land, showing him an expression of Earthpower beyond all his previous experience. The Masters threaten Anele (and indirectly, Linden) as she seeks to find ways of locating and rescuing her son, a quest she keeps to herself. When a strange storm attacks Liand's village, Mithil Stonedown, he and Linden and Anele take the opportunity to escape the Masters.
Their escape is compromised when Stave, another Master, catches up with them. Initially they believe he has come to recapture them, but he actually brings timely warning of a huge pack of wolves (''kresh'') that is pursuing them. They are rescued by a company of Ramen, the traditional servants of the Ranyhyn horses, who seem to have made an odd alliance with the ur‑viles. They are then led to the Verge of Wandering - a valley the Ramen come to every couple of generations.
Here they meet Esmer, a powerful being who claims to be the son of Cail - an outcast ''Haruchai'' - and the ''merewives'', the mysterious Dancers of the Sea. Linden is unsure whether to treat Esmer as a friend or an enemy: He attacks and wounds Stave (as punishment for his ancestors' treatment of his father), but then proceeds to help Linden. He uses his strange powers to summon a ''caesure'', allowing Linden and her companions to travel backwards in time to retrieve the lost Staff of Law.
They emerge from the ''caesure'' in a Land which is still recovering from the Sunbane. After some initial frustration, they find (with some dubious help from Esmer) that the Staff is guarded by a group of Waynhim who - not being creatures of Law - are slowly sickening from its influence. Linden uses the Staff to cure the Waynhim, but she and her companions are suddenly attacked by Demondim (who they suspect have been summoned from the past by the mischievous and unpredictable Esmer) wielding the power of the Illearth Stone.
Fearful that the coming battle will alter the Land's history, Linden creates a new ''caesure'' and returns herself, her companions, the ur‑viles, Waynhim, and Demondim to her own present. When they emerge, they find themselves in the neighborhood of Revelstone, which is now the stronghold of the Masters. The Haruchai attempt to fight the Demondim, but their efforts are in vain. Stave is badly injured, and Linden and her companions are forced to retreat to Revelstone.
Here Linden meets the Mahdoubt, a mysterious old woman who describes herself only as "a servant of Revelstone". As the company is enclosed in the Lord's Keep with their foes outside, they see a small group rapidly approaching: her son, Jeremiah, and Thomas Covenant, who has seemingly returned to life.
Jonathan is a 27-year-old artist living in Paris who befriends a single mother and her six-year-old son, Serge. When Serge is eight, his mother asks Jonathan to look after him for a week, which they spend together at Jonathan's country house in southern France.
Jonathan and Serge become close friends. Jonathan, smitten with the boy, is distraught when Serge returns to Paris. They meet each other again when Serge is age 10, and their sexual relationship continues. While Jonathan and Serge are separated, the sexual side of Jonathan's desires begins to dominate his behaviour. He eventually seeks out other young boys; he is rejected by some and finds no real satisfaction in sex with the others.
Serge, fatherless and miserable at home with his aloof and demeaning mother, decides to run away to be with Jonathan. He sets off to find him, but becomes overwhelmed by hopelessness, and when confronted with a busy road to cross at night, commits suicide by throwing himself under a fast-moving car.
Category:1978 French novels Category:Novels about artists Category:Novels set in Paris Category:Novels about ephebophilia Category:Novels about child sexual abuse
''Skin & Bone'' is an episodic account of three Los Angeles-area hustlers, Harry, Billy and Dean, and Ghislaine, their pimp. Ghislaine (Nicole Dillenberg) constantly drives the streets of Los Angeles arranging client appointments. She relies on Harry (B. Wyatt), the most experienced member of her stable, to train new recruits, including Billy (Garett Scullin) and Dean (Alan Boyce).
Harry services both male and female clients and always acts as a top; many male clients hire him to beat them. He fantasizes about a woman ("Lovely Girl"
Billy, though experienced, is still somewhat goofy and absent-minded. He sometimes helps Harry with scenes and Harry tries to convince him too that he is an actor and not a prostitute. On several occasions, Billy picks up men only to discover that the man is not actually his client. In one case he and the man fall in love and they plan to get Billy out of the business and start a life together. Shortly thereafter, Billy mistakes a man (Michael Haynes) for a client in a public restroom and that man stabs him to death.
Dean is Ghislaine's most recent recruit. While training him, Harry again tries to impart the notion that their job is just acting. Following his training and first successful trick (with a woman), Dean is humiliated when two women force him to start and stop masturbating seemingly at random. Dean then performs as a "nude cleaner" for a client. He learns that the client is an ex-Marine who was paralyzed in combat and still longs for the boy with whom he fell in love, who was killed. The client is still able to achieve an erection and Dean has sex with him.
Harry is at an appointment with a regular, a uniform fetishist called "The General" (Wynston A. Jones). Usually Harry beats him, but unknown to Harry, the client has arranged for something different with Ghislaine. After showing Harry a picture of himself in which he closely resembles Harry, the General orders Harry to strip. When Harry hesitates, the General attacks him from behind, binds his hands with tape and rapes him.
Harry asks his acting agent to set up an "interview" with another casting director. He lets the man fuck him. Later at Dean's place, Harry finds Dean sitting alone burning himself with a cigarette. Dean tells Harry he ran away from home after his father had him arrested at age 14 for stealing a candy bar. Dean was put in a cell with several men who took turns raping him.
After allowing himself to be used by the casting director, Harry gets a small role as a cop in the film for which he had previously been rejected. On-set he impresses the producers and they offer him a part in a TV series.
Ghislaine sends Harry to the local morgue with $2,500 to bribe an attendant (James Michael White). Harry sees Billy's body and realizes that Ghislaine is acquiring it for a client. He confronts Ghislaine, accusing her of arranging Billy's murder, and tells her he wants to quit and take Dean with him. Ghislaine agrees, if Harry and Dean perform one final scene.
The scene is a cop/prisoner scenario which begins with the cop beating the prisoner then the prisoner overpowering the cop, binding and beating and finally shooting him. Harry plays the cop and Dean the prisoner. Bound and gagged, Harry sees Ghislaine switching his gun (loaded with blanks) for another gun, but fails to convey the danger to Dean. As Ghislaine and the client watch and the client tapes the scene, Dean pulls the trigger and kills Harry. Harry meets "Lovely Girl," who asks him how he feels being dead.
Six months later, Dean is living on the streets. Ghislaine finds him and convinces him to return to work.
When a jovian-sized, artificially-created structure enters the galaxy, a society of technologically advanced humans (capable of interstellar flight and functionally immortal) are the first to intercept and investigate it. Finding it to be an intergalactic ship, they decide to convert it into a cruise ship, inviting alien races to join them in its massive, uncharted interior as it makes a slow circumnavigation of the Milky Way .
After thousands of years, with over 200 billion creatures living in its upper levels, a group of explorers discover a planet hidden in the core of the Great Ship. As they explore it, however, an ionic blast cuts them off from the rest of the ship and destroys much of their technology. Because this planet, Marrow, is slowly expanding, the explorers reason that a new bridge can be built in another 5,000 years. They thus begin a civilization on the surface of Marrow.
The descendants of these original explorers come to believe that the large superstructure has been built to contain the Bleak, a race of nearly unstoppable insect-like creatures. Calling themselves the Wayward, they take over the ship when the bridge is completed and attempt to steer it towards a black hole to destroy the Bleak.
One of the original explorers sees a vision of the Builders of the ship fighting the Bleak, containing them within the heart of Marrow and constructing the ship around it as a prison. The Bleak, it is concluded, have twisted the Wayward into destroying the ship so that they may escape. They stop the Wayward's plan by undermining the ship's control and command systems to divert the engines' thrust just enough to skim past the black hole .
The book ends with the suggestion that, with Marrow being a prison for the Bleak and the Great Ship an extension of that prison, the universe itself could be a further layer constructed by the Builders.
Špela, a younger Slovene woman lives with Bosnian boyfriend Božo. She has a job while Božo is unemployed and prefers staying at home, drinking beer and watching TV. After Špela leaves Božo because of his laziness and lack of will to find a job and moves back to her parents, he asks his friend Goran for help and gets a job as a Mickey Mouse impersonator at a local fair. A chance meeting with Špela leaves her less than impressed due to the simplicity of the job which seems ridiculous to her. Reluctantly, Božo accepts Goran's offer for a job involving smuggling illegal immigrants from Slovenia to Italy.
However, Goran loses his nerves and forces the immigrants to end their trip before they arrive to Italy - which doesn't go unnoticed by his boss after the immigrants are found by the police. After deceiving his boss, Goran is beaten, but he and Božo are offered a second chance: together with two thugs, they are to intimidate an innkeeper who had stopped paying protection money. Coincidentally, Špela is also there, celebrating her father's birthday. After the initial surprise she verbally attacks Božo for joining the criminals but she is immediately molested by one of the thugs. Seeing this, Božo attacks him with a bottle, causing the other one to pull out a gun and shoot Božo.
Following this incident, the thugs are arrested, Božo is taken to the hospital and Goran is beaten once again. After recovering from the wounds, Božo considers committing suicide, but changes his mind. Špela returns to him and tells him she is pregnant. The film ends with Božo, Špela and their daughter who are now a happy family.
Ten years after the Civil War, the Governor of Texas asks Leander McNelly to recommission a company of Rangers to help uphold the law along the Mexican border. In a town, Lincoln Rogers Dunnison arrives by carriage to meet his family. Just as they are reunited, John King Fisher and his gang arrive and kill several townspeople, including Lincoln's family, then steal cattle which are to be auctioned. After the attack, Lincoln wanders into an abandoned church and meets George Durham, a fellow survivor. George joins Lincoln on his way to Brownsville to join the Texas Rangers.
In Brownsville, Lincoln witnesses a man attempting to extort resources from the town to support his posse which will supposedly pursue Fisher's gang. McNelly arrives with the legitimate Rangers and is forced to kill the man, but invites any others to join the Rangers. Despite his ineptitude with weapons and not being from Texas, Lincoln shows determination to fight for justice and is accepted into the Rangers along with George and others. McNelly uses Lincoln as his secretary because of his education and reveals that he is dying, apparently of tuberculosis. Out on the trail, Fisher and his gang encounter a traveling circus and kidnap a beautiful Spanish woman.
After training in the field, a Ranger asks Lincoln to get him an appointment with McNelly because he wants to make better maps of the ill-charted Texas territory. Once in his tent, he reveals himself to be a Union assassin who wants to kill McNelly for Confederate crimes. McNelly kills the man, but Lincoln is shaken and tries to desert, believing himself responsible for endangering McNelly. McNelly convinces Lincoln to stay.
The Rangers get their first taste of combat against a small contingent and take two prisoners. Despite initially saying that anyone who surrendered would be tried, McNelly hangs the two survivors. Lincoln is offended by this apparent lack of justice. Later, when the Rangers catch up with the bulk of Fisher's gang, McNelly decides to attack despite the protests of his sergeants. The battle goes horribly as Fisher planned an ambush and several Rangers die. McNelly collects his survivors, including the Spanish girl, and heads for his friend Richard Dukes' ranch.
At the ranch, Lincoln and George compete for Caroline Dukes' affection and Sergeant Armstrong learns from the Spanish girl that Fisher is planning to raid Logan's ranch for cattle. The Rangers ride out, but when no raid occurs, McNelly realizes that the girl lied, and Fisher must be headed to Dukes' ranch. The Rangers discover that Dukes has been captured and Fisher has crossed the Rio Grande into Mexico. After pleading for her life as a victim, Lincoln convinces McNelly to do justice and release the girl. The Rangers then plot their attack on the Mexican fortress after McNelly dictates his will to Lincoln, in which he leaves him his possessions and effectively instates him as leader of the Rangers upon his death.
The Rangers attack the fort at dawn; the Fisher gang are asleep and hungover and are overpowered. Despite having men get behind the attacking Rangers through underground tunnels, the gang is defeated when Sergeant Bones captures a Gatling gun to use against them. Lincoln avenges his family by killing Fisher and saves McNelly's life in doing so. After the Rangers return to Dukes' ranch, McNelly implores Lincoln and George to keep the Rangers on the right side of justice with his dying breath. George stays behind with Caroline to work on the ranch and Lincoln rides off to lead the Rangers.
One Wednesday morning, children in a small fishing village of "about twenty-odd wooden houses" find a body on the beach that is covered with "flotsam" and sea debris. The children play by burying him in the sand until the adults discover the corpse and decide that it must be given a small funeral and thrown off the cliff on which their village rests. This is done because there is so little land in the village that they cannot have traditional burials. In order to do so, however, they must prepare him for burial at sea and look in neighboring villages for any surviving relatives. The men carry the body up to the village so that the women can prepare him for the funeral while they go to neighboring villages to ask if anyone can identify the drowned man.
The man is too tall to fit easily into any house and, upon removing the seaweed and mud, the women observe his handsome face. The women of the village become attached to him and dream of the wonderful man he must have been. Eventually, an old woman declares that his name must have been Esteban, and after a short period of resistance from some of the younger women, they all agree. After dreaming of how powerful Esteban must have been they decide to make him clothes because no one owns anything large enough to fit him. The pants they make are too small and the buttons on the shirt burst. The women then think about how he must have had to stoop to enter doorways and how he must have felt uncomfortable in the small homes. The women feel pity and sympathy for the man, who they silently compare to their own husbands, and they begin to weep for him. They then cover Esteban's face with a handkerchief.
The men are unable to find any relatives of the drowned man and they return home, where the village continues the funeral preparation as a group. The women, now attached to Esteban, place "altar decorations" on him, including a compass, holy water, and nails. The men grow annoyed and chide their wives for taking such elaborate measures for "a stranger" . Esteban's face is then revealed to the men and they too are awed by the humble character they see in his face. Women go to get flowers in neighboring villages, since none grow in their own, and women from those villages come back to see Esteban. This continues until the village grows so crowded that it is "hard to walk about." They do not want Esteban buried as an "orphan" so a mother and father are chosen for him "from among the best people," as well as uncles, aunts, and cousins, until everyone is related to Esteban. Instead of burying him with an anchor they let him go without one so that he can return one day. This is when the village realizes how desolate and small their town appears.
After Esteban is buried at sea, the village resolves to make their doors wider for Esteban's memory, to find springs like he would have, to paint their houses bright colors, and to plant flowers. The village imagines that one day a passing cruise ship will smell the flowers and the captain will point to their village and tell his passengers that it was Esteban's home.
The story begins in a jail, where a prisoner is being interrogated. The action is taking place in the background, behind bars and is blurred. The focus is on a bottle of laxative. Seems the prisoner has stolen a necklace and swallowed it. Soon, the necklace is passed. And it's not even real gold.
The old jailer picks up the story, saying the prisoner is a boy named Pan from his home village. Pan is a simple country boy. In the words of the jailer, he thinks about entertainment too much and is not respectful enough of his elders. In other words, he's not too bright. Yet, he is a good singer, and the story flashes back to a village fair, where he's up on stage singing his heart out, with his lyrics being composed on the spot and directed toward Sadao, a pretty village girl who is dancing in the crowd.
A local rich kid pulls up in his truck and asks Sadao to dance. Then, when the rich kid goes to the drinks stand, Pan hands his microphone over to another performer and moves to dance with Sadao. The rich kid returns, and Pan bumps into him, spilling the drinks. The rich guy, with his thuggish friends in tow, orders Pan to clean up the mess. Pan does so by spitting on the guy's shoes. A fight breaks out, but the music keeps going, with a guitarist picking up the beat and screaming a punk song as the fight intensifies.
Pan and Sadao retreat to Sadao's home, where Pan breaks into another song, expressing his love. But before long, Sadao's irascible father shows up with a shotgun, causing Pan to jump into the river to escape the shotgun blasts.
Pan is not easily deterred. Via his sister, he sends Sadao a pretty blue blouse, accompanied by a love note. He then shows up one day to dig a pond for Sadao's father, explaining that the man Sadao's father had originally hired was sick. He insists on calling the man Dad.
"Stop calling me Dad. When did I fuck your mother," the old man cruelly admonishes Pan.
The old man is complaining of various aches and pains. Pan offers to get him some folk medicine, something involving foot pollen, which because of the cultural association of the foot being the basest part of the body, gravely offends him. Pan is back in the doghouse with Sadao's father.
Yet the two become married. For a present, Pan presents Sadao with a new transistor radio. They have a baby on the way and they enjoy being together.
"The movie could end here," the narrator chimes in, "and you'd be heading for exits with a happy ending. But there is more to this sad tale."
Pan's run of bad luck starts when he draws the wrong number in the draft lottery and must enter the army. He heads off to basic training before his wife gives birth to their child. He promises to write her a letter every day.
A musical interlude depicts Pan and the other soldiers singing the mournful song "Mai Leum" ("Don't Forget) as they crawl on their backs in the mud under barbed wire, and during their haircuts.
One day Pan sees a poster for a singing contest and at the urging of his army buddies, he enters. He nervously gets up on stage and says he wants to sing "The Sad Soldier". The band doesn't know the tune, so Pan sings it a cappella. Though he wows the crowd, he faints onstage when the song is complete. Along with a local girl, Dao, Pan wins the contest and without giving thought to the consequences, he's on a bus headed for Bangkok, where he hopes to become a big singing star.
He ends up locked inside the music company's office, where he spends the night. The next day, he meets his new boss, a sleazy producer named Suwat, who insists Pan call him "Daddy". He lectures Pan about all the hard work he'll need to do before making it as a star.
So Pan pitches in around the office, mopping floors and running errands. Months go by. He mops the floor while the other singer who won the contest, Dao, receives training as a singer. Pan keeps mopping. Soon, 27 months have gone by. He's still mopping floors.
Meanwhile, Sadao is left alone to raise the couple's child. She has not heard a word from Pan and is looking careworn. The radio she was given as a wedding present is starting to wear out.
Pan sleeps in a storage closet, a room he shares with an old man named Yen, who reveals that he, too, wanted to be a singing star, but it's the young women who usually get all the breaks first, he tells Pan.
So Pan keeps mopping floors, washing cars and running errands. He also becomes close with Dao, whom he assists one night after she becomes ill.
Finally, one night at a show, Pan gets his big break when the star male singer doesn't show up. Pan is hastily thrown into a gold lame tuxedo and pushed onstage.
What he doesn't know is that out in the crowd is Sadao and her father. They have finally tracked down Pan and have come to visit him. She's brought him bottles of rainwater from the village, figuring the water in the city is dirty and unfit to drink. Pan and Sadao enjoy a brief reunion after the show, but Pan is quickly whisked away by Suwat, to Suwat's home, which is decorated with animal skins.
Suwat tells Pan to relax and goes to change. He comes out with some beers, wearing just a silk bathrobe and his underwear. Suwat puts on a porn tape – it's a film of the girl singer, Dao. Suwat tells Pan to strip and has him pose for photos. Suwat becomes bolder and bolder, and eventually sexually assaults Pan. Pan reacts in surprise and confusion, pushing Suwat off of him. Suwat lands on a glass table and is killed.
Pan runs out into the street. He sees a policeman. Now, not only is he AWOL from the army, he's also a murderer. He then spots a truck loaded down with other men, so he hops aboard, hoping to hop back off when the truck stops. But the truck doesn't stop until it's taken Pan to a remote sugar cane plantation, where he's set to work cutting cane in torturous conditions.
Meanwhile, back in the village, a smooth-talking travelling salesman, peddling deworming medicine from his boat, is passing through. He's taken a liking to Sadao, giving her some medicine for her sick baby and inviting her to a movie screening that night. He further charms her at the screening, by demonstrating his talents as a film dubber, improvising lines to tell her how beautiful she is.
Back on the sugar-cane plantation, the workers, tired of their diet of vegetables and rice, are restive. Pan has made friends with one of the workers, Siew, but Pan is also well liked by the tough boss, Yot. One night at a card game, Yot finds that Siew has won all his money. A fight breaks out. There is running through the jungle. Dead bodies are uncovered. The horror! Pan and Siew keep running, and eventually wind up in the city.
Starving and their clothes ragged, they happen upon a luxury hotel where they see beggars, street cleaners and motorcycle taxi drivers – poor people – being ushered in, Pan and Siew walk in and start helping themselves to the buffet, shoving food into their pockets. It's a charity ball where the elite are dressing up as the poor, and Pan and Siew win the prize for most authentic costume. But when all the food in their pockets is discovered, they are kicked out of the hotel.
Desperate for money, Pan and Siew hatch another plan. Siew snatches a woman's necklace, and, as she chases him, he passes it Pan, who is then chased by the police. Eventually Pan is caught, and this brings the story back to where it started in the jail.
Pan ends up serving two years in prison, where he and the other inmates work on the prison farm, fertilizing crops with their own feces and urine. While dipping a bucket into the sewage well, Pan falls in, and is covered in the brown substance.
On his release, Pan waits on the street for a ride. A truck pulls up. It is Siew, who is wearing a track suit and much jewelry and is carrying a cellular phone. With his hair dyed blond, he calls himself Peter and announces he is now a drug dealer, and has made quick money. And, to add more indignity to the situation, he's married a former singing star and porn actress - Dao.
Finally, Pan returns to Sadao. She looks more careworn than ever. In addition to a little boy, there's an infant in a crib. "Whose kid is that?" Pan asks when he sees the younger baby. "His father was a dog," she explains. "They are all dogs." Pan looks around. A photo of Sadao's father is on the wall. He's died. The transistor radio lies in a corner, broken and covered with dust. The pretty blue blouse is faded and stained and crumpled on the floor in another corner.
There's a final musical reprise of "Mai Leum", with all the characters in the film putting in an appearance to sing the chorus. Sadao reluctantly accepts Pan back into her life, and breaks down, weeping profusely as the couple embraces.
A former stewardess, widow Julie Benton (Doris Day), flying for "Amalgamated Airlines" is terrorized by her insanely jealous second husband, concert pianist Lyle (Louis Jourdan). It becomes a life-or-death matter after friend Cliff Henderson (Barry Sullivan) relays his suspicions to Julie that her first husband's death may not have been a suicide.
She pretends that she would have fallen for Lyle even if her first husband had still been alive, and Lyle confesses the murder to her. Julie flees with Cliff's help, but police are unable to arrest Lyle without proof.
Julie and Cliff hire a car and drive north to San Francisco where Julie changes her identity, and returns to her former job with the airline. Lyle has a confrontation with Cliff, Lyle shoots him and learns where Julie can be found.
With police in pursuit, Julie is warned that Lyle may be on her flight. She spots him, but Lyle pulls a gun on her, then kills the pilot before being shot himself. Julie is "talked down" receiving instructions on how to fly the aircraft. She does so successfully, and her nightmare comes to an end.
Lovable know-it-all knucklehead Ernest P. Worrell, who is working as a janitor at a local college, discovers an antique metal plate near a construction site. Ernest shows it to Dr. Melon, a university professor who believes that it came from a giant Revolutionary War cannon called "Goliath" (named after the legendary biblical giant). Dr. Melon had previously been ridiculed by his peers for theorizing that the real Crown Jewels of England were stolen during the Revolutionary War and were actually hidden inside the long-lost cannon.
They begin to search for the artifact near the construction site and eventually locate it inside an abandoned mine. They are ambushed by historical antiquity collector and Dr. Melon's colleague Dr. Glencliff whom they then lead on a harrowing chase through the countryside. Things become more complicated for them when British authorities hear about the incident and send a team of secret agents after them to retrieve the jewels. Dr. Melon's wife, Nan, on the other hand is only after him and Ernest for the jewels. While everyone is hot on their trail, Ernest develops a deep friendship with Dr. Melon. After crashing the cannon into a forest, Ernest locates the jewels, not in its barrel as the legend describes but in the gunpowder kegs. After putting the crown on his head, he finds himself unable to get it off. Dr. Glencliff shows up, abducts him, and takes him to his clinic in an attempt to surgically remove it and kill him at the same time. Dr. Melon meets up with Nan and convinces her that Ernest changed his life.
While at the clinic, Ernest manages to escape from the surgery room and lead Dr. Glencliff on a chase through the building. When he has nowhere else to hide, he and Dr. Glencliff have one last fight to get the crown before Dr. Melon arrives. At the last minute, Dr. Glencliff takes an axe off of the wall and attempts to behead Ernest. Just as he is moments away from death, Dr. Melon bursts through the door and hits Dr. Glencliff over the head with the same antique metal plate Ernest found, knocking him out. Ernest realizes that Dr. Melon has saved his life and they both realize that they have gone from being acquaintances to friends. At the same time, British authorities arrive and explain to Ernest that the crown must be taken back to its rightful home. He explains that it will not come off his head and the authorities declare that whoever wears it is King of England. Dr. Melon removes it for him by tricking him about what is on his shirt, flicking him in the face. It causes it to fall off his head.
The book begins with the return of a group of friends, consisting of Tanis, Sturm, Caramon, Raistlin, Flint, and Tasslehoff, who had separated to pursue their own quests and pledged to return in five years. Kitiara Uth Matar, the half sister of the twins Caramon and Raistlin, was supposed to be there as well, but only sent a mysterious note.
On the eve of their reunion, the Companions discover that the village where they are meeting has been taken over by a religious order called the Seekers. They are collaborating with the Dragon Highlords, who are preparing for the conquest of the continent of Ansalon.
The Companions soon discover that the Seekers are searching for a Blue Crystal Staff. When Goldmoon, a plainswoman in the same inn as the companions, heals a Seeker with her staff, the Companions are confronted by Highlord forces and are forced to flee the village.
The next day, the group is attacked by Draconians, reptilian creatures that serve as foot soldiers in the Highlords' army. The Companions are driven into the woods, where they are attacked by undead and rescued by a centaur. The group is charged to go to the ruined city of Xak Tsaroth to retrieve the Disks of Mishakal, an object containing the teaching of the True Gods that will be instrumental for the restoration of the faith in the True Gods.
After a lengthy trip on the backs of pegasi and several encounters with the forces of darkness, the companions enter Xak Tsaroth and meet some gully dwarves, diminutive and socially awkward creatures. One of the dwarves, Bupu, leads them to the dragon Khisanth, who is killed by the holy power of the Blue Crystal Staff. When this happens, Goldmoon is consumed by its flame and presumed dead. However, they later find her resting at the foot of a statue of Mishakal (the Goddess of Healing), which now bears the Blue Crystal Staff, and Goldmoon is blessed with true clerical powers. The Companions leave with the Disks of Mishakal. Bupu gives an ancient spellbook (formerly belonging to the archmage Fistandantilus) to Raistlin. When they return to the village to regroup they find it occupied. The Companions are captured by the Highlord armies and are chained in a slave caravan along with an elf named Gilthanas, the son of the leader of the elven nation of Qualinesti.
The group is freed by Gilthanas's brother, Porthios. They flee to Qualinesti, where Tanis is reunited with his childhood sweetheart, the exceptionally beautiful elven princess, Laurana Kanan. Laurana is still in love with Tanis and wants to marry him, but Tanis breaks her heart by telling her he is now in love with Kitiara.
The Elven King Solostaran convinces the Companions to lead an attack on the slave-mine Pax Tharkas to free the slaves from the control of the local Dragon Highlord. The Companions journey through a secret passage underground to Pax Tharkas and devise a plan to free the slaves. Laurana, desperate to win Tanis back, secretly follows the Companions. When Tanis discovers Laurana has followed them he angrily rebukes her for acting like a spoiled child. Laurana resolves to try to prove she is more than that.
The Companions infiltrate Pax Tharkas and Goldmoon heals Elistan, a dying Seeker, and converts him to the faith of the true gods. He becomes the first cleric of Paladine, and Goldmoon turns the Disks of Mishakal over to him. The Companions help the slaves break free. Laurana proves her worth in the battle by fighting bravely. The Dragon Highlord Verminaard and his red dragon Ember arrive to crush the revolt, but the insane red dragon Flamestrike kills Ember, while the Companions cut down Verminaard. A mysterious figure called "The Everman" later appears at a celebration following the freeing of the slaves, but flees after being spotted.
According to Tracy Hickman, ''"The restoration of truth and faith are... to a great extent, the theme of this first book in the series"''.
The novel begins with the Companions assembled in the major dwarven city of Thorbardin, where the refugees of Pax Tharkas are presenting the dwarves with the Hammer of Kharas, a legendary warhammer wielded by the dwarven hero Kharas, in return for refuge in the city.
The refugees of Pax Tharkas, freed from the Dragon Highlord Verminaard, are on an intermittent stay before finding a new home in Thorbardin, ruled by the dwarves, who have agreed to house them temporarily. The Companions are sent to Tarsis, a supposed city by the sea, in order to find a permanent home for the refugees. Upon arriving, they discover that the city, which became landlocked after the Cataclysm, has turned from a thriving port into a ramshackle town. Whilst in Tarsis, the heroes meet the Silvanesti princess, Alhana Starbreeze and a small group of Knights of Solamnia led by Derek Crownguard. The heroes also learn of the existence of Dragon Orbs, ancient magical artifact capable of controlling dragons. The city is then attacked by dragons and completely destroyed. During the attack, the party is split: Tanis Half-Elven, Riverwind, Goldmoon, Caramon, Raistlin and Tika are rescued by Alhana Starbreeze while Sturm Brightblade, Flint Fireforge, Tasslehoff Burrfoot, Gilthanas, Laurana Kanan and Elistan escape with Derek Crownguard and his knights.
Tanis's group flees on the backs of griffins with Alhana to Silvanesti, the ancient elven homeland. They find it has been ravaged by a nightmare manifested into reality, brought on by King Lorac when he attempted to use a dragon orb. Most of the heroes present, but also Sturm, Flint, Tas and Laurana, experience visions of their death. The only two members of the party to "survive" and reach the Tower of Stars are Tanis and Raistlin. Eventually, Raistlin defeats the green dragon Cyan Bloodbane, who has been manipulating the dream onto the land, and the party escapes the dream. They retrieve the Dragon Orb held in Silvanesti.
The group led by Sturm travels to Icewall Glacier, located in the far south, where Laurana killed the White Dragon Highlord Feal-Thas, and recovered a second Dragon Orb. While sailing towards the Knights' base on Sancrist isle, they are attacked by the white dragon, Sleet. Laurana drives off Sleet by shooting the dragon in the wing, but the heroes are shipwrecked on Southern Ergoth, an island south of Sancrist inhabited by native wild elves (the Kagonesti) and refugees from both the Qualinesti and Silvanesti nations. Upon making landfall, the group is confronted by a force of Silvanesti elves. The Silvanesti surprisingly knock Gilthanas unconscious, and a battle nearly breaks out between the two groups before Laurana is able to defuse the situation. The Silvanesti then bring forth a Kagonesti Elf named Silvara, who heals Gilthanas, and escort the group to Qualimori, the refugee city established by the Qualinesti elves. It becomes evident that tensions are high between the three groups of elves: the Silvanesti and Qualinesti are ancient rivals and refugees, and both nations consider themselves above the "wild" Kagonesti, who are native to Southern Ergoth and whose lands they are occupying.
The reunion of the heroes with the Qualinesti does not go well. Laurana is publicly snubbed and insulted by her family, and the Qualinesti imprison all of the non-elves in the group and seize the Dragon Orb. Realizing that the Qualinesti will not use the Dragon Orb for anyone but themselves, Laurana, with the help of Gilthanas, Silvara and an imprisoned human blacksmith, Theros Ironfield, steal the Dragon Orb and free the rest of the heroes. The group then flees Qualimori.
Aggressively pursued by the elves, tension grows between Derek and Sturm when Sturm refuses Derek's order to attack the elves. The heroes eventually decide to split the party with Derek and Sturm taking the orb on to Sancrist while the rest of the group lures away the pursuing elves. Silvara guides this group to the tomb of the legendary hero Huma Dragonbane. There they meet the enigmatic, bumbling wizard Fizban (who was presumed dead). Silvara reveals the great secret that she is a silver dragon, and agrees to aid the party in forging Dragonlances, which will be necessary in turning the tide against the Dragonarmies.
The focus goes back to Tanis's group travelling to the port city of Flotsam. The adventurers pose as a traveling magic show, with Raistlin the star magician, and are able to make some money and escape undue attention. En route, Raistlin gains power over, and masters the use of, the Dragon Orb he obtained in Silvanost.
By this time, Sturm and Derek have reached Sancrist with the Dragon Orb. Derek brings charges of dishonor against Sturm for his failure to obey orders, but due to one of the leading knights, Lord Gunthar Uth Wistan, personally pleading his honor on Sturm's good character, Sturm is allowed to become a full Knight of Solamnia in the Order of the Crown. Sturm is also made third in command of the Solamnic Knight force being sent to defend the High Clerist's Tower in Solamnia behind Derek and the Knight of the Sword, Lord Alfred Markenin. The Tower guards a narrow pass in the mountains and is the primary avenue of defense for the rich city of Palanthas, but the citizens of Palanthas believe the Dragonarmies will leave them alone and thus provide little support, either in terms of men or supplies, for the defending Knights.
The Whitestone Council is convened to try to form an alliance to fight the Dragonarmies. The council quickly descends into chaos between the "allies" as the elves threaten war against the knights unless the Dragon Orb is returned to them. Finally, to stop the bickering, Tas shatters the Dragon Orb by throwing it against the Whitestone. Amidst the confusion, Theros Ironfield demonstrates the power of a newly forged Dragonlance by shattering the Whitestone with it. The stunned allies grudgingly agree to start working together.
Back on the mainland, Laurana and Flint testify on behalf of Sturm Brightblade before the knights, leading to him being fully exonerated of all the charges Derek brought against him. Lord Gunthar is so impressed by Laurana that he asks her to travel to the High Clerist's Tower to bring the news that Sturm has been cleared and to deliver the new Dragonlances to the knights. Laurana feels that Gunthar is using Sturm to further his own ambition but still agrees to go for Sturm's sake.
On the other side of Ansalon, Tanis and company are staying in an inn in the disreputable city of Flotsam. The city streets are dangerous: it has been overrun by the Blue Dragonarmy and a large portion of the army is present in the town, occupying every bar and inn. Tanis and Caramon, in an effort to blend in, steal the armor of two Dragonarmy officers. As Tanis wanders the streets, he is attacked by a deranged elf in a back alley. Suddenly, he is rescued by Kitiara, the fiery human woman that is Tanis's ex-lover and half-sister of Raistlin and Caramon. Kitiara has risen to the rank of Dragon Highlord, leading the Blue Dragonarmy. Tanis, stunned, lies to prevent the capture of the rest of the group and claims he is a new officer under her command. She escorts Tanis to her quarters and the two resume their love affair.
Meanwhile, the Knights of Solamnia (along with Laurana, Flint, and Tas) have fortified the High Clerist's Tower. They are greatly outnumbered by the besieging Blue Dragonarmy and are low on supplies. Morale within the Tower is low; the vindication of Sturm has led to a split between the low-ranking Knights of the Crown and the higher ranks, led by Derek and Markenin. Derek's grip on reality also appears to be slipping. Finally, as supplies near their end, an increasingly desperate Derek orders a frontal assault on the encamped Dragonarmy, stating that they will flee before the charging knights. Sturm, believing this to be suicide, refuses the order and does not permit his Knights of the Crown accompany the attack. Derek and Markenin carry out the attack with most of the garrison and are promptly slaughtered. Bakaris, the ranking Dragonarmy commander, brings the headless body of Lord Alfred and a dying Derek up to the tower and starts to taunt the few remaining defenders when he is silenced by Laurana shooting him in the arm.
The Blue Dragonarmy attacks the tower in force the next day but is repulsed by the few remaining knights. Still, Sturm knows this is only a temporary victory as now the enemy will bring their dragons up to attack the tower. Meanwhile, deep within the recesses of the Tower, Tas has found yet another Dragon Orb and realizes that the unusual architecture of the tower is designed as an elaborate dragontrap, designed to lure dragons into a center chamber in the tower and slay them. The dragons attack, overwhelming the defenders with dragonfear. Sturm manages to stall them for a short time but is killed by Kitiara. Inside the tower, Laurana successfully controls the Dragon Orb, which lures two blue dragons inside the traps, where the Knights slay them using their Dragonlances. Kitiara wheels her Dragon away and escapes the call of the orb. The Dragon Orb also drives all the attacking draconians insane, causing the advancing Blue Dragonarmy, which had been on the cusp of victory, to collapse into utter chaos. Afterwards, Laurana goes out to protect the body of Sturm and is confronted by her romantic rival, Kitiara. Kitiara informs Laurana that Tanis is with her, then departs. Sturm is buried in the chambers below the Tower, eulogized by a bitter and angry Laurana, and honored by all the survivors of all embodied by the Knights. The novel ends with Alhana Starbreeze burying her father in Silvanesti and departing back to her people, still refugees.
Ernest is working as a golf ball collector at a golf range in Valdosta, Georgia, but fantasizes about being a war hero. A friend tells him that if he joins the Army, he will get to drive large vehicles and never have to go into actual combat. He enlists in the reserves, but one day a UN peacekeeping commander Pierre Gullet and the British ambassador visit Ernest's camp and demands that the entire unit including him is to be deployed to the fictional Middle Eastern country of Karifistan, where he and his fellow soldiers have to assist UN troops in the hope of saving the country from being invaded by an evil Islamic dictator named Tufuti of Aziria. Once he began, Ernest and his team investigates a dictator who was responsible for the wars in the nearby village. Suddenly, he finds a lost boy and has to keep him safe until his father is found.
The book begins with Tanis Half-Elven in Flotsam. Kitiara has recently left for Solamnia to lead the Dragonarmies in their failed attack against the High Clerist's Tower, which was depicted in the previous novel and resulted in the death of Sturm Brightblade. Tanis returns to the other companions, being watched by the draconian Gakhan, Kitiara's personal assassin. Returning to his friends (Goldmoon, Riverwind, Tika Waylan, Caramon and Raistlin Majere), Tanis tells them the half-truth that he was mistaken for an officer by an unspecified Dragon Highlord and forced to continue the impersonation for his own safety.
Later on, the companions depart to Kalaman via Blood Sea of Istar by the ship Perechon, where the mysterious Berem (also called "the Everman" and "the Green Gemstone Man") works as a helmsman. Kitiara leads her forces and her dragon Skie to follow The Perechon. Evading pursuit, Berem steers the ship straight towards the whirlpool at the center of the sea, which was formed over the ruins of Istar city during the Cataclysm. Eventually Kitiara is unable to follow them, but The Perechon is caught in the whirlpool and the heroes realize they're doomed. Raistlin uses his Dragon Orb to teleport away, leaving the rest of his companions behind. Soon afterward, the Perechon tips over the edge of the whirlpool and the rest of the companions vanish beneath the waves.
Raistlin's spell brings him to the steps of the Great Library of Palanthas, where the great librarian/historian Astinus lives. The strain of working such powerful magic has left Raistlin on the verge of death. When told of his presence, Astinus orders his aesthetics (a semi-monastic order responsible for the preservation and cataloguing of Astinus's voluminous history of Krynn) to bring the mage into the library.
Knowing he will die soon, the mage requests access to the ancient spell books in the Great Library. Astinus grants this, but Raistlin cannot use these books without "The Key", a formula that has been lost over the ages. Watching over the wizard who he believes will die soon, Astinus says his good-byes but then accidentally lets slip the fact that the gods Paladine, Gilean and Takhisis, Queen of Darkness, are possessors of "the Key of Knowledge". Calling upon the spirit that has helped him before (during the Test), Raistlin makes a dark bargain saying "Save me and save yourself".
Not long afterwards, the elven princess Laurana receives a message from Lord Gunthar Uth-Wistan, leader of the Knights of Solamnia, in which he names her as the new commander of the knights stationed in Palanthas (a political move on Lord Gunthar's part to limit political maneuvering within the knighthood). Lord Amothus of Palanthas then places her in command of the armies of Palanthas as well, since the city is full of peaceful people and the army has been deemed rather pointless for some time.
Gilthanas and Silvara arrive at Palanthas, bringing the legendary good dragons with them. The two explain that together they journeyed to Sanction, the home of the Dragonarmies and discovered the truth about the origin of the draconians. The Dragonarmies had ensured that the good dragons would not join the war against them by taking their eggs hostage. But now in the Temple, Gilthanas and Silvara see that the clerics of Takhisis and the mages of the black robes have been perverting the eggs of the good dragons in order to spawn the new race of draconians. Having been told what has happened with their eggs, the good dragons are now willing to join the fight and avenge their children.
Later on Gilthanas tells Laurana that while he was in Sanction he overheard the Dragon Highlord Kitiara bragging to the Dragon Emperor Ariakas about how Tanis Half-Elven is serving her as both an officer and lover. This confirms for Laurana what Kitiara told her at the High Clerist's Tower in the previous novel.
With the Dragonlances in her possession and the good dragons on her side, Laurana organizes a flying cavalry of Knights of Solamnia and has her army take the offensive. Laurana becomes known as the "Golden General" during this campaign as her beauty and courage inspire her troops. Her army surges out of Palanthas, defeating the Dragonarmies in a series of battles and liberating much of northern Solamnia. During one of these battles Tasslehoff and Flint, riding a bronze dragon known as Fireflash, capture Kitiara's second-in-command Bakaris (who had insisted on riding into battle despite not being able to use his arm, previously wounded by Laurana at the High Clerist's Tower).
Laurana's army liberates the city of Kalaman, which honors the Golden General at their Spring Dawning Festival. Kitiara responds by sending the elfmaid a message that says Tanis has been mortally wounded and wants to see her before he dies. Kitiara will only allow Tanis to be exchanged for Bakaris. Flint and Tas warn Laurana that Kitiara is lying and this is obviously a trap, but Laurana believes the message to be true and insists on making the exchange. Laurana, Flint, and Tas take Bakaris to the exchange site, where they are betrayed and forced to travel to Dargaard Keep. Once they near Dargaard Keep, Bakaris attempts to rape Laurana. Tasslehoff comes to her defense, stabbing Bakaris, and then Laurana is able to kill him. But then the death knight Lord Soth, one of Kitiara's most powerful allies, appears. Lord Soth subdues Laurana and carries the unconscious elfmaid off to Dargaard Keep. Flint and Tas are allowed to return to Kalaman to tell the people that the Golden General is now Kitiara's prisoner.
Following their voyage into the whirlpool, Tanis and his companions, along with Berem the Everman (who reveals he only pretends to be mute) find themselves in the ancient city of Istar, which is underwater and now inhabited by sea elves who saved them from death. The companions meet the sea elf Apoletta and her husband, a red-robed human mage named Zebulah. At first Apoletta is reluctant to help the companions or allow them to return to the surface, when Tanis tells her of the Dragonarmies and demonstrates his unawareness of good dragons' existence, she realizes how dire the situation is and relents.
The companions wash up just outside Kalaman with only vague memories of the underwater city. Later, Kitiara returns to Kalaman and reveals that Laurana has been taken to the temple of Takhisis in Neraka. She demands unconditional surrender and that Berem the Everman must be delivered to her within three weeks or she will kill Laurana. Tanis resolves to go to Neraka with Berem and attempt to rescue Laurana, being accompanied by Caramon, Tika, Flint and Tasslehoff.
The companions depart for Neraka and meet up with Fizban and the golden dragon Pyrite (who "polymorphs" into a statue so that he can be carried for the trip). During the trip Flint dies due to a heart attack. Fizban then departs. Berem finally decides to tell the companions his full story.
He explains that he and his sister named Jasla discovered a jeweled column, half-buried in the ground, one day several years after the Cataclysm. This was in fact the foundation stone of the Kingpriest's temple and it had landed there after being hurled through various planes of existence. Berem was overcome with greed and proceeded to pry one of the emeralds loose but Jasla sensed the sacred aura of the place. They struggled and Jasla died when she fell against the column. The Queen of Darkness herself then manifested and seared the emerald into Berem's chest as a reward for freeing her, revealing that this column is like a doorway to the Abyss. Jasla's pure spirit, however, remains with the column and blocks the Dark Majesty's escape, telling Berem to run as a new Temple of Takhisis is built around the site. Since that day, Takhisis's true goal has been to use the Everman to break his sister's enchantment upon the column and fully return to the world.
The companions reach Neraka and the Temple of Takhisis, underneath which they know the column remains. When guards become suspicious of them, Tanis decides he is the riskiest prisoner to be discovered and needs to separate from the others. He quickly calls out to Kitiara nearby, who is parading atop her dragon in a ceremonial entrance into the city, and joins her, hoping to save Laurana while the others can surreptitiously take care of the column. Tanis tells Kit that he has come to offer himself in exchange for Laurana and that he is prepared to serve under her as an officer in the Dragonarmies. Kitiara seems to agree but actually intends for the elf maid to be tortured by Takhisis and given to Lord Soth to become his undead consort. By forcing him to witness this, Kitiara hopes to break Tanis once and for all and remold him to her liking.
Meanwhile, Gakhan realizes the true identities of the ones who arrived with Tanis. He finds the heroes beneath the Temple. When he tries to grab the Everman though, the weaponless Berem kills him and an alarm sounds. Berem hears his sister Jasla calling to him and sets off to find the jeweled column. Caramon follows the Everman while Tika and Tas run off in another direction to draw off pursuit.
Meanwhile, up above, the Grand Council of the Dragon Highlords has begun and Tanis marches into the grand chamber at the head of Kitiara's troops. Emperor Ariakas presides over the council, since he possesses the Crown of Power and, as Kitiara explains "whoever holds the crown rules". Ariakas and Kitiara's forces nearly come to blows over protocol until Takhisis herself arrives and imposes order.
Lord Soth carries in a body that has been wrapped from head to toe in winding cloth and places it at Kitiara's feet. Kitiara then cuts open the wrappings to reveal a nearly suffocated Laurana. The captive elfmaid staggers to her feet, and then Kitiara points out Tanis to her. To mask his true intentions from Takhisis, Tanis treats Laurana very coldly, disheartening her. Kitiara then presents Laurana as her gift to Takhisis and offers Tanis for service in the Dragonarmies. Takhisis is pleased by Kitiara's gift. She agrees to have Laurana tortured to death and her soul given to Lord Soth. She also accepts Tanis as an officer saying he needs only to lay his weapon at the feet of Emperor Ariakas to symbolize his allegiance. Tanis makes the long march up the stairs to the highest of the Dragon Highlords, who is both a warrior and a high-level magic-user. Instead of laying his sword at Ariakas' feet, Tanis reverses his stroke and kills the Highlord. A black-robed wizard standing next to Takhisis overcame the prismatic shields and wards surrounding Ariakas, allowing Tanis' blow to kill him.
Tanis seizes the Crown of Power and attempts to exchange it for Laurana. Taking advantage of this distraction, Laurana breaks free and attacks Kitiara, disarming and knocking down the Highlord. Tanis tries to stop Laurana from running off on her own, but, after seeing him with Kitiara, Laurana no longer trusts him, so she shoves him off the platform. Laurana tells him she has to choose her own way—that she is not to be bargained for, or won, like an object. Amidst the chaos, Tanis drops the Crown, and all the Dragonarmy factions start fighting for it and the favor of Takhisis. In the confusion, the independent Laurana fights her way out of the chamber. Tanis chases after her. The goddess Takhisis suddenly disappears, distracted by something more important than the fight over the crown.
Deep beneath the temple, Caramon and Berem reach the chamber of the jeweled column, but are blocked by the sudden appearance of Raistlin. Caramon's brother is wearing robes of black, and had been the magic-user who had earlier disarmed Ariakas' defenses for Tanis. He explains that he allied himself with Takhisis to get greater power (and presumably to obtain the Key of Knowledge). Upon second thought, he decides to betray her and allows Berem to go to the jeweled column. The Everman throws himself upon the column and kills himself. As his spirit is reunited with his sister Jasla, the Dark Queen's doorway to the real world closes. As result, Raistlin has now taken away his two greatest rivals, Ariakas and Takhisis, and is now the single most powerful force of evil on Krynn. The Queen of Darkness is banished once more and her temple begins to collapse.
Believing he still owes some small debt to his brother and to Tika and Tasslehoff, Raistlin aids in their escape from Neraka. Raistlin then summons Cyan Bloodbane and flies away, but not before Caramon (who knows that his twin now walks the paths of darkest evil) makes a plea offer to accompany him. Raistlin refuses and tells his twin that they are now as the gods meant them to be, two whole and separate people.
Tanis finally catches up with Laurana, but before he can say much to her Kitiara arrives. She offers Tanis one last chance to join her as ruler of the Dragonarmies and warns him that Lord Soth is coming to collect Laurana. Tanis refuses and tells Kitiara that he will not only die for Laurana but that he will use his dying breath to ask Paladine to shield the elf maid's soul from Lord Soth. He says that, despite his transgressions, he knows that Paladine owes him and that it will be granted. Laurana then realizes Tanis has not become corrupted, and that he does love her. Kitiara then surprisingly tells the pair the location of the same exit that the other companions used. Tanis and Laurana flee just as Lord Soth enters the chamber and the Death Knight presents the Crown of Power to Kitiara. Kitiara reveals to Lord Soth she has in fact exacted her final revenge upon Tanis and Laurana, performing an act of mercy that will always keep her in Tanis' thoughts and poison his relationship with Laurana.
Exiting the city, Tanis and Laurana meet up with Fizban, Caramon, Tika and Tasslehoff. Fizban then reveals that he is really the god Paladine. Tanis also recognizes him now as the old man at the Inn who first spurred them into action by calling for the guards in ''Dragons of Autumn Twilight''. Fizban tell the heroes that both the good and evil dragons will remain on Ansalon and that balance has been restored between good and evil.
Fizban explains to Caramon that the spirit who has helped Raistlin at times (and with whom Raistlin made a bargain in the Great Library) is the ancient evil wizard Fistandantilus. But he points out that Raistlin is not being possessed and chose his life and his actions all by himself.
The companions separate. Tasslehoff to travel to Kenderhome, Caramon and Tika to travel to Solace and Tanis and Laurana to travel to Kalaman.
In the epilogue, Raistlin travels to the Tower of High Sorcery in an abandoned neighborhood in the city of Palanthas, cursed and unoccupied since the end of the Cataclysm. He proclaims himself to be the master of past and present whose coming was foretold, is recognized by the spectral denizens of the tower, and settles into his new home.
Ernest takes a job with a cleaning service at the local mall, and he soon seeks to join his co-workers' basketball team, "Clean Sweep", as they compete in the city league tournament. He is reluctantly accepted by the team, but given only a minor role as their cheerleader and mascot. In his despair, he is visited by an angel, and given a pair of magical shoes, but is warned, "Don't misuse the shoes." As a matter of fact, the shoe store's owner, Zamiel Moloch happens to be a demon in disguise. He would eventually prevent Ernest's sportsmanship with the basketball players by luring Ernest to arrogance, and Ernest's love interest, Erma Terradiddle, a formerly shy girl into a money-hungry vamp, all in an effort to gain Quincy the son the lead player.
When an injury to a key player leaves the team desperate for a replacement, Ernest is given an opportunity to play. In the process, he discovers that the supernatural shoes have imbued him with super speed and the ability to fly. Armed with these extraordinary abilities, he leads the team to a series of victories leading ultimately to a showdown with the NBA's Charlotte Hornets. As the city league tournament champions, Clean Sweep earns the right to play an exhibition contest against the Hornets, but suffers turmoil as Ernest's teammates soon grow weary of his flagrant over-the-top ball-hogging antics. All the while Quincy goes to steal a pair of tennis shoes he has had his eyes on.
While Ernest is in the zone and the team does nothing but sit around, Ernest decides to let the team do the work, wash his hands of Moloch and Erma, and get rid of the shoes, in doing so it influences Quincy to return the shoes, but Ernest is needed again and scores (along with causing some mishaps) the game-winning point and the members of the team get drafted into the NBA, after a real agent recognizes Barry's skill.
After World War II, Ichiro Yamada, a Japanese American male and former student at the University of Washington, returns home in 1946 to a Japanese enclave in Seattle, Washington. He has spent two years in an American internment camp for Japanese Americans and two years in federal prison for refusing to fight for the U.S. in World War II. Now home, Ichiro struggles with his parents for embracing American customs and values, and he struggles to maintain a relationship with his brother, Taro. Also, Ichiro faces ostracism from the Japanese American community for refusing to join the U.S. military and fight Japan when many in his community did. Despite his struggles with his family and some members of the community, Ichiro maintains a friendship with Kenji, a Japanese American who fought for the U.S. and badly injured one of his legs. Kenji introduces Ichiro to Emi whose husband re-enlisted and remained in Germany after the war. Ichiro even manages to meet Mr. Carrick who interviews him for a draftsman position.
Perceived as disloyal to the U.S. but not fully Japanese, Ichiro struggles to find his path. Through Ichiro's story, Okada examines what it means to be American in a post-war society whose non-white communities are struggling to find their places.
In a covert biological weapons laboratory in the Philippines, scientists work on a serum called Death One, which reanimates the dead. When Dr. Alan Holder and his assistant Norma experiment on a deceased human test subject, the corpse reanimates and reacts violently, prompting Dr. Holder to resign from the project. As he prepares to surrender the serum to the military, a group of rival gunmen ambushes the facility, with the lone surviving criminal absconding with Death One. During the ensuing chase, gunfire breaches the container with the serum. Dr. Holder initially shows no concern about the virus escaping in such a manner due to its inability to survive more than half a minute in the presence of oxygen until he learns that the criminal accidentally touched the serum and became infected. General Morton and his soldiers arrive at the Sweet River Resort, where the criminal had fled, to find the criminal had infected a bellhop, killed a maid, and cut off his own hand in a failed attempt to stop the infection's spread before finally succumbing to the infection. Morton orders the patrons and staff to be killed and buried in a mass grave, and the criminal's remains are transported to the facility's incinerator. As Dr. Holder and Norma fear, the ashes disperse into the air, infecting an entire flock of nearby birds.
Meanwhile, a trio of G.I.s on vacation are looking for girls and encounter a nearby bus, whose passengers include David, Nancy, Carol, Lia, Suzanna, Jane, Jane's boyfriend Tom, and bus driver Joe. Nearby, a tourist named Patricia and her boyfriend Glenn discover the dead birds, who reanimate and attack them. The birds assault the bus while the G.I.s attempt to evacuate it and Lia is bitten. Patricia and Glenn stop at a nearby garage but flee when a machete-wielding zombie attacks Patricia and the garage explodes after she sets the zombie afire. The G.I.s and the bus party stop at the now deserted Sweet River Resort. The men find a crate of guns left behind by the soldiers and begin fortifying the resort while Carol and one of the G.I.s, Bo, drive off to seek help.
When their car breaks down, Carol goes looking for water but is mauled by zombies and becomes zombified after her legs are torn off. Bo flees when more zombies emerge, eventually joining up with Patricia and Glenn. Glenn dies and reanimates as a zombie on the way to the hospital, killing Bo while Patricia escapes.
Back at the lab, Dr. Holder and his team start work on an antidote to Death One. Meanwhile, Morton's men initiate an operation to eradicate the zombies, now identified by the codename "locusts", referencing the zombies' behavior pattern of swarming from town to town.
Meanwhile, Jane and Tom are ambushed and killed by a zombie's head in the kitchen freezer at the hotel. Lia reanimates, kills and devours Susanna and almost kills Nancy before being thrown off the balcony and killed. Kenny and Roger encounter Patricia as she arrives to break the news about Bo's demise, but zombies swarm the hotel. Before fleeing, Kenny, Roger, Patricia, Nancy, and Joe kill many zombies by using their newly acquired weapons, but David is devoured in the skirmish.
The next morning, the survivors encounter some of Morton's soldiers, who kill Joe. The other four escape, as the final stage of Morton's zombie eradication begins and Dr. Holder expresses his fear that the atmospheric infection may not be confined to the island. Arriving at the nearby hospital, the four encounter a pregnant woman in labor. As Nancy helps deliver the newborn, Patricia battles zombie Glenn and beheads him, while Kenny and Roger battle Morton's cleanup crew. Nancy is killed by the zombified newborn when it escapes the mother's womb and latches onto her face. Meanwhile, Kenny, Roger, and Patricia escape to find more zombies. They make it to a helicopter, but only Kenny and Patricia escape, as Roger is attacked by the zombies while trying to join them and is killed by the cleanup crew.
Blue Heart, the DJ who provided commentary for much of the film, dedicates his next record to "all the undead around the world", having been infected himself. Upon hearing the broadcast, Kenny decides to return to the island, assuring Patricia that he intends to save what's left of humanity.
A brother and sister escape from Japanese-occupied Shanghai to Japanese-occupied Taiwan, to stay with their grandfather who runs a Kung-Fu school there. However, the master of a Japanese Karate school in Taiwan has designs on bringing all other schools on the island under his domination, and part of his plan involves the murder of the siblings' grandfather. Undaunted, the brother and sister reestablish their grandfather's school, leading to a final confrontation with the Japanese Karate master. Jackie Chan plays a young thief who at first does not want to learn Kung-fu, but finally realizes that he can no longer stand by and let the Japanese trample the rights of the Chinese people. He proves extremely adept at the martial arts, and carries the fight to its final conclusion.
Jackie Chan plays a young Taiwanese thief who steals a nunchaku after fighting with a pair of Japanese men, he assumes they belong to the local Japanese kung fu school (Da Yang Gate). The school offers him a job in a casino but refuses, and is beaten up as a result. He is rescued by the surviving members of the Jingwu school and is invited to Mao Li Uhr's grandfather's 80th birthday celebration where a group of Japanese decide to gatecrash. This causes Mao Li Uhr's grandfather to die of a heart attack. The remaining Jingwu student's acquire his home and convert it into a new Jingwu school. The Japanese council closes down the school and Jackie Chan finally realizes that he can no longer stand by and let the Japanese trample the rights of the Chinese people. He proves extremely adept at the martial arts, and carries the fight to its final conclusion.
Daryl Chase (Orlando Jones) is a successful investment banker who handles international accounts for a major New York City firm. On his way to work he notices a man named Freddy Tiffany (Eddie Griffin) in a brawl against a thief with a knife. Freddy, able to defend himself, almost gets falsely arrested for theft. But Daryl and his doorman run over to clear Freddy from the police. Daryl gives Freddy $105 for injuries. Moments later Daryl notices Freddy and the man he fought with talking and laughing and realizes the fight was all for pretend as he rushes over but the two run off in a hurry. Chase discovers to his office's surprise, that a soda company sent a great amount of money to its owner's account. Daryl and his boss Charles 'C.A.' Allsworth, discover the money from Daryl's assistant Shari.
Later at Daryl's girlfriend, Chloe's fashion show, Daryl finds out and informs C.A. that the soda company does not exist and does not want to be arrested and charged for laundering money. Then Thomas Chela, Daryl's client who sent the money to Daryl's bank shows up to the show with his girlfriend Maque Sanchez to give gratitude to Daryl for catching his deposit. Later Freddy shows up and dances on stage with Chloe, much to Daryl's irritation.
After the show ends, Daryl and Chloe are attacked by a man who is then shot dead by CIA agents, Timothy Jarrett 'T.J.' McReady and Martinez. McReady explains that the man he was attacked by was an assassin from a drug cartel, who made a $600 million deposit to Daryl's bank. He then shows Daryl and Chloe pictures of Freddy, two drug dealers, and the assassin. McReady tells the two that he has to return to Mexico for an investigation and Martinez has to stay to protect them.
The next day Daryl notices the drug dealers at his office and quickly loses them after a chase. Daryl later goes over to Shari's house and notices her dead with another assassin who shoots at him and two officers who appeared at the front door, leaving the three dead and neighbors noticing Daryl with a gun. Daryl calls McReady and informs him of what happened and McReady tells him to get on a train to Mexico and avoid talking to anybody. At Penn Station, Freddy notices Daryl there and he persuades Freddy to switch clothes and identities, so Freddy poses as a businessman and Daryl poses as Freddy.
On the train, Daryl informs Freddy of the situation. Freddy thinks they are being followed and watched by another man on the train. They both knock the man unconscious noticing he has a picture of Daryl and a gun in his pocket and Freddy takes him off the train. Freddy reads a newspaper and notices a column about Daryl being a suspect in the murder of the cops from earlier. He tells Daryl that there is a $100,000 reward for his whereabouts. Daryl becomes suspicious of Freddy, thinking that he might turn him over to the police.
Freddy then reveals that he believes Daryl is innocent and that he is an FBI agent who goes by Fred Tiffany and his 'street' act was a front and that he is protecting Daryl on the way to Mexico and will then to take out the real criminals. Daryl then knocks Freddy out and then throws him off the train. Daryl is then kicked off for having Delores, Freddy's dog on the train.
Daryl poses as Freddy at the border between Texas and Mexico, then notices a wanted photo of Freddy for the murder of Governor Eduardo Quintana. Daryl panics and rushes the border, getting shot at. Daryl ditches his car, only to be stopped by Freddy. They both drive to a gas station to dance to a song on the radio. With Freddy distracted, Daryl steals the car and leaves Freddy and Delores.
Daryl goes to an emu ranch motel. Then the owner, Junior, notices Freddy's card on Daryl and his wanted photo, assuming Daryl is Freddy, ready to turn him in. Daryl calls McReady who is undercover watching drug smugglers load up a plane filled with cocaine. McReady informs Daryl that Freddy was kicked out of the Bureau a couple of years ago because he was mental. Daryl then calls Chloe with Agents Norville and Gradney who only pretended to be drug dealers but were still after Daryl for the murders. Freddy arrives at the motel to show him that he had placed a transmitter on Daryl when they swapped clothes so he would not lose him if he ran.
At a bar, Freddy informs Daryl that McReady and Martinez are corrupt agents, the soda company who made the deposit is actually a drug front and Thomas Chella is really Minty Gutierrez who runs the drug cartel. He is suspected of being involved in Quintana's murder because he was caught on camera at the side of his house.
Daryl and Freddy go back to the motel and Freddy notices soda, water, and cookie brand trucks approaching to kill Freddy. Freddy realizing those are McReady's men out there to kill him and tries to use a pen to get a strike team over to him fast but can't find the right one. A shootout occurs between the truckers and the police with Daryl being grabbed by the motel's owner and taken to a police station and Freddy escaping from the shootout. At the station, Daryl tells the captain he's not really Freddy Tiffany and the motel owner had made a mistake. The captain believes him until Maque shows pretending to be a wife of 'Freddy'. Daryl tries to explain that he has only met her once at the fashion show. But instead, the police lock Daryl in a cell.
McReady shows up to get Daryl out of jail. As McReady signs Daryl out, Daryl notices Martinez and the assassin who attacked him before, still alive. He also notices a photo of Delores next to Quintana, McReady with a dog's bite mark on his leg, revealing that McReady was the one who killed Quintana and that Freddy was right the whole time. Daryl runs from the station and into Freddy, Norville and Gradney. Freddy informs Daryl of their identities, and it was a covert operation. Gradney, who is also a corrupt agent, shoots Norville dead and drives away with Delores in the car as Freddy shoots at him. Arriving at Quintana's mansion with Minty, McReady, Martinez, C.A. and Maque there, Gradney blows Maque's cover as she is an FBI agent as well as Freddy's wife and partner and that the dog's bite connects them to the murders. Daryl and Freddy arrive at the mansion with both having swapped back to their clothes Daryl, Freddy and Maque get the upper hand in the room. McReady and C.A. inform them that Quintana didn't want to join them in the laundering.
Minty then tells C.A. that he has over $600 million in the American banks which the government had frozen and the only chance of him recovering his money is to turn him, McReady, Martinez and Gradney over to the Justice Department which Freddy and Maque happen to be members of. C.A. realizes that was the whole reason Minty made the deposit, leading to a confession. The assassin shows up with Chloe hostage, leading Freddy to shoot him. As a shootout occurs, McReady shoots and kills Minty, while Freddy kills Gradney and Martinez. McReady shoots Freddy in the arm as Daryl shoots at him but misses every shot. McReady prepares to kill them, but Delores bites him in the leg leading him to accidentally shoot his foot, causing him to fall down the stairs and shoot himself numerous times, with one to his head, killing him.
The next morning, C.A. is arrested, and Shari reveals to be alive and an FBI agent who had to get Daryl out of New York for his safety. Later Daryl and Freddy are now close friends as well as Chloe and Maque hanging out at a beach. Daryl tries to sign a check, but grabs the wrong pen and moments later, a strike team storms the beach.
The player assumes the role of Alex Hawkfield, an ordinary young man living in a small town who finds an old man dying in the street. He takes the old man (actually God in disguise) into his home and takes care of him. As he has proven his kindness, the old man tells him he has the potential to make the world better and become king, and asks him if he would like to try his potential. Alex does not know how to answer, but the old man senses his feelings and, seeing he is ready, sends him on a trial to recover the seven fragments of a mystic stone. Each time Alex recovers a stone fragment leads to the rebirth and invention of various things in his world.
In 1921, Hemingway's writing career suffered a setback when his first wife, Hadley, lost a bag containing the manuscript and all the carbon copies of his first novel as well as most of the short stories he had so far written on a Parisian train. Since that time there has been speculation about the nature of the novel and whether the manuscript survived and may turn up one day.
Seventy-five years later in 1996, John Baird, a Hemingway scholar with a completely eidetic memory, is persuaded by Sylvester "Castle" Castlemaine, a grifter in Key West, to create a fake manuscript to be passed off as one of the lost copies. Initially reluctant, he goes along with this because, with some legal trickery, it may be possible to do it without attracting the attention of the authorities.
However, instead he attracts attention from an altogether different quarter. Somewhere, or somewhen, there are entities who control the paths of destiny in the multiple parallel versions of our world that exist. Anything that affects the cultural influence of Hemingway is a threat to them. We eventually learn that many of the timelines are supposed to end in 2006 with a catastrophic nuclear war when two ''macho'' superpower leaders, both influenced by Hemingway's stories, refuse to back down in a crisis. If even a few timelines fail to reach this point, then the reverberations across the ''Omniverse'' will be fatal.
Baird carries out research in the Hemingway collection at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, and attempts to get aged paper and the exact model of typewriter that Hemingway used. He gets three surprises. First, Hemingway appears to him on a train back from Boston to Florida, and warns him to give up on the scheme. Second, the Hemingway, as he comes to call it, kills him by inducing a massive stroke when he refuses. Third, he wakes up on the same train - or is it the same? He is slightly different himself, with two sets of similar but conflicting memories. The Hemingway entity is surprised as well. Humans are supposed to stay dead. Instead this one shifted to a parallel timeline.
Back in Florida, life continues roughly as before. Castle brings in a seductress to bedazzle the scholar even as he has an affair with his wife Lena. Here the themes of the novel begin to parallel those of Hemingway's own stories. Through multiple encounters with the Hemingway entity, and multiple deaths, Baird stays with the scheme, as much to defy this mysterious tormentor as anything else. Each new world, however, seems a little worse than the last, especially when it comes to Castle's personality. In the final universe, Castle is a psychotic killer whom they attempt to have arrested on an out-of-state warrant.
The Hemingway entity comes to Baird and offers to show him what happened to Hadley's bag, in exchange for giving up on the hoax. Travelling back in time, they see the thief is Hemingway himself, but he speaks to Baird and the entity before vanishing.
Without knowing how, Baird finds himself back in his own time, with the bag. At that point Castle, having escaped arrest, violently kills all his co-conspirators with shotgun blasts. The scholar's awareness persists, and he is able to reverse the flow of time and rearrange events so that the women survive, even as he shoots the grifter and takes a shotgun blast in the mouth, imitating the real Hemingway's suicide.
Now freed from his body, Baird has become like the entity that pursued him. He experiences Hemingway's memories, backwards from the end. Reaching the point where the young Hemingway, devastated and enraged by the loss of the manuscripts, crystallizes his masculine outlook and turns to face his future, Baird's awareness separates and comes to consciousness of his abilities. He moves back in time, steals Hadley's bag, allowing himself to be seen doing it in the person of Hemingway. He drops it off for himself to find in the present, before abandoning time for the spaces between. Thus, the "Baird entity" creates himself out of Hemingway's psychic trauma, and it is implied that he actually creates all the other entities we have encountered in the story.
The novel ends with Hemingway writing the short story "Up in Michigan" in Paris in the 1920s, and suddenly experiencing an odd premonition of doom.
A worker from Scumlabs shows a video about a man named George taste-testing the Scum Soda. Soda S ends up causing a mutation to George as the video ends. The man tells his boss Mr. Z that the Scum Soda had a reaction to a few individuals. When Mr. Z asks how many people went through the taste-test and had a negative reaction, the man states 30 (40 in Wii). Mr. Z angrily states that if the press gets a hold of this, Scumlabs will be ruined, but the man assures him that they contained the damage as the esteemed scientist Dr. Vector tells Mr. Z that all the monsters have been cryogenically frozen and stored in specially-designed, high security storage containers. Dr. Vector states that as long as the subjects stay in the Cryo-Tubes, they pose no threat. It is also stated that the Cryo-Tubes are hidden and it's unlikely that anyone is ever going to find any of them. The man states that Scum Soda is going to be huge as George in his monster form climbs the building and grabs the man. Mr. Z tells the other people with him that they have a problem.
After the monsters tear through the country, the man returns from the hospital and informs Mr. Z that the Scum Soda is a hit as nobody cares that they will transform into giant monsters. In fact, it implies that people actually want to turn into monsters. The game ends as Mr. Z and the man laugh in triumph as George rampages on TV.
In August, 1967, a group of boys arrive at the USMC induction center. They include hippie and draft dodger Dave Bisbee, who is delivered from Seattle, Washington, in handcuffs by FBI agents. The other inductees include hardened drug dealer Tyrone Washington from Chicago, Illinois; naive and unassuming Billy Ray Pike from Galveston, Texas; streetwise punk Vinnie Fazio from Brooklyn, New York, and mild-mannered aspiring writer Alvin Foster from Emporia, Kansas, who begins writing a journal detailing his experiences.
The five boys go through boot camp together. The training is dehumanizing and brutal, designed to make them think and act in unison. Sergeant Loyce and Staff Sergeant Aqullia use a combination of extreme training, brute force, and their own combat experience to teach the recruits. Washington's leadership skills flourish and he is promoted to squad leader. The five are then assigned to the same unit and shipped to Vietnam, and as their ship docks, the shelling begins. Vietnam is a bewildering chaos: bureaucratic incompetence, callous officers concerned only with monthly "body counts" and the constant threat of death.
The Marines' first firefight occurs while they are taking "vital supplies" to an army outpost. Those supplies turn out to be crates of cigarettes, liquor and furniture being sent to a general for his birthday, and two men die in the fighting. The officers in Company C are mostly incompetents who endanger the lives of their men through blind adherence to rules or timetables; their nervous Marines open fire on anyone and anything at the slightest provocation.
In January 1968, Company C is ordered by its commanding officer to throw a soccer game against a team of South Vietnamese in order to bolster the morale of their ally. The Americans are told that if they lose, they will see no more combat; if they win, they will be sent to Khe Sanh. Despite everything, the Americans win. The game ends with a Vietcong attack, during which Foster heroically throws himself on a grenade to save some children.
The film concludes with the final entry in Foster's journal, written moments before his death: "I don't know why I should even bother to write in this journal anymore. Because after what happened today, who the hell is ever going to believe it? We actually had a chance to get out of this goddamn war. All we had to do was throw the game and walk away. But for some reason, we just couldn't. For some reason, winning that stupid game was more important than saving our ass. So I guess we'll just keep on walking into one bloody mess after another, until somebody finally figures out that living has got to be more important than winning."
Before the closing credits, the fates of the remaining principal characters are revealed as follows. It is revealed that Washington was killed in action and posthumously awarded the Navy Cross, while Fazio was seriously wounded and as a result of his injuries, was permanently confined to the VA hospital in Los Angeles. Pike deserted from the hospital in Da Nang and returned to the US, eventually moving to Canada, where he now lives with his wife and son.
After a prologue set at the Inn of the Last Home in Solace, the adventure begins at an outpost near Throtl, the capital city of the Hobgoblins. The party soon meets a group of Baaz Draconians ambushing some good settlers. After the battle, a greater Aurak Draconian named Myrtani shows up, and steals an ancient book. Myrtani teleports away, ignoring the party. The party then reports the events to Sir Karl. Sir Karl realizes that the evil forces are not at all weakened as was believed, and the party sets out to investigate and defeat Myrtani and his forces.
The plot revolves around a professional wrestler who, after developing a terminal illness, becomes a giant squid-like creature (Osamu Nishimura). As a giant squid, he must battle to reclaim his former life both inside and outside the ring.
Four co-eds from snowbound Penmore College in the Northeast head to Fort Lauderdale, Florida for spring break: Carole (Lorna Luft) is taking a separate vacation from her steady boyfriend Chip (Howard McGillin), but she winds up as a hot contender in a "Hot Bod Contest;" Jennie (Lisa Hartman) is doubly lucky, courted by both a rich classical pianist (Daniel McDonald) and a devil-may-care rocker (Russell Todd); Sandra (Wendy Schaal) is looking for the Mr. Right who will finally satisfy her; and Laurie (Lynn-Holly Johnson) is a sex crazed nymphomaniac who dreams of a night of unbridled passion with a real he-man. Laurie ends up getting her wish, albeit through a rather unexpected source.
During the week-long festivities, the girls meet Sandra's snobbish aunt Barbara Roxbury (Louise Sorel) and her friend Maggie (Alana Stewart) and get to sample much of Fort Lauderdale's nightlife. They are also invited to a formal party at Barbara's house, which ends up being crashed by hundreds of spring breakers.
A narrator describes a prophecy regarding "a girl of ancient name that shall become queen", which says "that she shall choose a king, and that together they shall rule their world, and that their son shall rule the galaxy".
The planet Krull is invaded by an entity known as the Beast and his army of Slayers, who travel the galaxy in a mountain-like spaceship called the Black Fortress. In a ceremony involving the newlyweds exchanging a handful of flame, Prince Colwyn and Princess Lyssa plan to marry and form an alliance between their rival kingdoms in the hope that their combined forces can defeat the Beast's army. The Slayers attack before the wedding ceremony is completed, killing the two kings, devastating both armies, and kidnapping the princess.
Prince Colwyn is found and nursed by Ynyr, the Old One. Ynyr tells him the Beast can be defeated with the Glaive, an ancient, magical, five-pointed throwing star. Colwyn retrieves the Glaive from a high mountain cave before setting out to track down the Black Fortress, which teleports to a new location every day at sunrise. As they travel, Colwyn and Ynyr are joined by magician Ergo "the Magnificent" and a band of nine thieves, fighters, bandits, and brawlers. Colwyn offers to clear their criminal records, successfully enlisting Torquil, Kegan, Rhun, Oswyn, Bardolph, Menno, Darro, Nennog, and Quain. The cyclops Rell later joins the group.
Colwyn's group travels to the home of the Emerald Seer, and his apprentice Titch. The Emerald Seer uses his crystal to view where the Fortress will rise, but the Beast's hand magically appears and crushes the crystal. The group travels to a swamp that cannot be penetrated by the Beast's magic, but lose Quain to a slayer attack and Nennog to quicksand. An agent of the Beast, a changeling, kills the Emerald Seer, before he can confirm the next location of the Fortress, and assumes his form, but is himself uncovered and killed by Rell and Colwyn.
While the group rests in a forest, Kegan goes to a nearby village and gets Merith, one of his wives, to bring food. The Beast exerts remote command of Merith's changeling helper, who attempts to seduce Colwyn in order to convince Lyssa that he does not love her, but Colwyn rejects the helper's advances. The helper then notes that she could have killed Colwyn, but refused to, out of love; Lyssa, seeing this through a vision provided by the Beast, notes that this shows love triumphs over power. Ynyr leaves the resting group to journey to the "Widow of the Web", an enchantress who loved Ynyr long ago and was exiled to the lair of the Crystal Spider for murdering their only child. The Widow reveals where the Black Fortress will be at sunrise. She also gives Ynyr the sand from the enchanted hourglass that kept the Crystal Spider from attacking her and will keep a badly injured Ynyr alive on his journey back to the group. As the Crystal Spider attacks the Widow, Ynyr flees the web and returns to the group to reveal the location of the Black Fortress; as he speaks, he loses the last of the sand and expires.
The group captures and rides magical Fire Mares to reach the Black Fortress before it teleports again. Slayers at the Fortress kill Rhun, while Rell sacrifices himself to hold open the crushing spaceship doors long enough to allow the others to enter. Slayers inside shoot Menno and Darro, and Kegan sacrifices his life to save Torquil as they journey through the Fortress. When Ergo and Titch get separated from the others and are attacked by Slayers, Ergo magically transforms into a tiger to kill the Slayers and save Titch's life.
Colwyn, Torquil, Bardolph, and Oswyn are trapped inside a large dome. Colwyn attempts to open a hole in the dome with the Glaive, while the other three search for any other passageway. The three fall through an opening and are trapped between slowly closing walls studded with huge spikes, which kill Bardolph.
Colwyn breaches the dome and finds Lyssa. He attacks the Beast, injuring it with the Glaive, which becomes embedded in the Beast's body. With nothing to defend themselves against the Beast's counterattack, Lyssa realizes that they must quickly finish the wedding ritual, giving them the linked power to manipulate fire, with which Colwyn slays the Beast. His death frees Torquil and Oswyn from the spike room and they rejoin Colwyn and Lyssa, then Ergo and Titch, as they make their way out of the crumbling Fortress, which is pulled off the planet and into space.
Colwyn and Lyssa, now king and queen of the combined kingdom, name Torquil as Lord Marshal. As the surviving heroes depart across a field, the narrator repeats the opening prophecy that the son of the queen and her chosen king shall rule the galaxy.
The book follows several stories of families in a small town in eastern Colorado. Maggie is the link between many of the other characters and strands of the novel. She introduces Victoria to the McPheron brothers, and has a romantic relationship with Tom.
The story begins when the Hardy Boys are on a stakeout at an antiques shop. The owner is robbed and blames the Hardy Boys for slacking off. They later find out that a fellow basketball player's grandfather, Stretch Walker, is under a voodoo curse.
The Hardy Boys fly off to see 'Rattlesnake Clem', a man who believes the revolution to still be on, and he believes himself to be the Swamp Fox. He is arrested for the robbery when the stolen goods are found in his garage.
Later, the Hardy Boys find Stretch and help him untangle the mystery of a voodoo cult that wants his bar, Stretch's. The story ends when the antique shop owner turns out to be the thief, going under the guise of King George III, and a mystery developed early in the story is revealed, Fenton's sock was stolen for use on a voodoo doll. When Aunt Gertrude hears this, she remarks how dangerous the business is.
''The Immoralist'' is a recollection of events that Michel narrates to his three visiting friends. One of those friends solicits job search assistance for Michel by including in a letter to Monsieur D. R., Président du Conseil, a transcript of Michel's first-person account.
Important points of Michel's story are his recovery from tuberculosis; his attraction to a series of Arab boys and to his estate caretaker's son; and the evolution of a new perspective on life and society. Through his journey, Michel finds a kindred spirit in the rebellious Ménalque.
In space above the planet Earth, two spaceships fight. One, commanded by a cybernetic woman, is shot down by the other. She survives and her escape pod crash lands somewhere in ancient Mesopotamia. Gilgamesh, King of Uruk, finds the escape pod while engaged on a spying mission against Kish. The woman, who claims to be the goddess Ishtar, tries to lure Gilgamesh into helping her. Gilgamesh refuses, and Ishtar becomes enraged, vowing that she will have her revenge.
On board the TARDIS, Ace awakens to discover that she has no memory of who or where she is. The Doctor informs her that he is accidentally responsible for the removal of her memories. Before he can correct this error, the Doctor triggers a message from his own past in the form of a holographic projection of the Fourth Doctor. Recorded during the events of ''The Invasion of Time'', the Fourth Doctor's warning concerns a mythical creature known only as the Timewyrm. After the Doctor restores Ace's memories, the TARDIS lands in ancient Mesopotamia
Back in Uruk, two noblemen, Gudea and Ennatum, plot against Gilgamesh. They send a messenger to Kish warning that Gilgamesh will be returning on a spy mission. The message is received by High Priest Dumuzi in the Temple of Ishtar, a Temple graced by the presence of its divine namesake. Agga, King of Kish, is not pleased that Ishtar had chosen to visit his city. She has ordered the construction of strange, highly intricate metal designs throughout her Temple. Agga knows that Ishtar is immensely powerful and fears for the safety of his people and his daughter, Ninani.
When Gilgamesh and his trusted Neanderthal friend Enkidu are ambushed by the Kishite guards, the TARDIS appears. The Doctor and Ace become involved in the melee, and Ace uses her Nitro-9 explosives to frighten the attackers away. Gilgamesh mistakes the strangers for the Gods Ea and Aya. The Doctor leaves Ace in a pub with Gilgamesh and Enkidu while he investigates Kish. Gilgamesh attracts unwanted attention, and, to avoid a brawl, Ace sings "The Wild Rover" to entertain the crowd. She attracts the attention of Avram, a travelling songsmith, who tells her that Ishtar is present in Kish. Ace decides to set off for the Temple of Ishtar, along with Avram, Gilgamesh, and Enkidu, certain that the Doctor will be there and will need her help.
In Kish, Princess Ninani plans to oppose the Goddess in any way she could. She sends for a young Priestess of Ishtar, En-Gula, so that she might learn more about Ishtar and find a way to fight her. En-Gula is afraid of Ishtar and joins Ninani's conspiracy. As En-Gula returns to the Temple of Ishtar, she meets the Doctor. The Doctor is surprised that Ishtar is present within her temple. The Doctor allows himself to be taken to meet the Goddess. Dumuzi drugs the Doctor into unconsciousness so that his mind can be devoured by Ishtar. At that point, Ace and her party arrive. Thinking that the Doctor is in danger, Ace throws some Nitro-9 around, causing serious damage to the Temple.
An angry Doctor explains to Ace that he was feigning unconsciousness to gather information about Ishtar. The Doctor reveals that the patterns Ishtar is having worked into the walls of the Temple are a kind of massive electronic transmitter which will allow her to control thousands of human minds over vast distances. Ace's explosives have damaged the transmitter, but it will only be a matter of time before it is repaired. The party, which now includes En-Gula and Avram, return to Uruk to plan their next move. In Uruk, they all enjoy a feast prepared in honour of Gilgamesh. Avram entertains the court with a song about a mysterious god-like being known as Utnapishtim. The Doctor believes there is more to the legend of Utnapishtim. The group decides that Gilgamesh, Ace, and Avram will seek out Utnapishtim, while the Doctor, Enkidu, and En-Gula keep an eye on Kish.
Ace's party reaches the extinct volcano where Utnapishtim is said to live. Avram, who has been there before, leads them to two "scorpion men", in reality robotic guards designed to repel intruders. Within the volcano, they reach a large lake, guarded by a single man. Gilgamesh, getting impatient, attacks the man. Ace is forced to disarm the guard of his laser gun, to avoid allowing Gilgamesh to be killed in contravention of known Earth history. The party uses a small boat to travel to the center of the lake to Utnapishtim, who resides in the remains of a vast spaceship. He explains how he had pursued Qataka, a ruthless criminal from the planet Anu, across space. He claims that Qataka had been destroyed, but that his ship had been badly damaged in the fight. He confides to Ace that his people will not be able to remain long within their wrecked ship, and that, when they venture out into the world, a destructive war with the humans will be inevitable. Ace tells Utnapishtim that Qataka was not destroyed, that she is calling herself Ishtar and is planning to take the Earth for herself. Utnapishtim agrees to help Ace destroy Qataka/Ishtar with a computer virus that will attack Ishtar's cybernetic body.
Meanwhile, the Doctor, Enkidu, and En-Gula return to Kish to consult with Ninani. The Doctor hopes Ninani can help him get into Ishtar's temple undetected. Ninani is willing to help, but they are discovered by Agga. Agga is so afraid of the punishment for his daughter's treachery against Ishtar that he confines all of them (except his daughter) to the dungeons. Agga explains to Ninani that Ishtar claims she has a device which can destroy the world. He tries to convince Ninani that they can not oppose such a powerful creature. Ninani waits for her father to leave and then sets about to rescue the others from the dungeons.
The Doctor, Enkidu, En-Gula, and Ninani return to the Temple of Ishtar, but are discovered by the Goddess, who was expecting this. As Ishtar prepares to consume the Doctor's mind, an explosion rocks the temple. Ace has returned, via a small flying craft piloted by Utnapishtim, along with Gilgamesh and Avram. The Doctor realises that Ishtar has rigged a cobalt bomb, powerful enough to destroy the planet, to explode in the event of her death. As Ace and the others attempt to destroy Ishtar, the Doctor is forced to try to save her. When Ishar attempts to consume Ace's mind, she instead downloads the computer virus that Utnapishtim had implanted within all of their minds. The Doctor explains the bomb to Utnapishtim and that they have to return to the TARDIS at once.
Back on the TARDIS, the Doctor tries to find a way to keep Ishtar's mental processes going after the virus destroys her body. Using the TARDIS telepathic circuits, the Doctor mentally summons the Third Doctor to assist with the technical aspects of the plan. The Doctor takes one of Ishtar's mental implants and wires it into the TARDIS telepathic circuits, in effect downloading Ishtar into the TARDIS, keeping her alive long enough to disarm the bomb. Unfortunately, when the Doctor tries to delete Ishtar's mind from the TARDIS circuitry, he discovers that she is no longer there. Adapting to the TARDIS, Ishtar uses its systems as a replacement body. The Doctor tricks her into moving her consciousness into the TARDIS's secondary control room, which he then jettisons into the Time Vortex, certain that the forces of the Vortex will destroy her.
The Doctor returns everyone to Mesopotamia and assists Utnapishtim in repairing his ship, making sure that the people of Anu can find an uninhabited planet to call their new home. Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor notices the Time Path Indicator is active, which means that they are being followed by another time machine. Ishtar, having assimilated TARDIS components into herself, has become the Timewyrm, and she now has the power to travel through time and space. The Doctor attempts to time ram the creature, but the Timewyrm evades his trap and escapes. Using the Time Path Indicator, the Doctor is able to track the Timewyrm to London in the 20th century, and the Doctor and Ace set out to destroy their new enemy.
Rebecca is a film actress, who is about to make her stage debut at Lincoln Center. Her husband, Tom gave up a lucrative job in advertising to take care of their young daughter. Occasionally, Tom and Rebecca have sex; once a year, they meet with their therapist, Dr. Beekman.
Tom and Rebecca's best friends are her brother Tobey, a sportswriter, and his girlfriend Elaine. Elaine, who has been dating Tobey for seven years, has begun to feel the ticking of her biological clock.
Tom and Rebecca each face extramarital temptations. Tom responds to a personal crisis that stems from his decision to choose kids over career by watching pornography and having an affair with a divorced mother from his son's school. Rebecca is pursued on the set by a young costar, Jasper, who would like to be able to claim that he's bedded a famous actress.
''Luna'' follows the life of sixteen-year-old Regan as she keeps the secret of her older sister Luna's transgender identity. During the day, Luna pretends to be an average senior boy named Liam. But at night, Luna is allowed to be her true self: Lia Marie, a girl. Later, she changes her female name to Luna, which means "moon", to reflect that her true identity could only be seen at night. After years of ‘transforming’ only at night, Luna confides in her sister that she wants to transition into a full-time female. Luna asks Regan to help her with her transitioning and, although she agrees, she finds herself worried about Luna and her safety. The novel follows Regan as she makes sense of her sister’s decision.
Other problems arise for Regan as she is attending high school. She spends most of her life avoiding other students, in fear of letting the secret slip. But a new boy at school, Chris, becomes interested in her. Although Regan enjoys attention from Chris, she draws away from him, choosing to stay focused on Luna.
As Luna is coming out more, her father starts to notice differences in his child and tries to push a more masculine role onto Luna. Regan’s father confides in her that he believes Luna is gay. Meanwhile, their mother remains oblivious to the rising tension in the household. Consumed by the workload of her wedding planning business, the mother is constantly out of the house and distant from her family.
Despite the tensions and the negativity weighing on her choice, Luna fights for her right to be the person she feels that she was meant to be. Alongside her, Regan learns to stand her ground, to think more of herself, and discovers the person she wants to be.
Keiko O'Brien returns to Deep Space Nine from a trip to Bajor and tells her husband Miles that she is not actually Keiko but an entity possessing her body. She proves this to Miles by stopping her heart for a few seconds. Miles is given a list of modifications to make to the station, but isn't told what the entity's ultimate goal is. The entity makes it clear it is willing to kill Keiko as well as their daughter Molly if he tries to tell anyone. Miles infers that the entity is probably a Pah-wraith from Bajoran legends; but this doesn't help him devise a way to stop it. When he tries to alert others to what's going on, the Pah-wraith anticipates this and makes Keiko fall from a balcony. Keiko is just injured, but the entity manages to secure Miles's silence.
Being under a strict time limit, Miles enlists night-shift technician Rom to assist him with the modifications, instructing Rom to tell no one about what he is doing. Science officer Jadzia Dax spots the modifications, and, suspecting sabotage, alerts the Operations staff; Miles is forced to implicate Rom to divert suspicion from himself.
Rom is incarcerated but refuses to divulge anything about what he was doing and why. He insists that he will only speak to Miles. Rom has determined that the modifications they are making will fire a beam that will kill the Prophets. Rom and Miles are able to piece together what is going on: the Pah-wraiths are the Prophets' natural enemies, and the one possessing Keiko is using him to kill them all at once.
Security chief Odo is still suspicious, however, and confronts Miles while he is performing the last modifications. Miles knocks him unconscious, finishes the modifications, and calls "Keiko" to tell her to meet him at a runabout so he can take her to the wormhole. However, Miles actually fires the beam at the runabout, killing the Pah-wraith and leaving Keiko uninjured.
O'Brien rewards Rom for his hard work and help by promoting him to the day shift. Miles and Keiko later talk about the experience. Keiko knows the Pah-wraith would never have left either of them alive, and both are relieved their ordeal is over.
Jake Sisko is returning from a medical conference with Dr. Julian Bashir. Although Jake intended to write an article about Bashir, he cannot find anything interesting in the latter's description of the conference. They receive a distress call from a Federation colony which has just been attacked by the Klingons in violation of a ceasefire agreement. Seeing the potential for a gripping story, Jake persuades Bashir to take him along.
Jake has trouble handling the chaotic emergency room situation at the hospital, particularly triage. One of the patients, a Starfleet soldier, claims to have been shot in the foot by the Klingons, but Bashir discovers that the wound was self-inflicted, intended to get him out of the fighting. Jake is disgusted by the man's cowardice.
Everyone expects the Klingons will overrun the settlement within days if no reinforcements arrive. On Deep Space Nine, Jake's father, Captain Benjamin Sisko, takes command of the starship ''Defiant'' to come to aid the colony after the ship intended to deliver those troops is destroyed in transit.
When the power goes out as a result of a Klingon attack, Jake and Bashir attempt to retrieve a portable generator from their runabout. The two come under enemy fire, and a terrified Jake abandons Bashir and runs for cover. He encounters a mortally wounded Starfleet soldier and tries desperately to help him, but the dying man accuses Jake of merely trying to atone for his cowardice. By the time Jake returns to the hospital, Bashir has returned with the generator but has sustained injuries as a result of the fighting. Jake claims that he became disoriented and was knocked unconscious, and Bashir blames himself for putting Jake in danger. Jake speaks with the soldier who wounded himself, and the two commiserate over the terror of battle. He has an angry outburst over the calm demeanor and dark humor exhibited by the staff, but refuses to tell Bashir what is bothering him.
The Klingons storm the hospital, forcing the staff to evacuate the patients. Pinned down by disruptor fire, Jake picks up a dropped phaser rifle and fires blindly into the air. His shots cause a cave-in that knocks him unconscious; when he wakes up, Sisko and Bashir are standing over him. He has suffered only a few bruises, and the cave-in delayed the Klingons long enough for all the patients to be evacuated safely. The Klingons have withdrawn from the area, and the ceasefire has been reinstated.
Although Jake is considered a hero for his actions, he writes the truth in his article, concluding that the line between courage and cowardice is much thinner than he originally believed. He gives one copy to Bashir and another to Sisko, who tells Jake how proud he is.
While returning in a runabout from a conference on Bajor, Sisko, Odo, Dax and Garak encounter an unknown spatial anomaly. When the runabout arrives at Deep Space Nine, all four are discovered to be in a comatose state.
Meanwhile, the four find themselves years in the past, on Terok Nor (as DS9 was then called) during the Cardassian occupation of Bajor. They appear to have taken the identities of Bajorans. Odo, acting anxious and suspicious, reveals that the Bajorans whose lives they have assumed were executed for an attempt on Cardassian prefect Gul Dukat's life, although they were innocent of the crime. Inconsistencies soon pop up: Thrax (Kurtwood Smith), Odo's predecessor as chief of security, is present, but Garak discovers that the current date is during the time when Odo was security chief.
They set about finding a way to escape the station and avoid execution, but when the assassination attempt is made, they are arrested as Odo predicted. Odo pleads with Thrax to conduct a thorough investigation, which will exonerate the Bajorans, but Thrax is implacable. Odo is eventually forced to accept the truth: it was himself, not Thrax, who had the Bajorans executed, although the evidence against them was largely circumstantial, as Dukat simply wanted to make an example of them. He admits that he cared more about the rule of law than justice, and he vowed never to do so again.
The four awaken in the infirmary, where Dr. Bashir reveals that the anomaly triggered a telepathic experience; Odo was thinking about his guilt over the executions at the time the runabout encountered the anomaly. In the final scene of the episode, Kira Nerys, the Bajoran first officer of Deep Space Nine and Odo's good friend, asks Odo if any other innocent people died on his watch; he replies that he can't be sure, but that he hopes not.
The unreliable narrator, Latimer, believes that he is cursed with an otherworldly ability to see into the future and the thoughts of other people. His unwanted "gift" seems to stem from a severe childhood illness he suffered while attending school in Geneva. Latimer is convinced of the existence of this power, and his two initial predictions do come true the way he has envisioned them: a peculiar "patch of rainbow light on the pavement" and a few words of dialogue appear to him exactly as expected. Latimer is revolted by much of what he discerns about others' motivations.
Latimer becomes fascinated with Bertha, his brother's cold and coquettish fiancée, because her mind and motives remain atypically closed to him. After his brother's death, Latimer marries Bertha, but the marriage disintegrates as he recognizes Bertha's manipulative and untrustworthy nature. Latimer's friend, scientist Charles Meunier, performs a blood transfusion from himself to Bertha's recently deceased maid. For a few moments the maid comes back to life and accuses Bertha of a plot to poison Latimer. Bertha flees and Latimer soon dies as he had himself foretold at the start of the narrative.
In 1919 Latvia, a detachment of German Freikorps soldiers is stationed in a country chateau, referred to as Kratovice, not far from Riga, to fight Bolshevik guerrillas in the Latvian War of Independence, one element of the much broader Russian Civil War that followed the Bolshevik Revolution. The soldiers, led by Erich von Lhomond, are welcomed with open arms by the mansion's inhabitants, including Countess Sophie von Reval, her half-senile Jewish aunt Praskovia, and some servants. The chateau, it turns out, is the home of the soldiers' leader, Konrad von Reval, Sophie's brother. Erich had also been a childhood friend of Konrad and Sophie, and she now finds herself falling in love with him. There are hints through the earlier scenes that Erich is in love with Konrad, but that is not confirmed for some time.
Sophie has contacts with the nearby Bolshevik forces, especially with Jewish tailor Grigori Loew, from whom Sophie borrows some Bolshevik reading materials. Early on, one German war veteran who is now fighting for the Bolsheviks is captured, questioned, and summarily executed by a firing squad. In the meantime, Sophie and her aunt try to keep up appearances, holding dinners and providing entertainment for the officers as best as they can, with their supplies of food and drink dwindling. From time to time, Erich or some of his men go to their headquarters in Riga or elsewhere, sometimes returning with food or treats.
Erich, like others under his command, has joined the Freikorps due to lacking any other prospects or purpose in life following Germany's defeat in World War I. Although he loosens up at times with Konrad and Sophie, he generally maintains an air of military professionalism and emotional detachment (such as scolding Sophie for smoking). Sophie's own apparent free spirit is belied when the medic tells Erich how she had been raped some time previously by a drunken Lithuanian soldier. She attempts several times to attract and even seduce Erich, but he rebuffs her advances, usually passively but sometimes with anger, as when he publicly slaps Sophie under the mistletoe at Christmas after she provocatively kisses an old friend of Erich's from school. Frustrated, she turns to other men in the unit, having sex with them while Erich is aware. She also willingly exposes herself to danger, riding on horseback and opening blackout curtains.
Over time, some of the men with whom Sophie has been intimate die during battles or soon after their return. It is already clear to Erich and others that the uneasy anti-Bolshevik coalition is falling apart. After being informed that no reinforcements are coming and all German troops are expected to withdraw by the New Year, Erich leads an offensive that results in the loss of the only medic. After the incident at Christmas, Erich's childhood friend tells Sophie of Erich's attraction to Konrad. Sophie leaves to join the Bolsheviks.
Konrad is killed in the withdrawal. While ambushing the retreating soldiers, Grigori is killed and Sophie is captured. Erich offers to take Sophie to Germany; Sophie steals Erich's cigarettes. The train to Germany is delayed due to attack so everyone has the rest of the night to steel themselves. In the morning, when Sophie's time to be executed comes, she demands that Erich shoot her. Erich shoots her in the head with his pistol, poses with his men for a group photo, and boards the waiting troop train, all in summary fashion.
The player's spaceship crash-lands on Doom's inhospitable surface and they emerge from the wreckage to realise that, unless they can locate the necessary spare parts, their ship will corrode away in a mere 400 time units.
Set in Glasgow, the film tells the story of the Khan family. Casim is the only son of Pakistani Muslim immigrants to Scotland. He has a younger sister, Tahara, and an older sister Rukshana. Casim's parents, Tariq and Sadia, have arranged for him to marry his first cousin, Jasmine, and Casim is more or less happy with the arrangement. He then meets and falls in love with Roisin, an Irish Catholic immigrant (who is a part-time music teacher in Tahara's Catholic school). Roisin books a short holiday break for them both on seeing an advert in a travel agent's shop window, and while on holiday Casim tells her about the arranged marriage his family are planning for him. They then have to decide whether their love is strong enough to endure without the support of their respective communities.
At the same time, rebellious Tahara struggles to find herself between the bullying of some Scottish schoolmates and her Pakistani relatives. Meanwhile, Rukhsana loses her fiancé because Casim's new relationship shames the family. Roisin loses her job because the Catholic school's direction does not accept her relationship since she is a married – though separated – woman and because she and Casim are living together.
Roisin is finally moved by her hierarchy to a non-denominational school, Casim confronts his family, begging them to respect his choice before returning to her, while Tahara leaves to study Journalism at the University of Edinburgh against her parents' will.
There is no fixed plot running through the series, as most episodes are isolated, except for episodes 07-08 and 20-21, which are linked. In one episode, they venture around, and soon, they find themselves in "Straight" land, and in another, they chase after a falling star, demonstrating Dogtato's playful style of storytelling.
The lawyer Honda visits Thailand on a business trip and encounters a young girl whom he believes to be his schoolfriend's second reincarnation. Eleven years later she travels to Japan to study and he befriends her in the hope of learning more. The main narrative takes place between 1941 and 1952. The last chapter is set in 1967.
In 1941, Shigekuni Honda is sent to Bangkok as legal counsel for Itsui Products in a case involving a spoilt shipment of antipyretic drugs. He takes advantage of the trip to see as much as he can of Thailand.
After touring many great buildings, he visits the Temple of Dawn and is deeply impressed by its sumptuous architecture, which to the sober lawyer represents "golden listlessness", the luxurious feel of anti-rationalism and of "the constant evasion of any organized logical system". Mentioning to his translator, Hishikawa, that he went to school with two Siamese princes (Pattanadid, a younger brother of Rama VI, and his cousin Kridsada, a grandson of Rama IV—both in Lausanne with their uncle Rama VIII), a short meeting is arranged with Pattanadid's seven-year-old daughter, Princess Chantrapa (Ying Chan), who claims to be the reincarnation of a Japanese boy, much to the embarrassment of her relatives, who keep her isolated in the Rosette Palace.
Ying Chan almost immediately claims to recognise Honda, asserts that she is Isao and demands to be taken back to Japan with him. Honda questions her and satisfies himself that she is the genuine article, but is bothered at a later meeting by the absence of the three moles that helped him identify Isao.
At the conclusion of the lawsuit at the end of September, Itsui offers him a bonus in the form of a travel voucher, which he uses to travel to India. He visits Calcutta, where he sees the Durga festival; Benares, where he witnesses open-air cremation; Mogulsarai, Manmad, and finally the Ajanta caves, closely associated with Buddhism, where he sees cascades that remind him of Kiyoaki's last promise to "see him...beneath the falls". He returns to Bangkok on November 23, at a time when relations with Japan are deteriorating, and is unpleasantly affected by the crassness and ugliness of the Japanese tourists at his hotel.
A last visit to see Ying Chan at the Chakri Palace goes disastrously, when the translator lets slip that Honda is leaving for Japan without her, and Ying Chan throws a tantrum.
Almost immediately after he returns to Japan, war is declared with the United States. The atmosphere is almost festive. Honda spends all his spare time studying Buddhist philosophy and pays no attention to the war. Even when confronted by bombed-out residential districts, he feels no emotion; in fact, his studies have left him even more indifferent to the outside world than before.
At the end of May 1945, Honda encounters the former maid, Tadeshina, at the former Matsugae estate. Tadeshina reminds him about Satoko Ayakura, who is still at the Gesshu Temple to which she retired at the end of ''Spring Snow''. (Honda has an impulse to visit Satoko but cannot obtain train tickets.) He gives Tadeshina some food, and in return she gives him a book she uses as a talisman, the ''Mahamayurividyarajni'', or "Sutra of the Great Golden Peacock Wisdom King (or Queen)". A description of this sutra in Chapter 22 concludes Part One.
Chapter 23 introduces Keiko Hisamatsu, Honda's neighbor at his new villa at Ninooka, a summer resort in the Gotemba area. In 1947, the new Constitution resulted in the sudden resolution of a lawsuit filed in 1900, as a result of which Honda earned a 36,000,000 yen fee for a single case. He uses part of this money to buy the property, which overlooks Mount Fuji. In the same year he won the case, he rediscovered (in an antique shop owned by Prince Toin) the emerald ring that the Thai prince, Chao P., had lost at the Peers School in 1913.
At a housewarming party, two pseudo-artistic friends of Honda's are introduced: Mrs Tsubakihara, a mournful poetry student under Makiko Kito (who perjured herself for Isao's sake in ''Runaway Horses''), and Yasushi Imanishi, a specialist in German literature who is obsessed with elaborate sadomasochistic sexual fantasies set in his imagined utopian nation, "The Land of the Pomegranate". Many other guests arrive, in scenes which represent Mishima's caricature of post-war Japan; to Honda's disappointment, Ying Chan, another invitee who is now a student in Japan, does not turn up. During the night, Honda peeks into the guest room and is shocked to see Imanishi and Tsubakihara having sex while Makiko watches. This is the first indication of Honda's voyeuristic tendencies (which are intended to be emblematic of his approach to the world).
The next day they visit the shrine of Mount Fuji; the day after, Honda learns from Keiko that Ying Chan turned up at his house a day late. Ying Chan and Honda meet for dinner at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo; Honda returns the emerald ring. Arriving back home he finds Iinuma, the decrepit father of Isao, waiting for him. During a confessional conversation, Iinuma tells him about a suicide attempt he made in 1945 and shows him the scar. As he leaves, Honda feels sorry for him and gives him 50,000 yen in an envelope.
Honda decides to settle the question of Ying Chan's "inheritance" (the three moles on the midriff) once and for all. He tries to get Katsumi Shimura, a nephew of Keiko, to seduce Ying Chan, but he fails.
Scenes elaborating on Imanishi and Tsubakihara follow, including Imanishi's excited reaction to Communist student demonstrations in Tokyo.
Finally, Honda invites Ying Chan to a pool party at his villa. Now that Ying Chan is clad in a bathing suit, he sees no moles on her side. It is only while spying on her in the guest room that he finally sees the moles. To his amazement, she is sleeping with Keiko. His satisfaction with this ocular proof is short-lived: Imanishi falls asleep while smoking in bed and Honda's villa burns to the ground. Both Imanishi and Tsubakihara are killed, but the others in the house survive.
Honda assumes that he has saved Ying Chan (who returns to Thailand) from karmatic fate, but his hopes are dashed when he meets Ying Chan's twin sister, who informs him that Ying Chan has died of a snakebite.
The story is set in Ireland in 1993. The Northern Ireland peace process is taking its faltering first steps, and INLA man Mad Padraic is hard at work pulling out the toenails of Belfast drug pusher James, when the news comes through that his beloved cat, Wee Thomas, is poorly. So instead of slicing off James's right nipple, as planned, he heads back home to the island of Inishmore. But, when he arrives at the family home, he discovers that Wee Thomas isn't sick but has had his brains squeezed out like toothpaste. Padraic, a man considered too mad for the IRA and sorely trying the patience of his INLA comrades, is intent on revenge, even if that means wiping out his own father. Just as he's about to put a bullet through Dad's head, there's an unexpected knock at the door.
'''Scene 1'''
Donny's House. Davey, a pudgy, long-haired teenager, has brought his middle-aged neighbour Donny the corpse of Donny's cat, Wee Thomas, which he has found lying in the road. The cat has been badly mangled; its brains fall out as they examine it. Donny accuses Davey of running it over with his mother's bicycle, which Davey vehemently denies. Donny reveals, to Davey's horror, that Wee Thomas did not belong to him but to his son, Padraic. The cat had been his only friend for fifteen years. Davey pleads with Donny to not involve him, as Padraic, a Lieutenant in the INLA, has an insanely violent temper. (He was thrown out of the IRA for "being too mad.") Donny agrees to keep it secret, but only if Davey admits he killed the cat. Davey half-heartedly confesses to, although only due to Donny's insistence. Donny then plans to call Padraic, who is working in Northern Ireland blowing up chip shops, to tell him that Wee Thomas is sick. Davey does not understand the purpose of the call, so Donny explains that he is letting his son down easy, planning to tell him later that the cat died. Davey agrees and leaves as Donny begins to phone Padraic.
'''Scene 2'''
A warehouse in Northern Ireland, where Padraic has James, a drug dealer, hung upside down from the ceiling. Padraic has removed two of James' toenails. James insults Padraic after being lectured on the evils of distributing marijuana to good Catholic children (as opposed to selling to Protestant children, which Padraic deems marginally acceptable). Abruptly, Padraic decides to cut off one of James' nipples, letting him choose which one. Just before he starts cutting, Padraic gets the call from Donny saying that Wee Thomas is doing poorly and off his food. Padraic breaks down into tears and screams that he will be on the first boat back to Inishmore. He then shoots his mobile phone to pieces. James suggests that Wee Thomas may have ringworm and suggests ringworm tablets in some cheese, as his cat had the same problem a month or two back. When he realizes that James loves his cat, Padraic releases him after extracting a promise not to sell more marijuana, and gives him money for the bus to the hospital.
'''Scene 3'''
The Road. Davey is tinkering with his bicycle when his younger sister Mairead shoots him in the cheek with her air rifle for hurting Wee Thomas. Davey attempts to explain his innocence and accuses Mairead of being mad for shooting the eyes out of ten cows in an earlier incident. Mairead, who is 16, explains it was her version of terrorism against the meat industry. She continues to accuse Davey of the death of Wee Thomas. In the discussion, it becomes clear that she is in love with Padraic and shares both his political stances and his devotion to cats. Davey explains that Donny has him searching the countryside for another black cat to replace Wee Thomas. Their argument is interrupted by Christy, a tall, sinister-looking man with an eyepatch. He says that he is a friend of Padraic, and also accuses Davey of killing Wee Thomas. Again, Davey denies this. He also tells Christy that Padraic will be back the next day at noon. Christy leaves, but not before again accusing Davey of murdering the cat deliberately. In response, Mairead destroys Davey's bike.
'''Scene 4'''
Donny's House. Having been unable to find a black cat to impersonate Wee Thomas, Davey has stolen Mairead's cat Sir Roger (who is orange). They attempt to paint the cat black with shoe polish. Donny and Davey both agree that the plan is unlikely to work, but are running out of time and options. The two are drunk, and bond over their shared love of eating shoe polish. They agree that if their plan fails, Padraic will kill them.
'''Scene 5'''
The Road. Christy and two other men, Brendan and Joey, sit eating beans. It is revealed that they are members of INLA (a splinter group of the Official IRA) come to assassinate Padraic. Joey is sullen and unhappy with the other two for killing Wee Thomas, an act necessary to lure Padraic back to Inishmore and set him off guard. The three bicker sharply, and there is a brief Mexican stand-off. They set off to await Padraic's return, not knowing their conversation has been overheard by Mairead.
'''Scene 6'''
The Docks. It is early in the morning. Padriac gets off the boat to discover Mairead waiting for him, singing "The Patriot Game", an old republican ballad. He recognizes her and mocks her for her lack of femininity, dismissing her ambitions to join the fight to free Ireland despite her protestations that she is a crack shot. She attempts to flirt with him and he rejects her advances. She sullenly delivers a message from Donny: that Wee Thomas is "over the worst of it." In Padraic's joy at the good news, he kisses her. She grabs him and deepens the kiss. Confused, he begins the long walk back into town and she once again begins to sing "The Patriot Game."
'''Scene 7'''
Donny's House. Davey and Donny, exhausted and now seriously drunk, decide to call it a night. They will put the finishing touches on the cat the next morning before Padraic arrives. Davey has made a cross to mark Wee Thomas' grave. Donny instructs Davey several times to wake him at nine AM, and they go to sleep.
'''Scene 8'''
Donny's House. Noon. Davey has failed to wake up Donny in time, and they are still asleep when Padraic arrives. He finds the grave marker, flies into a rage, wakes them up and demands to know where the cat is. They indicate the decoy, claiming it has a disease that makes it smell like shoe polish and "get all orangey". Padraic isn't fooled and angrily shoots the cat, blowing it to pieces. He ties up both his father and Davey and is finally told that Wee Thomas is dead. He is prepared to shoot them both for letting the cat die in their care when the three INLA agents burst into the room and hold him at gunpoint. The gunmen bind his hands. They tell Padraic that he has angered the group with his brutal maiming of a drug dealer under their protection, and also with his talk of forming a splinter group from their splinter group. It is also discovered that Padraic is responsible for Christy's missing eye. Davey taunts the bound Padraic, causing him to fly into a rage. As he is dragged outside, he promises that he will be back to kill them. Donny and Davey, still nervous, express relief that it appears to be over when shots fire off stage. The three agents come running back into the house, their eyes shot out by Mairead. They fire outside the house blindly. Padraic and Mairead walk calmly into the house, holding hands. Padraic shoots each of the three agents in turn. Padraic asks her to join him in the fight for a free Ireland, and she accepts. Having found love, they are about to execute Donny and Davey when Christy feebly rises up and apologizes to Padraic for killing his cat. Padraic, flying into a rage, drags Christy off into the next room to torture him before he dies.
'''Scene 9'''
Evening. The stage is by now strewn with blood and dismembered body parts. Padraic is quietly sitting on Christy's horribly mutilated corpse, clutching the body of Wee Thomas, which he has dug up from Donny's backyard. Donny and Davey are reluctantly chopping up the bodies of Brendan and Joey to prevent identification. Mairead enters, wearing a striking dress. She and Padraic discuss their plans for the future, perhaps forming their own splinter group, which Padraic calls "Wee Thomas's Army". Mairead mentions that she was unable to find her cat, Sir Roger, to say goodbye. Davey remembers with horror that the cat has been killed by Padraic. He retrieves the cat's collar and flings it out the window before the lovers can notice it. Padraic asks Mairead to marry him. She goes in the next room to wash the blood off her dress, and returns clutching the mangled body of Sir Roger. She kisses Padraic. As he relaxes in bliss, she draws both of his pistols and shoots him in the head. She commands Donny and Davey to clean up, claims the title of "Lieutenant of Inishmore" for herself, and promises to return the next day and investigate what Sir Roger was doing in the house in the first place. Bemoaning their luck, Donny and Davey continue to work when a black cat enters the house. It is, amazingly, Wee Thomas, who had been "out gallivanting" while a poor stray was mistakenly killed in his place. Donny and Davey express shock and anger that four men and two cats are dead for no good reason. They resolve to kill Wee Thomas in retribution. After holding the poor feline at gunpoint, however, they decide against it, and give it a bowl of Frosties for supper.
Margaret Hale (Daniela Denby-Ashe) and her parents Maria (Lesley Manville) and Richard (Tim Pigott-Smith) live in the idyllic town in Helstone in Hampshire. At the wedding of her cousin, Edith, Margaret is approached by Edith's new brother-in-law, Henry Lennox (John Light). Lennox visits Helstone a while later and proposes marriage to Margaret; she refuses him.
Margaret's father, a clergyman, has long harbored doubts about the doctrines of the Church of England and resigns his position rather than attest to orthodox beliefs as his bishop requires. To avoid gossip, the family move to the (fictional) industrial town of Milton, Darkshire, in the north of England. Thanks to his friend, Mr. Bell (Brian Protheroe), Mr. Hale is able to find a house. Giving lessons as a private tutor provides him a modest income. One of his pupils is local mill-owner John Thornton (Richard Armitage), who gets off to a bad start with Margaret when she witnesses him beating a worker whom he has caught smoking in the mill, which endangers all the workers. Gradually, Margaret gets used to Thornton, but his mother Hannah (Sinéad Cusack) and sister Fanny (Jo Joyner) disapprove of her, believing her haughty and alien to the customs of the North. In the meantime, Margaret attempts to do charitable work among the mill workers and comes into contact with Nicholas Higgins (Brendan Coyle) and his daughter, Bessy (Anna Maxwell Martin), who suffers from byssinosis from exposure to the cotton fibres in the mills. When Bessy became ill at Hamper's Mill, her father moved her to Marlborough Mills, Thornton's mill, because the working environment is better there. In a meeting with fellow mill owners, Thornton says he had a wheel for ventilation installed in all of the rooms of his factory in order to maintain a healthier workforce, despite the fact that it costs a great deal of money. The other industrialists had refused to install a wheel because of the expense.
Margaret's mother is falling ill. Mrs. Hale desires to see her son, Frederick (Rupert Evans), before she dies. Frederick, a naval officer, was involved in a mutiny and he cannot return to England without risking his life. However, without telling her father, Margaret writes to her brother in Cádiz, Spain, to tell him that their mother is dying. Margaret calls on the Thorntons to borrow a water mattress for her mother and is trapped there while the mill workers riot during a strike. When the angry mob threatens John's safety as he confronts them after Margaret's goading, Margaret defends him from the rioters and is injured by a thrown stone.
Margaret recovers and returns home, telling nobody about what had happened at the Mill, mainly to protect the health of her mother. When Thornton proposes to her the next day, she scorns him, thinking he believes himself superior because of the difference in their financial circumstances. He denies this and tells her that he is in love with her, but she insists that her actions were not personal.
Meanwhile, Bessy Higgins dies and Thornton stops coming for lessons from Mr. Hale. As a distraction for Mrs. Hale and for herself, Margaret visits the Great Exhibition with her Aunt Shaw (Jane Booker), her cousin Edith and Edith's husband. Margaret meets Thornton at the exhibition, where he is discussing the machinery with a group of gentlemen, all of whom are listening with great respect and admiration for his simple good sense. Margaret is embarrassed to meet Thornton so soon after her rejection but defends him when Henry Lennox, who is also attending the exhibition, tries to belittle him for being in trade. As Margaret observes them together, Henry's sophistication and reliance on fashionable wit and sarcasm compares unfavourably with Thornton's honesty.
When Margaret returns home, her mother has taken a turn for the worse. Margaret's brother arrives just in time to see his mother, and she dies shortly after. While Frederick is in the house, Thornton comes to visit his friend Mr. Hale, but he cannot be allowed in, in case he sees Fred. Thornton interprets this as Margaret refusing to see him. The family's servant, Miss Dixon (Pauline Quirke), bumps into Leonards, a former member of Frederick's crew in Milton town, who offers to split the reward money for Frederick's capture with her. Dixon refuses, informing the Hales; it is decided that Frederick must leave at once, before he is discovered and arrested. He and Margaret are seen together at the railway station by Thornton, who mistakenly assumes that Frederick is Margaret's lover. Leonards spies on him and Margaret at the station, and in the brief scuffle Fred pushes him down the stairs. It is later revealed that he died in hospital. Margaret denies to the police that she was at the station, in order to protect Fred, but Thornton, who is the magistrate and saw her there, is morally tested, but ultimately calls off the impending inquiry for the sake of Margaret.
Thornton gives employment to Higgins who seeks work to care for Boucher's children after his death, and master and hand get along surprisingly well, despite their differences. They come up with a plan to feed the workers cheaply in a communal kitchen, and Thornton comes to a greater understanding with his workers as they share ideas. However, losses faced during the strike have put Thornton's business in trouble, and he is forced to close the mill.
Margaret's father visits Mr. Bell in Oxford, and dies there. With no family to keep her in Milton, Margaret leaves the north to stay with her aunt in London. After a few months living with the Shaws, Margaret visits Helstone with Mr. Bell, and meets the new vicar and his wife. Margaret is disappointed to find Helstone much changed, and realises that she has romanticised and idealised her childhood home, and starts to truly recognise the merits of life in Milton.
As Margaret's godfather, Mr. Bell makes over his significant fortune to her when he finds out that he has a terminal illness and chooses to move to Argentina for the better climate. Margaret hence becomes the owner of Marlborough Mills and John Thornton's landlord. Margaret visits Milton with Henry Lennox, who is now acting as her financial advisor; she speaks with Mrs. Thornton at Malborough Mills, expressing her realisation of Mr. Thornton's true character. Meanwhile, Thornton, having discovered the truth about Fred being Margaret's brother from Higgins, goes south to see Margaret's home town of Helstone. At a railway station halfway between Milton and Helstone, Margaret and Thornton cross paths on their respective return journeys. She proposes a business deal by which the factory can be reopened; after this the two share a kiss. Margaret bids farewell to Henry, and gets on the train "home" to Milton with Thornton.
After Joe builds a home theater system, Peter decides to build a multiplex in his backyard out of spite. While digging, Peter finds the skull of a Native American buried in the backyard. Peter names it ''Chief Diamond Phillips''. Brian frequently urges him to return the skull to its resting place, but Peter treats it as a novelty (playing with it, urinating in it, wearing it as an athletic cup, etc.).
That night the Griffins start experiencing strange paranormal activity: Stewie talks to the TV static, the chairs and refrigerator stack themselves upside down on the kitchen table, Peter rips at the flesh on his face until he uncovers Hank Hill's face, and Chris gets scared by the McDonald's clown, Ronald McDonald and he then gets attacked by an evil tree before being saved by Herbert. Lois is in denial of the events until Stewie gets sucked into his closet and disappears.
To find Stewie, the Griffins hire a spiritual medium (Bruce the Performance Artist in one of his many jobs) to contact the other side, and learn that the entrance to the spirit world is Stewie's closet, while the exit is "Meg's ass". Unable to wait for Stewie to come out of the closet (he is obviously reluctant to exit from Meg's rear end), Lois enters the portal and rescues Stewie. The enraged spirits emerge and ravage the Griffin house, sucking it into their world. As the Griffins drive off, Peter dumps the Native American skull in a garbage can.
Now homeless, Peter and Lois try to find a way to get their house back, and learn the Native American skull has to be put back in its resting place. After searching through the city dump, a garbage man tells them that the skull would be in the human remains bin, but it was cleaned out by Carrot Top for things to use as props. They go to Carrot Top's mansion and, after a chase through a hall of mirrors, they retrieve the skull and rebury it, thereby getting back their house and returning life to normal. At the end, Lois takes the TV and moves it outside the front door but Peter comes out, retrieves it and puts Meg outside instead.
While attempting to make Peter brush his teeth, Lois hears a noise from downstairs and discovers burglars have entered the house. The rest of the family awakens and flee to Peter's self-built panic room in the attic and begin to monitor what the robbers are doing through hidden cameras. Due to the room not having a telephone or an inside door handle, they cannot escape, and Peter begins to tell stories about the history of the Griffin family.
The stories begin with the Big Bang, and then moves to the Paleolithic Age, where it is revealed that Peter's ancestor invented the wheel. The second story sees another Moses as a member of the Griffin family during the Bronze Age leading the Israelites to freedom and presenting the Ten Commandments. The family soon discovers that Meg can fit through the vent, so they force Meg through the vent and into the kitchen. Peter uses a loud speaker to contact Meg from the panic room, therefore alerting the burglars to the fact that somebody is in the kitchen. In order to take the family's mind off Meg being captured, Peter tells the story of Nate Griffin. Nate lived in the small African village of Quahogsuana, but was captured by a white version of Cleveland Brown from South Carolina and taken to America aboard a slave ship. He, along with Quagdingo and Joe Mama, prank the ship captain. While sleeping, they push his bed into the ocean. Nate is caught after briefly escaping and forced to work on a plantation. He falls in love with the owner's daughter, Lois's relatives, Lois Laura Bush Lynne Cheney Pewterschmidt, and together, they bring up a secret family. After being discovered by his lover's father, the couple and their children escape with the help of Al Cowlings, where Nate sets up the Department of Motor Vehicles to "get back at the white man".
After finishing the story, Peter carelessly aims a flare gun through an air vent, causing the sprinklers to come on. Meanwhile, Meg is trying to persuade the burglars to rape her but they are not interested. The rest of the family, still trapped in the panic room, are preparing to potentially drown from the sprinklers filling the room up with water. Peter tells the story of his ancestor, Willie "Black-Eye" Griffin, who was a silent film star in the Roaring Twenties, but whose career later faltered due to his voice (much like Bobcat Goldthwait's) not being cut out for talking pictures. Peter then tells his family about his great uncle, Peter Hitler, who was able to provide Adolf Hitler with success at his Munich speech, although annoying Adolf greatly. As the water from the sprinklers almost reaches its peak, Peter admits to the family that he did not care for ''The Godfather'' and a heated debate ensues, ending with Peter declaring his love for ''The Money Pit''. At the last minute Joe rescues them, draining the water out of the room, thus saving their lives. Joe informs the family he has arrested the burglars, but they are pressing harassment charges against Meg. Joe warns that they will need a lawyer to combat the charges, but the family ignores him, and Joe finally gives up and takes Meg away while the family ignores her cries for help.
Peco (real name Yutaka Hoshino) and Smile (real name Makoto Tsukimoto) are members of Katase High table tennis club. Peco is charismatic and has a passion for the sport, while Smile is introverted. Tsukimoto's friends in the table tennis club nicknamed him "Smile" as he does not smile often. The characters have known each other, and Demon (Akuma 悪魔, real name Manabu Sakuma), since primary school. Despite Smile's greater natural talent, he sees the sport as simply a way to pass the time, and often lets less able players such as Peco beat him out of consideration for their feelings.
Peco hears about a new table tennis player brought over from Shanghai, China, to beat local hero Dragon for Tsujido Academy: "China". Dragon (real name Ryūichi Kazama) plays for the fight, in search of a worthy opponent. In an informal set, China (real name Kong Wenge) completely shuts out Peco, winning 21 to 0. Peco is devastated by the loss. This is compounded at the next inter-school competition where Sakuma also beats Peco in the third round of the tournament. Smile, meanwhile, lets China beat him out of kindness for his opponent. Sakuma's team from Kaio Academy—led by Dragon, a top competitor and strict disciplinarian—wins the overall competition.
Sakuma confronts Peco, telling him he lost because he was coasting. Peco jumps into a river as a symbolic rebirth and trains with Tamura to get back into his school team. In the next high school tournament, Peco beats China in the first round and Dragon in the semi-final despite an injured knee. During this match, Dragon experiences the joy of playing table tennis for the first time. Peco and Smile meet in the final. Several years later, Peco has fulfilled his dream of playing professionally in Europe, while Smile helps a young boy learn the sport. A photo behind Smile shows Peco, Smile and Dragon having taken first, second and third places respectively.
The novel opens in a Confederate military hospital near Raleigh, North Carolina, where Inman is recovering from battle wounds during the American Civil War. The soldier is tired of fighting for a cause he never believed in. After considering the advice from a blind man and moved by the death of the man in the bed next to him, he decides one nightfall to slip out of the hospital and return home to Cold Mountain, North Carolina.
At Cold Mountain, Ada's father dies. The farm, named Black Cove, that the genteel, city-bred Ada lives on is soon reduced to a state of disrepair. But she is saved from destitution by a resourceful-but-homeless young woman named Ruby, who moves in with her. Together, they clean the place up and return it to productivity. Ruby also teaches Ada how to survive in these very difficult times. Ada shares her knowledge of literature with Ruby.
Inman soon becomes aware of the Confederate Home Guard, who hunt down military deserters from the Confederacy. He meets a preacher called Veasey, whom he catches in the act of attempting to murder the woman he has impregnated. After Inman dissuades him, they travel together. They butcher a dead bull that had fallen into a creek and the bull's owner, Junior, gives them away to the Home Guard. They are put into a group of other captured prisoners and march for days before the Home Guard decides to simply shoot them because they are "too much trouble". Veasey steps forward to try to stop them and is killed. Inman is grazed by a bullet that has passed through Veasey and is thought to be dead. The Guardsmen dig a shoddy mass grave and Inman pulls himself out, helped in part by some passing wild pigs. He cannot bury Veasey, so he turns him face down and continues on.
Inman's journey is rough. He faces hunger and an attempted armed robbery at a rural tavern, even though he carries a LeMat revolver for protection. Occasionally, he is helped and sheltered by civilians who want nothing to do with the war. Through cunning ingenuity, he helps one of them track and recover a hog, her only possession and source of food for the winter, which had just been seized by Union soldiers. He is also helped by a woman who owns goats, who gives him advice and medicines to finally heal his wounds.
Ruby's father, Stobrod, is caught stealing corn at Ada's farm. Ruby reveals he was a deadbeat who neglected and abandoned her when she was very young; he is also a Confederate deserter. Nevertheless, Ruby grudgingly feeds him. Soon he returns another day with a simple-minded friend named Pangle. Together they entertain everyone by playing the fiddle and banjo. However, the Home Guard, led by the sadistic Captain Teague, eventually tracks them down and shoots them. A third companion, referred to as "Georgia," escapes the killing and goes off to alert Ada and Ruby. The two women ride and find Stobrod barely alive. Ada and Ruby pitch camp to give him a place to recover.
After Inman arrives at Black Cove to find it empty, he sets out to find Ada on the mountain. Unexpectedly he soon encounters her out hunting wild turkeys. Both have changed so greatly in their appearance and demeanor since they parted that it is some moments before they recognize one another. Inman takes up camp with Ada and Ruby. Ruby is afraid Ada will dismiss her now she has a husband, and Ada reassures her that she needs her as a friend and for her ideas and help. Ruby gives the pair her blessing. Later Ada and Inman make love. They happily begin to imagine the life they will have together at Black Cove and make plans for their future.
However, as the party begins the trek back to the farm, they encounter the Home Guard. A shootout commences in which Inman kills all the members of the Home Guard except for 17-year-old Birch, Teague's vicious protégé. Inman eventually corners the boy against a rock ledge but is reluctant to shoot him down in cold blood. However, after attempts fail to convince Birch to lay down his arms and leave, the boy shoots and kills Inman.
Ada is left a pregnant widow. She raises her daughter at Black Cove, where she lives with Ruby, who got married with “Georgia” and has three sons, and Stobrod.
Marcia Green (Audrey Reid) is a single mom and street vendor barely scraping by even with a financial assist from the seemingly avuncular Larry (Carl Davis), a gun-toting strongman with a twisted desire for Marcia's teenage daughter Tanya (Cherine Anderson) who he then decides to pursue. Complicating things is Priest (Paul Campbell), a murderous hoodlum who killed Marcia's friend and now is terrorizing the defenseless woman. Facing three big problems (Larry, Priest, and without money), Marcia arrives at an inspired solution: develop an alter ego, a dancing celebrity called the Mystery Lady who can compete in a cash-prize contest and put both of the men against one another.
She does so and Marcia very amusingly carries out her complicated plan, with a little help from sympathetic friends.
An irresponsible young man (Leslie Zevo) would not take over the company and now his father is dying. In order to get his young adult son to accept his new responsibilities, the father must force him to reclaim his toy factory from a strait-laced Army general (Lt. General Leland) that he has appointed as part of a "test of maturity".
The story is about two brothers, both competing for the affection of their ailing mother, the friendship of their workmates and the love of a beautiful woman.
Boza, the older brother dedicates himself to hard work at the printing plant where they are both employed. His younger brother Dan slacks off and loots the factory for things to sell on the black market. He drinks with his friends at the local bar and has sex with many loose women.
When Boza falls in love with a beautiful coworker, Dan makes love to her just to spite his older brother (in a very shocking sex scene). Dan's torment and cruelty to his older brother continues until it has a shocking result.
Set in the dark world of Communist era Czechoslovakia, this disturbing film targets the very cruel nature of human beings to take advantage of those less fortunate. It also targets the corruption of the world in which the characters live.
While growing up in Oklahoma, young Lane Frost learns the tricks of the bull riding trade at the hand of his father Clyde, an accomplished rodeo bronco rider himself. As he enters his teenage and early adult years, Lane travels the western rodeo circuit with his best friends Tuff Hedeman and Cody Lambert. He meets and falls in love with a young barrel racer, Kellie Kyle, and they eventually marry in 1984.
As Lane's legend and fame increase, so does the amount of pressure he puts on himself, to be what everyone wants him to be, and he wants to show that he is as good as they say he is. His ascent to the world championship is marred by a cheating incident, questions about Kellie's devotion, and a near broken neck. The film also follows him through the true life series between himself and Red Rock, a bull that no cowboy had ever been able to stay on for 8 seconds. It cuts the series down to three rides. In 1989, he is the second-to-last rider at the Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo. While riding on the bull known as "Takin' Care Of Business", he dismounts after his 8-second ride but the bull turns back and hits him in the side with his horn, breaking some ribs and severing a main artery. As a result of excessive internal bleeding, he dies on the arena floor before he can be transported to the hospital.
The final scene shows Hedeman later that same year at the National Finals Rodeo riding for the world championship. After the 8 second bell sounds, he continues to ride and stays on an additional 8 seconds as a tribute to his fallen best friend.
''Song of Lawino'', which is a narrative poem, describes how Lawino's husband, Ocol, the son of the tribal leader of their Acholi tribe, has taken another wife, Clementine, who is educated and acts European. Although Ocol's polygamy is accepted by society, and by Lawino herself, her description of his actions shows that he is shunning Lawino in favour of Clementine. Ocol is also said to be fascinated with the culture of the European colonialists. As an example of this, Lawino says Ocol no longer engages, or has any interest in, the ritualistic African dance but prefers the ballroom-style dances introduced by the colonising Europeans. This loss of culture on the part of Ocol is what disturbs Lawino the most. The poem is an extended appeal from Lawino to Ocol to stay true to his own customs, and to abandon his desire to be white.
The book also advocates for the African culture that has been lost by the educated elite. Lawino bemoans her husband's lack of African pride and she romanticizes all that is black. Lawino says "all that is black is beautiful."
One warm June night, a university student called Kirsten is viciously attacked in a park by a serial killer. He is interrupted, and Kirsten survives, but in a severe physically and psychologically damaged state. As the killer continues, leaving a longer trail of mutilated corpses, Kirsten confronts her memories and becomes convinced not only that she can, but that she must remember what happened. Through fragments of nightmares, the details slowly reveal themselves to Kirsten as she eventually finds out the truth. Interwoven with Kirsten's story is that of Martha Browne, a woman who arrives in the Yorkshire coastal town of Whitby with a sense of mission. Finally, the two strands are woven together and united in a startling, chilling conclusion.
The independent Earth Colony Axista Four was supposedly founded in the 2439 by Stewart Ransom, a noted humanitarian. Arriving on the colony one hundred years later, the Doctor, Zoe and Jamie find a near-civil war.
'Realists' have abandoned Ransome's 'back to basics' ideals and are raiding the remains of the colony ship to further their technological advancements. The 'Loyalists' are in danger of extinction. In a little-known underground bunker, aliens who claim to be the planet's first colonists are stirring.
Hopeful colonists hope Random's daughter, Kirann, can be revived from cryogenic suspension and reunited the colony. This does not work out as expected.
The lovely, humble Nastya is despised by her stepmother who favors her own mean-spirited and ugly daughter, Marfushka. Her meek father is powerless to stop his wife. After forcing Nastenka to knit socks before the rooster crows (with Nastya ultimately imploring the sun to go down again so she can have more time), Nastya's stepmother gives Nastya the tasks of feeding the chickens, watering the cattle, splitting wood, and sweeping the yard. Meanwhile, Ivan finishes his chores and heads out into the woods after receiving some final words of guidance from his mother, such as not forgetting his mother, not harming the weak, and honoring those who are old. To all these pieces of advice Ivan off-handedly replies "Don't worry" repeatedly.
While traveling in the woods, Ivan is accosted by a group of bandits. He quickly distracts them and tosses their wooden clubs so high in the air that he claims they won't fall down again until winter. Later, Ivan meets the elderly Starichok-Borovichok (eng. ''The Little Old Man - the Little ''Boletus), who playfully challenges Ivan to try and catch him, offering a prize if he does. Being able to turn invisible, Starichok-Borovichok soon wins and offers a contrite Ivan the prize anyway - a fine bow and quiver of arrows. However, when asked to bow before him in gratitude, Ivan boastfully declares, "The bear may bow before you if you like, but not Ivan" and leaves. Starichok-Borovichok remarks that the bear will indeed bow before him, but it would be Ivan's back that would bend.
Ivan comes across Nastya in the woods, ordered to pour water on a stump to make flowers grow in it. Taken by her beauty, he immediately asks her to marry him, citing his many accomplishments. She demurs, noting that he is too much of a braggart. Eager to prove his worth, he attempts to shoot a mother bear with her cubs. Starichok-Borovichok is watching nearby, and as the panicked Nastya puts her water bucket on his head, he changes Ivan's head into a bear. Horrified at the change, Ivan accuses Nastya of being a witch and runs off, leaving her to weep alone by the stump, her tears causing flowers to grow from it.
Wandering the land, Ivan comes across Starichok-Borovichok again, who scolds Ivan over his selfish nature, and how he never acted selflessly for anyone else. Thinking that all he must do to change back is a good deed, Ivan immediately seeks out people, demanding to know how he can help them; having a bear's head only terrifies them, however, and they all flee from him. He finally comes across an old woman carrying sticks to her home and offers to carry her, despite the distance being over many mountains. Arriving at her home, the woman thanks Ivan, noting how handsome he must be; though Ivan notes he is still a bear and thinks she is mocking him, she explains that she is blind - which is why she didn't run from him. Returning to the woods where he and Nastya first met, Ivan comes across the old woman's walking stick and vows to return it, with no thought of whether or not doing so will benefit him. Nearby, Starichok-Borovichok is pleased at Ivan's selflessness and restores him to human form. .
Meanwhile, the evil stepmother is trying to marry off Marfushka. After dressing her up in fine clothes, covering her in makeup and attaching a false braid on to Marfushka's head, she forces Nastya to wear a rag over her head and puts mud on her face to make her ugly. A wealthy suitor comes and asks Marfushka, who has never done a day's work in her life, to prepare a meal for him. While chasing geese into a pond, Marfushka nearly drowns until she is rescued by Nastya. In the process, Marfushka's braid and makeup wash away and Nastya's beauty is revealed. The suitor and his mother choose Nastya for a bride instead. The stepmother orders her husband to leave Nastya in the woods. On the way, the father decides he's had enough of his wife's bullying and vows to bring Nastenka back home. Believing her stepmother will be even crueler to him for doing so, Nastya jumps off the back of his sleigh. There, she comes across Morozko (Father Frost) bringing winter to the woods. Touched by her kindness and unselfishness, he rescues her from freezing to death and brings her to his home.
Ivan searches for Nastya, now that he's fully human again. He comes across Baba Yaga, whom he pleads for aid to find Nastya. She refuses to help, and after a battle of wills with her moving house (which the old woman loses), she animates a group of trees to kill Ivan. After nearly being cooked alive, Ivan tricks her and threatens to bake the witch in her own oven until she tells him how to find Nastya. After he leaves, the angry Baba Yaga sends her black cat to cause Nastya's death before Ivan can reach her. The enchanted sled sent by the Baba Yaga to show Ivan the way to Nastya leaves him trapped in a snowbank. While Father Frost is running some errands, the cat tricks Nastya into accidentally touching his staff, which freezes her solid. Nastya's father and dog sense that she is in trouble. The stepmother and Marfushka prevent him from leaving, but the dog escapes and rescues Ivan from freezing in the snow. They both arrive at Morozko's home to find her frozen. Ivan pleads for forgiveness for his behavior towards her. The power of love trumps the staff's power, and she is restored. To celebrate, Morozko gives Nastya and Ivan a large dowry of jewels and a horse-driven sleigh for their impending nuptials.
On their way to Ivan's home, he and Nastya are accosted by the bandits he'd encountered before, this time with help from Baba Yaga. After being overpowered, they are saved when the clubs from earlier fall conveniently on the bandits' heads, and they trap the witch in her own giant mortar. They return to the village, where the father welcomes Ivan as his son-in-law but the stepmother becomes jealous and the greedy Marfushka eyes their fortune and demands the same. Unfortunately for her, when Marfushka tries to duplicate Nastya's adventure in the snowbound forest, Morozko is so horrified by her rudeness that he sends her back on a pig-driven sleigh, with a box full of crows as a dowry. The stepmother is humiliated in front of the entire village and the father finally stands up for himself and regain his place as head of the household. Nastya and Ivan have a sumptuous wedding and live happily ever after.
Opening scene of the game
The player takes the role of a 'professional adventurer' who is 'down to his last silver piece'. His services are hired by a wizard whose castle has been taken over by a warlock. The warlock has also found the wizard's ''Magic Ring of Power'' which must be returned. The player must navigate the castle, solve problems and avoid booby traps set by the warlock in order to recover the magic ring for the wizard. The adventurer must also search for treasure and deposit it in a safe which he can then keep as payment.
In late-1950s New York City, WROL disc jockey Alan Freed (Tim McIntire) promotes his upcoming rock n' roll show at the Brooklyn Paramount Theater, headlined by Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis. Freed's radio program is hugely popular with teenagers, and the Paramount show is expected to sell out, despite concern that the police will shut it down as they did with Freed's previous show in Boston. Local law enforcement, led by D.A. Coleman (John Lehne), targets Freed for allegedly inciting teenagers to wild and immoral behavior by broadcasting raucous and sexually suggestive rock n' roll songs, many of them by black musicians. WROL station management also dislike Freed's unconventional programming habits, including playing songs that the station has banned such as "Tutti Frutti" by Little Richard. Freed nevertheless rejects all suggestions that he change his programming style and feature more socially acceptable musical acts, such as Pat Boone. He also refuses to sign a statement declaring that he never accepted anything in return for playing a record, on the grounds that signing it would be a lie and that all disc jockeys, including those who have signed the statement, take such bribes.
Because Freed has the power to make a record a hit by playing it on his show, he is constantly besieged by record promoters and artist managers. He avoids most of these people, but takes an interest in those who share his love for rock n' roll. He repeatedly rebuffs the aggressive record promoter Lennie Richfield (Jeff Altman), but is kind to Artie Moress (Moosie Drier), a young boy who is the president of a Buddy Holly fan club, and even puts Artie on the air to talk about his idol Holly. Freed also encourages Louise (Laraine Newman), a white teenage songwriter whose parents ignore her talent and disapprove of her associating with the Chesterfields, a black doo-wop group who perform her songs. Freed himself suffers discrimination when he takes a racially mixed group of teenagers with him to look at a luxury home he wants to buy; the owner refuses to sell to him at any price. Freed's own father back in Akron, Ohio also rejects him, returning a check Freed sent him and refusing to talk on the telephone with his son.
The Paramount show goes on despite Coleman's attempts to stop it, including a failed attempt at a drug bust. Louise is moved to tears after the Chesterfields, a late addition to the show, perform her songs to thunderous applause from the capacity crowd. Freed's feisty young secretary Sheryl (Fran Drescher) and his chauffeur Mookie (Jay Leno), who have constantly bickered on the job, finally bond over their shared love of Freed and rock n' roll, and begin a romance. Mid-show, IRS agents appear and seize all the proceeds from the box office, leaving Freed with no money to pay his artists. However, Chuck Berry saves the day by doing Freed the favor of performing for free. Jerry Lee Lewis, who initially had said he was not coming, then arrives at the last minute and closes the show as the police try to shut it down because teenagers are "dancing in the aisles". As the police begin clearing the theater with Lewis still performing onstage, chaos breaks out and the film abruptly ends, with an epilogue stating that this was Freed's last performance, and that he was taken off the air, indicted, moved to California, and died five years later, penniless, but that rock n' roll lives on.
Set during Australia's colonial era over the period 1798–1812, the series follows the life of Mary Mulvane, a daughter of an Irish school master. At 18, she is transported to New South Wales for a term of seven years after attempting to take back her family's milk cow which had been seized by the British "in lieu of tithes" to the local proctor. She endures the trial of a convict sea journey to New South Wales and years of service as a convict before her emancipation and life as a free citizen. During the journey out she makes a lifelong friend of fellow Irish convict, Polly, and in the course of the series we see their friendship continue, Polly's relationship and life with taverner Will Price develop, and Mary's relationship with Jonathan Garrett grows, leading to eventual marriage when both have served their term. Together they face the difficulties of establishing a farm and a young family in the new country, and must deal with the tyranny of the corrupt military running the colony. It is based on factual events of the Garrett Family (as stated in every episode) and the last episode recites what became of the Garretts: they had 5 children and now have many descendants.
Ga-ran and Nam-joon were classmates in elementary school. Ga-ran is a tomboy who prefers trousers to skirts, and loves taekwondo more than her piano lessons. Nam-joon on the other hand is Mr. Perfect who's got good looks, a fine brain, and is the most popular guy in school, especially among the girls. One day, Ga-ran sees Nam-joon giving away the sweet bun which Ga-ran's friend gave him, to another girl. Ga-ran throws herself at Nam-joon and beats him up, and their rivalry lasts throughout high school. A few years after college, Ga-ran and Nam-joon meet again as adults, both recovering from recent break-ups. Despite their constant bickering, they gradually realize that they're meant to be.
In July 1832, Italian patriots hiding out in Aix, France, are betrayed by one of their own, and Austrian agents are on their trail. One patriot, Giacomo, is dragged away and executed. His wife runs off to warn their friend, Angelo Pardi (Olivier Martinez), a young Italian nobleman in France raising money for the Italian revolution against Austrian Empire. As the agents descend on his apartment, Angelo escapes into the countryside.
At Meyrargues, Angelo looks for his compatriot and childhood friend, Maggionari, and then continues on to another village, where he writes to his mother, "Always fleeing. When can I fight and show what your son can do?" His mother purchased his commission as a colonel in the Piedmont Hussars, and he's never seen battle. Angelo encounters Maggionari, who turns out to be the traitor. When the Austrian agents arrive, Angelo fights them off and escapes.
The next day, Angelo enters a village ravaged by a cholera epidemic. The sight of the corpses abandoned to the scavenging crows sickens him. He meets a country physician, who shows him how to treat cholera victims by vigorously rubbing alcohol on the skin. Angelo continues north, passing a small village where corpses are being burned. He meets a young woman and two children and accompanies them to the outskirts of Manosque. The young woman, who is a tutor and lover of books, gives him a copy of ''Rinaldo and Armida'' as a parting gift.
While in Manosque, Angelo is captured by a paranoid mob who accuse him of poisoning the town fountain. He is taken to the authorities, who soon abandon their posts in fear. Angelo searches for a compatriot, but encounters the Austrian agents. Angelo eludes them, and with sword in hand, fights his way through the hysterical mob and escapes across the rooftops. From his refuge above the town, Angelo watches one of the agents chased down and beaten to death, and later watches the piles of corpses being burned in the night.
To escape the rain, Angelo enters a dwelling where he is discovered by Countess Pauline de Théus (Juliette Binoche). Apologizing for his presence, Angelo reassures her that he is a gentleman. Pauline offers him food and drink, and soon he falls asleep from exhaustion. The following morning, Pauline is gone and Angelo joins the forced evacuation of the town. In the hills outside Manosque, Angelo meets his compatriot, Giuseppe, who possesses money raised for the Italian resistance, but which cannot now be delivered because of the quarantine and roadblocks. Angelo agrees to deliver the money to Milan using backroads. Before leaving, he encounters the traitor, Maggionari, who attempts to kill Angelo before succumbing to cholera.
Angelo and Pauline meet again, and she joins him in a daring river escape. At Les Mées, rather than head east toward the Italian border, Angelo accompanies Pauline north toward her castle near Gap. Angelo insists it is his duty, so they set off through the countryside, avoiding the plague-ridden towns. Forced to camp out in the open, romantic feelings develop between the two, but Angelo remains gallant. Asked if he comes from a military family, Angelo reveals he never knew his father, saying, "He came to Italy with Napoleon, then left." Everything he learned in life came from his mother.
The next day, they travel to a heavily garrisoned village where they visit a friend of Pauline's husband and learn that he returned to Manosque to search for her. Determined to find her husband, Pauline leaves Angelo and rides off. Angelo follows, only to see her captured by the militia, who take her into quarantine at a convent. Knowing if she stays there she will die, Angelo surrenders to the militia in order to rescue her. Pauline understands he's risked his life again for her. Angelo orchestrates another daring escape by setting fire to the convent. Impressed by Angelo's bravery and intelligence, Pauline promises to trust the young Piedmont Hussard, saying, "I'll obey you like a soldier." Their mutual affection continues to grow as they make their way toward her castle at Théus.
As night descends, they seek shelter from the rain in a small abandoned mansion, where they warm themselves at the fireplace and drink wine. Pauline conveys her feelings for him, but Angelo remains a gentleman. Pauline recounts how she met her husband, forty years her senior. She was a sixteen-year-old country doctor's daughter when she found him near death with a bullet in his chest. Her father saved his life, and she tended to him for days, nursing him back to health. When he recovered, he left without revealing his identity, but six months later, he returned and asked for her hand in marriage—revealing he was a Count with extensive property.
Angelo prepares to leave, but Pauline decides to stay in the mansion for the night. As she climbs the staircase, she collapses showing symptoms of cholera. Angelo rushes her to the fireplace, rips the clothing from her body, and vigorously rubs alcohol on her skin—tending to her throughout the night trying to save her life. In the morning, Angelo is awakened by Pauline's frail but loving touch. Soon they are back on the road, completing the last few miles to Pauline's castle, where they are met by her husband, Count Laurent de Théus. Angelo leaves and returns to Italy to fight in the revolution.
One year later, Pauline returns to Aix where everything appears as it once was—but the cholera has taken a heavy toll. She looks for the house near the Bishop's Palace where Angelo stayed. She writes letters to Angelo, inquiring after his condition. Another year passes, and Pauline finally receives a letter from Angelo at the castle. She walks off alone to read it, while the Count watches from a window, knowing Angelo's memory would not fade. Pauline looks east towards the snow-covered Alps that separate her from Italy and Colonel Angelo Pardi, the young gallant officer who once saved her life.
''Loveless'' was originally about a man, Wes Cutter, who fought for the South in the Civil War and was captured. After spending time in a prison camp he comes back to his previous home of Blackwater after the North won to find the town under Union control and his house occupied. Soon after, Cutter is offered a position of sheriff in the town.
The comic's early issues explore the dynamic relationship between Cutter and the people of the town (most of whom hate him), the fate of Cutter's wife Ruth, and the lingering feelings of animosity between North and South after the end of the war.
Since the conclusion to its earlier issues, ''Loveless'' has become a comic of greater chronological and thematic narrative. The stories within ''Loveless'', since its inception and especially in its later years center around racism and the grittier realities of American history.
The book had been stated to last about four years by Brian Azzarello in a Broken Frontier interview. In the interview Azzarello also hinted to end the story in the 1940s or so,[http://www.brokenfrontier.com/lowdown/details.php?id=526 Sam Moyerman: Bad Azz Mojo, part 1, posted October 11 2006] but the series was cancelled with issue #24.
The series focuses on five children: Matthew Freeman, Pedro, Scott Tyler, Jamie Tyler, and Scarlett Adams, a group of five modern day teenagers with some sort of power who are expected to defeat the Old Ones and save humanity.
Mike Enslin, a cynical, skeptical author who is estranged from his wife Lily after the death of their daughter Katie, writes niche books evaluating supernatural events in which he has no belief. After his latest book, he receives an anonymous postcard depicting The Dolphin, a hotel on Lexington Avenue in New York City, bearing the message: "Don't enter 1408." Viewing this as a challenge, Mike arrives at The Dolphin and requests room 1408. The hotel manager, Gerald Olin, attempts to discourage him. He explains to Mike that in the last 95 years, no one has lasted more than an hour inside of 1408; the latest count is 56 deaths. Olin attempts to dissuade and bribe Mike, but Mike insists, threatening legal action against the hotel, so preparations are reluctantly made.
Inside the room, Mike describes on his mini-cassette recorder the room's boring appearance and lack of supernatural behavior. The clock radio suddenly starts playing The Carpenters' "We've Only Just Begun", and the digital display changes to a countdown starting from 60:00. Mike begins to see ghosts of the room's past victims, followed by flashbacks of Katie and his sick father. Mike tries to leave, but all attempts are in vain.
Mike uses his laptop to contact Lily, asking for help, but the sprinkler system short circuits it. The room temperature drops to subzero when the laptop suddenly begins to work again. A doppelgänger of Mike appears in a video chat window and urges Lily to come to the hotel room herself; it gives Mike a sly wink. The room shakes violently and Mike breaks a picture of a ship in a storm. Water pours from the broken picture, flooding the room. He surfaces on a beach and relives a surfing accident seen earlier in the film. His life continues from this point, and he reconciles with Lily.
Assuming his experience in 1408 was just a nightmare, Lily encourages him to write a book about it. When visiting the post office to send the manuscript to his publisher, he recognizes members of a construction crew as Dolphin Hotel staff. The employees then destroy the post office's walls, revealing that Mike is still trapped in the rubble of 1408. Katie's ghost confronts him, and when the countdown ends, the room is suddenly restored to normal, and the clock radio resets itself to 60:00.
The "hotel operator" calls Mike. Mike asks why he has not been killed yet and she informs him that guests enjoy free will: he can relive the past hour over and over again, or use their "express checkout system". A hangman's noose appears, but he refuses to give in. Deciding to quit running, Mike improvises a Molotov cocktail and sets the room on fire. The hotel is evacuated. After smoking a cigarette, Mike breaks a window, causing a backdraft. He then lies down and laughs in victory upon destroying the room. Olin, in his office, praises Mike for his actions.
There are three endings to this film. In addition to the ending that appears in the theatrical release (also the default ending of the DVD), two other alternate endings were shot. The incentive for this was based on the director's belief that King's intention, in his original short story, was to leave the conclusion ambiguous. None of the three endings match the ending of King's original short story.
This is the default ending of the theatrical release and its theatrical release DVD. It is also used on the Amazon Prime, Netflix UK, and the YouTube Movies version of the film.
Mike survives and he and Lily reconcile, though Lily is skeptical of his experience. She finds a box of Mike's possessions that were rescued from 1408 and Mike takes the damaged mini-cassette recorder from it, saying, "Sometimes you can't get rid of bad memories. You've just got to live with them." Mike briefly tampers with the recorder, making it work again. Suddenly, they hear Katie's voice coming from it, confirming Mike's account.
Director Mikael Håfström said that the ending for ''1408'' was reshot because test audiences felt that the original ending was too much of a "downer."
The original discarded ending had Mike dying in the fire, but happy to see the room destroyed. During Mike's funeral, Olin approaches Lily and Mike's publisher Sam Farrell. He unsuccessfully attempts to give her a box of Mike's possessions, including the tape recorder. Olin claims that the room was successfully destroyed and that it will no longer hurt anyone else. He later listens to the recording in his car and becomes upset when he hears Katie's voice on the tape. He sees a little girl in a dress walking on the cemetery grass behind the car, calling out as if she is lost. He then sees Mike's burnt corpse in the backseat. Then he sees the same girl holding hands with her father as they walk away. Olin places the tape recorder back in the box and drives off. The final scene is of the gutted room, where an apparition of Mike looks out the window while smoking a cigarette. He hears his daughter calling for him and disappears as he walks towards the door. A door is heard closing and the scene fades.
This ending is the default ending on the Blu-ray release and two-disc collector's edition. Canadian networks Space and The Movie Network, and U.S. network FX broadcast this version of the film. Space broadcast the theatrical ending on July 23, 2012. This ending is also used on the U.K. and Australian DVDs, and the U.S. iTunes and Netflix versions of the film.
Mike dies in the fire. Instead of the funeral scene from the director's cut, the sounds of a funeral are dubbed over shots of Los Angeles. Lily and Sam sort through Mike's effects. Sam returns to his New York office and discovers the manuscript that Mike wrote while he was in room 1408. As Sam reads the story, audio from Mike's experiences in the room is heard. In a final scene, Sam's office doors slam shut and Mike's father's voice says, "As I was, you are. As I am, you will be."
After being arrested for breaking and entering an Ipswich warehouse, 14-year-old delinquent Matthew 'Matt' Freeman is enrolled in a teenage rehabilitation program and sent to a farm in the village of Lesser Malling, Yorkshire. The farm is run by the stern spinster, Jayne Deverill, whose sister, Claire, is also a spinster and the local primary school's headmistress. While there, Matt experiences various unexplained phenomena and discovers a confidential file suggesting he possesses psychic abilities. A farmer called Tom Burgess tells Matt to come to his farmhouse the next day and he will help him leave. Visiting the farm the next day, Matt finds Burgess dead and the place wrecked. The words "Raven's Gate" have been painted on one wall of the bedroom. All of Matt’s attempts to inform the authorities are mysteriously thwarted, in part thanks to the villagers of Lesser Malling.
Several days later, Matt follows Jayne and Claire Deverill into the woods and watches them perform a dark magic ritual. He tries to eavesdrop, but triggers a security alarm. Jayne Deverill summons two black demon dogs, which chase him through the woods and trap him in a bog. Matt is rescued by Richard Cole, a journalist who he had previously contacted about the Burgess murder. At Richard's flat in York, he hears Matt's full story.
Richard and Matt make contact with a man called Dravid, who works at the British Museum. Dravid informs Matt that all the villagers in Lesser Malling, including the Deverill sisters, are part of a cult which worships a group of demons known as the Old Ones, who used to rule the world before being banished by five children over ten thousand years previously. Lesser Malling was once home to a gate to the Old Ones' prison, known as Raven’s Gate, and the villagers intend to have Matt ritually sacrificed in order to bring them back and rule the world.
Dravid is killed by dark magic that brings the skeletons of dinosaurs in the museum to life. Jayne Deverill captures Richard and Matt, taking them back to Lesser Malling for the sacrifice. The villagers succeed in opening a portal to the Old Ones' dimension and a huge dark creature, King of the Old Ones, appears in the gate. The King tries to free himself, but Matt's power awakens. He stops the sacrifice, saves Richard, and forces the King to retreat. In the process, the Deverills and all the other villagers die.
In the next few weeks, a society named the Nexus, to which Dravid belonged, tells Matt and Richard that another gate is opening in Peru.
As the novel unfolds, Allington is beset by a number of difficulties, including his father's death by stroke at dinner one night, and a drinking problem that causes hypnagogic jactitation and hallucinations; Maurice compounds his problems by pursuing an affair with his doctor's wife, neglecting his daughter Amy (whose mother, Maurice's first wife, was killed in a road accident), and attempting to seduce both his current wife and his mistress into a ménage à trois, which backfires when the two women take an enthusiastic interest in each other and effectively shut him out of the orgy.
During this time Maurice begins to see ghosts around the inn – a red-haired woman, presumably Underhill's wife, in the hallway, a small bird floating above his bathtub, the spectre of Thomas Underhill himself in the dining room – and yet has a difficult time communicating this to his family and friends, who assume that heavy drinking and the stress of his father's death are causing him to hallucinate. Maurice's own investigations take him to All Saints' College, a fictional Cambridge college (modeled on All Souls' of Oxford) of which Underhill was a fellow, and at which his papers are secreted. There he sees Underhill's own record of having used his black arts to entice and then ravish young girls from the village.
In the meantime Maurice has discovered his own notes of a drunken, and forgotten, midnight conversation with Underhill, during which Underhill begins to enlist Maurice's help in his as yet undisclosed scheme. This involves Maurice's unearthing of Underhill's nearby grave, in which he finds an ancient silver figurine that Underhill requests be brought to another midnight meeting in the inn's dining room.
That afternoon, having left the scene of the failed orgy, Maurice suddenly finds himself in a strange time warp, as it were, in which all molecular motion outside his drawing room ceases. He finds himself in the presence of a young, suave man who it comes to be understood is God himself. The purpose of the visit is to warn Maurice against Underhill and ask him to aid in Underhill's destruction, but during the conversation, Amis has the young man elaborate an interesting sort of theology, explaining the Creation and God's powers within it. The young man leaves Maurice with a silver crucifix, as a sort of counter-weight to the silver figurine.
When the midnight meeting comes about, Underhill attempts to delight Maurice with a sort of holographic yet primitive pornography show; Maurice feels he is in a damp, murky cave, on the walls of which are projected bizarre sexual scenes. As the show becomes more terrifying, Maurice realises that Underhill has absented himself; when he hears his daughter crying out from the road in front of the inn, he realises Underhill's intentions. In the climactic scene, Maurice uses the crucifix to stun Underhill and runs outside, where he confronts the entity Underhill had used the figurine to conjure: the green man, a collection of branches, twigs and leaves in the form of a large and powerful man. The thing is bent, evidently, on killing Maurice's daughter Amy. By hurling the figurine back into the graveyard Maurice saps Underhill's power and destroys the green man. Underhill's purpose had been, apparently, to have Amy killed as a sort of experiment in lieu of the sexual depredations which are now forbidden him by his lack of corporeality.
A final scene wraps up the novel's loose ends: Maurice destroys the figurine, and he employs the modish, cynical and repellent parish priest (who makes God out to be, in the young man's words, a “suburban Mao Tse-tung”) to exorcise Underhill and his green man. Maurice wonders why a being like Underhill should have been drawn to him, of all the potential targets across all the centuries, and is humiliated by the possible explanations. Maurice's wife leaves him (for his mistress), but his daughter proposes, and he agrees to, a plan to move away from The Green Man and get a fresh start. Maurice is somewhat relieved, while recognising that he will remain until his death trapped in all of the faults, petty and otherwise, that constitute him as Maurice Allington.
Seven sorority sisters Katey, Vicki, Liz, Jeanie, Diane, Morgan, and Stevie celebrate their graduation ceremony at their sorority house, located at the far end of a sorority row. Their celebration is interrupted by their domineering house mother, Mrs. Slater, who denies the girls' plan to throw a graduation party. The girls, led by Vicki—scorned because Slater slashed her waterbed when Vicki covertly brought a boyfriend into the sorority house—devise a prank: They steal her walking cane and place it in the house's unused outdoor pool and force her at gunpoint to retrieve it. The prank goes awry when Vicki inadvertently shoots Slater, who appears to be dead. The girls agree to hide the body in the pool until their party ends, though Katey and Jeanie are reluctant.
At the party, an unidentified figure uses Slater's cane to stab a man walking in the woods. Meanwhile, after finding guests attempting to enter the pool, the girls realize that if the pool lights turn on, Slater's body will be revealed. Stevie goes into the basement to disable the breaker, where she is brutally stabbed to death by the killer. Later, the pool lights come on much to the girls' alarm, but Slater's body is nowhere to be found.
Deciding that Slater must be alive, the girls begin searching for her after the party comes to a close. Morgan enters Slater's room where Slater's body falls on her from the attic hatch. Vicki suggests hiding the body in the old cemetery. In the attic, Katey discovers children's toys and a dead caged bird. Morgan is subsequently stabbed with Slater's cane in her bedroom.
Diane goes to an outlying garage to start the van to transport Slater's body, but is murdered by the killer who breaks in through the sunroof. Shortly after, Jeanie is decapitated with a butcher knife in the bathroom. Meanwhile, Katey finds a medical alert tag on a necklace belonging to Slater. She calls the number and is put through to a Dr. Beck, who comes to the house. The two discover the bodies of Stevie, Morgan, and Diane in the pool. Meanwhile, after finding Diane missing, Vicki and Liz decide to drive to the cemetery without her to bury Slater's body. When they arrive, both girls are killed by the assailant. Dr. Beck accompanies Katey to the cemetery, where they find the bodies of Vicki and Liz, as well as Slater's body still in the back of the van.
After forcibly giving Katey a sedative at the house, Dr. Beck reveals that Slater had a son named Eric who was deformed and mentally underdeveloped thanks to an illegal fertility treatment he had given her. Dr. Beck uses Katey as bait so he can capture Eric and cover up his crime. Eric arrives and hacks Dr. Beck to death while Katey searches for Vicki's gun, which does not fire. She flees to the bathroom and finds Jeanie's severed head in the toilet. Horrified, she climbs to the attic where she is attacked by Eric, now wearing a clown costume. She shoots him repeatedly, only to realize the gun is loaded with blanks. She then uses a pin to stab Eric numerous times and he falls through the attic door to the floor below. Katey believes he is dead and rests from exhaustion. However, Eric opens his eyes as the film ends, leaving Katey's fate unknown.
One year after the defeat of Myrtani, the party, now stationed at Gargath Outpost, has had little to do. The outpost is soon attacked by undead forces. The party's old colleague, Sir Karl, is revealed to be brought back from the grave as an undead death knight under the command of the evil Lord Soth. Soth has been raising dead, great warriors and turning them into his own evil undead forces. His primary goal is to possess the body of the legendary hero Sturm Brightblade. He and his vast undead armies now threaten the land. It is up to the party to overcome this threat.
The party's ultimate goal is to storm Dargaard Keep and defeat Lord Soth. Along the way, it will travel to many towns and face numerous monsters. One particular monster, the Dread Wolf, will taunt the party many times until they finally fight the creature. The party may enlist the aid of the knight Sir Durfey at the Clerist's Tower. He will join and help the party for most of the game.
There are a few optional side quests the party can undertake if desired. The party can gain some extra experience points and usually some extra treasure items can be found.
Sinbad Jr. (voiced by Dal McKennon and Tim Matheson) is the teenage son of Sinbad, the famous sailor, and he traveled the world in his single-masted sailboat seeking adventure and wrongs to right, fighting such villains as the Bluto-like, big, black-bearded Blubbo and the mad doctor Rotcoddam ("mad doctor" spelled backwards).
Sinbad Jr. gained the strength of 50 men whenever he tightened his magic belt, causing the diamond-shaped buckle to flash like lightning and temporarily transform him into a mighty muscleman.
Sinbad Jr.'s first mate was his feisty and funny feathered friend Salty the Parrot (voiced by Mel Blanc).
At the beginning of the game, the characters are summoned by General Laurana to investigate rumors of evil creatures threatening the city of Caergoth. The heroes are quickly led to travel to another distant continent of Krynn, Taladas, where the forces of evil are hatching their plans.
Mr. Tickle's story begins while he is in bed, getting himself a biscuit without getting up, because of his "extraordinarily long arms." He then decides that it is a tickling sort of day, thus he journeys town to tickle people: a teacher, a policeman, a greengrocer, a station guard, a doctor, a butcher, and a postman. The book ends with a warning that Mr. Tickle could be seen at your door, wanting to tickle you.
It is a relatively unusual Mr. Men book where the main character is naughty, tickling everyone, yet there is no corrective action taken to mend his ways—Mr. Tickle is left free to tickle the next day, learning nothing from this.
Ethan Jenkins (Michael W. Smith) is a pastor who enjoys working with his well-to-do congregation. At the request of his father, Ethan takes an assignment at Second Chance Church, where he meets Jake Sanders (Jeff Obafemi Carr), a pastor who lives in a completely different world from Ethan's, and spends much of his time dealing with poverty, drugs, and crime. The two different lifestyles of these two pastors cause an inevitable conflict as these two men try to bridge the divide.
The episode opens on a deserted suspension bridge above the San Miguel River, somewhere in the Western United States.John Marriott et al. place the San Miguel bridge in California. According to Chris Bentley, Grandma's house is near the West Coast of the United States. Alan and Grandma Tracy (voiced by Matt Zimmerman and Christine Finn) are stranded on one of the towers in the sweltering midday sun. Next to them is device generating ultrasonic waves. Despite the heat, Alan and Grandma must remain still, for if they disturb the waves, the generator will detonate a bomb planted under the tower. Worse yet, even if they avoid causing their own deaths, the bomb is timed to go off at 1.00 p.m. regardless.
Alan slowly activates his wristwatch videophone and alerts Tracy Island. As Scott and Virgil (voiced by Shane Rimmer and David Holliday), along with Brains (David Graham), set off in ''Thunderbirds 1'' and ''2'' to rescue their brother, Jeff (Peter Dyneley) helps Alan focus by ordering him to explain how he and Grandma ended up trapped on the bridge.
Alan's story begins with his return to motor racing at the Parola Sands grand prix, where he is competing in a BR2 car whose engine has been specially upgraded by Brains. Despite foul play from rival driver Victor Gomez, who tries to push him off the track, Alan pulls ahead in the final seconds and wins the race. Embittered by this defeat, Gomez and his pit man, Johnny Gillespie, set out to eliminate Alan and steal his car. They make their first attempt on Alan's life at an automated car park while he is videophoning Grandma, who is leaving the US with Alan in order to take up residence on Tracy Island. Gomez and Gillespie force a car off its parking stack, crushing the videophone booth, but Alan has already left.
Driving the BR2, Alan collects Grandma from her cottage and the pair leave to rendezvous with ''Thunderbird 2''. They are halted by Gomez and Gillespie, who divert them to the bridge, force them onto the tower at gunpoint, then seize the BR2 and drive away...
Landing ''Thunderbird 2'', Virgil and Brains activate pod vehicles: Brains the Neutraliser Tractor, Virgil the Jet-Air Transporter. Brains uses the tractor's electromagnetic pulse to disable the ultrasonic generator, then Virgil drives the transporter onto the bridge. Alan and Grandma jump into the transporter's air cushion, which gently lowers them to the ground. The Tracys clear the bridge just before the bomb explodes, destroying it. Meanwhile, Scott chases Gomez and Gillespie in ''Thunderbird 1''. The criminals lose control of the BR2 and are killed when they plunge off a cliff, crashing into the canyon below.
Back on Tracy Island, Alan keeps still while Virgil paints his portrait, observed by Scott. Unknown to Alan, the painting is not true to life, but an imaginative avant-garde piece. When the joke is revealed, Alan gets his own back on Virgil and Scott by sending the platform they are standing on down to the ''Thunderbird 3'' launch bay.
The game is played through the perspective of an unnamed woman whose husband, Michael, suddenly inherits a large mansion in Anchorhead, Massachusetts, from family that he wasn't aware existed. The previous owner, Edward Verlac, killed his wife and daughter before taking his own life under mysterious circumstances. The game itself is split into 4 "days", each of which contains a set of puzzles that are required before the advancement of the next. On arriving in town, the car breaks under strange circumstances, stranding them in town without contact with the outside world. Croesus Verlac, the family's founder, has been possessing many of his male heirs in sequence, and begins to possess Michael. Croesus is attempting to summon a Great Old One named Ialdabaoloth, who takes the corporeal form of a multi-tentacled comet and is heading towards Earth at alarming rate. The protagonist sabotages Croesus' machine to summon Ialdabaoloth, saving the world. An epilogue shows that the protagonist is pregnant, raising concern that Croesus may attempt to possess her child if it is a son.
''The Riders'' tells the story of an Australian man, Fred Scully, and his 7-year-old daughter Billie. Scully, as she is known, and his wife Jennifer have planned to move from Australia to a cottage they have purchased in Ireland. His wife and daughter are due to arrive in Ireland but at the airport only Billie arrives, traumatised and unable to tell her father what has happened or why her mother put her on the plane alone. The story follows Scully and Billie as they travel around Europe retracing the steps of their previous travel, trying to find Jennifer and work out why she left them.
The game's premise takes place in an alternative universe, wherein 1988, an economically crippled Soviet Union pursues military action against NATO. The United States deploys the bulk of its troops to reinforce Europe, but in doing so are caught off guard when in November 1989 the Soviet Union invades the Northwestern United States at Seattle. Lieutenant Parker, the player's character joins with Captains Mark Bannon and James Webb in the retreat from the city under Colonel Jeremiah Sawyer, who held a previous command in Europe over all three. Under Sawyer's command, the Soviet advance is temporarily stalled, and the U.S. manages to win a tactical victory in the town of Pine Valley.
By Christmas, Soviet troops launch a new offensive to capture Fort Teller, the headquarters for the Strategic Defense Initiative. Knowing that should the Soviets realize that the project is a ruse (thereby exposing America to a nuclear strike) Sawyer and his command are ordered to intercept, delay and ultimately halt the Soviet advance on the facility. At the garrison town of Cascade Falls, Sawyer leads an initially successful defense against the Soviets. However, he is soon informed that the Soviets have deployed fresh reinforcements to the town, which is too many for his already under-strength forces to hold against. Sawyer is granted clearance to detonate a tactical nuclear missile above the Soviet formations, retreating just prior to impact. Bannon however volunteers to stay behind, knowing the Soviets will become suspicious should the Americans flee. The nuclear blast destroys the assaulting Soviet forces, as well as Bannon and his company.
In the days following the outbreak of the war in Europe, Sawyer, as well as Bannon and Parker, are deployed to France to assist French forces in a counterattack against Soviet forces near Marseille. Bannon's arrogant lust for war-glory begins to aggravate Sawyer, which during a major operation inadvertently causes the death of Commandant Sabatier, Sawyer's French liaison. Sawyer is then deployed alongside Norwegian special forces on a raiding operation inside the Soviet Union. Bannon however sullies the operation by accidentally killing surrendering civil-defense volunteers, and is unable to prevent the escape of a Soviet ''Typhoon''-class submarine at berth near Murmansk. Fed up of Bannon's incompetence, Sawyer arranges for his transfer out of his battalion. Prior to rotating back home though, Sawyer and his battalion are rerouted to New York City to assist U.S. Army Rangers in recapturing Ellis, Governors and Liberty Islands from Spetsnaz commandos.
Going back to the immediate aftermath of the nuclear detonation, Parker makes contact with Webb and several friendly and hostile stragglers, before reuniting with Sawyer. They also learn that the Chinese have entered the war on the side of the Soviet Union, and have sent a fleet to reinforce the Soviet beachhead in Seattle. The U.S. President orders Sawyer's forces to retake Seattle before the Chinese can land, but also makes plans to destroy the Chinese fleet as well as the city of Seattle with a nuclear missile should Sawyer fail. After successfully penetrating through the Soviet perimeter, U.S. forces successfully re-capture the city. The Chinese, lacking the amphibious means necessary for a landing, turn back.
Adam Chance (Peter Mark Richman), works for an American agency, H.A.R.M. (Human Aetiological Relations Machine). He is assigned to protect Dr. Jan Steffanic (Carl Esmond), a recent Soviet defector who has developed a new weapon which fires spores that upon contact with skin slowly eat the body away.
Following Dr Steffanic's arrival in the US he is taken into protective custody by H.A.R.M. and is placed in a beach house along with his niece and Agent Chance to develop a spore antidote. Here he reveals the communists' real plan, which is to dust all of the American crops with these deadly spores. During their time at this house Chance falls for Steffanic's niece Ava Vestok (Barbara Bouchet), who is later revealed to be a communist spy. After the flat is attacked, Dr Steffanic is kidnapped by European spies and taken to a warehouse. Chance eventually rides in and a gun fight ensues in which Steffanic is exposed to the deadly spores in a valiant sacrifice, and dies. Afterwards, Chance re-appears at the beach house and arrests Ava for good.
Nicolas is a 24-year-old Londoner, a witty wastrel and the novel's archetypal anti-hero. He hates his job in his late father's glass-making business, where he works under the odious Nimek in anticipation of making full partner one day. He dreams of inheriting untold riches from his Uncle Bela in Vancouver, which will put an end to his current servitude. His bossy Irish girlfriend Maura continually presses him to make something of himself. His one true love is his car, an MG, which he bought on an impulse, and its maintenance keeps him in permanent hock to the garage owner "Ratface" Ricketts.
A note arrives from a lawyer called Stephen Cunliffe, stating that his Uncle Bela has died in Canada and left him a fortune. He goes to see Cunliffe, who forwards him a sum of £200 to tide him over until such time as he can begin to enjoy the fruits of his new estate. However, Nicolas manages to spend this allowance in a matter of days, and returns to Cunliffe's office to request a further advance.
However, Cunliffe now declares that Uncle Bela is very much alive; that he, Cunliffe, is in fact a moneylender, and that Nicolas owes him £200, with the MG as security. The distraught Nicolas is told that he can discharge his debt if he is willing to carry out a simple assignment in Prague. He is to bring back a formula for a glass-making process from a glass factory that used to belong to Pavelka, an associate of Cunliffe's who also happens to have been a wrestler in the past.
Nicolas travels to Prague. It is the city of his childhood, and he stays in a plush hotel on Wenceslas Square. He is given a tour of the Czech glass-making industry, and spends the night with his guide Vlasta Simenova. He takes with him a "Norstrund" guidebook, which he is to leave on a desk in the glass factory during his tour. The formula is hidden inside the book, which he collects at the end of his tour.
Returning to England, Nicolas's debt is written off and he is paid a further £200. However, Cunliffe informs him that the formula is incomplete and requests him to make a second trip. He takes a new Norstrund.
On the second trip, Maura gives him another Norstrund as a present, so he has two. He tours the glass factory as before, and returns to his hotel. His waiter Josef attempts to drug him, and while Nicolas pretends to sleep, Josef finds one of the Norstrunds and starts to cut it open. Nicolas "wakes", and Josef leaves. Nicolas sees that there is a document made of rice-paper hidden in the spine of the book. Reading it, he sees that it concerns British nuclear secrets, and he realises that he has been a patsy. Instead of smuggling glass-making secrets out of Prague, Cunliffe is using Nicolas as a courier to smuggle British nuclear secrets out of England. On the second trip, Nicolas left the wrong Norstrund in the glass factory, which was empty. Josef then attempted to retrieve the document from Nicolas's room.
In a panic, Nicolas flushes the document down the toilet. He leaves the hotel and tries to get to the British embassy. However, he realises he has left his wallet and passport in the hotel room. He returns to the hotel where he is beaten up by StB agents, who think he has given the document to someone else. He cannot reveal that he has destroyed it, otherwise they would kill him.
Nicolas escapes, and hides out in Prague. He stays with Vlasta, but realises she is an StB agent because she has knowledge of him that he had not revealed to her. Eventually he is able to get to the British Embassy disguised as a milkman.
In the Embassy, he is interrogated and debriefed for ten weeks, and finally made to sign the Official Secrets Act. His knowledge allows the British to capture the Czech network in Britain, and Nicolas is sent home in a prisoner exchange for Cunliffe.
Finally, Nicolas receives a letter from his Uncle Bela, who is dying and wants Nicolas to take over his business.
Category:1960 British novels Category:Thriller novels Category:British novels adapted into films Category:Victor Gollancz Ltd books Category:British spy novels Category:1960 debut novels
The story starts in typical Silver Age comics series ''World's Finest''-style with Superman, Batman and Robin handing over the supervillain team of Lex Luthor and the Joker to the authorities. Bat-Mite and Mxyzptlk appear simultaneously, the former to see his hero, Batman, in action, and the latter to torment Superman. As the two imps clash, Superman, Batman, Robin, Luthor, and the Joker are killed, as are all the other heroes who come to their aid (including Batwoman, Bat-Girl and Supergirl, the Justice League of America, the Legion of Super-Pets, the Legion of Super-Heroes and the Spectre). Their fight eventually consumes the Earth, the universe and even the Phantom Zone.
As all of that reality has been destroyed, Bat-Mite flees to Earth-Two pursued by Mxyzptlk. Earth-Two is in turn destroyed. The rest of the book follows the formula of each new world they encounter being destroyed in the battle between the two imps, Bat-Mite fleeing and Mxyzptlk pursuing to another world/universe which is then destroyed. In the process they generally mock the characters/comics they encounter, often breaking the fourth wall and lampooning how seriously people "inside" comics take themselves, given the often unbelievable or silly circumstances they encounter.
Ultimately, having worked their way through to the ''Kingdom Come'' universe, Mxyzptlk simply throws a "magic bomb" at Bat-Mite who deflects it back with the helmet of ''Kingdom Come'''s Flash (the only thing that survived). Both are completely exhausted and begin to laugh, admitting that the whole thing has been a lot of fun. They reset reality to the Silver Age beginning, vowing to meet again "next Tuesday". The impression is given that the preceding events are a part of a common recreational activity among magical imps.
Sondra Wolf Dearborn is a junior operative in the '''Office of Form Control'''. Her job is to monitor questionable and illicit form change techniques, enforce the Humanity Test, and prosecute illegal mods. She is a recent addition to the force, arriving just three years after the retirement of the legendary Bey Wolf, one of the greatest form change experts alive. She is assigned to a strange case by her superior Denzel Morone: several instances in which the Humanity Test has been successfully applied, but the "infants," if they could be called that, are feral monsters. Knowing that there is no way the specimens could have (or should have) passed the test, and also aware of her own limitations and inexperience, Sondra seeks advice from Bey Wolf, her distant relative.
Bey Wolf resides on Wolf Island, a private resort he chose for the name and the isolation it provides. Having retired, he is pursuing his own research in animal Form Change, a fairly taboo subject. Sondra Wolf Dearborn arrives unannounced and uninvited, and he berates her before sending her off, telling her to visit the distant colony and inspect the Humanity Test equipment herself for possible flaws. He is ready to put her out of his mind when he receives another unwelcome visit, this time from Trudy Melford, president of BEC: '''Biological Equipment Corporation''', the manufacturer of all Form Change tanks for the last 150 years. Trudy Melford is one of the richest and most powerful people alive, and a personal visit to a remote island is evidence of great urgency and need on her part. Bey Wolf, annoyed by Trudy's interruption, is nonetheless intrigued by her offer of a position at BEC to work on revolutionary new forms. However, his natural cynicism and detective's instincts tell him that the two visits in such a short time are connected somehow.
Sondra Wolf Dearborn takes Bey Wolf's advice, after some initial stonewalling by her superior Denzel Morone, and heads for the outsystem. Generally regarded by Earth as a sparsely populated backwater, the '''Cloudlanders''' (referring to the Oort cloud) have an inverse view of themselves as the pinnacle of human civilisation, with Earth and the inner system a spent and tired cesspool of humanity. Sondra enlists the help of Bey Wolf's friend Aybee, a physicist and administrative genius, to further investigate the malfunctions and charter a flight to the Fugate colony, site of the first Humanity Test failure.
Upon arriving at Fugate, Sondra is unnerved to find that Fugates are tens of meters tall, a form designed to allow cerebral growth unrestricted by the constraints of the mother's pelvis. The Fugates guide Sondra to the supposedly flawed equipment, then leave her alone at her request. Sondra performs every test she can imagine on the suspect Form Change tank, but is unable to find any software problems. She also rules out hardware flaws after inspecting the unbroken BEC seals. Having concluded her investigation, she suddenly realises that she has been locked in the tank chamber and the atmosphere is becoming dangerously thin and cold. With no alternative, she sets up an emergency form change regimen in one of the tanks to put her in a cold-tolerant coma, and reluctantly steps inside.
Meanwhile, Trudy Melford successfully lures Bey Wolf to Mars, the new headquarters of BEC. Bey is astonished to find that the entire Melford Castle (her family's personal estate) has been moved to Mars brick by brick, ostensibly for tax purposes. Trudy, acting as the gracious host, treats him to a lavish dinner and all but promises her body to him, if he will only accept a position at BEC. She even opens up her database to Wolf, giving him full access to all of BEC's past, present, and future undertakings. Fascinated, Bey spends hours browsing through theoretical form change research efforts currently in progress. This experience heightens his suspicions; the BEC engineers are ingenious, what problem could possibly be so important and so intractable that it warrants Trudy Melford's personal recruitment efforts towards him?
Bey Wolf is beginning to realise that a very complex mystery is unfolding around him, and he has a hunch that the Humanity Test false positives are involved. He contacts Aybee and asks the Cloudlander to keep an eye on Sondra Dearborn, and even places a call to Roger Capman, another brilliant form change expert who has adopted a '''Logian Form''': a supersentient methane breathing human form. Roger Capman, along with all other Logians, lives in floating cities deep in the atmosphere of Saturn. Logians have a stated policy of noninterference in human affairs, although Roger Capman maintains a special relationship with Bey. Roger expresses great interest in the situation but offers little information.
Bey investigates further, and makes contact with the Mars Foundation, an organisation founded by the original Mars colonists and continued by their descendants. Their goals are lofty: the terraforming of Mars, and their resources are truly enormous. For the past hundred years they have been shuttling comets to Mars and smashing them into the equator, gradually increasing the humidity and thickening the atmosphere. Their hope is that humans will eventually be able to walk on the surface of Mars without a suit. They think Melford has recruited Bey Wolf to help her perfect the new "surface forms" that have been spotted recently on Mars; humans who vaguely resemble kangaroos, and are already able to live unassisted on the Martian surface. The Mars Foundation's request is simple: snub BEC, refuse the contract, and they would match Trudy's offer.
Bey had already discussed the surface forms with Trudy, and she had admitted that BEC was not behind the design, but she was interested in the possibilities (and profit) they presented. Assuming Trudy was telling the truth, there was a third party behind these new forms. Bey takes his leave and decides to venture out onto the surface, where he meets Georgia Kruskal, the genius behind the new Martian form. Bey recognises in her intellect and ingenuity a kindred spirit, and he immediately asks Georgia for permission to contribute to her project.
Aybee arrives at Fugate colony to discover Sandra in the form change tank. He and a puzzled Fugate revive her, and she claims to have survived a murder attempt. Her attempts to explain this to her supervisor back home fall on deaf ears, and he orders her back to Earth. Aybee encourages Sondra to make a stopover at Samarkand, because he has found a curious anomaly in the system traffic while looking for clues as to the identity of Sondra's attempted murderer: Trudy Melford's personal yacht recently paid a visit to Samarkand, a reclusive asteroid colony which has outlawed all form change. Why would the president of BEC visit a colony vehemently opposed to form change technology?
Back on Mars, Bey is also the target of a murder attempt. A helical escalator is sabotaged and he falls thirteen meters, breaking a leg and an arm. He barely manages to summon help before passing out, and is brought back to Melford Castle. He persuades Trudy to send him back to his home on Wolf Island, where he programs a dangerously rapid regeneration procedure into his customised Form Change Tanks; in just under a week, he'll be out and walking again. He's now convinced a major conspiracy is underway, and all signs point to Trudy Melford. Sondra is of the same mind, and she manages to arrange a meeting with Trudy herself.
Sondra and Bey confront Trudy, and they learn that she bore a child several years ago which failed the humanity test. Unable to relinquish her son to the organ banks, Trudy instituted a massive coverup and faked his death during a boating accident. She moved her corporation to Mars, not for the tax breaks, but to provide a safe and isolated haven for her illegal son. The visits to Samarkand were a diversionary tactic; if anyone got too close and suspected the truth, they would waste their efforts in a futile search of Samarkand's population. Trudy's ultimate goal was to undermine the legitimacy of the Humanity Test itself, by engineering defects into BEC equipment so that obvious non-humans would occasionally score a false positive. The murder attempts on Sondra and Bey were coordinated by her misguided underlings, attempting to win favour.
Bey promises Trudy that he will reveal to the whole system that the Humanity Test is flawed. In fact, both he and Roger Capman nearly failed the test when they were infants. The Test apparently rejects those with a certain psychological profile. For generations, the human race has been culling what could have been some of its most brilliant minds!
The revelation of Trudy's motives leaves another mystery unsolved: the enormous financial resources of the Mars Foundation. It is at this point that Bey Wolf confronts Roger Capman, who admits that the Logians have been interfering with human affairs after all. They have financed the whole terraforming operation on Mars to keep the human race from fragmenting and undergoing speciation. They foresee a time not far in the future when humans evolve into separate subspecies through isolation of populations. Bey realises that this same fear has been at the back of his mind for years, but he had been unable to articulate it. Roger Capman makes another attempt to convince Bey Wolf to join him in Logian Form, but Bey Wolf realises that he has many more years of life left to him as a human, and he intends to enjoy them and continue to contribute to human society.
Agents of the terrorist organization HYDRA invade a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility, killing Clay Quartermain and reviving a cryogenically preserved Baron Wolfgang Von Strucker. Nick Fury, retired, and living in an abandoned mine shaft in the Yukon, is approached by S.H.I.E.L.D. agents Alexander Goodwin Pierce and Contessa Valentina Allegra De Fontaine to return to duty to take down Hydra, now led by the children of Von Strucker, an old enemy of his. Fury refuses to return until he learns of Quartermain's death. He then accompanies Pierce and De Fontaine to a S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, where he reunites with old friends Dum Dum Dugan and Gabriel Jones, is introduced to telepath Kate Neville, clashes with new S.H.I.E.L.D. Director General Jack Pincer, and is shown advanced technologies that S.H.I.E.L.D. is developing, including a Life Model Decoy of Fury.
Shown a recording of Quartermain's death, with the killer taunting Fury by name, and informed that the killer was Von Strucker's daughter, codenamed Viper, Fury deduces that Von Strucker's body was taken to harvest a pathogen known as the Death's Head Virus, developed by Arnim Zola to be Hitler's doomsday weapon. Viper calls a meeting of the remaining four Hydra lieutenants from Cairo, Osaka, Prague and London. She executes the London lieutenant for questioning her authority. Fury learns that Zola is still alive and being kept in a S.H.I.E.L.D. safehouse in Berlin, Fury and De Fontaine travel there. They rendezvous with local Interpol agent Gail Runciter, and proceed to the safehouse, where an elderly Zola, in a wheelchair and requiring an oxygen mask, seemingly overpowers Kate Neville's telepathy with his evil visions of destruction. Runciter lures Fury away from the group and shocks him with a device before revealing herself to be Viper in disguise. She then kisses Fury with poisoned lipstick, leaving him unconscious, enabling Hydra to retake Zola. Fury learns he has 48 hours to live unless he can recover a sample of Viper's DNA from which to develop an antidote.
Hydra threatens to attack Manhattan with the virus, barring payment of US $1 billion, and as proof of their threat, the real Gail Runciter is found, dying from the virus. After Fury and his team brief the President of the United States, Pierce determines from a chip from a laptop sold in the Aleutian Islands that the Hydra base might be there. Fury has his people split into two teams, one led by de Fontaine heading to Manhattan to find the refrigerated truck they believe will be needed to deploy the virus, and the other with Fury leading Pierce and Neville to the Aleutian Islands. Upon arriving in the Aleutian Islands, and confirming that a Hydra transmission has come from there, Fury's plane is shot down by heat-seeking missiles. In Manhattan, de Fontaine's team figures out that the refrigerator truck is disguised as a garbage truck, while Fury and his team, having bailed out of the airplane in time, infiltrate the Hydra base.
Fury realizes that it was too easy to get in, just before his team is captured and stripped of their weapons. Viper reveals to him that she will release the virus even if they are paid, and locks Fury and his team in a freezer. Fury reveals that in place of his missing left eye, he keeps an explosive with which they are able to escape. Reaching Viper's control room, Fury and Viper fight until she gets hold of a gun and shoots him. However, it turns out to be Fury's Life Model Decoy. Fury incapacitates Zola and captures Viper, and Neville uses her telepathy to draw the code to abort the detonation from Viper's mind. The Helicarrier arrives, and captures the rest of Hydra's forces, but Viper escapes with the body of her father. Fury decides to return to S.H.I.E.L.D. to counter the new threat of Hydra, while Viper is shown to have restored her father, Baron Wolfgang Von Strucker, to life.
The short film is set within the ''Matrix'' universe, shortly before the discovery of "The One" (in ''The Matrix''). It tells a story of two rebels, Dante and Medusa, operating out of a ship called the ''Descartes'', and of their fateful mission onto the virtual world of the Matrix.
The film opens with the insertion of Dante and Medusa into the Matrix. They materialize inside a machine-shop and quickly move across the city while talking to their Operator, who is guiding them on their mission. The night's objectives are simple: Medusa is to break into a high-security building in order to steal important data. Dante is to provide a distraction so the Matrix will not discover Medusa's presence.
Dante heads for a particularly rough nightclub populated with cyberpunks and goths. After dispatching the two bouncers, he quickly picks a fight with two goths who mock Dante's "normal" appearance. The Operator - who is in constant contact with Dante via his cellphone - helps coordinate the fight so it coincides with Medusa breaking into the high-security building and taking out a team of security officers.
The nightclub brawl culminates with Dante delivering a superhuman kick to one of goths, which alerts the Matrix. The system promptly dispatches an Agent to take care of the situation and it begins chasing Dante. He leads the Agent on a dangerous wild goose chase cross the city, keeping Medusa free to carry out her work.
Unfortunately things suddenly go wrong. A security officer, missed by Medusa during her entry, discovers her presence and hits the alarm, meaning she has to flee. Dante's goose chase now becomes a frantic dash to get to an exit point - the nearest being the machine shop they first appeared in, but he is unable to shake the Agent from his tail.
Dante is trapped and Medusa is out of time. He realizes he must fight the Agent - even though it means certain death - in order to buy time for Medusa to escape with the information she's hacked. He tells the Operator to get Medusa out and then, chanting the mantra "free my mind" to himself, he throws himself at the Agent. During an epic kung-fu fight he is able to hold off the Agent until he sees an opportunity to escape. He decides, though, to not race to freedom, but continues the fight until he is eventually thrown against the machinery and his chest is pierced by a steel pipe, killing him.
As Dante dies, Medusa makes it back to the car and to safety - unaware of Dante's immense sacrifice for her own life.
Eko is a priest in Australia. An associate gives him a counterfeit passport before he is sent to investigate a miracle of a drowned young girl named Charlotte, coming back to life on the autopsy table. At first, it appears that the miracle is genuine. Eko then consults the girl's father, Richard Malkin, the psychic that Claire visited in "Raised by Another". Malkin claims that the girl survived naturally (probably thanks to the mammalian diving reflex, which is more pronounced in young individuals), and that Charlotte and her mother are simply pretending that there was a miracle because they resent the fact that he is a fraudulent psychic. Eko reports that a miracle did not take place.
In the final flashback, Eko, about to board Flight 815 , is confronted by Charlotte at the airport, who tells him that she saw Yemi while she was between the worlds and that his brother is proud of him. Angered, Eko starts to yell at Charlotte, who is interrupted by Libby, asking if everything was all right. Charlotte tells Eko that he'll see Yemi again.
In a dream, Mr. Eko is chopping wood with his axe on the beach. He has visions of Ana Lucia and his brother, Yemi, saying that he must help John, who has "lost his way", by having John take him "to the question mark".
Michael (who had just freed Henry after shooting Ana-Lucia, Libby, and his own arm) stumbles out of the hatch, claiming that he has been shot in the arm by a person unknown to him (knowing they would think it was Henry). Sawyer, Kate, and Jack discover the shooting victims — Ana-Lucia is dead, and Libby is near death. When Michael realises that Libby is still alive, he is fearful that she will reveal the truth of what actually happened; Jack asks Sawyer for the heroin to 'make Libby comfortable'. He also asks Kate to go with him, giving him the choice of disclosing the location of the guns, or allowing Libby to die painfully. Sawyer resentfully agrees, and the guns turn out to be in a secret compartment inside his tent.
Eko offers to track down Henry Gale, with the assistance of Locke, but after they have left he reveals that his real goal is to force Locke to take him to the question mark, where they discover the burnt plane containing Yemi. They camp at the site, and Locke has a dream in which Yemi is on top of the nearby cliff. After he wakes up, Eko climbs the cliff and from the top looks down and is able to see a giant question mark etched in the grass adjacent to the plane. He climbs back down, and with Locke's help pushes aside the plane to find a hatch hidden underneath.
Inside the hatch, there are chairs, TV monitors, and pneumatic tubes. Locke places his map in one of the tubes and it is swept away. Locke also finds another computer terminal with a command prompt: ">: PRINT LOG? Y/N". Locke inputs Y, and a nearby dot-matrix printer begins to print out what appears to be an extensive list of timestamps. Eko also finds another Orientation movie of the Dharma Initiative from 1980, narrated by Dr. Marvin Candle, now going by the name of "Mark Wickmund", where it is revealed that the hatch they are in is "Station 5: The Pearl", and it was made to observe the other station(s) and record how the subjects react to things of great importance. Wickmund reveals that those in the other hatches are undergoing a psychological experiment and the pneumatic tubes are used to send information back to the DHARMA Initiative. Locke thinks that he has been played a fool, and does not believe the button to have any use. However, Mr. Eko believes that pushing the button is highly important, and he will continue to do so if Locke stops.
At the Swan, Hurley requests to speak to Libby, and he tearfully apologizes to her for forgetting the blankets. In her dying breath, she says, "Michael!", with a look of terror in her eyes. Jack, mistaking her horror as fear for Michael's safety, assures her that Michael is fine. Hurley starts to cry, as does Kate, Sawyer hugs Kate and she cries in his arms. Locke and Mr. Eko are seen making their way back to The Swan, as the timer starts to sound, the numbers needing to be entered into the computer; the episode ends with Michael in the armory, looking gravely toward the doorway, his plan unfolding.
Thirteen days ago, Michael asks Locke for a gun. Though Locke cooperates, Michael knocks him unconscious, and then heads to the computer to receive directions on how to find his son, Walt. Jack arrives unexpectedly; Michael confronts him and locks both him and Locke in the armory, before setting off to rescue Walt. En route he is captured by the Others and is taken to another location. He is then greeted by Mr. Friendly and various Others, shortly before the former's encounter with the survivors in "The Hunting Party". When alone with Michael, Alex tells him that Mr. Friendly is just sending them a message to scare them. She then asks Michael about Claire and her baby. Michael is dragged to the Others' camp, where they appear to live in makeshift tents. A woman identifying herself as "Ms. Klugh" asks questions about Walt's childhood. She eventually explains that she wants Michael to return to his camp to free Henry Gale. Michael demands to see Walt, and she agrees, giving him three minutes to talk. Michael is then reunited with his son. Walt informs Michael that they make him take "tests", and he cautions Michael that the Others are "not who they say they are". Ms. Klugh threatens Walt by telling him that he will be sent to "The Room" if he says anything revealing, and Walt is subsequently taken away after throwing himself at Michael, begging him to save him. Ms. Klugh tells Michael that he and Walt will be set free if he brings four people from his own camp to the Others. She gives him a slip of paper, which contains the names: Jack, Kate, "James Ford" (Sawyer), and Hurley. She states that Michael bring his companions back if he is ever to see Walt again. Michael agrees, but also demands that he and Walt are given the boat in return.
Michael debates with the other survivors as to who should accompany him to the Others' camp. He does not tell them about his instructions, but insists on limiting the number to the names that were on the paper. When Sawyer informs Michael that he has recruited Sayid, Michael protests and directly tells Sayid that he is not coming. Michael also fails to convince Hurley to go, despite reminding him that Libby was killed. Sayid suspects that Michael has been "compromised" by the Others, and decides to work on a new plan with Jack to try to regain an advantage. On the beach, Charlie brings a DHARMA kit, containing vaccine and a pneumatic injector, to Claire for her and Aaron to use. Later, Charlie struggles to construct the church, as Vincent approaches with a Virgin Mary statue, which contains heroin. Charlie follows Vincent back to Sawyer's hidden stash and discovers the other statues. Charlie decides to throw all of them into the ocean and Locke observes that Charlie has overcome his demons. During the funeral for Libby and Ana Lucia, while the survivors stand around their graves, Locke cuts away his splints and starts walking without crutches again. After saying a few words about Libby, Hurley tells a visibly relieved Michael that he is going to join his expedition to the Others' camp. At this point, the funeral is interrupted by Sun suddenly spotting a boat coming towards the island.
200px The film opens in 1940 Manhattan during a violent evening thunderstorm. From a radio network's studio, broadcaster Larry Lawrence exposes the crimes of underworld boss Frenchy Duval. In her hotel suite, while listening to Lawrence on the radio, Mary Carter is visited by Mr. Parada, a sinister Cuban solicitor. He delivers her the deed to her inheritance—a plantation and mansion in Cuba. Despite Parada's objections, Mary decides to travel there by ship to inspect the property. Not even a phone call from the mysterious Mr. Mederos can convince her to stay put. Cut to the radio station, where Larry Lawrence has finished his broadcast. He receives a phone call from Frenchy Duval, who invites Larry to his hotel. Coincidentally, Frenchy lives on the same floor in the same hotel as Mary. When Larry arrives, a bullet-ridden comedy of errors ensues. Looking for cover, Larry ducks into Mary's suite, where he takes refuge in her large open trunk. Unaware of Larry's presence, Mary locks the trunk and arranges for its transport to the harbor.
Later at the dock, Larry's valet Alex searches among the luggage bound for loading and finds Larry among them. Although not in time to prevent the trunk's transfer to the ship's hold, Alex manages to get on board in order to extricate his employer before the ship sails. During the trip, Larry and Mary strike up a flirtation. Later, they meet an acquaintance of Mary's, Geoff Montgomery, a young intellectual who regales them with tales of Caribbean superstitions, particularly voodoo, ghosts, and zombies. Upon reaching Havana, Mary, Larry, and Alex go to the small island locale of her new estate. En route they find a shack occupied by an old woman and her catatonic son, whom they believe is a zombie. The imposing plantation manor proves to be a spooky edifice indeed. They begin to explore the long-abandoned, cobweb-ridden mansion and discover a large portrait of a woman who is nearly an exact likeness of Mary—most certainly an ancestor. Soon they are terrorized by the appearance of a ghost and the reappearance of the zombie. Are these real, or are they a ruse to frighten Mary away from her inheritance?
Nasim, a poor Afghan refugee in Pakistan, gives a demonstration in his town's square where he rides his bicycle without stopping for seven days and seven nights, with the aim of raising money for life-saving surgery for his dying wife. In the end, even after seven days, he continues to pedal endlessly, too fatigued to hear his son's and the crowd's pleas to get off his bicycle. One scholar analyses the film as an allegory which parallels the exploitation that Afghan refugees suffer from in Iran and from which they are unable to escape.
Mr. Peabody is a gifted anthropomorphic dog who lives in a penthouse in New York City with his adopted human son, 7-year-old Sherman, and tutors him by traveling throughout history using the WABAC. They visit Marie Antoinette in Versailles during the French Revolution in 1789. Getting caught in the Reign of Terror, Peabody is nearly sent to the guillotine to be executed by Maximilien Robespierre, but escapes with Sherman through the Paris sewers.
In the present day, Sherman attends the Susan B. Anthony School on his first day, while Peabody struggles to come to terms with Sherman's growing maturity as he fears of losing his bond with him. Sherman's knowledge of the apocryphal nature of the George Washington cherry-tree anecdote leads to a fight with one of his classmates, a bossy girl named Penny Peterson, in the cafeteria where she puts him in a chokehold, accusing him of being a dog since he was raised by Peabody. Peabody is called in by Principal Purdy as Sherman had bitten Penny in self-defense, and also confronted by Ms. Grunion, a Child Protective Services agent, who suspects that Sherman's behavior is due to being raised by a dog and plans to visit to their home to investigate whether or not he is an unfit parent. Peabody invites Penny and her parents, Paul and Patty, over for a dinner party before Ms. Grunion arrives. Penny calls Sherman a liar for claiming first-hand knowledge of history. Despite Peabody's contrary instructions, Sherman shows Penny the WABAC to show proof and takes her into the past, where she stays in Ancient Egypt in 1332 BCE to marry King Tut. Sherman returns to get Peabody's help. Peabody hypnotizes the Petersons and heads to Egypt to stop the wedding. Penny initially refuses to leave, hoping to achieve Tut's riches after he dies, until she is informed that she as well will be killed alongside Tut during the wedding and escapes with Peabody and Sherman.
While trying to return, the WABAC runs out of power, so they stop at Renaissance Florence in 1508 where they meet Leonardo da Vinci and Lisa del Giocondo, pioneering Mona Lisa's famous smile. Penny and Sherman explore da Vinci's attic and find his flying machine. Penny goads Sherman into flying it, which he manages to do before crashing. Da Vinci is thrilled the device works, but Peabody is upset that Sherman was almost killed, while also having destroyed a historical artifact. When they resume their journey, Sherman learns of Ms. Grunion's plot to take him away and enters a fight with Peabody. As they feud, a black hole in time makes them crash-land during the Trojan War in 1184 BCE. Upset about Peabody not trusting him, Sherman runs away and joins the army of King Agamemnon in the Trojan Horse, but reconciles with him during the battle. During the final parts of the Trojan War, Penny and Sherman are trapped inside the Horse as it rolls towards a ravine. Peabody saves them but seemingly dies during the attempt, causing Sherman to break down in tears while Penny comforts him.
Feeling bad for his actions, Sherman decides to go home and pilots the WABAC to a few minutes before they left in the present to get Mr. Peabody's help to fix everything, despite Peabody's earlier warnings to never return to a time when they existed. As Sherman and Penny try to explain the situation, Sherman's earlier self shows up. When Grunion arrives, Peabody tries to conceal from the Petersons the presence of two Shermans; but the second Peabody arrives back from Ancient Troy, complicating the situation. Troy Peabody reveals he survived the crash, much to Sherman's relief. Grunion attempts to collect both Shermans, but they and the Peabodys merge which generates a massive cosmic shockwave. Grunion grabs Sherman and hurts him while attempting to take him away. The enraged Peabody bites Grunion in retaliation, and she calls the New York Police Department. Peabody, Penny, and Sherman race to the WABAC, but cannot time-travel from a rip in the space-time continuum caused by the merging of their cosmic doubles. The collision causes a portal to appear above New York and historic objects and figures, many from earlier parts of the story, rain down everywhere in the city.
Mr. Peabody crash-lands the WABAC in Grand Army Plaza at the base of William Tecumseh Sherman's statue. Historical figures and police officers quickly surround them, while Grunion calls in animal control to arrest Peabody. Sherman explains everything was his fault, but Grunion contends that it is all because a dog cannot raise a boy. Sherman counters with if being a dog means being as loving and loyal as Peabody is, then he is proud to be a dog as well. Penny, her parents, the historical figures, and others all make the same pledge. George Washington grants Peabody a presidential pardon which is supported by Abraham Lincoln and Bill Clinton, forcing the authorities to leave Mr. Peabody alone. When larger objects such as the Sphinx, the RMS Titanic and the Florence Cathedral begin falling through the rip, the people of the present and the past are forced to brainstorm ideas to prevent disaster. Peabody and Sherman take off in the WABAC and travel into the future for a few minutes; successfully undoing the damage. The historical figures are dragged back to their respective times, with Agamemnon abducting Grunion back to his own time as she vows revenge on Peabody.
Sherman returns to school, having become great friends with Penny, and finally begins to develop his relationship with Peabody further, officially referring him as his father. History has become contaminated with modern traits; Tut throwing a New York-themed party, da Vinci and del Giocondo pioneering pop art, Washington and Benjamin Franklin competing over the value of the banknotes with their respective faces on them, Albert Einstein becoming enraged when he is unable to solve a Rubik's Cube, Robespierre failing to use a taser properly, and Grunion and Agamemnon married in the Trojan Horse by Odysseus after Grunion accepts his love.
In 1973, during the Yom Kippur War, an Israeli warplane carrying a nuclear bomb is shot down. In 2002, a Syrian scrap collector uncovers a large unexploded bomb buried in a field in the Golan Heights. He sells it to a South African black market arms trafficker named Olson, who recognizes it as a nuclear bomb. He then sells it to a neo-fascist group led by Austrian billionaire Richard Dressler, whose aim is to start a war between the United States and Russia that will devastate them both, and leave a united fascist Europe to rule the world.
Just prior to this, in the United States, President Robert Fowler and his national security team, including CIA Director William Cabot, stage a war game scenario where Russian President Zorkin is overthrown in a coup and rogue generals launch a nuclear attack on the Americans. Shortly after the drill, Zorkin dies of a heart attack and is rapidly replaced by a seeming hardliner supported by the military, Alexander Nemerov.
CIA analyst Jack Ryan, who has studied Nemerov and believes him to be a reformer who merely talks like a hardliner to gain their support, is summoned by Cabot to accompany him to Moscow to inspect the top Russian nuclear weapons facility, in compliance with the START treaty. At the Kremlin, they meet Nemerov and his personal aide, former KGB agent Anatoly Grushkov. Nemerov requests they deliver a personal message to Fowler, asking him and the US to remain out of Russia's war in Chechnya and let Nemerov stabilize Russia in his own way. During their investigation of the weapons facility, Ryan notices the absence of three scientists listed on the facility's roster; Grushkov assures them the scientists are merely unavailable. After receiving reliable intelligence from a confidential secure informant (codenamed "Spinnaker“) inside the Kremlin disputing Grushkov's assessment, Cabot sends operative John Clark to Russia to investigate.
Tensions between the United States and Russia increase when a chemical attack on Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, is reported during the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Ryan tries to defend Nemerov by indicating that rogue military commanders could have ordered the attack instead, but his theory is disproved when Nemerov delivers a speech to the State Duma taking responsibility for the attack. In response, Fowler deploys peacekeepers to Chechnya. In Russia, Grushkov informs Nemerov that disgruntled Communist officers ordered the attack on Grozny, and Nemerov orders them removed from command, choosing to take the blame for Grozny rather than risk alienating more figures of his military.
Clark tracks the missing scientists to a former Soviet military facility in Ukraine, where Cabot suspects they are building a secret nuclear weapon that Russia could use without any method to trace it back to them. Ryan and his colleagues discern that a crate from the facility in Ukraine was flown to the Canary Islands, then sent to Baltimore on a cargo ship. Ryan warns Cabot, who is attending a football game in the city with Fowler, about a bomb threat. Thanks to Ryan's warning, Cabot evacuates the president fast enough to get him out of the stadium before the detonation, but not fast enough for the motorcade to escape the bomb's shock wave. The stadium is destroyed, though Fowler is evacuated by the Marines; Cabot is mortally wounded and left behind. Gathering his national security team aboard a Boeing E-4, they conduct a real-life situation similar to the film's beginning but with far more confusion and heightened emotions from all those involved. In Russia, President Nemerov desperately tries to defuse the situation over the hotline, but must face American assurance of Russian culpability and his own generals' desire to attack the US.
Immediately thereafter, a corrupt Russian Air Force general who has been bribed by Dressler sends warplanes to successfully attack a U.S. aircraft carrier, heavily damaging it; this further exacerbates tensions between Russia and the United States. On the scene of the blast in Baltimore, Ryan learns from a radiation assessment team that the isotopic signature from the nuclear blast indicates it was manufactured in the United States Department of Energy's Savannah River Site, evidence which apparently exonerates Russia. Using Cabot's recovered phone, Ryan contacts Spinnaker, his source in the Russian government. Ryan is informed that the uranium was produced in an American facility and was stolen by the CIA in order to be secretly given to Israel (until they lost it during the Yom Kippur War). In Syria, Clark tracks down Ghazi, one of the men who found the bomb, now dying of radiation exposure. He tells Clark that he sold the bomb to Olson, who lives in Damascus. Ryan's colleagues at Langley infiltrate Olson's computer and download files that implicate Dressler as the person who bought the plutonium and who is behind the nuclear attack.
Ryan is able to reach the National Military Command Center in the Pentagon using Cabot's ID, and manages to get a message to Nemerov, using the personal rapport they had developed when they had met in Moscow and saying that he knows that Russia was not behind the attack. He asks Nemerov to stand down his forces as a show of good faith. Nemerov agrees to do so and Fowler follows suit. As Nemerov and Fowler sign an agreement to counter nuclear proliferation at the Kremlin, the participants in the conspiracy are tracked and assassinated: Olson is killed by Clark in his home in Damascus, the corrupt Russian general is gunned down by Russian agents, and Dressler is blown up in his car by Grushkov.
Later, Fowler and Nemerov deliver joint speeches about their new initiatives and honoring the dead at the White House, as Ryan and his now fiancée Dr. Catherine Muller listen in. Grushkov, revealing himself to be Spinnaker, arrives and offers to continue the arrangement he had with Cabot with Ryan, to ensure the back channels between Russia and the United States always remain open. He also gives Catherine a present for their engagement, which they notably had not yet announced to anyone. When Ryan asks him how he could have known, Grushkov merely shrugs, smiles and walks away.
Couples Joel and Sophie, Sam and Sammie and Isaac and Claudia are dining with writer Art Witz. The latter talks about his new book, in which he argues that monogamy is a lie and that people are by nature alienated. The three couples react furiously. Feeling insulted by Art's views, they end the dinner.
The next day, Isaac buys a wedding present for his wife Claudia in an antique shop. He has sex with the salesgirl. Later, he and Joel attend a hockey game where he seduces another woman, having wild sex back at her apartment. Meanwhile, Claudia searches for Art and ends up in bed with him, admitting that she and Isaac have been polygamous for a long time, but hide it from their friends.
Jewish lawyer Joel receives an erotic massage in an illegal massage studio. He suffers from his guilty conscience. He is plagued by nightmares and decides to tell his wife Sophie the truth. His brother Reuben advises against it. Reuben is a geeky ne'er-do-well, with a penchant for obese women,
Medical student Sophie meets secretly with her medical professor Dr. Lionel Taft, and sleeps with him. She then realizes that she loves her husband. Joel confesses the event to Sophie, while she keeps her affair secret.
Sam, a chef working for a toy catering company, is about to marry his pregnant fiancé Sammie. He is a fan of pornography, which he keeps secret from his fiancée. When she discovers that, she fears that he can cheat her as well. Sammie hires a private investigator, who in turn decides to use a woman as bait for Sam. He, however, resists the woman's charm, which Sammie registers with great relief. The film ends with a scene depicting Sam and Sammie's wedding, which their friends attend as guests.
The film tells the tragic story of British noblewoman Fanny Horn (Edit Szalay) and Jesuit priest Heredia (Jan Englert) against the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War. A rich young aristocrat who has spent her preceding years in a decadent lifestyle, Fanny falls in love with Heredia; however, although the priest feels the same, he places his fanatical devotion to his faith above their attraction. Fanny follows Heredia to a typhus outbreak at a camp near Pena Ronda and volunteers to work as a nurse under his command and to finance the camp. Nevertheless, the conditions at the camp are appalling and deteriorate sharply as the civil war begins. Fanny gradually becomes increasingly desperate with the fanatic and inhumane behaviour of Heredia, who turns out to be deeply involved in the plotting of the anti-republican side in the civil war. As Heredia continues to reject her love, and as she eventually witnesses his fanaticism take several human victims, Fanny shoots him. Her psychological breakdown has led her to begin taking morphine, which will eventually lead to her own demise.
An oddball animal biologist local field researcher named Marshall Clarke (Simon Bossell) is investigating the disappearance of local wildlife, and stumbles upon an unidentified slimy residue. Meanwhile, a woman named Amy Harding (Pamela Gidley) moves into her old cabin in the woods of Langdon, where she spent her family holidays as a child, along with her cat, Frankie, a large sum of money, and all of the personal belongings. While attempting to make the cabin habitable, Amy realises that a moist substance has spoiled a piece of cake she is about to eat and fears she may have mice. Outside, she meets Mr. Peterson (Norman Forsey), looking for his dog Florence, which was killed by an unseen creature, he tells her to get out of Langdon.
She goes to the general store owned by Mrs. Miller (Helen Moulder), and asks her for some mouse traps, but she says that they are out of stock and instead tries some insect repellent. Back at the cabin, she discovers that Frankie's bowl is empty, and she gives him canned food. As she takes a bath, the lights goes out and she goes to her shed to check the generator. While there, slimy residue falls into her hair. Amy returns to the general store where Mrs. Miller loans her a poison sprayer. There, she meets Marshall and explains her situation, who drives her back to the cabin when her own car breaks down. As they get back to the cabin, they search the kitchen and something bites Amy's hand. Marshall discovers the remains of Amy's cat Frankie on the bathroom floor during the search. They finally kill one of the lizard-like creatures, which Marshall reveals to be a mutant gecko that can spit blinding venom to paralyze its prey. They attempt to leave in the middle of a snow storm and drive away before crashing.
They eventually approach Mr. Peterson's cabin and find that, it too, has been infested by the creatures as they devour his body. Amy blows up Mr. Peterson's cabin, and in the process, his truck, too. They now have no other alternative but to take refuge in Amy's cabin until the storm passes. As they fight for their lives, Marshall is attacked and blinded by the poisonous venom of one the lizards, while Amy sacrifices her goldfish by a drowning lizard, only to discover that the creatures are amphibious, forcing her to electrocute it by throwing a lamp into the fishtank. She then completely destroys the remaining eggs in the attic.
The following morning Marshall realises that his eyesight has returned when he awakes to the sound of someone outside. He meets Amy's ex-boyfriend Uri Romanov (Valery Nikolaev), who knocks Marshall unconscious. Amy finds new eggs hatching in the closet before encountering Uri, where it is revealed that Amy's real name is Alex and that she fled him with her own money, which he claims is his. She attempts to lead Uri into a trap by telling him the money is in the closet, but to no avail, when he shoots down the lizards. Amy eventually gives in and tells him that the money is in the attic. Amy then attacks Uri where he falls into the fireplace causing eggs to fall onto his head and lizards begin to eat him alive, prompting Amy to shoot him repeatedly. She and Marshall set the cabin on fire, but fails in her attempt to accumulate the money before the cabin burns down.
They both escape in Uri's car as the cabin burns. The car starts to break down and Marshall goes to look under the hood, where he finds eggs hatching in it. Suddenly, lizards start pop out of various places inside the car, attacking Amy. Marshall tells her to unlock the door after she accidentally locked it in her panic. He takes a cigar she had lit and throws it into the gas tank, blowing up the car while simultaneously killing the lizards. He carries an unconscious Amy to the general store and insists Mrs. Miller help him extract a lizard that has eaten through Amy's leg. When it is removed, it causes Amy to scream in pain. When Marshall is searching the store for lizard, he is unaware that it is killing Mrs. Miller. He manages to locate a flare gun, but before he can finish loading it, the lizard attacks him and begins to scratch and bite him. Suddenly, Amy shows up and grabs the flare gun, shooting the lizard in the mouth. Sent flying, the lizard hits the wall and explodes. Amy and Marshall collapse on the floor and kiss.
The movie loosely follows the plot of Huxley's novel, but adds a twist to the end.
Just as Bernard Marx is about to take over the job of Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning, replacing the disgraced previous director, Lenina informs him that she is pregnant with his child. She conceived it the night that John Savage fell to his death. She did not use her birth control that night. Bernard suggests that she say it was an accident and have an abortion, but she makes it clear that she will not, and so prefers banishment.
Bernard lets her go – secretly – and takes the job he has aspired to throughout his career, but he is soon unhappy, and no amount of Soma can change that. He has seen and learned to appreciate genuine emotions and human experiences thanks to knowing John, as has Lenina. As a result, Bernard follows Lenina into exile from society.
Director Mustapha Mond looks for Bernard at their scheduled meeting, and is handed a note. The messenger explains that Bernard got away from society by authorizing a trip for himself. Mond laughs out loud to himself, indicating that he will not pursue them. The final scene shows a beach with Lenina and Bernard. They appear to be playing with their natural born daughter on the shore.
The novel concerns the life of Georges, the son of a wealthy mulatto planter named Pierre Munier, on the French colony of Mauritius. While also being a mulatto, Georges is very light-skinned to the point where he can pass for being white. As a child, he witnesses the British invasion of Isle de France. Because Pierre is a mulatto, the other planters on the island (who are all white) refuse to let him fight alongside them. Instead, Pierre leads a group of Black militiamen and successfully rout a British column, saving the lives of many of the planters. Refusing to acknowledge that a person of colour saved them, the other planters ignore Pierre's accomplishment.
Henri Malmédie, the son of a wealthy planter, begins to mock George for the treatment meted to his father, resulting in a fight breaking out between the two. Afterward, concerned about possible retaliation from Henri's father, Pierre father sends Georges and his older brother Jacques to France to be educated. In France, the brothers are separated when the older brother gets a job on a merchant ship. Georges becomes cultured, deeply educated, and popular in Parisian high society. Through numerous tests of will, Georges overcomes his weaknesses and becomes skilled in a variety of fields, ranging from hunting to the art of seducing women.
Upon his return to Mauritius, he finds that the planters have forgotten who he is. In little time he becomes the toast of society, and a beautiful woman falls in love with him. He also discovers that his brother has become the captain of a slave ship. However, Georges cannot tolerate the injustice of slavery, so he conspires with the enslaved population on the colony to lead a slave revolt against the French planters. When this revolt fails, he is incarcerated and condemned to death. While Georges is being brought to be executed, Jacques and his men save him, Sara, who has married Georges, and Pierre. They then sail off, but are pursued by a Royal Navy ship (Britain still being at war with France). After a naval engagement, the British warship is sunk and they escape.
Edwina "Eddie" Ferguson, an attractive but clumsy nurse, who often accidentally injures potential suitors, cannot find romance at the 4077th—or anywhere else, for that matter, as she confides to Margie Cutler. The other nurses at the Double Natural discuss her problem and agree to put their romantic relationships with the doctors and corpsmen on hold until someone agrees to date Eddie.
Eventually, to end the romantic drought the doctors draw straws to be her date for an evening, and Hawkeye draws the short straw. Hilarity ensues as his best smooth operator technique collides head on with Eddie's innate klutziness.
Hawkeye and Trapper conspire to take down Colonel Buzz Brighton, a West Pointer who has accumulated twice as many casualties while only gaining half as much ground as other commanders. (This was the first of several such attempts by Hawkeye.) In an effort to have the colonel relieved of command, they convince him that Frank Burns is a homosexual and that Henry Blake is an alcoholic who is having a sordid affair with the promiscuous Margaret Houlihan.
These stories achieve the purpose of rendering Hawkeye and Trapper the only two people in camp Buzz can be sure are trustworthy. A little manipulation and some conveniently timed events add some apparent proof to these claims. For example, when Buzz is drinking with them in the Swamp, they leave a pair of gold high-heeled shoes by Frank's bed. Later, Frank tries to check Buzz's leg to see if it is healing properly, and he is rebuffed by Buzz, who suspects that he has romantic or sexual intentions.
When Margaret becomes suspicious, Hawkeye and Trapper tell her that Buzz is suffering from low self-esteem and hint that he needs intimate contact with a woman to prove he is still a man. While he is alone with Margaret, the Swampmen get Henry Blake very drunk, give him a pistol (telling him that he needs to take a firearms qualification test), arrange for him to walk in on Buzz and Hot Lips, and encourage an angry, drunken response from Henry.
Throughout the episode, they undertake more subtle measures to try to convince him that, among these people he cannot trust, he is going mad. Such measures include switching his tent, leaving him confused about whether it has been there the whole time; and telling him to drink his glass of milk that he so fervently asked for despite his never having asked for a glass of milk. At the end, convinced that there ''must'' be something wrong with him, Buzz is shipped back stateside.
In this episode's tag, Hawkeye makes a reference to "the Dick Haymes look." Haymes was a handsome pop singer in the 1940s and '50s, primarily remembered for his appearance in the 1945 film ''State Fair''.
Frank Burns throws his back out while dancing with Hot Lips in her tent. While recuperating in post-op, he puts himself in for the Purple Heart. Margaret justifies it by claiming that since the injury was sustained at a front-line unit (due to a "slip in the mud on the way to the shower"), technically that makes it battle-connected.
Hawkeye's old friend Tommy Gillis (James T. Callahan) appears at the 4077th. A reporter in civilian life, he is a combat soldier working on a book about life on the front lines called ''You Never Hear the Bullet''. The book relates that, unlike in the movies, a soldier who is killed does not hear the bullet. Tommy leaves for his unit just as wounded arrive at the compound. While operating on a Marine with appendicitis (played by Ron Howard), the doctors remark on how young he looks. Later, recovering in the hospital ward, the Marine asks Hawkeye how soon he can get back to the front so he can continue killing enemy soldiers. Hawkeye discovers that the Marine is only 15 years old, having used his older brother's ID to enlist to win back his ex-girlfriend. Hawkeye tells the Marine that a woman who cares about such things is probably not worth having.
Later in the episode, Tommy is brought in, having been shot by the enemy on the front lines. Just before being anesthetized, he tells Hawkeye that he had heard the bullet just before being hit, just like in the movies. Hawkeye suggests that ''Sometimes You Hear the Bullet'' is a better title anyway, and tries desperately to save Tommy's life. Unfortunately, Tommy dies on the table and Henry Blake orders Hawkeye to move away and help Trapper.
Henry sees Hawkeye outside crying for Tommy, and wondering why he never cried for any of the other men he has seen die while in Korea. Henry consoles Hawkeye by saying "There are certain rules about a war. Rule Number One is: Young men die. And Rule Number Two is: Doctors can't change Rule Number One." Not wanting to see another young man die, Hawkeye reports the underage Marine to Major Houlihan, sending him back home. The Marine tells Hawkeye he will hate him as long as he lives and Hawkeye says he hopes it's a very long healthy hate.
The Marine later forgives Hawkeye when Hawkeye presents him with Frank's Purple Heart.Wittebols, pp. 161-166
Hawkeye writes to his father again about several crazy events that take place at the 4077th, including his bet with Trapper John that he could walk into the mess tent naked and nobody would notice (he loses), the arrival of Captain Adam Casey (portrayed by Alex Henteloff), a Demara-esque fraud masquerading as a doctor, Frank becoming drunk, and Margaret's attempt to sing "My Blue Heaven" at the camp "No-Talent Show".
Hawkeye's line, "I have always relied upon the kindness of strangers" (at minute 6:49), is a reference to Tennessee Williams' play ''A Streetcar Named Desire'', with the line spoken by the character Blanche DuBois.
Hawkeye asks his father to "kiss sis, and Mom" in his letter to him. This is contradicted in later episodes which reveal Hawkeye as an only child with his mother deceased. He also mentions in "The Moose" that he always wanted a sister.
In the middle of a cold snap, Hawkeye receives a pair of longjohns from home. Hawkeye gives them to an ill Trapper out of sympathy and Trapper loses them to Radar in a poker game. The longjohns proceed to pass through the hands of almost everyone in the camp: Radar gives them to the mess cook (played by Joseph V. Perry) in exchange for a whole lamb roast with mint jelly, and the cook bribes Frank with them to avoid being demoted because of the unsanitary conditions of the kitchen. Frank gives the longjohns to an intimidating Margaret as a sign of devotion to her, before Klinger steals the longjohns from Margaret's tent. A remorseful Klinger then gives the longjohns to Father Mulcahy, who in turn gives them to Henry (but not until after he spends the night wearing them). Henry claims he will return the longjohns to their rightful owner but gets caught putting them on by Hawkeye and Trapper. Henry rebuffs Hawkeye's demand that the longjohns be returned but later gives them back to Hawkeye in gratitude for saving his life via an appendectomy.
Excitement runs high in the camp on the day of the Army-Navy football game, with several members of the 4077th putting money into a betting pool. As the game starts, the unit comes under enemy attack, causing some damage and injuries. When a bomb falls into the compound but does not detonate, the entire camp is thrown into a panic. Lt. Col. Blake starts calling various branches of the military, trying to find out who dropped the bomb, but the people he talks to are more interested in following the game. He eventually learns that the bomb was dropped by the CIA, then sends Hawkeye and Trapper out to defuse it. However, the poorly written defusing instructions cause them to accidentally start the timer on the bomb – which explodes and fires hundreds of propaganda leaflets into the air. As life in the camp settles down, Father Mulcahy wins the football pool, having placed the only bet on Navy.
The episode opens in a poker game. When it is interrupted by incoming wounded, Hawkeye and Margaret operate on a patient and Hawkeye insults Frank. However, Hawkeye's patient fails to improve after surgery. Hawkeye becomes overly concerned with the case, to the point of attacking Frank over comments at lunch, sleeping in post-op, snapping at Trapper for playing poker too loudly, and moving out of the Swamp to the supply tent. While Hawkeye retreats to the supply tent to reflect on the case, he is interrupted by his date (whom he turns away), Trapper (whom he turns away as well), two other soldiers, and Henry. Henry implies that Hawkeye is concerned more about his ego than about his patient. Hawkeye replies with a glib remark about Henry's intelligence, which ultimately insults Henry and allows Hawkeye some peace and quiet. While pondering the case outside the supply tent, Hawkeye encounters Margaret and she theorizes that they made a mistake during surgery, eliciting extreme doubt from Hawkeye, who in turn insults her. During the night, Hawkeye has an epiphany and reopens the patient to find a small piece of shrapnel damage behind the sigmoid colon, at which point Frank states that "anybody could have missed that." Hawkeye responds with a sincere "Thanks, Frank."
After witnessing Frank's berating of nurse Ginger Bayliss (Odessa Cleveland) for no reason, Hawkeye and Trapper console Ginger and set Frank up for one of their "getting even" pranks. This latest scheme succeeds where no other one has, as Frank finally demands that he be transferred to another unit. But when another prank embarrasses both Frank and Margaret over the P.A. system, she also demands a transfer. Hawkeye and Trapper are glad to be rid of the pair at first, but then learn that they will have to work double shifts until replacements arrive. To trick Frank into staying, the two surgeons lead him to believe that large deposits of gold can be found near the camp. His greed gets the better of him and he withdraws his transfer request, after which Hawkeye and Trapper humiliate him again by driving past him in a jeep that they have painted gold.
News of a ceasefire has reached the 4077th. Everyone celebrates and says their good-byes, except Trapper, who remains skeptical. The ceasefire does, of course, turn out to be a rumour, but not before Hawkeye tells three of his lovers he is married (which is a lie), shows the camp embarrassing pictures taken of General Clayton and Major Houlihan, forgives $1,500 worth of gambling debts, and gives away all of his possessions. Final appearance of Patrick Adiarte as Ho-Jon.
A USO show is held at the 4077th, consisting of a stand-up comic and a female singing trio backed by a small band. The performance is juxtaposed with scenes from everyday life in the camp. Henry's wife gives birth to a son. Though Henry is depressed by not being able to see his new baby, Radar cheers him up by arranging for one of the camp's laundry workers to let him hold hers. The camp dentist receives his discharge orders and takes great pains to avoid injury and illness before he starts his trip home, only to crash his jeep and end up in traction. Frank plays a series of practical jokes on Hawkeye, sabotaging the still to spray him in the face, causing a bucket of water to fall and soak him, and rigging the showerheads to malfunction when he tries to take a shower. Hawkeye gets the last laugh by collapsing the officers' latrine tent on top of Frank while he is using it.
The book is set just before the outbreak of World War I. It is an account of how the lives of the main characters were interwoven with the success or failure of secret naval talks between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the Russian Empire. In these, Britain had to win the support of Russia in order to make any headway with its navy. As a result, Tsar Nicholas’s nephew Prince Alexei was sent to London for high-level bilateral talks.
Lord Stephen Walden is married to Lydia, a Russian aristocrat. The young visiting Prince is her nephew and Walden was one of the people taking part in the talks. When Prince Alexei arrived in London, his presence aroused the interest of not only the establishment, but tragically that of Feliks, an anarchist.
Feliks, also a Russian, decided to assassinate Prince Alexei so that the Anglo-Russian negotiations would collapse. Having failed once to shoot the Russian prince, Feliks looked for alternative methods. Eventually, he learned that Lydia, his ex-lover, was married to Walden. He visited the Waldens’ home and was able to get details of the Prince’s whereabouts. But his plot was foiled when Lydia, guided by her intuition, realized that Feliks had evil designs and told her husband about Feliks’s visit.
As the drama unfolded, Walden’s daughter Charlotte got to know the effervescent Feliks. It was through her that he discovered once more about the hiding place of the Russian prince. It was about this time that Charlotte learned that her true father was not Walden, but Feliks. Lydia had been pregnant for two months before marrying Walden but this fact was unknown to Walden himself.
The story moved up to a crescendo with the Russian prince being hidden in the country home of the Waldens. Yet again, Feliks, the assassin, wheedled this piece information from Charlotte. With her active support, Feliks hid himself right in the Walden home while the Special Branch was combing the entire village for him.
At this point, Feliks decided it was time to make his move. He set the house on fire, which forced the prince to emerge to escape the flames. When the prince came out, Feliks shot him dead. But he himself lost his life in his attempt to save Charlotte who was trapped in the house by the inferno. When Walden later learnt of the paternity of Charlotte, he took it in his stride. For Feliks, it was a case of poetic justice.
In the final chapter, Winston Churchill - at the time First Lord of the Admiralty and having recent experience as Home Secretary - arrives on the scene and formulates a comprehensive plan for damage control: Disposing of Feliks' body, hiding that such a person ever existed and regretfully informing the Czar that his nephew died in the fire but had already signed the treaty. Thus - in common with the conventions of Secret History - the whole affair remains hidden from public scrutiny and the First World War breaks out on schedule, and goes on with its four years of mass bloodshed.
Every episode focused on the titular unemployed Swedish bachelor, in his early 20s and his best friend Benjamin. While neither seem to do anything constructive with their lives, they are involved in several misadventures, mostly resulting in a non sequitur ending. The following episode will feature no mention of past encounters.
The pair (or frequently, Robin alone) will have run-ins with the law, encounter drunks, flashers and other uneven characters.
Pikachu and his friends are left on a skyscraper in a Big City by their trainers, who go off to prepare an unknown surprise for the Pokémon. Pikachu meets the Pichu Brothers, saving the younger one from falling off an opposite building. A group of Murkrow chase Pikachu off a flagpole, and he uses a group of Hoppip to reach the other side, sending Meowth who is window-cleaning, flying into a billboard. The Pichu Bros. assist Pikachu to return to his friends but they end up going on a journey across the city to the Pichu Bros' playground. On the way, they get chased by a Houndour whom they later encounter again. The angry Houndour chases the three around until he nearly knocks the playground over. Pikachu, the Pichu Bros., Houndour and their assortment of friends manage to save the playground. Pikachu realizes it is nearly six o'clock and he must return to his friends before Ash, his trainer, does. Pikachu and the Pichu Bros. use a tire to get to the building, sending Meowth flying again. The three arrive in the nick of time, the Pichu Brothers departing. Ash, Misty and Brock arrive and take the Pokémon into a room where a party has been laid out for them in celebration of the first anniversary of Ash and Pikachu's meeting.
In 2009, the short's Japanese narrator, Sakai Noriko was arrested for drug possession and substance abuse. Ever since then, the short has not been released on any home media format and was even excluded from the 2010 ''Pikachu The Movie Premium'' boxset.
In the town of Greenfield, research scientist Professor Spencer Hale conducts research on the elusive Unown. He and his assistant, Skyler, discover a site of ruins, but Hale is sucked into the dimension of the Unown.
His disappearance leaves his young daughter Molly alone, her mother having disappeared previously. Molly finds a box of tablets containing Unown images and begins assembling the letters, which summons the Unown themselves. The Unown use their powers to make Molly's wishes come true, transforming her manor house into a crystal-like palace which spreads across the town and cuts her off from the world. An illusionary Entei is created to represent Molly's father. Various people come to help sort out the Unown, including Professor Oak and Delia Ketchum (Ash's mother).
Meanwhile, Ash and his friends meet and befriend a trainer named Lisa. They come into Greenfield in the process and agree to join in the rescue mission to save young Molly. However, Entei kidnaps Delia, following Molly's request for a mother as well. Entei's powers hypnotize Delia into thinking she is Molly's mother. Ash, Misty, Brock and their Pokémon head out to the mansion to save Delia, communicating with Oak and Skyler thanks to a PokéGear device given to them by Lisa. Team Rocket try investigating the mansion, but Entei blasts them into the depths of the mansion. Molly watches Ash's Bulbasaur and Chikorita in action through a television and falls asleep, imagining herself being a Pokémon Trainer. Seeing Ash on TV, Delia snaps out of her trance; however, Entei creates a dream version of Molly as an adult and takes her to battle the three. Molly first fights Brock, but Molly's dreamed-up Pokémon are stronger than his; Molly then has a more friendly fight against Misty in an underwater battle.
Ash locates Molly and Delia, and implores Entei to return his mother. Entei refuses, easily defeats Totodile and Cyndaquil, and tries killing Ash and Pikachu. Having witnessed the crisis on TV in Charicific Valley, Charizard rescues Ash and Pikachu. Entei engages Charizard in a duel and eventually tries to kill him. However, Molly (who now sees that her actions are causing more harm than good) thwarts Entei and tells him to stop fighting. Ash and his friends convince Molly to leave with them, Entei revealing he was created by the Unown to be her father.
The Unown suddenly lose control of their powers and start to seal the group in the mansion. Ash, Pikachu, Charizard, Misty, Togepi, Brock, Delia, Molly and Team Rocket escape down to the hall where the Unown are. Pikachu and Charizard attempt to break the forcefield protecting the Unown, but they are unsuccessful—until they are joined by Entei, combining their powers to destroy the shield with Molly's support. Entei sacrifices himself and the Unown return to their dimension, reversing all of their effects on the world and returning Hale to the ruins where he originally vanished.
The group ventures outside, where Oak, Skyler, Lisa and others meet them. Team Rocket hides in the mansion upon seeing the police outside and declare that they will always have another opportunity to catch Pokémon. Charizard and Lisa depart from Ash's company, and Molly reunites with her father as well as with her long-lost mother.
''Jade Cocoon 2'''s plot occurs 100 years after the events in the original ''Jade Cocoon''. The time of the Nagi people and "cocoon masters" has passed. New "cocoon masters" are now cited as "beasthunters" and are the prominent force of monster raising, with the player playing one named Kahu who visits the Temple of Kemuel in the hopes of becoming a beasthunter and having adventures like the old cocoon masters he's idolized. However, Kahu encounters trouble during his license exam required to become a full-fledged beast-hunter. He encounters a young fairy named Nico, who leaves Kahu cursed, and he's given a very short time to live before his body is consumed by evil. Kemuel Temple's resident guardian, Levant - the hero of the original ''Jade Cocoon'' - offers Kahu a chance to heal himself. By utilizing the four magical orbs found in the heart of the elemental forests and a dark lute, Levant will be able to save Kahu's life. Kahu now sets off on his adventure, to save himself and eventually the world. Other characters from the first Jade Cocoon also appear, like Kikinak, who became a rich shopkeeper thanks to Levant. A statue of Mahbu, the Nagi Maiden, can also be seen at the room where Levant is.
After some Bio Matter Converter technology is accidentally activated, Ratchet and Clank are transported inside a Secret Agent Clank vid-comic. Fighting off Megacorp security forces, including chickenbots, security bots, and security tanks, they manage to find a teleporter which takes them to the Communication Station, where transmissions can be sent out from the digital world and received from the analog one. They contact Big Al for help, and he tells them of the Macro Corporeal Geo Fragmentation Ion Negator (MCGuFIN), which could transport them back to the analog world. He says he possesses one (previously used as a door stop) and he will plug it into his copy of the Secret Agent Clank vid-comic for them to retrieve.
There is a problem, however, and the MCGuFIN is split into six pieces, each winding up inside a different vid-comic. After travelling between the vid-comics and retrieving them all, Ratchet and Clank return to Al, who informs them that they need the Infolink located in Maximillian's (Secret Agent Clank's nemesis, seen in the beginning of ''Up your Arsenal'') office. After bribing his bouncer they discover that Maximillian has already left. He has apparently used the Infolink to escape to the analog world, where he plans to wreak havoc. They go to confront him and he reveals that it was all a trap to try to take the MCGuFIN. They defeat him and his security cannon, activate the MCGuFIN by sliding down the appropriate Infolink, and prepare to transport themselves back to an unknown place in the analog world.
This left an opening for an eventually-cancelled sequel, which would have been called ''Ratchet & Clank: Clone Home''.
Jeremy is a 28-year-old man working at the summer camp where he spent a childhood summer and where he found a true sense of family after the death of his father. Jeremy now works at the camp as an assistant director.
He becomes infatuated with Max, a disturbed 14-year-old. When Max confides in him that he has been sexually abused by the camp director, who was a victim of sexual abuse himself, Jeremy realizes just how close he came to actually committing the same crime.
A young man, Norbert, enters his father's study to claim his monthly allowance. His father obliges, but Norbert presses for more, citing a debt he owes a schoolmate. The father dismisses him, and an appeal to his mother fails. Norbert tries to pawn his watch to a friend, who instead gives him a forged 500-franc note.
The boys take the counterfeit to a photo shop and use it to purchase a picture frame. When the store's co-manager finds out, he scolds his partner for her gullibility. She chides him in return for having accepted two forged notes the previous week. He then decides to pass off all three forged notes at the next opportunity. He uses them to pay Yvon for delivering heating oil.
Yvon tries to pay his restaurant tab with the forged notes, but the waiter recognizes them as counterfeit. Yvon is arrested, and the photo shop people lie at his court trial. Yvon avoids jail time, but he loses his job.
One of the owners of the photo shop recognizes Norbert on the street with a group of his school friends, and she approaches the school authorities and accuses him to them. When the Chaplain quizzes some of the students about the counterfeit bills, Norbert leaves the classroom. At home, his mother advises him to deny everything, and she goes to the photo shop with a bribe for the owners to let the matter rest.
Lucien, the photo shop assistant who committed perjury for his employers at the trial by refusing to recognize Yvon, is scamming them by marking up prices while they are out of the shop and pocketing the difference. He is discovered and fired, but has made copies of the shop's keys. He and two friends rob the shop's safe and begin an ATM card skimming operation.
In need of money, Yvon acts for a friend as the driver of a getaway car for bank robbers. The police foil the robbery and arrest Yvon, who is tried and sentenced to prison for three years. While in prison, Yvon learns of his daughter's death and his wife's decision to start a new life without him. He fails in an attempt to commit suicide.
Lucien and his accomplices are eventually caught and arrested, and Lucien is sent to the same prison as Yvon. Lucien offers to include Yvon in a prison break attempt, but Yvon refuses. Yvon blames Lucien for his troubles and wants revenge. Lucien proceeds with his escape plan but Yvon and his cellmate hear commotion in the hallway that indicates that Lucien has been caught, and Yvon's cellmate speculates that Lucien will probably be transferred to a more severe maximum-security prison.
After being released from prison, Yvon murders and robs a pair of hotel keepers. He is taken in by a kind woman over the objection of her father. Some time passes, and one night Yvon kills them along with others in their house with an axe. He goes to a restaurant, confesses to a police officer, and is arrested.
The story begins in a small town in western Montana where New Jersey based bank robber Frank Salazar has been hiding out from the law after a series of bank robberies in Newark. Upon realizing that the local bank contains a large amount of cash, Salazar recruits four former accomplices to come to town and help him rob the bank. Among them are Nick Bartkowski, a nervous and possibly alcoholic safecracker; Max Green, an old school explosives expert with a heart condition; Ray Forgy, a young, wisecracking auto thief and getaway driver; and Carlos Barrios, a well-manicured lookout and weapons expert.
Before they can arrive, however, two New Jersey detectives (George Denver and Bill Lonigan) catch up with Salazar, arrest him, and extradite him back to New Jersey. But Salazar soon escapes and becomes hopelessly lost in the Montana wilderness as he flees Denver and Lonigan's custody.
Unaware of Salazar's arrest and escape, the four accomplices arrive and realize that he is nowhere to be found. They finally decide to take down the bank on their own but must go through several humorous ordeals before they can complete their plan. The four successfully rob the bank and escape. Salazar is caught shortly thereafter and accused of the robbery, despite having not taken part. Learning that his police bail has been set at $1 million, three of the four (against Bartkowski's wishes) decide to use their loot to rescue Salazar.
Possessing a reputation for bringing criminals to justice, ready-to-retire bounty hunter Jonathan Corbett (Lee Van Cleef) is summoned to a party by a Texas railroad tycoon by the name of Brockston (Walter Barnes), whose daughter is getting married. Brockston plants the seed that Corbett should consider a run for the Senate, but not before doing one last bounty hunt.
Brockston offers Corbett his political backing in exchange for tracking down a 12-year-old girl's accused rapist and murderer, who goes by the name of Cuchillo (Tomas Milian), a Mexican who is fleeing back to his native land. Cuchillo means "knife" in Spanish, which is the rascal’s weapon of choice. Corbett expects it to be easy, even offering to do it as a wedding gift.
Corbett sets out in pursuit of Cuchillo, who is not as dumb as he acts, and who is rather crafty at vexing Corbett at every turn. Corbett pursues Cuchillo into Mexico, where he is arrested when a fight starts in a brothel. Brockston pulls strings to free Corbett from jail and intercepts him, hiring a gang of mercenaries to find Cuchillo. Corbett learns that Cuchillo is innocent and in fact the witness that Brockston's alcoholic son-in-law, Chet Miller (Ángel del Pozo), was the rapist. Corbett misleads the mercenaries to confront Cuchillo with Chet himself. In the final showdown, Corbett provides a knife to Cuchillo to kill Chet, then killing Brockston himself. The two ride together from the scene before parting ways.
In the summer of 1938, the young Paul Moreaux, who lives in a town outside of Boston called Monument, discovers he can "fade", becoming invisible. His family has had this ability generation after generation; it is somehow passed down from uncle to nephew.
Bewildered and then thrilled with the possibilities of invisibility, Paul experiments with his "gift". He sees things that he should not witness. His power soon overloads him, shows him shocking secrets, pushes him over the edge, and drives him toward some chilling and horrible acts for which there is no forgiveness, no forgetting, and no turning back. Paul discovers how cruel, evil, and disgusting the world can be, and how the ability to fade becomes a nightmare.
Following the events of ''Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain'', Gabe sends a note to Mara Aramov. As she reads the note, a cracked scope appears from an adjacent balcony. It is quickly revealed that Gabe has sent Gary "Stone" Stoneman to kill Mara due to her manipulative role in the Syphon Filter fiasco. Also revealed is a private conference between Mara and Elsa Weissinger, who was conspiring alongside Mara; the duo being secret lovers.
Two years after the assassination of the treacherous Aramov and Weissinger by Stone, Gabe from the International Presidential Consulting Agency (IPCA) is summoned to Kemsynth Petroleum in Alaska by the U.S. government. A paramilitary group known only as Red Section has taken the complex. Upon heading into the Kemsynth facility, Gabe comes across and kills Red Section members Red Jack and Black King. Before Gabe could rescue any living hostages, two of them, Kreisler and Freeman, commit suicide, the former using a mysterious flower, the latter having swallowed a cyanide capsule.
A data disc reveals that the attack is connected to Kemsynth's botanical department in Peru in charge of making a new pesticide. The IPCA also learn that a former Agency operative, Addison Hargrove, who was Gabe's first partner romantically and professionally, is in charge of security. Gabe enters Peru to find the revolutionary forces allied with Red Section destroying Kemsynth's laboratories in Iquitos. Upon searching the area, Gabe saves Addison from interrogation by a Red Section member, Black Viper. Prior to their escape, the pair discover and retrieve samples of the rare plants found on Kreisler and Freeman before being ambushed by Red Section member White Scorpion. Gabe and Addison manage to kill White Scorpion and his henchmen, only for Addison to disappear after extraction.
The recently gathered intelligence leads Gabe to a weapons factory in Bosnia. As with Peru, a group of local rebels have been aided by Red Section. Here, Gabe rescues a United Nations soldier, Private Janzen. Gabe tries to reunite Janzen with his squad, only to find they have been slaughtered. The pair meet up with Kress, a Red Section mole posing as a UN medical officer. Janzen and an unnamed soldier are murdered by Kress while Gabe survives an ambush by rebel forces, ostensibly working for the traitor. Logan kills Kress and the rebel leader, Goran Zimovic, the latter having hijacked an M1 Abrams main battle tank. An upload of Kress's files from his laptop reveals the names of Red Section leaders: Touchstone and Singularity.
Gabe heads to Kaliningrad where his MI6 counterpart has installed recording devices in a casino serving as a Yavlinsky crime family front. (While in Yavlinsky's casino, Gabe discovers that Niculescu formerly laundered cash and weapons to Red Section and that Mara was an assassin hired by Yavlinsky eight years ago) After dealing with Victor Yavlinsky and his security forces, Gabe finds the MI6 recording devices and leaves the casino, killing Red Section elites in the process, the latter having been sent by Touchstone to liquidate any incriminating evidence due to Yavlinsky's death.
Gabe meets Addison in Warsaw where she tells him the reason she left the agency: she had a daughter whose name was Blake. Gabe tries to find out whether he is her father but Addison claims that she is only ten. Blake was kidnapped recently by Red Section to make Addison give them what they want. The deal is for Addison to meet Touchstone, the second-in-command of Red Section, at TransEuro Tram station in Zugspitze and turn over the disc containing information on Project Dark Mirror, the one she stole from KemSynth office in Iquitos, in exchange for Blake. Addison began having doubts about KemSynth creating a new DDT and tells Gabe she doesn't want to hand over the disc to Red Section.
They made a plan: Addison would provoke Touchstone into talking by bargaining with him while Gabe would take Touchstone out. They attempt the exchange, but Addison discovers Touchstone brought snipers with him. After failing to drive Touchstone into a bargain, Addison hits Touchstone. He pushes her over the railing into the valley, and to her apparent death. Gabe feels guilty and sorry and he fills up with fury and rage. He decides to complete Addison's last wish: save her daughter. He chases after Touchstone and defeats him. Prior to Touchstone's death, Gabe tells him that nobody chooses his death and throws Touchstone into the abyss.
After the confrontation, Gabe learns how Red Section was formed, and Singularity's real identity, Grant Morrill, an Interpol accountant who disappeared and started his own company, Aeroscience Integrated Technology (AIT). He stole whatever classified information he encountered to eventually begin his own organisation. Gabe and Lian head to AIT to end Red Section's future operations and save Blake. Inside AIT, he learns that Singularity developed electromagnetic super-armor which deflect projectiles, except those from electronic weapons. Gabe and Lian succeed in rescuing Blake, while Singularity hacks into IPCA's database. Gabe confronts Singularity in a bullet train station. Singularity has built canisters of the element known only as Project Dark Mirror, a nerve gas that could kill millions by fusing with oxygen molecules. In the battle, Singularity mocks Logan's previous operations, referencing the events of the previous games, and further taunts Gabe that they are equal. After uttering his last words, Logan kicks Singularity in front of a moving train, which kills him. Logan reunites with Blake and Lian.
Gabe heads to Addison's mausoleum at Arlington National Cemetery a week later and leaves a flower, the same flower Singularity used to genetically engineer the nerve gas Dark Mirror. In a post-credits cutscene, Addison re-appears behind Gabe, telling him that she faked her death. She prepared her death in advance and tied herself with a bungee cord to the railing. Gabe is upset that she once lied to him.
Blake comes inside and greets Gabe. He honors her as the bravest ten-year-old he's ever met. She corrects him, by saying she is twelve, not ten: Addison left him, and the Agency, twelve years ago because she was pregnant with his child and didn't want her involved. Gabe attempts to tell Blake the truth about himself, but is stopped by Addison, who states that Gabe will never want to leave the Agency, and that he could end up causing indirect harm to Blake. Gabe reluctantly lets them leave.
A bonus level in Bangkok takes place after the AIT assault. Jimmy Zhou, a gang leader tries using the avian bird flu as a weapon against his rivals. Gabe kills the birds and learns that Zhou has taken Lian hostage. Inside his penthouse, Gabe faces an army of Zhou soldiers, including one with a Gatling gun. Gabe manages to rescue Lian and kills Zhou.
Peter Cottontail is a young Easter Bunny who lives in April Valley where all the other Easter bunnies live and work, making Easter candy, sewing bonnets, and of course, decorating and delivering Easter eggs.
Colonel Wellington B. Bunny, the retiring Chief Easter Bunny, names Peter his successor, despite his boasting, irresponsibility, and lying. Peter, who has dreamed of being the Chief Easter Bunny almost his entire life, gladly accepts. However, an evil bunny named January Q. Irontail, who lives all alone except for his bat Montressor also wants to become Chief Easter Bunny, only so he can ruin Easter for children as revenge after a child once roller-skated over his tail, forcing him to wear a prosthetic one made of iron. Irontail demands that Colonel Bunny hold a contest to see who delivers the most eggs, according to the Constitution of April Valley. Peter accepts the challenge, but stays up all night, partying with his friends. Although he tells his rooster Ben to wake him up at 5:30 in the morning, Irontail sneaks into his house and feeds the rooster magic bubblegum, sealing his beak and Peter sleeps on, not hearing the crows from the popping bubbles. Though Irontail tries all day long to deliver eggs with unsuccessful results, he is only able to deliver one single egg. However, it's still one egg more than Peter delivered, so Irontail becomes the new Chief Easter Bunny, passing laws to make Easter a disaster, such as painting eggs brown and gray, ordering the candy sculptors to make chocolate tarantulas and octopuses instead of bunnies and chicks, and having Easter galoshes instead of bonnets. Meanwhile, Peter, ashamed that his bragging led to this tragedy, leaves April Valley in disgrace until he meets Seymour S. Sassafras (The narrator), an eccentric peddler and inventor, who supplies April Valley with the colors to paint the eggs with from his Garden of Surprises, from red, white, and blue cabbages and purple corn to striped tomatoes and orange string beans. Sassafras then lets Peter use his Yestermorrowbile, a time machine piloted by a caterpillar named Antoine, Sassafras' assistant who will take Peter back to Easter to deliver his eggs, win the contest, and defeat Irontail. Unfortunately, Irontail finds out about Peter's plan and sends his spider to sabotage the Yestermorrowbile's controls, allowing Peter and Antoine to go to any holiday but Easter.
Since the rules of the contest don't specifically say that the eggs must be delivered only on Easter, Peter tries to give his eggs away at other holidays, but without success. On the 4th of July, Peter paints the eggs red, white and blue and lies to two boys by passing them off as firecrackers, which ultimately fails. Then, on Halloween, Peter meets a witch named Madame Esmeralda and gives her a Halloween egg as a gift, making the score a tie. When she calls the other Halloween inhabitants, Irontail sends Montressor out to steal Peter's eggs. After getting the eggs back, Peter tells Antoine they have to get back to Halloween, but they can't go back since Antoine has to land the craft to fix it. After failing to give any of his eggs away on Thanksgiving, Peter and Antoine go to Christmas Eve where Peter, dressed as Santa Claus, tries to give his Christmas eggs on the streets, which are completely deserted. Then Peter hears sobbing from a nearby hat shop where he meets Bonnie, an Easter bonnet who had left April Valley years ago. Bonnie's sad that nobody wants to buy her, so Peter tells the shopkeeper that he'll trade his Christmas eggs for Bonnie. Unfortunately, Irontail steals them again and Peter and Bonnie go after him, accidentally leaving Antoine behind. During the chase, Irontail and Montresor crash into Santa's sleigh where Santa demands Irontail give the eggs back to Peter. Santa returns the eggs, but Peter is too sad to thank him since they left Antoine behind. Afterwards, Peter and Bonnie are unable to land on New Year's Day but land on Valentine's Day where Peter meets a beautiful female bunny named Donna and he gives her a Valentine egg. However, Irontail finds the eggs and casts a spell on them, turning them all green, inside and out.
After failing to give the green eggs away on Presidents' Day, Peter vows to be more honest and responsible. He and Bonnie end up landing in the middle of St. Patrick's Day, which gives Peter another chance to give away his eggs — this time, Peter's successful and wins the contest, finally becoming the Chief Easter Bunny. Antoine returns as a butterfly and Irontail works as the janitor of April Valley while Peter leads a parade with all the characters from the story.
The game takes place somewhere within the timeline of the third season of ''The X-Files'' series. The story follows a young Seattle-based FBI agent named Craig Willmore (played by Jordan Lee Williams) who is assigned by Assistant Director Walter Skinner to investigate the disappearance of agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, who were last seen in the Everett, Washington area. In order to follow their trail, Agent Willmore must use a variety of tools along the way, including night vision goggles, a digital camera, PDA (an Apple Newton), and lock picks, as well as law enforcement gear such as an evidence kit, standard-issue handgun, handcuffs, and even his badge. During his assignment he is partnered with a Seattle Police Department detective named Mary Astadourian (played by Paige Witte), and a minor romantic subplot involves a relationship developing between the two.
Several of the actors from the TV series reprise their roles in the game, including David Duchovny (Mulder), Gillian Anderson (Scully), Mitch Pileggi (Skinner), Steven Williams (X), Bruce Harwood, Tom Braidwood and Dean Haglund (The Lone Gunmen) and—very briefly and depending upon the outcome of the game—William B. Davis (The Smoking Man). The game is set and was filmed in Seattle. The TV series actors filmed their relatively brief appearances in the game just before entering production on the feature film. The game's plotline involves aliens taking over the bodies of humans and contains many references to the show's extraterrestrial mythology. During the course of the game the "present day" date of April 1996 is displayed alongside certain locations, placing this "episode" after the season three episode "Avatar" and before "Wetwired" , which take place March 7 and April 27 respectively. This time is also after the first incident with the alien black oil in the episode "Piper Maru" of the third season.
The screenplay for ''The X-Files Game'' was written by Richard Dowdy, Greg Roach and Frank Spotnitz, from a story by Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz.
Jerry is sitting in a mouse-sized chaise longue reading ''Good Mousekeeping'' and eating cheese, which he is pulling off a mousetrap that has been set just in front of his mousehole. When his doorbell rings, he opens the door but does not see anyone; Nibbles zips through the door under his nose. Jerry shrugs in confusion, but then turns to see Nibbles pulling on the cheese in the mousetrap. He whisks him away just before it springs. Jerry then finds a note pinned to Nibbles' red scarf (which matches his cap, both trimmed with white fur). Nibbles is the orphan whom Jerry had agreed to host for Thanksgiving. A postscript on the note warns: "He's always hungry".
Jerry's cupboards are empty, so he carefully leads Nibbles to a big bowl of milk in front of where Tom is sleeping peacefully. Jerry warns him to be quiet, and holds him over the bowl. Nibbles takes a nice loud slurp, awaking Tom just as Jerry pulls Nibbles back into hiding. Tom does not see anyone, so he slurps his milk and goes back to sleep. Jerry holds Nibbles out to catch the last big drop that falls from Tom's whisker, but the bowl is now empty.
Then Nibbles sees Mammy Two Shoes place a large turkey on the already laden table. Jerry climbs up to the table, and drops a long piece of spaghetti, which Nibbles slurps his way up. Nibbles begins to eat three bites of all kinds of food (and a candle), but Jerry again saves him from disaster when, bouncing off a gelatin or Jello, he almost lands in piping hot soup. Jerry takes decorations from the table and dresses himself as a pilgrim with a hat and blunderbuss, and Nibbles follows his example. Nibbles then takes a whole orange in his mouth, swelling his head, but Jerry hits Nibbles on the back of the head, causing the orange to fly out of Nibbles, and into a sleeping Tom's mouth, then rebounding back and forth in his guts, thoroughly waking him up.
Tom, seeing the mice getting into the Thanksgiving dinner, puts on a feather duster, first as a general camouflage, but then as a Native American headdress. Tom approaches Nibbles, who points his toy blunderbuss at Tom. Tom lowers his chin, knowing this will not hurt him. What really comes knocking the feline out of his bliss is Jerry popping a champagne cork, which hurls into his face. Tom then grabs Jerry, but Nibbles, purposefully this time and carrying a fork, ricochets off the jello and stabs Tom in the hind end. Tom howls in pain and then uses the fork to catch Nibbles, and Jerry, perched on a candelabra, whacks Tom in the face with a large spoon, knocking him back.
Sneaking back to the table, Tom sets a bowl of cattails on fire one at a time, throwing them like spears. The cattails burn or melt the various hiding places Jerry and Nibbles find. With the third one, Jerry lifts a hemispherical lid and the cattail reverses back toward Tom. Then Tom throws a knife into the turkey and Jerry runs into the blunt edge, at his throat, and falls unconscious.
Nibbles now launches an all-out attack: he bends back a knife handle to launch a pie; using the string between the turkey legs he slingshots a candle (though Tom does not feel any pain) ; and after cutting a cork off a champagne bottle, it begins to rocket at Tom, ultimately making Tom and the room into a terrible mess. A white surrender flag comes up from the pile of dishes Tom has fallen under.
Finally, all three, with Tom bandaged, and order on the table restored, sit down to dinner. All bow their heads while Jerry says grace. But just as Tom and Jerry pick up their cutlery, Nibbles goes through the entire turkey like a buzz saw, leaving the famished cat and mouse with nothing to eat but the bones that have clattered to the plate. Nibbles, now finally full, pats his huge stomach in delight.
The game is set during the television series' seventh season, after the season's second episode, "The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati". The game is divided across three levels, which are presented as new "episodes" titled "Renascence", "Resonance", and "Reckoning". Each level begins with the series' opening credits sequence.
A spacecraft crashes in Tunguska, Russia on June 30, 1908, resulting in the release of the "black oil" alien virus. The crash kills a Russian couple, and the virus infects their baby. In the present day, 15-year-old twin sisters Katlyn and Mandy Winslow have disappeared from their hometown of Red Falls, Colorado, but they reappear two weeks later, coinciding with three mysterious deaths that are believed to have been committed by a man who died in a drunk-driving accident 24 hours prior to the murders. Most of the residents believe that the girls, who are practitioners of witchcraft, revived the murder suspect so he could commit the killings.
FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder (voiced by David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (voiced by Gillian Anderson) are sent to Red Falls to investigate the murders. The agents split up upon their arrival and encounter zombies. Mulder eventually finds the body of Mandy Winslow, hung in the town center. The agents reunite, and Mulder is later bitten by a zombie. Scully, who is also a medical doctor, performs an autopsy on the zombie and creates an antidote to save Mulder from the effects of the bite wound. The agents locate Katlyn Winslow, who subsequently flees from them and is later found dead.
The agents infiltrate the nearby Briar Lake mental institution, where they discover vials of black oil and learn that the Winslows were the subject of science experiments due to the fact that they shared a psychic connection. They also discover clones of the Winslow girls, and encounter Alex Krycek (voiced by Nicholas Lea), who tells them that the clones are using powers to release an alien artifact. Krycek escapes, and the artifact is taken by a ghostly entity, while Mulder and Scully are forced by soldiers to evacuate the city on board a helicopter. The soldiers decline to specify who sent them. From the air, the agents notice Red Falls is now in fiery ruins as part of a cover-up. Mulder is dissatisfied with the lack of evidence to present for the investigation, but Scully reveals that she obtained an optical disc from Briar Lake, which she hopes will provide further information.
It is revealed that Krycek is working with The Smoking Man (voiced by William B. Davis). During a briefing with assistant director Walter Skinner (voiced by Mitch Pileggi) at FBI headquarters, Mulder informs him that the alien artifact is what revived the deceased. Skinner tells them that he managed to get the initial three Red Falls murder victims transported to the FBI Academy for Scully to examine. The agents meet with The Lone Gunmen (Byers, Frohike, and Langley; voiced by Bruce Harwood, Tom Braidwood, and Dean Haglund), who have decrypted the Briar Lake data disc and found that it contains information written in Russian. The disc includes references to Tunguska, where Mulder had previously been exposed to the black oil. Mulder contacts Marita Covarrubias (voiced by Laurie Holden) to see if she can aid him in the investigation; she tells him that she will see what she can do.
Mulder suffers hallucinations at his apartment, as the result of poisoning from cosmic galactic radiation, after being near the alien artifact. During his hallucinations, Mulder sees his long-lost sister Samantha, before encountering a ghostly entity in the form of a man. Mulder is saved after Covarrubias injects him with a shot to counteract the radiation poisoning. Scully also suffers from radiation after performing an autopsy on one of the Red Falls victims, but is able to cure herself after creating an antidote.
Covarrubias has arranged for Mulder to fly to Tunguska, while Scully – with help from The Lone Gunmen – investigates Roush Biotechnologies, a company that was referenced in the data disc. Roush funded the experiments at Briar Lake, and bodies from the mental institution are believed to have been sent to the company's facility. Scully and Byers enter the facility disguised as scientists. Langley stays outside the facility, while Frohike covertly infiltrates the building's ventilation so he can tap into the company's fiber optic cable system, allowing Langley to monitor the security footage and help Scully and Byers progress through the building. Scully obtains a piece of the alien artifact, and discovers a disc containing images of Mulder undergoing a brain surgery.
Mulder's plane has crashed in Tunguska, leaving him as the sole survivor. Mulder is later contacted by Covarrubias, who informs him that Scully has arrived in a helicopter. Covarrubias urges Mulder to leave, stating that Krycek and The Smoking Man are in Tunguska. Covarrubias had been working with the men to lead Mulder to Tunguska in hopes that he would locate the alien spaceship that crashed there nearly 100 years earlier. After Covarrubias betrayed the two men, Krycek locked her up. Mulder locates The Smoking Man, but is knocked unconscious by Krycek. While unconscious, Mulder has another vision of the ghostly being, before being awoken by Scully. The agents locate Covarrubias, and she informs them that the ghostly entity is a conduit for the power released by the alien artifact. The agents lose sight of Covarrubias after an explosion.
The helicopter crashes after the pilot becomes a zombie. Mulder and Scully then use a truck to reach old ruins in a Siberian forest. Krycek and his team have begun draining a nearby lake to find the wreckage of the spaceship, located underneath additional ruins that are hidden under the water. Mulder is separated from Scully after a creature attacks their raft. Mulder encounters The Smoking Man, who tells him that to discover the truth, he must follow the advice of "resist or serve," relating to the entity.
Inside an old monastery, Scully attaches the fragment of the alien artifact to its main piece, which summons the entity, who now has the appearance of an elderly man, approximately 90 to 100 years old. Scully defeats the entity, and deduces that he must have alien physiology which makes his connection to the artifact possible. Mulder locates the spaceship and encounters aliens, as well as the entity, in his younger form. After defeating the entity, Mulder reunites with Scully, and the spaceship flies away before she can see it. The agents present their final report to FBI directors, including Skinner and Alvin Kersh (voiced by James Pickens Jr.), who find the agents' story to be unbelievable.
The story follows Sir Peter Pendragon a noble, aristocratic World War I veteran pilot who has come into a large inheritance following the death of his paternal uncle. Prior to the war Pendragon had been a medical student, and now finds himself dealing with depression and lacking direction. During a night out he encounters Louise Laleham, a devotee of occultist Basil King Lamus. Pendragon and Laleham quickly fall in love with each other and cocaine. The couple marry soon after meeting then leave for Europe for their honeymoon. While in Europe, they begin using heroin and engage in a drug binge stretching from France to Italy. While in Italy, their luggage and valuables are stolen by a school acquaintance of Pendragon's named Elgin Feccles, whom they had hired as a guide. Soon afterwards they return to England.
Back in England, the protagonists find themselves desperate after their drug supply diminishes due to laws that had been passed during their honeymoon. They move from the Pendragons' country estate to a room in a slum house on Greek Street. Their decline in health and financial problems leads to the couple making several unsuccessful attempts to quit heroin. The particulars of their desperate addiction and cravings are documented in realistic detail. During one of their attempts, they move back to their country estate. While there, the couple begins experimenting with magick. Louise is successfully able to communicate with her Holy Guardian Angel Keletiel. Peter's own experiments with magick and quitting heroin do not go as well, and in a moment of frustration he shoots himself in the chest. Louise nurses him back to health, but they soon fall back into a lifestyle of addiction.
The couple then moves back to London and engages in another drug binge. Fearing no way out of addiction, they go to a restaurant and plan on killing themselves by drinking Prussic acid. The pair, however, are saved from destruction by Basil King Lamus, who agrees to help them with their addiction. Under Lamus' guidance the couple experiences some successes with their battle against addiction. One day, the Pendragons meet with two of their friends, Jabez Platt and Gretel Webster. The former had been behind the laws making cocaine illegal in Great Britain and now wants to buy a cocaine production factory in Switzerland. The latter had been the couple's supplier since their honeymoon.
Peter's initial interest in financing the purchase of the cocaine factory upsets Louise so much that she threatens him with divorce and to leave him for Lamus. Lamus agrees to take Louise away from Peter as he had promised her during her fit of rage and to help her with her addiction, but only on the condition that Peter comes with them. The now unhappy couple and Lamus leave England for an Abbey of Thelema located near the fictional location of Telephylus. Lamus then frees Peter and Louise from their addictions through the use of Magical techniques, aimed at mastering True Will and releasing the individual from sloth, self-destructive impulses and craving. Through self-reflection, Peter discovers that he had turned to drugs and had been generally unhappy because he had not wanted to be a medical doctor; instead, he had wanted to be an aircraft engineer. Louise's True Will is discovered to be helping Peter reach his own True Will by loving him and caring for him.
The film follows Sergeant Detective Harry Griswold, a clumsy N.Y.P.D. cop investigating a string of murders involving kabuki actors. While attending an amateur kabuki play, Harry witnesses thugs gun down the entire cast. In the ensuing gunfight, Harry is forcibly kissed by one of the dying actors, unknowingly becoming blessed with the powers of kabuki. Before he knows it, Griswold finds out that he has the ability to transform into Kabukiman, a colorfully dressed slapstick superhero who has the ability to fly and access to such unique weapons as heat seeking chopsticks and fatal sushi.
With the assistance of the beautiful Lotus, he helps clean up the crime-ridden streets of New York and try to stop maniacal businessman Reginald Stuart and his Goons, who plan to fulfill an ancient evil prophecy that will summon The Evil One whose demonic powers can enslave the world.
Nathan is an intelligent but shy teenage boy who wants to escape from his abusive and violent father, and fantasizes about a relationship with Roy, the boy who lives next door. Roy is a senior at the same high school as Nathan, and he drives the school bus. Gradually their relationship deepens and becomes sexual.
Drunk one evening, Nathan's father tries to molest him. This is clearly not the first time it has happened and helps explain Nathan's desire to escape from his family. His mother avoids the issue, although she knows what is going on.
Nathan is accepted into Roy's social circle and is invited to go on a camping trip with Roy and his friends Randy and Burke. During the trip, they discover an abandoned and possibly haunted plantation house and Nathan and Roy are discovered in a compromising situation. Burke later on rapes and hits Nathan with a chair handle. The blow is clearly fatal and Nathan "dies" yet is still inside his body and aware of his surroundings. The book ends with Nathan leaving the abandoned house and finding Roy.
The White House staff is being called into work early to deal with the press fallout after President Josiah Bartlet has crashed his bicycle into a tree. As the staff try to perform damage control, it is revealed that Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman made a gaffe when, after provocation by Christian activist Mary Marsh on a recent televised debate, quipped "Lady, the God you pray to is too busy being indicted for tax fraud." Also, Deputy Communications Director Sam Seaborn spends an evening with Laurie (Lisa Edelstein), unaware that she's a call girl, and then tells Chief of Staff Leo McGarry's daughter, Mallory O'Brien, about it before he knows whose daughter she is.
While Lyman and Marsh are discussing a proposed public debate on one of several religious wedge issues, President Bartlet enters and corrects one of the attendees on a theological point (namely, he quotes the First Commandment, settling a dispute on which one it is). He explains that he crashed his bicycle while distracted by anger after discovering that his granddaughter, after expressing herself as pro-choice during a magazine interview, was mailed a Raggedy Ann doll with a knife stuck in its throat. The doll was sent by an extremist group whose activities the attendees, to his displeasure, have not denounced. He tells them that not only will there be no debate, but that they will denounce the extremists publicly, and are barred from the White House until they do so. Bartlet implies to Lyman that he will be allowed to keep his job despite the gaffe.
While President Josiah Bartlet delivers a speech priding the inevitable passage of a gun control bill in the House, his staff learns that said passage is in jeopardy. Chief of Staff Leo McGarry calls an emergency meeting in which he instructs C.J. Cregg to play up the release of the staff's financial disclosure report to provide cover for them to work on getting the votes. Sam suggests using the Vice President, but Leo shoots down this idea. When Leo finally arrives home, he finds his wife still awake, having expected Leo home hours before. He also realizes he has completely forgotten it was their wedding anniversary.
The disclosure report brings with it a number of comical revelations (including a valuable smoking jacket given to Josh from an ex-girlfriend). It also brings with it some trouble—the report reveals that a stock Toby invested in went from $5,000 to over $125,000, soon after he had arranged for a friend to testify before Congress about stocks. Toby insists he had no idea what his friend was going to testify about, and it was an innocent coincidence. Nevertheless, with the report being made public, there is concern he may be indicted on federal charges of manipulating the stock market. President Bartlet says that Toby will avoid any potential legal and political landmines by cashing out his stocks the next day, leading a stunned Toby to tell the rest of the senior staff that he feels "like I just got screwed with my pants on."
Josh manages to strong arm one of the five defecting Congressmen into getting back in line by threatening that the President will not endorse him in the Midterms. This action prompts two other defectors to switch their votes back. Josh then meets with Congressman Christopher Wick, an old college fraternity buddy, whom he angrily confronts about going against the President. Wick replies that he broke ranks to prove he's not on a leash, but he'll change his vote again for a photo op with the President. Josh, disgusted by the Congressman's motives, nonetheless complies with his wishes.
Leo again vetoes the suggestion of using Hoynes to speak with Texas Congressman Cal Tillinghouse. Instead, Leo approaches Congressman Mark Richardson, an African American, with an appeal that the gun ban will save African American lives. The Congressman rebuffs Leo, saying the law has no teeth and is nothing more than for show.
Leo reluctantly must now turn to the Vice President. He schedules the meeting for late, wanting to spend most of the evening with his wife to make up for his lapse the night before; he had spent the day planning an in-house dinner for the two, at one point buying her a pearl choker by Harry Winston. When he arrives home, however, he finds Jenny, with her bags packed. She announces she's leaving him, that she can no longer bear the life they have. Leo, distraught over the thought of her leaving him, still insists his job is more important than their marriage.
Shaken, Leo meets with Hoynes, who immediately realizes something is wrong. Leo confides in Hoynes, and the VP tells Leo about a secret AA meeting he hosts with several other prominent politicians and administrators, inviting him to come. He also says he will be happy to speak with Tillinghouse.
The following day, Hoynes makes good on his promise, convincing Tillinghouse to go along with the bill as a personal favor to him, stating directly that the Congressman would be wise to do what he asks because "one day I'll be President...and you won't be." He also encourages Tillinghouse to speak with the four other Congressmen who were compelled to vote yes (all of whom are looking for a little political retribution). After the bill is signed, all five of the Congressmen pile the credit upon the Vice President, making the victory more hollow for President Bartlet. Most of the staff are upset with this result and realize that asking Hoynes would lead to a PR sacrifice, however Leo ends by saying that it was hubris on the part of the President and his staff. Josh later congratulates Hoynes on a game well played.
The episode ends with Leo attending the AA meeting.
In ''The Decay of the Angel'', the last book of ''Sea of Fertility tetralogy'', Shikeguni Honda, a retired judge, adopts a teenage orphan, Tōru Yasunaga, whom he believes to be a dead schoolfriend's third successive reincarnation. In this book, which is also accepted as the testament of Yukio Mishima, Shigekuni Honda observes the evolution of Japan in the 20th century. Japan's progressive losing traditional values and westernization in both individual and social levels, which started in ''Spring Snow'', appears as a new, universalized Japan in the last book. In ''Spring Snow'', Kiyoaki's faithful friend and a young lawyer candidate, a judge in the ''Runaway Horses'', and a philosopher in ''The Temple of the Dawn'', Shigekuni Honda is presented as an old man, a retired judge in the book of ''The Decay of the Angel''. Throughout the previous three books, Honda, who tried to protect Kiyoaki himself and his reincarnations from death, fails each time, and this book deals with the last reincarnation Toru, who later turns out to be a fake. We see that Honda, who thinks Toru is a reincarnation of Kiyoaki, tries to educate and protect him throughout the novel, but we witness that Toru's response turns out negatively to this behavior and tries to deceive him in some way and to be superior. As a matter of fact, when Toru does not die at the age of 20, as in every reincarnation, it is revealed that he is fake. At the end of the book, Honda visits Gesshū Temple to see Satoko, who is Kiyoaki's love in the first book. Honda depicts Satoko, who is now an Abbess, has not lost anything of its purity and beauty. The novel ends with a question mark. When Honda finds out that Satoko doesn't remember anything about their past, he questions his existence in the world and thinks maybe he never existed. After writing the last lines of The Decay of the Angel, writer Yukio Mishima died in 1970 by killing himself.
The novel opens on Saturday, 2 May 1970, with a seascape off the coast of the Izu Peninsula. Tōru Yasunaga is an orphaned 16-year-old boy working in Shimizu as a signalman, identifying ships by telescope and notifying the offices at Shimizu harbour. He works a 24-hour shift every third day, from an observation tower on the Komagoe shore, built on top of a strawberry farmer's water tank. Honda, walking along the shoreline, notices it in passing.
Later, that night, Tōru is visited at his post by his friend Kinue, a mad girl who believes that she is incredibly beautiful and that all men are after her. Kinue tells him a long story about how a boy molested her on the bus. After midnight, at his house in Hongō, Honda dreams about angels flying over the Miho Pine Grove, which he had visited that day.
At 9am, Tōru's shift ends and he takes the bus home to his apartment. He has a bath, and we see that he has the same three moles as Kiyoaki. In Chapter 7, it is explained that Honda's wife Rie has died and that Keiko, a happily single lesbian, has become a platonic companion for him. They have gone travelling together to Europe, and hold canasta parties. Honda is preoccupied with his dream life and with the past, and has trouble with his housekeeper and maids. In her old age, Keiko is devoted to the study of Japanese culture, but her knowledge is second-hand and superficial, and Honda calls it a "freezer full of vegetables".
They visit the Miho Pine Grove, a tourist-trap Honda already saw and disliked. They have their picture taken, sticking their heads through holes in a board painted to make them look like Jirōchō and his wife Ōchō, who were bosses of Shimizu Harbour in the 19th Century. They see the giant dying pine, where, according to Zeami's ''Robe of Feathers'', an angel supposedly left her robe, and had to dance for the fisherman who stole it in order to get it back. They also go to Mio Shrine.
On the drive back home, they stop at the signal station Honda saw several days ago. He is strangely drawn to it, and they go inside to look around. Because Tōru is only wearing an undershirt, Honda sees the moles on his side. Back in the car Honda announces his intention to adopt the boy.
In Keiko's hotel room on Nihondaira, Honda explains to her the significance of the moles and tells her the whole story of Kiyoaki's two previous reincarnations. She reluctantly accepts this story. Honda makes her promise to tell no-one, especially not Tōru. On 10 August, Tōru becomes aware that he is being investigated by detectives through a story of Kinue's, and later that month he is visited at home by the superintendent, who announces Honda's intention to adopt. In Chapter 16, the extent of Honda's wealth is revealed; through prudently investing the fortune he came into after the war, he has become a millionaire.
By October, Tōru has moved to the house in Hongō and is receiving lessons in table manners and other social skills. Honda is eager to protect him from premature death and tries to inculcate the cynicism that Kiyoaki, Isao and Ying Chan lacked. Three tutors are employed for Tōru. In late November the literature tutor, Furusawa, takes him to a local coffee-house and tells him a political parable about the nature of suicide and authority. Tōru suddenly feels dislike for him and engineers his dismissal. Relishing the feeling of power this gives him, he casts around for a more amusing victim.
In late spring of 1972, two friends of Honda try to arrange a marriage between Tōru and their daughter, Momoko Hamanaka. After dinner, Momoko shows Tōru photo-albums in her room and he makes up his mind to hurt her. The two families go on holiday to Shimoda; it is there that Honda realises that Tōru is secretly hostile to Momoko.
As the demure relationship progresses, Tōru analyses Momoko and, while talking to her in the Kōrakuen Garden a year or so after their first meeting, he decides to make her jealous by acquiring a second girlfriend. At a go-go hall on his way home from school, he picks up a 25-year-old who calls herself "Nagisa" (Miss Brink) and they have sex a few days later. Nagisa gives him a medallion with her monogram on it. Momoko does not notice it until they go swimming together, and she gives the "N" an innocuous interpretation. It is only when Nagisa approaches Tōru in the coffee-house that her jealousy is aroused.
Momoko throws the medallion into a canal and insists that Tōru must leave Nagisa. Tōru claims that he cannot do it alone, and dictates a letter for Momoko to send to Nagisa. In the letter, Momoko is made to lie that her family is in financial difficulties and that she needs to marry Tōru for his money. Momoko hopes to inspire guilt in Nagisa. After the letter is delivered, Tōru goes to Nagisa's apartment, snatches it from her, and takes it to Honda. The marriage is off.
Several months later, in early October 1973, Honda and Tōru visit Yokohama, and at the harbourside have a conversation. Tōru realises that Honda has guessed that the letter was fake, and that he takes satisfaction in the guile his adopted son displays. Tōru is furious at being seen through so easily, and throws his diary into the water. At the end of 1973 he finishes school, and is accepted into university.
In the spring of 1974, Tōru enters his majority and drops all pretences. He becomes violent with Honda and intimidates him into getting his way on everything, moving Kinue into a hut at the bottom of the garden, spending money freely and abusing the maids. On 3 September 1974, Honda is caught spying on couples in the park, and the incident makes the newspapers; Tōru moves to have him declared senile.
On 20 December, Tōru goes to a Christmas party at Keiko's. To his amazement, he is the only guest. Keiko reveals Honda's true motivations for adopting him, and cheerfully explains that if he does not die in 1975, he must be a fraud. Tōru returns home and demands Kiyoaki's dream diary. On 28 December, Tōru burns the diary and tries to commit suicide by drinking methanol, but it only blinds him, and he survives. Honda discovers that Keiko has betrayed him, and he breaks off contact with her. Tōru loses all motivation and spends his days with Kinue in her cottage. Honda eventually concludes that Tōru was not, in fact, Kiyoaki's reincarnation.
At about this time, Honda is afflicted by pains which he does nothing about for months. On 22 July 1975, just before a hospital appointment, Honda goes to Gesshū Temple for the first time since February 1914. Satoko, who is now the Abbess, admits him, but during their conversation he mentions Kiyoaki, and she claims that she never knew anyone of that name. Baffled and desolate, Honda replies "Perhaps then there has been no I." In the final scene of the book, Honda strolls through the temple garden at Satoko's invitation, a place that "had no memories, nothing".
Born to a crack addict, America was given to a rich white family. They decided they didn't want him anymore after his skin started to darken at the age of five years old. The family's nanny, Sylvia Harper, adopts/fosters America. She had a "man-friend" named Clark Poignant, and a half-brother named Browning. Clark Poignant befriended America. After a year, America gets sent back to his biological mother by the state. Browning tells America to be as bad as he possibly can, so he will get sent back to them. America's mother lived in a shoddy house in New York City with America's two older brothers, named Brooklyn and Lyle.
America's mother is never around, so five-year-old America has to live with his brothers – aged 7 and 8 – for two years. America, Brooklyn, and Lyle become hooligans, vandalizing and stealing all over the place. However, their luck runs out when an elevator worker finds them scribbling America's numbers all over the elevator. America is sent to a hospital, and Brooklyn and Lyle are sent to a foster home. Soon, he is sent back to Mrs. Harper.
Mrs. Harper has grown old and arthritic, and Browning has moved into America's old bedroom, which they share. Clark Poignant had since died, after he left. However, America has difficulty erasing the cussing and bad behaviors he'd learnt. He soon starts Grade 2, even though he is mostly illiterate. Browning sees that America enjoys being bad and secretly encourages him. When America begins school, he meets Liza, who shares some of his bad behavior, and they develop crushes on each other. Browning's relationship with America continues to develop. He gives America a lighter with a naked lady on it, and gives him alcohol. He also gives America reading lessons with pornographic magazines. Eventually, Browning begins to molest America and has sex with him on occasion. America likes the feeling of Browning touching him so begins to promote his sexual relations. Then Browning introduces America to masturbation and both masturbate together in the room unnoticed.
America discovers that his mother had six children. He also learns about her drug money at the time of each child's birth. America burns the chart and throws the ashes at Browning. Then, out of anger and in a drunken stupor, America sets Browning's bed on fire with his lighter, killing him. America goes to New York and lives with a marijuana dealer named Ty (Charles Tyler). Ty is eventually arrested by the NYPD and America is questioned by a detective. During the interview, he confesses to the murder of Browning. He goes to court, but he is not convicted, so the judge sends him to Applegate.
At Applegate, America befriends Wick, Marshall and Ernie, and is acquainted with the seemingly intellectually disabled Fish. Ernie worries about America. America resists therapy and attempts to destroy a therapist's office after he asked if America's uncle had done anything to him. Ernie is the only one who understands America's plight. Eventually, a distraught America climbs a tree and attempts to hang himself. But Ernie finds him hanging from the tree and saves his life. Shortly after, he is sent to Ridgeway.
At first, America refuses to talk to Dr. B, but eventually he begins to open up to him. America decides to send a letter to Ernie to thank him for saving his life. When Ernie replies, he says he knows America killed a man, but he also knows America is a good person. He mentions Liza, who contacted Applegate looking for him. Three weeks after his sixteenth birthday, he meets Brooklyn. Later, Dr. B tells him America is ready to work in the kitchen. When he is in the kitchen, though, he wastes enormous quantities of carrots because they remind him of cooking dinners with Browning.
When America is 17, Brooklyn enters detox again. America receives a letter from Liza. Dr. B informs America there is a spot open in a transitional home, where he will live with two other young people, Kevin and Ben, and a social worker named Phillip. America decides to go. At the home, America writes Liza and tells her she can come by if she wants. Dr. B informs America his brother Brooklyn has eloped. Liza is finally re-united with America at the home. But America still thinks about what happened to Mrs. Harper and Lyle, and why Brooklyn eloped. He is unable to cook in the home because of painful memories coming up again.
When America is eighteen, he receives a letter from Brooklyn, which tells him that they are brothers, and that they are associated. Dr. B teaches him positive self-talk to eliminate painful memories, but America still wants to see Mrs. Harper. He struggles to tell Liza he truly loves her, and is troubled by the notion of love itself. He visits Mrs. Harper in the nursing home, who is delighted to see him. Mrs. Harper dies several days after his visit. America and Dr. B cry together reading the letter from the nursing home. America feels forgiven by Mrs. Harper, and burns his fifty-seven pairs of shoelaces with his lighter and then he throws his lighter away, symbolism showing his painful memories are gone and he is able to live his life. The books ends with a dream about everyone who had a positive impact on America's life, lifting him up by the hand of God. America says he is found.
The film opens with a quotation from Vladimir Lenin:
The strength of the working class is organization. Without organization of the masses, the proletarian is nothing. Organized it is everything. Being organized means unity of action, unity of practical activity.
;На заводе всё спокойно / At the factory all is quiet Using typography, the word "но" (but) is added to the title of the chapter which then animates and dissolves into an image of machinery in motion. The administration is spying on the workers, reviewing a list of agents with vivid code names. Vignettes are shown of them. Conditions are tense with agitators and Bolsheviks planning a strike prior to the catalytic event. ;Повод к стачке / Reason to strike A micrometer is stolen, with a value of 25 rubles or 3 weeks pay. A worker, Yakov, is accused of the theft and subsequently hangs himself. Fighting ensues and work stops. The workers leave the milling room running and resistance is met at the foundry. The strikers throw rocks and loose metal through the foundry windows. Then locked within the gates of the complex, the crowd confronts the office. They force open the gates and seize a manager carting him off in a wheel barrow dumping them down a hill into the water. The crowd disperses.
;Завод замер / The factory dies down The chapter begins with footage of ducklings, kittens, piglets, and geese. A child then wakes his father for work ironically with no work to do, they laugh and frolic. The factory is shown vacant and still with birds moving in. The children act out what their fathers had done, wheelbarrowing a goat in a mob. The owner is frustrated by orders arriving and the frozen plant. Demands are formulated: an 8-hour work day, fair treatment by the administration, 30% wage increases, and a 6-hour day for minors. The shareholders get involved with the director and read the demands. They discuss dismissively while smoking cigars and having drinks. Presumably on the orders of the shareholders, the police raid the workers, and they sit down to protest. At their meeting the shareholders use the demand letter as a rag to clean up a spill, and a lemon squeezer metaphorically represents the pressure the stockholders intend to apply to the strikers. ;Стачка затягивается / The strike draws out
Scenes are shown of a line forming at a store which is closed, and a baby needing food. A fight occurs at a home between a man and a woman, subsequently she leaves. Another man rummages through his home for goods to sell at a flea market, upsetting his family. A posted letter publicly shows the administrators rejection of the demands. Using a hidden camera in a pocket watch, a spy named "Owl" photographs someone stealing the letter. The pictures are transferred to another spy. The man is beaten, captured, and beaten again. ;Провокация на разгром / Provocation and debacle The scene opens with dead cats dangling from a structure. A character is introduced, "King" whose throne is made of a derelict automobile amidst rubbish, and who leads a community that lives in enormous barrels buried with only their top openings above ground. After a deal with a tsarist police agent, "King" hires a few provocateurs from among his community to set fire, raze, and loot a liquor store. A crowd gathers at the fire and the alarm is sounded. The crowd leaves to avoid being provoked but are set upon by the firemen with their hoses regardless. ;Ликвидация / Extermination The governor sends in the military. A child walks under the soldiers' horses and his mother goes under to get him and is struck. Rioting commences, and the crowd is chased off through a series of gates and barriers heading to the forge, then their apartments. The crowd is chased and whipped on the balconies. A policeman murders a small child. The workers are driven into a field by the army and shot ''en masse.'' This is shown with alternating footage of the slaughtering of a cow.
Rabbi Jacob (Marcel Dalio) is one of the most beloved rabbis of New York. One day, the French side of his family, the Schmolls, invite him to celebrate the bar mitzvah of young David, and he boards a plane for his native France after more than 30 years of American life. His young friend Rabbi Samuel accompanies him.
In Normandy (northern France), the rich businessman Victor Pivert (Louis de Funès) is also on his way to a wedding; his daughter (Miou-Miou) will be married the next day. Pivert is a dreadful man: bad-tempered, rude and bigoted, with a well-honed racism against Blacks, Jews, and pretty much all foreigners. He and his driver, Salomon (Henri Guybet), have a car accident in which Pivert's car (carrying a speed boat) flips upside-down into a lake. When Salomon, who is Jewish, refuses to help because Shabbat has just begun, Pivert fires him, much to Salomon's content.
Arab revolutionist leader Mohamed Larbi Slimane (Claude Giraud) is kidnapped by killers who are working for his country's government. The team, led by Colonel Farès, takes him by night to an empty bubble gum factory... the same place where Victor Pivert goes to find assistance. Pivert involuntarily helps Slimane to flee, leaving two killers' corpses behind them. The police, alerted by Salomon, find the bodies and accuse Pivert of the crime.
The next day, Slimane forces Pivert to go to Orly airport to catch a plane to Slimane's country (if the revolution succeeds, he will become President). However, they are followed by a number of people: the jealous Germaine, Pivert's wife, who thinks her husband is going to leave her for another woman; Farès and the killers; and the police commissioner Andréani (Claude Piéplu), a zealous and overly suspicious cop who imagines that Pivert is the new Al Capone. Farès and his cohorts manage to kidnap Germaine, and they use her own dentist equipment to interrogate her.
Trying to conceal his and Pivert's identities, Slimane attacks two rabbis in the toilets, stealing their clothes and shaving their beards and their payot. The disguises are perfect, and they are mistaken for Rabbi Jacob and Rabbi Samuel by the Schmoll family. The only one who recognizes Pivert (and Slimane) behind the disguise is Salomon, his former driver, who just happens to be a Schmoll nephew. But Pivert and Slimane are able to keep their identity secret and even manage to hold a sermon in Hebrew, thanks to the polylingual Slimane, as well as taking part in a very energetic Hasidic dance, one of the memorable scenes from the film.[https://www.francetvinfo.fr/culture/cinema/rabbi-jacob-200-personnes-reprennent-sa-danse-dans-un-flashmob-a-paris_3530089.html "Rabbi Jacob : 200 personnes reprennent sa danse dans un flashmob à Paris. Un cadeau pour l'anniversaire de Louis de Funès, qui aurait eu 105 ans le 31 juillet."] [Rabbi Jacob: 200 people resume his dance in a flashmob in Paris. A gift for the birthday of Louis de Funès, who would have been 105 on July 31.], ''franceinfo'', July 10, 2019
After a few misunderstandings, Commissioner Andréani and his two inspectors are mistaken by the Jews for terrorists, attempting to kill Rabbi Jacob. The real Rabbi Jacob arrives at Orly, where no one is waiting for him any more. He is mistaken for Victor Pivert by the police, then by Farès and his killers (both times in a painful way for his long beard).
There is a chaotic, but sweeping happy ending:
the revolution is a success, and Slimane becomes President of the Republic Pivert's daughter falls in love with Slimane and escapes her dull fiancé near the altar to go with him Pivert learns tolerance towards other religions and cultures, and also Salomon and Slimane make peace with their respective Arab and Jewish colleagues the Schmolls finally find the real Rabbi Jacob *the Piverts and the Schmolls go together feasting and celebrating
The staff participates in "Big Block of Cheese Day", a fictional workday on which White House Chief of Staff Leo McGarry encourages his staff to meet with fringe special interest groups that normally would not get attention from the White House. Big Block of Cheese Day also is mentioned in "Somebody's Going to Emergency, Somebody's Going to Jail".
The rationale for the day, as recounted by McGarry (much to the consternation of the senior staff), is that America's seventh president, Andrew Jackson, had a two-ton block of cheese in the White House foyer from which everyone was welcome to eat. This symbolized the openness of the White House to the American people. White House Communications Director Toby Ziegler derisively refers to the day as "Throw Open Our Office Doors To People Who Want To Discuss Things That We Could [sic] Care Less About Day", and Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman refers to it as "Total Crackpot Day".
White House Press Secretary C. J. Cregg meets with a group about building a highway for wolves, while Sam Seaborn meets with a citizen, played by Sam Lloyd, concerned about UFOs.
Josh is given a card from the National Security Council with information about where he is to go in the event of a nuclear attack and becomes riddled with guilt after realizing that nobody else on the staff was given one. He visits his therapist and reveals that his older sister died in a house fire while babysitting for him, and that he survived by running out of the house.
Later, President Bartlet hosts a reception in the Residence for his youngest daughter, Zoey, who is scouting colleges in the D.C. area. (Earlier in the day, upon learning of her visit, the President announces to everyone that he will make chili for them all.) In a private conversation, the President, Leo and Josh marvel at the extraordinary strength and integrity of the women in their lives. During the party, Josh returns his NSC card to the President, explaining that he just wants to be with his friends through everything and to be able to look them in the eye in the meantime.
Sasebo, Nagasaki, Japan, 1969: Inspired by the iconoclastic examples of Dylan, Kerouac, Godard and Che, a band of mildly disaffected teenagers led by the smilingly charismatic Ken (Tsumabuki Satoshi) decide to shake up "the establishment," i.e., their repressive school and the nearby US military installation. A series of anarchic pranks meets with varying levels of success, until Ken and company focus their energies on mounting a multimedia "happening" to combine music, film and theater. Complications ensue.
The book opens with the death of American electronics billionaire Michael J. Roscoe, in an elevator shaft in his New York City office, arranged by a reputable contract killer. Elsewhere, Alex Rider is at school and witnesses a man known as Skoda selling drugs to some of his classmates. Alex follows him to his home, situated on a barge in Putney River, but is caught by the police after using a crane to lift the barge out of the water. He accidentally drops it in a police conference centre rather than a nearby car park, as he originally intended, thanks to the builders shutting down the crane's power. The police arrest Skoda.
Miraculously, no one is killed, although some people end up with major injuries, but Alex's real identity is revealed when he's taken back to the police station. MI6 chief Alan Blunt then blackmails Alex into investigating the deaths of Roscoe and General Viktor Ivanov, head of the Foreign Intelligence Service, who died in a bizarre motorboat explosion, in exchange for all potential charges being dropped. The only thing linking these deaths are that both men had rebellious sons attending the Point Blanc Academy in the French Alps.
Alex undergoes a dramatic physical change and takes the identity of Alex Friend, supposedly the rebellious son of supermarket billionaire Sir David Friend. He stays with the family (Sir David, his wife Lady Caroline, and their snooty daughter Fiona) for a week in preparation for his infiltration of the academy. Fiona does not take well to having Alex staying with them, and arranges for her 'boyfriend' Rufus and his friends to kill Alex during a shooting party in the forest; Alex gets his own back on Rufus, by frightening him and throwing his illegal gun into a pond. Alex later meets MI6 gadget-master Smithers, and receives a bulletproof ski suit, infrared ski goggles, an exploding earring, a diamond-edged buzz saw and distress beacon disguised as a Sony Discman, and a hardback book with a tranquilizer dart that shoots out of the spine.
He is picked up by assistant director Mrs Eva Stellenbosch, who takes him to the ''Du Monde'' hotel in Paris. That night, the Coke he drinks at dinner is drugged; when he passes out in his room, he is transported via a giant lift to the hotel's basement, where plastic surgeon Dr Walter Baxter has Alex stripped completely naked, every inch of his body being meticulously photographed, measured and examined for unknown reasons at this point in the plot. Afterwards, his clothes are put back on him and he is returned to his room as though nothing happened.
Alex arrives at the academy the next day and meets the director, Dr Hugo Grief, who he instantly dislikes. He later strikes a friendship with James Sprintz, another pupil at the academy who is asked to show Alex around. James explains that something weird is happening in the academy; the other five rebellious, disrespectful students each underwent a sudden overnight change and become the seemingly "perfect" pupils they seem to be now. James attempts to escape, confiding in Alex about his plot to ski down the mountain and go to either his father in Düsseldorf, his mother in England or friends in Paris and Berlin if neither of his parents want him. Alex investigates over a number of days, and one night after sneaking out, sees James being dragged from his room by two guards led by Mrs Stellenbosch. The next morning, James acts strangely, having seemingly become just like the others, and has abandoned his escape plan. Realising that he was telling the truth, Alex investigates further, discovering that the academy's top two floors are largely copies of the ground and first floors, before returning to his own room and contacting MI6 via the Discman distress beacon.
Blunt and Mrs Jones argue over what to do when they receive Alex's signal. They eventually decide to put a unit on standby, to take action the following day, whilst Alex searches the academy’s basement (which can only be accessed via a hidden lift whose ground floor entrance is hidden by a suit of armour in the library). He discovers the basement is a jail, where he finds James, Michael J. Roscoe's son Paul, and all the other students, who explain that Grief has made clones of them. Alex goes to leave to bring help, but Stellenbosch knocks him unconscious before he can.
Grief, a former Minister of Science and BOSS officer, explains to Alex his plan to take over the world, codenamed "the Gemini Project". In the 1990s, disgusted with the rise Nelson Mandela and black rule in his native South Africa, he made sixteen clones of himself, and is now using the late Baxter (who Alex saw Grief kill) to alter their appearances to resemble the sons of rich and influential people, as a means to eventually have his clones inherit the assets of these individuals and allow Grief to take over the world, as the families in question are leaders in every corner of human activity, including diamond mining, financing, politics, and the media. He adds that Michael J. Roscoe and Viktor Ivanov were both killed for suspecting that their "sons" were acting abnormally.
Grief then tells Alex of his eventual fate: he will be killed the next morning through a live dissection, and imprisons him in the basement. Alex, using his exploding earring, escapes and snowboards down the mountain the academy is situated on using an improvised ironing board. While escaping pursuing two guards on snowmobiles, Alex is hospitalized when the force of a nearby train throws him into a fence.
Alex is hospitalised in Grenoble, but Mrs Stellenbosch, who arrives there after being tipped off by a guard, is told that he is dead. She then watches as an SAS team carry a coffin onto a C-130 Hercules, which apparently flies to London for a Military funeral. However, this was merely a decoy, and Alex is revealed to be alive, the SAS having rescued him. Mrs Jones convinces him to return to the academy with an SAS squad, led by Wolf, in order to rescue the students.
While storming the school, Alex is attacked by Stellenbosch, who is shot dead by Wolf just before she can kill Alex. However, Wolf is also shot in the process (though not fatally), and Alex rushes out of the building in anger to see Dr Grief about to leave via helicopter. In a desperate bid to stop him, Alex uses a snowmobile to drive forward and smash into the helicopter, leaping off just before they make contact. Grief is killed when the vehicle collides with his aircraft, causing an explosion.
Alex returns home, where Mrs Jones tells Alex in a debriefing that the rescue mission was a success and that "all fifteen clones" have been apprehended. Alex then receives a call informing him to visit Mr Bray, the head teacher of his school. However, after finding a clone of himself in Bray's office, he recalls Mrs Jones’ words (as well as Jack Starbright's) and realized that one clone – his own – had escaped from justice. Alex then fights his clone in the school, with their battle eventually causing a fire after an incident in the science block, and one of the two falls into the burning school from the roof, whilst the other is rescued. It is left ambiguous which Alex survives.
When Michael Scott (Steve Carell) hears Oscar Martinez (Oscar Nunez) complaining about Angela Martin's (Angela Kinsey) baby poster to Toby Flenderson (Paul Lieberstein), he intervenes and resolves the conflict by forcing Oscar to wear the poster like a t-shirt. Inspired, Michael wrestles the file outlining other unresolved office complaints from Toby, determined to resolve them all. Michael publicly reads all the outstanding complaints, even though they were supposed to be anonymous, which only serves to further increase office tensions. Pam Beesly (Jenna Fischer) is angered by a redacted complaint that she plans her wedding during office hours, a complaint she concludes was filed by Angela.
When photos for identification badges are being taken in the break room, Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) makes Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson)'s new ID 5x7 inches, labels Dwight as a security threat, and changes his middle name from Kurt to "Fart". Dwight becomes even more furious that his voluminous complaints against Jim have gone ignored, and tells Michael that either Jim gets fired or Dwight will quit. When Michael reads all of Jim's pranks on Dwight, Jim begins to regret how much time he has wasted at the office. Dwight taunts Jim with a notice of a Dunder-Mifflin position in Stamford, saying that Jim should look into it. Michael surveys the angry, divided office and nods to a watching Toby, acknowledging his efforts were a disaster. He defuses Dwight's anger by saying he will make his decision but needs indeterminate time to do so, which placates Dwight.
As everyone prepares to leave, Michael pays the photographer (Scott Adsit) to take a special group photo, but goes through a lot of money before he, albeit poorly, photoshops one himself. During the procedure, Jim admits to Pam that he had registered the complaint about her wedding planning, and Pam looks shocked. The next day, Jim secretly sees Vice President Jan Levinson (Melora Hardin) for an interview about a transfer.
Satya (J. D. Chakravarthy) arrives in Mumbai in search of work and finds a job at a dance bar. Jagga (Jeeva), a criminal, throws the glass of whiskey that Satya prepared for him in his face because he dislikes the taste. Later another small time goon Pakya, (Sushant Singh), who works for Jagga, demands money from Satya. Satya refuses to pay and slashes Pakya's face with a razor. Pakya tells Jagga about the attack, and Jagga's goons beat Satya. A film producer is murdered by Bapu (Rajesh Joshi) and Vitthal Manjrekar (Sanjay Mishra) on the orders of Bhiku Mhatre (Manoj Bajpayee). Manjrekar is captured by police during the getaway and admits Mhatre's involvement to Inspector Khandilkar (Aditya Srivastava) during questioning; Mhatre is arrested.
Jagga makes fun of Satya when he is serving drinks; they fight, and he later frames Satya for procuring. Mhatre and Satya fight in prison, and Mhatre, impressed by Satya's courage, arranges his release through lawyer Chandrakant Mule (Makrand Deshpande). Satya is given a flat by Kallu Mama (Saurabh Shukla) and meets Vidya (Urmila Matondkar), his neighbour and an aspiring singer. Manjrekar denies any link to Mhatre in court, and Mhatre is released. With Mhatre's help, Satya shoots Jagga in the dance bar and joins Mhatre's gang. Malhotra (Mithilesh Chaturvedi), a builder whom Kallu Mama extorted, asks them to meet him for the money and Mhatre, Satya and the gang are ambushed. Under questioning, they admit to working for Guru Narayan (Raju Mavani). Vidya is initially rejected by music director Renusagar (Neeraj Vora), who later signs her for a project after Satya threatens him. Vidya and Satya begin a romantic relationship.
Guru Narayan arrives in Mumbai. Mhatre and his gang are ready to kill him but are forced to abandon their plan on orders from politician Bhau Thakurdas Jhawle (Govind Namdeo). Bhau asks him and Guru Narayan not to endanger his career with a gang war. Guru Narayan says (over the phone, to Bhau) that he wants to kill Satya to avenge Jagga's murder. This conversation is not heard by Mhatre, who (under Bhau's pressure), agrees to call it evens with Guru Narayan.
However, Satya later tells Mhatre that if they do not kill Guru Narayan, he will kill them. Mhatre gang, then kill Guru Narayan. This brings Mhatre and Satya in direct confrontation with Bhau. A new police commissioner, Amodh Shukla (Paresh Rawal), is appointed because of the increase in crime. In a strategic move, Bhau forgives Mhatre and his gang for their earlier actions. The police encounter a group of criminals, including Mhatre gang member Chander Khote (Snehal Dabi). At Satya's suggestion, Shukla is shot by his gang to alarm the police. Bhau wins the election by a landslide, thanks to Mhatre's help.
Satya and Vidya go to the cinema. When they step out for a drink during the intermission, Pakya sees Satya and informs the police. Inspector Khandilkar arrives and orders all the doors locked except one, expecting to apprehend Satya when he leaves the cinema through the single open door. Satya shoots a blank cartridge at the ground, creating a stampede, and escapes with Vidya. He is afraid of losing her after the incident, and Mhatre offers to move them to Dubai. Mhatre arrives at Bhau's house that night to celebrate his election victory with Kallu Mama and Chandrakant Mule, and the politician kills him for disobeying his order and killing Narayan. Satya tells Vidya he has a job in Dubai when the police arrive, and he is forced to escape. Vidya learns from Inspector Khandilkar that Satya is a criminal.
Satya arrives at Kallu Mama's residence. Mule orders Mama to kill Satya but Mama rebels and kills Mule instead, prompting the two to avenge Mhatre's murder. During Ganesh Chaturthi at a beach, Satya kills Bhau and is wounded. He and Mama leave; Mama plans to help Satya board a ship to Dubai, but Satya insists on going to Vidya's house first. Mama waits in the car while Satya knocks on her door. Vidya refuses to answer and, while they argue, Khandilkar arrives and shoots and kills Mama. Satya manages to break down Vidya's door, however, Khandilkar shoots him, and he collapses a few inches from her and dies.
The novel begins with the introduction of the hero, Chauntecleer, a rooster in command of a company of hens, and the land surrounding his coop. The story takes place at a time when humans have not yet made an appearance upon the Earth (a time before the Book of Genesis). Animals have been put on earth before man in order to protect the world from an ancient evil Wyrm, which is trapped at the center of the Earth. Chauntecleer, while not a bad ruler, is a flawed character, somewhat quick to anger, and self-important. The novel's initial chapters define several important characters as well as the origins of the main antagonists in the book, Wyrm and Cockatrice.
While Chauntecleer spends his days dealing with a rogue rat that has invaded his coop, and trying to become accustomed to a newcomer, Mundo Cani, a depressed dog that is always crying out in anguish, the reader is shown another country from across the river. This is where the author introduces the evil in the book. For in the land away from Chauntecleer's there lives another rooster named Senex. He is a rather weak ruler, and his barnyard subjects don't think anything of him. What troubles Senex the most is his lack of a son, which he mourns greatly over. One day though, he is spoken to by Wyrm, who communicates to him through dreams. Wyrm instructs Senex to have faith in him, and to wait for him to deliver Senex a son of his own. Senex does exactly what his visions request, and soon he manages to lay an egg, defying the natural order of mating. Eventually the egg hatches, though what appears from it is a horror beyond words.
An evil monster named Cockatrice is born. It is a creature with the head, wings, and legs of a chicken, but a thin, gray, scaly, serpent body. He kills Senex, and claims the kingdom for himself. A sycophantic toad serves as Cockatrice's voice and turns the basilisk eggs for him. He becomes an evil tyrant and begins to rape all of the laying hens under his rule, in order to give birth to an army of wicked basilisks; poisonous snakes that he uses to crush any opposers to his will (Toad is killed with them) and destroy the country. A few of the animals manage to escape the land, and flee into Chauntecleer's kingdom, where they live happily for a while, trying to forget the nightmares of their past.
Finally there seems to be peace in the book. There comes a time of spring, when everyone in the land is filled with joy. Chauntecleer has even bred three sons to his name with an escapee from Cockatrice's land, one of his hen victims, Pertelote. Unfortunately he is plagued with terrible prophetic visions all the while. He dreams about the river next to his land, rising up and engulfing everything in an apocalyptic manner. The Dun Cow, one of God's messengers, brings an enigmatic riddle to him about the ways he can defeat the trio of evils: Cockatrice, his basilisk army, and Wyrm himself. During the day he tries to find happiness, but everyone is immediately struck with unbearable sorrow when the rooster's three sons are found lying dead by the river. The same egg-eating rat that Chauntecleer drove away is discovered dying, holding part of a venomous serpent (a basilisk) in his mouth.
Chauntecleer soon discovers the story of Cockatrice, hearing it from his wife, who was a refugee from the land under Cockatrice's dictatorship. Eventually Chauntecleer learns that Cockatrice is attempting to make war on the world of animals, to make way for the coming of his true father, Wyrm. Chauntecleer takes action and bands together all of the animals in his land. All sorts of farm and woodland animals come together to fight the terrible evil that is at hand. They wait for a time, building up their forces, beginning to wonder if this evil really exists. Before long there is a surprise attack on a goofy wild turkey named Thuringer, who dies from a basilisk's bite. However, Mundo Cani saves the remaining turkeys.
Thus begins the war between the basilisks and the animals of the land, a war reminiscent of the battle of Armageddon. The animals suffer massive casualties, but in the end manage to drive the basilisks to death. Unfortunately Cockatrice has not yet been dealt with, so the brave Chauntecleer dons a pair of war spurs (the weapon of choice for a bipedal bird) and goes onto the blood-soaked battlefield to confront his enemy. The battle between the two leaders is fierce and merciless. Cockatrice and his enemy do battle in the sky, and Chauntecleer eventually is forced to wrestle with the evil king on the ground. Chauntecleer manages to gain the upper hand, though not by much, and defeats the evil Cockatrice. He throws the monster's head into the river, and Wyrm announces his presence. Chauntecleer faints from weakness, and is brought back to the coop, which has by now been transformed into a fortress, where they try to resuscitate their fallen, but victorious, hero.
Trouble is still ahead, though, for although all of the animals thought the war over, there enters the final evil. A great crevasse in the land breaks open, as Wyrm attempts to enter the world. During all of the turmoil Chauntecleer stirs inside the coop, and, delirious from exhaustion, he sees the dog and thinks him a traitor. He scolds him fiercely, rebuking him and instructing him to leave. In response, the other animals all agree that Chauntecleer is delusional, and that Mundo Cani should not be forced to leave. The dog turns to them and tells them that he knows what he must do, and takes off without any further words. The animals are confused by all of this, and only Chauntecleer, still in delirium, shouts for Wyrm to emerge so that they can fight. Just as Wyrm is about to creep from his prison onto the earth, he is confronted by a certain small dog. Mundo Cani comes to the crevasse, wielding the horn of the Dun Cow as a weapon, egging the ancient evil out of its crevasse by insulting it, insinuating that Wyrm is a coward not to face a small dog such as he. Wyrm falls for the trap, and when he sticks out his bright white eye, that he might see his opponent, the dog leaps onto his eye and impales it with the horn in his mouth.
This causes Wyrm to fall back into the crevasse, collapsing the earth and sealing both Wyrm and Mundo Cani in a dark world below the crust. The entire world is safe again, though horribly shaken. The animals all find it difficult to fit back into their normal lives, especially Chauntecleer, who after bottling his emotions for a while, breaks down in front of his wife. He cries out in pain, knowing that the last thing he said to Mundo Cani before his great sacrifice, were words of scorn and hatred. His wife seeks to comfort him, saying that his penance is to honor Mundo Cani and to ask for his forgiveness.
There are three main characters - Daniel and two of his clones.
Daniel is a successful comedian who can't seem to enjoy life despite his wealth. He gets bored with his hedonist lifestyle, but can't escape from it either. In the meanwhile he is disgruntled with the state of current society, and philosophizes about the nature of sex and love.
His two clones live an uneventful life as hermits, in a post-apocalyptic future. They live in a time where the human species is on its last legs (or, alternatively, on its first legs, as they have returned to societies of hunter-gatherer tribes), destroyed by climate change and nuclear war. The two clones are confronted with the life of the first Daniel and have different views about their predecessor. Scattered around are the remnants of tourist resorts, cities and consumer items and some natural humans living in small tribes without any knowledge of the past or of civilization.
Believing Intergang to be starting up again, Superman learns that beings causing chaos throughout Metropolis are, in fact, a group of robots using Intergang's old methods. These "Interbots" have access to very high-grade weaponry, which is powerful enough to seriously injure or even kill the Man of Steel. These bots are being ordered by a leader that is later revealed to be Lex Luthor, who is secretly working with Darkseid.
Finding that the weapons come from Apokolips, Superman sets out to destroy the bots, and their weapons, having to fight a multitude of enemies that Luthor sends after him. Parasite, Metallo, and Livewire contracted to kill Superman to allow the bots free rein to obey Luthor's wishes.
Loosely based on the historical Children's Crusade, the story follows Robert Nerra, an exiled young knight, played by Eric Stoltz, who leads a band of orphans to join the Third Crusade with King Richard the Lionheart while protecting the children from the Black Prince (Gabriel Byrne), a disillusioned crusader turned child slave trader (not to be confused with the real-life Edward, the Black Prince).
The story details the return of Richard to his home town of Matlock, Derbyshire in the Peak District, England, after serving as a paratrooper in the British Army. Richard and his younger, mentally-impaired brother Anthony, camp at an abandoned farm near the town. Flashbacks reveal Anthony's abuse by a group of drug dealers in the town; Richard vows to take revenge.
Richard has a face-to-face confrontation with Herbie, one of the abusers, who does not recognise him at first. Later, Herbie and friends Soz and Tuff are in a flat taking drugs. He tells them about the confrontation, and states he thinks the man might be Anthony's brother, who has been away serving in the army. When Herbie leaves he sees a man in a military gas mask banging on the front door of the block. Soz and Tuff run outside but the man is nowhere to be seen. When they go back into their flat they discover Richard has ransacked it, stolen the drugs and spray painted the words "Cheyne Stoking", a pun on the scientific name for the pattern of breathing a human being goes into when they are dying.
The next day the thugs visit Sonny, the de facto leader of the gang, to explain where the drugs went. When they meet, Sonny has had his face painted but doesn't realise. The other gang members arrive during this time and they have had their hair and clothes painted as well. They all suspect one another of playing games until Herbie states that the man he saw in the pool hall is Richard, Anthony's brother. All of the gang become silent as they realise that Richard is back in town.
The men encounter Richard while driving in their Citroën 2CV. He makes it clear that he is not scared of any of them and invites them to come and find him at the old farm where he is staying. The gang leaves with Sonny visibly concerned at Richard's apparent lack of fear. That evening, while the gang are hiding out and playing cards, Sonny decides that they should shoot Richard. When one of the members leaves, Richard (having sneaked into the house) brutally kills him with an axe, using the dead man's blood to smear the words "One Down" on the wall.
The next morning, they take their car and go to the farm where Richard is staying with Anthony. Sending in Big Al (one of their members) to draw Richard out, Sonny prepares to shoot him with a rifle and their only round. However, he misses and kills Al. With no rounds remaining in the rifle they retreat and return to town, while Richard smiles.
The surviving members stop at a local petrol station where the car breaks down and Tuff runs off, scared of Richard's revenge. Later at Sonny's house, they arm themselves and search the place, expecting Richard to be there. They do not find him, although he is hiding in the kitchen pantry. While they are upstairs Richard laces their kettle with a cocktail of the drugs he took from the gang earlier in the film. The three men become completely intoxicated a few hours later and Richard reappears to kill them one by one. He toys with them, dancing and joking. He shoots Sonny in the head, and kills Soz with an upward palm strike. He then sits Herbie down and brings out a suitcase, which has Tuff's corpse inside. Richard then tells him he is a good man and will let him live if he tells him where the final gang member is as he left the gang years before. He tells him without hesitation and Richard hugs him. But he finds Herbie's knife and asks him if it was to be used on him. Herbie lies at first then tells the truth, but Richard stabs him regardless. Richard leaves right after.
The next day, Richard arrives in a nearby town where the final gang member, Mark, lives with his wife and two boys. He talks with the children's mother and asks her to let her husband know that he is Richard, Anthony's brother. When Mark returns home, she explains the conversation to her husband. Terrified, he tells her how the gang abused Anthony. The abuse culminated with them pretending to hang him at a local ruined castle whilst he was high on acid. This final episode of abuse culminates with Anthony actually hanging himself after his 'friends' run off. It then becomes clear that Richard has been alone the whole time, and talking to a vision of his dead brother.
The next morning, Richard sneaks into Mark's house and takes him hostage using a knife. He makes him drive to the same ruined castle where Anthony hanged himself and demands he tell him his part in what happened. Mark explains how his fault was in not stopping the abuse. Richard confesses to his crimes against the other men, and reveals that he thought of Anthony as an embarrassment to him because of his mental disabilities. He tells Mark how he now feels like a monster and that he simply wants to lie down with his brother. Richard gives the knife to Mark and demands that he kill him lest he continue his monstrous ways. Mark refuses but Richard clasps his hands and pulls them towards him. Mark eventually stabs and kills Richard, then stumbles away.
Like the legendary phoenix, the Materese are rising from the ashes and are regaining their former power.
The new leader of the Matarese is an enigmatic figure named Jan van der Meer Matareisen, according to himself the only legitimate grandchild of Baron Guillaume de Matarese, the founder of the Matarese group.
With the help of another shadowy figure known as Julian Guiderone a.k.a. "son of the shepherd boy," who seems to have survived the events recounted in "The Matarese Circle" nearly twenty years ago, they are hatching a new and diabolical plot to plunge the civilised world into total chaos.
Only one man, a consular operations operative known as Brandon Scofield a.k.a. Beowulf Agate, can stop them, but he has been retired for nearly twenty years. Brandon Scofield is once again sent into the field together with a CIA case officer, Cameron Pryce, but this time the enemy is more dangerous.
The story tells of vacationing American artist Jeff Farrell who becomes romantically involved with an older woman named Eve Beynat in southern France while at the same time harboring an attraction to her teenage stepdaughter, Annette. Eve's husband/Annette's father Georges is in an asylum for, four years ago, using a blowtorch to kill a man who had raped Annette. Believing it will help make Eve his for life, Jeff agrees to assist her in springing Georges from the asylum. Of course, Eve has a completely different agenda in mind. Inspector Etienne sets up a plot to help trap the real killer, and the climactic scenes are set at Les Baux-de-Provence in the huge stone galleries dug into the rock of the Val-d'Enfer on the road to Maillane.
Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson) finds half of a joint in the parking lot of the Scranton, Pennsylvania branch of the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company, and investigates its source in his capacity as volunteer sheriff deputy. When Dwight sets up urine testing, Michael Scott (Steve Carell) worries that a "clove cigarette" he smoked at a concert will show up. He conducts an anti-drug meeting for the office in an attempt to cast suspicion off himself and excuse himself from the drug test. When Dwight informs Michael that he is not exempt, he pressures Dwight for a cup of his "clean" urine, which he uses to pass the drug test. Deeming this a violation of his oath as sheriff deputy, Dwight turns in his badge. Michael feels guilty, so he makes Dwight an "Honorary Security Advisor" for Dunder Mifflin Scranton.
When Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) and Pam Beesly (Jenna Fischer) say the same thing simultaneously, Pam calls "jinx", meaning Jim cannot talk until he buys her a Coke. The vending machine is sold out, and Pam insists that by the rules Jim must remain silent. Jim holds up his end of the jinx, even when Pam torments him by encouraging Kelly to continue with a one-sided conversation with Jim. When Pam teasingly says to Jim "you can tell me anything", he gives her a yearning look, making her uncomfortable. Pam buys Jim his Coke, which he buys off of her so she can talk to him again.
In a talking head interview, Jim discusses Dwight's sacrifice for Michael. He concludes, "I just don't get it. What does he get out of that relationship?" A cut-away emphasizes his own relationship with Pam.
This game takes place sometime after the events in ''Order of the Flame''. Rynn and Arokh answer a call from the city of Surdana. Lady Myschala of Surdana asks for Rynn and Arokh's assistance. An evil race of three-faced beings known as the Desert Lords has begun rallying the monsters from around the world (similar to how the Dark Union did in Order of the Flame) and have begun enslaving humans. Around the world, there exist four gateways that lead to the world where the dragon mother, Mala-Shae, and her brood have been slumbering since the Dark Wars. Only a Dragon of the Elder Breed can open the gates, and this is why Rynn and Arokh (more specifically, Arokh) are needed to open these gates, so that the humans can once again bond with dragons and fight back against the Desert Lords. Along the way, the two of them must go on various side quests to accomplish goals leading them to the ultimate goal.
The plot deals with Alec Sects, an F-15 pilot who was trained by the FBI, as he tries to take down Nostra, an Israeli-based international company that produces food products, bio-chemicals, genetics, e-commerce and children's software. Daemon Curry, a man who believes himself to be the figure mentioned in several religions (for example: the second christ/antichrist and believes in the prophecies of Nostradamus), is the founder and leader. To deal with him, the IES create a team called Spyhunter. Curry has reason to believe that it is the same person who stopped him in 1983 (Spy Hunter), when he was trying to launch his plan, he sends all he has after him. Curry's plan is to use four EMP weapons mounted on satellites, dubbed the Four Horsemen, to stop all electricity in the world, then plans to rule. Originally Alec does light missions, mostly destruction of Nostra property (like a vehicle created from Nostra and stolen IES technology). However, Nostra hijacks the "Weapons Van" and an Interceptor, and Alec is forced to destroy it. Eventually, the G-6155 Interceptor receives an upgrade (and a change of paint) to the G-6155 Interceptor II, complete with an EMP Launcher, Scanner, and a shorter Turbo lag time. Nostra's schemes become more dangerous, and Alec finds himself returning to most of the previous Nostra bases for more intense missions such as destroying weapons of mass destruction. Later, He finds the headquarters where the Four Horsemen are based in Petra. After a hard-fought battle, the Four Horsemen are defused and explode, while Alec escapes on the Interceptor II. Following a parachute dive from the cliff-side base and landing safely on the ground, he heads toward Russia, setting the stage for SpyHunter 2. Curry's fate is never shown, but he is most likely killed in the explosion as he is not mentioned among the Nostra ringleaders in the sequel.
When her beloved husband dies after a long illness, Jessica "Jess" Drummond is comforted by the executor of her husband's estate lawyer, Frank Everett, a longtime family friend who later shows an interest in dating her. Jess has two boys, 14-year-old Keith and 12-year-old Kim. She tries to reconnect with her friends but finds that they remind her too much of her husband. George Van Orman, an old friend, forces himself on her and she rejects his advances. She runs to her friend Ginna Abbott and accompanies Ginna and her husband Cary on a vacation to Lake Tahoe.
When Jess finds herself lost with a broken ski, she meets Major Scott Landis, who helps her back to the Abbotts' lodge. Jess and Scott become acquainted but she spurns his romantic advances and tells him to leave. Back home in Lake Forest, Jess learns that Scott has been seen at a club. Jess goes to the club to find Scott and discovers that he is stationed in Chicago. However, he refrains from telling her that he is waiting for military orders to be deployed overseas.
When a friend of Jess's mother sees Jess enter Scott's apartment, gossip spreads among Jess's friends, including George's wife Riette and their children. Jess's mother Mary confronts Scott on Christmas Eve. Jess's relationship with Scott is platonic, though Jess has begun to return his affections, initially out of spite against the rumor mill. She later confronts the gossipers at a New Year's Eve party, where Riette expresses her disapproval of Jess's behavior. Jess denies any wrongdoing and resents Riette's intrusion.
After Jess tells Scott that she loves him, he tells her that he must report to New York the next day for his next overseas assignment. Jess wants to accompany him to New York so that may spend their remaining time together. They agree to meet at the train platform. Kim and Keith ask her if she is really going to New York, and she confirms that she is.
In the early morning, Jess discovers that the boys have fled to Mary's house. They think that her planned trip to New York with Scott means that the gossip is true. Jess assures them that she loved their father but that she can also love another.
Jess hurries to the train platform to meet Scott. She informs him that she cannot accompany him as her sons are too young to understand the situation. Scott tells her that he is meant to be with her and asks her to wait for his return. He then departs on the train.
Elbryan Wyndon and his childhood friend Jilseponie Ault (nicknamed Pony), whose lives are irrevocably changed by the destruction of their home town Dundalis, and Avelyn Desbris who is a very pious man that enters a group of monks that go to a monastery by the name of St. Mere Abelle to study and serve under God. So while Elbryan and Pony try to sort out their lives, Avelyn comes to terms with the all-too human brothers of the church and the myriad of injustices he watches them cause. After the destruction of Elbryan’s home town he is taken in by the Touel’alfar and to their home Andur’Blough Inninnes (The Forest of Cloud) and teaches him to not just train his body, but also his mind in the ways of philosophy to become a formidable ranger. While Elbryan is training his childhood friend Pony can’t even remember her past and is trying to ease the pain of her forgotten past. While all this is happening Avelyn has problems of his own and soon has to leave the church in a most unexpected way. It is not till years later when they all meet each other and fight an evil like no other by the name of Bestesbulzibar who is a mighty demon that was reawakened by the humans weakness to rule all the realm with an army of goblins, "powries" (dwarfs), and Fomorian Giants and not only that the church is after Avelyn, too. So now this ragtag group of friends, with the help of some unlikely allies, must stop the demon and save the entire realm from its impending doom.
Even with the destruction of the dactyl, all is not well in the kingdom of Honce-the-Bear. The servants of Bestesbulzibar still roam the land, creating havoc while, at St.-Mere-Abelle, the centaur Bradwarden is held captive. It is up to Elbryan and Pony, with help from friends, to attempt a rescue while fighting the enemy. It is during this time that Elbryan teaches Pony ''Bi'nelle dasada'', the sword-dance of the ''Touel'alfar'', the short winged elves of Corona. It is also at this time that Father Abbot Markwart, head of the Church of St. Abelle, begins his spiral downward. In this novel the reader meets Andacanavar, a northern ranger from Alpinador. Also, the character of Marcalo De'Unnero becomes more fully developed.
Category:American fantasy novels Category:Novels by R. A. Salvatore Category:1999 American novels Category:Del Rey books
Each summer, Celaya (Lala) and her family return to her grandmother's home in Mexico City. At the house, Lala meets Candelaria, the maid's daughter, who she secretly admires for her beauty and her "caramelo skin" that is almost too pretty to look at. The Awful Grandmother, having chased out the renters to make room for her family, controls everything from the family's activities to what will be served for dinner, as the Little Grandfather looks on. As the narrative unfolds, Lala starts to understand how her dysfunctional family members became the way they are. One by one, the members of the family reveal pieces of their life that helped shape their personalities: Narciso lived in Chicago for a time, where he fell in love, but was injured in the war and had to come home; after Soledad's mother died, she has cherished a silken rebozo but has never truly been loved, other than by her son; Aunty Light-Skin had an affair with an unnamed movie star. One by one, secrets are exposed, the cruel ones that usually wreck a family. Through it all, Cisneros illustrates how the ties between families are similar to those that bind the ancient silken rebozo. The rebozo (shawl) is central to the story, as it is a ''caramelo'', not especially the most valued or sought after color of scarf, but the rebozo is the only thing that Soledad has that belonged to her mother. The symbolic shawl parallels familial relationships, perhaps not the first choice or the most beautiful, but even in dysfunctional relationships, families can maintain a culture of interconnected relationships.
Alec Sects tries to deal with the remains of Nostra. First, he tries to familiarize himself with the new G-8155 Interceptor and later goes on a reconnaissance mission. Alec then learns about a defector in the Russian Nostra branch, Vladimir Polvac, who was a very influential figure, and has information about the Russian Nostra leader, "The Cossack". He needed an escort to an embassy, a transport to an airport, and needed Alec to ensure his plane took off unharmed (As he was trying to leave the country because of his defection). An informant later on revealed large sums of money being diverted to the restoration and fortification of an old nuclear power facility. Alec and fellow agent Vanessa Duvelle investigate the plant and Alec finds unique compact energy cells. After this, The Cossack's identity is revealed as Vladimir Impalakov, who then tries to leave his estate to a warehouse complex on the Baltic coast, using a massive and heavily armed experimental ekranoplan, but is killed by Alec before he could escape.
Alec then travels to New Orleans to meet Senator and televangelist Noah Thurgood. However, "Mad Mojo" Carter, a regional crime lord and leader of the American Nostra faction, sends an agent in a stolen G-8155 Interceptor prototype to kill Thurgood. The agent succeeds and the rendezvous is compromised. Alec follows Thurgood's killer and attempts to take him alive to be interrogated but aborts the mission and the rogue Interceptor escapes on a VTOL. Alec is needed elsewhere because an IES steamboat is holding a meeting about the strange Russian energy cells and needs protection. Alec then learns that Mad Mojo Carter's real name is Calvin Blackwell Jr., son of deceased industrialist Calvin Blackwell Sr., is an MIT graduate with honors in engineering, and that he stole top secret information from Thurgood before eliminating him. Alec tracks him down to a bayou, which he was using to cover his escape route. Blackwell was using a cargo jet to escape and had many guards protecting the runway, but Alec shoots the engines to prevent immediate takeoff and destroys the jet, Blackwell, and the top secret information he stole (Since Alec could not recover it).
Alec proceeds to Asia via cargo ship. He then protects it from attack and reaches an IES Safehouse. Alec, along the way, destroys contraband cargo trucks and Phoenix forces working for the Krait Fang criminal organization (Asian faction of Nostra). Alec then learns his partner, Agent Vanessa Duvelle, has been kidnapped by the head of the Krait Fang, Nguyen McGinty and is being held for execution. Alec breaks her out, and later, destroys most of his forces, allowing a planned assault by special IES forces. This allows Alec to infiltrate the Krait Fang Fortress. He then learns McGinty is attempting to escape on a heavily armed train powered by one of the strange Russian energy cells and wants to destroy a city with a dirty bomb he has on his train. Alec destroys the train and kills McGinty.
They then move to the Alps, where Alec finds a rogue Interceptor prototype, similar to the one from New Orleans. The rogue Inteceptor prototype was stolen by Leland Chevre, the leader of the La Rouge Crime Syndicate (Swiss Nostra). Alec finds Chevre and kills him for the data in his vehicle. Alec analyzes the data from Chevre's vehicle and learns that three European Union facilities have been targeted for nuclear attack. Alec finds and destroys the Mobile Missile Platforms. Alec then heads to a castle owned by the Ararat Society with Agent Duvelle based on information from the stolen car. Alec then discovers that Thurgood is alive, and the leader.
Thurgood escapes to the Antarctic, where he has created a Mobile Research Facility that is also an "Ark" and Mobile "City" and plans to flood the world by using the unique compact energy cells to melt the Polar Ice Cap. With Impalakov, Blackwell, McGinty, and Chevre gone, he goes ahead with the plans so he and select others rule what's left. Alec destroys the ark, and him and Agent Duvelle are ordered to their next mission in Los Angeles.
Kenta (Tetsuji Tamayama), a classically trained pianist, is fired from his orchestra and gets drunk in a bar. He wakes up the following morning in what turns out to be a bookstore in heaven. The owner of the bookstore had brought him there, and explains that people live to be 100; people who die before this age go to heaven to live out the rest of their allotted time before they are reborn on earth.
In heaven, he meets Shoko (Yūko Takeuchi), a pianist who he had admired on earth. Together, they start work on a special composition that she had started writing on earth.
Meanwhile, on earth, Shoko's niece Natsuko (also played by Yūko Takeuchi) wants to organise a fireworks display that was discontinued twelve years ago. It turns out that Shoko had been engaged to Takimoto (Teruyuki Kagawa), a talented firework maker, but her hearing had been damaged by a firework accident he caused. As a result, she stopped playing music, he stopped making fireworks, they split up, and later she died.
Natsuko wants Takimoto to make his special 'loving fireworks' for the fireworks display. These are the special fireworks that inspired Shoko to compose her special composition, uncompleted when Takimoto stopped making them. He is vehemently opposed to making fireworks again.
However, at the end of the firework display 'loving fireworks' unexpectedly appear in the sky, set-off by Takimoto. Kenta returns to earth and plays Shoko's now completed composition to accompany them. Natsuko and Kenta meet. She asks how he knows the piece, to which he responds that he met 'her'. In the end, they start laughing together (as the credits begin to roll).
Largo Winch (Paolo Seganti) is a 28-year-old adventurer, drifting around the world, searching for himself. Along the way he's picked up with Simon Ovrannaz (Diego Wallraff), an ex-thief he met in a Turkish prison. The two are best friends...almost brothers.
Then one day, Largo's life is changed forever when he learns that Nerio Winch (David Carradine), the step-father he barely knew, is dead. Nerio is an Aristotle Onassis-like billionaire who secretly adopted Largo as a child, but never took him in. Instead, he paid a family in Luxembourg to raise him, then sent him to a monastery as a teenager to be educated. Nerio paid the bills, and that was pretty much the extent of their relationship. These last few years, they barely saw each other.
Now Nerio has committed suicide because he was dying of a brain tumor...and, incredibly, has left his vast fortune and control of Group W, his multi-national corporate empire, to Largo. Largo is overwhelmed by the responsibility of this sudden inheritance. The board of directors at Group W despise him, thinking him unworthy and incompetent.
Then Largo receives an astonishing video recorded by his step-father just before his death. On it, Nerio reveals that he was once a member of a mysterious organization called ''The Adriatic Commission'', a secret conspiracy of billionaires and politicians who work to control the economic and political destiny of the world for their own ends. For years they have tried to kill Nerio for leaving. In the video Nerio says that if he is dead, despite what the official cause of death may be, it is because they have finally succeeded. Nerio ends by charging Largo with using Group W to seek out and destroy ''The Commission'' and uncover the names of its secret members.
Eventually Largo discovers another bit of amazing information. Nerio was not his step-father at all, but his biological parent. He kept Largo's existence a secret to protect him from ''The Commission'', which would have surely used the son against the father.
And so Largo faces a series of enormous challenges. He must learn to run one of the world's biggest corporations, all the while being opposed and undermined at every turn by his own board of directors. They are led by Michel Cardignac (Charles Powell), a charming, scheming, ruthless executive who will do whatever he can to see Largo ousted and himself at the head of Group W.
Largo must also follow his father's wishes and try to expose and destroy The Adriatic Commission. And since The Commission is determined to gain control of Group W, they are always shadowing him, always waiting for an opportunity to pounce and destroy him.
But Largo is an adventurer at heart, not a businessman. And so, at every opportunity, he bolts the boardroom and sets off in search of excitement. But he doesn't go alone. He's assisted by Joy Arden (Sydney Penny), a beautiful ex-CIA agent who used to work for Group W's security under Nerio, and Georgi Kerensky (Geordie Johnson), a former KGB agent who left Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union.
His biggest ally inside Group W is John Sullivan (Serge Houde), head of the Group W legal department and a member of the board of directors. He was Nerio's best friend, and swore to do all he could to help Largo navigate the treacherous waters of Nerio's empire.
In Manhattan, when a client is bitten by a rat in the dressing room of Garsons Department Store and contracts Weil's disease, the manager Susan Costello is assigned to hire and help the best exterminator in New York, Jack Carver. Jack and his assistant Ty find a colony of mutant rats in New York City and try to convince the health department administrator and former partner of Jack, Ray Jarrett, how serious the infestation is. But the politician Ray is interested only in covering up the problem to protect the economic interests of powerful groups.
The series follows an aspiring angel who for some reason, will not enter heaven, but is assigned to guide someone who has died prematurely. The prematurely deceased, played by the episode guest stars, may choose from the afterlife to correct something that went wrong earlier in their life. The key concept to the series was that each episode featured a different guest star in the leading role, while the series regulars played a supporting role.
Episodes are centered on an individual who had reached the end of their life in one timeline, and due to circumstances seen by their advocate and judge, is then given 3 days to travel into their past, and without revealing their true identity, convince their younger self to make a different choice at a pivotal point to effect a different outcome for example, by quitting smoking, or choosing a different job and in changing this learn a key lesson to make them become a better person. This way, the series was an anthology of many different arenas and characters.
Season One featured Gordie Brown as advocate Mr. Jones, and Paul Popowich played the role of advocate Mr. Smith in Season Two. Al Waxman played Judge Othniel in 42 of the 44 episodes, replaced for two episodes of Season One by Polly Bergen as Judge Deborah. Waxman died in heart surgery on January 18, 2001, while the second season was airing.
Lacey Farrell (Emma Samms), a young rising star on Manhattan's high-powered and competitive real estate scene is in the course of selling a luxurious apartment when she becomes the witness to a murder and hears the dying words of the victim, a woman convinced that her attacker was after a journal kept by her recently deceased daughter Heather up until the day she died in a hit-and-run, what everyone believes to be a tragic accident.
This is a nightmare scenario, true for many Cold War submarine veterans. After a North Korean nuclear missile test goes wrong, the American nuclear attack submarine USS ''Lansing'' is cut off from communications. Detecting radioactivity in the air and believing the world to be at nuclear war, the executive officer takes command of the ship from the captain and prepares to fire the submarine's nuclear missiles at targets in Russia. Some members of the crew do not believe they are at war and help the captain take back control of the ship. Meanwhile, a second American submarine is sent to hunt down and destroy the ''Lansing'' before it can start a real war.
In the end, the captain is successful in regaining control of the vessel and preventing the missile launch. After outmaneuvering the other submarine, the captain surfaces in a Russian harbor and uses a mobile phone (gained from a crewman who brought it on board during a stop-over in Tokyo) to contact an admiral and inform them that the situation is now under control.
Currier and Ives illustration The ballet bore little resemblance to de la Motte Fouqué's ''Undine'':
The plot is no more like the romantic baron's story than it is like that of Robinson Crusoe, excepting so far as a water-nymph is the heroine. Therefore, the readers of ''Undine'' have to unlearn all they know, if they would avoid mystification while witnessing the marvels of the new ballet.
Their only point in common appears to be the ill-fated love of a water sprite, Ondine, with for a mortal man who already has a mortal sweetheart. However, the ballet's divergence from the original novel "derive from intermediary works linking the book and the ballet, which Perrot used to enrich and enhance his theatrical conception". The greatest changes that Perrot made to the basic plot were the change of location from the darkly evocative Danube to the sunnier shores of Sicily, and the transformation of the aristocratic Sir Huldbrand into the humble fisherman Matteo, while Undine's rival Bertalda became the orphan Giannina. In many ways, Perrot's ballet is more similar to René-Charles Guilbert de Pixerécourt's play of the story, ''Ondine, ou la Nymphe des Eaux'', which was first presented in Paris in 1830 while Perrot was also performing there.
Firiel Dee is given her mother's necklace by her childhood friend, Rumpelstiltskin (Roux). The necklace was meant as a birthday gift from her remote father, the astrologer Gideon Dee. All fifteen-year-olds are welcome to attend a public ball at the royal Roland castle in honor of the Queen's Birthday, and Firiel decides to wear her new necklace to the celebration. When it is recognized as a missing talisman of the royal family, this leads to the revelation that Firiel is the daughter of royalty and automatically in competition to become the next Queen.
The game begins with a tutorial level where Spider-Man stops the H-Bombers from blowing up the Carlyle building. The following day, Spider-Man continues to fight crime in Manhattan, and battles each of the four warring gangs, making quick work of the Apocalypse, whose leader is defeated and arrested. That night, while Peter and Mary Jane are discussing their problems in Central Park, an alien symbiote inside a meteor crashes nearby and attaches itself to Peter's shoe. Elsewhere, Harry uses his father's performance-enhancing gas and Green Goblin technology to become the "New Goblin", and an escaped convict named Flint Marko becomes the Sandman after accidentally falling into an experimental particle accelerator that fuses his body with the surrounding sand.
While investigating the disappearance of his science teacher, Dr. Curt Connors, Peter discovers that he has been conducting experiments on himself with a lizard DNA serum, one of which transformed him into the Lizard. Chasing the Lizard into the sewers, Spider-Man discovers that he has transformed numerous other people into creatures like himself, intending to have them invade New York. Although Spider-Man manages to foil his plan, the Lizard escapes further into the sewers. Returning to the surface, Peter is attacked by Harry, who seeks to avenge his father's death. Peter defeats Harry, knocking him out in the process, and takes him to the hospital to recover.
The next day, Spider-Man receives help from Detective Jean DeWolfe in dealing with the H-Bombers, whose leader, known as "The Mad Bomber", is eventually revealed to be businessman Luke Carlyle, who turned to crime after his company was ruined by a story published by the ''Daily Bugle''. Seeking revenge, Carlyle attacks the ''Bugle'' and kidnaps J. Jonah Jameson, but Spider-Man rescues the latter, despite Carlyle's escape. Meanwhile, corrupt science corporation MechaBioCon dispatches their top assassin, Mac Gargan, to break Rhino out of prison, catching Spider-Man's attention. While investigating MechaBioCon, Spider-Man discovers that Gargan turned to them to remove his mechanical scorpion tail so that he could lead a normal life, but they instead experimented on him and placed him under mind control. With the help of a friendly scientist, Dr. Jessica Andrews, who disapproves of the company's experiments on Gargan, Spider-Man finds and frees him from the mind control.
Returning home, Peter is enveloped by the symbiote, creating a black Spider-Man suit that enhances his powers and increases his aggressiveness. After spotting Marko robbing a bank, Spider-Man chases him into the subway, where they fight. Discovering that water is Marko's weakness, Spider-Man bursts open a pipe, releasing water that reduces Marko to mud and washes him away. The following day, Peter discovers that Eddie Brock hired an impostor Spider-Man to pretend to be committing a robbery so that he could photograph him and earn a promotion. After humiliating Brock as Spider-Man, Peter exposes the scheme and earns the promotion in his place, causing Brock to swear revenge against both Spider-Man and Peter.
Later, Spider-Man finds the Lizard again and manages to restore Connors to his human form, despite Kraven the Hunter and Calypso attempting to hunt the Lizard. He also manages to end the gang war after capturing the leaders of both the Arsenic Candies and the Dragon Tail, although the Kingpin takes advantage of this to unite the two gangs, as well as the Apocalypse, against Spider-Man. After learning about this, Spider-Man confronts the Kingpin at his penthouse, where he seemingly kills him after throwing him out a window. This, combined with his aggressiveness towards Mary Jane during a date, makes Peter realize that the symbiote is negatively influencing his behavior, and he attempts to remove it at a nearby church. He is successful thanks to the church bell's sonic vibrations, which weaken the symbiote, but the creature then bonds with Brock, who followed Spider-Man to the church.
Spider-Man helps Connors atone for his actions as the Lizard by curing the other lizard people, and joins Gargan in infiltrating MechaBioCon to confront the scientist who experimented on him, Farley Stillwell. After defeating Rhino, whom Stillwell hired as her bodyguard, Gargan chooses to spare Stillwell and flees. Meanwhile, Brock, as Venom, finds a still-living Marko and blackmails him into helping him kill Spider-Man, threatening to murder his daughter. The pair kidnap Mary Jane to lure out Spider-Man, while a recovered Harry comes to his friends' aid. Harry rescues Mary Jane and defeats Marko before Venom kills him. Spider-Man ultimately defeats Venom after using sonic vibrations to weaken him, but Brock dies after being impaled on some steel bars.
Afterward, Spider-Man reconciles with Mary Jane, while Marko is reunited with his daughter, who was rescued by the police. He apologizes to Spider-Man and leaves peacefully. The game ends with Peter resuming his neverending battle against crime, while stating that the only way to honor and remember those he loves is by never giving up being Spider-Man.
The game begins with a tutorial level where Spider-Man stops the H-Bombers from blowing up the Carlyle building. The next day, Spider-Man investigates several humanoid lizards seen in Central Park, and continues his battle against the H-Bombers, stopping them from blowing up the ''Daily Bugle''
The following day, the H-Bombers attack the ''Daily Bugle'' and kidnap J. Jonah Jameson, but Spider-Man manages to rescue the latter. He then fights and defeats the Bombers' leader, who is revealed to be businessman Luke Carlyle, who turned to crime after his company was ruined by a story published by Jameson. Later, Peter investigates the disappearance of his science teacher, Dr. Curt Connors, and discovers that he has been conducting experiments on himself with a lizard DNA serum, one of which transformed him into the Lizard. Chasing the Lizard through the sewers, Spider-Man discovers that he has transformed numerous other people into creatures like himself, intending to have them invade New York. Although Spider-Man manages to foil his plan, the Lizard escapes further into the sewers. When Spider-Man finds him again, the Lizard is fighting Kraven the Hunter, who has been trying to hunt him. Spider-Man intervenes in the confrontation and defeats Kraven, before overpowering the Lizard and restoring Connors to his human form.
After an assignment from Jameson leads Spider-Man to encounter a vampire, he defeats the creature and brings it to Connors, who recognizes the vampire as renowned biochemist Dr. Michael Morbius. With Morbius claiming that his wife Shriek was responsible for his transformation, Spider-Man tracks her down and defeats her, but she escapes. After battling Shriek's gang, the Waste Tribe, Spider-Man discovers her whereabouts and brings Morbius to her so that she could cure him. However, she instead turns Morbius against Spider-Man, who defeats him. Shriek then tries to fight Spider-Man herself, but he is able to counter her powers using the symbiote. Defeated, Shriek uses her powers to cure Morbius before falling into a coma. Spider-Man leaves the unconscious Shriek in Morbius' and Connors' care and departs.
Later, Peter discovers that Eddie Brock has been masquerading as a black suited Spider-Man so that he could 'expose' Spider-Man as a criminal and earn a promotion. After humiliating Brock as Spider-Man, Peter exposes the scheme and earns the promotion in his place, causing Brock to swear revenge against both Spider-Man and Peter. Shortly afterwards, Spider-Man spots Marko robbing an armored van and chases him into the subway, where they fight. Discovering that water is Marko's weakness, Spider-Man bursts open a pipe, releasing water that reduces Marko to mud and washes him away. Later that night, after becoming violent with Mary Jane during a date, Peter realizes that the symbitoe is negatively influencing his behavior, and attempts to remove it at a nearby church. He is successful thanks to the church bell's sonic vibrations, which weaken the symbiote, but the creature then bonds with Brock, who followed Spider-Man to the church. As Venom, Brock, having deduced that Peter is Spider-Man, finds a still-living Marko and blackmails him into helping him kill Spider-Man, threatening to murder his daughter. The pair kidnap Mary Jane to lure out Spider-Man, while a recovered Harry comes to his friends' aid. Harry rescues Mary Jane and Marko's daughter and helps Spider-Man defeat Marko before Venom kills him. Spider-Man ultimately defeats Venom after using sonic vibrations to weaken him, but Brock dies after the symbiote leaves his body.
Afterwards, Spider-Man reconciles with Mary Jane, while Marko is reunited with his daughter. He apologizes to Spider-Man and leaves peacefully. The game ends with Spider-Man resuming his never-ending battle against crime, while stating that the only way to honor and remember those he loves is by never giving up being Spider-Man.
While patrolling the city, Spider-Man spots a building on fire, so he goes there and defuses a bomb. He then spots the New Goblin flying around and realizes that he is his friend, Harry Osborn, who believes Spider-Man murdered his father and wants retribution. After Spider-Man defeats Harry, he leaves to rescue more civilians trapped in a building.
Later, Spider-Man encounters the Sandman, but is unable to defeat him, so he returns home, where the alien symbiote envolps him, creating a new black suit that enhances his powers. The following day, Spider-Man faces the villains Electro, who has kidnapped a senator, and The Mad Bomber, who has planted explosives throughout the city. After defeating both villains, Spider-Man encounters Sandman again and pursues him, eventually defeating him by violently washing him away down the sewers.
Realizing that the symbiote's influence is starting to corrupt him, Spider-Man removes it using sonic vibrations from the bell of a nearby church. However, the symbiote attaches to Eddie Brock instead, who desires revenge against both Peter Parker and Spider-Man, turning him into Venom. Spider-Man is later attacked by Venom and a still-living Sandman, who has since gained quicksand powers. After defeating Sandman, Spider-Man and Venom engage in a final battle, until Venom falls off the building and seemingly dies. Spider-Man proceeds to call for an ambulance, as the symbiote leaves Eddie's body and slithers away into the night. The game ends on a cliffhanger with a screenshot reading "The End?"
Marco (Dingdong), a photographer, along with his sister (Isabel) and their cousin Duke (Jojo) are on a vacation in an old sleepy town. While strolling around town a mysterious woman is hit by a van while trying to save Marco's life. He visits the woman and is drawn to her granddaughter Lianne (Karylle). Marco and Lianne start to develop a relationship but recent events cause Marco to be withdrawn. He suddenly finds himself haunted by a deep feeling of loneliness.
His yearning leads to a telephone conversation with Divina (Iza), the daughter of a haciendero. They find solace in each other. Divina lives in the past (1957) while Marco lives in the present (2006).
The series follows Ling Fei-long, a Chinese transfer student living in Japan. Ling is the son of the leader of the White Dragon clan, one of four clans who live in the mountains of China and are descended from mythical beasts. After killing an ordinary human, Ling is banished to Japan so that he might learn about humanity and how to control his powers around them.
Mickey Mouse is a lifeguard, sitting on his beach chair and playing the banjo to amuse an appreciative audience of ducks, pelicans and sea lions. To his annoyance, the chair dances along. Singing "My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean", Minnie Mouse changes into a bathing costume, and walks to the edge of the beach. A huge wave crashes onto the beach, dragging her out to sea.
Minnie cries for help, and Mickey rushes to her rescue, swimming through the waves (and mid-air) to locate her. He brings her back to the beach and the audience/animals cheers. When Minnie regain consciousness, she sadly starts to cry, disoriented and frightened by the experience. Mickey tries to comfort her and lets her blow her nose on his handkerchief. With her calmed down a bit, Mickey tells Minnie to look at him by singing and dancing to “The Sailor’s Hornpipe”, and the animals join in, leading to a lengthy sequence of penguins and sea lions dancing while Mickey plays an impromptu harp to “Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep”, uses sticks to bang on items. A deep-voiced walrus joins in with a solo. Mickey performs the final with do-dos while tapping moving his arms and everyone, including Minnie, cheer for him. At the end of the performance, Minnie, now cheered up and happy, coos to Mickey, "My hero!" and he responds, "Oh that's nothing!" while sweeping his foot the sand. Minnie kisses him gratefully repeatedly on the cheek that Mickey stops her and kisses her in the lips twice and the mice hug each other.
Bill Jenner is part of an exploration team on their way to Mars. He is the only survivor when their spaceship crashes in the Martian desert. He is trying to reach the shallow polar sea they saw as the approached, but after walking for days it is clear he has misjudged the distance.
As he climbs another dune he looks into the valley on the far side and sees a village made of marble. As he approaches a strange grating sound follows him. Starving and almost out of water, he runs into the town and grabs a fruit from one of the trees. It burns his lips and gums before he spits it out. Drinking a tiny bit of his remaining water, he explores the town and finds it to be completely alien. He falls asleep, exhausted, and wakes to find a poisonous mist falling from the ceiling, forcing him to run from the room. Initially, he believes it to be an attack, but later concludes it was simply a shower, one for an alien body.
Over the next days, Jenner attempts to teach the village how to cater to his needs, replacing the deadly food with something partially edible patterned on the crumbs from his pocket, and providing water after he drips out what remains in his bags. At first relieved, he later notices that the village is destroying itself in order to provide these elements, which are almost unknown on Mars. He realizes his respite will be short; the village will be destroyed keeping him alive for a few days, leaving him no better off than before. Throughout, the noise continues to bother him.
He awakes to the sound of violins, playing a dirge for the Martian race, now long dead. The city serves food which is now a delicious meaty stew and he compliments his meal with a refreshing shower. After days of trying to communicate, the village has finally figured out how to cater to his physical needs. He shakes the cleaning fluid off his tail and waddles out to bask in the sun.
12-year-old boys Romeo Brass and Gavin Woolley have been best friends and neighbours for most of their lives. Gavin suffers from a back injury which causes him to be bullied by other boys, while Romeo is quick to step in and defend him. One day Gavin is confronted by two boys, Romeo intervenes and things turn violent. Gavin's injury prevents him from assisting his friend.
During the fight Gavin spots Morell, who is a few years older, and calls to him for help. Morell chases the two boys off and then drives Romeo and Gavin back home. Romeo's family notice that Morell's behaviour is a little unusual. Morell develops an immediate attraction toward Romeo's sister Ladine and seeks Romeo's advice about asking her out. Gavin plays a prank on Morell which results in him humiliating himself. Morell goes to the shop where Ladine works to apologise and ask her out again; she accepts out of pity.
The next day, Morell encourages the boys to miss school and accompany him to the beach. When Romeo goes to buy ice cream, Morell confronts Gavin about the prank that he pulled and viciously threatens him with what will happen if he ever tries to do it again.
Romeo continues spending time with Morell while Gavin goes into hospital for an operation, which results in Gavin distancing himself from both of them. Romeo looks up to Morell as a new father-figure after he is infuriated by his estranged and violent father Joe coming back into his old life.
Morell encourages Romeo to behave more violently and convinces him to stay away from Gavin, whilst continuing to pursue Ladine who is disturbed by his eccentric behaviour. Ladine is in Morell's flat when he makes a pass at her which she rebuffs. Feeling rejected, Morell is angry and tries to persuade Ladine to least fool around with him sexually, but she storms out of the flat. The next day, Romeo goes inside Morell's flat before Morell takes his frustrations out on Romeo, bullying him and ejecting him from his flat.
The next day, Morell forces Romeo into his van in order to follow Ladine. In front of Romeo, Morell viciously attacked an customer whom Ladine was flirting with, which causes Romeo to run away. Upset by Morell's actions, Romeo goes to Gavin's house where he is comforted by Gavin's parents. Morell follows Romeo back to Gavin's house and starts to bully Gavin's dad Bill. Witnessing this, Romeo's father Joe steps in to defend Bill, attacking Morell, and forcing him away. Romeo and Gavin reconcile their friendship and restore some semblance of normality back into their lives.
''Obsessed'' tells a story of Stephen Friedman—a successful realtor, a Jewish immigrant, and an orphan who had tried to find out who his parents were for a long time and at last gave up. An unexpected letter from a friend and a newspaper article offer help: Stephen discovers that his mother was Rachel Spritzer, a woman who had been through the nightmare of World War II concentration camps, and recently died. Stephen also learns that she was quite wealthy and had some property, including a priceless historical artifact—a stone of David, one of the five stones believed to be used by David to defeat the giant Goliath. Also, it may be that she knew where the other four stones are.
Stephen becomes obsessed with the idea to find the remaining stones. He heads to his mother's old house, where he believes the clues are hidden. However, the house is bought by someone else, snatched right out of Stephen's hands. The new owner is Roth Braun, a German, the son of Gerhard Braun who was the Nazi Commandant of the concentration camp, Torùn. Roth Braun knows about the stones and about Stephen's plans. And he also has plans of his own.
The story goes on as Stephen makes one desperate attempt to get into his mother's house after another. Braun's thugs do their best to keep him away. Another storyline takes us back in time to the World War II camp, telling about two pregnant women, Ruth and Martha (Stephen's mother) and their struggles with the ruthless commandant who kills on a whim and plays games with the prisoners by giving and taking away their hope. There is some mystery here, and, although the two storylines seem unconnected, they eventually come together.
After a bike accident, the sweet-yet-nerdy 15-year-old Louise Miller knocks on the door of a strange-looking house, hoping to use the phone. Instead, she meets a unique but welcoming woman, the seer Madame Serena. Reading Louise's palm, Serena is stunned when she learns that Louise is a reincarnated witch and an old friend from one of her previous lives. Serena reveals that exactly one week later, on Louise's 16th birthday, her magical powers will return with the aid of a powerful amulet that was lost in a former life, an item that Madame Serena says searches for its owner.
Once Louise discovers that she has the power to alter the world around her, she attempts to make her dreams come true by casting a love spell to win over Brad, the hottest guy in school. With Madame Serena's help, Louise uses her newfound powers to become the most popular girl in school, while also getting back at her harassing English teacher, Mr. Weaver and the catty group of cheerleaders who never respected her. It is only after her popularity spell gets out of hand—which in turn causes her to abandon her equally unpopular, but loyal, best friend Polly—that Louise realizes she doesn't need magic. In the end, she relinquishes her powers by giving her amulet to Madame Serena, creating her own happy ending and winning over Brad by herself.
On her birthday, Princess Annika worries her parents by going outside to ice skate without permission, and bringing home a "possibly dangerous" polar bear cub named Shiver. As a result, the overprotective King and Queen forbid her from going skating ever again.
Annoyed, Annika sneaks out to join a skating festival in the village that night. A powerful sorcerer named Wenlock appears, and orders the princess to marry him. The King and Queen arrive and confront Wenlock, but he laughs and cryptically reminds the king and queen of the fate of their "other daughter". When Annika refuses his proposal, Wenlock petrifies the entire village population, including Annika's parents. Annika is rescued by a winged horse named Brietta, but Wenlock warns her she has three days to marry him; otherwise, the spell will become permanent.
Brietta takes Annika to the Cloud Kingdom, ruled by Queen Rayla. Annika discovers that her parents’ "other daughter" is, in fact, Brietta, who was transformed into a pegasus by Wenlock when she refused to marry him. This explains why their parents were so protective of Annika once she was born. The Cloud Queen tells Annika that the only thing that can defeat Wenlock is a "Wand of Light"; built from a measure of courage, a ring of love, and a gem of ice lit by hope's eternal flame. Despite Brietta’s reluctance due to past failed attempts, Annika assures her that they can build the wand together.
Annika, Brietta, and Shiver travel to the Forbidden Forest, where they meet Aidan, a blacksmith. When Shiver falls into a giant's stew pot, Annika uses her hair ribbon to help them escape. The ribbon, Annika's exact height, is the "measure of courage", and turns into a staff for the Wand of Light. After getting a map from the gem dealer Ferris, the group finds a large cavern filled with ice gems, where Annika and Aidan take one each. Aidan reveals that he ran away from his parents after he lost all of their money gambling. He took an extra gem to bring to his parents, so they would forgive him. Brietta offers her tiara for the ring of love. With all three objects, Aidan smiths the "Wand of Light" and Annika uses it to transform Brietta back into a human.
On their way back to the Cloud Kingdom, Annika and Brietta are pursued by Wenlock, and Brietta is knocked unconscious in the chase. Enraged, Annika orders the wand to destroy Wenlock, but it doesn't work. With no other options, she gives in and finally agrees to marry him. Wenlock refuses, calling her annoying, just like his former wives, all now cursed to become trolls. He takes the wand, and buries Annika in an avalanche.
Aidan helps dig Annika out. After she recuperates, the group sneaks into Wenlock's palace. Annika finds the wand, but it has been damaged and the gem breaks off and falls into the sea. Aidan offers his gem as a replacement; realizing that the wand cannot be used for vengeance, Annika breaks all of Wenlock's spells for the love of her family and her people. Wenlock is stripped of his powers, his ex-wives are restored to their true forms, and the spell on Annika's kingdom is broken. Annika and Brietta are reunited with their parents, while Aidan reconciles with his father. In the Cloud Kingdom, Annika and Aidan skate together, while the Cloud Queen lifts the wand into the sky to become a star.
In an unnamed kingdom, a blonde princess and a brunette pauper are born at the same time. Several years later, Princess Anneliese is betrothed by her mother, Queen Genevieve, to the wealthy King Dominick to save the nearly bankrupt royal treasury; however, she is in love with her young tutor Julian. The Pauper, Erika, is an indentured servant, working off her parents' debt at Madame Carp's Dress Emporium, which supplies the palace with clothes; however, she dreams of becoming a singer and seeing the world.
Unbeknownst to the Queen, the reason behind the kingdom's bankruptcy is that her adviser Preminger has been stealing gold, emptying the royal mines. Upon learning from his henchmen, Nick and Nack, that the Queen has arranged Anneliese's marriage to King Dominick, he decides to make Anneliese 'mysteriously disappear', which will then cancel the engagement. Preminger plans to pretend that he has found the Princess, earning a betrothal to her, which would eventually allow him to become king himself.
Julian takes Anneliese for a day out into the kingdom so that she can be free for once; there, she witnesses the poverty caused by the kingdom's bankruptcy. Anneliese hears Erika, who is performing in the street to earn money for herself, but Madame Carp steals the earnings as part of her debt. Anneliese and Erika meet and learn that they are identical, apart from their hair color and the crown-shaped birthmark on Anneliese's shoulder. The two bond over their shared troubles. That night, Anneliese and her cat Serafina are abducted by Nick and Nack, who leave a forged letter saying she ran away.
Julian, doubting the letter, asks Erika to impersonate the Princess, saving the engagement while he investigates Anneliese's disappearance. Preminger is surprised when Erika, disguised as Anneliese, presents herself at the palace. King Dominick introduces himself to the disguised Erika; over time, the two fall in love, but Erika worries about what will happen if she is found out.
The real Anneliese escapes from Nick and Nack, but the guards, having seen Erika, mistake Anneliese for an imposter and turn her away. Mistaking Anneliese for Erika, Madame Carp forces Anneliese into her shop and locks her inside. A suspicious Julian follows Preminger to the house where Anneliese was being kept and overhears Preminger's plans, but is discovered and captured.
Anneliese has Serafina take her ring and a tag from the dress shop so someone can find her; unfortunately, Preminger and his dog Midas intercept her. Preminger takes Anneliese to the mines, where she is imprisoned with Julian after Nick and Nack cause a cave-in. Preminger returns to the palace, where he exposes Erika as a fake and has her imprisoned. Preminger convinces the Queen that Anneliese has died and that he has supposedly come into great wealth during his travels. With no other options, she reluctantly agrees to marry him to save the Kingdom.
Erika escapes the dungeon by singing a lullaby, causing the guard to fall asleep so she can take his keys. She is aided by King Dominick, who suspects Preminger of lying. Meanwhile, Anneliese and Julian find out how to restore the kingdom's resources with some geodes filled with crystals; the two then confess their love for each other. Erika's barking cat, Wolfie, unearths a mine shaft, and the group escapes by flooding the room and floating towards the surface in a barrel.
At the Queen and Preminger's wedding, Anneliese arrives, proves her identity with her birthmark, and reveals the truth about Preminger. After a brief chase, Preminger is arrested along with Nick and Nack. Anneliese tells her mother that she wants to marry Julian and that they can help save the kingdom. Soon after, the kingdom's prosperity is restored thanks to the crystals in the mine. Madame Carp is no longer patronized by the palace and goes out of business; with her debt finally paid, Erika leaves to become a renowned singer. After touring the world alone, Erika realizes where her heart truly lies and decides to return home to marry Dominick. Anneliese and Erika have a double wedding, and they and their husbands ride off in a carriage together.
In the film, Barbie plays the role of Elina – a flower fairy who lives in the realm of Fairytopia with her puffball, Bibble. Unlike all other fairies, Elina does not have wings, which she is often ridiculed for. Elina and her friend Dandelion learn that one of Fairytopia’s guardians, Topaz, has supposedly been kidnapped. Elina returns to her flower home, Peony, in disbelief.
In truth, Topaz really has been kidnapped by Laverna, evil twin sister of Fairytopia's benevolent ruler, the Enchantress. Laverna reveals that she incapacitated her sister with poison and plans to capture all seven of Fairytopia’s guardians. Meanwhile, Laverna’s minions will spread her mist-like formula all over Fairytopia, which will weaken all winged creatures. With no other options, the denizens of Fairytopia will turn to Laverna for a cure and crown her queen as a result.
In the morning, Elina and Bibble awaken to see that Peony as well as all the other fairy homes in the meadow are sick from Laverna's formula. Elina, Dandelion, and Bibble decide to seek help from closest guardian, Azura. Upon entering a forest, Dandelion breathes some of Laverna's formula and is forced to return home when she becomes unable to fly.
After being turned away when they ask to see Azura, Elina and Bibble sneak to Azura's house, where she is discovered by Azura herself. Seeing a rainbow in Elina's eye, Azura invites them inside. She explains that the rainbow in Elina's eyes means she's destined for great things, which Elina, who does not believe in herself, disagrees with. Azura tells her that all of Fairytopia is in trouble because of Laverna and in the morning she will leave to speak to a dryad named Dahlia, a former follower of Laverna; she then asks Elina to take care of her magic necklace.
In the morning, as Azura is about to leave, she is kidnapped by a Fungus, one of Laverna's henchmen. Elina wakes up and is accused of being responsible for Azura's disappearance, but is rescued by Hue, a giant butterfly. In Laverna's lair, the Fungi arrive with Azura, but Laverna is angered when she finds her necklace missing. The Fungi tell Laverna that a wingless fairy had it. Realizing a wingless fairy would be unaffected by her formula, Laverna orders the Fungi to find Elina.
Hue and Elina are pursued by Laverna's firebirds. They manage to evade them when merman Prince Nalu gives them seaweed that allows them to breathe underwater. When the group finally reach Dahlia’s home, she is reluctant to help as the other guardians were mistrustful of her but Elina convinces her to do the right thing. Dahlia tells Elina that Laverna found a way to suck the powers from the fairy guardians' necklaces and transfer them to herself, stating that the "union point" would be its weakness.
The group arrives at Laverna's lair, planning to go in and find the union point, but Elina insists on going by herself as she has Azura's necklace. While her friends cause a distraction, Elina makes it inside. Elina finds the guardians and her friends, captured by the Fungi. Laverna agrees to let them go if Elina returns Azura's necklace, which she refuses, whereupon Laverna notices the rainbow in her eye. Laverna promises that she can give Elina wings in exchange for returning Azura's necklace. Hypnotized, Elina walks toward Azura with the necklace. The union point—a crystal embedded in Laverna's throne—begins to absorb the power from the guardians' necklaces. Just as the Elina is about to return the necklace, Azura's words reach her and she snaps out of her trance. Rejecting Laverna's offer, Elina hurls the necklace at the union point, shattering it. The guardians' powers overwhelm Laverna and she vanishes.
Back in the Magic Meadow, the fairies and the flowers are cured. Elina and her friends are visited by the recovered Enchantress. She thanks Elina and her friends for saving everyone and rewards her with her own magic necklace. The necklace magically bestows Elina with her own pair of wings. Overjoyed, Elina and her friends go flying together.
The story is told by Barbie to her younger sister, Kelly, who is insecure in her painting abilities.
Rapunzel is a young woman with long, floor-length hair who lives as a servant to the wicked witch Gothel, residing in a magically secluded manor in the woods. She finds companionship in Penelope, a young dragon and Hobie, an anxious rabbit. She spends her time painting pictures of places she dreams of going when she is free one day; Gothel disapproves of this, accusing Rapunzel of being ungrateful to the witch for supposedly saving her from abandonment as a baby.
One day, Rapunzel and her friends inadvertently open a secret passage to the basement where Rapunzel finds a gift from her birth-parents: a silver hairbrush engraved with a message affirming their love for Rapunzel; this leads Rapunzel to question Gothel's story. Through a tunnel, Rapunzel is led to the kingdom outside, where she saves Princess Katrina from a pit trap with the help of her older brother, Prince Stefan. He tells her the trap was set by King Wilhelm, the ruler of an opposing kingdom who has an ongoing feud with Stefan's father, King Frederick. Rapunzel leaves in a rush without learning Stefan's name to avoid Gothel discovering her disappearance. However, Gothel's pet ferret Otto, who had followed her, informs his mistress of Rapunzel meeting a man. When Rapunzel insists she doesn't know who he is, her paintings are destroyed and her room transformed into a high tower with Penelope's father Hugo tasked with ensuring she doesn't leave. As Rapunzel sleeps, the hairbrush magically transforms into a paintbrush.
When Rapunzel attempts to use the brush, a mural of the kingdom magically appears on her wall which acts as a portal. Rapunzel uses it to meet Stefan again, though she insists he never tell her his name for fear of Gothel. Stefan gives her an invitation to the masquerade ball that night. Back at the tower, Rapunzel paints herself a beautiful costume. Unfortunately, Otto swipes Rapunzel's invitation and takes it to his mistress. Gothel cuts off Rapunzel's hair, shatters the paintbrush, and destroys the portal to the kingdom. When Rapunzel once again cannot give Stefan's name, Gothel puts a spell on the tower to never release its lying prisoner.
With the help of her friends, Rapunzel escapes the tower as she never lied about not knowing Stefan's name. At the ball, Stefan is attacked by a disguised Gothel wearing Rapunzel's hair; King Wilhelm also infiltrates the castle and accuses Frederick of kidnapping his daughter many years ago—the source of the feud; Gothel reveals that she was the one who took Wilhelm's daughter, Rapunzel, due to her unrequited love for him, wanting the kingdoms to destroy each other. Rapunzel arrives and Wilhelm recognizes her as his daughter. Rapunzel tricks Gothel into running into her painting of the tower, where she becomes permanently imprisoned for her lies.
Rapunzel is reunited with her biological parents and marries Stefan. The feud ends and the two kingdoms are united. In the end, Kelly feels better and begins painting after Barbie reminds her that creativity is the true magic in art.
The story is told by Barbie to her little sister, Kelly, who is feeling uneasy about being at overnight camp for the first time.
Odette is a young woman who lives in a small village with her father and sister, and works in the family bakery. Odette is a talented dancer but is shy and timid about it. Meanwhile, Prince Daniel is informed by his mother that it is time for him to marry and she is hosting a ball for him to choose a wife. The men of the village go after a unicorn named Lila. Lila is followed by a curious Odette into an Enchanted Forest. Lila becomes caught in a bush, so Odette looks for something to free her. She spots a crystal lodged in a rock which she easily removes as the other denizens of the forest watch in astonishment.
The Fairy Queen tells Odette that by freeing the magic crystal, she is destined to defeat the sorcerer Rothbart. Rothbart, her cousin, was angered when she was chosen to become the next ruler of the Forest. Rothbart left and returned years later with his daughter Odile; and has since taken over most of the forest, turning the fairies and elves into animals. Odette, afraid to get involved, declines to help but is confronted by Rothbart, who gives her the same curse as the others, turning her into a swan. The Queen gifts Odette with a tiara embedded with the crystal that protects her from Rothbart's magic. As her powers are too weak, the Queen only partially reverses the spell, allowing Odette to regain human form by night but turn back into a swan by day.
Odette and Lila go meet Erasmus, a troll who takes care of a massive library, in order to find the Book of Forest Lore, which can tell them how to break the spell; however, they are unsuccessful. Daniel, who is out hunting, is lured into the forest by Rothbart, determined to get him to hunt and kill Odette. However, just as he's about to shoot her down, Daniel is captivated by the swan's beauty and decides to let her live. Odette then transforms in front of him and protects him from Rothbart. The two of them spend the night together and fall in love. Daniel invites Odette to the ball the next night.
Erasmus finds the book and reveals that the key to defeating Rothbart is true love. However, if Daniel falls for another girl, the magic crystal will lose its power and Odette will die. Rothbart abducts Erasmus and the book. While Odette rescues Erasmus, Rothbart attends the ball with Odile, magically disguised as Odette. Odette flies to the castle in her swan form to warn Daniel, but is too late; Daniel pledges his love to Odile, causing Odette to collapse.
With the crystal's power gone, Rothbart takes it from Odette. In the Forest, he turns the Fairy Queen into a mouse. Odette wakes up as Daniel arrives to confront Rothbart. Rothbart's spell hits them both, their hands intertwined. At that moment, Rothbart is consumed by the crystal's magic, as Daniel and Odette had tried to protect each other out of true love. Rothbart's evil is undone. Everyone from the village and the Forest celebrate as Odette and Daniel are to be married. Rothbart becomes a cuckoo clock while Odile ends up as a maid in Erasmus's library.
The story of courage gives Kelly new resolve and she promises she will participate in a race the following day.
The story is told by Barbie to her younger sister, Kelly, who is having trouble rehearsing a ballet solo and fears going onstage.
A girl named Clara lives with Drosselmeyer, her stern grandfather, and Tommy, her younger brother. On Christmas Eve, they receive a surprise visit from their Aunt Elizabeth. Clara receives a Nutcracker from her aunt who claims it contains the heart of a prince. Clara falls asleep by the Christmas tree and awakens to see her Nutcracker suddenly alive and fighting an army of mice led by the wicked Mouse King. The Mouse King shrinks her down to his size, though he is unable to defeat them and temporarily retreats.
The Nutcracker explains that he needs to find the Sugarplum Princess, the only person who can defeat the Mouse King's magic. The wise owl of the grandfather clock reveals that the Sugarplum Princess is also the only one who can make Clara her original size again. The owl gives Clara a locket that will send her back home when she opens it.
Through a portal in a mouse hole, The Nutcracker and Clara land in an ice cave. They escape with the help of a group of snow fairies and enter the Nutcracker's home of Parthenia. The two journey to a gingerbread village, where they meet two children and the horse Marzipan. The children tell them that the rightful heir to the throne, Prince Eric, has gone missing. The group narrowly escapes the Mouse King's army when they are saved by Major Mint and Captain Candy, who lead a small group of villagers in hiding. Mint reveals that the Prince Eric's careless attitude led the former king to pronounce the Mouse as temporary ruler until Eric accepted his responsibilities. Clara realizes that the Nutcracker is the missing Prince Eric; when the Mouse decided he wanted to be king permanently, he turned Eric into a Nutcracker. Eric hopes to redeem himself and make things right again.
Clara and the Nutcracker, joined by Mint and Candy, set off on a journey to reach the Sugarplum Princess. While Mint and Candy prepare a boat, Clara and Nutcracker manage to free a group of flower fairies who had been trapped in a well by the Mouse King. The group is suddenly attacked by a rock giant, sent by the Mouse King to stop them from reaching the Princess. The snow fairies arrive and freeze the sea, followed by Marzipan pulling a sled, allowing the group to cross. The Nutcracker uses his sword to crack the ice, causing the rock giant to sink into the sea.
The group reaches the Princess's island, but it is revealed to be a trap and the Nutcracker, Mint, and Candy are caged and carried off by the Mouse King's bat henchman Pimm, leaving Clara behind. The flower fairies help carry Clara off the island and to the Mouse King's castle where she frees her friends. The Nutcracker battles with the Mouse King who has his own spell reflected back at him, shrinking him to the size of a real mouse and causing him to flee. The Nutcracker is severely injured and Clara kisses him whereupon he is restored to his true form as Eric. Clara, because she was able to break the spell and save her friends, is revealed herself to be the Sugarplum Princess. Eric is crowned king and the couple, who have fallen in love, dance as the citizens celebrate. The shrunken Mouse King returns riding on Pimm's back, snatches Clara's locket and opens it, but is knocked out of the sky with a snowball. Clara disappears and is magically transported home.
Clara wakes up where she fell asleep. The Nutcracker is missing, and she runs to her grandfather, who dismisses the story as her imagination. Just then, Aunt Elizabeth returns with a young man who is revealed to be Eric, whom she introduces to Clara. Eric asks her to dance. A snow globe shows Prince Eric and the Sugarplum Princess dancing happily in the palace.
As the story ends, Kelly realizes the importance of not giving up, and she and Barbie finally manage to dance the solo perfectly.
Twin siblings and Veritas Project members Elijah and Elisha Springfield are sent to investigate the Knight-Moore Academy when a missing boy mysteriously reappears with his mind wiped clean of almost all of his memories. The only two things he can say are "I don't know" and "Nightmare Academy". When the young man dies mysteriously, the Springfield family is tasked with the investigation of what happened to the boy and what exactly the Nightmare Academy is. Elijah and Elisha are sent to Knight-Moore and discover that sinister happenings abound on the campus, such as campus raids and frequent fights. During the course of the investigation the teens lose contact with their parents and Elijah is taken to a mysterious mansion after someone starts a fight with him. Elijah's sister has to find a way to save her brother without help from her parents before he is murdered or loses all of his memories...
A dark stain, spreading. A young man lies bleeding in the street. It's Glasgow. And it's May - the marching season. The Orange Walks have begun. Graham doesn't want to be involved. He just wants to play football with his new mate, Joe. But then he witnesses a shocking moment of violence. A gripping tale about two boys who must find their own answers - and their own way forward - in a world divided by differences.
A mysterious man named Mr. X has handed out free tickets for his luxury cruise. Little did the passengers know they were falling into his devious trap. All the passengers are required to track down and murder another passenger. If a passenger chooses not to do so, Mr. X will kill him or her.
The single-player story begins with an introduction from Mr. X. He tells the passengers of his wish and warns that those too weak to play his "game" may be of use to the sharks, but not for him. The player assumes the role of Charlie Panther, second class passenger.
After (easily) dispatching his quarry, Charlie hears a young man whisper to him from a nearby third class cabin. Upon investigating, he is greeted (and complimented on how well he killed his quarry) by the young man who introduces himself as Jimmy the Bellboy. Jimmy explains that "Mr. X don't like no loose ends" and that he is planning on destroying the boat after the hunt is over—along with whoever wins. Jimmy then offers to get Charlie off the boat for $100,000. However, before he can start gathering money, Charlie has to deal with his own hunter. Jimmy suggests he find someone who looks just like him so he can fool his hunter.
Charlie notices someone who could definitely pass for him at the museum, so he steals a tranquilizer syringe from the sickbay and injects the man with it, causing him to instantly become unconscious. Charlie returns to Jimmy, who in turn tells Charlie's hunter that he is in the museum asleep, therefore taking the target off Charlie's back.
With Charlie safe (from his hunter, at least) Jimmy sends him to the Vesuvius bar on Deck B, where Bruno, the bartender, has him steal wallets from rich customers and give him half of what's in them. This works for a while, but the guard become suspicious of their plot, and Charlie is forced to leave.
Jimmy then directs him to the Fence, a portly British man in Deck B's restaurant. The Fence has Charlie steal several treasures (including the Holy Grail), paying him more for each returned. He then has to escort an ambassador around the ship to complete his "mission". After the ship is picked clean, Charlie returns to Jimmy, who has been injured by an assailant who was soon jailed. He tells Charlie that he wants the man dead, and if Charlie does him in, that he will take him off the boat for $25,000 less. Charlie gets himself arrested by pulling a weapon in front of a guard and is hauled to the brig. Inside the brig, Charlie meets with a very large muscle-bound convict, who hints to Charlie about the whereabouts of a knife hidden in a Bible. The convict is shot dead by the guards, however, as he begins to become insane with rage as he talks about Mr. X and the Bermuda Triangle. Charlie finds the shank in a bookshelf and stabs Jimmy's assailant. Upon being released from the brig, Jimmy is ecstatic that his assailant is dead and gladly takes $25K off Charlie's escape price. Charlie is then directed to a Japanese Yakuza, who wants the captain of the ship dead for having an affair with his wife. After killing him, Jimmy tells him that the captain is still alive. After killing the captain, this time for real, Charlie is directed to Miss Tweed, who wants him to kill some kidnappers who took her dog. The player then meets with them, but upon seeing that he does not have the ransom money, they kick the dog off the ship, presumably to its death. After killing the kidnappers, Charlie returns to Mrs. Tweed, who sobbingly (due to her dog going overboard) gives him the money. After, Charlie returns to Jimmy who gladly accepts the reduced price, but tells him to do one last job, in which he has to go to the Radar room of the ship, and put the radar itself out, so when in the water he can't be spotted by the crew. Returning to Jimmy on the Boat Deck, he wishes him good luck, and that the two can maybe see each other again.
As Charlie floats away in his escape boat and Mr. X flies off of the ship in a helicopter, a massive explosion tears through the ship, separating it in two, and starts to sink. It is then revealed that Mrs. Tweed's dog survived, as it pops out of the water. The screen suddenly goes black, which might have meant Charlie was hit by debris from the explosion. Charlie then wakes up in a hospital lying on a bed with a nurse treating him. Mr. X's voice is heard on the nearby speaker saying "Welcome ladies and gentlemen, welcome one and all..."
"The police examine her past for any motive that might make her wish to disappear, or any reason why someone might want to kill her. They find her body after a long and frustrating search. As they sift all the evidence again and again, the identity of her killer slowly begins to emerge, like a photograph taking on recognizable features in the developing fluid" (Ian Ousby).
The novel, which minutely chronicles the work of the police, is told in chronological order. No piece of information is ever held back. At any given point in time, the reader knows just as much as the police. The time narrated is 5½ weeks, from 3 March 1950 to 11 April 1950.
When the temperamental star of a new Broadway musical revue in rehearsals walks out, director and choreographer Ted Sturgis (Gower Champion) suggests casting an unknown for the role. When it is announced in the newspapers, throngs of hopefuls show up. They sing about their hopes in the song, "Give a Girl a Break." The revue's musical composer, Leo Belney (Kurt Kasznar), champions ballerina Joanna Moss, while gofer Bob Dowdy (Bob Fosse) is enchanted by novice Suzy Doolittle (Debbie Reynolds). Then producer Felix Jordan (Larry Keating) persuades Ted's former dance partner, Madelyn Corlane (Marge Champion), to come out of retirement to try out, much to Ted's great discomfort. Leo, Bob, and Ted sing about the challenges of re-writing the show for a new performer in "Nothing is Impossible."
Joanna goes home and tells her husband she has a good chance of getting the part. He has exciting news of his own. He has been offered a position as head of the English Department at a major University out of state. They argue and then make up. Suzy goes home to tell her mother she has a chance at the part. Her mother tells her she should spend the evening readying for the audition tomorrow. Bob shows up while she is practicing. She goes out with him. They sing and dance to "In Our United State." Ted visits Madelyn to let her know that if she wants the part she better show up and give a great audition. He begins "The challenge Dance." She matches him step for step. They are ready to fall into each other's arms when her date for the evening shows up.
Bob fantasizes about dancing with Suzy in a sequence using the songs "Give a Girl a Break" and "In Our United State." Leo fantasizes about conducting an orchestra while Joanna (Helen Wood) dances to the "Puppet Master Dance." Ted envisions himself dancing with Madelyn to "It Happens Ev'ry Time." Joanna, Suzy and Madelyn all perform well at the audition. Leo, Felix and Ted discuss who should get the part. Bob overhears them talking about Suzy in the role and assuming she has the part, he calls her and tells her she has the part.
A heated discussion ensues. Felix and Leo both want Joanna in the part. Ted prefers Madelyn but he concedes. Joanna accepts the part. Bob calls Suzy to tell her he was mistaken. Suzy is crushed. Ted goes in person to let Madelyn know.
Rehearsals are underway with Joanna. She isn't doing well and runs to her dressing room in tears. Her husband shows up ready to leave town for his new job. Joanna stops crying and happily announces she is pregnant and she is leaving with her husband. Felix, Leo and Ted discuss hiring Suzy for the part. Bob runs and calls her to let her know. She doesn't believe him but he convinces her. However, they have decided to offer the part to Madelyn. But when it becomes clear that Madelyn has left town and can't be reached, the job is offered to Suzy.
Opening night arrives. We see Ted and Suzy dance and sing to "Applause, Applause." The show, and Suzy, are a hit. Ted walks out into the empty theater after the show and sees Madelyn. He asks why she left. She tells him she wanted to find out if it was show business she missed or him. It was him. They run into each other's arms.
The Emersons are at home in England, aching to return to Egypt, but finding no excuse to return until Lady Baskerville asks them to finish the excavation started by her husband, who died mysteriously just before opening a tomb in Luxor. No one else will continue as rumors of a curse on those who desecrate the tomb fly through the region.
Leaving their son Ramses at home, the Emersons arrive at the Baskerville compound near the Valley of the Kings to find sick employees, over-eager reporters, and an assortment of other characters trying to either get into the tomb, or keep the Emersons out.
Three recurring characters are introduced; Cyrus Vandergelt, Karl von Bork and Kevin O'Connell. Vandergelt is a wealthy amateur American Egyptologist, and over the years becomes Professor Emerson's closest friend. Bork is an expert in hieroglyphs who appears in a number of stories, usually assisting other Egyptologists. O'Connell is a reporter who eventually becomes a valuable outlet for the Emersons and their adventures.
In post-Civil War America, unscrupulous, ambitious partners Jim Fisk (Arnold) and Nick Boyd (Grant) talk tight-fisted businessman Daniel Drew (Donald Meek) into selling them his shipping company, paying with worthless Confederate bonds. Later, worried that his longtime rival, Cornelius Vanderbilt (Clarence Kolb), is trying to take control of his railroad, Drew seeks help from Fisk, only to have him turn the situation to his own advantage. Fisk and Boyd eventually become powers to be reckoned with on Wall Street.
Meanwhile, both men fall in love with entertainer Josie Mansfield (Farmer). Mansfield agrees to marry Fisk out of gratitude, but really loves Boyd.
Fisk's greed grows beyond all reason and he tries to corner the market in gold. When Fisk ignores Boyd's warnings, Boyd turns against him, worried that the resulting panic threatens the financial system of the whole country. The federal government finally intervenes by releasing its gold reserves, bankrupting Fisk in the process.
Uwe, owner of a snack bar, and his wife Ellen, who works in a perfume store, are friends with Katrin, who works in a trucking agency, and her husband Chris, a radio DJ. Neither marriage is holding together well; soon, Chris begins an affair with Ellen. When Katrin discovers this, they try, and fail to solve the problem as a foursome; when this fails, the two couples respond to the situation in different ways.
Brak is the host of a musical variety show while Zorak is trying to sabotage it. The show features celebrity appearances by Monica, Freddie Prinze Jr., The Chieftains, Diamond Dallas Page, and Jo Dee Messina, and Grape Ape and Wally Gator make an appearance as well.
In a future Britain, circa 2091, pollution has reached a point where the populace must often wear filtration masks when they venture outside. AirZone, a powerful corporation, signs a lucrative deal with the government to deal with the problem. The public is told that AirZone plans to build giant filtration plants to clean the atmosphere, but environmentalists are sceptical, especially when people begin dying and disappearing around AirZone facilities.
Investigative filmmaker Al Dunbar (Davison) has been working with Anthony Stanwick (McCoy), the head of one radical environmental group, on a Michael Moore-style exposé documentary on AirZone. But when Dunbar's mentor, the mysterious Oliver Threthewey (Pertwee), says the documentary is useless without more direct proof of AirZone's intentions, Dunbar and Stanwick hatch a plan to infiltrate AirZone's headquarters and hack into their computer mainframe. Stanwick has been aided in this by Rachel (Heather Tracy), an AirZone employee who is acting as his "mole" within the organisation.
Meanwhile, Arnie Davies (Baker), a popular local television meteorologist, is getting ready to go on the air, although he still has time to flirt with the make-up lady and with his girlfriend, journalist Ellie Brown (Nicola Bryant).
Dunbar successfully infiltrates AirZone's offices, but sets off an alarm soon after hacking into the computer. Fleeing from the guards, Dunbar finds himself in a lab where Rachel — now a prisoner of AirZone — is being injected with a green fluid. He helps her to escape, but is killed in the process.
At the moment Dunbar dies, both Arnie and Stanwick experience a vision of his death; for Arnie, this occurs in the middle of a broadcast and he faints on the air. Later, after a recuperating evening with Ellie, Arnie feels better and gets ready to go to work — only to be shocked at seeing an apparition of Dunbar standing in his hallway. Dunbar urges Arnie to investigate AirZone.
Arnie continues to experience visions of Dunbar at work, and is unnerved when he learns that Dunbar had died the night before. After further disturbing displays both during his weather broadcast and again at home, Ellie suggests they investigate Dunbar's home. Ellie is not sure what to make of it when Arnie, relaying instructions from Dunbar, is able to guide her to a hiding place where Dunbar kept his spare key. Inside, Ellie and Arnie view Dunbar's incomplete documentary but must leave when a detective, carrying a warrant to seize any AirZone property, arrives.
Soon, Arnie finds himself meeting Stanwick and is reassured that his visions of Dunbar are not the result of insanity, as Stanwick also sees the apparition (as does, apparently, Threthewey). Together, Stanwick and Arnie locate Rachel, who is experiencing extreme physical distress as the result of whatever chemical or drug was being pumped into her body at AirZone. Before they can get her to hospital, she is abducted by a group of masked men. For Arnie, this sparks an obsession with finding the truth about AirZone, and during his next weather report he digresses to reveal to viewers that AirZone's pollution-filtering plants are in fact increasing the pollution in the atmosphere.
Meanwhile, Ellie is given the biggest assignments of her career: first interviewing the Environment Secretary (played by Michael Wisher) and then covering the public unveiling of AirZone's pollution reduction plan by the head of the company, Robin Archer (Bernadette Gepheart). But she is frustrated when Arnie interrupts the former in order to give Stanwick face-time with the minister, an act that riles MacNamara (Cummings), a mysterious figure who works on behalf of Archer.
At the press conference, attended by industry representatives from across Britain, Archer unveils AirZone's optimistic plan to reduce pollution, but her sermon is cut short by Arnie (who has been sneaked in by the now-convinced Ellie) brandishing a gun, who demands Archer reveal the truth about why people living near the plants have been dying and disappearing. She refuses, but Stanwick arrives with Rachel in hand (having recovered her with the unexpected help of MacNamara). Rachel and many other Britons have been subject to genetic experiments, forcing them to grow gill-like appendages to their necks. The AirZone Solution is not to reduce pollution, but to instead increase it and instead create a new race of humans able to breathe the polluted air. With AirZone's scheme revealed to the public, it collapses. MacNamara actually works for MI5 and apparently had been working against Archer from inside AirZone (and appears to have been behind Rachel's earlier abduction), and leaves saying the AirZone was a good idea but a bad image. Out of nowhere, Threthewey appears and says that Al Dunbar would have been proud of the work done by Arnie, Ellie, and Stanwick. The origin of the Dunbar apparition and why it appeared to Arnie and Stanwick is left unexplained.
Ferazel is a member of the Habnabit race, tunnel-dwelling creatures skilled in magic. Long have they dwelled in peace, but now they are under assault from a horde of goblins, and there are whispers of a far more foul foe leading the goblins.
The game concentrates more on thinking than fighting enemies — boss fights are often a matter of logically deducing a foe's weakness. Later levels emphasize trap-dodging, and all levels contain secret passages and hidden items. It's an RPG of sorts, but not in the traditional sense, in as much as the player fights arcade-style and gains power by finding magical crystals.
The film concerns a female factory worker from Calabria who falls ill on the job and is prescribed a stay at a mountain retreat. She goes despite her husband's wishes, leaving behind her thankless work shift and her frustrating in-laws, but also her three children. The film addresses issues such as the health care system, labor conditions, spousal satisfaction, and class struggle.
Tom Farrell is a man in his thirties who resides in New York City in 2001 (before, during and after the September 11 attacks). The novel is a slice of life story, briefly visiting several months of his life as he works as an editor of the weekend edition of the New York City newspaper, ''Tabloid''. Although his friends and relatives advance in life (marriage, kids, etc.), Tom believes he is not. He makes around $86,000 a year, but the most expensive item he owns is a several thousand dollar couch (doesn't own a high priced item like a home or car, for example). The novel tracks Tom as he moves through his life, with each chapter being a day in his life during the year 2001 (not all days covered, and not all chapters start new days).
Throughout the book, Tom dates several women, including the woman he really fancies, Julia. Unfortunately for him, Julia is living with another man, and is ten years his junior in age. Julia also works at ''Tabloid'', but while Tom is an editor, Julia is just starting out.
Tom's days are filled with drinking, watching TV (many cartoons), working at ''Tabloid'', and trying to deal with his deep desire to be in a relationship with Julia, who seems somewhat determined to not have said relationship.
On his ride through 2001, Tom interacts with some of his friends, including Bran, Karen & Mike, Rollo, and Shooter (among others).
Ennis is born in about 1943 or 1944, the youngest of three children, and grows up near Sage, in southwestern Wyoming. He is orphaned at a young age, and forced to drop out of school not long afterwards. While on a 1963 shepherding job on Brokeback Mountain in Wyoming, Ennis meets and falls in love with rodeo cowboy Jack Twist.
While the two 19-year-old men work on Brokeback Mountain, Ennis is stationed at the base camp while Jack watches the sheep higher on the mountain. They meet only for meals at the base camp, gradually becoming friends. Eventually they switch roles, with Jack taking over duties at base camp and Ennis tending the flock. One night, after the two share a bottle of whiskey, Ennis decides to remain at the base camp overnight instead of returning to the sheep. The weather becomes bitterly cold that night, but Ennis is reluctant to sleep in the same tent as Jack, who insists he join him. That night the men share a brief, intense sexual encounter. During the summer, their sexual and emotional relationship deepens.
After the job is finished the two part ways. Ennis marries his fiancée Alma Beers in November 1963 and starts a family, having two daughters, Alma Jr. and Jenny (named Francine in the short story). Four years later, Ennis receives a postcard from Jack asking if he wants to meet. The men reunite and their passion rekindles. Jack broaches the subject of creating a life together. Unwilling to leave his family and haunted by a childhood memory of the murder of a suspected homosexual couple in his hometown, Ennis fears that such an arrangement can only end in tragedy. Unable to be open about their relationship, Ennis and Jack settle for infrequent meetings on camping trips.
Over time Ennis' marriage deteriorates. Alma knows about his relationship with Jack, having seen the two men kissing upon their reunion. In 1975 Alma divorces Ennis, taking custody of their two daughters and marrying her former employer. Jack hopes Ennis' divorce will allow them to live together, but Ennis refuses to move away from his children and remains uncomfortable with the idea of living with a man. Ennis dates an outgoing and vivacious waitress, Cassie Cartwright. The relationship fails when Ennis spontaneously stops communicating with her. On a 1983 trip with Jack, Ennis insists that to keep his job, he cannot meet with Jack again before November. Ennis and Jack's frustrations finally erupt into an argument, the struggle becoming a desperate embrace. The two men part upset.
Months later, a postcard Ennis sent to Jack is returned to the post office, stamped "deceased". During a phonecall, Jack's wife Lureen tells Ennis that Jack died in a freak accident while changing a tire. While she explains what happened, Ennis imagines Jack being beaten to death by a group of men wielding tire-irons. Lureen tells Ennis that Jack wished to have his ashes scattered on Brokeback Mountain. She suggests that Ennis contact Jack's parents.
Ennis visits Jack's parents and offers to take Jack's ashes to Brokeback Mountain. Jack's father insists that Jack's remains be buried in the family plot. He also tells Ennis that Jack wanted to bring another man back to his parents' ranch so they could revitalize the ranch. Jack's mother invites Ennis to see Jack's bedroom, which she has maintained "...the same way as when he was a boy" believing that Jack preferred it thus. While in the room, Ennis discovers two shirts hidden in a narrow slat of the closet. The shirts, hung one inside the other on the same hanger, are the ones the two men were wearing on their last day on Brokeback Mountain in 1963, with Ennis' shirt inside Jack's. Ennis, believing his own shirt forgotten on the mountain, finds the shirts together especially poignant and takes the shirts with him; Jack's mother offers Ennis a paper sack to put the now rolled-up shirts in.
Alma Jr. visits Ennis at his home, a trailer by the highway. She is preparing to marry and asks for her father's blessing. Though initially reluctant to attend the wedding, Ennis agrees. Ennis asks if her fiancé loves her and she affirms that he does.
After Alma Jr. leaves, Ennis finds the sweater that Alma was wearing and had accidentally forgotten. Opening his closet to hang Alma's sweater, it is revealed that Ennis has hung the shirts from Jack's bedroom inside the door beside a postcard of Brokeback Mountain, with the order now reversed to show Jack's shirt on the inside. With tears in his eyes, Ennis mutters, "Jack, I swear ..."
Three air hostesses, based in New York City, are working for the fictional airline Polar Atlantic Airways. The three make regular flights from New York City to Paris and Vienna. Along the way, air hostess Donna Stuart (Dolores Hart), meets Baron Franz Von Elzingen (Karlheinz Böhm), an impoverished Austrian baron who turns out to be a diamond smuggler. "Southern belle" Carol Brewster (Pamela Tiffin) develops a crush on the plane's First Officer Ray Winsley (Hugh O'Brian), who is having an affair with a married woman (Dawn Addams). The third air hostess, Hilda "Bergie" Bergstrom (Lois Nettleton), gets noticed by a multi-millionaire widower from Texas named Walter Lucas (Karl Malden).
The show is about a young boy named Olliver (Ollie) who invents a world of his own using his imagination, creating stories that reconfigure his everyday life and impressions of the world into epic adventures.
A month after the events of the first film, Mushu enjoys his restored status as a guardian spirit, to the dismay of the Fa family ancestors. General Shang asks Mulan for her hand in marriage, and she happily accepts. Mushu is initially thrilled about the engagement, until the ancestors inform him that if Mulan marries Shang, his family ancestors and guardians would become hers; as a result, Mushu will lose his job. The Emperor calls upon Mulan and Shang and informs them of the threat the Mongols pose to China. To oppose them, the Emperor intends to strengthen China by forging an alliance with the kingdom of Qui Gong, arranging for his three daughters, Princesses Ting-Ting, Mei, and Su, to be married to Qui Gong's princes, and assigns Mulan and Shang to protect them on their journey. Although uneasy at the idea of arranged marriage, Mulan agrees to the mission.
Mulan and Shang, along with Yao, Ling and Chien-Po, set out with the princesses to Qui Gong. In order to protect his position as guardian, and believing that Mulan and Shang are incompatible due to their different behavior, Mushu tags along to sabotage their relationship, while Cri-Kee attempts to stop him. Mushu's attempts to cause problems for Mulan and Shang backfire, and he inadvertently destroys the princess's carriage. Now forced to travel on foot, Mulan and Shang briefly argue over what direction they should go, as well as their duties. Seeing this, Mushu manipulates Shang into believing that Mulan is fed up with him, escalating tensions between them.
Meanwhile, Mei, Ting Ting and Su fall in love with Yao, Ling and Chien-Po respectively, and the princesses decide to follow Mulan's advice of having a duty to their hearts. That night, Yao, Ling and Chien-Po take the princesses out to a nearby village, and they mutually declare their love. Mulan pursues them, becoming happy that the princesses have followed their hearts. Mushu wakes up Shang, who pursues the group and reprimands them for forgetting about their duties. Mulan and Shang erupt into a heated argument, and decide that they are too different for each other and break-up.
The group begins travelling across bandit country, and Mushu realizes that Mulan's break-up with Shang has only made her miserable. Overwhelmed with guilt, Mushu confesses to his actions, losing Mulan's trust and motivating her to fix things with Shang. The group is attacked by bandits that attempt to kidnap the princesses. Although the princesses are saved, Mulan and Shang are left dangling on a broken bridge; Shang allowing himself to fall into the river so that Mulan can lift herself up. Believing Shang to be dead, a heartbroken Mulan declares that the princesses won't be forced into a loveless marriage, and continues on to Qui Gong alone. Mulan presents herself to Qui Gong's ruler, Lord Qin, and lies that the princesses have been killed, offering herself in their place; Lord Qui agrees, and arranges a wedding between Mulan and his eldest son, Prince Jeeki.
Shang turns up alive and meets up with Yao, Ling, Chien-Po and the princesses, and heads to Qui Gong. Shang interrupts the wedding and admits that Mulan was right about following her heart. To save Mulan and Shang from Lord Qin's forces, Mushu impersonates the Great Golden Dragon of Unity, forcing Lord Qin to ally himself with the Emperor, while allowing Mulan and Shang to marry and freeing the princesses from their vows. Some time later, Mulan and Shang officially marry in Mulan's village, and Mushu accepts the loss of his position. However, Shang combines the family temples, enabling Mushu to continue being a guardian spirit. While celebrating, Mushu accidentally reveals himself to Shang and Mulan. Shang reveals that he is already aware of Mushu's existence, and he and Mulan embrace.