Based On A True Story | The Schoolgirl’s Revenge 2026 | Drama Thriller Movies 2026

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:20]Oh, no. You don't need toasted butter, bud.

[00:00:29]Yeah, right now two chairs.

[00:01:18]What's up, man?

[00:01:18]>> Family man.

[00:01:21]So, this is it, huh?

[00:01:23]>> Yep. All right, we get inside.

[00:01:33]>> Sure isn't too much work. No, no. See, that's the beauty of it. I never thought it needed to be remodeled in the first place. I mean, yeah, clean it up for sure. A couple quick fixes and rebrand.

[00:01:43]I'm telling you, Sammy, this place could be a gold mine. All right. Aim at the university crowd. Okay. Student pricing, decent food. I mean, I'm telling you, man, nobody's coming for blood sausage, >> right?

[00:01:57]>> Yeah. Well, yeah, man. I mean, it's what we've always talked about, right?

[00:02:02]>> Yeah.

[00:02:04]>> Well, let's see what Kate thinks. All right. It's her money, too. She should be here any minute.

[00:02:10]>> Speak of the devil.

[00:02:11]>> You here?

[00:02:12]>> Mhm.

[00:02:14]>> Okay, here we go.

[00:02:17]>> Hey, Katie.

[00:02:20]>> Hi.

[00:02:20]>> Hi. Welcome.

[00:02:22]>> Wow.

[00:02:24]>> Hi.

[00:02:25]>> Hi.

[00:02:25]>> Good to see you.

[00:02:27]>> What do you think, Kate?

[00:02:31]>> Looks pretty rough, >> but I like it.

[00:02:37]>> Okay, she likes it.

[00:02:43]>> It's pretty much her whole nest egg.

[00:02:45]>> I know. I'm leveraged up to my eyeballs.

[00:02:48]I'm in this all the way, too.

[00:02:51]It's a slam dunk. Okay, I'll deal with the realtor. You go talk to the bank.

[00:02:56]See if we can't get this ball rolling.

[00:02:57]Huh? What do you say, kids?

[00:03:05]>> Yes.

[00:03:06]>> Come on, buddy. That's a good boy.

[00:03:11]>> The Joseph's moved today.

[00:03:13]>> Yeah. No, I saw the moving truck earlier. It's weird. It happened fast.

[00:03:17]>> It's not on time to move, too. right before school starts.

[00:03:21]>> And I hope everything's okay.

[00:03:23]>> I'm sure it's fine.

[00:03:28]>> So sweet of you, though.

[00:03:31]Always making sure everybody is happy and safe >> like me.

[00:03:37]>> Well, you don't make it easy.

[00:03:44]Could somebody please help me chair?

[00:04:12]Careful with that.

[00:04:15]>> That's cuz we >> Thanks.

[00:04:20]>> So, I'll be back next week, >> right?

[00:04:23]>> Hey, some money.

[00:04:26]>> No thanks. I'm fine.

[00:05:05]Oh, hey.

[00:05:07]Hey. Let me help you with that.

[00:05:10]>> Thanks.

[00:05:12]>> I'm Sam Luck, your friendly neighborhood neighbor.

[00:05:16]>> Taran Hathway, your new neighbor.

[00:05:20]>> Come on in.

[00:05:22]>> Got everyone here.

[00:05:23]>> Yeah, you can uh you can just put it down over there.

[00:05:26]>> Yeah. Thanks.

[00:05:27]>> It's a beautiful old house you got.

[00:05:30]>> Yeah, it is. We uh we wanted a fresh start. It just seemed like the right place.

[00:05:34]>> You and uh >> my father.

[00:05:38]>> Uh-oh.

[00:05:39]>> And what do you do, Mr. Luck? When you're not being the friendly neighborhood neighbor, >> a uh English teacher at the high school.

[00:05:48]>> That must be rewarding.

[00:05:49]>> Yeah, it is. It's very rewarding.

[00:05:56]And uh what do you do?

[00:05:59]>> Uh I'm actually a student.

[00:06:02]>> Oh, at the university.

[00:06:04]>> Sam.

[00:06:04]>> Ah, we're in here.

[00:06:06]>> Wife.

[00:06:07]>> Sure is.

[00:06:08]>> Hi. Good morning.

[00:06:11]>> This is Kate.

[00:06:13]>> Nice to meet you. I'm Taran. A welcome to the neighborhood.

[00:06:15]>> Thank you.

[00:06:16]>> Taran is going to the university.

[00:06:18]>> Great. You moving in alone or?

[00:06:20]>> No, my uh my dad actually just left for work. I'm unpacking today and tomorrow and the next day.

[00:06:28]>> Well, we should let you get to it then.

[00:06:30]>> Yeah, here. I I'll grab that.

[00:06:31]>> Yep.

[00:06:32]>> Thank you.

[00:06:32]>> Yeah, you bet. Let us know if you need anything else. Okay, >> I will.

[00:06:36]>> Bye. Nice meeting you.

[00:06:47]>> Morning everyone. This is AP Literature and Composition 2011. If that is not written in your schedule, then you are in the wrong class and late for your actual class. My name is Mr. Luck and I had a few of you in 101 last year. So, you guys know my expectations.

[00:07:05]Last year, we worked from this cumbersome textbook. This uh Come on in and find a seat.

[00:07:29]So, um, well, we worked from this 324 page behemoth that you needed to lug around in your backpacks every day. The uh school district heard our please and granted us these tablets which will sync assignments from my loud.

[00:07:52]one up and sign one out. For classroom use only Mr. Hey Taran. And >> why didn't you tell me?

[00:08:53]>> I did tell you. I said I was a student.

[00:08:57]>> Right. But I thought you meant college, not high school. I certainly didn't expect to see you in my class.

[00:09:04]>> What difference does it make?

[00:09:07]>> Wow. Why?

[00:09:08]>> What? You wouldn't have flirted with me?

[00:09:10]I didn't flirt with you, Taran.

[00:09:12]>> Yeah, you did.

[00:09:15]>> It's okay, Sam. I liked it.

[00:09:24]>> So, you're a fan of sausage?

[00:09:29]>> Oh, no. That's for my diner.

[00:09:33]>> You have a diner that serves blood sausage? That's gross.

[00:09:37]My best friend Decker and I, we've always talked about owning a diner.

[00:09:41]Found this place on Milbank and uh well, it doesn't matter.

[00:09:50]>> I should go.

[00:09:52]>> You taking the bus?

[00:09:57]>> Just today. My car should be here tonight. My dad had it shipped.

[00:10:01]>> He had it shipped.

[00:10:03]>> He likes to spoil me. He's away on business most of the time, so he gives me what I want.

[00:10:10]I like getting what I want.

[00:10:14]>> I'll see you tomorrow, Mr. Laugh.

[00:10:19]>> Hey, boy. Good. How you doing, boy? I'm home.

[00:10:38]>> Hey, honey. I'm in here.

[00:10:48]>> How was your first day of school?

[00:10:52]>> It was okay.

[00:10:54]>> Just okay? It's a bit underwhelming.

[00:10:57]Where's my teacher of the year?

[00:10:58]>> Ah, it's just, you know, that girl that moved in across the street. Yeah.

[00:11:04]>> It turns out she goes to the high school.

[00:11:07]>> What?

[00:11:08]>> Yeah. And she's in my fourth hour.

[00:11:12]And I guess she lives in that house all by herself most of the time cuz her dad's always away on business. It's got to be hard for a kid her age, don't you think?

[00:11:20]>> Yeah.

[00:11:23]>> I guess I just feel a little sorry for her, that's all.

[00:11:27]>> Well, why don't we have her over for dinner or something?

[00:11:33]Yeah, maybe.

[00:11:52]>> I don't know. I came out this morning to get ready to, you know, to drive to work and car wasn't here.

[00:12:14]What's going on?

[00:12:17]>> Uh, my car was stolen.

[00:12:21]>> What? That sucks.

[00:12:23]>> You uh you didn't hear anything?

[00:12:25]>> No.

[00:12:27]>> Here's a copy of our report. The insurance company's going to want to see this.

[00:12:31]>> I'm Officer Gardner. There's a number there at the top you can call if you have any questions.

[00:12:36]>> That's it. We uh find anything, we'll let you know.

[00:12:38]>> Thanks.

[00:12:39]>> Well, this is unbelievable.

[00:12:52]>> So, where's Kate?

[00:12:53]>> She already left. She leaves for work about 6:00 a.m. every day.

[00:13:00]>> What are you going to do about a car?

[00:13:03]>> I have no idea.

[00:13:08]>> You could use my father's when he gets here. I'll I'll have to check with him, make sure it's okay.

[00:13:13]>> Oh, I couldn't ask that. It's >> You didn't. I offered.

[00:13:22]Wow, that's very nice of you. Thank you.

[00:13:26]>> You're welcome.

[00:13:32]>> This might sound funny, but do you want a ride to school?

[00:13:58]Hop in.

[00:14:24]I think a little fresh air will do you some good.

[00:14:36]>> I don't know, Sam. You promised me a nice dinner.

[00:14:40]>> Come on. What could be better than a home-cooked spaghetti meal? Huh? What do you think?

[00:14:46]>> Burnt garlic bread.

[00:14:48]>> No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

[00:14:53]>> I think they're ready. Sorry I'm late.

[00:14:57]Oh god.

[00:14:57]>> Oh, hey honey. I thought I'd start dinner.

[00:15:01]>> How do you feel about Chinese, Taran?

[00:15:03]>> Who's hungry?

[00:15:06]>> Are you sure I can't do anything?

[00:15:08]>> You're the guest. You stay put.

[00:15:16]So, how was your day, Hansel?

[00:15:18]>> Ah, bad. I want you some long >> I want to sleep in tomorrow.

[00:15:27]Yeah.

[00:15:56]Heat.

[00:16:03]Taran. Taran, you uh you need anything else?

[00:16:07]>> No thanks. I'm I'm good.

[00:16:10]>> Are you sure I can't help?

[00:16:12]>> We got the dishes. You sit down and relax.

[00:16:15]>> I should actually get going. I have to call the plumber in the morning. So, >> wow. What's wrong?

[00:16:20]>> It's no big deal. There's a leak under the kitchen sink. I just want to get it fixed before it gets any worse.

[00:16:26]Oh, I'm sure I could fix that for you.

[00:16:28]>> You fix something?

[00:16:30]>> Hey, I could fix it. It'll be no problem. It's the least I could do. You don't want to call a plumber. Not on the weekend. They'll overcharge you.

[00:16:39]>> Okay.

[00:16:41]One condition.

[00:16:42]>> What's that?

[00:16:43]>> No more dinners.

[00:16:46]>> Sure.

[00:16:48]>> Thanks again. Anytime.

[00:16:53]>> Oh.

[00:16:53]>> Oh my god. I'm so clumsy. I'm I'm so sorry.

[00:16:57]>> Oh, don't worry about it.

[00:16:59]>> I'm so sorry.

[00:17:03]Sorry. Not to worry. See you later.

[00:17:06]Thanks again.

[00:17:08]>> Hey, uh I'll be over by 10:00. That okay?

[00:17:10]>> Yeah, whenever.

[00:17:13]Good night. Bye.

[00:17:18]That was nice of you to offer to help her. Ah, >> she seems like a good kid, huh?

[00:17:24]Hey, you're not mad, are you?

[00:17:26]>> No, I just don't know how much you should be relying on you to help her.

[00:17:32]>> Actually, I'm the one that's relying on her. I mean, I'm borrowing her father's car. At least until we can get the insurance money for our old one. What else would I be doing? Renting one.

[00:17:43]Imagine how much that would cost.

[00:17:45]>> I don't know.

[00:17:47]Maybe we shouldn't.

[00:17:50]Just wondering if it's okay, that's all.

[00:17:53]to borrow her father's car.

[00:17:56]I mean, does he even know? Ah, >> come on. I need a car. She's got a spare. You're overthinking it.

[00:18:04]>> You're right. What else could we be doing?

[00:18:09]H You sure your father's okay with me borrowing his car?

[00:18:35]>> Yeah, I talked to him this morning. It's no big deal. I told him it's the neighborly thing to do.

[00:18:42]>> Thank you very much. I'll uh I'll make other arrangements as soon as I can.

[00:18:46]>> Yeah. Okay.

[00:18:50]Try it now.

[00:18:52]>> Okay, stop.

[00:18:56]I think we almost got it.

[00:18:58]>> So, where's Kate?

[00:19:01]>> She's working >> on a Sunday.

[00:19:03]>> She's trying to make a big impression.

[00:19:05]They've got a big case coming up and she's responsible for all the research.

[00:19:09]There's a guy helping her, but I guess he's not doing much.

[00:19:14]>> And you don't mind her working on the weekends and late nights? You don't think something might happen like an office affair?

[00:19:25]>> No. What are you talking about?

[00:19:30]>> Kate, I really need your help on this project. I just can't do it without you.

[00:19:34]We'll get a bottle of wine, some dinner.

[00:19:37]It's my treat. You might have to work all night long, though.

[00:19:42]Then when they've had a few drinks, maybe Kate's hair falls gently down her face, cascading over her cheek. You know how that happens. And the guy, he'll he'll reach up to put her hair back behind her ear.

[00:20:01]But he won't take his hand away because the light shining in her eyes and making them sparkle.

[00:20:10]He just can't help himself.

[00:20:13]Kate, in my whole entire life, I've never seen anyone more beautiful than you.

[00:20:19]The way the light hits your eyes, I I think I might explode if I don't touch you.

[00:20:32]You got a wild imagination. You know that?

[00:20:37]>> Come on. You honestly never thought about it. Not even once.

[00:20:41]>> No.

[00:20:44]>> It's admirable of you.

[00:20:46]>> How's that?

[00:20:49]>> I don't know.

[00:20:51]If I were you, I wouldn't want Kate to work so much.

[00:20:56]And if I were Kate, I wouldn't want you to be alone so much.

[00:21:02]What's the sense in being in a committed relationship if you're spending 98% of the time without the other person?

[00:21:12]But what do I know?

[00:21:18]Well, >> well, I uh think I've almost got it here.

[00:21:32]>> Try it now.

[00:21:34]>> Nothing.

[00:21:35]>> Nothing.

[00:21:36]>> No.

[00:21:36]>> Here we go. Try it now.

[00:21:40]>> NOPE.

[00:21:43]STOP.

[00:21:45]>> STOP IT.

[00:21:47]I'm sorry. I GOT IT. I GOT IT. OKAY, THERE.

[00:21:53]>> Are you okay?

[00:21:55]>> Give me that before you hurt yourself again.

[00:21:57]>> I'm sorry.

[00:21:58]>> Are you okay?

[00:22:00]>> I think so.

[00:22:01]>> Let me see.

[00:22:04]>> Yeah, that's going to hurt tomorrow. Ah, >> it hurts right now.

[00:22:16]I'll uh fix this.

[00:22:18]>> Yeah, I should change.

[00:22:29]>> Hello, >> Sam. Anyone home?

[00:22:36]>> Oh, hey honey. We're back here in the kitchen.

[00:22:41]Hey, >> we just had a little plumbing malfunction here. So, >> yeah, I can see that.

[00:22:48]>> What are you doing here?

[00:22:49]>> Oh, I just had a break. I thought I'd come by and say hi.

[00:22:53]>> Oh, good.

[00:22:55]>> Hi, Kate.

[00:22:56]>> Hi.

[00:22:57]>> Did Sam tell you what happened?

[00:22:59]>> You should have seen his face.

[00:23:01]>> Can I get you anything?

[00:23:02]>> Actually, no. Thanks, though. I was just checking in, seeing how it was going. I have to get back to work in a bit. Yeah, I'll come with you. I've done enough damage here for one day.

[00:23:15]>> Well, the place looks great.

[00:23:18]Thanks.

[00:23:20]>> I had a feeling he wasn't the plumber he thought he was.

[00:23:25]Ah, looks like you're almost settled in.

[00:23:28]>> Yeah.

[00:23:31]>> A beautiful picture. Are they your parents?

[00:23:35]>> Yeah.

[00:23:36]>> Oh, your mom's beautiful.

[00:23:38]Wow.

[00:23:42]>> I'm really sorry about the mess in there. I'll call you a plumber after all.

[00:23:47]>> That's okay. I should have called one in the first place.

[00:23:50]>> Let's go, Mr. Fixit.

[00:23:52]>> Thanks, S.

[00:23:55]>> Okay, everybody, take our seats.

[00:23:59]>> Take our seats, please.

[00:24:00]>> Sorry I'm late. Let's take out your tablets, sync up to my computer.

[00:24:06]Now, last week we were uh we were discussing our modern society and the effect it's had on literature and uh everybody quiet please. Macy uh what's going on?

[00:24:25]>> I think there's I just think maybe you sent us the wrong file from your computer.

[00:24:35]Everybody log off, please.

[00:24:46]>> Come in, please.

[00:24:48]>> What the hell happened this morning?

[00:24:52]>> I am so sorry.

[00:24:54]>> Distributing pornographic material to the students, intentional or not, is gross misconduct. I I really think we have to reconsider this tablet idea of yours.

[00:25:04]>> No, no, no, no. It's The tablets were working fine. Somebody must have hacked into my >> I am not concerned with how it might have happened. I am concerned that it never happened again.

[00:25:15]>> Yeah.

[00:25:20]>> This has to go in your file. You understand?

[00:25:23]>> Yeah, I understand.

[00:25:24]>> And you were late today.

[00:25:26]>> No, I know. I know. It's not going to happen again.

[00:25:29]see that it doesn't.

[00:25:44]>> Hi.

[00:25:45]>> Hey.

[00:25:46]>> Hey, Maddie. I'm happy to see you, too.

[00:25:51]>> Hi, >> Maddie. Go on.

[00:25:54]>> Hey there.

[00:25:55]>> Hi. You've had quite the day.

[00:25:59]You uh heard what happened though.

[00:26:02]>> Not just me. Pretty sure the entire student body's heard. Neighboring school districts bordering states.

[00:26:10]I wouldn't worry about it too much. From what I've heard, you're a pretty good teacher. No one will even remember it by tomorrow.

[00:26:17]Maybe next week.

[00:26:21]Listen, what are you doing right now?

[00:26:24]>> Nothing. Why?

[00:26:28]Sometimes it's harder to be alone. You know, you had said that Kate works late and I thought maybe you'd Forget it. I'll see you in class.

[00:26:46]>> Hey, Taran.

[00:26:51]What are you thinking?

[00:27:00]I cannot believe I subjected myself to this humiliation.

[00:27:04]>> You're not that bad.

[00:27:06]>> Hey, you almost doubled my score.

[00:27:09]>> Like our age.

[00:27:12]>> I think I have something that'll cheer you up or at least make it a bit better.

[00:27:19]>> To thank you for being so kind, so neighborly.

[00:27:23]You didn't have to get me anything.

[00:27:26]>> Maybe I didn't.

[00:27:45]>> Oh my god.

[00:27:48]>> You don't have to make it a big deal.

[00:27:50]It's just a watch. If you don't like it, I can take it back. And >> no, Taran, it's it's beautiful, but Well, I I can't accept it.

[00:28:03]>> Why?

[00:28:04]>> Why?

[00:28:07]Oh, because it's it's too much.

[00:28:15]>> You call yourself a creative writing teacher. It's the best you could come up with.

[00:28:28]Please. It'll be an insult if you don't accept it.

[00:28:41]>> We should go.

[00:28:55]You should see your face right now.

[00:28:59]How am I going to tell my wife look?

[00:29:07]>> Thank you for tonight, Sam.

[00:29:10]>> Yeah, thank you.

[00:29:15]Enjoy the watch.

[00:29:39]>> Hey Kate.

[00:29:42]Hey.

[00:29:45]>> Hey.

[00:29:48]Where were you?

[00:29:54]>> I got done a little later than I thought. So, >> you could have called.

[00:30:01]>> I'm sorry. The day got away from me.

[00:30:05]>> Decker left a message.

[00:30:08]>> Hey, Sammy. Have you called the bank about the problem with the diner account? What they say? No stupid dip.

[00:30:13]Call you later. Say hi to Kate. Bye.

[00:30:29]That's better.

[00:31:03]Heat.

[00:31:25]Heat.

[00:31:29]Heat. Heat.

[00:32:04]Uh, hello.

[00:32:06]>> Hi, it's Taran.

[00:32:09]>> I um I just wanted to say thank you, you know, for tonight.

[00:32:16]>> Yeah, it was fun.

[00:32:20]Sorry we had to leave so quick.

[00:32:23]>> Don't worry about it. I got it.

[00:32:26]>> Oh, cuz you know it's not like we were doing anything wrong, but might not look good. That's all.

[00:32:34]>> I just wanted to call and say thank you.

[00:32:38]I should go. Dylan's waiting for me to call him back.

[00:32:41]>> Quarterback Dylan.

[00:32:44]>> Me? Why?

[00:32:46]>> You guys like boyfriend and girlfriend or something?

[00:32:49]I'll see you later.

[00:33:19]Wait, so they found your car, but then they impounded it. That's going to cost you some bucks, pal.

[00:33:27]Yeah.

[00:33:29]They think that I stole my own car, then hid it out in the middle of nowhere to collect on the insurance money. You believe that?

[00:33:38]It's such a scam, man.

[00:33:42]>> Hey, Sammy. Look, there's something we got to talk about.

[00:33:45]>> Yeah, shoot.

[00:33:47]>> You didn't happen to take any money out, did you?

[00:33:51]>> Where? The diner account?

[00:33:53]>> Yeah.

[00:33:54]>> No, man. I didn't take anything out.

[00:33:56]>> Because there's money missing and I didn't take it out.

[00:34:04]So, Sammy, we've been friends a long time. right now. If you ever in trouble or you needed something, you said some money, I mean, you know, you can come to me, right? Your boy >> Deck, listen, I'm telling you, I didn't withdraw any money, okay? If there's a problem at the bank, I'll call him in the morning and get it straightened down.

[00:34:23]>> You're right. That's probably it. That'd be good. Thanks.

[00:34:31]Buy a new Rolex.

[00:34:35]You know that girl who moved in across the street?

[00:34:38]>> Taran.

[00:34:39]>> Turns out Taran is in my class and uh I don't know. She gave me this watch.

[00:34:46]She's got a crush on me or something.

[00:34:50]>> She bought your Rolex.

[00:34:53]>> No. I mean, come on. It's It's got to be fake, right? I mean, who would give their teacher a genuine Rolex?

[00:35:03]Still got the beamer, huh?

[00:35:07]She give you that, too? Well, no. She loaned me the BMW, man. I told you my car is impounded. So, right.

[00:35:19]So, your student gave you a Rolex and a BMW. Loaned me the BMW.

[00:35:28]Next, she'll be telling me her daddy bought the house across the street cuz she's in love with you.

[00:35:36]>> Just Just tell me you didn't take the money. Sammy, that's all I need to hear.

[00:35:40]Okay, you didn't take the money cuz this this whole story, it's all too crazy. D, I didn't take the money. All right, relax. I'm going to call the bank and we're going to get it squared away.

[00:35:55]Okay.

[00:36:02]Okay, I'm home.

[00:36:07]Kitty.

[00:36:09]Oh, hey. I'm starving. You want something to eat?

[00:36:15]>> Where have you been?

[00:36:17]I've been calling.

[00:36:19]>> Yeah, I Sorry, I got kind of busy.

[00:36:28]Hey, you okay?

[00:36:33]>> Hey, what's wrong?

[00:36:38]>> Maddie is dead. Sam, >> what?

[00:36:47]>> What?

[00:36:55]What happened?

[00:36:59]>> You started acting weird, so I I called the vet.

[00:37:10]But by the time I got off the phone, poor Maddie.

[00:37:19]>> Oh my god.

[00:37:23]I'm so sorry.

[00:37:26]I'm so sorry.

[00:37:35]I'm sorry.

[00:37:51]Morning, Macy.

[00:37:53]>> Hi.

[00:37:54]>> Did you finish your paper?

[00:37:56]>> Yeah.

[00:38:00]>> Well, how'd it go? You want to see me?

[00:38:03]>> Yes. Sam, come in. Shut the door. Please take a seat.

[00:38:14]You really don't look good.

[00:38:16]>> It's It's been a rough couple of days, that's all.

[00:38:20]>> A serious issue has come up that has me quite upset, to be honest.

[00:38:24]>> How can I help?

[00:38:27]>> I really don't know how to approach this, so I'm just going to give it to you straight. You have been named in a sexual harassment allegation involving a female student.

[00:38:37]>> Oh, what? A sexual What are you talking about? There's been no sexual anything.

[00:38:43]I have never once suggested anything even remotely sexual with any student ever.

[00:38:49]I'm teacher of the year for Christ's sake.

[00:38:52]>> Sam, this is a very serious matter.

[00:38:55]>> Who is it? Who's Who's saying these things?

[00:38:58]>> It's Macy, isn't it? She's been acting strange for weeks.

[00:39:04]Maybe there's a mistake or something.

[00:39:05]Maybe that >> if any of these charges are corroborated or found to have merit, you will be immediately dismissed. This serves as your only warning, Mr. Luck.

[00:39:17]>> What about my rights? Do I get to confront my accuser or >> You'll get that chance when and if she decides to press charges. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

[00:39:29]All right. Now, that was the official response.

[00:39:32]On a personal note, what the hell is going on here?

[00:39:40]>> I don't know.

[00:39:45]>> Just a minute.

[00:39:51]>> Hi.

[00:39:52]>> Did you hear?

[00:39:54]>> Yeah. I'm sorry.

[00:39:59]>> Of course you did.

[00:40:01]I'm sure everybody at school is talking about it.

[00:40:10]>> What?

[00:40:15]>> You know who's saying these things about me?

[00:40:18]>> I have no idea. It's him.

[00:40:22]>> Don't lie to me, Ter.

[00:40:26]>> If I knew, I would tell you.

[00:40:29]You know that, right?

[00:40:31]>> Yeah.

[00:40:35]>> You trust me, don't you?

[00:40:43]>> I want to go.

[00:41:46]And finally, our conclusion.

[00:41:52]It's due Tuesday.

[00:42:33]Such a horn. Yeah.

[00:43:08]What's up, man? I'm kind of late.

[00:43:11]This won't take long.

[00:43:12]>> Sorry I haven't been in touch. Just been kind of busy.

[00:43:17]>> You got problems, dude.

[00:43:22]I came here to tell you that I know.

[00:43:27]I know about the diner.

[00:43:30]What about the diner? Well, the realtor called me this morning, said that Sam Luck, property management, bought the diner out from underneath me, man.

[00:43:42]>> That guy didn't buy the diner.

[00:43:44]>> Management.

[00:43:50]I had into this and you scream.

[00:43:57]>> Hey, Dak, wait a minute. I came here to tell you two things.

[00:44:02]that I know that you're a liar and that our friendship is over.

[00:45:02]Hey, I'll see you in my office. Mr. Luck, >> the school board has found merit in the complaint filed against you. You are terminated, Mr. Luck. effective immediately.

[00:45:25]>> Helen, I promise that I'd never cross the line with any girl at this school ever.

[00:45:32]>> This is not going to be a discussion.

[00:45:34]>> Ellen, please.

[00:45:36]>> You are to collect your belongings, empty out your locker, and leave the premises at once.

[00:45:45]>> Helen, please.

[00:45:55]Send her in.

[00:46:00]Come in. Please take a seat.

[00:46:04]How are you doing? Okay.

[00:46:09]I wanted you to be the first to know.

[00:46:11]You don't have to worry any longer.

[00:46:15]>> Thank you. I'm sorry. You know, this is not your fault, Taran.

[00:46:22]Now, if you need anything else, you're to come to me, dear.

[00:46:34]>> Sam, think about it. There's got to be something you did, >> Katie. There's nothing. I >> I swear to God, Sam, you have been acting so different.

[00:46:48]I mean, with with the diner and Decker and the whole car insurance thing and this thing with Taran, I found this in your drawer, Sam.

[00:47:16]You went through my stuff.

[00:47:19]>> Where did you get a $10,000 watch? Sam, Taran gave it to you, didn't she?

[00:47:29]Because that would be inappropriate, Sam. That would be beyond inappropriate.

[00:47:36]You're just really scaring me. Sam, did you hear what I just said? I said you're scaring me. Sammy.

[00:47:48]Sam, look at me. Please.

[00:47:54]I don't like her AND I DON'T TRUST HER.

[00:48:02]Have you thought just for a minute about Taran's situation?

[00:48:09]Because I have.

[00:48:13]And it's more than obvious to me that it's a little strange.

[00:48:17]She's a little strange.

[00:48:20]She might even be dangerous.

[00:48:23]I want you to think long and hard, Sam, that maybe you're doing something with her that you can't undo.

[00:48:30]Are you listening to me?

[00:48:33]Can you stand back for just a moment, Sam? Do you see how this looks? I mean, my god, this is huge.

[00:48:45]I don't know.

[00:49:04]Heat. Heat.

[00:49:40]I have some crazy obsession for you, Sam, and you need to stop now before you do something stupid.

[00:49:48]Can't you see what's happening to you?

[00:49:52]You lost your job today and you Hey Kate, this is looking good.

[00:50:26]Do you want the magazine, too?

[00:50:30]>> So what?

[00:50:31]>> So what? It's the same picture Taran has in her house in a frame. Sam, >> no, it's not.

[00:50:37]>> Yes, it is. Don't you think that's just a little weird? I mean, come on. She told me it was a picture of her parents.

[00:50:47]Why would she do that? put a magazine ad in a frame.

[00:50:50]>> I don't know, Kate. I don't know. Why don't you go ask her? All right.

[00:50:56]>> We don't know anything about her. She shows up out of the blue and our lives turn. It's >> enough.

[00:51:04]It's enough.

[00:51:06]I'm going out.

[00:51:35]mental health. Sure. What the hell?

[00:52:17]Hey, Hello.

[00:53:34]Okay. Heat. Heat. N.

[00:55:28]Did you find everything you wanted?

[00:55:32]>> Obviously.

[00:55:34]>> If there's something else you want, say something behind the counter. Maybe I can find it for you.

[00:55:44]1581 hell.

[00:56:31]$10,000 property management. She bought the diner.

[00:56:56]Oh my god.

[00:57:02]That's going to be Hey, I Hello.

[00:58:37]Heat.

[00:58:45]Heat.

[00:59:13]Heat.

[00:59:55]Sam, are you home?

[01:00:37]Dear Sam.

[01:01:01]Okay.

[01:01:17]>> You got the insurance papers?

[01:01:20]>> What's your name?

[01:01:23]Uh, >> call me Bert.

[01:01:27]>> Now, are those really necessary? The insurance papers, Bert, because I have something that might change your mind.

[01:01:41]What do you think, Bert?

[01:02:16]Ter. Dar, open up.

[01:02:23]>> Come in.

[01:02:31]>> She's gone.

[01:02:35]>> What? Who's gone?

[01:02:37]>> Kate. She left. She um Dear Sam.

[01:02:56]Dear Sam, I know things haven't been good for you lately or for us. I wish there was some way to make it go away, but I just think it's best for both of us if we take some time away from each other to figure things out.

[01:03:10]I don't know what else to do. I can't be with you like this. I'm leaving you.

[01:03:18]>> I know. I screwed things up with Kate.

[01:03:22]>> It's okay.

[01:03:24]It's okay.

[01:03:28]>> I can't stop thinking about you.

[01:03:52]Heat. Heat.

[01:03:56]Heat.

[01:04:12]Heat.

[01:04:19]Heat.

[01:04:44]Heat.

[01:05:07]Let's go home, Terry.

[01:05:31]Get out.

[01:05:32]>> What?

[01:05:33]>> Get out.

[01:05:37]>> Taran, what's wrong?

[01:05:38]>> You finally got what you wanted. You raped me, Sam.

[01:05:42]>> How could you say that?

[01:05:44]>> I can't believe you did this to me.

[01:05:48]>> You came on to me.

[01:05:50]Nothing happened here that we both didn't want to happen.

[01:05:55]>> Yeah, right.

[01:05:59]You me, Sam. You're going to jail for this.

[01:06:04]>> I'm a high school student. Sam, you're my teacher.

[01:06:12]Don't you think there's something wrong with that?

[01:06:15]>> Get out.

[01:06:16]>> TARAN, PLEASE GET OUT.

[01:06:18]>> PLEASE, WE CAN'T >> GET OUT. GET OUT.

[01:06:22]Get out. Go.

[01:06:26]>> YOU DISGUSTING PERVERT. GET OUT. GET OUT.

[01:06:47]HEY, it's Taran. Leave a message.

[01:06:51]>> Hey, Taran. I know you're there. Pick up the phone, please.

[01:06:57]Come on. I just left your house. I know that you're there.

[01:07:10]Hey, this is Kate. Leave a message.

[01:07:24]>> Hey, this is Kate. The message.

[01:07:28]>> Hey Kate, it's Sam.

[01:07:32]Uh, call me when you can, okay? I'm really really sorry for uh for everything.

[01:07:42]I love you. I love you very much.

[01:07:46]Call me please.

[01:07:57]Kate, >> it's Taran.

[01:08:04]>> I'm sorry, but this is really hard for me.

[01:08:08]>> Are you okay?

[01:08:11]>> I can't keep going like this.

[01:08:16]>> It's been difficult, Sam.

[01:08:20]and things just didn't work out the way that I wanted them to.

[01:08:26]>> My mom died, Sam. I don't know if you knew that or not.

[01:08:31]>> And I found her, you know, I just couldn't seem to pull it together after that.

[01:08:42]They put me in a hospital, Sam, for a very long time. And they thought I got better.

[01:08:51]Now I'm not so sure.

[01:08:57]I can't do this anymore. Sam, >> I'm coming over.

[01:09:00]>> No, I got to go. Goodbye.

[01:10:40]911. Say the nature of your emergency.

[01:11:15]Taran.

[01:11:18]Whatever you're thinking about doing, Taran, don't.

[01:11:23]Please.

[01:11:29]Did they teach you how to deal with teens in crisis at teacher school?

[01:11:35]How would you deal with this situation?

[01:11:37]Take >> it easy.

[01:11:42]Put the gun down.

[01:11:48]Please.

[01:11:50]>> Do you love me, Sam?

[01:11:56]Do you?

[01:11:59]>> Darren, what happened between us was wrong.

[01:12:04]Okay, I know that.

[01:12:10]And you can't blame yourself.

[01:12:12]Put the gun down. Put it down, please. Put it down. That's it. Go ahead. Nice and easy.

[01:12:22]Okay. Okay.

[01:12:26]Okay.

[01:12:33]It's not your fault, Darren.

[01:12:37]>> I know.

[01:12:42]It's your fault.

[01:12:45]>> What?

[01:12:47]>> I SAID IT'S YOUR FAULT.

[01:12:49]>> SAID IT'S YOUR FAULT.

[01:12:53]>> I don't understand.

[01:12:54]>> It's really not that hard to figure out.

[01:12:59]Think about it.

[01:13:02]9 years ago.

[01:13:05]Do you remember when that little girl walked in on you and her mother?

[01:13:23]That was you.

[01:13:25]>> You ruined my life, my family.

[01:13:37]She never told me she had a kid. She never even told me she was married. That day when you walked in on us, I never meant to hurt her.

[01:13:54]>> But you did. You did hurt her. She loved you and you used her up and threw her away like it was nothing.

[01:14:04]It was the final straw for her, Sam.

[01:14:12]And I found her.

[01:14:16]Do you know what that feels like, Sam?

[01:14:18]To lose someone you love.

[01:14:25]You've messed up a lot of people, Sam.

[01:14:30]First my mother, then me.

[01:14:37]Now Kate, what do you know about Kate?

[01:14:49]Oh my god, Maddie. The bank, the diner.

[01:14:59]You did those things.

[01:15:03]>> Kate never liked me.

[01:15:06]She thought I was crazy.

[01:15:09]Maybe even dangerous.

[01:15:14]>> Where is she?

[01:15:18]>> You don't deserve her, Sam.

[01:15:22]>> What did you do?

[01:15:28]She's gone. Sam, >> what did you do to my wife?

[01:15:37]>> Her blood's on your hand, Sam. Not mine.

[01:15:57]Oh no.

[01:16:01]Oh no.

[01:16:03]What did you do? What did you do?

[01:16:09]No.

[01:16:11]Oh god.

[01:16:30]No. No. No.

[01:16:49]No, do it. Pull the trigger, Sam.

[01:17:05]Do it.

[01:17:09]>> PUT THE WEAPON DOWN.

[01:17:12]DROP IT NOW.

[01:17:13]>> Put it down and step away. Sam, you don't want to do this. Drop it.

[01:17:20]>> Put the weapon down.

[01:17:23]>> Drop the gun. Sam, she killed her.

[01:17:52]What the Oh, thank God. I I I thought he was going to kill me.

[01:18:09]>> Go, go, go.

[01:18:15]>> He started acting violent a few days ago when his wife disappeared. And and location.

[01:18:29]>> Somebody call homicide. We uh got a body here.

[01:18:36]>> Looks like the murder weapon.

[01:19:35]You feel fine. That is the first thing to understand and the most dangerous.

[01:19:40]You are standing on the surface of Mars.

[01:19:43]Actually standing on it. Boots on the rustcoled regalith. The horizon curving away from you at a distance that feels slightly too close. The sky above you, a pale butterscotch color that looks almost like a sunrise on a hazy Earth morning. Your suit is functioning. Your oxygen is cycling. Your vitals on the wrist display are reading nominal. You feel, if anything, a sense of profound calm. The particular stillness of a place that has never heard wind the way earth does, never felt rain, never been touched by anything alive. It is beautiful in the way that very dangerous things sometimes are. But your body has already started responding to this place quietly at the cellular level in ways that will not produce a single warning on any of your instruments because the instruments measure the suits performance, not the slow renegotiation happening inside your biology. You feel fine. That is exactly the problem. Mars kills slowly. That is its particular character. The thing that makes it more insidious than environments that are immediately and obviously lethal. A vacuum kills in seconds. A pulses radiation overwhelms you in minutes.

[01:21:10]Mars gives you time. Enough time to walk around, to do work, to eat meals, to sleep, to begin to feel at home. While it is methodically, patiently working on every system in your body. The gravity is too low. The radiation is too high.

[01:21:30]The dust is chemically reactive in ways that took scientists years to fully characterize.

[01:21:37]The isolation is the kind that affects human neurology in ways we are only beginning to understand.

[01:21:45]None of these things will kill you this afternoon. That is not the point. The point is that every one of them is operating right now and they are operating simultaneously and the human body was not designed with any redundancy for this particular combination of stressors because the human body was designed by evolution over millions of years for earth and this is not earth and the difference between those two sentences is the entire story of what is happening to you. Stay with me because some of what this planet is doing to you is stranger than you've been told. Mars is the most studied planet in the solar system after Earth. We have sent more than 50 missions to it. We have rovers on its surface right now, grinding rock samples and analyzing soil chemistry and taking selfies in the pale afternoon light. We know its topography in extraordinary detail. We know the composition of its atmosphere. 95% carbon dioxide with traces of nitrogen and argon and almost negligible amounts of oxygen. We know its average surface temperature around -60° C with swings from about 20° C at the equator on a summer afternoon down to -25° at the poles in winter. We know its day length 24 hours and 37 minutes pleasingly close to Earth's and its year length 687 Earth days and the axial tilt that gives its seasons and the dust storms that can grow to envelop the entire planet for weeks at a time. We know Mars well enough that it can feel familiar. well enough that mission planners and science communicators sometimes describe it as the most human accessible destination in the solar system beyond the moon, which it is well enough that proposals for human settlement on Mars are discussed seriously, funded seriously, and treated by significant parts of the space community as not just possible but inevitable. What we are only beginning to fully understand is what Mars does to human bodies over months and years of exposure. Not because we haven't thought about it, but because thinking about it and actually measuring it in living humans on the Martian surface are two very different things. And we have only done the first one so far. What we know comes from analog environments, Antarctic stations, submarine deployments, the International Space Station, and from careful extrapolation from the physics of the Martian environment. The picture that extrapolation paints is not simple. It is in places alarming. Mars has a surface gravity of approximately 3.72 m/s squared. That is 38% of Earth's surface gravity. If you weigh 80 kg on Earth, you weigh roughly 30 kg on Mars.

[01:25:09]This sounds immediately appealing.

[01:25:12]Moving feels effortless. Carrying equipment is trivially easy. The physical demands of surface work are dramatically reduced compared to a terrestrial equivalent. Early descriptions of Mars exploration tend to emphasize this as an advantage. It is not simply an advantage. It is a variable that your body's every system has been calibrated against for your entire life. And changing it has consequences that propagate through your biology in ways that are still being researched. Your skeletal system on Earth is under constant load. Bone is living tissue. It responds to mechanical stress by maintaining its density continuously remodeling itself in response to the forces placed on it.

[01:26:04]Reduce those forces and the remodeling equation shifts. Bone resorption, the process by which old bone tissue is broken down continues at roughly its normal rate. But bone formation slows because the mechanical signals that drive formation are weaker. The result is a gradual net loss of bone density that on the International Space Station at zero gravity proceeds at roughly 1 to 2% per month in weightbearing bones without counter measures. Mars is not zero gravity. 38% gravity means 38% of the normal mechanical loading on your skeleton. Whether that is enough to maintain bone density over the long term or whether it produces bone loss at a reduced rate compared to microgravity is not fully established because no human being has spent months in a 38% gravity environment. The ISS data is our best analog and it suggests that meaningful bone loss would still occur, just more slowly. Over a mission lasting 18 months, a reasonable estimate for a surface stay accounting for the orbital mechanics of getting back. The cumulative bone density loss could become clinically significant in ways that affect both short-term fracture risk and long-term skeletal health upon return to Earth. But that's not the worst part. Bone loss is the most discussed consequence of lowgravity exposure, but it is not the only one and arguably not the most immediately operational concern. Muscle atrophy proceeds in parallel. The same principle applies with reduced mechanical loading leading to reduced muscle maintenance.

[01:27:57]The body effectively deciding that it doesn't need to maintain as much tissue as it did when it was working against full earth gravity. This affects not just the obvious skeletal muscles but the muscles of the cardiovascular system. Your heart is a muscle. It has been pumping blood upward against gravity your entire life. and the architecture of your entire vascular system. The distribution of blood pressure, the reflexes that prevent fainting when you stand up. The baseline calibration of how hard the heart needs to work to peruse your brain is tuned for 1g. In reduced gravity, the fluid distribution in your body shifts. Blood and other fluids move toward the upper body and head away from the legs where gravity normally pulls them. This produces a characteristic fullness and congestion in the face and upper torso that astronauts experience in microgravity.

[01:28:59]And it sends signals to the body's fluid regulating systems that read as too much blood volume, triggering a reduction in total blood volume that can reach 10 to 22% over weeks. Less blood means less capacity to deliver oxygen to working muscles.

[01:29:19]Less blood volume means a cardiovascular system that has down reggulated its output and may struggle to upregulate it again when demanded. Upon returning to Earth's full gravity, some astronauts experience significant orthostatic intolerance, the inability to maintain adequate blood pressure when standing, resulting in dizziness, fainting, or near fainting. The recovery process takes weeks to months. For a crew returning from Mars, the first moments of standing in full Earth gravity after a year or more in Martian gravity would come after a 7-month transit back through microgravity. And the cardiovascular state they would arrive home in is not something we have fully characterized.

[01:30:07]Inside your suit, standing on the surface right now, none of this is visible. Your heart rate is slightly elevated. Mild exertion plus the psychological weight of where you are.

[01:30:22]Your blood pressure is reading within acceptable parameters. You feel strong.

[01:30:27]You feel, if anything, lighter than you have in years. And this is where things get terrifying. You walk approximately 400 m from the habitat to the first survey waypoint. The distance is nothing. 20 minutes of easy walking in Martian gravity. Your pack feeling almost weightless on your back. Each stride slightly longer than your earth trained legs expect. The ground coming up a fraction of a second later than your nervous system predicts. You are already adapting your gate, already learning the rhythm of this place. And the learning is happening below the level of conscious thought the way all motor adaptation does. The surface around you is extraordinary. Not the featureless red plane of popular imagination, but a complex landscape of angular rocks, windcoured ridges, dust filled hollows, and distant crater rims that turn purple in the afternoon haze.

[01:31:31]The dust is everywhere. A fine reddish powder that coats everything that rises in small eddies around your boots with each step that has been settling on this landscape for billions of years. It is beautiful and it is everywhere. And it is, you are about to be reminded, one of the most chemically hostile substances you are likely to encounter on any rocky body in the inner solar system. You reach the way point and begin setting up the sampling equipment. Your gloves handle the latches and connectors with practiced ease. The suit's heads up display shows your location, your oxygen reserve, your suit pressure, your external temperature, -43° C at the moment. A relatively warm afternoon at this latitude and season. Everything normal, everything green. You kneel to examine a rock outcrop and a small cloud of dust rises around your knees. You watch it settle, fine, reddish, ancient.

[01:32:40]You don't think much about it. Martian dust is not like earth dust. The distinction matters enormously, and it is one that the physical appearance of the stuff, fine, reddish, almost pretty in the right light, does nothing to communicate. The dust particles on Mars are extremely fine, much finer than most terrestrial soils, and their surface chemistry is reactive in ways that took scientists years to fully understand.

[01:33:10]The Martian surface has been bombarded by ultraviolet radiation for billions of years in the near absence of an ozone layer. And that ultraviolet exposure has driven chemical reactions in the surface material that produced a class of compounds called perlorates and reactive oxygen species. Perccllates, salts of perchloric acid, are found throughout the Martian surface at concentrations of roughly 0.5 to 1% by weight. On Earth, percllorates are considered environmental contaminants and are regulated because of their biological effects. They interfere with thyroid function by blocking iodine uptake, disrupting the production of thyroid hormones that regulate metabolism, growth, and cardiovascular function. The Martian dust is also coated with reactive oxygen species, molecules like hydrogen peroxide and super oxide radicals that are chemically aggressive and will react with organic material, including biological tissue, on contact.

[01:34:19]These compounds are what makes Martian soil effectively sterilizing to most Earth biology and they are a significant concern for any scenario in which dust enters a habitat or more seriously the respiratory system. Here is the scenario that keeps mission planners awake at night. Suit contamination.

[01:34:42]Every time you re-enter the habitat airlock, your suit carries Martian dust on its exterior. Decontamination procedures exist and are carefully designed. But dust this fine, this electrostatically charged. Martian dust particles develop significant electrostatic charge in the low humidity, high UV environment and actively cling to surfaces will over weeks and months of repeated excursions begin to find its way past decontamination into the habitat air supply into filters into the fine tolerances of equipment into the lungs of the crew. The respiratory effects of fine mineral dust are well documented on Earth. Conditions like silicosis caused by inhaling silica particles develop over years of exposure and cause progressive irreversible lung scarring. Martian dust combines fine particle size with reactive chemistry in a way that could make chronic inhalation exposure considerably more damaging than comparable terrestrial mineral dust. The long-term pulmonary effects of breathing trace amounts of perchlorillate laden oxidantcoated fine dust over the course of a year or more are not known with precision because we have not yet done it. But that's not the worst part.

[01:36:12]Outside your suit, above the thin atmosphere and its negligible magnetic field, the radiation environment of Mars is among the most relevant and poorly solved problems in human space flight.

[01:36:26]Earth's surface is protected by two overlapping systems. the planet's magnetic field which deflects charged particles from the solar wind and cosmic rays and the atmosphere which provides mass shielding that absorbs and scatters radiation before it reaches ground level. The combination reduces the radiation dose at Earth's surface to levels that human biology handles without significant acute effect. Even though long-term low-level exposure contributes to cancer risk throughout a normal lifespan, Mars has neither system working in its favor. Its global magnetic field effectively disappeared roughly 4 billion years ago when the core cooled and the dynamo stopped. Today, only localized cust remnant fields remain, patchwork and weak, providing no meaningful planetary scale shielding.

[01:37:25]Its atmosphere, while present, is approximately 1% the density of Earth's at sea level. These two absences combined to make the Martian surface one of the most radiation exposed rocky surfaces in the inner solar system. The Curiosity Rover's radiation assessment detector, an instrument designed specifically to measure the radiation environment on the surface, recorded an average surface dose rate of approximately 0.67 milliseverts per day during its measurements. For context, the annual dose limit for radiation workers in most countries is 20 milliseverts per year. The Martian surface delivers that in approximately 30 days. Over a 500day surface mission, the cumulative radiation dose from surface exposure alone would be in the range of 300 to 400 milliseverts, not accounting for additional exposure during the transit from Earth and back, which adds substantially to the total because outside the thin shelter of Mars's atmosphere, the galactic cosmic ray environment is more intense. Still, NASA's career limit for astronaut radiation exposure set to limit lifetime excess cancer risk to 3% is between 600 and 1,200 milliseverts depending on age and sex. A Mars mission would consume a significant fraction of that career limit. And those limits were calculated using conservative models of radiation carcinogenesis that some researchers argue underestimate risk at high doses.

[01:39:11]The actual cancer risk from a Mars mission's radiation exposure is genuinely uncertain and the uncertainty is not in the direction of it being safer than the models suggest. The radiation is passing through you right now. You cannot feel it. It produces no immediate sensation. It is not burning you or shocking you or triggering any alarm. It is simply ionizing molecules as it passes through your tissue, breaking DNA strands, generating free radicals, depositing energy in your cells in tiny increments that each individually cause negligible damage, and collectively over months shift your cancer risk in ways that will only become apparent years or decades after you return home. You are being irradiated. You feel fine. You have been on the surface for 4 hours when the dust storm warning comes through. Not a major storm. The meteorological models say a localized event winds up to 30 m/s.

[01:40:21]Reduced visibility, elevated dust load in the lower atmosphere. You begin packing up the sampling equipment and start the walk back to the habitat. The sky, which was that pale butterscotch color when you came out, has shifted to something darker and more uniform at the horizon. A brownish wall that makes the distance hard to judge. The wind picks up. You can feel it against the suit.

[01:40:50]Not strongly. The atmospheric density on Mars is so low that wind here carries a fraction of the force it would on Earth.

[01:40:59]30 m/s on Mars, feeling roughly like a gentle breeze on Earth in terms of physical pressure. But the dust it carries is real. The fine particles patter against your visor. The visibility drops. Your heads up display activates the navigation overlay, showing you the bearing to the habitat entrance. The habitat is 400 m away. You have walked this route already this morning. Your legs know the rhythm of Martian ground, but in the reduced visibility with the wind pushing a constant stream of dust against your face plate with the navigation overlay providing your heading but not the specific terrain features. The walk takes on a different quality. You are aware in a way that didn't quite register on the morning walk how completely you depend on the suit. On the oxygen, it is cycling on the heating elements that are maintaining a livable temperature a few cm from your skin in an environment that is this afternoon at -51° C and dropping as the dust obscures the sun on the visor that is keeping those reactive electrostatically charged dust particles out of your airway. The habitat light appears in the brownish merc ahead. You reach the airlock and begin the decontamination sequence, brushing the suit down with the electrostatic wand, running the air jets, cycling through the procedure with the practiced efficiency of someone who has done it a dozen times. Some of the dust comes off, some of it inevitably doesn't. You step inside. You breathe recycled air. You feel immediately the particular relief of shelter. You are fine. You are home. And the dust that came in with you is already too fine to see. Here is the unsettling thing about Mars that sits beneath all the other unsettling things. The one that gives the whole picture a darker undertone.

[01:43:15]Mars had an atmosphere once. A real one.

[01:43:19]thick, substantial, with surface pressures high enough to allow liquid water to exist. The evidence for this is written in the geology, ancient riverbeds, delta formations, lake basin sediments, mineral deposits that form only in the presence of liquid water.

[01:43:40]Mars was for a period in its early history a wet world, possibly a warm one. The timeline is debated. The wet period may have been relatively brief, or it may have persisted for hundreds of millions of years, but the evidence for its existence is solid. Something stripped that atmosphere away. The mechanism is understood in broad strokes. Without a magnetic field to deflect the solar wind, the high energy particles of the solar wind interact with the upper atmosphere, gradually eroding it, carrying molecules off into space in a process called atmospheric sputtering. Over billions of years, this erosion stripped Mars down to the thin, cold remnant we find today. Mars lost its protection and then lost its atmosphere and then lost its surface water and became the world below your feet. What we have not fully resolved is the timeline and the completeness of that process. The magnetic field collapse appears to have happened relatively early in Mars's history, but recent measurements have found that the current rate of atmospheric loss from solar wind interaction, while real and measurable, is too slow by itself to account for all the atmosphere Mars appears to have lost. something else or some combination of factors, including major impact events that blew atmosphere off into space or chemical reactions that bound atmospheric gases into the surface rock contributed to the loss.

[01:45:22]The reason this is unsettling is what it implies about time scales. Mars may have been habitable in the broad astrobiological sense of having liquid water and a reasonable atmosphere.

[01:45:36]for long enough that if life arose on Earth in the first few hundred million years of its history, life had time to arise on Mars as well. And then the conditions changed slowly, then faster.

[01:45:50]The atmosphere went, the water went, the surface became what it is now, cold, dry, bathed in radiation, coated in reactive chemistry that is effectively hostile to life as we know it. If anything was alive on Mars, it had to go somewhere as conditions degraded down most likely into the subsurface where liquid water may still exist at depth, where the overlying rock provides radiation shielding, where the chemistry of the deep environment might still support metabolism.

[01:46:26]There are researchers who take seriously the hypothesis that Martian life, if it ever existed, may persist in the deep subsurface today, not as anything complex, but as microbial communities in briny subsurface water, doing chemistry in the dark beneath kilometers of rock.

[01:46:47]We have not looked there. Our deepest subsurface probes on Mars have reached perhaps a few meters of depth. The deep subsurface is beyond our current reach.

[01:46:58]It is possible, the scientific literature does not exclude it, that this planet, which appears comprehensively dead at its surface, has been hosting microbial life in its interior for the last 3 billion years, retreating downward ahead of the deteriorating surface conditions, surviving in pockets of liquid water and chemical energy far beyond where we have been able to look. That thought standing on the surface in a dust storm becomes something other than an academic hypothesis.

[01:47:32]There is one more system that Mars erodess and it is the one we talk about least because it is the hardest to quantify and the least comfortable to examine directly. The human nervous system did not evolve for genuine isolation. It evolved in groups in social environments with the constant background of other human presence that provides the regulatory input our neurology uses to calibrate mood, stress response, sleep, and cognitive function.

[01:48:05]Research from Antarctic winter over stations, the closest analog we have to Mars surface isolation in terms of small crew, remote location, and inability to leave, shows consistent patterns.

[01:48:19]elevated cortisol, disrupted sleep architecture, reduced cognitive performance, particularly in tasks requiring sustained attention, and a cluster of psychological symptoms that researchers have called thirdarter phenomenon. A deterioration in morale and function that tends to hit around the 3/4 mark of a long isolated mission when the return still feels far away. On Mars, the isolation is more complete than any Antarctic analog. There is no possibility of emergency evacuation.

[01:48:56]Communication with Earth is delayed by between 3 and 22 minutes each way depending on orbital positions, making realtime conversation with anyone outside the crew impossible. The landscape outside the habitat while genuinely extraordinary is also completely inhospitable.

[01:49:17]You cannot step outside without a full suit. You cannot breathe the air. You cannot feel the ground under your bare feet. You cannot experience the place with your senses in the unmediated way that provides psychological grounding and rest on earth. Every interaction with the environment outside is mediated by technology and the constant awareness of how completely you depend on that technology is a low-level cognitive load that never fully resolves. The neuroscience of longduration isolation in confined crews is in the words of the researchers who study it one of the most significant unresolved challenges in human space flight. It affects decision making. It affects intercrew relationships. It affects the quality of work being done. And it does so slowly, incrementally in ways that the affected person is often the last to notice because the perceptual baseline for what feels normal shifts along with the symptoms. So the degradation is invisible to the person experiencing it.

[01:50:29]Your body is adapting to Mars. So is your mind and neither adaptation is free. Evening on Mars comes quickly at this latitude in this season. The sun drops toward the horizon and the sky transitions through colors that don't quite map to Earth equivalents. A pale salmon fading to a bruised violet, then to a dark blue black in which the stars appear earlier and more numerous than they would through Earth's thicker atmosphere.

[01:51:03]You watch it through the habitat viewport, sitting with a meal pack and a tablet loaded with data from the day's sampling run. Your suit hanging in the equipment bay with the decontamination log showing three cycles and a dust particle count that the filter report rates as within acceptable parameters.

[01:51:24]Your body in this moment feels ordinary, slightly tired, a good tired, the tiredness of physical work done well.

[01:51:33]Your muscles are comfortable. Your breathing is easy. Your joints feel fine. You have no symptoms of anything.

[01:51:42]This is the nature of what Mars does. It is not dramatic. It does not announce itself. The bone loss is happening at the cellular level in remodeling cycles that take weeks to produce measurable changes. The radiation damage is distributed across millions of cells, each affected at a level invisible to biologyy's own damage sensing mechanisms until the cumulative total crosses certain thresholds. The dust has settled into filters and surfaces in quantities too small to see but enough over months to matter. The cardiovascular drift is a slowly shifting calibration that will only reveal itself fully when you return to gravity that demands more of it. You are in every way you can measure. Fine.

[01:52:34]The instruments confirm it. Your own subjective experience confirms it. And yet the process has been running since the moment you arrived, steady and patient and completely indifferent to your well-being. Because Mars is not interested in your well-being. Mars is a planet. It has its chemistry and its physics and its radiation environment and it applies them uniformly to everything on its surface the same way it has applied them to its rocks and its dust for 4 billion years.

[01:53:10]You look at your reflection in the dark viewport, faint and transparent against the Martian night. Behind your reflected face, the stars are clear and cold, and the silhouette of the crater rim is a dark ark against a sky that has never once in all of its history sheltered anything alive at its surface, or if it did, decided eventually not to anymore.

[01:53:37]You feel fine. You have felt fine since you arrived. That is the thing about Mars that stays with you longer than anything else. Longer than the beauty of the landscape. Longer than the scientific achievement of standing here.

[01:53:52]Longer than the extraordinary fact of being a living thing on another planet for the first time in the history of your species. You feel fine. And you won't know what it cost you until you get home.