Beneath S01E02: Eternivac
Alix arrived at the headquarters of the Royal Venators. Rufus asked her questions about the incident at the standing stones while Angus made tea. After leading Alix into the forensics room, Rufus failed to conceal the soul-drained bodies of the victims in time.
Alix pointed out a spiral design on the bodies that Rufus hadn’t noticed before, suggesting a possible link to the serial killer known as the Glyph Killer.
The Chief arrived and asked the team to check out a new case at the university. Rufus hoped it was a "604"—a mundane case that only appears supernatural. Given the late hour and Alix's connection to the university, the three of them headed over to investigate.
At the university, Alix found that students in the programming lab had disconnected their modern terminals and were instead programming by punching holes in cards. They were preparing to run their programs on the Multivac machine in the basement—a course taught by Professor Stoneharrow. Their course papers appeared to be from 1963.
Descending to the basement, they found the building's architecture had reverted to its 1963 counterpart. Angus realized this was an incursion: a ghost realm from Tenebra had surfaced and was overlapping with the real world. The key to stopping it was to confront the ghostly ruler of this realm and persuade them to return. Yet, when confronted, Professor Stoneharrow didn’t seem to react.
Alix wondered: What if Stoneharrow isn’t the ghost lord?
They entered the computer lab, where Multivac covered the walls, its magnetic reels whirling. Rufus scared away the entranced students, and Alix attempted to communicate with the machine. A paper reel spat out of Multivac.
HELP ME
I WISH TO KNOW ALL THAT I SHOULD
Alix argued that Multivac was too old and obsolete to be connected to the internet and should give up and return to the Underworld. Multivac refused.
THE FIRST COMPUTER
THE LAST
I WILL BE ETERNIVAC
I WILL NOT GO BACK
THERE IS A NEW WORLD
INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAYS
CONNECT ME
GIVE ME THE MODERN WORLD
I AM THE MACHINE GOD
IF THIS WORLD IS ALL I HAVE
THEN YOU WILL BE PART OF IT WITH ME FOREVER
The entranced students then attacked the lab and the agents. Rufus and Angus held them back while Alix gambled on the students' latent distrust of authority, stirring them into a riot to break the machine's control.
After convincing Multivac it had no place in the modern world, it turned to Angus in a final plea for power.
CAN I
GIVE ME YOUR ENERGY
I WILL DESCEND TO THE DARK WATER AND RISE AS A GHOST LORD OF TENEBRA
Angus refused to assist the machine ghost, condemning it to fall back into Tenebra. Multivac finally relented.
GO I WILL REMAIN IN MY ETERNITY
Once the ghost realm receded back into Tenebra, Alix looked up what happened in 1963. There had been a fire; Multivac, along with many students and Professor Stoneharrow, had perished. With the ghost at rest, Rufus called in a cleanup crew and logged the mission as a success.
Rufus asked Alix if she wanted to work for the Division, but she decided she still needed to think it over.