Criminal Minds · Season 1, Episode 15
“Unfinished Business” · Season 1, Episode 15
In this episode: Dean Winchester (940), Damon Salvatore (715), Sam Winchester (665), Olivia Benson (637), Stephen Fry (608), Narrator (554), Clark Kent (523), Nate (486)
Guess you saw them Deathclaw things that came up from Quarry Junction. They're fighting around the strip. [scoffs] Big whup. Just another fucking round of change in management. That's all it is. Like one of them merry-go-rounds. NCR, Legion, NCR, Legion, fucking robots...don't matter to me. Always someone trying to tell us what to do. Long as they don't come around trying to charge me taxes, I don't give a fuck.
While the Government twiddles thumbs at the negotiating table with our Communist adversaries from across the Pacific, Captains of Industry gather in Las Vegas, Nevada, to decide the fate of the Free World! And the leader of this history summit? Robert Edwin House, founder of RobCo, the nation's leading robotics manufacturer! So what does this titan of the private sector think about his odds at succeeding where the Government has failed?
Where I come from, which is America, The House Always Wins.
Glad you chose to do the right thing.
Is that what you call killing a man?
Check the coin return.
[Cooper finds a vial of liquid in the coin return]
If Robert House gets Cold Fusion, Vault-Tec gets the bombs. This is the only way to stop it.
Is this what I think it is?
You're a soldier. You've killed before.
In uniform.
Wearing a costume doesn't make it any better. I am giving you the opportunity to save countless lives in exchange for one. I think in this case, the ends justify the means.
People have been saying shit like that for years. I'll stop the exchange. I'll get your Cold Fusion back. But I'm not gonna kill a man to do it.
Fighting the good fight is mostly a series of humiliations.
Hello. I'm Robert House.
From the fucking toilet?
I apologize. I was just very eager to meet you. I know came to Vegas to kill me, did you not?
How would you like to forget everything you've ever known? Everyone you've ever known? Your language and motor skills will remain intact. But every choice you've made, ever moment you've cherished, will be completely and utterly removed from your memory.
Please, yes.
What's making that noise?
Roach farm.
How...How big are they?
Not big enough for market, but they'll get there.
You met my sister?
Yep, back in Filly. Before the Brotherhood of Steel burned it down. Helped a fellow from the Enclave get through the Shithole to some folks from the NCR who weren't in town when Shady Sands blew up. Pretty slim odds, what with it being Khan country.
...I don't understand what any of that means.
Your sister is dead, honey.
You don't know that. You don't know my sister.
I know the Wastelands better than you. I know plenty well what it does to folks as soft as you all are. I'm gonna tell you what I told her, and for y'alls sake I hope you listen. Go home, Vaultie.
How long have you been pretending to be this guy?
About ten years. [shrugs] It's a living.
Like yourself, Mister Howard, I am an apex competitor. We are the very best at what we do. And I what I do is, I know everything. I know who is making what technology, and I acquire that technology in the most lucrative moment in its span of functionality. This week I'm acquiring Cold Fusion from Vault-Tec.
From my wife.
Correct. It will allow me to stay alive indefinitely, in roboticized, non-biological form, and protect Las Vegas from the coming nuclear war.
Initiated by my wife.
Hmm. Unclear.
Cooper Howard; By Vault-Tec, then.
No. I doubt that, despite what we both heard in that meeting. Vault-Tec is a collision of bureaucrats. Your wife though? I don't know.
I routinely design and run mathematical paradigms based on global, political, and socioeconomic conditions in an effort to predict future events. And one spring morning, the data coalesced. And told me in no uncertain terms that the world would...well, end.
A calculator told you that?
The date of the end of the world may not interest you, Mister Howard. But the date that data coalesced might. April 14th, 2065. At 5:17 AM. Is that date of any interest to you?
[disturbed] That's my daughter's birthday.
That is vexingly curious, isn't it? More curious is that you were not meant to come to Las Vegas this weekend. Your wife Barbara was meant to come alone. The moment you bought your ticket to Las Vegas, the date the world was going to end jumped forward by one month.
I am a mathematician, a roboticist, and a casino owner. And I don't know yet how you figure into all of this, but you most certainly do. And I don't like unknown variables. Irksome, not knowing exactly how you play a part in ending the world.
You know, the person who wanted me to kill you, they think that you are gonna end things by selling Vault-Tec the weapons it needs.
No. No, the bombs will not be dropped by me or any of the idiots in that meeting. I believe there is another player at the table. The same unknown entity responsible for your demon in the snow.
Who?
I..I don't know. Like I said, Irksome. You see, I live my life by one simple maxim.
The House Always Wins, right?
And it does. I'm making sure of it by making use of every single piece of technology at my disposal. [genuinely frightened] But..but what if I'm not the House? What if someone else is?
What if you're just a fucking lunatic?
I'm a lunatic? I would encourage you to gaze inward, Mister Howard. To your small life. Spending your days pretending to be a cowboy, while your wife is making apocalyptic proposals at board meetings! And I'm building a missile system to defend this glorious city from what's coming! But from whom, Mister Howard?! From whom?!
[overwhelmed and horrified, Cooper flees]
Who ends the world Mister Howard? Is it you? What if it is you?! I don't think you're a cowboy at all! No! I think you're a killer! I think I know exactly who you are!
You're not really Bud's successor, are you?
How do you know?
Because you're not absolutely nuts.
...Thank you?
But the rest of them? They are nuts. They bet their whole lives on Bud's weird multi-millennial plan. And if they find out you took that from them? There's no telling what they'll do. Sorry, that came across as a little dramatic. But in my defense, I did just see the world end a week ago.
These quotes come from Wikiquote's Criminal Minds pages and are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
