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TV Series Episode Guides

Charlie Jade

Three Worlds . . One Hope – Charlie Jade: Behind The Scenes
An "About the Series" feature reveals that this is a 20-episode story about three parallel Earths, which are brought together by a cataclysmic event. People end up in the Betaverse (ours). Charlie comes from the Alphaverse, a polluted, Bladerunner world where profit is king. Charlie uncovers a plot to plunder third-world versions of Earth, like the Gammaverse, which is an environmentally conscious opposite of the Alphaverse.
   Vexcor Industries is targetting the Gammaverse. Charlie meets his girlfriend Jasmine's doppelgänger in the Betaverse; she's called Paula there. She looks like Jasmine but, of course, she doesn't know Charlie. The series is set in South Africa and around Capetown to give American TV audiences new and exotic locations to look at.
   The makers think the series has the look of a feature film, and it's a genuine epic journey, in which the characters evolve and grow. It's a 20-episode movie, and the viewer has to watch each episode of the serial to know what's going on.

Charlie Jade cast

   The main characters include:
Jeffrey Pierce as (1) Charlie Jade, private detective, misper specialist [Alphaverse];
Nicholas Andrews as Young Charlie [Alpha/Betaverse];
Michael Filipowich as (2) Owen "01" Boxer, son of Brion, club owner [Alphaverse],
Tyrone Benskin as (3) Karl Lubinsky, an investigative journalist [Betaverse];
Patricia McKenzie as (4) Reena, campaigner against Vexcor [Gammaverse];
Michele Burgers as (5) Essa Romkin, current Vexcor chairman [Alphaverse];
Marie-Julie Rivest as Jasmine, Charlie's girlfriend [Alphaverse];
Marie-Julie Rivest as Paula, Jasmine's counterpart [Betaverse];
Danny Keogh as Julius Galt, head of Vexcor Industries [Betaverse];
Graham Clarke as Brion Boxer, founder of Vexcor Industries [Alphaverse];
Langley Kirkwood as Ren Porter, Vexcor Chief of Security [Betaverse];
Rolanda Marais as Detective Blues Paddock [Betaverse];
David Dennis as Detective Sew Sew Tukarrs [Alphaverse];
Amrain Ismail-Essop as Rosalie, a dying woman who offers Reena a safe haven in return for her own assisted suicide [Betaverse];
Dean Slater as Malachi, a terrorist who takes charge of Reena [Betaverse];
Robert Whitehead as Eckman, diamond merchant, working for Vexcor [Alphaverse];
Jeremy Crutchley as Mancuso Keyes, a motivational speaker [Alphaverse];
Sylvaine Strike as Tara Threnody, a former client of Charlie's [Alphaverse];
Nina Swart as Gemma, Vexcor hydrologist, Charlie's soulmate [Betaverse];
Alex McGregor as Young Gemma, Young Charlie's friend [Alphaverse]

Season 1 – April 16, 2005-August 20, 2005

01. The Big Bang
Vexcor Industries, the biggest and greediest of the Big Five corporations which control the world in the Alphaverse, says parallel dimensions do not exist while operating a Link between two others; the Betaverse and the Gammaverse. Cape City in South Africa belongs to Vexcor. It's a terminally corrupt, gloomy, grey, rainy, Bladerunner place where Charlie Jade is a private investigator working with a tracker called Mona and living with Jasmine.
   While looking for a missing person, Charlie ends up in a chop-shop full of body parts, which he turns over to a pal on the police force. The cop sends a woman called Katie to him. She says a guy in a club drugged her, everything is different and she lives in Capetown, not Cape City. She turns up dead the next day. Strangely, she is not on any computer system and she does not have an implant to let the state keep track of her.
   Charlie goes after Owen Boxer, a.k.a. 01 Boxer, a club owner and the son of Brion Boxer, the founder of Vexcor. The trail leads Charlie to a secret Vexcor facility in the Karoo Desert. As he is looking at the site of the Link in the Alphaverse, terrorists in the Gammaverse, Reena and her lover, Bern, plant a bomb at Vexcor's Link on their utopian world. The nuclear explosion destroys the Link facilities in all three verses. Charlie and Reena are hurled out of their own worlds into a third parallel universe; ours, a.k.a the Betaverse.

02. Sand
The explosion leaves Charlie hallucinating about being back home in Cape City with Jasmine when he's in the Karoo Desert in the Betaverse. He's found by a young girl called Jody, who keeps finding invisible people. There's a huge cloud of black smoke from an explosion in the distance. Jody's mom is less than friendly to Charlie, who is finding that the world seems strange in some way that he can't define.
   Reena, who blew up the Link in the Gammaverse, is also lost in the Betaverse. The top managers at Vexcor have no idea what caused the explosion and they are worried because the Alphaverse has lost contact with the Betaverse and the Gammaverse.
   Charlie hooks up with Karl Lubinsky, an investigative journalist, at an improvised refugee camp. He gives Charlie a lift to Capetown instead of Cape City. Karl has been watching Vexcor for twenty years and he doesn't buy the company's story explaining the explosion. He is determined to get to the truth of the matter as part of his obsession with uncovering what Vexcor is really doing, and he recruits a reluctant Charlie to his cause.
   01 Boxer, the boss's son, is called to Vexcor as a messenger boy because he is the only person who can travel to other parallel universes by himself and without using the Link. In Capetown, Charlie finds that his apartment block is derelict. Reena fares no better when she looks for familiar places. Charlie sees Jasmine, only she is called Paula in the Betaverse and she doesn't know him. Nothing makes sense to Charlie.

03. You Are Here
Charlie tells Karl Lubinsky, the journalist and Vexcor watcher, that has seen the woman who caused all the trouble (Reena) in Capetown. Karl hires Charlie to find her as she is someone with no records, someone who doesn't exist officially. Charlie takes the job not because he wants to help Karl solve his mystery, but because he wants to know what happened to him and he wants to get back home to Jasmine.
   01 Boxer, son of Vexcor's founder Brion Boxer [who has cancer and whose mistress, Essa Rompkin, is running the company on his behalf], reports that sabotage in the Gammaverse cause all the trouble.
   Elliot Krogg, a Vexcor scientist suspected of causing the big bang, is on the run in the Betaverse. He has a data storage device called 'the slate' and 01 goes after him. Meanwhile, Reena is making a living by mugging Vexcor executives for their cash and ID documents, and getting sicker and sicker in her noisy Capetown motel. She is full of guilt about both her role in the bombing and the death of her lover in the explosion.
   01 gets to Krogg by drugging his girlfriend and when Charlie and Karl locate Krogg's hideout, they find him dead. Charlie sees Vexcor agents going after Reena and he keeps having violent headaches and seeing visions. Karl realizes that Charlie is from a parallel universe, which explains why he's never heard of Nelson Mandela.
   When Reena is caught in the act on CCTV, 01 forces Julius Galt, Vexcor's chairman in the Betaverse, to go public. Her picture is plastered all over the news media and Reena is branded "The New Face of Terror."

04. The Power of Suggestion
Memorial services are held for the dead in all 3 Verses, and Cape Town is being searched for terrorists by police SWAT teams. Karen, Elliot Krogg's girlfriend, is snatched at his funeral. Krogg's death has been written off as suicide but Vexcor's board in the Betaverse doesn't buy it and they think 01 Boxer is trying to take over.
   There's an 85 million rand reward out for Reena, who has been blamed for the explosion along Krogg, who is assumed to be her accomplice. Moving around is difficult for her but she takes refuge with a drunken slob of a paramedic.
   Charlie finds the hideout where Karen was being held; too late, but he finds a Vexcor interrogation drug which doesn't exist in the Betaverse; proof to Lubinsky that Charlie is 'not from around here'. 01 Boxer the drug to question Karen, and he used the information obtained to implicate Vexcor's board of directors in the bombing. He also used the compound to drug and rape a girl called Katie, which is why Charlie is after him; to kill Boxer. Charlie is picked up by the police; briefly.
   Boxer harasses Jasmine while Charlie has a shower at Paula's place. The South African authorities requisition Vexcor's files and the entire board is arrested thanks to Boxer. The violent paramedic shops Reena to the security forces but the phone call is intercepted by a terrorist cell, which lifts Reena for interrogation just ahead of a police SWAT team, which finds the paramedic dead. Charlie finds Reena just before she can be killed.

05. And Not a Drop to Drink
Charlie and a hooker see 01 Boxer disappear to the Alphaverse when he pours a bottle of water over himself. Charlie gets his own car and goes after a guy seen in one of his visions. In the Alphaverse, the state has confiscated all of Charlie's property and C3 Jasmine is destitute. Terrorists are getting their own island prison in South Africa. Reena is having a tough time during interrogation by her terrorist abductor, Malachi, who makes her tell him the truth about her part in the Vexcor bombing.
   Charlie goes back to the desert. His research into what 01 Boxer did has turned up evidence that contaminated water supplies have induced visions and psychic powers in people living near a Vexcor facility. He meets a child, who recognizes 01 Boxer's picture. Her father, Eric Bridger, was accused of poisoning a town's well with pharmaceuticals and gaoled. Charlie thinks the Vexcor reactor poisoned the well. He catches up with the black guy from his visions; briefly. 'Mr. Grey Suit' doesn't exist; officially.
   Mrs. Bridger sees visions of a poisoned world. Charlie tells her it's real; it's where he lives. He cuts out her Vexcor tracker chip and sends her to Patagonia, then he is half-killed by a Vexcor thug, who is fully killed. Down and out in the Alphaverse, Jasmine gets what she assumed is a last holographic message from Charlie. Charlie pours some of the contaminated water on himself but nothing happens.

06. Dirty Laundry
Charlie is bashed while looking for Themba Makande, a political agitator, who has disappeared. Vexcor is using vast amounts of power and causing brown-outs in Capetown. Karl Lubinsky wants to know why Makande disappeared and he gets the hump when Charlie gives up the search. Reena is still having a tough time and 01 Boxer is living it up. Julius Gold, the Alphaverse Vexcor boss, is not happy about having his company's board rotting in gaol.
   Mrs. Makande takes Charlie to a witchdoctor; a Muti Healer; in an attempt to do something about his headaches. 01 Boxer kills a guy from the power company after getting information from him. Charlie decides his headaches are getting worse because Vexcor is trying to create a gateway to the Alphaverse. 01 is planning to blow up the gateway. Reena is being tortured and brainwashed by the gang holding her, and the leader gets her to shoot someone.
   In the Alphaverse, Jasmine ends up in a shanty town. Julius Gold is hoping to go home to the Alphaverse tomorrow but 01 releases a robot insect containing a bomb. Charlie finds that Mr. Makande was one of the victims of a chop-shop, now closed, which harvested his organs to service a black market, which usually takes organs from the poor. Karl Lubinsky tells Charlie he's found The Machine. A huge Explosion! Jasmine is back with her mother(?) and facing life without Charlie in a toxic slum, and Mrs. Makande gets to hold a funeral for her husband.

07. Diamonds
5 years before, Charlie was in Vexcor Security, and his partner killed some C3s and cut a finger off one of them to steal a diamond ring for Charlie. In the Betaverse, the ring is stolen from the pawnshop, where Charlie hocked it to buy a car. His search for the ring puts him on the track of Eckman, a multi-millionaire fence and diamond merchant.
   Vexcor in the Alphaverse expects to be back in contact with the Betaverse soon. Reena is being set up as a suicide bomber to kill Julius Gold. 01 Boxer is twisting Gold's tail by making him think that Boxer is starting rap music and fashion divisions.
   Charlie does some entering without breaking using his Alphaverse gadgets and finds that Eckman has Alphaverse gadgets for making huge artificial diamonds; which he is selling and undermining the Betaverse diamond industry. His artifical diamonds could also be used to create tracking chips for everyone in the Betaverse. Charlie strolls off with a sample to show to Karl, and Eckman's lieutenant started threatening him.
   Jasmine gets herself de-chipped and 01 has a new girlfriend in the Alphaverse. Reena is sent to kill Julius Gold but doesn't let off her suicide bomb because there are too many kids around in the daycare centre, and she escapes from her captors.
   Charlie tells Eckman what the rocks will be used for and gets his ring back. In the past, when he was with the Special Operations Dept., thinking about the dead C3s made Charlie quit Vexcor Security. ''The ring reminds him who he was so he can hold on to who he is'.

08. Devotion
Charlie runs into Owen Boxer in a bar (but he isn't recognized) while looking for a 'kidnapped' Moslem girl, Aliya. Charlie grabs a guy who asks for a ransom but he turns out to be a dumped boyfriend, who says Aliya is in the hands of a cult run by Mancuso Keyes, a motivational speaker and mind-control expert, who programmed Charlie 8 years before, when he joined Vexcor Security. Julius Gold wants Owen Boxer dead before he can ruin the company, and sends an assassin after him.
   Karl Lybinsky has Keyes on his records as a bad guy. After her aborted mission as a suicide bomber aimed at Julius Gold, Reena has found refuge with Rosalie, who is dying of AIDS.She wants someone to help her end it all. Reena is reluctant at first, but she goes through with it eventually.
   Aliya's Moslem father gave up on her but her mother wants Charlie to stay on the case. Aliya tells Charlie that she didn't want to end up a virtual slave, like her mother.
   Paula is ready for Charlie to make a move on her. Boxer returns to Vexcor in the Alphavers to give his father a life-prolonging transfusion. Jasmine is working in a factory and not doing well. Essa Romkin, the chairman of Vexcor Alphaverse, thinks the company is under investigation. Mancusco Keyes is under observation by mechanical bugs. At the end, the assassin catches up with Boxer in his club and shoots the place to bits. Boxer makes it to his shower and ends up, bleeding a bit, on the beach in the Gammaverse.

09. Betrayal
The wounded Owen (a.k.a. 01) Boxer goes walkabout in the Gammaverse and collapses in the secret home of his wife and children. (His name seems to be derived from his father holding up a sign with '10' on it then turning it upside down.) Charlie decides that Vexcor has a machine which moves people between the Verses (the Link) and he decides to investigate a new undergound facility which Vexcor is building.
   Meanwhile, Julius Gold, the head of Vexcor Betaverse, is told that someone with no record anywhere took the implant out of Andrea Bridger. Ren Porter, head of Vexcor (Betaverse) Security, suggests taking a look at Karl Lubinsky's associates and threatens Karl with death via an ANC petrol-soaked tyre 'necklace'. Karl spills everything he knows about Charlie.
   Reena is recovering from her ordeal and she buries Rosalie's body in her garden. Paula's bar is shot up when Vexcor Scurity comes looking for Charlie. Meanwhile, Own Boxer is feeling reborn in the Gammaverse with his secret wife and 2 kids. Karl Lubinsky dives into a bottle out of remorse but Charlie tells him that Vexcor makes everyone crack.
   Charlie decides to disappear. Julius Gold concludes that Charlie works for another Alphaverse corporation, which can still send employees between universes. Ren Porter gives Karl a wad of cash as a reward for co-operating. Paula tells Charlie to disappear for ever and never come back. And Reena joins the Vexcor family.

10. Identity
In search of fake ID documents, Charlie finds that Gemma Gitano, his best friend from his days as a C3 orphan in Cape City at the site of the destroyed Vexcor Link. She is working for Julius Galt as a hydrologist. When Galt and Porter, his Security chief, learn that Charlie is on Gemma's trail, they see a chance to set a trap for Charlie.
   Gemma is worried about strange fluctuations in the water level at the Vexcor facility. 01 Boxer finds a pool of foul water in the Gammaverse. He decides that Vexcor is up to no good and he has to leave his family and return to the battle with his father's company. He is dismayed to find that his bullet wounds have left him with an altered molecular structure and unable to travel easily between worlds.
   Back in Alphaverse, Detective Sew Sew Tukarrs confronts Essa Rompkin with new information about missing Vexcor employees; the ones who were trapped in the Betaverse when Reena blew up the link. She infiltrates Vexcor as a hired messenger.

11. Thicker Than Water
Charlie hooks up with his 'soulmate', Gemma, whom he used to know as a C3 orphan in the Alphaverse. He finds her standing in a dry lake bed, having just watched all the water disappear. She's now a hydrologist with Vexcor so Charlie tells her he's working for Brian Boxer, the company's boss, and 01 Boxer can travel between universes, somehow, using water.
   Brian Boxer is dying and he needs a transfusion of molecules, which have been extracted from a Vexcor employee, who has been through the link 13 times; after making provisions for the guy's family.
   Gemma tells Julius Galt what she knows about 01 Boxer. She starts wondering if he has the best interests of Vexcor at hear. Charlie freaks out in front of Gemma on seeing a vision of Jasmine. Charlie is caught by the Vexcor's security boss, Porter, when Gemma's plan to get him into Vexcor to steal data goes south.
   Gemma swaps herself for Charlie after telling Porter she'll rat on what Vexcor is doing in the Betaverse. Then she tells Charlie she didn't buy his story about working for Brian Boxer.
   After his long convalescence in the Gammavers, 01 goes back to the Betaverse, only to find that he's the prime suspect for the killing of a guy in his bar, who was shot at the same time as himself.
   Karl Lubinsky ended up with a file on Elliot Krogg (who was found hanging), which says that if the link between the verses became permanent, Alpha, Beta and Gamma will collapse into one another and disappear.

12. Choosing Sides
Vexcor Security men kill one of the staff at an industrial plant and Charlie kills them, thinking they had killed Gemma. Karl Lubinsky reckons there is a reason why Charlie is in the Betaverse, which will collapse if Vexcor re-opens the Link from the Alphaverse. Julius Gold refuses to believe his expert when she says she has been all over Krogg's report and she can't see a problem with the Link.
   Porter had the female Vexcor employee killed as a message to other waverers, and Reena is lurking around at Vexcor. The Capetown police arrested 01 Boxer for the murder at his club. Karl suggest that 01 might be able to take Charlie with him to the Alphaverse, so Charlie goes to police HQ posing as an FBA agent to retrieve 01, whom Charlie says is a terrorist. Vexcor Security also shows up with forged documents.
   Blues Paddock, a red-headed lady detective, catches Charlie out in a lie but he strolls off with 01 when the Vexcor guys start shooting inside the police station, and Karl provides the getaway car. Boxer gives Charlie 12 good reasons why Charlie shouldn't blow his brains out (off-camera).
   The head of the Vexcor rescue mission was written off for failing. Reena witnesses the power struggle between Porter and Julius Galt while suffering nightmares about her mission to take down the Company. At the end, Charlie let 01 go because he can't take him to the Alphaverse.

13. Through A Mirror Darkly
Charlie takes 01 Boxer prisoner to question him with as much violence as necessary. He wants to know why 01 killed Elliot Krogg. He was the only person who knew how to rebuild the link, 01 tells him, the others having been caught up in the reactor explosion, which hurled Charlie into the Betaverse. He has also had the entire board of the Betaverse Vexcor arrested.
   "It's all a matter of keeping the Link down," 01 explains.
   Boxer reminds Charlie that he killed some security staff at a Vexcor plant, so they both have blood on their hands. 01 didn't kill Katie Grayle. Charlie goes to 01's club, where he sees a recording which proves 01's innocence. So they have a drink and Charlie lets 01 go instead of shooting him.
   Meanwhile, Vexcor is puzzling over a sample of a compound which didn't originate in the Alpha, Beta or Gammaverse. So where did it come from? Reena discovers that Vexcor executive Norman Ord is plotting to betray the Company, which gives her an opportunity to blackmails him.
   Jasmine is forced to return to her old life of prostitution in the Alphaverse after rejecting an offer of help from Det. Tukarrs. And at the end, Karl told Charlie: "That sick bastard 01 has done more to hurt Vexcor than either of us."

14. The Enemy of my Enemy
Karl Lubinsky receives some confidential documents, which give details of where Norman Ord has been dumping Vexcor's toxic waste. 01 Boxer fails to get to the Alphaverse from his shower, so he concocts a message to Julius Gold from Essa Romkin, the Alphaverse head of Vexcor; but Julius is not fooled.
   When he learns that Ord was working with Reena, Charlie asks Det. Blues Paddock to help him to find Ord. Blues is willing to help but one of her male colleagues is eager to bust Charlie for impersonating an FBI agent.Ord gave his info to Reena, a.k.a. The New Face Of Terror, so Charlie gets Karl to sneak Norman & Maria Ord out of the country in return for a line to Reena, who has access to Vexcor's core.
   Reena kills Vexcor security chief Ren Porter and the security team which has been tracking her since they found an advanced bomb in the Vexcor boardroom. When Charlie gets to talk to Reena, she tells him that Vexcor was running a pipeline through her world and she killed over 200 people with the explosion which destroyed the Link. Reena takes off when Charlie tells her she did the right thing in killing Porter.
   In the Alphaverse, Jasmine is back in the apartment which she shared with Charlie (courtesy of Sew Sew Tukarrs, a cop who fancies her). Charlie deduces, from his experience in the Alphaverse military, that Reena has a programmed personality. Part of her killed Porter while her normal self persuaded Ord to leak the Vexcor dirt. Until he can work out a way round her programming, Charlie decides that Reena is a danger to everyone she meets.

15. Things Unseen
Blues Paddock, the red-headed South African lady cop in the Alphaverse, is thinking about Charlie, knowing that she should arrest him for impersonating an FBI agent but eager to learn what he can reveal about Vexcor. Meanwhile, Vexcor in the Alphaverse is worried about people disappearing.
   Blues rousts Karl Lubinsky and her sidekick threatens to deport him back to the United States. A recap follows of what Charlie told Blues about Vexcor, whose people aren't what they say they are. Julius Gold's personal history, for instance, is all faked.
   Vexcor tried to program a bloke to remember being at college with Gold but Charlie breaks his programming and the guy ends up in hospital. Reena, thinking about what Charlie told her about her programmed personality, finds her gun collection.
   In the Alphaverse, Sew Sew Tukarrs confronts Essa Rompkin with his theory that she murdered the missing Vexcor executives to provide Brion Boxer his life-saving transfusions. She trumps him with his relationship with Jasmine, a C3 with an illegal chip upgrade, and forces him to join Vexcor Security; which lets him to buy Charlie's old apartment for Jasmine.
   Charlie has an inter-dimensional episode while with Blues, and Charlie & Jasmine score with their respective cops. Meanwhile, Reena goes to resistance leader Malachi's hideout to confront him about the programming. She tries to fill him full of lead but her program has a fail-safe sub-routine, which works.
   Blues saves Charlie from a black female assassin; Shikari, a genetically modified hunter hired by Vexcor. Charlie gives her a full recap of the story so far, which leaves Blues wondering if he's out of his mind. The episode closes with Blue reflecting that she hasn't seen Charlie since that day.

16. The Shortening of the Way
Charlie has a vision while trying to take out the black female assassin, who is a Vexcor genetically enhanced Hunter. "Put one after you and you're as good as dead." Karl asks if getting more of his pills made will help Charlie to control the visions, or should he put Charlie in touch with a Muti shaman freak? Reena calls on Karl looking for Charlie. Karl sends her to 01 Boxer because she's worried that her programmed self will kill more people. The Hunter tells Julius Gold she'll get Charlie next time.
   In the Alphaverse, ex-detective Tukarrs gets Jasmine medical insurance. He says Vexcor is worried about the disappearing executives because people shouldn't be able to disappear. The missing people have all been through the Link and they were never seen again after a summons to Essa Rompkin's office (because they'd had their exotic molecules harvested for Brion Boxer's benefit).
   Charlie meets the shaman, then he goes to visit Jody in the Karoo Desert, followed by the hunter. Charlie tells Jody's mom that he and Andrea get the same visions as her daughter. The last Vexcor executive who's been through the Link tries to do a runner but ends up harvested after telling Tukarrs that everyone who's been through the Link is dead and he's next. Tukarrs passes this on to Jasmine.
   "I only see visions when I want to," Jody tells Charlie, who suddenly sees Essa in the desert and goes after her. Then he finds himself in an unknown verse. Meanwhile, the Hunter catches up with Jody but finds that Charlie's tracks in the sand come to a dead stop.
   01 Boxer, in traditional Japanese kit, ties Reena up at The Glass Door and questions her programmed self, which isn't a Vexcor job. She tells him the names of the 3 men with the knowledge to rebuild the Link. 01 tells the program: "Integrate or die." At the end, Jody pours water over Charlie and he goes home.

17. Spin
Charlie gets a lift out of the desert to Cape City. "It's the smell of the city that lets you know you're there." He visits Mona, who doesn't want to work with him again, then his friend Papa Louis, who is being spied on by a Vexcor bug. Charlie wants to find Jasmine. When he mentions Capetown, an alert goes off at Vexcor security. Ex-detective Tukarrs in not thrilled to learn that Charlie is back.
   Louis is grabbed by Vexcor Security. She refuses to tell them that it was Charlie who mentioned Capetown. Brion Boxer tells Essa Rompkin that he will deal with his son, who is in his club in the Betaverse, thinking about how good life was with his family in the Gammaverse.
   Charlie catches up with Tukarrs, asks about Jasmine and asks for help in rescuing Louis, who has been accused of a Breach of Corporate Confidentiality; being with someone who talked about a place which doesn't exist; and condemned to a televised execution. Charlie couldn't rescue her with an army, Tukarrs thinks. If she can't be got out, get me in, Charlie tells him.
   01 Boxer goes to the Gammaverse, only to find his family dead and a Vexcor symbol on a chain on the mother's body. Charlie visits Jasmine to say hello, then he infiltrates Vexcor disguised as a medical technician. He tells Louise all about Capetown and what Vexcor is doing in parallel universes. She then denounces Vexcor instead of confessing and accuses the company of plundering other worlds.
   01 Boxer strangles his dad with the Vexcor necklace. Louis isn't executed. Essa Rompkin goes on TV to deliver Vexcor spin on the plundering, and she promises to share everything.

18. Bedtime Story
Charlie tells a phantom Det. Blues the story of Tara Threnody as an illustration of the life in the terminally corrupt Alphaverse as 01 Boxer, having killed his father, moves on. Charlie, safely home again, is worried about his friends in the Betaverse, which will cease to exist if Vexcor gets the Link working again.
   Mrs. Threnody hired Charlie to find her old man, an engineer working for one of Vexcor's rivals, 4 years before. Charlie found him dead and lifted his ID and his cigarette case (because Charlie had almost given up smoking). He was attacked by Vexcor Security after Mrs. Threnody had paid him off. Detective Tukarrs found the body of Mr. Threnody and followed a trail to Charlie, who had cracked Mr. T.'s computer and found the files erased and proof that Mrs. T. had been in the process of getting a divorce.
   Meanwhile, in the present, 01 Boxer is taken for a ride by Rian Clucas, the head of Mr. T's company, and told he can't win and he doesn't have much time left.
   Mr. Threnody was working on something big for his company. Charlie realizes that Mrs. T. was planning to set him up for murder, which would put him in line for involuntary organ donation, and sell her husband's invention to Vexcor. When Tukarrs finds a barman (whom Charlie questioned to get to Mr. T.'s body) dead, he busts Charlie. Tukarrs lets Charlie take him to Mr. T.'s office, where they discover the secret of the cigarette case.
   Such is the state of things in the Alphaverse that Mrs. T. got away with everything, Vexcor's rival got to keep the invention, and Mrs. T. now runs her own division there. And he has half a dozen similar stories, Charlie tells Blues. What happened didn't bother him at the time. But it bothers him now that it didn't bother him then, and he would like to get out of the Alphaverse again.
   The arrival of Jasmine ends the sequence. And the closing scene suggests that 01 Boxer has just 55 hours and change left.

19. Flesh
Brion Boxer had turned off his security monitors so there is no evidence 01 killed him. Essa Rompkin has him picked up anyway. Then she learns that Brion left Vexcor to Owen and he wants Essa to give him guidance and support. 01 and Essa both throw wobblies with 47 hours left before the new Link opens.
   Charlie finds everything in the Alphaverse different. Jasmin says he's different, too. Charlie tells Tukarrs that he's not going to let 6 million people in the Betaverse die by letting the new Link open. In the Betaverse, Reena crashes at Karl's place. She plans to stake out Vexcor. Karl has to talk Detective Blues out of busting Reena.
   Owen Boxer tells Charlie he'll help him if Charlie takes down Essa for murdering the Vexcor executives who went through the Link. Charlie and Tukarrs go after Larkin, a lab technician, who has been missing for a week. Larkin turns up dead; no, it's his male lover, with whom he exchanged chips. Blues takes Reena and Karl to look at some radioactive bodies from the explosion. Reena gets to work on a strange device.
   Larkin is killed just as Charlie catches up with him with 16 hours to go before the Link reopens. The police pathologist finds a second chip in Larkin's body; it belongs to de Beers and Larkin left a message on it saying Essa Rompkin authorized the killing and harvest of Vexcor executives. Essa is busted and 01 is made chairman of Vexcor. He tells Julius Gold that the Hunter he set on Charlie is now after him.
   Charlie tells Jasmine she deserves Tukarrs and he's going home. He returns to the Betaverse and Blues. 01 is told that if the Link doesn't go up, he'll lose the company. Reena makes the strange device show holographic images of the nuclear explosion which destroyed the Link.

20. Ouroboros
Charlie has a sense of unreality when he wakes up in the Betaverse with Blues, who gives him a key to her place. They see a water spout in the sea; a sign that the Link is being reopened. Charlie, who keeps hallucinating, tells Karl and Reena that the Link is up in the Alphaverse, which means that 01 Boxer has betrayed him, the Gammaverse is next to be Linked then the Betaverse.
   Trading by Vexcor has been suspended in the Betaverse. Karl finds the HQ deserted; apart from Julius Gold. Karl demands the fail-safe codes for the Link; Julius says there are none. Charlie is going after the Vexcor facility in the Gammaverse. Blues shoots herself and Reena into the Link facility near Capetown. Reena slugs Blues when Charlie has gone to the Gammaverse.
   Reena finds the 3 Vexcor techies, who rebuilt the Link, while 01 Boxer beats Charlie up and unblocks the Link. Reena tells the techs about Krogg's work. She tells them if one world is going to end, "it's not going to be this one (the Betaverse) and it's not going to be mine." 01 unblocks the Link at the Betaverse.
   Karl rescues Blues from her car boot. Reena almost installs a reflector (which would destroy the Alphaverse) in the Link. "It's up to you now, Charlie," she says. Charlie returns to the Betaverse. The Link punches holes in the parallel universes, like a pencil driven through three sheets of paper. Charlie moves between them by joining them. His fate is to go into the Link and join the 3 universes without causing destruction.
   There's no way back for Charlie but, shock-horror! He's already in the Link and he's remembering what he has to do. Charlie finds that he needs 01's help. The Verses are linked safely and Reena can go home. Charlie wakes up in a hospital at the end. "This we didn't expect," are the closing words.

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Created for Clyde E. Wydey by HTSP Web Division, 10 SK6 4EG, Romiley, GB.
© Clyde E. Wydey, 2008.
The source of the cast pictures is a bit of a mystery right now.