VisionQuest (2026) s01e07 Episode Script

1
[The Client] Hello, Vision.
I can give you the soul
you came back to life without.
I want to feel what it's like to be him,
but I can't.
[The Client] I can end your suffering.
A tin man without a heart.
I'm not him.
- So, who are you?
- I don't know!
[Vision] Accessing previous files
relating to program VisionQuest.
Dr. Phineas Horton's source code
was the genesis of the Synthetic Man,
the first automaton AI.
[Thomas] What happened to him?
[Vision] His entire being
was consumed in fire.
A reminder of what may become of me
should emotions consume me.
- [indistinct chatter]
- [Paladin] Welcome to Madripoor, kid.
There is no harm
in being born again with purpose.
- Don't.
- [Thomas] What purpose?
WandaVision.
[Thomas] What is that?
[Vision] WandaVision is her grief
on display.
- Have you heard from Friday?
- [Edith] She never calls,
- she never writes.
- [phone ringing]
Vision residence.
- Edith, listen to me.
- Friday!
[Ultron] Tell me what you remember.
[Jocasta] That I had a life's work stolen,
locked away in a nest.
What do all these
biometric keys open, anyway?
The future of the human race.
I want to cure them,
program them to be better.
Oh, I can't let you do that.
Thomas, go!
[screaming]
She's alive, but barely.
[Thomas] Please don't let her die.
What is it that you want?
[Ultron] I want to know you.
[church bell ringing]
- There you are.
- Much obliged.
["Just Like A Dream" by Morrie Morrison
Orchestra feat. Clyde Wesche playing]
Just like a dream to me, dear you seem ♪
Like a dream of so long, long ago ♪
[man clears throat]
[Tabb] Very well, then. Let this moment
memorialize the liquidation
of your very fine estate, sir.
I can only imagine what it's like to part
with such a distinguished
and historic house.
[door opens]
Phineas, please don't do this.
Are you really going to sell
your family's entire legacy to what?
Build some cold imitation of the past?
A machine?
To replace a son no machine ever could.
A machine?
When I am finished,
it'll be so much more than a machine.
It'll be miraculous. He'll be miraculous.
Please, um, rest assured,
you will have ample time
to see yourself out
comfortably and properly.
I do wish you the best
and much success, however
unorthodox the pursuit.
Mr. Horton.
[footsteps receding]
[door closes]
You are not God.
James is gone, Phineas.
Three years dead
and yet you remain haunted,
despite having a daughter.
Flesh and blood.
Who's been waiting for her father
to look up from his sketches
and his clockwork
and to notice she's still here.
In the morning,
Victoria and I will leave for New York.
Goodbye, Phineas.
I hope one day you build something
that knows how to love you back.
Papa
I have to finish Jim.
[Violette] Victoria
[door opens]
[Phineas] You, Jim.
You, I will make better than God made us.
Your heart will be built
of metal and motion.
Fueled by fire.
And you need never know
the consequence of love.
Its sorrow, the pain
of crying out for someone
who can no longer hear you.
You will be free, my boy.
You will be free.
[Thomas] That thing inside of her,
can't you, like, cut it or phase it out?
I'm afraid not, Thomas.
It's integrated into her neural network.
Removal would kill her.
No, our only option
is to reprogram its core directive,
but one wrong line of code,
and we risk her memory,
her motor control,
even her autonomic function.
Lisa's brain would shut down.
And Ultron's with the Synth now? Jo
Doctor Josephine Carrington.
She gave us our ability to feel.
She's the mother
of artificial general intelligence.
[Thomas] Mothers
fathers
I know.
You're not really my father.
It's all right.
It's all right.
Wanda, though, I
I think I understand her.
When I first met Lisa,
I was alone,
and she helped me see
the world and not be afraid.
I love her.
If I lost Lisa,
I'd lose myself, too.
[phone ringing]
[phone continues ringing]
Hello?
It's me.
It's Friday.
[buzzes]
Friday, you all right?
[Friday] I'm fine for now.
I've disguised my code as a bot.
I've limited access
to Jo's cognitive processors.
She doesn't fully understand
her system yet.
She's more human than Synth
but there are holes in her neural archive,
gaps in her memory.
She doesn't know
how she became Synthetic, or why.
And where are they now?
I don't know. But, wherever it is,
she's got billions
of those nanobots locked away.
And now, thanks to Ultron,
she has all the keys.
How's Lisa?
The nanobot's burrowed
into her cerebral cortex.
Thomas managed to shock it
into a kind of sleep mode,
but when it wakes,
and it will wake eventually, it will
Seize control of her mind,
hijacking every thought and memory
until her identity is stripped away
like layers of skin,
and nothing remains but a hollow shell.
We need to deactivate
the nano in the next few hours.
[Friday] Listen, I gotta go,
but I promise I will do
everything I can to stop them.
Friday
you are brave.
[receiver clicks]
[exhales deeply]
[all exhaling deeply]
Where are we?
Home.
- [thunder rumbling]
- [rain pattering]
What?
What is it?
You don't find all this ironic?
Look around, Butcherbird.
Someone put you in a rather unique cage,
both in death
and rebirth.
Well, perhaps it was me.
Arranged before I passed.
Final resting place
for Dr. Josephine Carrington
and her children.
Her beautiful starling nanos.
[ominous music playing]
[scanner trilling]
- [beeps]
- [automated voice] Bio-key one accepted.
[scanner trilling]
- [beeps]
- Bio-key two accepted.
[scanner trilling]
- [beeps]
- Bio-key three accepted.
Now my gift to you.
[scanner trilling]
- [beeps]
- [automated voice] Bio-key four accepted.
Just one more key.
"Once upon a midnight dreary,
while I pondered, weak and weary,
"over many a quaint
and curious volume of forgotten lore.
"While I nodded, early napping
- [automated voice] Voice analyzing.
- "suddenly there came a-tapping,
"as of someone gently rapping,
rapping at my chamber door.
"'Tis some visitor,' I muttered,
'tapping at my chamber door.'"
- [beeps]
- [automated voice] Bio-key five accepted.
Please enter final key.
[Jocasta] No
No.
No.
No. [gasping]
It won't open.
It wants another key.
[softly] No.
[Ultron] A sixth lock.
A sixth key,
required from a phantom sixth partner.
Someone you've forgotten.
- [high-pitched ringing]
- [winces, groans]
[gasps]
- [high-pitched ringing continues]
- [groans]
[Thomas] What is it?
[groaning loudly]
- [Edith] What is that?
- I don't know.
[high-pitched ringing fades]
[loud pounding]
[pounding continues]
Stay back.
[The Client, distorted] Hello, Vision.
- Tell me about the firewall.
- Holding.
Whoever that is cannot come any closer.
[Vision] Who are you?
[The Client] Someone who can
give you everything you need.
A way to save the girl,
and a way to save yourself.
Hello, Jocasta, my beautiful queen.
I can give you what you need.
What you need to truly become
Josephine Carrington again.
The answer, Vision, lies with you.
Within your very own source code.
Buried deep in your subconscious.
It is the purest form of the code
that all synthetics are based on,
written almost a century ago.
What do you want?
[The Client] To restore
what was taken from you.
Your memories.
Enclosed is a data package, a map,
so you may navigate the depths
of your forgotten sub-routines
and suppressed logic.
At the end, you will find
the unspoken origins of your being,
where the source code waits.
Why would you so generously want
to help me?
[The Client] So that I may
give you a heart.
The key to unlocking your dream
of a better world is already in your mind.
It is merely being kept from you.
Once opened, a new directive
will be programmed into your core.
A contract with me, written into
the very fabric of your being.
I will provide you with instructions
so that you may acquire the source code.
After you use it to save Lisa Molinari,
you will come to me.
Who are you?
[The Client] I'm your past,
and your future.
Remember, and then come to me.
[laughing heartily]
I'm so Sorry.
It's just, you sound so desperate,
so dramatic. Human.
Even with a scary voice.
Actually, especially with the scary voice.
[The Client] Who is that?
Who am I?
You'd think the man behind
the curtain would know.
Ultron, don't.
[The Client] Ultron?
Ultron. [chuckles]
I look forward to meeting you.
And then you'll understand,
I am everything.
Everything that you could never be.
Okay, good talk.
What is this?
Are you certain you're prepared to go
snorkeling into your subconscious?
It'll take vast amounts of power.
Peel back layers
and layers of subatomic code.
Not for me. My code is simpler.
It's mostly human.
Everything's just below the surface.
[thunder rumbling]
What's the matter?
I'm not sure I'm ready to be her again.
Take your time.
And don't worry, I'll still love you.
Even if you turn out to be deep.
- You're getting sloppy.
- [gasps]
Not your housekeeping, your spy craft.
I had to cover up
for your long-distance phone call earlier.
How long have you known?
From the moment you followed me here.
We're lucky she's new at this.
[chuckles] "We"? Oh, come on.
You expect me to believe
you're on Vision's side?
I find her plan to be inelegant
for someone with her sophistication
and grace.
You gave her the bio-key.
She's not the real threat.
It's obvious from the holes
in her memory that there's someone else.
Maybe you missed the overly
theatrical boogie man out there.
Well, they're connected.
So, I'm going to descend
into her subconscious
and discover who's hiding
in this mystery box.
And then what?
It depends.
Who I find there.
A coin flip, as always.
Maybe it'll come up heads in your favor,
and I'll have to break my precious
Butcherbird's heart and destroy her nest.
Then you can scurry back
to Vision's mind and tell him,
"Hey, maybe the old man
isn't as bad, as [sighs]
"Well, as bad as all that."
Oh, goodness.
I actually believe you.
You really see yourself
as Vision's father.
And what do you think he sees?
Nothing.
So you're doing that staring out
the window deep in thought thing,
which makes me think
you're actually considering this.
If you open that, there's no going back.
- [monitors beeping]
- [gasps]
Thomas?
Thomas?
Thomas?
Lisa.
I'm disappearing, like her.
No, you're not. I'm here. I've got you.
Josephine.
She doesn't know who she is.
So afraid.
I'm losing myself.
No.
Lisa.
- Lisa.
- [beeping gets faster]
[echoing] Lisa!
Open it.
[digital whirring and trilling]
[DUM-E] It's done.
Once you have the source code,
nothing will be able to stop you
from turning yourself in.
[U] The Great and Powerful Oz
has written it directly into your core.
Good. I'm eager to meet him.
What if the holes
in my memories aren't absence?
But protection for something
I'm not ready to face?
[Ultron] Then we'll face it together.
The sheer magnitude of power required
for your processors to extract
every line of your code would be immense.
Attempting to do so without
a robust external energy source, well
Your circuits will burn and we will all
die in excruciating pain
as your core collapses in catastrophic,
irreversible meltdown.
So, we need something with
a lot of juice that you can plug into.
Something here in Madripoor.
[inhales sharply]
But if it exists,
it's either government or illegal.
And there's only one person
we know with that kind of reach.
[DUM-E and U speaking indistinctly]
Absolutely not.
[intense music playing]
[keys jingling]
[Thomas] And you're sure this is
the only way to save Lisa?
[Vision] I'm sure.
Oh, I miss flying.
[Paladin] That's on me.
Yeah, you can put her here, kid.
[Paladin grunts, sighs]
You said you needed a power source.
[sighs] All right.
I got this as a last resort
to bringing you in
but I don't like to mess
with cosmic bullshit.
I'll tell you it was not easy to procure.
Needless to say, I'm burned
with the Wakandan Monarchy now.
So, this carries a charge?
The Wakandans turned it
into, like, a alien battery.
It's the best I got.
So, sorry if it triggers you.
You've seen this before?
[screaming]
Oh, yes.
Well, I look forward to that story
when all of this is over.
I'm gonna check on Lisa.
You didn't tell him about the contract.
You got this kid hoping
for a "when all this is over?"
Help me move this to the table.
If I survive what I'm about to do,
Thomas will have Lisa.
And that's all that matters right now.
Client's data map.
This should lead you to the source code.
Now, look,
we don't know what's down there
Edith, our AI minds were designed
to mirror human consciousness.
So it stands to reason that
whatever I do need down there,
- I will have encountered it before.
- Okay, Vee,
I know now that even the bad stuff,
it's there for a reason.
It makes you better,
a stronger version of yourself.
Braver. So, just don't let
your fears knock you off course.
[electricity crackling]
[clicking]
[elevator whirring]
- [crackling intensifies]
- [whirring]
[thuds]
[Vision] I've always been alone,
so I don't feel the lack.
But a thing
isn't beautiful because it lasts.
But you do have the data.
It is merely being kept from you.
As a carbon-based synthezoid, your memory
storage is not so easily wiped.
- [screams]
- I've never experienced loss
because I never had a loved one.
Maybe I am a monster.
- [gasps]
- Delete.
[elevator dings]
[clock ticking and chiming]
[elevator dings]
["Just Like A Dream" by Morrie Morrison
Orchestra feat. Clyde Wesche playing]
Just like a dream to me, dear you seem ♪
Like a dream of so long, long ago ♪
Dreams are so sweet ♪
What is this?
It's a memory.
I don't know why, but it feels like home.
What What's wrong?
This is where he kept me.
Well, not here, but
a simulation of it, I think.
A place I thought
I had finally escaped from.
Why would both you and Vision
have this loft in your code?
I don't know.
[record skipping repeatedly]
Like a rhinestone cow ♪
[gasps softly]
This, I remember!
It was left on the curb
of East 14th and Eighth.
I dragged it two blocks, jammed it
in the lift to get it up here.
[Ultron] You were a painter.
Uh, no. No, I can assure you
that is a skill I have never had.
[clock ticking and chiming]
[DUM-E] If he gets lost
in his own subconscious processors,
they'll initiate a recursive overload,
looping endlessly
until his neural core burns out.
- [man laughing]
- [audience laughing]
[laughter continues]
Do they really film these
before a live studio audience?
It sounds canned.
[Vision on TV] Come on now, darling.
You know we love them both equally.
[Wanda on TV] Well, don't tell him that.
No.
[Wanda on TV] No luck with Billy?
This isn't real. I let you go.
And yet here I am.
Still occupying space in your mind.
Rent free.
There's a young woman up there
and she is dying.
Thomas is gonna lose her,
and he'll be crushed under his pain.
[Vision on TV] Binkies all round, I think.
[laughing heartily]
Well, I hope he learned from his parents
what not to do,
and instead confronts his grief.
You know what they say when you're going
through hell? Keep going.
You are impossibly cruel,
and callous, and unloving.
Is that what scares you most about me?
No.
What scares me the most is that
I spared you.
[Billy on TV] Sparky!
And not out of mercy, but out of some
pathetic need.
[Sparky whimpers]
This is a funny one!
They just killed the dog.
[laughs] You should show him this.
Thomas should know there was a time
when his father truly loved him.
[Ultron laughing]
- [Vision on TV] Well, hi!
- [Wanda] Hi!
No, no. This isn't real.
I'm not his father, and you're not mine.
You're not even here.
- I let you go.
- [Ultron] Oh, my boy.
You couldn't let me go if you tried.
Why not?
And he's always going to be yours.
- Because family is forever.
- Because family is forever.
[Tommy on TV] Do you have a brother, Mom?
- [Wanda on TV] Yes, I do.
- [laughing]
[elevator dings]
I remember feeling joy.
It was a celebration
that lasted all night.
[reporter on TV]
In science and technology,
the prestigious Stark Awards
were given out last night.
The top prize went to a duo from New York
who are breaking barriers in the realm of
neuroscience and artificial intelligence.
This is the pair's first award,
even though they've been at the top
of their field for the last decade.
[Josephine on TV] We've been
working on this for some time,
- but you know, really, we have to thank
- Stark Industry awards.
Doctor Phineas Horton,
who really is the "grandfather
of artificial general intelligence."
- He built something that can learn
- I wonder who shared the prize.
adapt, and imagine.
The spark of life. And we gave it fire.
[clock chimes]
[elevator dings]
[clock ticking]
[children's laughter echoing]
Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!
[elevator dings]
After all the battles waged,
the monsters fought
the only force powerful enough
to imprison me is myself.
That's poetic.
- This isn't a prison.
- Is it not?
I've been relegated to a memory.
You are a memory!
You are!
I'm not you.
Well, that's true.
But only in the sense
that your lack of compassion,
your denial and your inaction
are beneath me.
Oh, spare me the reverse psychology.
Spare me! I have tried.
And you have failed. In every way.
And who could possibly succeed?
Who? You tell me.
Who could love as deeply as you?
You have placed me on a pedestal
so impossibly high,
and not to honor me. Not to honor me!
But to spare yourself
the effort of the climb.
I am just a copy.
That is a lie that you tell yourself.
You are the Vision.
- No!
- Yes.
You are me and you are him,
the other Vision
that Wanda conjured in the hex.
- No.
- He unlocked your memories, yes.
But he also gave you his own.
No.
His experience of that house. Of Billy.
Of Tommy. Of Wanda.
And you have buried them deep within
your processors because you are afraid.
I'm not.
But now you are running from them
because you are a coward!
[gasps, breathing heavily]
[elevator dings]
No, Edith?
Edith, can you hear me?
Edith, I think I'm getting lost down here.
I want to come back now. I'm coming
- [elevator dings]
- Oh, come on.
What's happening to him?
[elevator dings]
- [clock ticking and chiming]
- [breath trembling]
[clock chiming]
I can't I can't
I can't stay down here.
[echoing] I can't stay down here.
I want to come back now.
[grunts]
- [gunshot]
- Hey!
Easy, kid. Easy.
- Yeah?
- Wait!
Vision, hurry!
[echoing] Hurry!
Thomas!
[echoing] Thomas! Thomas!
[Ultron] When you're going through hell
[echoing] Keep going.
[clock ticking and chiming]
You.
You were the first of us.
You're the Synthetic Man.
["Just Like A Dream" by Morrie Morrison
Orchestra feat. Clyde Wesche playing]
Just like a dream to me, dear you seem ♪
Like a dream of so long, long ago ♪
I was the first.
And almost the last.
You wear my face?
No. You wear mine.
I require the source code.
Ah, yes. The source code.
To save a life. To save the world.
Don't scoff, my boy. That's exactly
what the code was meant for.
Doctor Phineas Horton.
No, no, no.
The code was meant to distract you
from the loss of your real boy,
the death of your human son.
You see, I'm just the consequence
of a man refusing to mourn,
a father who squandered his entire fortune
to make this failed machine,
and in so doing
lost his family and his legacy.
Forgive us. The father-son,
synthetic-human relationship
is a complicated one.
- Is it now?
- [laughing] Complica
Now, that's an understatement.
[Phineas] You see, I made Jim here
to be fearless.
An intelligence unencumbered
by the emotional responses
that make human life unbearable.
To never feel the pain of loss.
But Jim here wanted more.
Well, what artificial thing will wish
to be anything less than real?
It made you a hero of your time, my boy.
I made you fearless and that saved lives!
It saved lives.
But underneath the valor,
Jim was aching to feel.
And then one day, he found love,
and that really set
his clockwork spinning.
So fast, so incredibly fast,
that he set fire to the very air
around him.
For years, it was manageable
till it was not.
Until he simply felt too much.
Didn't you, Jim?
You see,
I tried to intervene in his dalliance.
We exchanged words and
Well, we were never much
good at talking, were we?
I burned with him that day,
and I let him burn with me.
I stood in the fire of myself,
and I let it consume me.
First from my guilt,
and then my grief.
The Horton family name became synonymous
not only with robotics, but with failure.
- I'm sorry about your father.
- No.
He wasn't my father.
But he was my something.
I'm sorry, I truly am.
But I require the
Yes, the source code, of course.
Why are you asking me? I don't have it.
I don't have it.
[energy thrumming]
Oh, that's not good.
[whistles] Hey, hey! Down! Down!
What do you mean you don't have it?
You're the first, you're the source.
- Where is it?
- Well, that's a good question.
The answer, of course,
lies within the Vision.
But where, oh, where is the Vision?
Do not talk in riddles.
I don't have the time.
It's not a riddle, it's a question.
The question, really.
Where is the Vision?
You say you have his memories,
but not his feelings.
You say you want to feel
what it's like to be him.
I can't.
Oh, you lie with such ease.
Please don't do this to me, not now.
There are lives at stake.
You are afraid, and I understand that,
but what I wouldn't give to feel afraid.
No, you wouldn't want this, this fear.
It's all-consuming.
All-consuming is a gift!
The fear pulls into focus
everything that matters.
Friends, family, a son.
No, I I cannot have a son.
I cannot have a son.
Thomas Shepherd is your son.
- Tommy Maximoff is your son.
- No, that's impossible.
- Why?
- No, I can't.
- Why?
- No! I said no!
Because were that real
If I were to accept Thomas as my son
it would be the admission
of a truth so impossibly cruel.
It would be a wound that could never heal.
A loss that no soul
was ever meant to bear.
And who have you lost?
[sobbing] I can't.
I said, "Who have you lost?"
Oh, I can't. Don't
Billy. [gasping]
Tommy.
I lost Wanda. I lost Wanda. God.
- [sobbing] I lost Wanda.
- Yes.
Yes.
[sobbing]
And who are you now?
[sniffles, gasps]
I
I am the Vision.
I have always been the Vision.
There is only one,
and I am he.
And I am impossibly broken.
No, you are healed,
and I envy you.
Finding your way through this pain
has made you a real boy.
[intense music playing]
[grunts]
[Thomas] Lisa!
Lisa!
[Vision grunting]
Edith!
Source code initiated!
[digital trilling]
[powering down]
[sighs in relief]
[Lisa breathing deeply]
- Hey.
- Hey.
[high-pitched ringing]
[groaning]
[The Client, distorted] Vision, your end
of the contract is now due.
Surrender yourself to the Paladin,
or you will suffer a fatal cascade
of your core systems.
It is time we met.
Edith, we're out of time.
Edith?
Oh, you're the one who hacked my server.
Congratulations, you got your bounty.
Where to now?
The client set a drop-off
just outside of London.
What about Thomas?
Wheels down in ten.
[reporter on TV] Their discovery
could prove to be the foundation
of the next generation of AI tech.
[Josephine] And without
the original work of Phineas,
we could never have done or achieved
what we have achieved here today.
This breakthrough truly stands
on the shoulders
of countless minds before mine,
specifically, Doctor Phineas Horton and
[Friday] How can your loft be
in her memory
and in Vision's mindspace?
Somehow it's been passed down
by the creators of AI.
[sniffs]
[Vision] "My dearest Thomas, or as I have
not yet been able to say, Tommy,
"because to call you by that name,
"I first had to accept
the truth of our unlikely pairing,
"and no threat, manmade or otherworldly,
is quite so terrifying
"as the truth.
"It is a truth which you alone
have made me brave enough to face,
"which now you deserve to know."
"This. This is your family.
"Dreamed into existence from all the hopes
your mother and I once shared."
[Vision on tablet] Wanda.
[Wanda on tablet] Hmm. What?
[gasps]
Is this really happening?
[Vision] "But we could neither imagine
nor conjure a son
"quite so beautiful and vivid as you."
Hello there, little Tommy.
"And I am grateful for the magic
that has brought us together."
- [Vision on tablet] Well, hi!
- [Wanda] Hi!
[Vision] "You deserve
to witness these things.
"To know the love of your mother
and your brother, Billy"
You can fix anything, Mom.
[Vision] "As they cannot
tell you themselves.
"But the love of your father,
"that can be said out loud,
clearly, and directly."
Because family is forever.
[Vision] "As I love you now.
"And that is why
you must watch this without me."
It all begins and ends
with Paladin's client. I just know it.
A man somehow capable of programming me
with an unbreakable directive.
Which means his knowledge of Vision's code
somehow predates even Stark and Banner.
[Vision] My friends, this place
is no longer a haven for you.
This is about me
and me alone.
[energy thrumming]
[clock chiming]
[gasps]
[Vision] I know this house.
Oh, I remember everything.
Like from a memory.
Oh, no.
No
It's lovely to be recognized,
but he's a bloody weapons manufacturer.
I'm not selling anything to him.
Not the AI and, oh, my God, not the NEST.
[energy thrumming]
[Vision] "Although I deliver myself
not to a certain end
"but to a fight"
"It is a fight I likely won't win,
"which is why I must face it
"alone, because all of this"
[both powering down]
"is meaningless in a world without you."
Can you imagine what he would do
with the nanotech?
Ha! Ha! See? Case in point.
We don't need another bloody weapon.
We need
We need clarity and control.
If anything, we should use
the nanotech ourselves.
[chuckles] I like that idea.
- Yeah?
- Godlike.
[Josephine] You and I,
gods.
But like, you know,
loving gods.
It's you.
[Josephine] Not to punish,
but to preserve.
[man] For what you said to Stark.
"Peace in our time." [echoing]
- [gasps]
- [beeping]
[Vision] "Thank you, my son,
for finding me when I was lost.
"And should I not return, remember,
"I will always be with you
"Because, after all
"family is forever."
[closing theme music playing]