541 – Bugs – Manna from Heaven

One of the great problems that needs to be addressed in the world is food production and sustainability.  What is that could be solved with a simple algae-based superfood.  How much would that be worth?  How far would you go? And, can you ransom a city with it? Team Bugs are going to find out, and so are Simon and Eugene as they discuss Manna from Heaven. Episode Synopsis At New Earth Foods, director Lennox and security man Glass discuss the new, high-tech time lock and password-protected safe that is going to be a critical part of Act IV.  Lennox also explains why he’s bringing in outside security consultants.   Glass seems a little skeptical, just as villains break into the building, gain access to the high security vats of algae and attempt to steal some of the contents.  Their escape is thwarted when they’re killed in a car accident. The next day, Team Bugs are introduced to Phodex,  New Earth Foods’ amazing new plant-based food substitute.  It can be used to simulate almost any food.  It’s so good they even ate it and didn’t know.   Rival company, Hennessy Brock and their executive Mr. Zander will stop at nothing to (a) Get the Phodex secret, (b) buy out New Earth Foods, or (c) destroy it so that it cannot come to market.  Lennox is sure that last night’s raid was masterminded by Zander. So, once again, our heroes fight illegal industrial espionage with a little illegal espionage of their own.  Ed and Beckett hack and break their way into Hennessy Brock and escape having overheard enough to know that Zander was behind the break-in and that he has a confederate inside New Earth Foods. Ros’ investigation turns up the curious fact that a dead man, Fricker, let the intruders into the building, but when she tries to learn more about the dead man, she is blocked at every turn.  Lennox refuses to discuss it other than he died when he fell into a vat of the Phodex algae. Undeterred, Ros decides to use her access to New Earth Foods’ computers to break into secure and deleted files to satisfy her own curiosity, all the while narrating her illegal and unethical activities to Sally, one of Lennox’s employees.  This prompts a curious reaction from Sally.  She locks Ros in a sealed room with no air to die and steals the data Ros recovers herself, before leaving the premises. Ros is saved in the nick of time by Ed and Beckett. Sally, the inside confederate, takes the secret revelation of Fricker’s death to Zander.  It’s big.  Really big. And they decide to apply pressure to Lennox, threatening to reveal his secret. “What secret?” Our heroes ask, only to be rebuffed with more lies. The next day, Lennox has a product demo at a restaurant for representatives from around the world.  Zander’s forces try to stop the Phodex from getting to the restaurant, but fail when his henchmen and some innocent bystanders are horribly killed in another car accident. It looks like a job well done – except that, inside the restaurant, Sally runs an ominous portable UV light over all the uncooked Phodex, and then escapes before anyone notices her. Back at New Earth Foods, Ed and Beckett do an all-night spotlight search looking for Fricker’s file that plays hide-and-seek.  They find it and discover the horrifying truth: Phodex turns toxic when exposed to UV light. At the restaurant, the meal, to which Ros has managed to herself a seat at the table, goes really well until Lennox plays a corporate promotional video for his guests.  The video has been tampered with and warns them that Phodex is toxic and they’re all dying. Lennox, Ros and Glass rush back to New Earth Foods. “No worries, we’ve got an antidote, and even if we didn’t, it is easily and quickly manufactured from raw Phodex algae,” Lennox tells them.  As if on cue, the Phodex vats erupt in an explosion, destroying the entire supply of algae and antidote. Soon, Zander and Sally are on a boat, Zander calls New Earth Foods and confesses all his crimes.  I arranged the break ins, poisoned the dignitaries, stole the Phodex, control the antidote and am now demanding £10 million to give it to you.  Also, in case my list of crimes I just confessed to isn’t long enough, I’m also going to poison the water supply and kill thousands just for kicks if you don’t pay up. Our heroes have cleverly used a tape recorder to record his confession, and Ros, despite being on her deathbed, uses her super-hearing to recreate the soundscape from the call, allowing her to guide Beckett in pursuit. Back on the boat, Sally has a little surprise for Zander.  A bullet, with his name on it.  She’s even more monomaniacal than Zander.  He was only bluffing about the water supply, but she wasn’t. Back at New Earth Foods, Lennox, who’s a little ahead of Ros on the death slide remembers about his new high tech safe and the contents therein – a sample of Phodex that could be used to create the antidote.  Ed must break in, first by tricking the timing signal to move the clock forward and then by getting Ros to pick Lennox’s pockets looking for his password. Beckett tracks Sally to a water pumping station where she gets the better of him, and she starts the process of contaminating the water supply.  Beckett overpowers her by surprise and then has a moral quandary – stop the water supply contamination or rescue Sally, who is hanging on to a ledge for dear life. That’s no quandary, that’s an opportunity to solve this case without resorting to all that hassle with the court system.  Sally falls to her death and Beckett saves thousands from becoming innocent victims.  Good thing the antidote can be synthesized in just a few minutes, because Ros and Lennox are cured with just a few moments to spare. No word on the poisoned dignitaries’ fate. Back in their tag scene room, Ros reveals she’s off food and, I guess, will never eat food again.