Captain Colter Stevens Source Codes: Captain Colter Stevens, an army pilot, wakes up on the train, confused about where he is. Christina begins to talk to him and calls him Sean. He looks through the train, distracted by every movement, so he doesn’t even respond to the conductor when he asks for his ticket.
Colter is jumpy with Christina when she tries to help him find his ticket.
She asks him why he’s acting so strange, but Colter tells her that he doesn’t know who she is.
He gets up and goes outside for a second, trying to figure out where he is, but he returns to his seat next to Christina. Suddenly, he sees his reflection in the window, showing a different face. Colter goes to the toilet and looks at himself in the mirror, seeing someone completely different.
He opens the wallet and sees the same guy there. Christina is waiting for him in front of the toilet. She tells him she doesn’t know Shan or him. Suddenly, the train explodes.
Colter wakes up in a different place, hearing a female voice telling him that he’s with
Beleaguered Castle and asking if he’s functional. He’s still confused and can’t answer any of the questions the disembodied voice is asking him. The agent only wants to know what happened on the train and where the explosion came from.
Colter asks her who she is, and she shows up on a monitor in front of him, telling Colter
that he already knows that. She tells him they will rebuild his memory pattern and begins a mnemonic procedure. The woman reads him a passage while accompanying visuals appear on the screen.
As the woman continues the exercises, Colter isn’t paying attention and is trying to get himself out of the seat. Suddenly, he remembers parts of the movement and repeats back what he had heard before. She asks for her name, and Colter calls her Goodwin.
Doctor Rutledge shows up briefly on the monitor, checking something; then Colter asks to talk to his father.
Goodwin interrupts him and continues to ask him about the bomb on the train. She tells him that Christina is calling him another name is incidental. He doesn’t know who bombed the train, so Goodwin tells him he will go back inside for 8 minutes again. Colter thinks he’s in a simulation, but Goodwin will not give him any information about his status. She insists that he find out more details on the train. Find the bomb, and you find the bomber.
Colter is back on the train. Christina is telling him that she gave her notice at work and will be taking the LSAT.
He hears a soda can open, and a woman spills coffee on his shoe. Colter says it’s the same train but somehow different, which Christina understands as some profound statement.
He activates a timer on his watch and says that everything looks so realistic, still
convinced he’s in a simulation. Colter looks around for the possible bomber and jumps over to a guy asking how long the delay would be.
The guy jokes around, and Christina tells him he’s a comedian. He looks around the train, searching for something out of the ordinary, and he sees a student give back someone their wallet. Colter steps back on the train and remembers the explosion behind him.
He goes into the toilet and looks through it. Colter notices that the vent has been tampered with and opens it, finally finding the bomb.
He begins talking to Goodwin, thinking she can hear him and instruct him on the next
steps with the bomb. Colter leaves the bomb and gets another idea of how to find the bomber. He goes back into the cart and lies to the people that he’s transit security and has been in some security breach. So they have to stop using all of their electronic devices.
No one believes him, and when he sees a man still on his laptop, he closes it for
him and breaks his jaw. Christina runs over to the man to help him, and Colter says not to worry because neither he nor she are real. The train explodes, and he’s back. Goodwin tells him to stabilize and lower his pulse. She asks if he found the bomb, and he tells her that he did, but Colter asks to speak to Doctor Rutledge since he figured out he’s her commanding officer.
Colter thinks he was in Afghanistan just two days before, but Goodwin says it
was two months. He’s still confused but replies to her questions about the train. She tells him that he’s not in a simulation but that real lives are at stake. Colter wants to know more before he can continue with the mission.
Goodwin asks Routledge if she can tell him anything, and when he confirms that she can,
Goodwin tells him that the train he was on had already exploded that morning and that
more attacks like that one are underway. Sean Fentress was on that train, and Colter is him now. He doesn’t understand yet, but she keeps pushing for information. Colter tells her where he found the bomb and what kind of detonator it operated with.
Goodwill explains that the detonation was planned to co-occur when a freight train was passing by, engulfing both vehicles. The bomber must’ve been close enough to see when that would happen to detonate the bomb. She tells him to concentrate on the passengers on his train and perform only the tasks she has given him. They send him back.
Colter wakes on the train in the middle of the same conversation.
The woman spills coffee on Christina’s shoes, which Coulter comments on, and she’s very kind about it. He believes she’s real now. Colter asks the conductor about the behavior of the passengers on the train, and the man replies that he’s the one looking strange. Then, he asks Christina if someone looks suspicious to her, tells her to sit next to him, and says to think of it as a game.
She jokes around about all the people in the car, naturally not taking him seriously,
commenting that he knows the people more than her because he always talks to them.
Suddenly, Colter notices a guy coming out of the bathroom, and Christina comments that
they’re going into racial profiling. She tells him he’s the only other person she’d seen coming out of there, making him think for a second. Captain Colter Stevens Source Codes
Colter looks through Sean’s things but only finds her name in his notebook. He wants to go after the guy he saw earlier and makes Christina come with him. Colter tells her to wait outside the station as he follows the guy inside the washroom. He can hear him getting sick in a stall and inspecting him, making him uncomfortable. The guy leaves with Colter after him.
He joins him at the bench where he’s sitting and asks to borrow his phone. The guy asks to be left alone and leaves when Colter attacks him and keeps asking to see his phone. Suddenly, the bomb explodes, and he thinks the guy may be the bomber. Not entirely convinced, he goes after him again, and the man pushes him on the tracks. Colter doesn’t get up in time and is hit by an oncoming train.
He awakens in the other place, but neither can he hear Beleaguered Castle nor Colter.
The place feels cold and begins shutting down. The man working with Goodwin tells her that he’s in trouble. Then they go to see Rutledge, who means that no one has ever been in a situation like him before and that they should keep sending signals to him to see if he responds.
Meanwhile, Colter finds a toolkit and manages to restart the power in the place where he’s at. He begins hearing distorted voices as Rutledge sits on Goodwin’s computer.
Colter hears her reading the passage to him and calls out to her as Rutledge is preparing
to leave. The doctor talks to him, telling him that he invented the thing he is inside of and
confirms that he’s in charge.
As Colter tells him that he saved a passenger from the train, Goodwin returns and continues the conversation. She tells him that keeping the people on the train is outside his mission. Colter insists that she survived, but Rutledge explains that she stayed only in the source code. When asked by Colter what that means, he tried to simplify it for him. Source code is not a time travel machine but something similar to time reassignment. Captain Colter Stevens Source Codes
He can only go back there and report what he has seen in a kind of parallel reality
through the eyes of Sean Fentress, who is his link. Colter insists that he saved someone, so Goodwin asks for her name and looks for her online. She tells Colter that Christina died that morning on the train. He still doesn’t understand, but they need to send him back again because there is a second suspected attack in the center of Chicago.
They think the bombers will activate a dirty bomb this time, so the city is being
evacuated. The army believes that the second attack might be prevented if he can find out who bombed the train. Before they send him back, Goodwin tells him about a handgun he can find on the train. She authorizes him to use every force necessary.
When Colter wakes up on the train, he’s disappointed to see Christina. They talk a little, and it’s apparent that he’s slowly falling in love with her. Colter has a mission, though, and he gets up to achieve it. He looks for the gun and finds it exactly where Goodwin told him it would be. Unfortunately, the conductor catches him getting into the safe with the gun.
He points the gun at him when the second conductor electrocutes him. Colter wakes up on the train again, only to see Christina next to him, asking what he is doing. He doesn’t know what to tell her and knows he’s running out of time, so he asks her what she would do if she only had one minute left to live. Colter tells her he will call his dad and say he’s sorry.
Christina tells him that everything is going to be okay as the bomb explodes on the train
again.
Before he wakes up in the other place, Colter has some strange visions involving Christina. He tells Goodwin that the gun wasn’t the best idea and that he wants to speak to his dad.
She brushes him off, saying that she will try to do that. Colter asks her how he is doing because he doesn’t understand the process.
She moves aside to show him. where he is being kept and tells him that she hasn’t been on the other side of the source code. Because the specifications are tremendously narrow for a viable candidate. Goodwin doesn’t want to waste more time, and after she assures him that he’s doing good, he sends him back to check the passenger’s things. Colter is back at the train and gets to it faster. Captain Colter Stevens Source Codes
He draws the military patch that Goodwin has shown him when Christina approaches him. Colter asks her to look for his friend that disappeared in Afghanistan and gives her his real name to search for. Suddenly, he becomes suspicious of a guy talking on the phone.
He goes to him and searches through his bag, looking for something. Colter notices that a woman has a purse from an army medical center and goes up to talk to her.
He asks her about the letters on the patch. She tells him that it stands for Air Force and that the N stands for Nellis.
Colter asks her for her phone and calls Nellis Air Force base. He asks for Rutledge and tells the operator to tell him that Captain. Colter Stevens is calling for him. Christina finds him and tells him that the friend he asked her to look for is dead, killed in action two months ago. Suddenly, Colter has some memories from Afghanistan, and he hears Goodwin’s voice again, taking him through the mnemonic exercises. When he wakes up in the other place, he immediately asks Goodwin if he’s dead.
He tells her that he found an article online saying just that, as well as that his father
received a medal for him. She tells him that he needs to focus on the train and that everything else is irrelevant. Colter insists on knowing, and Goodwin tells him part of the truth. She says that part of his brain is still active but that his body is a manifestation. Colter asks if he imagines that he’s in the capsule, and the thing begins to fall apart.
She confirms that the capsule is also a manifestation and doesn’t tell him where his actual body is being kept. Rutledge intervenes, saying that they need to send him back to the train so that he can prevent another attack. Colter still doesn’t agree with how the source code works and tells Rutledge that he called him from the train that morning. The doctor tells him that he didn’t receive that call, and if he did – it would have been a different reality. The Rutledge receiving that call would be another Routledge entirety. Colter needs more convincing, so the doctor tells him that a military court has sanctioned the project.
Furthermore, he tells the air force captain that many other soldiers would love the opportunity
more than death, having the possibility to continue serving their country. Colter retorts that for many soldiers, one death is service enough. Rutledge promises he will let him die if he finishes the mission.
Before he sends him back on the train, Rutledge tells him that two million Americans depend
on the success of their mission, and if he doesn’t value his own life, he should value
theirs. Then, Rutledge repeatedly takes Colter back on the train with no rest period. He tells the soldier they will keep doing it until he finds the bomber. Captain Colter Stevens Source Codes
Colter says that he can’t do it, and Rutledge manipulates him into getting him where he
needs Colter to be.
He plays a recording of his father giving an interview after he died, feeling sorry
that they never really understood each other. Colter tells Rutledge to send him back in.
Colter is back on the train and goes straight for the gun, the bomb. He takes the detonator phone out from the bomb and calls the only phone number in its call log. A man answers as Colter moves through the train. He tells him to turn around, but the frontman hears and turns. Colter sits beside him and threatens him with a gun, saying he can’t kill anyone.
The man swears that he was talking to his wife, so he makes him call the phone again.
Suddenly, another phone rings, and he apologizes to him. He hears the phone outside and follows after the guy. He sees him putting his wallet back on the train and finally knows his name, Derek Frost. The doors close, so he opens them with the emergency handle and jumps off so he can go after him. Colter sees him go into a white van and goes up to him. He shows Derek the phone but pretends he doesn’t recognize it. Captain Colter Stevens Source Codes
Colter knows it’s him, so he shows him the second bomb inside the van. He inspects the bomb and asks him where his next target is when Catherine shows up. Derek shoots them both.
Colter is still alive, so Derek gives the speech on why he’s doing it. He explains that the world is hell and that it needs to be rebuilt. For the world to be rebuilt, it needs to be destroyed. Derek gets in the van and leaves them there. The bomb in the train explodes regardless. When Colter transitions back to the capsule, he sees the images from before more clearly.
Immediately as he comes back, he tells Goodwin and Rutledge about the bomber and the van he went into. He confirms that the second bomb is radioactive. Rutledge and Goodwin congratulate him and say that his mission is over. Before they leave him, he asks to be sent back to try to save the people before he dies. Meanwhile, the army arrests Derek Frost before he can detonate the second bomb. Rutledge gets validation from his superiors
about his project, and Goodwin returns to talk to Colter.
He talks about the possibilities of parallel realities and what different versions of people might be like there. Goodwin explains that he only saw shadows or after-images of the people that died on the train. She tells him that he can’t alter the past, but Colter insists that there was a fail-safe on the explosive that he didn’t see before and that she’s wrong. Colter pleads with her to send him back without approval and then switch him off.
She has trouble deciding but still does it, telling him that at the end of his source
code, she will terminate his life support. Colter means to her that he’ll save Christina. Goodwin says that it was an honor and wishes him good luck. Colter is back on the train for the last time. He asks Christina out for coffee, and she very gladly accepts. Colter asks her to give him a few minutes to save the world. Captain Colter Stevens Source Codes
He instantly goes toward the bomb and takes out the first and second detonators. Then he passes by Derek and steals the conductor’s handcuffs. While the source code is active, Rutledge gets more good reviews from his superiors as Goodwin walks into his office. He tells her to wipe Colter’s memory and prepare him for a new source code. Rutledge has no intention to let him die to Goodwin’s disapproval. At the train, Colter stops Derek from going out of the train and cuffs him to a bar.
He shows him the phone and calls the police, telling them everything about Derek and the radioactive bomb in the van. Colter takes his phone and leaves him there. He sends an email to Goodwin from his phone and calls his dad. Colter tells him that he’s a friend of his and that before he died, he wanted to say he was sorry.
Meanwhile, Goodwin goes to where they are keeping his body and opens the chamber, seeing his state. Colter’s dad tells him he wishes he had told him he loved him. He says that he knows it. Colter goes back to Christina. Rutledge gets a call that Goodwin is with Colter. He asks MP’s to join him at Colter’s chamber and tries to unlock the door. Goodwin waits for Colter’s 8 minutes to run out. On the train, Colter asks Christina what she would do if she had less than a minute to live. She says that she would make those seconds count. Colter kisses her. Captain Colter Stevens Source Codes
Goodwin switches his life support off, and the MPs run inside only to see Colter’s dead
body. Back at the train, the explosion never happens. Colter says that everything is going to be okay. He and Christina walk to the Chicago bean, and Colter realizes his visions when transitioning were of that exact moment.