(a helicopter lands at the crash site. Military figures emerge)

ELLIS: You Finn?

RILEY: Yeah.

ELLIS: Major Ellis. I'm in charge of this op.

(he shakes Riley's hand)

ELLIS: What's the situation, just the one civilian casualty?

RILEY: That I know of. This way.

(They all begin to walk. We see that one of the other commandos is Graham.)

GRAHAM: You found a stiff in the woods and called us in? Don't you usually call your girlfriend for this kind of thing?

(He grins. Riley gives him a dirty look. They walk up to the body and Ellis kneels beside it.)

RILEY: I wouldn't touch that stuff in his mouth if I were you.

ELLIS: Toxic?

RILEY: No, just messy. Guy seemed to have simply choked on the stuff. Near as I can tell, it's some kind of protein alkaloid.

ELLIS: Does this fit the profile of any Sub-T you're familiar with?

RILEY: Not subterrestrial, Major. Extraterrestrial.

(he leads them to the rock at the end of the trench)

RILEY: It came outta that.

ELLIS: Miller, set the trackers for a protein signature.

GRAHAM: Yes sir.

RILEY: No good, Major. This alkaloid's breaking down at an accelerated rate. It's dissolving too fast to track.

ELLIS: You got a better idea?

RILEY: Thing came from space. Gotta be some trace radiation.

ELLIS: We have Geiger counters in the packs.

RILEY: Shouldn't be too much background gamma noise out here.

ELLIS: Break 'em out.

• Buffy & Riley
• Riley & the initiative

written by: Jane Espenson; Transcribed by Joan the English Chick (pisces@englishchick.com).. Full transcript at:
http://www.studiesinwords.de/87listeningtofear.html