Python's Revenge

Python's Revenge
Season	2
Number	15
Writer	Devon Greggory
Director	Vikki Williams
Original Airdate	March 2, 2016
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Python's Revenge is the fifteenth episode in Season Two of CSI: Cyber.

Synopsis

Avery and Russell are tasked with hunting down Python, Cyber's most notorious criminal, after they uncover a severed head in the Deputy Director's apartment. Python returns to kidnap Avery's surrogate daughter, Grace, making the team decipher a series of elaborate code-like puzzles in an attempt to save her life. 

Plot

Shodan Map - an interactive search engine that shows the location of every device directly connected to the Internet.

Past events are recapped: the Cyber team hunted down "Python," the Deep Web's most notorious drug dealer. He was identified as Dante Wilkerson, and the team was able to find his childhood home and shut down his business. However, Python escaped capture and warned Avery that "this is war." Unbeknownst to the team, Python disguised himself, snuck into headquarters, and left his handprint behind on Avery's tablet.

In the present, Russell has dinner with Avery in her new apartment. They're alerted to the sound of a music box, which Avery claims she doesn't own. She tells Russell that the box isn't hers and that it doesn't have a moving label. When the box is opened, a tablet is playing a video from 2002; Avery recognizes the vehicle and knows that this is a video of her young daughter's last moments. Suddenly, the tablet cuts to a message: "You couldn't save your daughter, can you save me?" Under the packing peanuts in the box is a severed head wrapped in a plastic bag. Avery doesn't recognize the victim.

Avery analyzes the message, focusing on the word "me"; her belief is that it's referring to someone she cares for. A fingerprint found on the plastic bag comes back to Interpol agent Miguel Vega, who Avery worked with the first time they were trying to track down Python. At that moment, Miguel is seen beating a suspect in an undisclosed location and trying to retrieve information about Python's whereabouts. Avery's calls to his cell phone go unanswered.

Krumitz finds nothing on the tablet apart from the code that ran the video loop; the tablet has never even connected to the Internet, nor has it ever synced with another device. Nelson sees that there's a pattern in the lines of code; each line has a letter at the end of it. When the letters are isolated, the message reads: "Now let the games begin dot mist." It's recognized as an address on the Deep Web; whoever sent the message wants the team to visit the site.

While the victim in the plastic bag remains unidentified, it's determined that she died from asphyxiation; the head was removed postmortem. The belief is that whoever did this is sending Avery a very clear message. Elijah learns that Miguel quit his job at Interpol six weeks ago and entered the U.S. three days after that; he's been dark ever since. The thought is that either Miguel is a suspect or he's in danger. Though he's been impossible to track, he checked Avery's message when she called earlier. This puts his location in Bethesda, Maryland.

NowTheGamesBegin.mist leads the team to a website that only contains a field where one is supposed to type an answer. Avery realizes the question is the one she was sent earlier on the tablet. Since Miguel's fingerprint was on the plastic bag, his name is typed as the answer; however, this is incorrect. Avery tries typing her own name, which is also an incorrect response. She goes back to the video on the tablet and realizes the sign in front of the church in the video had one of the words changed from "forgiveness" to "grace." Grace Clarke was Avery's daughter's best friend, and Avery has been like a surrogate mother to her in recent months. When "Grace Clarke" is entered as the answer, the screen cuts to a video of Grace tied up; she's holding a trigger and is strapped to three vials of a poison.

While Grace can't see Avery, she can hear her voice. She says she was abducted by someone Avery "knows," but she never saw the man's face. Avery suddenly realizes that the head in the plastic bag was Python's mother and that he's making good on his declaration of war. This means one thing: Python is back.

Avery tries getting Grace to calm down and observe her surroundings; however, the room she's being held in is too dark to make anything out. Grace says that she was drugged before the abduction, but before she can say where she was taken from, Python appears on the screen. He advises Avery to "say a prayer and follow a star" to find Grace and proposes a game. The rules of the game are simple: provide answers to the questions posed. Each correct answer will buy the team more time, while a wrong answer will lead to injections. Three wrong answers equals three injections, and Grace dies. She'll also die if she lets go of the trigger she's holding or if the Cyber team disconnects from the website. Python ensures them that the game is winnable; otherwise, it "wouldn't be much of a game."

Python disconnects from the video and Grace reappears; the IP address of the video is untraceable. A timer on the bottom of the screen is set for ten minutes and begins to count down. The clue provided: "One Among Many. Bound In Leather. Right In Front of You." Avery enlists Raven to stay with Grace and keep her calm, while Krumitz is instructed to work on her location. Nelson and Russell will work on solving the riddles.

Noting that Python was physically in headquarters, Russell believes that the next clue is somewhere in Avery's office. The only leather-bound book there is titled Treasures in Art. When the title is entered as the answer to the riddle, they're informed that the answer is incorrect and Grace is injected with two of the poisoned vials. Russell turns to one of the pages in the book and finds a picture of Medea the Sorceress. As the Greek myth goes, Medea used a poison dress as revenge after being betrayed. They realize that Grace is being poisoned with vials attached to her leather jacket, meaning she's the one bound in leather. "Medea the Sorceress" is submitted as an answer; it's correct. The following sequence of numbers then appears on the screen: 1281216847128148414128. A timer also starts counting down from 183 minutes, and Russell realizes that Medea the Sorceress was painted in 183 BC.

In Bethesda, Maryland, Elijah walks into a warehouse and finds a man tied to a chair and beaten badly. Miguel soon appears behind Elijah and points a gun at him. Elijah informs him that his presence is needed at headquarters, but Miguel responds by engaging in a fistfight. When it's over, Elijah mentions Grace and Python's involvement in her abduction. Meanwhile, Grace tells Raven that she remembers being abducted on her way to her university's library; it was too dark to see the car Python was driving.

Suddenly, headquarters begins to experience mass equipment failure; Python has hacked into the system despite the presence of a firewall. The fear is that if they lose the system, they'll lose connection to Grace's site and she'll die. A shutdown protocol will be initiated with only Grace's site remaining active. Krumitz determines that the infection started months ago—more specifically, the day Python infiltrated headquarters and planted a bug in the system. Every single operating system was reinstalled after this occurred, but Krumitz realizes that Python is using Grace's site to take over headquarters. While there's nothing malicious about the site itself, Python is using standard Web traffic to trigger malware that's been lying dormant in the system. This would explain how the infection was everywhere at once.

Elijah arrives back at headquarters with Miguel in tow. Miguel tells Avery that he got a lead on Python that Interpol wouldn't let him follow up on; this would be why he quit. He identifies the man he was "interrogating" as one of Python's couriers who had just moved a shipment. Avery informs him that Python's mother is dead and that Python is trying to frame him by leaving his fingerprint behind as evidence. Miguel believes this is good news, as it has to mean they're closing in on Python. Avery allows him to keep working the case, but only if he takes Elijah with him.

Nelson and Russell work on the random number sequence, determining that the numbers represent elements; for example, "128" translates to "H2O," the chemical symbol for water. Since water appears multiple times in the sequence, it appears that's they're looking at a recipe for something rather than a math problem.

Avery continues to talk to Grace and starts to notice that she has dilated pupils and is acting giddy. Russell believes that Grace is stoned. Zeroing in on the drugs attached to Grace, he figures the first one was designed to be nonlethal, but very painful; his belief is that this was potassium chloride. Based on the color of the liquid and Grace's behavior, he believes the second drug is either morphine or some kind of heroin. Finally, the third drug is likely some kind of sedative designed to have Grace loosen her grip on the trigger. Russell guesses that the third vial contains Propofol; if it mixes with the other two drugs, Grace will fall asleep and suffocate to death.

DNA confirms that the head in the bag was Python's mother. The ligature marks on her neck and a suicide note found in the house suggest that she committed suicide. No body was found in the house, and Avery believes that Python took it, removed the head, and sent it to her; Python is holding her responsible for this mother's death.

Krumitz narrows down the area of Python's network intrusion, still at a loss as to how Python gained access even after all of the equipment was replaced. He realizes that one thing that wasn't switched out was a surge protector. When opened up, it contains a single-board processor, 16-gig hard drive, and Bluetooth and Wi-Fi antennas. Once Python left it behind, it sat there for months eavesdropping on network traffic, which included recording credentials and injecting malware every time someone logged on. The malware spread and infected the entire system; streaming Grace's video feed allowed Python to trigger the infection and take control. Krumitz informs Avery that the only way they can cut off Python's control is by closing Grace's video feed. They can either protect headquarters or keep Grace onscreen—they can't do both.

The courier's delivery is tracked to a warehouse in Reading, Pennsylvania, and the recipient is identified as someone named Asher. Elijah and Miguel enter the building and confront Asher, who's burning things in an incinerator. When confronted, he whips out an assault rifle and starts shooting. Miguel is able to get the drop on him and knocks him to the ground. With Miguel holding his face close to the flames, Asher admits that he's just a businessman who "gets rid of things that need getting rid of"; this includes dead bodies. He tells Elijah that the shipment he received was a body with no head. The body was cremated, and the ashes were given to Python.

FBI Director Silver visits with Avery, concerned that the case isn't about Cyber anymore. Every segment of the FBI is offline and waiting for a reboot. There are operations without technical support; worse yet, Python has access to sensitive FBI documents. He tells Avery that the entire bureau is at stake and that this can't continue. However, Avery is able to convince him that she would be doing the same thing for a victim she didn't even know. Director Silver allows her to continue and finish the case.

Elijah and Miguel go over what they have so far, noting that Python traveled across the country to pick up his mother's ashes. It's found that she was born and raised in two different Pennsylvania towns, both within driving distance of where they are in Reading. The belief is that Python is taking his mother to one of these places to scatter her ashes.

Using the number/chemical sequence, Russell conducts and experiment and determines that the mineral in question is quartz. He notes that Python's mother grew up in an area that had a lot of quartz mining; however, those mines no longer exist. From this, he believes that the answer to the puzzle also doesn't exist, and he advises Avery to hit Enter without submitting an answer. His hunch is correct, and another puzzle appears of a snake in the shape of an infinity symbol. It's identified as ouroboros, the Greek symbol for eternity. Python is hinting that this game could go on forever, and Avery realizes that the puzzles are just a stall tactic so Python could take over the network and force everyone to watch Grace die.

Krumitz believes there's a way to save Grace, but she may have to "die" in order for that to happen. He mentions something called a Shodan Map, which shows the exact location of every device in the world connected to the Internet; this includes the camera Grace is staring into. The team needs the make and model of the camera to help pinpoint Grace's location, and she's advised to release the trigger so that she may get closer to the camera and provide the information. Once the trigger is released, the team will have 25 minutes before the drugs take full effect, hopefully allowing them time to pinpoint the location and send the paramedics.

Grace releases the trigger and inches closer to the camera; however, she starts losing her strength and knocks it over. Krumitz is able to get the make and model of the camera from a reflection in a mirror; the bad news is that there are over 200 cameras on the Shodan Map. Python suddenly appears onscreen and congratulates Cyber. He tells Avery that this is all her fault and threatens to kill Grace, hoping that Avery will never forgive herself for being responsible for the death of a loved one. Before ending the video chat, he puts a plastic bag around Grace's head.

Avery is able to convince Grace to stop struggling. She has Grace take a short breath and hold it, which will result in her passing out. This will prevent her from suffocating and dying. Knowing that Python has to be within a six-hour radius of where the crematorium was found, the search is narrowed down to under 100 possible cameras. Elijah and Miguel are looped into the video call, and they mention that Python was taking his mother's ashes to either the town of Tipton or Evansville. This narrows the search to 27 cameras, 15 of which are running on an unsecured feed. Three cameras are located in the Evansville area, and Avery notes that Python has been leaving clues in plain sight in the hopes that the team would later look back and know they could've saved Grace. One of Python's clues ("say a prayer and follow a star") leads the team to the abandoned Nash Medical Center, as Nash is a star in the Sagittarius constellation.

On their way to the hospital, Elijah and Miguel pass Python, who's driving in the opposite direction. With a civilian's life taking precedence, they rush to the hospital, find Grace, and are able to revive her. Python's car is later found abandoned, and Miguel vows to hunt him down before rejoining Interpol.

Things start getting back to normal, as headquarters gets new equipment and Avery settles into her new apartment. Later that night, Avery is awakened by a noise. She grabs her gun and comes face to face with Python, who dumps his mother's ashes on the floor. "I wanted her to see this," he says as he points his gun at Avery. A brief gunfight ensues, with Avery getting the upper hand and killing Python.

Main Cast

• Patricia Arquette as Avery Ryan
• James Van Der Beek as Elijah Mundo
• Charley Koontz as Daniel Krumitz
• Shad Moss as Brody Nelson
• Hayley Kiyoko as Raven Ramirez
• Ted Danson as D.B. Russell

Guest Cast

• Sean Blakemore as Director Silver
• Alisha Boe as Grace Clarke
• Evan Jones as Python
• Diogo Morgado as Miguel Vega
• Danielle Hoetmer as Renee Clarke
• Matt Lasky as Asher
• Andrew Miller as Rupert Flemming

See Also

• List of CSI: Cyber episodes
• CSI:Cyber Season 2
• Category:Images from Python's Revenge