Dr. Thorne was not the mad scientist she'd imagined. He was a former chemical engineer from Procter & Gamble, wearing a fleece vest and New Balance sneakers. He looked like someone's kind grandfather who also happened to believe he could alchemize sewage.

She grabbed the golden bead. It was warm. Heavy. Not gold. Liquid gold. A concentrated slurry of rare-earth elements and phosphate that could fertilize a football field for a decade.

She was alone, knees on the cold tile, siphoning a freshly collected sample from a "donor" (her Uber driver, paid $200) into the machine. The device hummed, heated, and spit out a tiny, glowing bead of golden-black residue.

The episode ended on a freeze-frame: Samira bursting out the emergency exit, the golden bead clutched in her fist, the red glow of the restroom sign behind her, and the hazmat figures silhouetted in the doorway.