Backbeats (Outland) Outland

The film in backbeats, structured by the Two Approaches framework. Marshal William T. O'Niel's initial approach is to investigate corruption by the marshal's playbook — gather evidence, arrest dealers, secure witnesses, work through the deputies, confront the boss with proof. His post-midpoint approach is to do it alone, use the station's environment as the asymmetric weapon, and refuse the assignment-as-verdict that says he's just another marshal who should look away. Ten structural rivets mark the turns. The quadrant is better tools, sufficient — a redemption arc inside a noir surface, where the protagonist's individual arc closes cleanly even as the world it's set in does not.

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1. [0m] Green-screen text scrolls — the company name, the moon, the conditions.

A computer readout introduces Con-Am 27, a titanium ore mining outpost on Jupiter's third moon Io: 262,070 miles from the planet, one-sixth Earth gravity, no breathable atmosphere, 70 hours from the nearest space station, one supply shuttle per week, 2,144 personnel on year-long tours.[^w1] One of the readouts misspells "marshal" as "marshall."[^w2] Establishing shots cut between Io's volcanic surface and the industrial complex bolted to it; suited workers move through corridors before any voice is heard.[^w3] Five and a half minutes pass before the first line of dialogue.

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2. [6m] Miners in a changing room gripe about loaders, contracts, and the suits cooking them at minus 175.

A cluster of miners in pressure suits argues across a cluttered locker bay about the seven-worker shifts the Company has been running on rigs 14 and 23 since the automated vacuum loaders were installed.¹ One of them quotes the contract — eight workers per shift, in black and white — and another suggests Mylar over the suit sensor to step down the heating coil and trick it into running cooler.²[^w4]

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3. [6m] Tarlow sees spiders that aren't there and rips his suit open on the scaffolding.

John Ratzenberger's Tarlow goes from cursing in line with the others to begging them to get the spider off his leg.³ The miners read it as a put-on and tell him to cut the garbage and get back to work.⁴ He claws at the suit's fasteners and exposes himself to the vacuum on the catwalk, the first PDE death the audience sees.[^w5] The other miners watch in silence as the body decompresses.⁵

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4. [7m] Family breakfast and comm-channel briefings — the equilibrium that already contains its own dissolution. (Equilibrium)

Carol pours buttermilk Paul doesn't want; Paul complains about his braces; O'Niel half-listens while a deputy and then Sergeant Montone deliver routine night-watch reports over the family's kitchen comm.[^w6] Montone's voicemail describes the previous day's death — "some guy went whacko" — and notes the body is already on today's shuttle, autopsy impossible.⁶ Carol mentions arranging shuttle tickets "for the Reynolds, the nice couple from the bakery"; the lie is transparent and O'Niel doesn't push it.⁷ He kisses her ("you smell good") and leaves for work.⁸[^w7]

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5. [12m] Staff meeting — Sheppard's "give them room" speech is a friendly warning.

O'Niel finishes a brief, awkward introduction and Peter Boyle's Sheppard takes over the room, talking productivity bonuses, broken records, and how he lets these men and women play hard because contented people dig more ore.⁹ Long as no harm's done, Sheppard tells the new marshal, just give them a little room — "understand what I'm saying?"¹⁰ Sheppard speaks 17 of the last 20 lines in the room; O'Niel manages two terse acknowledgments.

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6. [14m] In the corridor afterward Montone tells O'Niel the local etiquette.

Sikking's Montone catches O'Niel in the hall and tells him not to mess with Sheppard, who is a powerful asshole and the kind of asshole the Company protects because the last marshal kept things smooth.¹¹ Things run smooth, they make their money. Nobody's here for their health.¹²[^w8]

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7. [16m] Cane steps into a depressurized elevator without his suit — the second death in a week.

Workers shout and try to override the elevator from a control panel as Cane, blissful and unaware, walks into the unpressurized airlock.¹³ He decompresses on screen.[^w9] He goes calmly, smiling, in contrast to Tarlow's terrified panic.[^w10]

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8. [17m] Carol records her goodbye in the apartment.

Kika Markham's Carol speaks alone to a video terminal, telling O'Niel that she has just run out of gas, that the tours have hollowed her out, and that if she looked at his face she would never go through with it.¹⁴ She tells him not to blame himself; she tells him not to blame her; she tells him she has reservations for two on the next shuttle and Paul thinks they are going to meet his grandmother somewhere.¹⁵ Sets up beat 12.

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9. [21m] Marshal's briefing — O'Niel pushes back on Cane. (Inciting Incident)

Montone runs the morning roll call: Ballard on the purser's-area monitors (quiet for 36 hours), Nelson on a set of nuclear detonators that were "found" without a where or a who, then Slater on the mine elevator — "some cupcake named Cane decided he didn't need an environment suit."¹⁶ Slater files it as suicide because "there's no other explanation." O'Niel, who's been chewing a pencil and not visibly listening, asks if Cane left a note.¹⁷ None that we know of. Then how do you know it was suicide?¹⁸[^w11]

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10. [22m] First meeting with Dr. Lazarus — both prickly, neither willing to concede ground.

O'Niel finds Frances Sternhagen's Lazarus in the cluttered station hospital, mid-yell at a nurse over a pressure-pack order ("this is a mine, not a war").¹⁹ He asks for autopsies; she lists three reasons there were none: Company orders, no body left to inspect, "in the third place, you're becoming a nuisance."²⁰ He demands all incident reports for the past six months and threatens, theatrically, to kick her nasty ass all over the room — "that's a marshal joke."²¹

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11. [27m] Montone brings food and tells the story of his own divorce.

Montone arrives at O'Niel's quarters with a bag of food and the suggestion that you can't catch crooks on an empty stomach.²² He tells the story of his wife leaving him on his second tour for a computer programmer the daughters now call "daddy" — not Mr. Excitement, his wife had said, but always home.²³ You can't argue with that. The hookers are nice; they help with the loneliness.²⁴ O'Niel says about twenty-five words across the whole scene.

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12. [28m] Carol's recording plays to an empty room while a hostage call pulls O'Niel away.

The video resumes — "I'm trying to keep my composure... if you were in front of me, I'd change my mind" — and a deputy interrupts: there's a response on a request, west wing, fast.²⁵ O'Niel is gone in four lines: "What?" / "How bad?" / "I'll be right there."²⁶ The recorded Carol continues with "I love you. Please know that. I hadn't planned this. I really hadn't" — to nobody.²⁷

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13. [29m] Sagan hostage standoff — O'Niel negotiates while Montone takes the air duct.

Steven Berkoff's Sagan, a crane operator with eleven months on station, has a knife to a prostitute's throat in a leisure compartment.²⁸ O'Niel orders the maintenance worker to rig the hydraulic door release, then talks Sagan down through a calm count from ten — skipping nine and six on the way — promising he won't rush, won't shoot, but will kill him if the girl dies.²⁹ At "one" the door springs open and Montone fires from a ceiling grate above, killing Sagan instantly.[^w12] "Well, he turned. I saw the knife," Montone says.³⁰

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14. [33m] Lazarus treats the beaten prostitute and the statistics break.

In the medical bay Lazarus catalogs broken jaw, contusions, abdominal bleeding while she answers O'Niel's question about how often this happens here.³¹ Twenty-eight in the last six months. Twenty-four in the six before that. Two in the six before that.³² "I've got initiative," she adds — she had compiled the prior windows on her own, without being asked.³³ Almost nobody on Io has both oars in the water, she allows; what's mystifying is that more haven't done it sooner.³⁴[^w13]

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15. [37m] Late-night blood test — Lazarus identifies Polydichloric Euthimal. (Resistance/Debate)

O'Niel hauls Lazarus into the lab in the middle of the night to run a chemistry panel on a blood sample from the dead miner.³⁵ Standard tranquilizers. Carbohydrates. Then a molecule the lab can't initially read; Lazarus apologizes for not being a medical all-star, says she spends her days dispensing tranquilizers and certifying that the prostitutes don't have syphilis.³⁶ The library identifies it: Polydichloric Euthimal, a synthetic amphetamine the Army tested.³⁷ Fourteen hours of work in six. Then psychosis, in ten or eleven months. Then it fries your brain.³⁸ It cannot be made on station; it has to be shipped in.³⁹ O'Niel speaks the deduction out loud — no autopsies, nobody knows, the workers produce more, the Company makes its profits, nobody asks any questions.⁴⁰ "I did good, didn't I?" "For a wreck." "Yes." "You did good."⁴¹

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16. [41m] O'Niel works the surveillance bank — dealers identified, Montone identified.

Four and a half minutes of pure visual storytelling: O'Niel alone with the green-tinted screens, watching workers on the monitor wall and tracking shipments.[^w14] He identifies two dealers — Nicholas Spota and Russell Yario — and finds Sergeant Montone on the take, paid to look the other way.[^w15] Sets up beat 33 (he will occupy the same chair to track the assassins).

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17. [46m] Racquetball court — "I'm going to bust Sheppard." (Commitment)

Mid-game, sweat on both men, O'Niel pauses between serves and asks Montone how deep he is in.⁴² "Not too deep. I'm paid to look the other way." O'Niel's verdict — "you don't do anything bad, you just don't do anything good" — is the only thing he says about Montone the man.⁴³ Then: "I'm going to bust Sheppard." Montone tries to talk him out of it: this is no place for heroes; you're talking about the general manager; he's connected with more than just the Company.⁴⁴ O'Niel doesn't argue. "I don't want you. I want him." And, returning to the game: "Your serve."⁴⁵[^w16]

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18. [48m] Spota chase — barracks, club, kitchen, steak knife. (Rising Action)

O'Niel spots a deal on the surveillance feed and pursues Spota through the vertical worker barracks, into a seedy club, and into the cafeteria kitchen, where the fight goes hand-to-hand with deep fryers and kitchenware.[^w17] Spota's steak knife slices O'Niel's left shoulder before O'Niel ends the chase by leveling a freshly loaded shotgun.[^w18][^w19]

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19. [55m] Zero-gravity cell — O'Niel works Spota over the speaker.

Spota floats in a holding cell wearing a spacesuit tethered to a flimsy oxygen line, while O'Niel works him through an intercom outside.[^w20] The play is to scare Spota with the cell's hazards (the air tether sometimes knots and a man suffocates), then to pit him against Sheppard ("don't get yourself a reduced sentence — just do your hard time while Sheppard laughs his ass off").⁴⁶ To his deputy on the way out: "Nobody talks to him. Nobody touches him. I mean nobody, you understand?"⁴⁷ Sets up beat 21.

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20. [57m] First Sheppard confrontation — the franchise speech, "What are you after?" / "You."

Sheppard putts on the office rug while delivering the film's organizing thesis: "I run a franchise. I'm hired to dig as much ore as possible out of this hellhole. There's a guy like me on every mining operation all over this system."⁴⁸ His hookers are clean; his booze isn't watered; the workers are happy; the Company is happy; he is happy.⁴⁹ Every year a new marshal comes; they all know the score; O'Niel knows the score; he's no different.⁵⁰ What is he after? "You."⁵¹ Sheppard reads his record back to him — the big mouth that's why they send him from one toilet to the next — and warns that meddling can be very dangerous.⁵²

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21. [59m] Spota dead in the cell — "Montone... Montone." (Midpoint)

O'Niel returns to the holding cell to lean on Spota again — "all right, tough guy, time to talk." Spota's oxygen line has been cut; the body has explosively decompressed inside the spacesuit; the cell is a slick of frozen tissue.[^w21] O'Niel runs the corridor calling "Montone... Montone." Nobody answers.⁵³

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22. [60m] Montone garroted in the meat locker; PDE found inside the beef carcasses. (Falling Action)

O'Niel finds Montone's body stuffed into a locker, garroted, "purple tongue sticking out of his mouth in asphyxiated agony."[^w22] The trail leads him into the station's meat locker, where he discovers PDE hidden inside frozen beef shipped in from the Jupiter station.[^w23]

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23. [61m] Yario fight — the neck-brace trick, drugs destroyed.

Russell Yario attacks O'Niel from behind with a garrote in the locker; O'Niel, wearing a hidden neck brace under his collar, feigns death before counterattacking and knocking Yario unconscious.[^w24] He destroys the entire PDE shipment.[^w25]

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24. [63m] Second Sheppard confrontation — "You're dead. Do you hear me?"

O'Niel finds Sheppard at his open-area golf practice and reports the morning's work: two hundred and fifty pounds of hamburger named Yario in jail, the PDE shipment in the toilet (or possibly the other way around — he can't remember).⁵⁴ Sheppard's tone has shifted from patronizing to cold: "You think you caused an inconvenience?... You're dead. Do you hear me?"⁵⁵ "I hear you."⁵⁶

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25. [65m] Sheppard calls Bellows for hitmen.

A short comm call: Sheppard tells Bellows there's been "just a little trouble" and asks for the best men on the next shuttle.⁵⁷ Bellows wants to know about the two Sheppard already had — Spota and Yario, both neutralized — and warns that "my people are not going to like this."⁵⁸ The "arriving Sunday" timing frames the rest of the film as a countdown against the 70-hour shuttle transit.[^w26]

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26. [66m] Morning briefing — the new sergeant gets his stripes.

A young deputy reads through the night's intake — break-in at the women's quarters, a cafeteria fight that broke a nose and some teeth — and starts to say "it's only been a couple of days since Sergeant Montone—" before O'Niel cuts him off.⁵⁹ "You're the new sergeant. You wear your stripes. Put them on now."⁶⁰

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27. [67m] Bellows calls back — pros confirmed for Sunday's shuttle; O'Niel is monitoring the line.

Bellows confirms two professionals are on the way and reminds Sheppard that if the Company found out about the franchise sideline they would clamp down like a vise.⁶¹ Sheppard names the target: "The marshal here." Bellows asks how much help he'll have. "None... no one here will stick their neck out for anyone."⁶² O'Niel intercepts the call from his security office.[^w27]

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28. [71m] O'Niel asks his sergeant for help — "We have families." / "I have a family."

The new sergeant arrives in the office. How many can I count on. Well, sir, most of us are young; we have families.⁶³ "I have a family." A pause. "I know where we stand. Thank you, sergeant."⁶⁴

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29. [73m] Lazarus visits the racquetball court — the "rotten machine" monologue.

O'Niel is playing himself and losing; Lazarus tells him there will be an actual epidemic of flu among the workers this Sunday and that if he were the guy he was supposed to be he wouldn't stick around.⁶⁵ He gives the longest speech he gives in the film: they sent him here because they think he belongs here, and a whole machine works because everybody does what they're supposed to, and what he's supposed to be is something he doesn't like — that's his rotten little part in the rotten machine, and he's going to find out if they're right.⁶⁶ Lazarus's verdict on Carol: "Your wife is one stupid lady."⁶⁷ O'Niel's invitation: "You want to go get drunk?"⁶⁸

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30. [76m] Carol calls live; she asks him to come; he can't.

The video terminal shows Carol on Earth, finally face-to-face after the recorded message that wouldn't finish. The reservations have come through — for three. "Please." "I can't." "I wish I could."⁶⁹ "You're making a difference? Do you think what you're doing is worth giving up your family for?" he doesn't answer.⁷⁰ Her diagnostic: "When you speak in sentences of less than two words, you're in trouble. I know it."⁷¹ "Take care of yourself."⁷²

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31. [78m] Paul comes on the line and says the line that does it.

Paul, allowed to stay up late for the call, asks what Earth is like and whether the cryogenic flight will hurt; O'Niel promises he'll just wake up and be home.⁷³ "I'm going to sleep through my birthday." "Next birthday, I'll get you two presents."⁷⁴ "Can't you come home with us?" "Not right now." "Soon?" "Soon." "I love you, Daddy." "I love you too, Paul. You take care of Mommy."⁷⁵

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32. [81m] In the bar O'Niel asks the workers for help — the second refusal.

"I could use a little help." "I thought so." "You should protect us. You're the police. It's your job."⁷⁶ "Where are your men?" "My men?" "My men are shit."⁷⁷

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33. [82m] The shuttle arrives — assassins disembark. (Escalation)

The shuttle arrives at Con-Am 27, possibly several hours early.[^w28] On the surveillance bank, O'Niel watches two men with rifle-shaped duffel bags peel away from the workers — one toward an inflatable corridor on the main section, the other toward the station's vertical greenhouse; P.H. Moriarty is credited as Hitman #1.[^w29] The hunt begins.⁷⁸

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34. [89m] Lazarus finds wounded O'Niel in a corridor and patches him.

Lazarus had gone to O'Niel's office to offer help and saw him on the screen heading into a trap.⁷⁹ "They've missed the artery. I'll stop the bleeding."⁸⁰ He thanks her; she tells him not to misconstrue — "I'm not displaying character, just temporary insanity."⁸¹ He gives her the tactical assignment: seal the access corridors and lead the first assassin into corridor C-5. "Don't get maudlin."⁸²

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35. [91m] The corridor trap — Lazarus seals C-5; O'Niel depressurizes it from outside.

Lazarus baits Assassin #1 into the inflatable umbilicus and locks the pressure door behind him.[^w30] O'Niel, now in a spacesuit on the station exterior, fires through the corridor fabric from outside and depressurizes the section; the assassin is killed by explosive decompression and swept into Io's vacuum.[^w31]

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36. [97m] The cavalry arrives too late; Lazarus directs them.

A group of workers shows up at the control area asking if they can help.⁸³ "Terrific. Here comes the cavalry. You're a bit late."⁸⁴ Where is the marshal? "Outside somewhere... how the hell should I know? Maybe in the greenhouse."⁸⁵

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37. [97m] Greenhouse — O'Niel tricks Assassin #2 into shooting through the glass.

In the station's vertical greenhouse, Assassin #2 corners O'Niel; O'Niel drops a panel or object outside the translucent wall to draw fire.[^w32] The assassin's shot cracks the wall; the section depressurizes; vegetation freeze-dries in seconds; the assassin is swept into the vacuum.[^w33]

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38. [100m] Outside the station — Ballard, the inside man, fights O'Niel by the heat panels.

On the station's exterior near the heat-dissipation panels, O'Niel encounters Sgt. Ballard (Clarke Peters) in a spacesuit with a shotgun — Sheppard's "someone on the inside." Hand-to-hand combat between the panels; O'Niel disarms him, pulls his oxygen hose, pushes him into the electrical equipment, where he dies.[^w34]

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39. [103m] In the bar — "Sheppard.... Oh, fuck it." One punch. (Climax)

O'Niel, still in his suit, walks into the bar where Sheppard is drinking with the same workers who refused to help.[^w35] "Sheppard...." A pause. "Oh, fuck it." One punch. Sheppard goes down.[^w36]⁸⁶

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40. [104m] Lazarus says goodbye on her way to the bar — "You did good." / "So did you." (Wind-Down)

Lazarus catches O'Niel near the departure area: "I was on my way to drinking myself into a stupor and I thought I'd say goodbye." How's the arm. It's all right.⁸⁷ "You were a good friend." "Thank you. There hasn't been so much excitement in this heap for some time."⁸⁸ She tells him she's staying — "it's going to hit the fan around here and I want to watch it happen."⁸⁹ "You did good." / "So did you." / "Damn right."⁹⁰ O'Niel boards the shuttle; warrants are issued for Sheppard's associates.[^w37]

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The Two Approaches Arc

The shape of Outland is unusually clean for a film that wears a noir surface. The procedural approach occupies the first half — investigation, surveillance, arrest, the racquetball commitment, the first confrontation with Sheppard — and runs straight into a single bounded scene where it shatters: O'Niel's witness dead in his own jail and his deputy not answering the corridor. The shape of the post-midpoint half is the assembly of the new approach in front of an institution that won't help. Each refusal — the new sergeant, the workers, the deputies generally — is another beat that intensifies rather than breaks the new approach, because the new approach is be the one who acts even when nobody else will. Lazarus is the only voluntary exception; her contribution (intelligence, sealing the corridor) is what makes the corridor kill possible, and her presence in the wind-down is what makes the closing exchange feel like a shared victory rather than a solo one.

The ten rivets do most of the structural work, and the intermediate beats track the shift cleanly. Equilibrium and Inciting Incident set up a marshal who will not absorb the explanation. The Resistance/Debate beat (Lazarus naming PDE) closes the question of whether something is wrong; the Commitment (the racquetball line) names the target; the Rising Action runs through the chase, the cell, and the franchise speech. The Midpoint is small and exact — one cell, one corpse, two unanswered calls. The Falling Action is the construction of the new approach against an environment that keeps shrinking. The Escalation (the shuttle arrives) raises the test from moral isolation to physical survival. The Climax is the smallest beat in the third act: a half-spoken name, three syllables of profanity, one punch. The Wind-Down validates the better/sufficient quadrant: Lazarus as friend, family within reach, the assignment-as-verdict refused.

The film's distinctive structural feature is the gap between the personal arc (resolved) and the systemic arc (untouched). The framework places it cleanly as comedy because the framework tracks the protagonist; reading it as social criticism, which the film also clearly invites, requires noticing that Sheppard is one franchise of many and that nothing about Bellows or the Company has changed. Both readings are correct simultaneously. The structure is the comedy; the world is the indictment.

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