| Adam Baylin | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||||||||
|
Adam Baylin was the only living result of a scientific experiment to prolong gestation to increase brain development. He was said to be the most brilliant student in the Science department at the University of Washington. He and his professor, William Kern, founded a secret organization called Zzyzx to continue the experiments using artificial wombs. Zzyzx was financed by a secret society called Latnok that Adam was part of. Adam went into seclusion for many years, continuing to develop his mind and special abilities.
Family & Relationship
Parents
- Mother was not named, she died from his birth
Children
- Kyle with no resolved identity of the mother
Relationships
- Sarah Emerson - college girlfriend
Before Season 1
We learn of Adam from before the story in two main ways: Kyle's developing memory, and Adam instructing Kyle in season 2.
Adam was created as an embryo that was implanted into a surrogate mother and gestated for thirteen months. The mother died during his birth, so he never had any family. He grew up with Brian Taylor as his friend. Adam was a brilliant science student at University of Washington, where Professor Kern studied brain development. The three of them formed a private company, that Adam named Zzyzx, to develop an artificial womb where a fetus could be kept for longer development.
Adam found a remote location for the secret underground research compound, and also designed its identifying symbol. He disappeared from college to devote his time to the experiments. The experiments were supported by another secret organization called Latnok. Adam designed the symbol they used for an identifying ring, and he was a member. During this time, Adam had a girlfriend from college named Sarah Emerson. They often met at JP's Diner, where their picture was taken by Brian. After a nervous breakdown, she disappeared and was assumed dead.
Kern wanted to use the experimental fetus as a living super-computer, and Latnok agreed with him. Kern took over Zzyzx and had Adam violently thrown out. The last thing that Adam did there was to put something in a box that he put in a hidden wall safe. Brian tricked Adam into thinking that he was on his side, but Brian stayed with Zzyzx. They remained close friends while Adam lived in seclusion. Adam was somehow rich enough to continue working to develop his mind and other abilities. He arranged for Tom Foss to work as a security guard at Zzyzx to keep track of his last experiment, 781227 XY, which Kern manipulated while "it" (Kyle) kept growing in the tank.
Season 1
Kyle joins Declan and Lori on a trip to UW because he wants to learn more about Professor Kern. While talking with Anna, Kern's research assistant, Kyle sees a photo in a display case. There are four students in the picture, and one is identical to Kyle. Anna learns the student's name and finds the department secretary who remembers him: Adam Baylin. They are allowed to look through Adam's papers, which he left behind when he disappeared twenty years ago. In the boxes, Kyle finds a sketch sheet showing the symbol in his own drawings and found with the body of Kern, and the geographic coordinates he had repeated under hypnosis. That begins his quest for Adam.
Adam has been keeping track of Kyle through Foss, who talks to him on the phone. We hear the unknown voice tell Foss that there is a plan to take Kyle away from danger. Following that, the Petersons claim to be Kyle's parents. Kyle becomes so troubled by the Petersons expecting to take him away, that he is at the point of looking for a guiding saint, as suggested by Amanda. Adam makes his first appearance by sitting down next to Kyle in an empty church. Neither Kyle nor the viewer knows who the stranger is or why he wants to give Kyle comfort and advice. He tells Kyle "There's someone out there who made you, he cares about you very much....and he wants you to have the answers to all of your questions."
Foss tells Kyle that he must go with the Petersons to protect the Tragers. They take him to meet Adam at his palatial home. Adam and Kyle look very much like.
Season 2
While welcoming Kyle to his home, Adam makes a glass of water slide across the table and says "The magic is in your mind, you only need to discover and release it." Starting at the beginning, Adam explains about earlier attempts to increase brain power by increasing gestation time, including his own origins. Kyle learns that Adam created him to test an artificial womb that would allow more developed brains to advance civilization. With no mother at risk, there also was no umbilical cord, and so no bellybutton. Adam created Zzyzx to conduct the experiments.
While Kyle is talking on the computer with Josh and Lori, Adam falls. As Kyle and Foss (who is now the security guard there) rush to him, a man in a business suit is already helping Adam get back in his chair. Kyle meets Brian Taylor, a long-time friend who, Adam says, "made my dreams a reality." Later, when Kyle objects to being left in the tank at Zzyzx, Adam explains about Latnok being great humanitarians with a noble purpose. During the first lesson in moving the glass of water, Adam says the goal is "change within, to change the world around" so as to move "the content, the glass is just the container." He tells Kyle "Free your mind. Concentrate." Adam is surprised and pleased that Kyle knows Hungarian, and proud that he appreciates "content" rather than the outside container.
While Kyle is later talking to Lori and Declan on the computer, Adam falls again. He explains that pushing his mind has cost his body: "My body is failing me....You have to condition yourself, or you're going to die too young." Kyle's computer was connected long enough for the location to be traced. Two days later, Kyle finds Adam closing a discussion with Brian, who reminds Adam that he has always cared about him. Kyle expresses worry about the timer, but Adam did not want to tell Foss. Adam says "I want you to remember this moment." Adam turns away to do something, saying "Your mind is a powerful tool. Develop it, protect it, use it wisely." Turning back to Kyle, "But more important than your mind, it's your soul that touches people. You can touch the world, Kyle. It's who you are. It's who you're meant to be."
Kyle is next seen drawing all four Tragers while sitting at a piano. In a fit of home-sickness, he argues with Adam about being there instead of with his family. He criticizes Adam for putting him in the tank and even for creating him. Adam is hurt, and explains that he had been both very strange and very lonely himself. He asks Kyle to forgive him someday. Kyle shows his understanding and acceptance of how much they share by going to the water glass to try again to move it. The water becomes so agitated by Kyle's efforts that the glass shatters.
Adam is very happy, but in the next moment has been shot. He dies on the floor with Kyle weeping over him, saying "There's still so much you can teach me." Wearing a dark suit, Kyle takes a small urn to the edge of a deep river gorge and pours out what seems to be Adam's ashes.
Adam appears in flashback memories that Kyle experiences while exploring the remains of the Zzyzx compound on an outing that Lori proposed. He sees the events mentioned above as Before Season 1, and retrieves a box Adam had put in the wall safe. Kyle also has visions, one including Adam. He has a dream in which he discovers "holistic memory" that allows him to move around in the moment Adam had told him to remember. Kyle sees Adam put a CD in a book that is then in the warehouse where he and Foss work. Figuring out how to play the disc lets him hear Adam explain that it was a test of his progress. The rest of the hidden message was to not trust Foss. That causes unnecessary trouble, because the message had been altered. Adam next appears in Kyle's imagination as the other side of Kyle's efforts to decide about finding Jessi and where to look.
Using a ring that Brian had given Kyle from Adam's belongings (detail omitted) to open Adam's box, Kyle finds a photo of Adam with Sarah, who looks exactly like Jessi. With the photo, the ring, and a remembered comment by Foss, Kyle and Jessi work together to find the place where the photo was taken, and then find a remote cabin. In the basement, they discover Adam laid out as an intensive care patient. Foss explains that the ashes were part of a plan to not involve Kyle in attempts to revive Adam, in case it failed.
Adam does recover, enough to later come to see Kyle at the warehouse. He tells him that Brian will harm Jessi, and that Latnok wants Kyle to take care of her. Adam admits that he had not been able to help Sarah when she was "falling apart", and that was why he left years ago. The 45 rpm record that he and Sarah had played at the diner has mysteriously appeared, and Adam is called by the Tragers to help Kyle figure out the meaning of the drawings Kyle makes after listening to the record. Trusting Kyle to handle things on his own, Adam returns to his solitude, and we do not see him again.
Season 3
After being absent, Foss returns to tell Kyle that Adam has truly died. A dubious claim about Kyle's mother could not be settled, because the series was canceled.
Appearances
Season 1
| 1x01 | 1x02 | 1x03 | 1x04 | 1x05 |
| 1x06 | 1x07 | 1x08 | 1x09 | 1x10 |
Season 2
| 2x01 | 2x02 | 2x03 | 2x04 | 2x05 | 2x06 * | 2x07 | 2x08 |
| 2x09 * | 2x10 | 2x11 | 2x12 * | 2x13 | 2x14 | 2x15 | 2x16 |
| 2x17 | 2x18 | 2x19 | 2x20 | 2x21 | 2x22 | 2x23 |
Appearances marked * are in flashbacks or in Kyle's unconscious mind.
Deceased
Deceased