A/N: A quick take on the failed 1986 TV pilot movie "I-Man" starring Scott Bakula.

Pilot Error: Cellular Coverage

The walk was wet from the drizzle that had fallen recently from the gray sky overhead, but Art Bogosian's mood was was anything but dark as he almost sprinted up the steps of the NASA facility in Houston. Karen McCorder, a fellow member of the Internal Security Agency, hurried to keep up with the man. For someone who was middle-aged and balding, Bogosian showed a great deal of energy as he hurried to interview the agency's latest discovery.

Cab driver Jeffrey Wilder had been walking across a football field with his son Eric when a NASA van crashed onto the grass. After pulling the driver free from the wreck, he was implored to save the tank inside the van - a tank containing space gas that had been returned to Earth from a NASA probe. Before he could completely remove the leaking tank the van exploded, severely burning him. Arriving at the hospital in critical condition, the ER doctors were astonished when his body began repairing itself. They were completely flabbergasted when he got up and walked out, only his clothes burned.

The ISA tracked him down to where he had been entering a convenience store and was shot by someone robbing the place; as the agents watched the wound it seemed to heal itself.

Now, two days later, Bogosian was responding to McCorder's incredible story of the man who seemed to be indestructible. The black eye that NASA had gotten over the loss of the probe's payload might be lessened somewhat by this find; then again, it could simply be wishful thinking and it turned out this Wilder was just fooling the scientists. He was here to find out for his department and see for himself.

Up ahead he saw Dr. Don Roberts, a friend and one of the leading scientists in the space medicine branch of the agency. He greeted his friend and got to the point quickly.

"We've given him every conceivable test" Don assured Art as they entered the building, barely slowing their pace.

"What tests?"

"We've done x-rays, CT scans, ultrasounds, blood and urine tests; all normal. We checked his nerve conductance, vision, hearing and even his smell; normal again. We ran a sample of under an electron microscope and..."

"...let me guess - normal" Art interrupted.

"Exactly. There are no signs of burns from the initial accident and the bullet that was lodged in his body is now gone." Don grabbed some X-rays on his desk as they passed, handing them to Art.

Bogosian stopped to study the X-rays. He hummed as he looked at them. "Does he have any, shall we say...super powers?"

"We threw him off a building and he didn't fly – he didn't even bounce. We dropped a boulder on him and he was crushed. No human fireball or lightning, no invisibility, no super speed, nothing at all - except you can't kill him. Whatever happens, his body covers the damage on a cellular level."

"Any other tests?" he asked as he handed the pictures back to Don.

"You have no idea" Karen said as she smiled.

Art gave her a scowl and Don continued. "On the premise that his body was constantly renewing itself, we felt that a few other tests were in order. The results all supported our premise, as, ah, informal as they might be."

"How informal, Don?" Bogosian asked as the scientist squirmed a little. It was like trying to describe a color using musical notes; it wasn't quantifiable but the situation called for thinking outside the box.

"I'll take this one" Karen volunteered. "We felt that we needed some real world applications to test, in case he was somehow cheating the tests. So we gave me a tattoo."

"A tattoo?"

"A small one! On his arm; we called in an artist who tried to ink one that said 'Cabbies take you all the way'. Before he could even finish, it was erasing itself" Karen said.

"So, he's a human Etch-a-Sketch. Anything else?"

"Oh, that was just the beginning. While we had the artist here, he tried to give Jeffrey a piercing; it healed up too - sealed completely in minutes."

"Should I ask where the piercing was?"

"No."

"Okay. What else? Maybe drop a nuclear bomb on him?"

"Of course not - we don't have one easily available. We tried to give him a haircut. His hair grew out to exactly the same length again and stopped" Don said, pretending to use scissors on his head.

"Now he's a Ken doll" Don said as he sighed. "And then?"

"We tried dying a small part of his hair green" she giggled. "It was absorbed into the body and his hair went back to the brown it was before."

"I'm glad someone is having fun with this" Art groaned. "Did you do anything serious?"

"Each one of these tests had scientific validity" Don explained, defending himself in a tone that indicated some annoyance. "We did make a small incision and immediately sewed it up; guess what happened?" Don asked.

"I think I already know what happened to the stitches. Why didn't you just go ahead and try acupuncture while you were at it?"

Don and Karen looked at each other. "We did" Karen admitted. "The part of the needle that was inside the skin was absorbed and the outside part just fell away. Mrs. Chung wasn't very happy after she ended up with a set of half-needles."

"So he's got tough skin and hair. I don't suppose he can tan now."

Don considered the question, unaware that it was sarcasm. "I don't think so; if he healed rapidly from burns, I don't think he should be able to achieve a tanned condition. We could paint his skin I think; the body would treat that like clothing and ignore it."

"Enough about his skin; what about inside the man?"

"He has what you could call a pre-cavity in a tooth, one that would usually be taken care of on a regular basis. We tried drilling it out and filling it in, but the work just got reversed. He won't get any new cavities, but he won't have perfect teeth either."

"We tried to get him drunk; it didn't work" Karen said as they started to walk again. "We gave him enough anesthesia to knock out a person twice his size but he just got a little drowsy for a bit. We ran 10000 volts through him, and we even tried poison with an antidote standing by; it turns out we didn't need it, of course, because all he got from it was bad breath for a bit. We even used him as a crash test dummy by putting him into a car and crashing it into a wall."

"How did he react?"

"He said 'Ouch' I believe."

Art rubbed his eyes while they walked, nearly running into a water dispenser. "Not a scratch I suppose."

"Oh, he was injured of course" Don explained. "He still gets damaged initially like you would expect; he even feels some of the pain you'd think would be a consequence of his injuries. But it's a magnitude of order less than it should be, and he always recovers. He could probably eat enough at a buffet to close down the restaurant and never gain weight. I just don't know how we're going to reconcile the principal of conservation of mass and energy" the scientist mused, thinking how much he'd like to study the patient for the next decade if it were possible.

"Is he...psychologically vulnerable?"

"We made him listen to one hour of disco music; he came out of the room screaming, so I guess the answer is yes - he can be tortured. The same applied when he watched an hour of political ads" Karen offered. "He's no different than us in that regard. If we tried to drown him he'd probably struggle, and I guess he'd probably attempt to run away from a bear."

They walked into a control room full of equipment and personnel. Down below, Jeffrey was running on a treadmill. "He doesn't sleep; he doesn't appear to need rest." During this time Art was focusing on the man running and found himself coming to a conclusion; he refocused on the conversation.

"What are you telling me?"

"I'm telling you Art, we have every reason to believe that Jeffrey Wilder is now an indestructible man."

The End

A/N: "We've given him every conceivable test." Well, when I heard that line I figured there were a few tests they didn't give him that they could have; after all, he was indestructible, right? If they weren't going to go into any detail then SOMEBODY has to do it…

This pilot was okay; I like the concept better than the execution. It was a Disney TV movie, so it was aimed at kids and the main character's son had the "smart person" role. The sound editing was poor, and of course the bad guy's minions couldn't aim worth beans; regardless, I still got some enjoyment from it after finding it on YT.