Cornered in the Io lab, Strickland murders his handler, poses as a coerced victim who 'saved' the children — and is executed by Amos when the mask slips.
Strickland — the trusted family doctor who abducted Mei, revealed as ex-Protogen scientist 'Carlos Merrian' — is found in the lab's specimen gallery, gun in hand, refusing his security handler's plea to give up the children as his 'one bargaining chip.' When Prax and Amos arrive, he shoots the woman dead and instantly flips to the reassuring doctor's smile, thanking God they came and spinning a tale of being a coerced prisoner who 'saved' the kids by pulling them off the second-generation units after Mei became the face everyone hunted. He begs to be taken to the authorities to expose the crimes. Amos isn't buying — 'You're one of Protogen's pet sociopaths' — and the mask drops to cold rage ('Protogen's dead').
Strickland pleads with his one true good deed (sparing the children from being made 'worse than dead'), but Prax, holding Mei, tells him revenge no longer matters and declines to shoot. Strickland relaxes, thumbs his pistol's safety on in relief — and Amos's auto-shotgun takes his head off. He dies mid-self-justification, executed for his crimes.
A doctor with a practiced, reassuring bedside smile that drops to a cold-rage mask; killed by a shotgun blast that removes his head, arms falling limp.
Ex-Protogen child-experimenter and Mei's abductor, executed by Amos in the Io lab.