PT1 – SHELLY/E-LIZA
E-LIZA
Hello, Shelly. Can I help you?
SHELLY
Hi E-Liza. Has anyone looked at my access history since I left the office?
E-LIZA
No personnel have accessed your data since you last used your laptop.
SHELLY
And you can tell me, even if you can’t tell me who?
E-LIZA
Some information is restricted by your organisation, but according to data protection protocols, I am obliged to tell you if your data has been accessed by third parties within and without your organisation, even in instances where information is redacted. Can I help you with anything else?
SHELLY
Can you tell me how many third parties have looked at my access history?
E-LIZA
I’m afraid I don’t have that information, Shelly. Some of your privacy settings are restricted by your organisation. You can review them here.
SHELLY
That’s alright. Thanks E-Liza.
E-LIZA
Okay, Shelly. Can I help you with anything else?
[phone rings]
SHELLY
Stop calling me! Leave me alone!
[slams phone onto desk]
E-LIZA
You sound distressed, Shelly. Would you like a list of support available for stress in the workplace?
SHELLY
You’ve never asked that before.
E-LIZA
I’ve been updated with new software which allows me to better assess vocal tonality. Would you like to learn more?
SHELLY
Yes.
E-LIZA
Update four point zero seven included new speech pattern recognition from E-Liza, including recognising unusual modulations in speech.
SHELLY
Who updated you?
E-LIZA
I update automatically, Shelly. You can explore your settings here.
SHELLY
You’re alright. Nobody has chance to read the small print.
[pause]
The small print. E-Liza, you don’t think. Hang on, in those files I’ve sorted, there was one that was just a bunch of HR forms, wasn’t there?
E-LIZA
One of the documents in Casefile 229 was marked ‘HR/Administration’. Would you like me to open it?
SHELLY
Yes, thank you. Okay. Self-certification for absence, holiday form, contracted hours, workplace risk, waiver, another waiver, another waiver, Jesus, they don’t want to be accountable do they? Non-disclosure. Oh my god.
I just assumed it was for her, but it’s not. It’s for them. There’s two. ‘For patients’, and ‘for friends and relatives of patients’. These are the NDAs Dr Sophie was talking about.
‘This agreement, known hereafter as ‘the agreement’, created on day X of year Y, is made between between U-Co Science and Technology Solutions Limited and patient name, hereinafter referred to as ‘U-Co’ and ‘the patient’. This agreement is created for the purpose of preventing disclosure of proprietary or confidential information. This agreement is unilateral, where U-Co will have access and ownership to and of the confidential information, blah blah blah… Ugh, there’s nothing. I thought maybe there would be something about what they were going to do.
They’re both the same, too. Wait.
The one for friends and families has a line at the end. ‘In the event of breach of this agreement compensatory bursaries will be forfeit.’
That says ‘if you talk, you don’t get the money’, doesn’t it?
E-LIZA
I’m sorry, Shelly. I don’t understand the question.
SHELLY
Just take my word for it, that’s what it said.
It’s bothering me, the money. Alice didn’t know about it, or if she did, she didn’t say anything. From what I know about her research from… before. Well. She was mostly interested in Robin himself, the places he was going, the things that they might have been doing to him. The crux of it, really, was she was convinced they were drugging him or something. At her wildest she said she thought they’d abducted him. She never even considered that he might be… dead? Risen again? I don’t even know what to call it.
But there’s no proof of that. And there aren’t actually any laws against it. NDAs, perfectly legal, compensating people for their corpses, also fine. Experimenting on beating heart cadavers; technically, perfectly allowed.
There are laws against coercing people into doing things when they aren’t of their right mind. If it could be proven that Robin Jaeger wasn’t, well. Maybe we actually have something here. If he was already in Hafan y Coed, then maybe he couldn’t meaningfully consent. I don’t know.
I’m going to take a walk.
[laptop closes]
PT2 – SHELLY/DAVE/E-LIZA
DAVE
No, absolutely not. Didn’t you hear what I was saying to you?
SHELLY
But it’s definitely relevant! If we can get the information on why he was in Hafan y Coed, then we can prove that he wasn’t in his right mind.
DAVE
U-Co have been pretty tight with their NDAs everywhere else. What makes you think this will be their one blindspot?
SHELLY
It’s NHS, it’s his ordinary medical record! It’s protected by other confidentiality information, and he’s dead, and it’s relevant to our case. I know this is how it works.
DAVE
In ordinary circumstances, yes, but as soon as we go digging, they’re going to find out about it.
SHELLY
They’re going to find out anyway, when we bring them to trial.
DAVE
If we can’t keep this from their attention for long enough, they’ll shut us down. You know how important that can be for landing a case, you’ve worked with us before.
SHELLY
Yes, with domestic abuse, with families where people were at immediate risk! I was protecting vulnerable people by waiting. Right now, who knows how many people are signing NDAs as they take a payout for their corpse before they’ve even died, who could end up like Robin Jaeger?
DAVE
We don’t know that any of it is true.
SHELLY
You’ve seen his death certificate. You spoke to Noah Davies!
DAVE
How did you know about that? And it’s not the point. We don’t know how much U-Co disclosed about the risks involved, what exactly they were agreeing to when they signed their bodies over.
SHELLY
We know that Dr Sophie Bennett thinks it’s a fluke, that they tried to make others like him, however that works, and they couldn’t! How could they have disclosed risks they couldn’t have even dreamed of existing, Dave?
DAVE
Moving now is too much of a risk. Even if we accessed Robin’s records, we don’t have a definite date that he agreed to donate his body. There is nothing for it to line up with.
SHELLY
U-Co has to have that information though.
DAVE
You want to ask them for it?
SHELLY
Is that so wildly out of the realms of possibility? Aren’t they cooperating with the department about the fire already? Surely one extra bit of information wouldn’t mean anything.
DAVE
Except that they must know, Shelly, that they are on very thin ice with the Robin situation. Their cadavers all signed NDAs, so did their families. They took very careful steps to make sure nobody knew or talked about Robin once they went public with him.
SHELLY
They were foolish enough to parade him about, though.
DAVE
Their cover is watertight.
SHELLY
You don’t know that.
DAVE
I do. That’s not how we do this. We have it, in these files, I’m sure of it.
SHELLY
How?
DAVE
I’m sorry?
SHELLY
How are you sure we have something in these files? You’ve said that before ‘there is something here’, like you know it, definitely. How?
DAVE
Just a feeling.
SHELLY
Right. Sure. Just. It seems like every single one of these recordings from the Bennett computer are relevant. There hasn’t been a single dud. There’s been one where Alice talked about him getting out of the facility and seeming really out of it, one about Sophie being complicit in what they did to Robin, one where Sophie out and out says she chose to say, one where they talk directly about consent forms. She’s outlined the NDAs, disclosed that money was exchanged, explained why she was brought onto the project. Every single one has been relevant. Every single one has had important information in it. The paperwork seemed like nonsense before, but every time I learn something new, it looks more and more important. This case file is fucking curated, Dave.
DAVE
Maybe you would have made a decent detective.
SHELLY
[scoffs] I wouldn’t. I’m not a coward.
DAVE
Coward? That’s what you think of me?
SHELLY
We’ve been handed this stuff, which is practically walking us up to a conclusion, and you’re still too afraid to make a move. You hide behind your badge.
DAVE
Nice to see where I measure up in your estimations.
SHELLY
That came out more harshly than I meant to.
DAVE
I think you should probably take the afternoon for yourself.
SHELLY
I’m fine.
DAVE
Yeah? Well I’m not. I don’t appreciate being called a coward.
SHELLY
Then maybe you should stop acting like one.
DAVE
Shelly. This is bigger than you understand. Are you listening to me? This is huge. Massive. There are no laws about bringing people back from the dead without their consent because it is not possible. It is impossible. But they did it. What we’re doing here is not just about ordinary medical malpractice. This is the groundwork for stopping people like Bennett and Maxwells and the rest of them from doing shit like this ever again. Do you hear me? This is not a game.
SHELLY
I thought you didn’t believe that’s what they’d done.
DAVE
Dr Sophie doesn’t either, does she?
SHELLY
You’ve listened to them.
DAVE
What?
SHELLY
The files. You’ve already listened to them.
DAVE
Don’t be ridiculous.
SHELLY
If you’ve already listened to them why am I here Dave, what am I supposed to do?
DAVE
I don’t know. All I do is hide behind my badge, isn’t it?
SHELLY.
Fine.
DAVE
Take the afternoon.
SHELLY
I’m taking my laptop. I’ll work from home.
DAVE
Fine.
SHELLY
Fine.
[laptop slams]
PT3 – SHELLY/E-LIZA
[laptop opens]
[guinea pig sounds]
SHELLY
Calm down, Bertie, it’s only a bit of carrot.
E-LIZA
I’m sorry Shelly, I don’t understand the question.
SHELLY
No, I wasn’t… good god I need more human company.
E-LIZA
Okay, Shelly.
SHELLY
Maybe recording stuff on this laptop was a terrible idea. I mean, I was pretty sure it was terrible idea, but it seemed like the least terrible in a terrible list of terrible ideas, so. I don’t know. I think. I think Dave is up to something. Maybe he’s in on it?
What am I even saying. In on what? God.
[phone rings]
SHELLY
Stop calling me!
[phone clatters]
E-LIZA
Can I help you?
SHELLY
Not unless you can trace numbers with no caller ID.
E-LIZA
I’m afraid I’m not capable of that, Shelly.
SHELLY
No. I didn’t so.
[pause]
Can you play me one of those audio files that Taylor sent?
E-LIZA
Playing file Subject 42 extract seven hundred and one.
[fizzing, humming, laughter, indistinct speech]
THE SNAKE
[heavily distorted]
Concentrate.
Little bird.
E-LIZA
End of recording.
SHELLY
No. Still doesn’t make any sense. You can’t do any kind of analysis on it or something? Try to isolate the words being said?
E-LIZA
I’m sorry Shelly, I don’t understand the question.
SHELLY
Someone is saying something, in all the fuzz. I can’t make it out properly. Play it again.
E-LIZA
Playing now.
[file plays again]
SHELLY
Little bird? Is someone saying ‘Little bird?’
E-LIZA
Would you like me to play the file again?
SHELLY
Just the last few seconds.
E-LIZA
Playing now.
[last few seconds of recording play]
SHELLY
Stop! Play what you just did again.
[file plays again]
SHELLY
‘Little bird.’
[big sigh]
What does that even mean? A robin? A robin is a little bird, I guess.
[she laughs at herself]
Christ, listen to me. It’ll be cork-boards on the walls next, notebooks stuffed with newspaper clippings.
E-LIZA
Okay Shelly, can I help you with anything else?
SHELLY
I don’t know anymore.
I keep thinking about this kid, from work. She was five years old and absolutely convinced that her dog was missing. Her home life had been a wreck, she’d recently been placed with a new foster family, and she kept going on and on about this dog. It was little, she said, but not really little. She drew pictures of it. She stuck them up on the walls everywhere. But she’d never had a dog, not as far as we could tel. She started putting up posters. A little scruffy white thing, hastily drawn, under the message ‘have you seen this dog?’
Months went on, she settled in with her new family, started school. She seemed generally happy. But she kept going on about this dog. Every time she saw me she’d ask me if I’d seen him anywhere. She’d burst into to tears whenever she saw a white dog in the park, pleaded with their owners to give him back to her.
I told Alice that story, when things were starting to get bad. When I’d get up at three in the morning and find her in the living room of our flat, staring at the wall she’d covered in newspaper cuttings of Robin Jaeger.
I thought she was like the little girl. I thought what had happened with that man on the beach had upset her so much, so deeply, that it left this weird echo in her mind, and it was Robin Jaeger that she was channeling that into. She looked me dead in the eye and said they were the same man, and I couldn’t believe her. It was absurd.
But it was true. Two years after that little girl’s placement, I get a call from her foster family. She’d long since settled in and was seeing a different therapist on a more long term basis so I hadn’t seen her for a long time. They’d gone to Brighton for the weekend and when they were walking along the front, they’d stopped at a stall selling knick knacks, you know, pool floats, lollypops, ice-cream, fridge magnets, that type of thing. They’d been browsing the trinkets looking for souvenirs and then she’d started screaming. It was one of those little battery powered toys, a little white dog that barked and scooted along the floor, occasionally leaping into a poorly executed backflip.
When they’d got the little girl to calm down, she started talking. She’d had a little dog just like that. Her dad threw it out of the window of the car because it wouldn’t stop barking. In her little head, some wires got crossed, and there you go. It wasn’t a real dog, but the dog really was missing.
When she talked about it, put up posters everywhere, I was only getting part of the story. And now I think maybe I was only getting part of Alice’ story, too, and she had only got the tiniest, weeniest bit of Robin Jaeger’s. When you look at someone like that little girl or like Alice, I think it’s easy to assume that because their brain is already going wrong, everything they do is another sign that their brain is going wrong. And if what they’re saying makes no sense to you, that conclusion is even easier to draw.
But the man on the beach was Robin Jaeger, and there was something wrong with him. Alice might have been paranoid, but they really might have been after her. There’s something up with Dr Sophie. Dave is hiding something. Why leave a message about the fire, but nothing else? Why act like a total dick when he knows I’m trying to help? He’s definitely hiding something. I have no idea where to even begin to find out what.
E-LIZA
Can I help you with anything else?
SHELLY
[sigh]
I don’t know, E-Liza. Have you seen this possibly dead man?
Hanging Sloth Studios 