PT1 SHELLY/E-LIZA
SHELLY
Play it again.
THE SNAKE
[in recording]
Concentrate.
Little bird.
SHELLY
Again.
THE SNAKE
[in recording]
Concentrate
Little bird.
SHELLY
Concentrate, little bird.
Well it’s obviously talking about Robin. Play it again.
THE SNAKE
Concentrate.
Little bird.
SHELLY
Concentrate. Is it like, ‘concentrate little bird’, or is it like saying concentrate on little bird?
E-LIZA
I’m sorry Shelly, I don’t understand the question.
SHELLY
See I’ve listened to them all now, how many was it? Thirty? Forty?
E-LIZA
Forty two.
SHELLY
Most of them you can sort of hear voices in the background like… oh, which one was it?
[paper shuffling]
SHELLY
Extract 1974. Can you play it again?
E-LIZA
Playing now.
[distortion, humming, laughing, voices overlaid, crackling]
E-LIZA
End of recording.
SHELLY
Yeah, so you can hear people talking, but it’s as though it’s not recorded on purpose, like it’s a hidden microphone? Like someone is undercover? I don’t know. Do I sound crazy?
E-LIZA
I couldn’t say, Shelly.
SHELLY
[a note of humourless laughter]
Thanks, E-Liza, that’s very reassuring. Ugh, how am I supposed to bring this to Dave in a way that makes sense? [sigh] at this point I’m not even sure if that’s something I should even be doing. There’s no point even thinking about it until I can actually- oh I don’t even know what I’m trying to do. Organise my thoughts, I suppose?
[covers face with hands]
And we’re back to corkboards.
[uncovers face]
I should go into the department, shouldn’t I?
E-LIZA
Face-to-face interactions with colleagues improve working relationships.
SHELLY
Thanks for that. I’m starting to remember why I have you turned off on my personal laptop.
E-LIZA
Okay, Shelly. If you want to turn off voice responses, you can change your settings here.
SHELLY
No. You’re alright. I was just- Christ you’re a computer, you don’t have feelings to hurt, what am I saying?
But no, don’t turn off. It’s good to talk. It helps me think about this stuff. It’s kind of like the reverse of what I do for the kids I see at my real job.
[pause]
Oh no, you’re becoming my therapist.
E-LIZA
If you need emotional support-
SHELLY
What, you can give me the numbers for crisis lines? Thanks, E-Liza, but I’ll be alright.
[guinea pig sounds]
SHELLY
Sorry Bertie, I’m not usually this chatty in the mornings, am I? Do you want another bit of carrot?
[cage door clangs]
SHELLY
There you go. Lovely. You’re a lovely boy, Bertrand, a lovely little piggy. Yes you are.
[pause]
Little bird. It’s like a pet name. It’s like a pet name but whoever it is, they don’t say it like it’s a pet name. They say it like… I don’t know. [ominous voice] Little bird.
So far everything has been relevant. Every recording off Sophie’s computer. Every file attached. All of it has added up to say something coherent. These came from somewhere else but nobody seems to know where, not Taylor, and not Dave. Well. Dave says he doesn’t know. He says he doesn’t know where the Bennett recordings are from. And even you don’t have the details about who filed the complaint, do you?
E-LIZA
I’m sorry, Shelly, I don’t understand the question.
SHELLY
Who filed the complaint that started investigation 229?
E-LIZA
I’m afraid I don’t have that information, Shelly.
SHELLY
Fine, okay. Can I see the report?
E-LIZA
I don’t understand the question, Shelly.
SHELLY
What? The report. I know you can’t tell me who filed it but you can surely show me the redacted report for case 229?
E-LIZA
Case 229 is a folder on this computer’s hard drive, I’ve brought that window to the front.
SHELLY
What?
E-LIZA
I’ve brought the window displaying the contents of folder Case 229 to the front of your screen.
SHELLY
It’s just a folder?
E-LIZA
The folder contains 29 items, including-
SHELLY
No, I know what’s in it I just want to know if that’s all it is. Just a file on my computer. It’s not an official investigation?
E-LIZA
Case 229 is a folder originating on this computer’s hard drive. Can I help you with anything else?
SHELLY
But I’ve seen a screen shot of the report, it was in the email, when Dave was giving me access. I’ve seen… This is. This is just screen shot. There’s no report.
[pause]
Oh my god, there is no investigation.
E-LIZA
I’m afraid I don’t understand the question, Shelly.
[laptop clicks shut]
PT2 DAVE/SHELLY
[dial tone]
DAVE
Hello, you’ve reached Detective Inspector Dave Hughes. Please state your name and contact information and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.
[beep]
SHELLY
Hi, it’s Shelly. It’s about Case 229. Can you get back to me as soon as you get this? Thanks.
[click off]
[dial tone]
DAVE
Hello, you’ve reached Detective Inspector Dave Hughes. Please state your name and contact information and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.
SHELLY
You have to pick up your bloody phone at some point, Dave, I know it’s not an investigation. I know you’re having me on. Call me back.
[click off]
[dial tone]
DAVE
Stop calling this number.
SHELLY
I know you’re- what?
DAVE
I can’t talk about this on my work phone. I thought that would be pretty obvious. Come into the office tomorrow, we’ll go out for a coffee, and I’ll explain what I can.
SHELLY
What you can? What is that supposed to mean?
DAVE
Tomorrow. Alright?
SHELLY
Alright. Tomorrow.
[click off]
PT3 SHELLY/DAVE/E-LIZA
E-LIZA
Hi Shelly, can I help you?
SHELLY
You’re fine.
DAVE
Morning, Shelly.
SHELLY
Coffee?
DAVE
Have you listened to the one about the dreams yet?
SHELLY
What?
DAVE
The Bennett recording about the dreams. You’d know if you had. You’d remember.
SHELLY
You have listened to them.
DAVE
Just listen to it, alright?
SHELLY
Okay, which is it?
DAVE
E-Liza, play recording Bennett dot PC dot echoes one
E-LIZA
Playing file now.
[distortion, crackling]
PT4 SOPHIE/ALICE
ALICE
It’s not really the strict details of it I’m interested in, I just want the broad strokes. I’m not actually a neuroscientist. You remind me that often enough I’m kind of surprised you’ve conveniently let it slip your mind now.
SOPHIE
Sorry. It’s just hard to talk about this in ‘broad strokes’ terms.
ALICE
My mum says you that if you can’t explain something to a four year old, you don’t really understand it.
SOPHIE
You’re being unusually hard on yourself.
ALICE
I’m not saying my understanding of this is on a par with a four-year-old, but thanks. I just mean surely you can boil this down to the basic, core principals? Right?
SOPHIE
I don’t know. I don’t know if I do understand it.
ALICE
How encouraging. [sigh] You’re barely even trying.
SOPHIE
[deep breath]
Okay. So you understand the principle of brain death?
ALICE
Yeah. Your brain is dead. Straight forward, right?
SOPHIE
No. Not exactly. What might have constituted brain death forty years ago doesn’t any more. There’s nuance.
ALICE
So you’re saying it’s a grey matter?
SOPHIE
Yes. You’re very funny.
ALICE
Thanks. I do try.
SOPHIE
I know.
ALICE
So brain death isn’t just a dead brain.
SOPHIE
No. Our definitions of death have changed so much, what with the advent of heart bypass machines, life support, dozens of medical interventions that can sustain life far beyond what was possible for most of human civilisation.
A hundred years ago, if you couldn’t feel a pulse, that was as good a time as any to declare death. Now, not so much.
More recently than that, if there was no neurological activity in the brain itself, that was as a good a reason to call ‘brain death’ as any. But now, there are so many possible interventions. Well. The definition is actually different in several countries but the crux of the matter is this. For someone to be declared brain dead they need to have no activity in the brain or the brainstem. The brain stem is basically—
ALICE
The lizard brain. For breathing and temperature, all that jazz.
SOPHIE
Exactly. The definition is so extended because… well it’s to avoid medical mistakes and be as unambiguous as possible. But the problem is that it means that a lot of people are functionally dead, but there’s a tiny flicker of activity in the brain stem, so they can’t be declared brain dead.
ALICE
So, what, they just get kept alive on ventilators ad-infinitum?
SOPHIE
Well, no. Usually a doctor will discuss this with the family and they’ll make an argument to turn off life support, encouraging the family to be involved in the process.
ALICE
That’s rough. But what if they don’t want to be involved?
SOPHIE
Then the physician can step in.
ALICE
No, I mean, what if they say ‘no I want to keep him on the ventilator indefinitely’? Is there a limit to how long they can do that?
SOPHIE
That’s a complicated and entirely different question to the one you were asking.
ALICE
Okay, fine. I was just wondering. So for Robin, then. He was brain dead.
SOPHIE
Yes. No activity in the brain or the brain stem.
ALICE
And the synthnapses act as a sort of… fake relay for electrical information? Passing on the stuff from the brain that the brain stem would have done?
SOPHIE
Reductive explanation, but yes. Essentially, that’s what it does.
ALICE
So why did he wake up?
SOPHIE
We really don’t understand very much about the brain. It does have some regenerative properties, unlike the heart, for example. When a bit of a heart dies, that’s it. That’s why cardiac arrests are so dangerous. Brains starved of oxygen do sustain damage and often times that is irreparable but the brain will sometimes adapt and compensate for the damage, creating new pathways, new connections, diverting routes.
ALICE
Like how google maps corrects your route if you take a wrong turn.
SOPHIE
No. But that’s fine.
ALICE
So you put this junk in his head and it all connects up for some reason you don’t understand and there he is, breathing, moving around, thinking to some extent, all by himself.
SOPHIE
Which brings us up to your initial question.
ALICE
Yeah. Is he still brain dead after that happens?
SOPHIE
Well. The answer, straightforwardly, when you look at the legal definition, is no. I suppose. Because there is activity not coming from the deep brain stimuli we implanted themselves. Even though it couldn’t exist without the synthnapses, it is, technically, still there.
ALICE
And if he’s not brain dead, he’s not dead, is he.
SOPHIE
Well –
ALICE
You said brain death is the legal definition of death.
SOPHIE
What I said was it was more complicated now, with medical interventions, to determine and define death, and legally speaking, brain death, however it occurs, is as good a definition as we have of death. It’s not all encompassing.
ALICE
But you did just agree that he’s not brain dead. Surely you’re not arguing that everyone who’s alive because of medical interventions isn’t actually alive and doesn’t deserve any rights.
SOPHIE
Of course that’s not what I’m saying.
ALICE
So he’s not dead. Or. Well. Maybe he was then he wasn’t and maybe he is again. But from your little monitor thingy it looks like there’s some activity up there, even if he is in a coma
SOPHIE
Standard definitions of coma and vegetative states don’t apply here. He is unprecedented.
ALICE
Yeah, he’s a special little miracle, I get that.
SOPHIE
What we see in his brain activity are mostly echoes. More than anything else, they look like dreams.
ALICE
I’m sorry?
SOPHIE
Comparatively, the activity we see from Robin is most like the kind of activity people with ordinary brains have when they are in REM sleep. This is what I’m saying. It’s not thought, exactly, it’s just. Echoes.
ALICE
Echoes. Dreams. Sophie. Can you hear yourself? Do you have any idea what you’re saying? How can you think this is an argument for saying he’s dead when it’s clearly proof that he isn’t?
SOPHIE
Because he doesn’t know what it is! He doesn’t know who he is. He doesn’t know anything. These things just float around past this tiny flicker of something that I don’t know whether to call consciousness, but they’re not memories. They’re… disjointed, disconnected. They make no sense. There is no context. That’s why he’s so dangerous.
ALICE
Disconnected from what?
SOPHIE
When I talked to him, he could only really put together few bits and pieces and it was confused. I didn’t want to lead him or overwhelm him
ALICE
Not to mention you really want him to remember things, don’t you? That’d be great for your dementia research.
SOPHIE
That was also a factor, I admit. But I really do care for him. And I didn’t want to push him too hard and break whatever progress he’d already made. But he couldn’t remember his name, he could only remember ‘little bird’. He had no idea why or what it meant. He couldn’t remember Noah, and he couldn’t remember his time in the SAS… it was just ‘little bird’, and he didn’t know what the words themselves meant, either, let alone any of the context.
ALICE
The— The SAS. He was in the SAS.
SOPHIE
Come on, you were obsessed! You must have known that.
ALICE
I wasn’t obsessed. And I didn’t. I was more interested in you. In U-Co.
SOPHIE
How very ‘pot kettle’ of you.
ALICE
I was interested because I saw what state he was in and I wanted to know why!
SOPHIE
Do you know anything about his past? Who he was? The things he had done?
ALICE
I… No. Not really.
SOPHIE
You disgust me.
ALICE
Ditto.
SOPHIE
Ditto? You sit there, accusing me of failing to fully consider his humanity, and you’ve barely given a moment’s thought as to who he was before.
ALICE
I was more interested in what he’d become.
SOPHIE
So was I!
ALICE
That is not the same thing.
SOPHIE
I fail to see this incredibly nuanced distinction you’re apparently perceiving.
ALICE
You just told me he can dream!
SOPHIE
I told you it was like dreaming! It’s why he repeats things like ‘little bird’ over and over, I never said—
[she would have said ‘I never said it actually was dreaming’]
THE SNAKE
Little bird… little bird…
ALICE
Fuck. Sophie. Did you hear that?
SOPHIE
It’s nothing.
ALICE
Your computer just whispered, Sophie!
SOPHIE
It’s the data readings. Sometimes it sounds like words, when it’s processing, but it isn’t. You’re imagining it.
ALICE
I did not imagine it and it was not ‘like words’, it was like it said ‘little bird’! We were just talking about it. You just said it!
SOPHIE
No. It’s a fluke. Coincidence.
ALICE
Sophie, I
[hissing/crackling/distortion]
PT5 SHELLY/DAVE
SHELLY
Dave. What the fuck was that.
DAVE
I’m going to need you to stay calm, and listen very carefully to what I’m about to tell you.
Hanging Sloth Studios 