PT1 SHELLY/E-LIZA
[phone rings]
SHELLY
Hello?
[crackling, static]
SHELLY
This isn’t funny you know. Stop calling me.
[phone clatters]
E-LIZA
Hello, Shelly. Can I help you?
SHELLY
Afternoon, E-Liza. What nightmarish conversations shall we subject ourselves to today?
E-LIZA
I’m afraid I don’t understand the question.
SHELLY
Don’t worry about it. [frustrated noise] Three times they called me, last night. Three. Every twenty minutes from three AM on the dot. [huff of unamused laughter] Witching hour.
She’d probably say it was U-Co. I keep thinking that, but I know it’s only because it’s what she’d say. Maybe was right to be paranoid though. I mean, she’s gone. Vanished. Spirited away into the ether just like Dr Sophie and Robin Jaeger.
U-Co know where they are. They must know. Otherwise they would be searching for them. He’s, well. He’s got to be worth a lot of money to them. Even without that, from what Dr Sophie has been saying, he’s not exactly a people person. What was it she said, in that last one? He ‘could not be subdued’?
Never got the impression from Alice he was violent, though.
E-LIZA
Can I help you with anything else?
SHELLY
Yeah, open up the sorted folders for Case 229.
E-LIZA
Okay, Shelly.
SHELLY
Lists of names. Bodies, I suppose. Dr Sophie’s subjects. Robert Davison. Holly-May Dobbs. Georgia Eavison. Felicia Emmis. John England. Conner Ents. Blah, blah, blah. Robin Jaeger. He’s just one on a list. One of… eighty seven on this one.
I just can’t. I can’t today.
Something has been bothering me, about the last recording.
E-LIZA
Would you like me to play the last recording you listened to again?
SHELLY
No. It’s alright.
It’s more like. I don’t know. Maybe I’m being naive but I don’t think I’d stay quiet if it was my son or my brother or whatever who died and was put up on billboards. I always figured… well, I figured Alice was wrong about him. She was kind of wrong; she never thought he was actually dead. But the stuff about being abandoned and alone. Yeah, there was all the footage of him getting packed into windowless vans after TV appearances and stuff, but maybe it was a safety thing. He barely spoke in those interviews. I always thought he was just kind of awkward or something. I’d feel awkward if it was me getting paraded around like that. But maybe he just couldn’t talk. Sophie said he couldn’t speak at all at first, and he hardly said anything at all to Alice.
Thing is, though, in that recording. Sophie pretty much says they had him the whole time. That he lived at the facility in Huddau Bay, pinned down by the metal body parts they attached to him. She talks about taking him outside and sitting with him.
I don’t think the family, whoever they were, were even visiting him. I don’t know. That obituary in the paper was so impersonal. Maybe U-Co didn’t just pay them off. Maybe they were threatening them.
And then there’s Dave’s call with that Noah person, whoever he is. I did some poking around at home and I couldn’t find anything. Not even any social media. It’s weird. He’s like a ghost. If I could just get into those associated files –
[door creaks open and closes]
SHELLY
Hi Dave.
DAVE
[shifty] Oh, Shelly. You’re here.
SHELLY
In the flesh. Are you alright? You look shaken.
DAVE
I was just talking with the chief. What are you doing here?
SHELLY
My appointment this afternoon was really short, so I had an early lunch.
DAVE
But it’s Wednesday.
SHELLY
I always come on Wednesday afternoons.
DAVE
So you do.
SHELLY
Are you sure you’re alright?
DAVE
Yes.
SHELLY
Cool.
DAVE
Anyway. I have somewhere else I need to be.
SHELLY
Uh, alright. I’ve sorted all the documents into useful and useless folders for you, by the way. It’s just the audio I need to get to.
DAVE
[distracted] Fantastic.
SHELLY
Unless you’ve heard from Taylor about the audio files.
DAVE
Taylor said there was nothing wrong with them.
SHELLY
What?
DAVE
All the static is part of the original audio track. It’s not corruption. But they’re useless, anyway. I listened to a couple and you’re right, they’re indecipherable.
SHELLY
But that doesn’t make any sense.
DAVE
Taylor’s verdict, not mine.
SHELLY
Did they say anything else about it?
DAVE
Just that most of the recordings were short, but a couple of them were a bit longer and they didn’t have time to listen to them through.
SHELLY
I’ll message them get them to send those ones to me, in case there is something useful in there after all.
DAVE
That’s your call.
[clatter]
DAVE
For heavens sake! I told you not to move things around!
SHELLY
I didn’t touch anything, I’ve only been here five minutes!
DAVE
If you pull chairs out and leave them there I’m going to walk into them.
SHELLY
It wasn’t me.
DAVE
[sigh] Sorry. It’s been a long morning.
SHELLY
No shit.
DAVE
Yeah, fine. The chief was just asking about you.
SHELLY
He’s kicking me out, isn’t he?
DAVE
No. I said you were very helpful.
SHELLY
You… did?
DAVE
Yes.
SHELLY
You want me to stay?
DAVE
I’d say that’s implied.
SHELLY
[surprised] Great. Thanks.
DAVE
Listen, if the chief comes poking around, just. I don’t know. Try to keep your head down, won’t you?
SHELLY
Why would he be poking around?
DAVE
Apparently U-Co isn’t overly thrilled about the progress on the investigation into the fire.
SHELLY
What? I haven’t heard anything.
DAVE
No. I was under the impression U-Co were trying to downplay the whole thing, and I think I was right, but something happened at the site a couple of days ago.
SHELLY
At the facility? Something like what?
DAVE
I don’t know, the chief wasn’t being very forthcoming. Not surprising, in the circumstances. But apparently they want to know what we’re doing at the department and why there hasn’t been any movement.
SHELLY
And Alice?
DAVE
Nothing. I’m sorry.
SHELLY
It’s okay.
DAVE
Please be careful.
SHELLY
I am.
DAVE
Good.
SHELLY
Did they say anything about Robin Jaeger?
DAVE
Who?
SHELLY
U-Co, when they were twisting the chief’s knickers.
DAVE
No idea. As I said, he was not particularly open about the situation.
SHELLY
Maybe he’s not even missing. Maybe they’ve got him somewhere.
DAVE
Maybe. But then why not keep the TV slots?
SHELLY
I know. This morning, on my way here, I noticed the billboard was gone.
DAVE
The billboard?
SHELLY
You know, the one by the train station. It used to have a big, shiny image set of Robin Jaeger. But it’s gone. It’s Mercedes now.
DAVE
I really do have somewhere else I need to be.
SHELLY
Yeah, okay.
DAVE
I’ll see you when you’re next in.
SHELLY
Okay, bye Dave.
DAVE
See you.
[door creaks and closes]
SHELLY
Right. What was I doing, E-Liza?
E-LIZA
You were reviewing files from Case 229.
SHELLY
Oh yeah. Thanks.
E-LIZA
Can I help you with anything else?
SHELLY
Yeah. Play the next Bennett PC file in the folder.
E-LIZA
Okay, Shelly. Playing file now.
PT2 SOPHIE/ALICE
[crackling, distorting]
SOPHIE
I’d take you outside, if I could. Let the breeze run through your hair. You always liked that. I’m so sorry. I am. You know that, I’m sorry. I tried my best for you, I really did.
It was beautiful for a little while, when I thought we might have really brought you back. I thought I’d done it. All this time, all I wanted was to be able to fix people. For a few days I could hardly breathe I was so excited. It’s not like dementia, really, an oxygen starved brain, but it was a start. I thought maybe it could work. That you were in there.
I’m sorry. You were in there, my Robin. But not the you that you were before you died. You poor soul. If I could have fixed you, I’d have fixed you. I’d have fixed all of you. It was not supposed to be this way.
I wanted to help my dad. You don’t know what it was like. He was so young, to disappear like that. He was himself one day, and then the pieces started breaking off and sliding into darkness. It was not like a death; it was worse than death, because he was standing there in front of me with no idea in his eyes of who I was. I loved him so much, Robin. I only wanted to make him better.
ALICE
[as though waking up] Sophie? Sophie, what are you doing?
SOPHIE
I… nothing.
ALICE
You were talking to him again.
SOPHIE
I can’ t sleep.
ALICE
He’s not going anywhere.
SOPHIE
I know.
ALICE
None of us are.
SOPHIE
[annoyed] I know.
ALICE
Do you want to… I don’t know. Play cards or something?
SOPHIE
Do you have any cards?
ALICE
[defeated] No.
[pause]
Could we play on your computer?
SOPHIE
[scoffs] you sound like a bored toddler. It’s not connected to the internet.
ALICE
What’s the point in that?
SOPHIE
It’s for monitoring.
ALICE
So you can’t even faff about in your lunch breaks?
SOPHIE
Lunch breaks. There’s a novel idea, hey, Robin?
[pause]
Can you bring me the cloth?
ALICE
Yeah, sure. Here.
SOPHIE
Thank you. Can’t just leave blood on your cheek, can we?
ALICE
Is he… suffering?
SOPHIE
It’s hard to say. Whether there’s enough connectivity in his mind to have the capacity is hard to tell. [pause]
I’m sorry for the part I played in this.
ALICE
Oh, don’t blink now, Robin. She’s showing humility.
SOPHIE
Is it my humility that was in question? I was under the impression that it was my humanity.
ALICE
Because you disregarded his.
SOPHIE
A fair accusation.
ALICE
Well, thanks.
SOPHIE
There is irony in this, you know. It was the potential to repair brain injury that I was interested in. I was trying to make a net of synthnapses that would work as a way to reconnect patients with lost memories to their pasts. And what I did was create a man so utterly removed from his own context he had no sense of himself or the world around him.
ALICE
You said it was just a scaffold, to connect the limbs up enough to test them.
SOPHIE
That was my involvement in the limbs project, yes, but I was funded by U-Co for research into tools to combat dementia. [sour laugh] You saw my other patients. You know how well that went.
ALICE
How could you even test for that in cadavers, even if their hearts are beating? Isn’t the point that they’re brain dead?
SOPHIE
It wasn’t easy. I tried everything I could think of. They kept funnelling money into the projects and my attempts became increasingly ludicrous, but of course, without the slightest clue of how to even go about testing, I had no idea if there was any progress being made. And then, well. Robin.
ALICE
You Frankensteined him back to life.
SOPHIE
If you like.
ALICE
Look. Would you sleep better if I sat up with him?
SOPHIE
I don’t know.
ALICE
[sigh] Right. For god’s sake, go and lie down for a bit, I’ll sit with him
SOPHIE
Thank you
[shifting, moving around]
ALICE
You do look awfully small, Robin. [pause] You’re looking right at me. She says it’s a reflex. Is it just a reflex?
[pause]
If you’re in there, you’re alright, you know. I know it’s horrible, all these wires, right into your skin. I’m so sorry if it hurts. I know it doesn’t mean anything, but I’m here with you. We’re both here, me and Sophie. You know Sophie, right? You remembered me, when you saw me. You’d know her now, wouldn’t you? She’s ridiculous. I’m ridiculous. God. You don’t mind though, do you, Robin? You poor little thing.
[hissing/whispering]
THE SNAKE
Little bird
[alarm sounds]
ALICE
Sophie, something is happening.
[distortion/crackling]
PT3 SHELLY/DAVE/E-LIZA
E-LIZA
End of recording. Whilst the audio was playing, you received a message from Detective Inspector David Hughes. Would you like to hear it?
SHELLY
He literally just left.
E-LIZA
Would you like me to read the message to you?
SHELLY
Okay.
E-LIZA
Playing message now.
DAVE
Listen. They think the fire was started deliberately from inside the building. This is Taylor’s info, not mine. They reckon it’s something to do with that, whatever happened at the site a couple of days ago. Please don’t go digging. The chief can see a file’s access history. They know you were looking at Robin Jaeger’s obituary. There are things you cannot look into. It is my responsibility to keep you out of it. Be cautious.
E-LIZA
End of message.
SHELLY
Shit.
[laptop slams shut]
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