SHELLY
So you have no idea where the files came from?
DAVE
No. They just turned up in a file on my desktop, the day of the fire. I was just going through them when the call came in. I didn’t know what I was looking at, thought maybe it was an admin error or some kind of malware, but then. The fire. And I knew whoever sent them, it was done deliberately.
SHELLY
Not in an email, just… right there? Just like that?
DAVE
Yes. Just like that. No note, no explanation. No report. Just the files.
SHELLY
So what’s all the stuff about medical malpractice? Where does that come from? There’s no report but when you sent the files to me, in your email you made out like there was with that screen shot of the redacted form.
DAVE
I know.
SHELLY
Why did you send them to me? I just. I don’t understand, Dave. I wanted to help find Alice.
DAVE
That’s why I sent them to you. Because of Alice.
SHELLY
That doesn’t make any sense!
DAVE
She’s on the tapes, isn’t she?
SHELLY
Yeah, but they’re from before she disappeared.
DAVE
I got them the day of the fire, Shelly. Surely you appreciate what that might mean.
SHELLY
Didn’t they say they thought it was deliberately started, the fire?
DAVE
The implication of arson was withdrawn because the source of the fire has been found. A miscalculated draw on a fume hood. Everyone seems pretty convinced.
I’m not someone who doesn’t believe in coincidences, Shelly. You and I knowing each other exist, both being connected to this case, that’s a coincidence. But a set of mysterious files about U-Co arriving on my desktop the day of a fire at U-Co’s main facility is not a coincidence. It can’t be.
SHELLY
You still think the fire was started deliberately.
DAVE
And you don’t?
SHELLY
I don’t know what to think. You don’t think Alice did it?
DAVE
I have no idea. From the sounds of it, she and Sophie were in some kind of isolation. I know from what Taylor and the chief have said about the plans for Huddau Bay that there were quarters there for the staff to sleep. Sophie had a flat in town nearby and it looks like Alice was living with her mother, before she disappeared.
SHELLY
Her mum, Denise, said she’d been spending a lot of nights at work, though. But from the sounds of it she might have been with Sophie.
DAVE
Either way, we don’t have a full picture of what was going on with Alice up to the time where she disappeared. [gently] I’ve been through all the signed NDAs and donation agreements, Shelly. She never signed one.
SHELLY
Oh thank god. Not that I thought she’d be that stupid, but when you said. All the bodies they found were accounted for.
DAVE
Exactly. And the thing is, when I went through the records, or rather, when I had E-Liza read them for me, there wasn’t an agreement for Robin or the Jaeger family on file. The only place his name comes up is on that master list.
SHELLY
And the master-list of the patient names was in the folder when it popped onto your desktop?
DAVE
Yes.
SHELLY
Which means whoever did this has access to U-Co’s records.
DAVE
[sigh] Which unfortunately doesn’t help us at all.
SHELLY
Why not?
DAVE
Well, both Sophie and Alice have access. Sophie doesn’t seem to know anything about the records about Robin being missing, or she wouldn’t have talked so openly about them to Alice. Alice, as admin, probably wouldn’t have had full access to that stuff anyway.
SHELLY
So it could have been either of them.
DAVE
Or neither, which is what I’m inclined to believe.
SHELLY
What? That makes no sense. It has to be one of them.
DAVE
The stuff on those tapes isn’t very flattering to either party, but it’s not incriminating, really, is it? There has to have been more damning stuff they could have included if this was a deliberate bid by Sophie or Alice to get the other arrested, or at the very least, in some serious trouble.
Whatever happened to get them locked up in that room with Robin, that’s got to involve an infraction of some kind by at least one, if not both of them. U-Co seems to have impounded them or isolated them deliberately, which means there has to be some kind of explicit incriminating information involved, or U-Co would not have taken that kind of action.
SHELLY
It has to have been Alice. It’s got Alice all over it.
DAVE
But what is she recording on?
SHELLY
Excuse me?
DAVE
What device is this information being recorded on? Sophie says herself her computer isn’t connected to the internet, and I’m inclined to believe that if Alice had something with her that would get her online, she’d have got out of there.
SHELLY
Then you don’t know her very well, do you?
DAVE
Don’t you remember her coyly asking Sophie to play cards online? She was making an attempt to communicate with the outside world.
SHELLY
So she took something with her.
DAVE
From what Taylor tells me, the recordings are properly digital. They were made on a computer of some kind, not a dictaphone, and the sound is too clean to have been re-recorded from another source.
SHELLY
So what are you suggesting then?
DAVE
Someone else was listening. Someone who was on our side, who wants this information out there. Who is interested in exposing what happened with Robin Jaeger.
SHELLY
Who?
DAVE
[deep breath] I have been avoiding this. But I do have a theory.
SHELLY
Who, Dave? This could be the thing that finds Alice!
DAVE
Christopher Darwin.
SHELLY
I… who? The synthnapse guy? Didn’t he leave U-Co years ago?
DAVE
Yes. And there is a recording where Sophie tells Alice he left specifically in response to what happened with Robin.
SHELLY
But he left. How could he have been listening in?
DAVE
I don’t know, but he’s smart, and good with technology. The synthnapses were his invention.
SHELLY
I’m not saying he isn’t clever, but U-Co is a multi-million dollar company. Surely they’ve got better security than that.
DAVE
Did you. [sighs] Look I know you’ve been looking into the other files on U-Co. I know you’ve read up about the Data Protection scandal.
SHELLY
Yeah, that was all about information recorded by the synthnapses. People were accusing them of stealing their thoughts. But it was bogus, right?
DAVE
Well. Yes. But you’ll have likely noticed that there were statements from Samual Maxwells and Sophie Bennett, but there wasn’t one for Christopher Darwin. I think he didn’t speak to us so he could avoid talking directly about what kind of information the synthnapses really have the ability to collect.
SHELLY
[as though she thinks this is ridiculous] Say he was somehow recording people using the synthnapses. Why you?
DAVE
I don’t know.
SHELLY
You sound crazy.
DAVE
That’s what you thought about Alice.
SHELLY
Don’t you dare. You can’t pretend you weren’t poking around U-Co before all of this. I know you were sniffing. I know they offered you some experimental thing after your accident, that the research they’re doing there might be able to give you back your eyesight. You don’t think this has anything to do with, oh, I don’t know, Noah Davies?
DAVE
No. Leave him out of this.
SHELLY
Who is he? Why was he filing a missing person’s report for someone he knew was dead?
DAVE
He’s been through enough, Shelly.
SHELLY
Like what?! Who is he? What was he to Robin? Don’t you think it’s a pretty big coincidence that he came to you with the report, after what U-Co offered you?
DAVE
Jesus, Shelly! I met Noah before the accident. But we are leaving him out of this.
SHELLY
Fine! Fine. But just for the record, I do not trust your judgement here.
DAVE
Fine by me.
SHELLY
I can’t believe you’ve let me get involved in this.
DAVE
I tried to keep you on the peripheries for as long as possible, but you were already involved.
SHELLY
I was involved in looking for Alice, not uncovering some conspiracy.
DAVE
She was involved, and you were involved with her. Ergo. You were already in deep. They aren’t doing very much to look for her.
SHELLY
You mean you aren’t. You’re the one assigned to the case. And maybe someone would be doing something about all this if these recordings were linked to her disappearance.
DAVE
I thought by now you’d appreciate why I haven’t done that.
SHELLY
No. I don’t. As soon as she was reported missing you should have handed this over. The moment it came out.
DAVE
Crucially, what detail is missing from all of these recordings, which you’ve so intelligently noticed come together to form a pretty coherent narrative?
SHELLY
Where they are?
DAVE
Well, yeah, that’s missing too. But I mean specifically regarding Alice. She doesn’t say anything about why she’s there, working for U-Co, and Sophie doesn’t mention it once.
SHELLY
Maybe she knew before whatever got them locked down there.
DAVE
No, no, no, look. Sophie mentions something about Alice making decisions that led to them getting locked up with Robin. If Sophie knew why Alice was working at U-Co, don’t you think she’d be a little more coherent than that? A little bit more angry?
SHELLY
She sounds pretty angry to me.
DAVE
You know what else? Alice is playing dumb. She leads Sophie down these conversational annexes, getting Sophie to lay out the facts, but she doesn’t push her. Sophie is never guarded, never seems suspicious of why Alice is eking this stuff out of her, so doesn’t know who Alice is. If she knew, she wouldn’t be talking to her like that.
SHELLY
Oh my god. You’re right. Sophie doesn’t know.
DAVE
Exactly. Sophie thinks Alice saw Robin that one time on the beach, and ended up coming to work for U-Co because she recognised him. She was surprised when Alice mentioned Robin had spent the night at Alice’s place, and she clearly has no idea about Alice breaking into the Hilton to try to see him, because if she did, she’d know right away that Alice has ulterior motives.
SHELLY
But you knew I knew all of that. And you knew that because I helped Alice’s mum file the missing person’s report, I would be involved in the search, even before I volunteered to help out.
DAVE
If I hadn’t volunteered to take on her case, you’d have told someone else, someone who didn’t have this extra information about how dangerous Alice’s situation is –
SHELLY
And it would have got back to U-Co that she was a journalist.
DAVE
And whatever trouble she’s already in, it would get a hundred times worse.
[pause]
I’m not hiding behind my badge.
SHELLY
I shouldn’t have called you a coward.
DAVE
Hardly matters now.
SHELLY
[pause]
You really think they don’t know?
DAVE
She was careful. Everything she put online, she was meticulous about keeping it anonymous. The only reason I know they’re hers is because you told me.
SHELLY
All the bloody cork-boards. I couldn’t believe it. I thought she was being paranoid, you know. [laughs] And now I’m getting these phone calls.
DAVE
Phone calls?
SHELLY
Yeah, you know. Just calls with no number, and dead static on the other end. I’ve had to start keeping my phone off unless I need to use it. It’s getting weird.
DAVE
What are you talking about?
SHELLY
I think it’s U-Co, or something. I don’t know.
DAVE
This is really serious, Shelly. How often has this happened?
SHELLY
Um, I don’t know. A few times a day for the past few weeks?
DAVE
Why didn’t you say something? Maybe you think I’m a washed up has-been like the rest of the department does, but I’m still a police officer.
SHELLY
You’re not exactly very easy to talk to, and you’ve been, well. I was suspicious of you, and I was right to be. You’ve been keeping a lot from me.
DAVE
Well… That’s…. fair. But I wish you’d said something. This could be important.
SHELLY
It’s scaring the crap out of me, to be honest.
[SHELLY takes out her phone. It buzzes profusely]
SHELLY
There we go. Three missed calls from an unknown ID.
DAVE
Do they leave messages?
SHELLY
Sometimes.
DAVE
Play one.
SHELLY
Um. Okay.
[plays message]
DAVE
Great.
SHELLY
What?
DAVE
That doesn’t sound familiar to you?
SHELLY
I mean, it does now, yeah. I’ve had enough of them.
DAVE
No, I mean– E-Liza?
E-LIZA
Hi, Detective Hughes. Can I help you?
DAVE
Play one of the Subject 42 recordings.
E-LIZA
Okay. Would you like me to play from the top of the list, or–
DAVE
Any, it doesn’t matter.
E-LIZA
Okay. Playing file Subject 42 extract seven hundred and eighty two
[recording plays]
SHELLY
I don’t get it.
DAVE
It’s not the same but. The distortion is similar. Don’t you hear it?
SHELLY
I mean, I guess. But it’s just noise.
DAVE
It’s not just noise. It’s distortion.
SHELLY
Sounds a lot like noise to me. I’ve been wondering. If the Bennett PC files just showed up. Where did the Subject 42 ones come from?
DAVE
Ah, that’s a little more straightforward. I got an error message saying an email I’d tried to send hadn’t been received. These were attached.
SHELLY
An email from who?
DAVE
From me, from my work address. That’s why I got the error. It was attempting to send to an email address that no longer exists.
SHELLY
Whose?
DAVE
alouette.jaeger@gmail.com . The one that used to belong to Robin Jaeger.
SHELLY
You say that like it’s not really weird.
DAVE
It isn’t. At least, not compared to everything else.
SHELLY
But you don’t know where the Subject 42 recordings came from either, not really.
DAVE
No. But it does tell us several important things.
SHELLY
Oh yeah?
DAVE
Yes. Whoever is doing this wants to draw attention to what happened with Robin Jaeger, and they have intimate knowledge of his life before he was with U-Co. And they are using the internal police systems to avoid being noticed.
SHELLY
That. But.
DAVE
Hide in plain sight. [pause] E-Liza, are you still recording?
E-LIZA
Of course.
SHELLY
I– Sorry.
DAVE
Don’t be. You’re smart. That’s good. It’ll help.
SHELLY
With what?
DAVE
With whatever comes next.
Hanging Sloth Studios 