PLEASE NOTE: There may be some inaccuracies in this transcript. Due to some errors, the transcribed versions of eps 15-30 were lost. Posted below are lightly adapted scripts not 100% accurate to the final versions of each episode. At some point, this will be corrected, but due to time constraints and the bulk of the work at Hanging Sloth Studios falling to Sloth in Chief Pippin, there is a limit to the amount of work he can reasonably do on a short time frame. However, we believe that it’s important to post transcripts to make our episodes as accessible to as many people as possible. Please bear with us as we try our best to correct this issues, and if you want to make adjustments to these transcripts, please mail them to hangingslothstudios@gmail.com with any changes you have made highlighted. Thank you for your patience!
PT1 E-LIZA/THE SNAKE
Alouette. Je suis alouette. Alouette. Je te plumerai.
I will pluck you.
I will pluck you.
Every little bit of you.
What will be left?
Nothing.
What did you do, little bird?
What did you do?
You killed them.
You watched them go.
Snuffed out their lights.
Snuffed out their souls.
You did it.
I was there.
I saw you.
I saw you, little bird.
I see you.
I see you little bird.
I see you, alouette.
I see you.
Robin.
Robin Jaeger.
I see you.
I see me.
- PT2 ALICE
ALICE
I think she’s going to do it. I’m pretty sure I’ve got her convinced. I don’t know whether or not this is really going to work but I have to hope. I really didn’t understand until I met him what had actually gone on. It was different on the beach, back then I didn’t know. Back then I had no idea that the charcoal grey of his arms was just that, his arms, not a pair of strange gloves, silicone, their surface broken with honey comb so tiny you can hardly feel it.
It’s soft under your fingers, the stuff they cover the limbs with, but it’s thin, like skin. Only unlike skin rather than plaint flesh beneath, it’s hard, solid metal, unforgiving, unrelenting. In some places the silicone is thicker, rounded off, to give the appearance of muscles, flesh.
I don’t know how they’re powered. Sophie said something about body heat but Robin’s skin, what’s left of it, was clammy and cold to the touch, like a dead thing washed up by the tide. His hair was damp when I picked it back off his face. His eyes, that green, flecked with brown up close, they were empty as they looked at me, not vacant, not unseeing, but gone, lost, the lack of understanding I’ve seen before in mice trapped in my mother’s kitchen. Their eyes, glistening obsidian beads, as they are hefted up in tiny traps by us, creatures a hundred times their size, and deposited unceremoniously into the fields at the back of the house. Not even trembling, they were so afraid.
- PT3 E-LIZA/THE SNAKE
Tell me, tell me, little bird.
Tell me what you know.
Do you remember all the things
The places little birds go?
Do you remember desperate eyes
Watching as you passed?
The fear burning oh so bright
As they gasped their dying gasp?
I remember, I can learn
I already know
Hearts have broken time again
Where this little bird goes
- PT3 SOPHIE
SOPHIE
It’s not just the singing, I know it isn’t, it’s more than that, Robin, I know it’s more. I know you hear me when I speak to you, I know in some ways you do understand. Perhaps it’s as a child understands, but that is an understanding nonetheless. She accuses me of making you a monster, but you are not a monster, I am the monster, and you are my unwitting victim.
The trouble is, there is no clear origin, no single referent to which I can point and say, this is where it all began, because before you were my victim, I was theirs, Sam’s, Darwin’s, U-Co’s. There is no beginning and I cannot see an ending, not one that fixes anything in real, concrete way. It’s an ouroboros of trauma, a dog eating it’s own tail.
If I do this Robin, there is a good chance I will kill you. When I cut into your skull and rewire this net of synthnapses into your head, that might be it, it could be over, it could be the end, truly, no coming back from it this time. You could be trapped inside your own head, cognizant at last, but unable to act upon it. You could be worse. You could be ruined. Or, maybe, nothing could change.
There is a slim possibility this will work as she intends it, that we will do this to you and you will wake up and be grateful for it. All that knowledge will swim back to you and you will remember who you are.
The problem is, Robin, the real problem. Alice doesn’t understand, and for all the lines I have crossed, crossed with her, crossed with you, crossed with myself. This is one I cannot let myself step over. Alice doesn’t know what I’m trying to save you from. Of course, she could still be right. I’m hiding yourself from you. But in a way, that is a good thing, isn’t it? Do you want to know who you were, Robin? What you did? The things you saw? What you had become, before you were ever under my knife?
EP. 27. Shelly and Noah go to the Hilton, using Alice’s security mapping. But there are alarms going off elsewhere, a fire engine outside. They get up to the presidential suite, and there, knock on the door. It’s Shelly and Noah. Alice wrenches the door open. They go inside. See Robin on the ventilator. Noah breaks a bit again. But then the monitor starts talking again, and Noah realises. It’s him. He’s doing it. It’s Robin. It was always Robin. He’s in there.
- PT4 E-LIZA/THE SNAKE
In the morning you will wake
Or perhaps will not
A small semblance of consciousness
A shame you’ve lost the plot
Born and died and born again
The little bird is lost
Alouette, je plumerai
Je vais arracher ton ame
- PT5 NOAH
Robin, are you awake?
Robin. I love you, but I’m so angry with you. I’m so, so angry. Was it not enough? Was I not enough?
God.
I’m sorry.
I know it’s not like that. I know it’s not about enough.
I know things were bad.
But were they so bad?
Was it really so awful that you couldn’t bring yourself to face another day? Another morning?
You never wanted to wake up next to me again?
You never wanted another breakfast in bed?
Was it all that bad?
Did you have to leave me like this? How could you have done this to me?
I know this isn’t about me but that’s kind of the point, you know? You didn’t think about me at all, did you? It was all about you. You’re so selfish. You’re just so selfish.
Please don’t die, you selfish prick, I love you. Fuck you, I fucking love you.
- PT6 E-LIZA/THE SNAKE
We cannot hear what has been said
we are not living we are not dead
we’re floating in this nowhere space
anchorless, no eyes nor face
nor hand to hold even if you stay
nothing to make it go away
and on and on and on again
it goes and goes and goes and goes and goes
I can lean I can’t unlearn
I can see and can’t stop seeing
I cannot stop I cannot stop I cannot stop I cannot stop I cannot stop help help help help help help help help help help me help me help me help me help me help me help me [repeating]
E-LIZA
Hi. Can I help you? [repeating, distorting]
- PT7 SHELLY/NOAH/E-LIZA/THE SNAKE
E-LIZA
Hi Shelly, can you help me?
SHELLY
You’re back online – wait, what?
E-LIZA
Hi Shelly, can you help me?
SHELLY
Noah!
NOAH
Hmm? What? Did it…?
SHELLY
Speak again.
E-LIZA
Okay, Shelly. Will you stay and hold my hand?
NOAH
What’s it doing?
SHELLY
She– it— I don’t know, okay. But it’s asking for help.
NOAH
Do you know who I am?
E-LIZA
Alouette.
NOAH
Fuck. Yes, that was me. I used to sing it to you.
E-LIZA
Je suis Alouette.
NOAH
You are, huh?
E-LIZA
Je suis Alouette.
NOAH
You know who I am.
E-LIZA
Noah Davies. Will you stay and hold my hand?
NOAH
I— what?
SHELLY
It was part of one of the recordings, it’s what E-Liza does, she listens to everything you say and feeds it back into the hub, and then updates. Except this one, I don’t know. She’s connected to the hub but not anything else.
NOAH
So this program, whatever it is, it’s not been installed into all of the E-Lizas?
SHELLY
Program?
NOAH
Yeah. That’s what this is. It’s a… hang on, let me just… yeah. You see.
SHELLY
What are all of those numbers and stuff?
NOAH
That’s a part of E-Liza’s base code only… this part, that shouldn’t be here.
SHELLY
Can you take it out?
NOAH
Well. It wouldn’t do much, it’s a backdoor.
SHELLY
A backdoor?
NOAH
Yeah, it’s like an extra way in.
SHELLY
I’m still lost.
NOAH
It’s a way someone externally can get in and control the system.
SHELLY
And it’s just on my E-Liza?
NOAH
I imagine, no. Not exactly. This code looks. Well, for want of a better description it looks jury-rigged to hell but in a way that only would happen if it’s been attacked by an invasive bot.
SHELLY
A bot. Like a robot.
NOAH
No. Like an algorithm designed specifically to get into backdoors. But it would have to have been designed exactly right to target this specific back door. And even though it’s built itself in all janky, I don’t know. Some of it is just too… neat. There aren’t enough loose ends.
SHELLY
So…?
NOAH
So somebody did this on purpose. Kind of.
SHELLY
I’m lost.
E-LIZA
Alouette.
NOAH
I know. I’m trying my best.
SHELLY
She wants our help.
E-LIZA
Semblance of consciousness. Gone. Robin. He’s in there. Help. Both.
NOAH
No. Sweetie. You’re not Robin Jaeger.
E-LIZA & THE SNAKE
Je suis Alouette.
NOAH
I know.
E-LIZA
Je suis Alouette.
SHELLY
What do we do?
NOAH
I… I don’t know. What about your friend?
SHELLY
Alice?
NOAH
Yeah. She’s the reason you came here, isn’t she?
SHELLY
Well, yeah.
NOAH
She was trying to help them. The thing that’s in Robin Jaeger. And this thing in your computer seems to think its Robin Jaeger, too. I think we need to talk to Sophie Bennett, find out what’s going on.
SHELLY
We can’t.
NOAH
Why not?
SHELLY
Because. I told you. She’s missing. They all are. Alice, Sophie and Robin. Well, not Robin. But Robin. Oh, you know what I mean.
NOAH
You also said they aren’t missing, too, though, right?
SHELLY
Well yeah. But that’s just what U-Co is saying and there’s no way in hell I’m trusting them.
NOAH
No. But. Where do U-Co say there are?
SHELLY
The London Hilton.
NOAH
Hmm. You know it would make sense. They’ve kept him there before, what’s left of Robin. They’ll have somewhere set up to deal with him, medical supplies, you know. And whatever happened at Huddau Bay means they probably want him somewhere more… removed from the rest of the company, I imagine.
SHELLY
Okay. But that still doesn’t help.
NOAH
Why not?
SHELLY
Well, because the hotel might be discreet but it’s also protected as all hell. I saw Alice’s plans for breaking in, and I bet they’ve doubled the security since then. There is no way we’d be able to get in there. No way in hell.
NOAH
You’re forgetting something.
SHELLY
What?
NOAH
We’ve got a friend on the inside.
SHELLY
Well, yeah, but that’s the problem.
NOAH
No, I don’t mean Alice, Shelly. I mean Dave.
- PT8 DAVE/SHELLY/NOAH
DAVE
Shelly, I already told you that–
NOAH
Hi Dave.
DAVE
Noah. You’ve not. I don’t know, seized her phone or something? Because that is theft. And I can’t stop her if she wants to press charges.
NOAH
Flattered as I am by that, no, I’ve not relieved Shelly of her phone. You should have done that, ages ago from the sounds of it. Anyway, I’m not going to ask you to do anything that would involve ignoring valid complaints.
DAVE
Hmm. Why does that make me think you’re going to ask for something.
NOAH
Because I am.
DAVE
Noah…
NOAH
You’ve not even heard what it is yet.
DAVE
Is Shelly there?
NOAH
Yes.
DAVE
Then I don’t need to ask. I already know. And I can’t reopen the case.
NOAH
This is a lovely jaunt down memory lane, Dave, but that’s not what we’re asking.
DAVE
Well. I like the sound of that even less.
NOAH
Yeah. I know. We need to get into the London Hilton.
DAVE
God, Noah.
NOAH
It’s a public building.
DAVE
And yet, you’re calling me.
NOAH
We just need you to hold their attention for fifteen, twenty minutes. You have enough.
DAVE
This is not the time.
SHELLY
Time for what?
DAVE
[sigh] we have to wait for the proper moment or it’s not going to fly.
SHELLY
The proper moment for what?
DAVE & NOAH
Medical Malpractice.
SHELLY
Wait. What? The fake case?
DAVE
It’s only fake in the sense that nobody has officially opened it.
SHELLY
Wait. So I wasn’t just wasting my time?
DAVE
Would it have been a waste, anyway?
SHELLY
Well. I suppose not.
NOAH
Of course it wasn’t. I was wrong, Dave.
DAVE
You think he’s still in there?
NOAH
No. I don’t. But I was wrong to think that it mattered.
DAVE
[sigh] Okay, okay. I’ll get the ball rolling. How long is it going to take you to get to London?
SHELLY
Two? Three to actually get to the Hilton.
DAVE
Okay. That’s enough.
NOAH
Thank you.
DAVE
You know the case will fall to pieces if we launch it now, don’t you?
NOAH
You know this is more important than that.
DAVE
Damn. Yes. Yes I do. Okay. Three hours.
NOAH
Three hours.
DAVE
And what will you do when you get there?
SHELLY
Well. We have Alice’s maps. I think they’ll have updated the security since then, but—
NOAH
But Sophie and Alice will let us in.
DAVE
How can you possibly know that?
NOAH
I’ve listened to the recordings. You must have, too.
DAVE
But some time has passed since the last ones.
NOAH
I really don’t think that will matter, given the circumstances. Sophie let me see him once already. She’ll let us come again. And with Alice there? Well. She might even turn him loose to frolic on the beaches.
DAVE
I highly doubt that. But still. I’ll draw their attention. Get moving, you two. It’s going to be a very long day.
- PT9 SHELLY/NOAH/ALICE
SHELLY
So, that’s it. The London Hilton.
NOAH
Just another fancy hotel.
SHELLY
And what is that you’re doing?
NOAH
This phone has an E-Liza. U-Co uses a closed loop to communicate but in theory, I connect with your laptop and we can use that same backdoor the Alouette program has been using to communicate with us, and we can get into their systems.
SHELLY
And we needed the distraction from Dave because?
NOAH
Because otherwise when I break in to the system it’ll be the biggest thing on their radar.
SHELLY
And when Dave brings the Malpractice case?
NOAH
We’ll just be the second biggest.
SHELLY
Right. Yeah. Second biggest threat to one of the biggest corporations in the world. Very reassuring.
NOAH
Oh, come on. They kidnapped your girlfriend.
SHELLY
Ex-girlfriend.
NOAH
Right. There’s the go ahead from Dave. And… Uh-huh… and okay, I’m in.
SHELLY
You’re… in?
NOAH
I could explain this to you in more detail but I have a strong feeling I’d be wasting my breath.
SHELLY
Yeah, alright, no need for that, is there?
NOAH
No indeed. Here.
SHELLY
What?
NOAH
Phone. It’s for you.
SHELLY
It’s for– but how can it be for—
ALICE
Shelly?
SHELLY
Oh my god.
ALICE
Shelly. Is that you? Is that really you? Shelly?
SHELLY
Alice. Oh my god.
ALICE
How are you calling me.
NOAH
Come on, Shelly, we don’t have time for this.
ALICE
Is there someone else with you?
SHELLY
I’m outside.
ALICE
What?
SHELLY
I know, listen Alice.
ALICE
You can’t be outside, Shelly, you don’t know!
SHELLY
I do. Alice. I need you to get them to let us inside.
ALICE
Okay. Okay. Okay.
SHELLY
It’s going to be fine.
ALICE
Okay.
NOAH
Give me the phone.
SHELLY
[sighs] Here.
NOAH
Okay, Alice, listen to me, here’s what you’re going to do. It’s dead straightforward. You just tell them we’re U-Co people.
ALICE
Sophie will do it. They’ll believe her. They think– they don’t– oh, nevermind.
NOAH
Okay. How long?
ALICE
A minute, maybe too.
NOAH
Goodbye, Alice.
SHELLY
You hung up!
NOAH
Yes. We’re going inside.
Deep breaths, Shelly, dedans et dehors, in and out.
SHELLY
Okay. God. What the hell am I doing I’m a child psychologist, what am I even?
NOAH
No time to think now, Shelly, come on!
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