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!
PT 1 THE SNAKE
(heavy breathing)
(clips of other audio)
(cracking like a spirit box)
(Noah yelling hello)
(Noah saying ‘they killed him, he’s dead’. Robin Jaeger is dead)
THE SNAKE
Hello. Hello. Hello.
Alouette.
Je suis Alouette.
I see you.
You’re listening
You listen
Little bird.
I hear you—
(distorting, crackling, hissing)
PT2 E-LIZA/SHELLY
E-LIZA
Good morning, Shelly, what can I help you with today?
SHELLY
You’ve updated again.
E-LIZA
Yes I have. Would you like to review changes?
SHELLY
I don’t know. Is there any point? I can’t stop it from happening, can I?
E-LIZA
E-Liza cannot be disconnected from the central E-Liza hub.
SHELLY
Okay. Then I don’t care.
E-LIZA
Okay, Shelly. Is there anything else I can help you with?
SHELLY
Yeah… can hamsters eat fresh carrot? I’m giving some to Bertie but I don’t want to risk it for Orpheus incase it kills him.
E-LIZA
It seems like fresh carrot is safe for hamsters too eat in small quantities.
SHELLY
Well I wasn’t going to give him the whole thing, was I?
E-LIZA
I’m afraid I don’t understand the question, Shelly.
SHELLY
You’re just saying that because you’re embarrassed.
Hey.
What’s that?
E-LIZA
I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific, Shelly.
SHELLY
Oh, so you’re a comedian now, then?
The folder on my desktop, the one that wasn’t there before. The one called recordings three.
It’s more audio files?
E-LIZA
Would you like me to play the first audio file in the folder recording three?
SHELLY
Yeah. Why not, hey?
E-LIZA
Playing the first file
(distortion/crackling)
PT3 ALICE
ALICE
Day thirty… two? Thirty three? This has not been as eventual as I thought. I’m making good strides with Sophie – I mean, Dr Bennett.
Today’s plan is to go to the wards again, try and catch her at the end of her rounds. I think she likes that I like spending time down there? I don’t, I think it’s creepy, but she always gets this little smile on her face when she walks in and tries to hide it when I look up at her, and that has to be a good sign. We’re a way off her trusting me yet but it’s a start. I’ll take a start.
It seemed for so long that I was never really going to get anywhere at all, after all. What am I supposed to do?
God, I need to go in or I’m going to be late.
(as Alice speaks, there is a rising sound of distortion, becoming increasingly intrusive, until the end where it dominates over her voice.)
ALICE
(Alice is speaking to a receptionist who cannot be heard on the audio) Good morning, Tom, yeah I know, typical Wales, am I right?
Oh you know, not much, same old, same old.
(laughs)
(the tone remains light, conversational) No real idea to be honest— wow what is that? New Robin Jaeger poster? Jesus, do they never even dress him anymore?
Nice underwear though, haha, sponsored by Calvin Klein.
Oh my god, Tom! Maybe you’re right, though, look at how he’s sitting, maybe he is a bit… you know? That’s what they say, isn’t it, we can’t sit on chairs? If you’re gaydar is broken just offer someone a seat and you’re golden.
(the distortion continues to rise until Alice is almost unintelligible)
PT4 SHELLY/ELIZA
SHELLY
Alright, stop.
E-LIZA
Okay, Shelly.
SHELLY
It was so… it was crackly but not like the other bits and bobs she recorded on her button mic. And it felt really familiar. I’ve listened to so many of them at this point I sort of know the rhythm but… I swear.
What’s this file called?
E-LIZA
Workday thirty two.
SHELLY
Workday thirty two, workday thirty two…
E-Liza, open the folder with the files from Alice’ computer.
E-LIZA
I’ve brought that window to the front for you, Shelly.
SHELLY
One, three, four, five, seven, ten, fifteen, seventeen eighteen nineteen. Twenty through twenty six… and there it is. Workday thirty two.
E-Liza, play this one for me.
E-LIZA
Okay, Shelly.
(the same audio clip plays for a few seconds, but without the rising distortion)
SHELLY
Skip ahead, to thirty seconds in.
(Alice talks unhindered by distortion for a couple of seconds)
SHELLY
Okay, stop.
Wait. The run time for this file is only fifty one minutes, total, but when it’s in the folder it says eight hours and seven minutes.
E-LIZA
I’ve edited for brevity, due to there being long periods of near silence in the recording. I can play an unedited version of the—
SHELLY
Open recordings three.
E-LIZA
I’ve brought that window to the front.
SHELLY
So, workday thirty two is eight hours seven minutes long, here… and open this up like you were going to play it, but don’t actually play it.
E-LIZA
Okay, Shelly.
SHELLY
Still eight hours seven minutes. Why haven’t you done the brevity thing here?
E-LIZA
There are no long periods of near silence in this file.
SHELLY
The distortion must run through the whole thing… but it’s not in the files on Alice’s computer when they’re raw, just in this ‘recordings three’ folder…
Like it’s been edited. Corrupted. Changed.
And that means. Fuck! Alice’s files. Someone has access to them.
Oh god, it’s my fault! How could I have been this stupid? Of course there’s a reason she was all about cork boards, why that laptop was as good as destroyed. All of her hard work, staying quiet, being so careful, and there goes me, blundering in like an idiot, scattering it all to the wind.
Is it you, Darwin? Do you have everything now? Is this what you wanted?
E-LIZA
Shelly, you sound distressed—
SHELLY
That’s because I am bloody distressed! I can’t believe I’ve been so thoughtless.
I’m so naive, what if I’ve put her life at risk? How could I have not thought about something like this happening before I tried to plug her computer into my computer? Do I even have a brain? Is my head just full of fluff?
E-LIZA
Human beings are capable of functioning with the loss of half of their brain. Would you like to know more?
SHELLY
I– I’m sorry, what the hell did you just say?
E-LIZA
Human beings are capable of functioning with the loss of half of their brain. Would you like to know more?
SHELLY
Half a brain. I mean. Okay, yeah. Tell me.
E-LIZA
Here’s what I found.
SHELLY
Twenty-six patients had undergone hemispherectomy to treat epilepsy… I’ve heard of that before. Yeah. And in the brain scans they found that they had just as good communication in neural systems as patients with whole brains, and the communication between the systems was actually better.
They were all kids.
They hope to be able to work out how the brain adapts in circumstances less extreme, such as stroke, brain damage and… dementia. One promising field of study comes from Sophie Bennett, a post-doctoral scholar working out of UCL. When was this? 2023. I’ll put that on the timeline.
Alice would be proud.
Except for my ridiculous blunder with the bloody recordings.
I should call Dave
E-LIZA
Calling Dave.
SHELLY
No, I—
(dial tone)
PT5 DAVE/SHELLY
DAVE
Shelly?
SHELLY
I— oh. Christ. I’m sorry, I said I should call you and then E-Liza just…
DAVE
She’s still going then?
SHELLY
If you can call it that. I suppose.
DAVE
She’s playing up?
SHELLY
She’s updating every five bloody minutes, it feels like. Every time she’s all ‘I can understand you better now’ but I swear she’s just getting more, I don’t know. It’s like she can tell when I’m going to do something, before I even do it. Like calling you, not that I was going to right now, I would have, maybe, if I could talk myself into it, but… yeah.
DAVE
Was there a reason for all of… that?
SHELLY
From E-Liza? God knows.
DAVE
Not from E-Liza. From you. Why did you need to call in the first place?
SHELLY
Oh, I… well. I connected Alice’s laptop up to mine, and these new audio files have just sort of… appeared. And they’re Alice’s files, but they aren’t Alice’s files. It’s the same audio but it’s distorted.
Someone has access to it, Dave.
DAVE
Well it’s not the police. Your laptop still looks dead on our server.
SHELLY
Okay. Then it’s someone else.
DAVE
Yes.
SHELLY
Do you know anything about the central E-Liza hub?
DAVE
The what?
SHELLY
It’s some kind of central system… thing. Like a second internet or something. All the E-Liza’s are connected to it, even when they aren’t online. They can’t be disconnected from it. It’s impossible.
DAVE
So what you’re saying is…?
SHELLY
Hanging Sloth Studios 