SEASON 2 EPISODE 10 TRANSCRIPT
PRE-SHOW ANNOUNCEMENT: Among the Stars and Bones features characters in a hostile environment and is intended for a mature audience. As such it contains material that may be upsetting or triggering for some people. Specific content warnings can be found in the show notes for each episode. Please make use of them if you need to.
CONTENT WARNINGS (FROM SHOW NOTES):
Loss of Bodily Autonomy – Much of the episode involves characters who do not have control of their bodies either talking about how this has affected them or discussing ways of solving this problem.
Gun Violence – Stunners are used to knock out people on two occasions. (47:30 – 47:40) & (50:37 – 50:50)
[Theme Music Plays]
COMPUTER: Among the Stars and Bones
[Theme Music Ends]
[Computer Chime: Open Status Report]
COMPUTER VOICE: For attention of Jennifer Connolly, Eudoxus Initiative. Herodotus Task Force Status Report. Mission: Planet Angitia. Status Report 10. Six entries included. Entry 1. Comptroller’s report.
[Computer Chime: Open Entry]
SCENE 1 – AN OFFICE IN THE MINE BUILDING
[The mine office that Adrienne was using as a base of operations earlier in the season. People can be heard outside the door murmuring.]
ADRIENNE: Commence Report: Comptroller Adrienne Barnes reporting, April 6th and Day 22 of the Nabonidus rescue mission. So the first thing is that we have Ben back. He arrived this morning on the crawler the possessed sent after him, Kathy, Celia and Indira. He is, unfortunately one of them. As I said, we’re doing all we can but…I’m sorry Jen.
We’d been watching for them for the last few days and they showed up more or less on schedule. It appears they were making some attempt to sneak in to the Nabonidus archopod facility where we’ve got The Possessed housed, but we were on the lookout and Jensen, Gallini and a few others from military science took a stun first and ask questions later attitude. The lot of them were taken without incident. I’ll note that they seemed to be making directly for the specific hangar where they are housed, which continues to reinforce the hivemind aspect of all of this.
That now means that all personnel numbered among The Possessed are locked down and accounted for, so we have no outstanding threats, just the problem of how to get the nanites out of them to solve.
Ben seems in relatively good spirits. Relative for Ben anyway. We’ve put him in an isolated space, as we did with Chang and Hollister, to make consultation easier. We’ve all found that having these kinds of conversations involves openly speculating and discussing theoretical situations that, to the majority of people currently possessed, aren’t exactly theoretical with their lives on the line. So in some ways it’s less about keeping things safer and more about taking…some of the emotion out of the situation. It’s a little bit less wear and tear on everyone.
Having said that I do continue to keep regularly speaking to people at least once a day. Just to check in and tell them what’s going on. It’s all I can manage at this point. This problem has gone well beyond my means to help effectively. I keep them fed. I keep them updated. I listen to people who want to talk, to vent, to pass on messages to loved ones. I don’t know what else to do. It’s making me so bloody tired.
But I am still committed to the notion that all of us can walk away from this in one piece, and if my only available role is to keep people’s spirits up so they don’t shut down before Celia and the team cracks this then by all the gods that’s what I’m going to do.
It’s hard to listen to, honestly. The lack of autonomy has gotten to many of them. The deprivation. The forced violence and cannibalism. It’s a long list. Even with the ability of the human mind to compartmentalise things done by your body that you didn’t choose to do, I’m not sure how well people will cope in the long term.
(Beat.)
ADRIENNE: Thank you for finally informing me of the imminent arrival of the Destroyer Prospero. Interesting that their arrival is so imminent all things considered. I can only assume you were waiting until their last check between jumps to make sure they had received updated orders not to pound us into glass from space before you so informed me. Nice to know that I can cross planetary bombardment off my list of potential ways to die for this week at least.
I know at the end of the day that such a thing is insurance against the possibility of these nanites falling into the wrong hands or getting loose off-planet. I know such a protocol exists for a reason, but to know that people with no more compassion than the comet that killed the dinosaurs can make such decisions over my life with the mere stroke of a pen is…a lot.
Regardless, I’ll take the help they’re now in position to provide. I’m sure Celia will appreciate being able to consult with the ship’s surgeon in real time. Chang’s a help too, but he’s also wrapped up in what’s going on, and that makes it a strain. And there’s doubtless a few resources they could send down via unmanned dropcraft that would be invaluable.
Though at the end of the day, we know we’re still on our own.
[Computer Chime: End of Entry.]
COMPUTER: Entry 2. Xenoarchaeology Report.
[Computer Chime: Open Entry.]
SCENE 2 – THE ARCHOPOD
[A conference room. The ambient hum of the space mixed with occasional bleeping instrumentation. Outside, as always, wind can be heard.]
JANINE: Commence report: Janine Hattersley filling in on the xenoarchaeology report. It’s Day 22 and…April…6th? I think? Sorry I’ve spent so much time looking at Proximan files and trying to use their dating system to sort them chronologically and that’s never come naturally. I’ve spent most of the last two days working with Celia to help them understand the new files that have been decoded since the tech people got some additional devices working. They’ve been driving me pretty hard if I’m honest. It was all I could do to use this report as an excuse to take a break while they–
CELIA: I’m still here you know.
JANINE: …do some calculations here in the archopod making use of my table and console and…personal space.
CELIA: Oh stop being so melodramatic. This conference table could seat a dozen people for dinner with room for a jazz trio at the far end.
JANINE: I can’t help but feel this is some sort of subtle revenge for Tefen.
CELIA: Do you think me so petty?
JANINE: I…don’t think I can answer that question in any way that could possibly be of beneficial to me.
CELIA: You are probably right. This my dear Janine is efficiency. I will doubtless have questions for you.
JANINE: I’m in the middle of–
CELIA: Multi-task.
JANINE: (With an exasperated sigh) Right. So. That’s going super. When I haven’t been playing Celia’s personal translation monkey, which isn’t often because they never sleep.
CELIA: On Tefen you tried to do everything short of trumpet solos to keep me awake. Try to be consistent.
JANINE: Seriously, you need to take a break before one of us passes out.
CELIA: You go right ahead. I’ll wake you if I need anything.
JANINE: Celia.
CELIA: Janine. You are right, but I think I’m close. There’s just something I’m missing. And some of what you showed me yesterday confirmed my suspicion that this whole situation is becoming time sensitive. And while I know I’m not in this alone, I also know that my perspective on this is unique, and since the people we are trying to save include colleagues, rivals, former lovers and dear friends–
JANINE: Wait, who’s the for–
CELIA: The point is, every hour I can give this I will. Now focus, you’re doing a report, and I am three more calculations away from needing your input.
JANINE: Fine. Right, now…where was I?
CELIA: The last thing you said was about what else you were doing when not playing my personal translation monkey. See? Multitasking.
JANINE: Yeah, well, you forgot to carry the four.
CELIA: Nice try.
JANINE: (Childishly) Nice try. (Back to business) When Celia hasn’t been doing their best to break my brain I’ve also had a chance to talk to Ben. Mostly just to confirm a few things and get some additional perspective. Which brings me to something I want to bring up. I’m sorry for this Miss Connolly, but our conversation earlier was…odd, but I can’t put my finger on why. So…I mean if he’s your ex-husband then you know him, right? So, what am I missing?
[Computer Chime: Begin Inserted Recording]
SCENE 2A – AN ISOLATION CELL IN NABONIDUS HANGAR 8
[Ben is set up in an identical situation to Dr Chang and Victor Hollister, in a separate room with a single isolation cell. Ben’s voice can be heard as though through glass.]
JANINE: Hey, sorry to disturb you.
BEN: I’m locked up in a cell and unable to do so much as twitch an eyebrow of my own volition. I don’t think you’re what’s disturbing me.
JANINE: Uh, fair point.
BEN: Sorry, the last few days have been a lot.
JANINE: This whole year really.
BEN: True enough.
JANINE: If you’d rather I just…
BEN: Janine, how can I help you?
JANINE: Okay, so I’ve got a concern about a section of what I’ve been working on, and since it’s getting a little science-y and technical I think I could use a little more confirmation on a couple of things before I pass it on.
BEN: What’s it about?
JANINE: Well it appears to be a section of notes from The Researcher behind a lot of these files.
BEN: Come up with a nickname for them yet?
JANINE: No. Why does everyone keep asking me that?
BEN: I don’t know. Part of the fun.
JANINE: Anyway, they were making notes about the process of substituting out nanites in the network for replacement by the wiring components that constitutes part two of the process.
BEN: Show me.
[SFX – A file being sent to display on a screen.]
(Ben murmurs while he skims the text.)
BEN: Yeah, I think you’ve got that right. I might have translated the third part as “without additional loss” rather than “while maintaining best possible efficiency” just because I think that’s semantically closer to the meaning of the 8th word to a Proximan, but I don’t think it changes the sense of it significantly. This is excellent work. What else have you got for me?
JANINE: There’s a couple more passages from that same section, but actually can you take a moment and look at something else for me?
BEN: What else am I here for right now?
JANINE: Yeah, true I guess. So I came across this one section a few days back and it’s just been nagging at me. It’s about how the limitations of nanites combined with the complexity of speech mean language centres don’t get targeted for takeover. That it’s sort of a design flaw that they’ve made into a feature because of the psychological impact.
BEN: Well, yeah, it is pretty devastating having someone apologising to you while they’re after your blood.
JANINE: Right. And the point is that everyone seems to agree with that translation, and the computers are all returning stuff that’s similar and I don’t know why but I can’t let it go. So would you mind having a look?
BEN: Sure.
[SFX – Another file being put up on screen]
JANINE: So what do you think?
BEN: I think your translation holds up just fine. I think it’s exactly what you and everyone else think it is, and it’s really just confirming something we already know.
JANINE: Oh. Okay.
BEN: Yeah, it’s like I always say, sometimes you’ve got to do things by the book. Get the sense out of a passage and move on. Not get caught up in the rabbit holes.
JANINE: Right. Okay. So that just leave these other pass–
[Computer Chime: End of Inserted Recording.]
SCENE 2 (PART 2) – THE ARCHOPOD
[Resuming from where the first part of the scene left off.]
JANINE: Look, I don’t know, maybe this is none of my business, and maybe I’m just reading too much into a situation where he has every reason not to be himself, but something about that conversation doesn’t sit right, and I was wondering if maybe you had some insight, Miss Connolly.
CELIA: Ben has been your supervisor for how long?
JANINE: Most of the last year. And he was the unit chair for like three of my subjects in my undergrad.
CELIA: Then you don’t need help from Jennifer, you know everything you need to to figure this out.
JANINE: Maybe I did before someone kept me working for 17 hours straight.
CELIA: Fine. It’s as simple as this: You’ve gone to him with problems of translation in the past, correct?
JANINE: Yeah, especially when something I’m working on contradicts a professor or a paper or something.
CELIA: And what does Ben always tell you to do?
JANINE: To…trust my instincts…oh.
CELIA: Exactly. Ben Kelleher has never told anyone to do things by the book or dismiss a hunch and move on in his life. If he thought an approach like that was what was needed in this situation he wouldn’t have told me that in matters of translation I was to go to you rather than anyone else available.
JANINE: He’s always told me I had good intuition when it came to this stuff. I…I thought he was just being encouraging.
CELIA: I don’t think so. And I think he was trying to tell you something without telling you something. Now show me this passage, if you think there’s something up with it, then maybe there is.
[SFX – Placing a file up on the screen]
JANINE: Alright so here’s the thing that’s been bothering me. See here, it’s this section. Now, you don’t really read Proximan–
CELIA: No, but explain what you’re seeing. If you make me understand it you may get it straight in your own head.
JANINE: Right. So this bit here – it’s saying that because language centres in all brains they have encountered are complex it is a waste of effort to apply additional resources, by which I think it’s safe to say the nanites, to the problem at hand. That it’ll have a more impactful effect if possessed people are able to speak as themselves especially if they are selective in what they compromise. The population will be confounded by this and tactically this will be more successful in further increasing confusion and spread.
CELIA: That makes sense, and tracks with what we now know about the limitations of nanites, especially with this trinary system that does not always allow their free replication. Developing more simplified networks does conserve resources and let fewer nanites possess more people.
JANINE: Sure. But there’s a couple of things about the placement of the words that bother me. That idea of being selective in what they compromise. There’s a couple more references to the importance of getting to people in authority further down, and it got me thinking – what if when they say they want to selectively compromise, they’re not talking about what part of the brain, but whose brain?
CELIA: You’re losing me.
JANINE: “It will have a more impactful effect if possessed people are able to speak as themselves, especially if we are selective in who we compromise. The population with be confounded by this.” Not upset. Not devastated emotionally like we’ve been. Not sad. Specifically confounded, or puzzled, or confused. The population will be confused by this and tactically this will be more successful in further increasing confusion and spread.
CELIA: Are you saying–
JANINE: I’m still not sure what I’m saying–
CELIA: Yes, but are you thinking that a select number of people within the possessed are…what? Being forced to lie?
JANINE: Yeah, I mean…and I know this is out there, but you said it yourself – maybe Ben was trying to tell me something without really telling me. Because he couldn’t. And…hang on, there was that time when I took a message from Captain Francis. During the siege. He said that they were about to come straight at us, yet they actually had us surrounded. But he added something else, something about how it was going to be like Julius Caesar at some battle or something. Something that Barnes knew was bullshit. And Francis knew Barnes knew was bullshit, to tip her off. We thought at the time he was being careful, worried about not wanting to give the game away that he was helping us in case they changed their plans last minute, but what if he was being made to lie about how they were deployed, and all he could think to do was add something to it that sounded to them like he was being all normal and business as usual, but was really a message to us?
CELIA: It would make sense. What I’ve gathered from the scans I’ve made is that they have access to motor skills and operational memory, but not so much of our knowledge base and…Wait…what did you say, the other thing about other references to…
JANINE: People in authority?
CELIA: Dammit!
[SFX – Celia abruptly stands up and take several steps]
JANINE: What?
CELIA: I’ll be back. Keep digging into this. And tell Adrienne.
JANINE: Are you onto something?
CELIA: Son of a bitch!
[SFX – Celia walks to the door which opens and they exit.]
JANINE: (Calling after) You know shouting eureka is more traditional!
(Beat.)
JANINE: Uh, anyway Miss Connolly, I don’t know if this is anything yet, but that’s where we’re at today I guess. I’d better inform Comptroller Barnes. End report.
[Computer Chime: End of Entry]
COMPUTER: Entry 3. Data Investigation Report.
[Computer Chime: Open Entry]
SCENE 3 – THE MEDBAY
[The Herodotus Medical Bay. Johann Mueller is being kept in an contamination isolation ward as a precaution.]
KATHY: Commence report: Kathy Winters reporting. I’m here with Indira Raju and Johann Mueller. We’re in the medbay reviewing our knowledge of the interrupter weapon we recovered from the second site. Those most qualified for this are possessed and not in a fit state for this sort of thing right now, hence why we’ve brought our stuff in here to work with Johann.
Although all tests have confirmed the residual nanite material in his system is completely inert, as a precaution he’s still confined to the medbay.
INDIRA: Which has got to suck, bigtime.
JOHANN: I don’t mind, after everything that’s happened. Being in here kept me safe.
INDIRA: Still, after all that time stuck here, to still be alone…
JOHANN: I like the quiet. And I’ve had you two, and of course Celia’s been by a lot to run tests and get my perspective on what happened to me.
KATHY: Has that helped at all?
JOHANN: Talking about it has helped, along with what Celia’s turned up. I think I understand a little bit more of exactly what was going on in my head the whole time and why I reacted how I did. I’d still like to talk to a neuropsych at some point and get a more qualified perspective, but…honestly, in the end, it’s good to feel useful. Speaking of which…
KATHY: Yeah. Although we haven’t exactly gotten off to a roaring start here. We were also supposed to have Gallini and Jensen from military, but they haven’t showed up yet.
INDIRA: Gallini sent a message a while back about being down with a bug. Not sure about Jensen. Guess they’ll miss out on winning the Nobel prize for xenotechnology with us.
KATHY: Yeah, but we could really use both their xenotech knowledge and Jensen’s engineering nous particularly.
INDIRA: Let’s get the report done, then if they’re still not here we can track them down.
KATHY: I guess. Okay, so we think we might be onto something. Initially we thought we’d run into the same problem that engineers and scientists always get when working with alien weaponry, the problem of decay.
INDIRA: Yes. It’s the same old story every time. Their weaponry is energy based. Not electricity exactly, not lasers, but something in that zone.
KATHY: Back on Tefen, the AI showed Ben and I some footage of Proximans fighting each other.. Short streaks of light. Maybe there’s plasma involved, not that a vid is much to go on either.
INDIRA: Everything from first discovery era has well and truly deteriorated with time. While we have some notion of their weapon mechanics, it’s always been irrelevant without knowing what they actually shoot. There were a few weapons of a more recent vintage found on Tefen, but even then no charge or spark or whatever you want to call it. I know there have been some interesting attempts to reverse engineer these kind of things, but all they’ve achieved from an experimental point of view is coming up with one more way we can safely say the Proximans didn’t manipulate energy as ammunition for their weapons.
But for once we’re in luck here. These weapons are custom-designed, created for a specific purpose, and developed at this facility along with the nanites. And while the files we have are incomplete, as we decode more and more into a usable format we’ve sped up our work using keyword searches, starting with the previously unknown word for them that Ben identified which gave us the name interrupter and then trying a few others like “countermeasure”, “defensive weapon” and “neutralise”. We’re missing key pieces, but it’s sped up the process a lot and given us some technical information.
JOHANN: What we know so far is that it’s something like a stunner, functionally anyway, rendering the possessed person unconscious but also providing a kind of shock to the nanite systems that instantly shorts out their connections to the body they’re controlling. It doesn’t kill or destroy them exactly, at least we don’t think so.
INDIRA: It seems more like a built-in failure mechanism, a response coded to the specific energy emitted by this device. So the intention here seems to have been to
build this in, just in case of an accident. Something to give them a chance to recover anyone affected without killing them.
JOHANN: Which makes sense. If all you want to do is stop the nanites, a regular gun gets the job done, just not, without, you know, killing the person they’re inside of.
KATHY: So while this would seem to be good news, there are several catches. Aside from the big one we already knew, that the ones we found were clapped out.
INDIRA: Yeah. The first is that these were minimally tested prototypes. The decision to put them together seems to have been a late one. A couple of the xenoarchaeologists have picked up on references to an accident that occurred at some point during the nanite development processes, so maybe that led to the push for more safety.
The second is that, while we’re still not entirely sure of what kind of energy is involved, what data we have on it suggests it is almost certainly something that would be lethal to a human.
That’s not a surprise, there’s been growing evidence turning up in xenobiological research for a while to say that we had very different levels of tolerance to things like radiation and electrical currents. In some areas we have the edge, but mostly it’s the Proximans that win out.
INDIRA: Which means, Miss Connolly, we’re hoping that exposing people to a lower dose for a longer period may have the desired results. Or at least cause enough of a disruption that something Celia has been working on has a better chance. But all of that is dependent on us learning what the energy actually is. One of the files I opened earlier seemed to give some technical information about composition, but I feel like I’m missing a piece or two on how to translate that into a human understanding.
KATHY: Can you show me that?
INDIRA: Yeah, it’s uh…here.
[SFX – A file being placed up on a screen.]
KATHY: This looks like what we need.
INDIRA: I agree. But you can see that the notation they’re using to express it is only half understood. There are new symbols to represent the physics involved that we’ve never encountered before and I…
[SFX – Kathy using her datapad to upload a file to run calculations on the information in Indira’s file.]
INDIRA: What are you doing?
KATHY: Just trying something. Give me a minute…
INDIRA: That doesn’t…How are y…What is that file you’re running?
[SFX – The calculations come to a finish.]
KATHY: Annnnd…I think we have a signature.
(Beat.)
KATHY: What?
INDIRA: (With growing anger) That’s not possible.
JOHANN: Well obviously it’s possible, she did it.
INDIRA: Yes, but how? With what?
KATHY: I…just…I cross-referenced what we had against…some information that came from Proximan medical studies. A lot of the coding and symbols have turned up in our studies there.
JOHANN: Oh, that makes sense.
[SFX – Indira stands.]
INDIRA: No, it doesn’t. I have access to information drawn from studies in all disciplines, all plugged into the programs I’m working with. So I ask again. How did you know this?
KATHY: Some of what I have is experimental. One of my old professors, they haven’t published yet and–
INDIRA: You’re not going to give me a straight answer, are you?
(Beat.)
INDIRA: At least you’re staying true to form.
[SFX – Indira storms out of the medbay.]
(Beat.)
KATHY: Uh, sorry you had to see that.
JOHANN: (Trying to lighten the mood) Look I’ve been cooped up here for quite a while. It was nice to finally get a chance to see a show.
KATHY: (Trying to respond in kind and failing) I hope we were sufficiently entertaining.
JOHANN: I haven’t spent a lot of time around the two of you together, but I’m sensing that was a while coming?
KATHY: Yeah. She…has feelings for me.
JOHANN: And you have feelings for her.
KATHY: It’s too soon after Harry died.
JOHANN: Not what I asked.
KATHY: Yes. I do but it’s…
JOHANN: Too soon, yeah.
KATHY: You don’t believe me.
JOHANN: I would say…you don’t believe you.
KATHY: That doesn’t–
JOHANN: Let me ask you this, what was your relationship with Harry like?
KATHY: We…we were friends.
JOHANN: That’s all?
KATHY: We didn’t…there hadn’t been time.
JOHANN: So nothing happened there either. You kept him at arms length even though you were pretty sure…
KATHY: Yeah.
JOHANN: Just like here and now with Indira.
KATHY: I told you, that’s because of Harry.
JOHANN: Look, you might be right. Maybe it is too soon. But the thing is, with Harry…it ended up being too late.
KATHY: Hey, that’s not fair–
JOHANN: I know. And I’m only saying it because the same damn thing happened to me. There was someone…and I never told…
KATHY: There was a name you kept mentioning…Mel?
JOHANN: Yeah. No matter what else was happening, we had each other. But I never told Mel how I felt. And then one day…there wasn’t another chance to.
KATHY: Why didn’t you?
JOHANN: There were reasons. They made sense at the time. Just like yours. So: Too soon? Maybe. But…that’s not the real question.
KATHY: Okay, I’ll bite – what is?
JOHANN: Why don’t you want to get close to anyone like that?
KATHY: I…the stupid thing is I do. I lost Harry before I had a chance to tell him how I felt and along comes Indira and she’s funny and upfront and goes after what she wants and of all the things in the universe, the thing she wants to go after is…me. I liked Harry, maybe…maybe even loved him a little, but Indira…I think she might be everything I never knew I wanted. And the thing is, the other day when she took the risk, dived through the teleporter first before we were a hundred percent sure it was safe, for that split second, I knew I didn’t want to lose someone again and not say something about how I felt about them.
JOHANN: And so, I ask again, what’s stopping you?
KATHY: I…haven’t been able to be myself. And I don’t know if I can tell her about the parts of me she doesn’t know about or the parts of me that I’ve kept hidden. And if I do…what if that changes things?
JOHANN: Is that the only reason you’re worried about telling her?
KATHY: You aren’t going to ask me what my–
JOHANN: If you were going to tell me you already would have. But are there any other consequences to telling her?
KATHY: Actually…not really. Not given what Miss Connolly told me in her last report. Management already know the truth.
JOHANN: Then for the love of God, go find her and tell her.
KATHY: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Johann. Thanks for listening.
JOHANN: Where else was I going to be?
KATHY: We’ll get you out of here. And we’re so close to being able to help your friends and colleagues.
JOHANN: Just go. Saving the world can wait half an hour.
KATHY: Wish me luck.
JOHANN: (With a laugh) Just be honest and you won’t even need it.
KATHY: Right.
[SFX – Kathy leaves the medbay.]
JOHANN: (Calling after her) Oh Kathy you forgot to shut off the recorder!
(Beat.)
JOHANN: Well this is awkward. I’m stuck on the other side of the glass and I can’t…Uh, Miss Connolly, I can see what Kathy has put up on the screen and I do think she’s got it right and we’re close to understanding the energy signature. Looking at it, I think we can reconfigure some of the medical equipment to emit a low level dose of it. It looks similar to what’s used in treatment of conditions like…uh…the one some people born on Vega get…uh, Zerafa’s Syndrome. If the medbay doesn’t have the exact equipment I’m certain we can source parts we need from the military vessel in orbit, so that’s good.
(Beat.)
JOHANN: I’d check myself but well, still on the wrong side of the glass. But I’m confident we’re definitely…Why am I bothering? Kathy’ll definitely have to edit this before she uploads it anyway. Can’t imagine she’d want all of that personal–
[SFX – Jensen enters.]
JOHANN: Jensen? Where have you been?
JENSEN: Talking with Barnes. Wait where’s everyone else?
JOHANN: Kathy and Indira are having a…personal conversation. Gallini didn’t show. Something about being ill?
JENSEN: Right. I need your help with something.
JOHANN: Oh okay. Could you maybe shut off Kathy’s recorder? We were doing a report and she got called away.
JENSEN: Uh sure…I’ll just set it to upload and then I’ll…
JOHANN: No, wait! D–
[Computer Chime: End of Entry.]
COMPUTER: Entry 4. Xenobiology and xenoanthropology report.
[Computer Chime: Open Entry.]
SCENE 4 – CHANG’S ISOLATION CELL
[Back in Chang’s isolation cell. As in the previous episode, Chang can be heard from the other side of the glass. Celia is on our side.]
CELIA: Right, I’m here in the Nabonidus compound having marched straight over here to talk with Dr Chang, ready to have a repeat of an earlier conversation.
CHANG: Funny, you don’t often need something repeated.
CELIA: It is isn’t it. Alright, let’s run through it one more time. So you think that the nanite linkage into the spinocerebellum is not an appropriate point of
entry when considering how to interrupt connection to the nanite network, correct?
CHANG: I do not. No.
CELIA: This despite the fact that minor damage to the spinocerebellum is one of several points of difference between Johann Mueller’s brain and the vast majority of the population and that the precise point at which his damage is located is one at which we can see nanite activity in the possessed.
CHANG: That is correct.
CELIA: And despite the fact that this particular area of the cerebellum works fundamentally differently to our understanding of how Proximan brains handle the same functions, and that the templates programmed into the nanites for attacking different species seem so far to have a very different expectation of where and how the feedforward and proprioceptive functions are handled, suggesting this might be a weak point in their adaptation to us.
CHANG: Yes, you’re right on it so far.
CELIA: Alright. Why?
CHANG: Well, it’s simple really, your conjecture is that looking into these anomalies in Mueller and the failure of the loops in his network to properly form, you’ll be able to find a way to break the circuits, so to speak, and by so doing, disable the nanites. And it’s a worthy idea, but this particular circuit does not seem to be a primary node in the network, nor a point of linkage to it. There are at least three other points, including the ones that dial into the optic nerve and then create a loop from the cerebellum to the nanites, that are far more promising.
And as before I come back to the genetics. Along with the genes affecting brain structure we discussed last time, I think it will be more fruitful to further
investigate the rare variant of the BCL6 gene Mueller has. That gene is linked to the immune system, specifically T-helper cells, and to neurogenesis. Both of those would play a big part in fighting off invasive nanites. Fewer than 1 in 50,000 people carry Mueller’s particular mutation, which was only identified a decade ago in two brothers who survived an outbreak that devastated a mining colony in the Altair system.
CELIA: You’re right. I can see it. And you are of course our foremost medical expert, with a considerably more than a layperson’s understanding of xenobiology. Comparative biology aside I am all at sea here. I suppose I am looking at this all wrong. I suppose this must be a little like what William Farr ran into trying to determine the conditions that produced cholera using statistics. He got caught up in John Snow’s theories of water contamination when all the time Farr’s original belief in air pollution as the cause and data correlating lower elevation with increased infection was staring him in the face from day one.
CHANG: (Knowing) Yes. It’s exactly like that.
CELIA: Ah well, good to know I won’t be making that mistake.
CHANG: It is, isn’t it.
CELIA: Well thank you again Yee Kiat. I’ll head off and start looking into the genetic link. I’ll stop wasting your time chasing dead ends and come back when I have some more data to share.
CHANG: Glad to be able to help clear up the confusion for you.
CELIA: Yes, I think we understand each other perfectly now.
CHANG: I think we do.
[Celia exits the isolation room and heads out into the hangar corridor.]
CELIA: Alright it’s safe to say Janine is right. Chang is just like Ben and Francis. Members of the possessed have been “selectively compromised” and are not able to speak as freely as everyone else seems to be. Francis because he’s the marine’s commander and was playing spy. Ben because he’s a head of department and the strongest expert we have on Proximan language and Chang because we have a medical puzzle to solve and he’s the only one on site who knows anything about medicine. And I know because William Farr was wrong, and John Snow was right about cholera. And even if it’s been eliminated in our time, Dr Chang certainly knows that cholera was a water-borne disease. So just like Janine noted with Ben and Francis, he found a way to give the game away.
Which means I’m heading back to my lab to start running tests and simulations. I’ve wasted enough time chasing my tail. If the nanites don’t want me pursuing this line of inquiry then there has to be a reason.
[SFX – Outgoing Coms page.]
CELIA: Pennella to Barnes.
ADRIENNE: (Over Coms) This is Barnes.
CELIA: I’ve just been with Chang. I think I can confirm Janine’s–
ADRIENNE: (On Coms) You’re in the hangar with The Possessed?
CELIA: Yes.
ADRIENNE: (On Coms) Are you alone?
CELIA: Yes?
ADRIENNE: (On Coms) Find a storage cupboard, a compartment, anything lockable, and seal yourself in.
CELIA: But wh–
ADRIENNE: (On Coms) Now!
[SFX – Coms out.]
CELIA: Um…I suppose this will do.
[SFX – Celia walks to a door, opens and walks in side, then programs it to lock.]
CELIA: I am beginning to get deja vu all over again.
(Beat.)
CELIA: Jennifer, I will upload this now to ensure what I’ve found gets out in case, for whatever reason, there isn’t a chance later…End report.
[Computer Chime: End of Entry.]
COMPUTER: Entry 5. Military Search and Rescue Report.
[Computer Chime: Open Entry.]
SCENE 5 – INSIDE THE MAIN HOLDING TANK FOR THE MAJORITY OF THE POSSESSED
[Inside a large isolation area in Hangar 8 of the Nabonidus Compound. Many of the possessed chatter in the background. More than in the previous episode.]
FRANCIS: Commence report, Captain Francis reporting. We’ve come to a certain mundanity at this point. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a welcome one, but even welcome mundanity is still mundane.
Have I said mundane enough yet?
We stand around, mostly still, completely unable to move on our own for hours at a time. Food comes in. None of us try to rush the door now, but we do all move forward. There’s no pushing and shoving, almost an orderly procession. A kind of dance, blending our lines together as we merge, take a portion, interweave as we go away, our spot immediately taken by the person behind us. It almost makes me wish I knew more about musicals. I’m sure it looks quite elegant from above. Creepy, but elegant.
Interestingly, no matter what is put down we always take an equal amount. It’s nice to know that at the present moment the hive mind considers preservation of all equally important. I have no wish to end up like any of the unfortunate third on the trip to the second site. I suppose it’s all a matter of pragmatism. We still outnumber the rest, so if we were to get free our numbers will likely prevail. So, for the time being they conserve, repair and wait.
Though for what, I don’t know. A chance? A mistake? Is there actually a plan being considered or is it all a matter of luck and patience? Though there does feel to be…a shift in the wind? Janowicz, I can’t see you, you there?
JANOWICZ: Yes captain. Behind you to your left.
FRANCIS: Do the native seem restless to you?
JANOWICZ: I…don’t think so.
FRANCIS: Trinh? Hubert? Harris?
HARRIS: I think my eyes have been spending more time staring at the door today. Maybe?
TRINH: Yeah, now that you mention it. Think it’s anything?
FRANCIS: Could be.
HUBERT: It might be nothing, but…my body was letting me sit more the last few days so I could take weight off this knee of mine. I’m standing now.
FRANCIS: That doesn’t sound like nothing.
HARRIS: Maybe we’ve been like this so long that we’ve become like cows at the end of the day, drifting towards the milking facility, knowing it’s time.
FRANCIS: The only time I’ve seen a cow is the handful of times I’ve eaten steak. I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.
HARRIS: Uh…Goldfish in a bowl then?
FRANCIS: Maybe. Seeing shapes in the clouds when they’re still just clouds.
KONSTANTINIDIS: (Weary) Pareidolia.
FRANCIS: That the word for it?
KONSTANTINIDIS: Yeah.
REMY: I thought it was apophenia.
KONSTANTINIDIS: That’s for making patterns out of unrelated things. Pareidolia is specifically visual.
REMY: Right. So…with clouds it’s pareidolia but what we’re talking about here..?
KONSTANTINIDIS: Yeah. That’s apophenia.
FRANCIS: Well. At least I’ve learned something new today…
[Beat.]
FRANCIS: But I don’t know. Even if it is ap…apophenia, stay awake everyone, just in case. (Resuming report.) Having had the Proximan’s purpose in creating the nanites explained to me, the tactical part of my mind can’t help but wonder at the programming that went into them. What were the goals? Priorities? What’s mission critical and what’s a secondary objective? Is it about the continued spread, or is it about the impact? Which is more telling? Number of converts or forcing people to watch others they care about be undone? Or putting people in the position where they have to choose between killing those they love or surrendering and becoming like them? Is there a tipping point? Some percentage of conversion or tactical criteria where they switch from covert to overt tactics? Where sneaking out and adding a person here or there is no longer desirable and they simply raid whole settlements?
We have some anecdotal evidence based on what we’ve seen here, but this is an unusual situation. What would it look like if deployed on colony or planet-wide scale? I’ve been trying to imagine some models, scaling up based on what I’ve seen while considering things like shifts in behaviour based on the level of control, or the way The Possessed reacted in the face of various tactical setbacks when we were hunting the others through the mine. Trouble is, I’m not that great at doing math in my head and even if I had a pen and paper to hand, well…it’s not my hand to use right now.
So that’s what? Three? Four? days of being idle have done to me. If this goes on much longer I’m going to have so many questions that I’ll have to resign my commission and join Eudoxus.
I’m not even sure I’m joking.
[SFX – A door opens distantly and footsteps approach.]
In other news, morale continues to come and go. As you heard a few moments ago, there’s a little conversation from time to time about things other than our predicament. Barnes is still working on–
HARRIS: Hey Gallini, what are you doing here? It’s not shift change for–
[Two stunner shots. The two guards fall.]
REMY: Oh shit.
HUBERT: Guess it wasn’t nothing.
HARRIS: Gallini what are you doing?
[SFX – Gallini steps past the unconscious guards, pulls off his glove and begins entering commands on the console nearby. The sound of control beeps continues under the following…]
GALLINI: I think we both know this isn’t me.
HARRIS: Please don’t. We…we can’t go through this again.
FRANCIS: What’s going on? Stand fast Gallini. Hands off those controls.
GALLINI: Captain, in other circumstances I would be happy to comply, but it’s got me. I’ve been trying to tell people but…
FRANCIS: But you couldn’t. Yeah. I’ve noticed that too. Guess it doesn’t matter who hears you now.
KONSTANTINIDIS: Please. No. We’re all so tired.
TRINH: Goddammit, not again. There’s no way the genie’s going back in the bottle a second time. Goddammit!
FRANCIS: Hold it together Trinh. Open Coms to Barnes – Come in. Priority override.
[SFX – Outgoing Coms beep, quickly followed by an error response.]
GALLINI: It’s no good sir, I jammed all coms on the way in. Otherwise the guards at the front might have alerted these two here.
JANOWICZ: (Under breath) We’re fucked.
FRANCIS: Dammit. How long?
GALLINI: I’m entering the sequence for all the doors. Everyone will get out at once, not just you lot in there.
FRANCIS: Shit. There has to be something we can do.
GALLINI: I’m sorry Captain. There’s no way–
HARRIS: No, Gallini, listen to me. You can fight it. I remember when they first got me. When it spread through the marines I would’ve been the last in line. I think I didn’t get the full dose. So it took a while. Before the control was complete. There’s no way you got a full dose either. Am I right? So you can fight it. You can fight them.
GALLINI: I don’t think–
HARRIS: Just focus on one thing. Stop your hand.
[SFX – The sound of Gallini punching in commands stops.]
(Beat.)
GALLINI: (Through gritted teeth.) It hurts.
HARRIS: I know. But you’re doing it. I tried, tried to do something to raise the alarm. But I couldn’t face the pain and I have been kicking my own ass for a week. But you’re a tough old bastard. Tougher than me. Tougher than Logan. Tougher than Riggs even.
GALLINI: Don’t throw the dead back in my face!
HARRIS: Look at me.
GALLINI: It won’t let–
HARRIS: Make it let you! That’s it. Riggs’d tell you to find a way, just like she did. And Logan, what did you used to call him?
GALLINI: The little prick with big ideas and no brains.
HARRIS: Yeah, that’s it. What’d you two always used to fight about?
GALLINI: I can’t!
HARRIS: Come on!
FRANCIS: Listen to Harris, Gallini. He’s right. You can do this.
(There are encouraging remarks from The Possessed, including:)
REMY: Gallini, fight them.
HUBERT: Come on. I don’t want to do this again.
KONSTANTINIDIS: I don’t think we can take it. I can’t take it. Please.
JANOWICZ: Stop this. End it. Seriously, you let us out and I’ll kill you myself.
TRINH: Come on, you swore you were tougher than any of us marines. Prove it.
(A shout of pain from Gallini.)
[SFX – The sound of commands being entered resumes as Gallini completes the sequence. There is an access denied sound at the end.]
GALLINI: It didn’t work! Some kind of…it’s making me put in overrides and…I think the locking system’s been scrambled. But how?
[SFX – A stunner round being chambered.]
JENSEN: I borrowed a trick from Mueller. Gallini, put down the weapon.
GALLINI: It’s going to make me–
[SFX – Gallini turns, Jensen fires, Gallini falls.]
HARRIS: Jensen, I could kiss you, if not for, you know…
JENSEN: The nanites?
HARRIS: Well I was thinking more that you’re ace, but that too.
JENSEN: Ha. Did Gallini touch either of these two?
HARRIS: Nah, never went near them.
JENSEN: I should put them in a lockable area just in case. After I’ve seen to Gallini.
[SFX – Jensen retrieves Gallini’s stunner.]
HARRIS: I feel kinda stupid, the big speech and all. I saw you coming and distracting him was all I could think to do. But you already had it covered.
FRANCIS: Son, faced with no other option, you did the one thing you could. And it was working.
JENSEN: And besides, with the sprained ankle, I’m not exactly fast or stealthy. I appreciated the diversion, thanks. And with his skills who knows what Gallini could’ve done with 20 more seconds to try forcing the doors.
FRANCIS: Jensen, report. How did you know?
JENSEN: Well sir, let me explain it like this: Harris, when would Gallini call in sick?
HARRIS: The day after never.
JENSEN: Exactly. But he did earlier this morning, and then we heard from Janine Hattersley that she was concerned that key people could be possessed but unable to speak freely. That the nanites pick certain people and force them to lie about what’s going on, messing everyone else up because they expect the person speaking is always the real person underneath the nanites. I believe you might know something about that.
FRANCIS: I…have no idea what you’re talking about.
JENSEN: Of course you don’t. Or that there are ways the person might find to get around that fact like say raising obscure facts from military history. And with Gallini…it seemed like a longshot but when he called in sick and couldn’t be located…better to assume worst case scenario right now.
FRANCIS: Wait, you did this all by yourself? What if you’d been compromised too? What was the back up?
ADRIENNE: (Distant) That would be me, Captain.
FRANCIS: Barnes? Where are you?
[SFX – Jensen begins dragging the unconscious Gallini away to where she intends to lock him up.]
ADRIENNE: (Distant) If you could raise your head you’d find me just to your right on the catwalk above with my sights on Jensen, just in case. Oh Jensen, don’t forget to grab the guards stunners too.
JENSEN: Yes general.
ADRIENNE: (Distant) Don’t call me that.
JENSEN: You got it general.
FRANCIS: This was still a hell of a risk. If Jensen’d been compromised she could’ve chanced a shot at you by now, or even before she came down here.
ADRIENNE: (Distant) True, and I’m an indifferent shot at the best of times. But, I’m not the only back up, Janine?
[SFX – Jensen locks up Gallini and returns for the other two.]
JANINE: (Over PA) Hi everyone. Do smile for the cameras please. Nobody is getting out of there if I see anything funny on the monitors.
ADRIENNE: (Distant) One of us being like Gallini was a possibility. Two of us unlikely but not beyond reason. But all three?
Besides, since we started hatching the plan we’ve all kept our distance from each other with the full understanding that any time one of us turned up where they weren’t supposed to be it was stun first and ask questions later.
FRANCIS: And what if it had been Janine?
ADRIENNE: (Distant) Well she’s only got access to the exterior doors currently, so she can’t let you out and all she could really do was keep us in. I’ve also had the computers set to initiate a full shut out sequence if I don’t put in a code every two minutes. It’s not perfect, but under the circumstances it had to do. Keeping the number of people in on the plan as few as possible minimised the chance of someone possessed being in the loop, while giving us just enough oversight if one of us was.
FRANCIS: That was a hell of a plan on short notice.
[SFX – Jensen has by now returned from locking up the two guards in a different space to Gallini. She picks up their stunners.]
ADRIENNE: (Distant) Wheels within wheels. I tell you what, if I am possessed I’ve done a bloody good job fooling myself.
FRANCIS: What now?
ADRIENNE: (Distant) Well, now that we know for certain this is really a problem and has really happened, I think we’re going to have to isolate people until we can scan everyone to be sure no one else is like Gallini. It’ll be a logistical nightmare, though luckily for us, that’s my thing.
FRANCIS: How did Gallini end up like this anyway?
JENSEN: My guess, while we were securing all of you back at the final takedown. We were all protected as much as possible, and cautious, but he got a bullet graze which would have nicked his suit and somewhere in the confusion…it wouldn’t take much, just a touch.
FRANCIS: Well my hat is off to you again Barnes. I’d give you a standing ovation but…under the circumstances…
ADRIENNE: (Distant, and with a laugh) Save it for later, Captain.
FRANCIS: If there is a later.
ADRIENNE: (Distant) Have a little faith, Edward.
[Computer Chime: End of Entry.]
COMPUTER: Entry 6. Xenobiology and xenoanthopology addendum.
[Computer Chime: Open Entry.]
SCENE 6 – INSIDE THE ROOM CELIA LOCKED THEMSELVES IN EARLIER
[An empty, enclosed space. Distantly the wind can be heard.]
CELIA: Hello Jennifer. This is an addendum to my previous report. I’m still stuck in a storage cupboard in Nabonidus hangar 8 where all the possessed are bring held. Everyone has been similarly isolated for a few hours now as Barnes verifies that no one is compromised in the same way Gallini was. I don’t know how exactly she is unravelling that particular Gordian knot, but I trust she’s finding the most efficient way to do it which, among other things, involves keeping us all where we are, and working outwards from the biology pod where the scanners are. Since I wasn’t there, others are in charge and I’m a ways down the list.
Not that I have been idle. Being stuck alone in a room with nothing but a life and death problem to solve does wonders to focus the mind. I’ve had time to consider the preliminary findings Kathy’s team made regarding the interrupters we recovered from the second site. Time to consider what Chang told me without telling me, and time to consider some other work I’d been doing on the process of nainte networks solidifying within the body, and I’ve come to some conclusions. But before I speak to those I’m going to get Kathy on the link. I want someone else to see what I’ve been staring at for the past hour before I say it aloud. Just to be sure.
[SFX – Outgoing Coms beep.]
CELIA: Pennella to Winters, are you there Kathy?
(Beat, and then)
KATHY: (On Coms) Yah, Hi Celia, what’s up?
CELIA: I…I’m completing my report back to central and I wanted to get your eyes on a few things before I sent them through.
KATHY: (On Coms) Okay, shoot.
CELIA: First, I’ve reviewed the notes you and Indira made. And I agree, further testing is needed, but with the energy signature now determined I do think treatments using a lower dose should incapacitate and gradually give people’s immune responses a chance to eliminate nanites from their systems. That was good work.
INDIRA: (On Coms) Thank you.
CELIA: I imagine it will function much like old-fashioned cancer treatments from a few centuries back. Have you been able to expand any further?
INDIRA: (On Coms) We’ve been a little caught up. We don’t have most of our data to hand.
KATHY: (On Coms) Uh, yeah. We were having a long overdue conversation–
INDIRA: (On Coms) Among other things.
KATHY: (On Coms)…when Barnes shut us all in. It…I guess with nowhere to go I was finally able to…be honest and…it helped we were able to…clear the air so to speak.
INDIRA: (On Coms) Among other things.
CELIA: Yes, I can see that by the way you two are holding hands.
KATHY: (On Coms, Exasperated) Indira, I told you audio only!
INDIRA: (On Coms) Oops, did I press the wrong button? Oh, such an oversight and rookie mistake from me, a skilled xenotechnologist. How embarrassing to have made such an obvious error.
KATHY: (On Coms) You..! You…
INDIRA: (On Coms) Can I help it if I want everyone to know?
CELIA: It’s about time.
KATHY: (On Coms) You…don’t sound happy.
CELIA: For you two? I’m ecstatic. But, my mind is focused on other things right now.
KATHY: (On Coms) Okay.
INDIRA: (On Coms) Oh uh, sorry, go on.
CELIA: The second thing is that I think I have cracked the other side of our problem. This whole incident with selective compromising made me realise that Chang, or more accurately the nanites within him, was deliberately leading me down the wrong path. Having corrected for that and run some simulations, I am confident that blocking the main nanite loop with a small microsurgery to a specific region of the spinocerebellum will cause a similar signal interrupt to what occurred with Johann. This will further arrest the growth of the nanite network, and more importantly break the connection. I think tour two treatments can work in tandem. My work stops the nanites from progressing while yours eliminates them. We’re going to have to run a massive number of tests and simulations and loop in medical researchers from Earth, but in theory, it should work.
INDIRA: (On Coms) Then that means, we’ve done it?
KATHY: (On Coms) It sounds like…but what is it? What aren’t you saying?
CELIA: I am saying that I believe we will have an effective treatment in a matter of weeks. It might take a while to get right, but very soon we should be able to stop networks spreading any further throughout most people’s bodies. And that is not before time either.
KATHY: (On Coms) Not before time.
INDIRA: (On Coms) Most people.
CELIA: Kathy, you remember I was considering some data we learnt the other day about the additional stages of nanite development, the replacement of nanites within the host body with other, more permanent networks. That over time these would increase.
KATHY: (On Coms) Yes.
[SFX – Celia sends a link to Kathy that is opened on Kathy’s end.]
CELIA: Can you take a moment a review these latest scans I have from random members of the Nabonidus crew. Here’s Dimitrova.
KATHY: (On Coms) Okay, what am I looking f…oh.
CELIA: And now Santiago.
KATHY: (On Coms) Yeah, I see it.
CELIA: This is Faa’soo
KATHY: (On Coms) Same thing.
CELIA: And now Hollister. Do you see what I see?
KATHY: (On Coms) I do.
CELIA: Thank you. I couldn’t bring myself to say it until someone else had verified what I was seeing.
INDIRA: (On Coms) Okay, once again for those not members of the squishy bits club?
CELIA: Indira, and also Jennifer, simply put the plan we have in place, it will work for every possessed member of the Herodotus crew. It will work for Captain Francis and members of his squad. It will even work for Johann Mueller who has been functionally immune this whole time. But it will not work for anyone else from Nabonidus, and in fact, though I am hardly the final authority on such things and there is much to be considered…I do not think any treatment will.
INDIRA: (On Coms) Why not?
KATHY: (On Coms) They’re too far gone. Basically there’s not enough left of them that’s…
CELIA: Fully human. As the process goes through the final network stage many nanites are replaced with more purpose-built connective fixtures, like replacing a temporary bridge with a permanent one, allowing the spare nanites to be available for further spread. This continues throughout the body, replacing regular parts of the anatomy, taking over from organs, perhaps even blood vessels and all the rest, creating an inseparable, entangled entity that is likely impossible to return to its original state. And this is where they’ve been heading ever since they went to the second site and got their hands on those cannisters they returned with.
INDIRA: (On Coms) Then all of this…was for nothing.
KATHY: (On Coms) In a way. We’re alright, but Nabonidus…
CELIA: They were dead before we even arrived.
[Computer Chime: End of Entry.]
COMPUTER: End Status Report 10.
[Computer Chime: End of Status Report.]
[Theme music plays]
COMPUTER ANNOUNCEMENT: This episode of Among the Stars and Bones featured the voices of:
JULIA: Julia Eve as Adrienne Barnes.
LUCILLE: Lucille Valentine as Janine Hattersley.
SHAKIRA: Shakira Searle as Dr Celia Pennella.
CHRIS: Chris Magilton as Ben Kelleher.
JORDAN: Jordan Cobb as Kathy Winters.
ASHA: Asha Lloyd as Indira Raju.
JERRON: Jerron Bacat as Johann Mueller.
WHITNEY: Whitney Johnson as Jensen.
ALEX: Alex Chew as Dr Chang.
LIV: Liv Smith as Captain Edward Francis.
MAIA: Maia Harlap as Alexis Konstantinidis and Sergeant Janowicz.
ANTHONY: Anthony Morales…Harris.
BRANDON: Brandon Nguyen as Private Trinh.
REBECCA: Rebecca Owen as Private Hubert.
EDWYN: Edwyn Tiong as Remy.
DYLAN: Dylan Chambers as Gallini.
DEVIN: Devin Madson as The Computer.
COMPUTER ANNOUNCEMENT: The work of the Eudoxus Initiative is made possible by generous research grants from our patrons. Thank you to our most recent patrons: Caribou Kevin, Craig Mihalik, Nick, Commonwealthy, Amrai, Regal Hayseed. If you too would like to support humanity’s understanding of alien technology, culture and history, go to Patreon.com/Amongthestarsandbones. For a transcript of this report or additional information go to amongthestarsandbones.com. If you enjoyed this report please consider supporting us by rating, reviewing and recommending us. Thank you for listening.
[Theme music fades out]
