Speaker 1: Hello, I'm welcomed stories all the time. Glad you are here.
Let's get into it. Even imagining the word scrolled on
that little scrap of paper paper made his head begin
to pulse with pain. He'd found the paper in Spencer's desk,
a curacy analog anomaly in a station full of technological interfaces.
When his eyes first fell on the word, it had
sent us spy avaggony through his brain, and he'd flung
the paper away in terror. Since then, the mere thought
of the word made the pain begin to surge again,
and he'd learned to refer to it, even in his mind,
as only the word. He had little hope of doving
to the bottom of that mystery. However, he had only
just figured out his name from viewing the station's personnel
records and looking at the name patch on his uniform,
Carl Jackson, Maintenance Technician. It hadn't taken long to put
together a few more details about the situation. A thorough
exploration of the station didn't take long. It was a
bedbones outpost, then revealed it to be completely abandoned. Himself
the only sign of life. The personnel records indicated there
should have been three The other crew members, Rachel Spencer,
the scientist, Stephen Crisp, the computer specialist, and Timothy Winn,
the commanding officer, all gone without a trace. A quick
check of the escape pod showed that both were missing.
The only puzzle was if he was reading the scanners correctly.
That the nearest habitable destination was far out of frange
of any escape pod, But then again, maybe he forgotten
how to read scanners. To the last reliable memory, he
was leaving for the station, he didn't even remember arriving
or any of these people he'd apparently been working with
for six months. When he reached back to that time
in his mind, he felt that strange, pulsing feeling rising again,
and the word and the pain that came with it, threatening,
surged back into the foreground history. He cleared his thoughts
and brought them back to the prison. The first thing
he could remember that belonged to the present, to his
new reality, was waking up. P neery dim lighting of
the control room, a pale, pinkish red minimum power mode
message glowing on the top of every console display. Other
than that gently ominous warning, all the displays were blank,
save one, which contained only large green digits that appeared
to be a count down timer. It was set to
seventy two days and change and was counting down by
the second seventy days. He still puzzled about the word,
but he stirred gingerly around it. Were y of thinking it.
Even thinking about thinking it brought the dread back, not
just the physical pain, but an inexplicable foreboding he couldn't
quite put his finger on. Besides, he had two other
immediate mysteries to dread, the count on timer and the
missing crew. What was the time recounting down to good
or bad? Rescue war doux or nothing at all? Had
some one just fumble fingered some buttons while being struck
down by the calamity that had taken the crew? And
that was the second ominous mystery, the disappearing crew. No
matter which way you went with it, it was unsettling.
If they'd taken off on the escape pods, why hadn't
they taken him? Each pod was a two seater, I'd
where would they have gone? Repeated scans had shown no
viable destinations in range. And if they hadn't taken the pods,
what had happened to them? What would happen to him.
He might not make it seventy more days. He had
to try to find out what happened and find out
how to protect himself if necessary. He decided to start
in Spencer's lab, where he'd found that misty's slip of
paper with that word on it. He rubbed his eyes uneasily.
What kind of science did she do? Anyway? He brushed
through the local files and drafts on her terminal. It
was all highly scientific and all above his head. He
slowly gathered it was something to do with psychological brain's eyns.
That explained why there was a glass jar of fluid
on one shelf, which, according to the label, had once
held a brain. It was empty. Now he couldn't make
head nor tail of what kind of brain science she
was doing, and was getting a completely different kind of
headache now trying to puzzle out all these highly technical terms.
Found his way back over to the common area, where
he helped himself to a ration packet and managed to
reboot one of the secondary terminals. It was stuck in
low palmode like the rest of the station, with most
of its functionality disabled, but he was able to start
up mine sweeper which kept him busy for the rest
of the day sixty five days. The rest of the
first week saw a couple of setbacks and a triumph.
From rifling around the quarters of Stephen Chris, the computer specialist.
Jackson had managed to discover that there were crew log
entries stored in the station's local network, but only CRISP
and Captain when had access to them. Neither of them
had been dumb enough to make the password, password, or
anything easily guessable, so Jackson had gone digging through their
personal effects, hoping to find a family member or an
important date. It was no good. He typed in all
combinations of names and dates he found in the personal effects,
but it was all denied. Finally, on a desperate long shot,
he decided to try the word and it seemed like
someone of something didn't want him to remember. Seemed like
exactly the kind of thing you'd do with a password
to something you didn't want anyone to find. He first
tried to log into Crisp's account. It took every ounce
of woolpow he had, the pain escalating with every letter
he typed, until finally he finished with the r hit
enter and blacked out. When he awakened, he scrambled back
up eagerly to look at the screen, which informed him
that the username and password didn't match. He groommed, his head,
still thundering, now with an added wave of nauser. He
rushed to the bath room to vomit and spend the
rest of his day in bair, his brain furiously punishing
him for his inconsideration. It was until the next day
that he felt well enough to try the password again,
this time with Captain Wind's account. It didn't work either,
unled to another day of bed rest. The next day,
he found himself ruminating up in the control room, gazing
out into empty space, pondering the insignificance of humanity, until
he got bored and started walking around. Close to the window.
He peered down and around at the station itself. It
seemed like directly below him, almost out of sight, were
some signs of damage, perhaps from a passing asteroid. He
tried to check the computers to see what section it was,
but the screens only continued to uselessly inform him that
the station was in minimal parmer mode. Frustrated, he went
back to the window and for the first time spot
at some lettering on one of the station's beams. That
is routine. Yes, he remembered now that was the station's name,
and as soon as he had that thought, a sharp
pain shot through his head, but quickly passed. A sudden
flash of inspiration hit and he tried accessing Crisp's account again,
this time using third as fateen as the password No
good and dawn did. He tried it with Captain Wind's
account and success. Crisp would have been disappointed with the
captain's security practices, thought Jackson, and then wondered why he
knew that, and then had to clench his teeth as
another spasm passed through his head. He forgot immediately about
the pain as it passed, as he found himself looking
at a screen containing a long list of personal log
interest Jackpot sixty days. His initial elation turned to disillusionment
quickly when he realized all recent logs had been a race.
Everything that remained only went up to three days before
the incident or whatever it was. When his current memories
first started in the countdown timer read seventy two days.
He went immediately to the most recent available logs and
found nothing of use it seemed like business as usual.
Chris talked about ordering some equipment from headquarters and complained
about it being outdated by the time it arrived. Captain
when talked about his wife in some personal gardening project
he was working on, Spencer was waiting for a few
journals to get back to her about research papers she
had submitted. He also found one of his omlogs. He
had written a song and was playing it on the
good It was surreal not to remember any of this.
In any case, it seemed there were no immediate answers
to be found hearer as to what had happened. He
figured he could spend some time going through the older
looks to see if he could pick up any hints.
But first, there was another avenue he wanted tisplore. In
his earlier investigations, he'd found several locked and sill doors,
and now as he made his way down to the
area where he estimated the damage section should be, he
confirmed it was behind one of these doors, labeled terrarium.
It was a solid door, and there seemed to be
no chance of physically forcing it open. Any locking or
unlocking function seemed to be unavailable from any of the
computer terminals, probably another casualty of minimum power mode. There
was a very good likelihood that the other locked doors
also led to other damage sections, possibly sealed off for
safety reasons. The terrarium, if that's what it was, was
just the only one he could see from the control
room window. Two of them were escape pod doors, and
it was pretty easy to see through their portholes that
the escape pods were gone, as he discovered earlier. Another
locked door was labeled Quantum com Like the Terrarium, it
had no window. It seemed like there was nothing more
he could do on this front for now, so he
decided to go back to the locks. Time to snoop
around and his crewmage Private Lives fifty eight days. He'd
found a spiral bound paper notebook. It's simple physical nature
somehow comforting in this ominous world of blank screen machines
that seemed to be grudge. In the smallest tidbit of information,
he wrote down what he felt was some of the
most important questions and observisions in its journey to try
and piece together what happened, hoping that seeing it in
written form would give him some insight besides off whatever
caused him to lose his memory happened again, it would
be invaluable to have it all written down somewhere. He'd
seen a movie about this once. So far, he'd written
important questions. What happened to the crew Spencer crisp when,
what is the time recounting down to? What happened to
my memory? Is the word related? Damage? Missing rooms, escape
pods two of them gone, Terrium quandam calm one can
computer functions minimal power mode one in every wacount and
time as short range Scanner's mind sweep a Solitaire personal
lock's crew Spencer brain signed his memory loss related no boyfriend,
kind of frigid captain when bad security practices at a
gardener has a wife at home? Cusper computer expert, cranky,
neat freak, grammar plase, nay musically talented. The first logs
he dived into were Spencer's, hoping to find out more
about her research and how it might be related to
his memories. For this, he started from the earliest logs
about six months back. This got a little derailed when
he found her calling him a creeper in one of
the first logs, which drove him to go find his
own log from the same day. From his own account,
everything seemed perfectly friendly and harmless. In the log, he
said he'd introduced himself and made small talk by asking
if she had to borefriend what kind of guys she liked.
He know, just friendly church chat. When she seen to Bristol.
He'd made it very clear he wasn't heading on her
by saying he wasn't attracted to girls with short hair.
It really seemed like she was overreacting. Most of her
logs were about her work, however, and it didn't seem
very promising. She was spending most of her time reviewing
other people's papers, and officially was here to perform some
kind of long term study and the effects of deep
space isolation in the brain. It's pretty obvious that this
is just a bunch of pointless busy wick made up
to keep me out here in purgatory, she said bitterly
in one lock, I wouldn't be surprised to follow the
results I am sending back a going straight into the trash.
In another entry, she went into some detail about her duties,
which did sound suspicially like busy work. Collected another round
of questionnaires from the crew to day, she said another
exciting day of day to entry. This is really starting
to cut into my solitaire time. After sifting through a
number of similarly mundane entries, Jackson stumbled on one that
made him sit up. Appeal for reinstatement rejected again, she
said in frustration, I don't know what more they want
from me. I have multiple copies of all the paperwork.
I crossed every tea and dotted every eye. I received
fully informed consent from every subject. There was third party
reviewed every step they could confirm. Each volunteer was given
the option to opt out at any time, and they
were very aptly compensated. No one felt they were harmed.
No one filed a complaint. Even the worst case, it
was only a temporary loss of a few days memory.
Jackson put down the ration he was chewing on, rewound
the log, and listened again and again. This was it,
It had to be. What had this woman done to him?
Fifty two days, he'd started to fall into a kind
of routine. The lighting never changed in the only clock
was the countdown timer. But he decided to try to
force a daily twenty four IU routine to preserve a
sense of normalcy and keep his sanity as long as
he could. Midnight started when the countdown timer took down
a day. He'd wake up every day at one thousand dollars.
Solving mysteries was hard work. He needed his rest, had
a morning ration, and go through a few logs. When
he needed a break, he might play his guitar apparently
he still remembered how, or play some month sweeper, or
read a book. Crisp had some paperback novels, mostly Stephen King,
which Jackson helped himself to. He'd eat lunch up in
the control room, gazing out into space, and then do
some exploration, picking a room and going over it in detail.
He turned up some pretty private details going through personal belongings,
but he figured as crewmates were either dead, in which
case they wouldn't mind, or they had abandoned him, in
which case they deserved it. He then allocated some time
trying to see if he could get the computer to
do anything else, but he had little luck. Even with
the captain's password, he couldn't seem to get it out
of minimal power mode. He wasn't even sure if he should.
If he was waiting for rescue, it was probably best
to conserve as much power as he could. He did
manage to bring up the communications window one day, but
it seemed to actually be broken. It wasn't a problem
of access, it just simply didn't work. He also found
that the sistants short range scanners did work, but limited
usage to one scan a day. He'd usually do it
just before dinner. Needless to say, the results were the
same every time. Not then others would usually be in
the common area keeping lunch in the control room, so
they'd feel more like separate meals Every day felt monotonous enough.
Already all he had to eat were the same fall
wrap ration packs, so all he could change up was
the location and his routine. Lunch time was for big
thoughts and idle philosophy, while gazing into space and dinner
was for thinking about his immediate plans. It was a
good time for him to reflect on what he dug
up during the day and tried to put all the
pieces together and have a good think. Things were pretty
quiet and though friendly in there. Now that he'dn'plugged all
the machinery, there was no need for the refrigerator, the microwave,
and the Russian packet processor since he had no fresh food,
just packets. He initially had tried microwaving the Russian packs
for variety's sake, but it didn't improve the flavor, so
he just shut down all the kitchen gadgets and enjoyed
the piece and silence in one room without blinking warning lights.
After dinner, he'd relax with the game or a book
before heading to bed. Forty seven day Spencer's logs. All
the technical talk was giving him a headache. He promised
himself he'd go through it more thoroughly later. He was
now slowly making his way through Crisp's logs. This was
arguably just as tedious and skip worthy because it seemed
Crist's side project was writing an epic funtasy trilogy, and
he was reading the entire thing as he wrote it
into his personal video logs. Crisp's epoch was very badly
written and hard to follow, which Jackson did not like,
but it had a lot of sex, which he did like.
Most of the sex was hid by attractive women and
else with the main character, who seemed to look a
lot like Crispin was for some reason a computer specialist,
even though this was a medieval fantasy setting. When not
reciting his story, Crisp had some interesting theories about hypothetical scenarios,
like who would win in a zombie apocalypse. At first,
Jackson thought this was easy the zombies, of course, Then
he realized Crisp wasn't talking about the humans versus the zombies,
but about the surviving humans and what kind of person
would be willing to do what it took, no matter
how horrific, to rise to the top in such a scenario.
In Jackson's opinion, Crisp seemed to put much much more
thought into this question than was warned considering the non
existence of zombies. Crisp claimed to have brought his pet
topic up at dinner and said a spirited discussion ensued.
Jackson wondered if everyone else had enjoyed talking about worst
case zombie scenarios at dinner. He paused Crisp's monolog and
began to look at other logs for the same day.
Ris was going on about zombies again at dinner, said Spencer,
rolling her eyes. He really seems to get off on
grossing everyone else out. Jackson literally turned green and ran
out of the room, Although honestly, Jackson seems like he'd
pass out at a paper cut. Jackson frowned, but he
thought she might be right. He'd had to stop preading
the Stephen King novels for a bit. They were giving
him nightmares. He was pretty sure his ten year old
cousin had been reading Stephen King and loving at so
this was probably an extremely embarrassing thing to admit. I
tried to see the good in everyone, said Captain Neearn.
But Crisp is a real and part of my language here,
a real asshole. Every time he addresses me as captain,
he does it sarcastically. I don't know how he has
the energy to keep it up so long. To day
at dinner, he went on one of those rants about how
man is just an animal, and when survival is at stake,
all of the civilization's stuff turns out to just be
a prudence, all that tough guy Darwinian struggle stuff. Great
dinner conversation, right. He was going into detail about some
story involving a bear trap, rip in salmon's head open somehow,
and maggots. The person was still alive once scunched up
his face as if smelling something bad, very distasteful, not
plausible at all. Really, Jackson looked sick and ran out
of the room. Pocade Crisp just laughed and said he'd
be the first one dead in his zombie apocalypse. I
said he was being an ass, and he just said maybe,
but I'm not wrong. Zombie could be coming straight at
him and he'd drop up his gun and cry at it.
Tell me I'm wrong. Then Spencer said that Crisp would
be the first one dead because if they ever needed
a devosion, every one would unanimously agree to throw him
to the zombies to buy time for an escape. Crisp
abruptly left at the point and said he had to
go to work on his novel. I'm thinking of banning
any talk of zombies at dinner, Jackson frowned. Crisp seemed
like a deck. He found his own lock for the day,
which didn't seem to add much information. Crisp seems like
a dick. It said forty six days, but apparently that
wasn't the end of it. He'll log a few days
after the dinner incident, Jackson talked about recurring nightmares. It's
really messing with my sleep. I think it's because of
that story he told with the brain maggots and everything.
He shuddered, what's even worse as he sent me some
clips from I guess the movie he got it from,
and I opened it without knowing what it was. It
was really not cool. One thing, though, is that Spencer
was actually really nice about it. She said I wasn't
looking well and asked if I was okay. She said
if I came by the lab, maybe there was something
she could do. Jackson furrowed his brow and began to
watch intently as he forwarded to the next log. So
I saw Spencer about you know my problem, and it
was actually really quick, and I think the nightmares are gone.
I don't even remember what they were about. I don't
even remember that. I guess Crisp started it off with
a gross story or something. Spencer had to tell me
about it. She said, you could set the thing on
pretty shallow and it would just get mostly back of
your mind stuffed for just a few days. I guess
I'm a little bit fuzzy about some of the last
three days, but who cares. It's just the same cap
routine as every day man. Whatever. Anyway, I'm going to
sleep like a log. Things seemed to go south just
a few days later. I was doing my kitchen round
to day when I got a red diagnostically out on
the ration packet process of it this morning, so I
opened it up to fix it, only I completely forgot
how to do the repair. I know I just did
one last week. So I went back to Spencer about it.
Then suddenly she was this cold bitch all over again
and said that wasn't possible, and maybe I just forgot
how to do it on my own. I said I
was going to talk to the captain about it, and
suddenly she turned white like a ghost and started talking
nice again. If you ask me, I think she wasn't
supposed to be doing that kind of stuff at all,
being to keep a note of that full later it
might come in handy. Anyway, she said she'd do some
digging into what might have happened, and also she was
going to look up the ration packet process or repair
instructions and take care of it for me until I
got my memory fixed and any other repairs I forgot yup,
definitely doing something she wasn't supposed to be. Spencer seemed
to confirm this. I can't have him going to the
captain if the skits to the board I'm done, but
I don't know that. I don't know what. There's no
mechanism about which she should have forgotten a long term memory.
It's impossible. It can't have anything to do with the procedure.
It's of course, I could try using the keyword on him,
but that'll probably bring back his nightmarees too, and then
he'll get mad about and go to the captain. Anyway,
I suppose i'd better stop figuring out how to fix
the Rusian processor. We've got a pile of fresh vegetables
going bad. Keyword at a Beatelloh. He began to think,
and the pain rose alarmingly like a tidal wave. No,
he said to himself, No now, not blindly. He had
to learn all he could first. In the next entry,
the drama seemed to have moved on to a different topic.
Walked into lunch to see the captain's golden spencer and
saying that blowing some one out of an a look
isn't very professional, and she was looking daggers at him.
So I turned around and walked right back out. Captains
on Log left it at that, So he eagerly pulled
up Captain winn'slock. Sometimes I feel like I'm running a kindergarten.
Spencer and Chris had some kind of lover's coral or another,
and one thing led to another, and the next thing
you know, she locked him in the air look and
was threatening to blow him into space. I mean, we're
professionals here. I understand Chris can be a bit much sense.
I have reprimanded him myself several times, but only made
a professional and appropriate manner. That speaks to a real
lack of self control and rationality to resort to this
kind of dramatic gesture. I may have to formally write
her up. It did seem like pretty bizarre behavior. Jackson
pulled up Spencer's Love to see what she had to
say for herself. Either I'm taking crazy pills or everybody else's.
Jackson is a harmless enough creepy minus the back milt thing.
But Crisp straight up grabbed me from behind today and
went for the goods. I managed to shake him off,
but he kept coming back, so I opened the airlock
door behind me and flipped him into it and shut
it before he could get up. Then he started going
on about how I was a bitch and I was
of reacting, so I told him I'd show him of reacting,
and I put my hand in the outer door button,
and then he changed his tune real vast. He was
peeing his pants and explaining how it was all a
misunderstanding when Captain when came by and ordered me to
let him out. I tried to explain what happened, but
he seriously, all day, you both need to go to
your quarters and think about what you did, as if
he was talking to some squabbling children. I tried to
sort out the Captain at dinner, but he seemed very
grossed up by the slightest mention of anything sexual. If
I noticed, he's a bit of a prudence that he
didn't need to hear about what people did in their
own time, but that here we must be professionals jucy,
but apparently hadn't impacted his life in any way except
maybe showing the Spencer at trouble getting alarm with people.
This fact came up almost immediately again when he got
back to his own locks. I didn't tell the Captain anything.
I guess Spencer got busted for her research, and she
keeps accusing me of being the snitch. I didn't say shit.
Why would I I still need her to fix my
memory holes. He took a couple of deep breaths. So anyway,
between that and the airlop thing, she's undouble secret probation
or whatever they call it here, and she's just super
pissy all the time. Now, good luck at and that
ration process are fixed, everybody, Hope you enjoy your roll.
Green Spencer was indeed pussy. That eddiot really just went
and did it. What was he thinking? Forget getting any
help from now? The captain took away my rig, un
locked it in the storage closet. He seriously gave me
the very disappointed speech. He told me he was going
to write me up and seriously going to blow them
all out of the air up next chance I get.
Jackson gave the situation as best and biased assessment and
decided that he believed himself. But how did the captain
find out? He would in stumble an answer until two
days later. Forty four days focused on this particular question.
Jackson did a quick skin through the locks, but it
seemed like neither he himself nor Spencer ever figured this out.
He looked through Captain wins loves more carefully, but he
also never mentioned his source his log merely began with
the pretentious. It has come to my attention that doctor
Spencer has been conducting an authorised research and added very
little information, being mostly around about values and professionalism and
disp appointment. Either the Captain had done a little independent
snooping or Jackson decided it was the last suspect Crisp.
He sighed and screwed up his courage to go through
crispslos again, trying to carefully skim passed his manuscript readings
without missing any usefuler size. It was in the middle
of the chapter on the Island of Snake Women that
he struck gold. I did some reading on snakenatomy, and
this might not work, so I might end up deleting
the part or funny little fat by the by. I
found a little bug in the dated deletion code where
if the task happens to be interrupted, the dat is
not actually deleted and can still be easily accessed by
someone with a proper no hot He tapped his head proudly.
I was going to fix it, but then I decided
to myself, maybe we can think of this as a
feature and not a book. With things the way they are,
it might be a good idea to take a look
at the very things people don't want you to see.
He never explicitly talked about routing out Spencer, but on
the very next entry he did say finger steepled and
self satisfaction. Lock the bowl in an alock, get the haunts.
Forty three days, Jackson finally found what he thought might
be the rig that Spencer had talked about in her lap,
looking like it had been kicked carelessly. Under a table
was a small skull cap with protruding wires. These all
edged desktop sized device with its own small screen, not
connected to the station network, which made sense that she
was trying to keep it in the dunlow. It was
often stayed off no matter what he did, either it
was broken or he didn't know the right combination of
switches and buttons to turn it on. The ventilation system
continued to ham quietly at the station terminals continued the steady,
gentle blinking. The most prominent control was a large dial
tenned all the way up. If he was remembering right
in his logs, the device was on a very low
setting when Spencer had helped him with the Nightmass. Maybe
it had been used again. Or maybe he was just
looking at the ron dial. In any case, it seemed
she'd been able to get it back at some point
after the captain had confiscated it. While he was visiting
scenes of crimes, he decided to go back out the
airlock as well, disappointing a neither the nar out door
would open. That didn't seem to be anything seriously wrong
with either as far as he could see, so he
guessed this might be a result of the minimal power. More,
he peered through the window, not sure what he expected
to see the pea puddle from when Crisp was covering
in fear and begging. In any case, it was completely empty,
which made sense for an airlock. He was about to
go when he spotted the faintest hint of something and
nervening edge of the door of a dry liquid between
the door and the frame, only the smallest edge of
which crept out beyond the seal. It was dark and
road brand and almost certainly blood. Forty two days He
wished that this was one of those fancy science stations,
so that the computers were You could just pop in
a blood sample and it would tell you the blood
belonged to a forty eight year old male of South
American ancestry who had dark hair and a prediluction to alcoholism,
and what with that limp or matched it to a
crew record or something. In any case, there was nothing
like that. All he knew was that there was blood
in the door. Perhaps it was something sinister, but perhaps
someone had just got their handcock closing it. He felt
no closer to answers, only more distout. His return to
the logs was rewarded with only in a pleasant episode
that fulfilled no other pupps other than to make him
feel bad about himself and dislike his crewmates even more.
It started with a sort of slow mold found in
the storage room that was one of us where disturbing
kinds often found in deep space with moving tentacle like
protrusions that made them seem extra alive. This one was
a flushipping kin apparently made sounds both the standard squish
sands and something multiple crew members described as a scrimming cat.
It was a greedy ananimasy that someone needed to clean
this out, and it was agreed almost unanimously that Jackson
was the one to do it. I'm at maintenance ignition,
not a janitor. It's not my job to clean stuff,
but they don't seem to care. I mean, I thought
these bases were supposed to be self cleaning, and I
guess it's mostly my job, but when it comes to
something that ah alive, it's kind of not up to
the job, he complained in his log I tried to
argue that Spencer should do because it's a life form
and she's a scientist, but she just said she wasn't
a kind of scientist, and the captain nacturally took her
side on this for once and said she wasn't allowed
to do scientist stuff anymore anyway. Chris just laugh and
said this was my chance to get my first killed
and finally become a man. Not helping Spencer and her
account seemed and sympathetic. He actually tried to argue with
me that it might be sentient because it was moving
and making noises, and I had to explain to him
that a thousand species of space moles had been studied
already and they all move off scream for both, and
it'd been proven beyond the doubt that they have no
brain or central nervous system. Might as well that worked
up over baby mildiud. He came back anile later at
covered in goop with his whole thousand yards stay, going
as if he'd been in a natural war for Christ's sake,
and going on over and over again about how he'd
heard his scream as he shot it out the air locked.
He said he'd never be able to forget the screams.
Maybe it was a little harsh, but they said, wow,
if only we had some kind of device that could
do something about that. He didn't say anything, just went off.
I'm assuming to cry. I don't know. Maybe that was
kind of rough, but he should have known better, and
to open his big mouth about my research. I'm the
one that has to deal with my whole career being destroyed.
He only is to deal with having to clean up
a sly mold. Captain Winn also did not have, in
Jackson's eyes, a great response. Jackson came to me saying
he had knightness that the mold came back, and I
told him it had been his professional responsibility, out of
respect himself and others, to make sure he got all
of it and to bleach all the surfaces, and if
it did come back, it would be a good life
lesson about making sure to do a task thoroughly. He
seemed more inclined to wallow in self pett eve and
to take advantage of this teachable moment. But I have
a feeling that this wisdom will sink and eventually crisp
pose and surprisingly. Think about it, ten thousand years ago,
when men were men, when the only people who passed
on their genes were brute for survivors willing to do
whatever it takes, this guy would have been populating the
belly of a sabertoothed tiger. All this technology is filling
the human race with these useless soft balls of dough.
I can't wait for the next cataclysm to weep them
all out. With some trepidation, Jackson went back down to
the storage room to go over it with a fine toothcomb.
Despite everyone's coping, he'd apparently done a great job. It
was early cleaned, the metal surfaces potless, not a single
sign of a Tevai mold creature. This, thought, Jackson proudly,
was indeed professional quality work. Forty one days, he was
rifling through Spencer's love again, trying to see if there
were any clues as to how to get her rig working.
When he found in the death drawer of the paper again,
he'd completely forgotten it was still there. He now found
the familiar handwritting starring him in the face, and read
it and thinkingly before he realized too late what it was.
The word is low star. A pulsive pain shot through
his head, and he tensed up, prepared for the worst.
But though it searched inbearably for a few seconds, it
suddenly faded with him still standing, and an image flashed
into his mind, a memory a circuit diagram and a
series of steps how to repair an agri court three
imnous one lashing packet process at rppminus one hundred and
twenty four. He drew in a breath. Perhaps he had
to try it, he spoke hestantly in a whisper. Lowes
saw again harder, and he fell to his knees as time,
but something was coming back, falling into his thoughts, something
darkened and pleasant, A bare trap of brain maggot, A
man who wasn't quite dead. No, no, no, he said,
shaking his head and then his whole body. Trying to
disrupt his strain of thought with mindless, vigorous action. He
banded his knee on a chair, and it hurt so
much it managed to push aside the awful thoughts for
the moment, but it kept creeping back throughout the day,
and he had to keep warding it off by banging
his fist in the wall lardly singing nonsense sons under
the desperate destructions. After Tina, he went back to the lab,
reached into the desk drawer, eyes averted, and crumpled up
the paper. Forty days after he was able to think
clearly through the incident, he came up with some guesses.
Of the first memories that returned were the Russian process
of repair instructions and crisps awful anecdote, which were the
first thing Spencers of Us had helped him forget. Obviously,
he'd gone on to forget a whole bunch more, probably
due to the device being used on him again. That
stood to reason that if he tried the word again,
he'd probably start recovering the next things he'd forgotten. At
some point he'd get back to the final three days
that were missing from the locks. He'd have to go
through an awful lot of stabbing, headaches and months of
what sounded like terrible memories to get there. Perhaps he
could deal a little bit every day. It wouldn't be
so bad in small dose. As then he had time,
he tried to prepare himself as tired. He ate his
lunchtime Russian packet, used the toilet, played a bit of
guitar to relax, cleared the bed, and sat down. If
he passed out, he wanted to make sure he landed safe.
A low star, he said firmly. Thoughts came in a
rush of a flash, colored slime, mold, denticles reaching out
something that he could swell, looked like an apple, and
the screaming. The screaming not like a cat at all,
but human in torment. His precautions turned out to be
a good idea, because he passed out when he came to.
He decided to put this experiment on hold. In definitely
thirty nine days, the nightmares were back. Of course, good job, Jackson,
he told himself. The screaming mold, the festering maggots, and
Chris Gordon over Jackson's discomfort, telling him to grow repel Already,
this last part, as far as Jackson remembered, wasn't in
the locks, which meant it might be his actual memory.
It wasn't the most useful of memories, but it gave
him hope that he was on the way to getting
more back. He tried to counteract the new horrors living
in his thoughts by filling his mind with the most
offensively bowing content he had access to. Captain wins Locks
tea side almost in relief as he watched Captain when
described what he'd learned from a management book he was reading,
He finally summarized, excitedly, just from these case studies, it
sounds like one can see some really remarkable changes in
team dynamics when going from two updates a week to three.
What I've really loved to see is if this supplies
equally to written updates verses in person. I can't wait
to get back on an assignment where I can apply
some of this stuff. I've tried my best with what
I have here, but you can't help people who don't
want to be helped. I've done my best to and
still values of professionalism and civility in a big picture
grow of mindset. They've completely lost themselves in self pity
and petty squabbles. So I tried to tell myself it
doesn't reflect on my leadership skills and the mental menty
relationships are two way streat. But it's wearing me down.
Damn it. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I get heated over this,
My wisdom calendar's court of the days, This too shall pass.
What could be more appropriate? All I have to do
is hold on and continue to do my duty to
the best of my abilities for ninety eight more days.
Once the relief ship arrives, I can hand off this
smester to another pro soul and it will be the
trial to bear. Jackson squinted and pause the playback. He
checked the lot's date, today's date, and the count and timer.
He did some calculations on his fingers. He double and
triple tech to be absolutely sure before allowing himself to hope.
Because he were on the count and timer perfectly coincided
with the expected arrival of this relief ship. Knowing full
well that the other crew members would have called him
a pansy for it, Jackson broke down in tears. After
watching the ominous numbers tickdown for so long, it was
such a relief to know that they were taking down
to rescue and not to do them thirty days of
the nightmares were actually getting a bit less terrifying, slowly
decreasing in horrific imagery and increasing in strange, unimportant seeming memories,
lettle snippets and phrases. After a really bad zombie scene
and one dream faded into Crisp Colin heympathetic reminiscing about
prehistoric times when men were men, and then smotly proclaiming
the date it is easily accessed by anyone with the
proper know how, upon which Jackson suddenly woke up. He
felt like he'd heard something important, but struggled to pass
it out in his woozy half sleep mind, deleted date
acts and deleted date. He jumped up and got back
into Crisp's locks, skimming around to find where he talked
about that. It took about naire, but he finally located
as Crisp explained the trick with a great deal of
technical top that went over Jackson's head, and it made
sense where he'd ignored it the first time. Around this time,
he got some technical books and notes from Crisp's room,
and when sentenced by sentence through Crisp's explanation, looking everything
up until he finally felt he had to handle an ID. Yet,
if he understood correctly, this was a bug that didn't
apply to all deleted data, just a really small fraction
where the system had a hiccup during deletion. The system
was supposed to detect any hiccups and try again, but
because of a mistake on for Cris's part, it didn't.
The data would just remain there and listed. A deleted
log wouldn't show up be in, for example, the loog list,
but if you knew the exact place to lock, the
computer would show it to you. Unfortunately, finding the proper
jumble of numbers and let it sounded like it were
taken entire courts on computers. Fortunately he had some time
twenty one days, and he was really starting to enjoy
a learning about the ins and outs of computers courtesy
of Crisp's library. He'd been intimidated from learning the sort
of in his whole life, as he and everybody around
him just took it as a given that it was
only for briny college types. There's a sort of half measure.
He decided to take a machine maintain its course, figuring
it was the coosest to normal guy could get to
the glamorous high tech life. But it turned out there
was really nothing magical about it at all. All it
came down to was giving a computer a bunch of
instructions and making sure he did it exactly away the
computer wanted to hear it, otherwise it would find a
loophole durid rom sort of light making a deal with
the devil. When he got out of this jam, he
figured he might get serious and take some computer courses.
Chris made three times what he did, and Jackson had
a feeling he wasn't one of the better computer specialists.
That didn't seem too far out of reach or for
Jackson to get at least a certificate, double his salary
and maybe start working on a real degree part time.
Thus motivated, he slowly put together the foundation he needed
to solve the whole deleted data problem. He built a
little script that was able to find a few pockets
of undeleted data and tell him exactly where to find them.
Peo pulled up the first one. It was upon video
and it had been deleted by Crisp. But he began
to delead it and then has stated, after a few
more moments of evaluation, he moved it into her his
own directory, saving it for later, and he pulled up
the next one. It was one of his own logs,
the deleted three days. He was disheveled and crying, and
the lighting was dim like it was now, Unlike all
the other previous logs, everything's gun routed. It wasn't supposed
to be like this. It can be. Someone's got to
figure out something, right, They've got to. I don't want
to die. I can't. I just don't want to die.
I just can't. I just can't. I can't do it.
It went unlike this, expressions of his wish not to
die alternating with terrified, pitiful blubber, and it was painful
to watch. But Jackson bit his lip and start intently
scanning every frame here to know if there was anything
further to be learned. It turned out there wasn't, and
the only real outcome of the whole exercise was to
feel worse about himself. Against seventeen days, at some point
he came to the decision that he was going to
drop the bast and focus on the future. A rescue
ship was probably on its way. If he could make
it till then someone else could figure out what had happened.
Whatever it was, there didn't seem to be any immediate danger,
and any looking danger it had plenty of time to
show itself. In the meantime, it was probably more worth
his time to study up on computers or get better
at guitar than to give himself more nightmares or force
himself to look at more on flattering examples of his
cowardly character. Fourteen days and he was still watching logs,
but now he decided to focus on the personal, trivial details,
trying to get to know these strangers he'd a poundly
worked with for so long. Spencer talked a little bit
about her family in brief moments where she wasn't focused
on her research and her grievances with the board. Got
another message from home. Dad wants me to give it
up and go home, be a dental haggienist or something.
I gave it a good try, he said, but maybe
some things aren't meant to be. I just wish I
think I could show them. I think they'd see if
I could only get my papers published. I mean, there's
never been anything like it. I'd get headlines and regular papers, prize,
maybe even an appointment at the Science Federation. As soon
as I can just get even just one major publication,
I think I could go back for a visit, go
back and hold my head up and just enjoy the
time and see them and see ella tend not have
to worry about anything about dental Haggius skills, our teacher
training programs, or any other backup plans. One of the
deleted laws was just Crisp being vulnerable to He had
styled his hair in this figure. It looked ridiculous. He
seemed to be somewhat aware of this and kept self
consciously rearranging it, trying to put together a new photo
for my date net profile. I think it's time to
give it another try. I now think the reason I
never got any bites on my last one was not
any deficiency on my part, but simply a misunderstanding of
the common and spoken signals in the date in market,
he said, taking at his Crisp Colle shirt. I've watched
a few very enlivening videos on this, and i think
I'm ready to put out much more successful revised provar
I'm focusing on instinctive signals of reproductive success that women
are wired to respond to, such as a more powerful stance,
more alpha gaze, and more assertive dominant language. I really
think I've unlocked at his time. Of course, I'm realistic
about this. I don't expect to be flooded with responses,
or at least to think I would count it as
a success if I just got one response. In fact,
if I just got one response, I'd put it on
hole for a bit, just to be fair to the women.
And well, no sense spreading myself too thin. This, he coughed,
and then straightened up, standing up, putting his hands on
his hips and throwing his head back. This is going
to be the time someone is finally going to see
what I've got. And he shot such a ridiculous glance
at the camera, simultaneously full of much imposturing and desired
to please, that Jackson had to laugh. Captain w wife,
whom he constantly talked about as a gift in the
Blessing and generally sounded like the most generic wife in
the world. However, he at his moment, Darla keeps talking
about children, and I'm certainly not against it, but I
really worry sometimes about how it might impact our careers,
especially when we're still climbing the ladder. I'm at all
the traveling. She really wants them, and I do think
think it would be maybe quite nice sometimes to look
at a new little person that is like a little
hurt a little yet the same time that maybe mix
the fish she makes when she eats something sire or
shakes his head the way I do. I don't know
what's so special about it, but well I must shake
it in some kind of unique way. It always seems
to make darle a laugh. Jackson didn't need to learn
about himself. He'd only lost six months of memories. He
knew why he'd come here, his modest background and his
modest goals. Up until now, he didn't really have any
particular ambitions for his future, not even Crisp's little dream
of getting one woman to be impressed with him. He
just wants to get by. But now maybe he could
make something of his computer thing. It opened up so
many possibilities. He just had to make it off the station.
Seer days, his heart was beating like a dance track.
His pre dinner time, short bringed scown had picked up
an approaching ship. Only moments later, he could dimly make
out a visual in the window and Not long after that,
a voice crackled over the loudspeaker, A woman's voice, that
is minus fourteen. Do you read this is the uf
S Philip K. Dick Jackson scrambled to the microphone. Yes,
he shouted, Yes, I'm here. Repeat, that is minus fourteen?
Do you read I'm here? I'm here, Jackson shouted into
the microphone, over and over, flipping switches and pressing buttons frantically.
It's no good, said a male voice coming from the
same speaker. Oh my god, when's the last time they
were supplied? Harper? Said the female voice. A fainter voice
belonging to neither of the first two, replied, unintelligible to Jackson,
dumb If they haven't had a foods apply for that long,
I don't know if there's any body left to our
Captain Weston, the comm's channel has been open the whole time.
It's fine. I don't think anybody's listening anyway. I'm here,
I'm here, cried Jackson. Frantically. He tried waving his arms
at the window, hoping they'd be able to see. In
any case, we should dock and see if we can
find any survivors or recover any well, move into dock
and turn off the comm's channel. The ship slowly approached,
looming larger and larger in the window, but it would
be a while yet, and Jackson realized there was nothing
to do but wait. He sat back and opened his
dinner ration packet, squeezing it into his mouth and cheered
contemportively as he watched the supply ship silently drift near. Suddenly,
his teeth hit something hard. Wincing, he pulled it out
of his mouth. It was a wedding ring. He froze
for what felt like an eternity, horror rising in his throat,
both horror and food. He vomited violently on to the floor.
He tried to push it all away. There was only
the nail. He had to just stay in the now.
The rescue ship was here. He must get up. He
must go to the airlock and greet them, leave everything behind.
His legs would not move. He remained there on his knees,
bowed over onto the floor, clutching his head and able
to stop what he knew he had to do. Low Star,
he said between gritted teeth. Whilsawt losar images poured from
his brain faster than he could process them. Screams, human
screams from human mouthslound in the airlock door with a
knife with a crowbar. The body is the kitchen Rusian packet, processor, clothes,
debris stuffed into the escape pods, the storage room, the
memory device, throwing the cap to the floor, stumbling out
of the lab with his last ounce of consciousness and collapsing,
waking up to an empty station and a blank mind
and an ample supply of Russian packs. Tear a streamed
from his eyes. The pain had subsided, but he still
clutched his head as it throbbed with something like hot
and as cold at the same time, something unbearable, unthinkable.
Crew of the Philip K. Dick. The crew finally arrived
after a brief hiccup. The air locked door was non functional,
apparently due to someone jamming one of the doors with
some kind of object at some point. They'd had to
cut it open with a laser torch. As search team
methodically explored the station while Captain Weston sent a preliminary
report of the station back to headquarters. She then went
down to the ale Of to meet the returning search team.
Yet it's a puzzling situation said Sir Arno, wiping his
bra No sign of the crew whatsoever. No bodies, asked
Western in disbelief. Sir No shook his head. Not a
one ham. So much for the starvation theory, said Western.
That's for sure, they weren't low on feed at all.
In fact, when we checked the common area, the processor
was running and we found about one hundred fifty pounds
of new RUSS packets fresh out of processing. And that
is the end. Thank you for listening, and I will
see you in the next one.