Speaker 1: You are listening to table story.
Speaker 2: Well, now, I reckon, I ought to tell you a story
at a little office that handles things nobody else will
you know, a supernatural super unnatural haunting sexes. The whole
list is rather long, and we don't have near enough
daylight for that. What you need to know is this
ain't no script here. We make it up as we go, music, sounds, etc.
It's all produced for you live like magic and it
being a scary story and all I'm assuming it will
have all the things scary stories do. But I'm just
guessing here because of it being improvised, and all all
I know is with this cast, well, it's probably gonna
be brutal, violent and have enough moral decay to make
our therapists quit. You got one of those, right, good,
so use your brain. Okay, it's gonna be scary, strange,
and dumb as hell. Oh off you You know what
I hate, well, hates a strong word. Let's call it
a pet peeve, a mild philosophical rash. I can't stand
when people start a story like everyone's tuned into the
same frequency of reality. You know, once upon a time,
like time has been caught falsifying its own reports for decades.
You know what else gives me a little bit of
a suphacal rash. When someone telling a story it makes
a pop culture reference to explain something and leave it
doesn't offer any further explanation for those who don't know it.
With that in mind, did you ever see the show
Heroes Come Out? Two thousand and four, two thousand and six,
Depending on your winabouts and windsline anyway, good show. Oh
if you are from the line where the show stay
good the whole time, I am so envious of you.
But anyway, we're starting that way. Kind of four people,
four perfectly normal, dacently suspicious human beings who at roughly
the same time but not at all. We'll understand it
a minute, I promise, And I don't make those lightly.
All realized without a doubt that something was wrong with
their perception of the world, and two things tend to happen.
When that happens, it either has to change or you break. Now.
I'm showing you these moments because later and it'll make
more sense. But my aha moment, the moment I figured
it out, It led me back here, so pay attention
because I missed it. The first time around. Okay, don't
don't rub it in, all right. Now, Sometimes I'm gonna
be talking to you like I'm talking to you now.
They're gonna be talking to you like I'm talking to
you now. And other times you're gonna hear conversations we
head all together without you. It's all very odd and liminal,
but you'll get the hang of it. So take a breath,
Check your watch, make sure the second hand is still
moving in the direction it normally moves in for me,
that's to the right from here on now, baby, nothing's
quite where or when it's supposed to be. Now, picture this,
a man in about his late thirties. It's raining, maybe
a light drizzle, and he's standing down the street from
a house. Jim, I don't think I ever asked you.
You don't drive right, Okay, Yeah, that's fair. Okay, Well
so then how did you get here? This is far from.
Speaker 3: Where if I'll be honest, all.
Speaker 2: Right, I'd like it if you were honest going forward? Okay,
So we're standing outside of somebody's house, right, somebody you
need to question talk to, that's right? And how long
have you been standing out here waiting.
Speaker 3: And pacing up and down the street for about an hour. Now,
I don't know how I'm going to do it. They
don't want to come off as crazy, but I guess
I've already proved them. They're watching me now, maybe I
am just crazy?
Speaker 2: Wait, who's watching you?
Speaker 3: I can see it. People have gotten the attention. See
them looking through their window. They know who I am.
They just don't know what I want to ask them,
or maybe they do. I don't know. I'm confused.
Speaker 2: I'm also confused, but I'm here for it. Things change
and shift and move all around all the time. Go
back to maybe when you first talked to them, before
they knew who you were, before you came back.
Speaker 3: Before it all, those were happier times. There was a
warm welcome, happy embrace. I was a bit nervous, certainly,
not as nervous as I am now, which is strange.
Speaker 2: Remember, Oh, sorry, you go ahead, I'll ask my question
in a second.
Speaker 3: No, I'm rambling. My head is as foggy as a
Stamford afternoon after a heavy rain.
Speaker 2: Did they live at the same place? You know? You
remember meeting them, right, You remember the warm welcome? Was
it the same house?
Speaker 3: I think I don't know everything's so fuzzy nowadays. But
I was it a dream? Or did it happen? This
house is familiar, and I that has to be. But
you know, it's one of those things where not one
hundred percent I wish I was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm all right. I think the more time you
spend away from that, the harder it might get to
remember those details. But she slipped you in note, didn't she?
Speaker 3: She did?
Speaker 2: And what about that situation made you believe?
Speaker 3: Mayby believe in what?
Speaker 2: Well? I mean, that's something was wrong because I mean,
you know, it wouldn't have showed up to you if
you didn't have some seed of doubt or belief, depending
on how you look at it one way or the other.
Speaker 3: Right, it's a funny thing. Yeah, it all seems so normal.
But yeah, when I came back home, the whole world
got flipped upside down. And I still have the note.
It's the one tangible thing that grounds me. I'm going
to believe that this is the truth. I do.
Speaker 2: Can I see it? You don't have to show me. Actually,
you don't have to show me right now. At some
point I'm going to ask to see that note. Maybe
it's best that we don't observe it here anyway yet.
Speaker 3: You know I haven't actually taken out of my pocket. Yeah,
don't do a second read.
Speaker 2: Yeah, don't do that. It might be gone, or it
might say something different. So maybe just don't. Okay.
Speaker 3: I'm just afraid that if I take it out it's
going to be something different, or if I take it out,
I'll never get to put it back in the pocket
where I've kept it these years.
Speaker 2: That's a good instinct, Jim, It's a real good instinct.
But let's back up a little bit again. What led
you here.
Speaker 3: A disappearance?
Speaker 2: Yeah? But why why then? Right? Because if you'd been
to the house, you'd seen them, you'd met them before.
Why did the switch happen? Then? You see what I'm
getting at. I'm trying to find out when you went
if that makes sense, right, So you'd met that So
was it when you when you were shipped off? Or
was it after that? You see what I'm getting at, Jim.
Speaker 3: That was after That's when things didn't add up. That's
when I realized I was living two separate realities. Okay,
one before and one after, And now I'm trying to
figure out which one's the real one. Which one's the truth?
Speaker 2: Oh, they're both real, it's just which one you know
is your slain, which is where you originated from.
Speaker 3: Let's not be too sure about that. You can't leave
anything decided. There's always open ends. But being here might
help bring some closure, at least give me closer to
an answer what I'm looking for. At least that's what
I hope, at least to confirm that my experiences before,
you know, I got shipped off, or at least weren't
a lie.
Speaker 2: Do you remember anything from before, like what was your
life like? Then?
Speaker 3: Of course I remember. We think about it all the time.
It was a easy going existence.
Speaker 4: I was.
Speaker 3: Really just living each day, wondering where I'd end up.
I didn't have much of a goal. But then, well,
of that changed when I bumped into her one day,
just by cheer coincidence, she popped into my life. I'd
never seen her before, but she's dominated it since.
Speaker 2: Peerful with that word a sea word, use it too
many times. It's like a curse. Anyway, do you remember
first meeting her, bumping into her? What's the story there?
Speaker 3: Oh, I just got out of a diner, not my
usual large ball of chili, and a big old pot
of coffee. And no, it's not the ideal diet. But
I was working at that time as a a writer
or an aspiring one, doing my own independent journalism, and
around the corner it's the library. I bumped into her.
Literally it was out of nowhere. Really, that's the strange
thing about it. I didn't see anything in my peripherals.
It's like turned the corner one second there was nothing,
and then next second I'm on my butt and there
she is too, her books scattered across the floor, and
helped pick them up, and didn't even so much as
glance at her until the last book was stacked in
her hands and her eyes mat And it's a profound
feeling like I had known her my entire life, and
yet at the same time, it was the first time
I met her, and I could see that same spark
in her eyes, and that it changed me in an instant.
My life suddenly took a different trajectory. And I'm not
sure how do we explain it.
Speaker 2: I did a good job just now.
Speaker 3: That didn't really have a choice. It's just one of
those moments in life you go about walking along with
your own thoughts and your minds of how your life
will be and how it's going, and your own worries
for the day, and then suddenly it's all gone, and
then something new, something mysterious, something interesting, something you always
felt it was meant to be, but that it only
opened the door to more questions.
Speaker 2: Well not yet, right, I mean, at the time when
your whole trajectory changed, you were none the wiser. It
wasn't until you came back that it made you reflect
on this moment kind of like we're doing right now.
You know how I said we were going to go,
We're gonna start here, because later then everything clicks. This
is it's like that, right, So I think let's talk
about when you came home, when you found out. How
did you find out?
Speaker 3: Well, summer of nineteen forty five, we were returning home
and I got the heroes welcome. They pattered me on
the back and said you did good, and all I
could think about was seeing her. That note in my
pocket was all I had some days, And when they
finally arrived at my house there was no one there.
It was empty, and the orther I dug, the more
questions I had, it seemed that no one had any answers.
No one could tell me what happened. Then that's when
I realized that something was very wrong, and I had
been living a lie, or at least something that I
thought was reality but really wasn't. That's when everything shifted.
Speaker 2: I didn't want to interrupt you, but you said that
note in my pocket. And this happens sometimes when you
first enter the office and start solving things, things start
moving around in your own mind. You meant, right, letters,
she wrote you letters. The note came later with her mother, right,
that's right, Okay, it's okay. Things move around all the time.
How many letters did she write you? Do you remember?
Speaker 3: Wrote me five so that they could get by. It
was difficult. Supply chain in that area wasn't too good,
but I managed to get five, okay, But I was
told one didn't make it.
Speaker 2: Okay, so we have a missing letter. Okay. I hate
to ask you this, Jim, But were they dated? These letters?
Speaker 3: They were, every one of them, and.
Speaker 2: After her, you know, after when they say she.
Speaker 3: Yeah, still the same dates. Okay, they never changed.
Speaker 2: And the letters themselves, they never changed in the feeling
or the way. There was never any hint that maybe
wasn't her writing that.
Speaker 3: I know her writing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not saying you don't. I'm just saying no,
I'm just sad. I'm just doing my due diligence.
Speaker 3: I know. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get defensive.
I know her writing, I am sure of it. We
even have her inside jokes and she made some.
Speaker 2: Of those steal.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, And.
Speaker 2: Was there anything in there that seemed like she was
trying to talk to you in code? Give you some
sort of clue.
Speaker 3: I did wonder that. You know, times were tough and
everything was very heavily regulated. My superiors told me that
we shouldn't be writing about what was going on because
of moral that'd be better off if they didn't know
what was going on. So they were inspected before they
were shipped off, and I did let her know in
my own subtle way that they were being monitor but
she never said anything that made me believe she meant
something else. It was never there.
Speaker 2: We'll get to the bottom of this gym. I can't
promise you when, because you know it has a way
of doing things itself, but we will. But when you
came home and the place was empty, walked me through
the next part. I mean did you notify the police?
Speaker 3: Naturally?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 3: In my first thought was she ran off, And I
would have thought that too if it weren't for some
suspicious details like what The door was locked on the
inside in all the windows as well. And I know
that sounds strange, but there's a bolt lock now we
have at the front door because it never closed right.
The hinges were always off and I was meaning to
get that repaired. She wrote me a letter about she
was bringing groceries in and she kicked the door in
a little too hard and the poor old house couldn't
take it. Knocked it off its hinge so the lock
wouldn't align. So she had a bolt locked on the
inside and everything was locked on the inside. There's only
one door. I know it sounds strange, but we only
had one. There was no way that she didn't leave
because inside everything was set up as if she was
ready to start her day. Her slippers by the bedside,
remember a bed. Everything in the fridge was spoiled. She
was a picky eater. She only I think the certain stuff,
you know. And the paper, yeah still there. But what
was odd was the paper was just a week before
I got there. It didn't make any sense. Why would
she leave just a week before I was about to
get there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is weird, But that is when they said
she disappeared, right, it was like a week after you
left or something, A.
Speaker 3: Week after my Yeah, I left. Yeah, but the paper
was a week before I arrived.
Speaker 2: Okay, so it was like she was still getting newspaper
and like she was still writing your letters and getting
your letters. See that's what gets my goat, Right, she's
written you these letters, you're writing her back. She'd have
to be at the house to get them, because it's
not like you're mailing him somewhere else. So I slam,
So what the hell?
Speaker 3: I don't know? But that was her, all of those letters,
and the last one it was her because it was
the last one before we were about to head hunt.
I remember that was when we That was when the
papers announced it was over and I'm be coming home
and that was the last letter I got.
Speaker 2: I suppose was the food.
Speaker 3: There for years?
Speaker 2: Okay, that's something, Jim, Right. The food seems to be
as old as they claim her disappearance was. But the
newspaper is recent, her letters are recent. Let's not forget
that detail. M h Now, when you found out the
paper said that you that you didn't think that she left,
that you refused to acknowledge that, And I mean, I
know that's like you're you telling me your first thought
was that she left. I believe you. I'm just saying,
with that whole feeling and everything that you said you had,
was it actually your first thought?
Speaker 3: It crossed my mind. I was worried. Yeah, I'd heard
it happen all before. Yeah, I seen the same sweet
letters coming from others, and I'd heard the stories. But
I should have never doubted. And I hated the fact
that that ever sprang in my mind, But it was
only a brief moment because I couldn't explain any other
That was the only rational thing.
Speaker 2: You know, you don't need to justify your thoughts, Jim.
You don't have thoughts. They happened to you, all right,
So don't feel badly about thinking a logical thing.
Speaker 3: But afterwards, yeah, yeah, I refuse to believe that she left.
The whole town chocked it up. Yeah, yeah, she just left.
She left a week after I left my training in Louisiana.
That's what they said. She was long gone by the
time I finally made it to those beaches of Normandy
and hiked up to Hurtkan Forest. And that's when I
needed her the most, and she got me through that.
I don't believe that she ever left, but everyone says
that she did. They didn't see hi, nor hear of her.
And I don't get that.
Speaker 4: Us.
Speaker 3: The whole town is in on some sort of secret.
They dare not tell me. Something doesn't add up, that
can't be true.
Speaker 2: Here's a detail that stands out to me. What can
you tell me about roses? She liked a garden.
Speaker 3: She did. It's funny. Her last name is Fiori, which
is flowers, and true to it, she had a green thumb.
I had a knack for killing just about any plant
that I'd even look at. Was then barred from the
garden because I kept killing the herb. Garden just never
was good. But she had a green thumb. She loved roses,
and I thought, you know, I can't grow them, but
I can certainly get them for her. I wouldn't get
her a bunchel of roses. I would get her the
seeds because she knew how to grow them, but grow them.
Get my figured, what a beautiful thing to watch something grow.
It starts so small and then it flourishes into something beautiful,
and that's something we can watch together.
Speaker 2: Her last name, just riding me of her parents, and
I realized that we got distracted. You mind if I
ask you about meeting them the second time? The time
she slipped you the note?
Speaker 6: HM?
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah? What drove you to that point?
Speaker 3: Drove me to where I am now?
Speaker 2: Well? Yes, yeah, where you are now standing in the street,
pacing back and forth. What brought you here?
Speaker 3: I brought me here is to figure out if this
is an answer to my questions. I guess I'm doubting myself,
if this even ever happened, This is all some sort
of dream, and maybe with this I can accept maybe
it never was.
Speaker 2: What are you hoping their reaction is going to be?
Are you hoping that they are like, no, we know
she's still out there, And are you hoping there like
give you some sort of clue that she's out there
and they know she's okay, but she just left you?
Or what if they think she's dead? Is that not
going to hurt you?
Speaker 3: You know, it's the damnedest thing, because I know either
one is going to hurt me, like hell, I wish
for the third option. When you flip a coin, it's
not heads or tails in that moment, it's nothing and both.
And that's where I am. I've been suspended, but I
know as soon as it lands, I'm going to have
to accept it.
Speaker 2: Oh, knock clean.
Speaker 7: Just a second.
Speaker 2: And then the door opens. Hello, Oh, how can I
do you?
Speaker 3: My name is Jim Jim ricci Uh. I know this
sounds strange, but do you remember me?
Speaker 2: No, I can't say that I do. I know you
from church?
Speaker 3: No, ma'am. I'm just the private investigator. Sorry, yeah, just
working on a case that you've heard of, that recent
disappearance of miss Beatrice Fury in Stamford. Are you aware
of that case?
Speaker 2: No, No, I can't say that I am. Honey. Let
me just get my husband. I'm sure he can help
you more than I can. Right right, And you have
a photo? Is this someone that you might know?
Speaker 8: Well?
Speaker 3: I have the paper and I thought i'd start here
because I noticed your last name is Fiori as well.
I know Carmen, you know, and I am well aware
of that.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 3: Ellis Island Atis, you know, changed into a more common name.
A lot of people ended up with Fiori and I
was Ricci. But maybe it's just a coincidence that you
shared the last name. I figured that you were her parents,
at least that's what my analysis and research and showed.
Is this a joke, No, ma'am, this is completely serious.
Speaker 2: Let me see that paper, ay right, from.
Speaker 3: A couple of years ago, but that was the talk
of the town, once made state news.
Speaker 2: I need you to leave. Sorry, my husband gets here, ma'am.
Speaker 3: Do you know her?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 2: I don't know who that is, but I know my
daughter went missing at six and you need to.
Speaker 3: Leave, ma'am. I right now, what do you? Thank you
for your time? And I don't know if you want
to keep the paper and that I have copies at home.
Speaker 2: I do not want to keep that paper. Oh I'm sorry,
Thank God, have mercy on your soul.
Speaker 3: You as well.
Speaker 2: When did you notice the note was in your pocket?
Speaker 6: You know, I.
Speaker 3: Was in my foxhol and I got my reasons for
not having my wits about me, but my try my well,
first time I was sharing that den with mentioned that
mail had come in, and I remember reaching in my
pocket and reading it. I don't ever remember getting that letter.
I remember the other times, but I don't remember that.
And I read it, and that got me through. It
got me through the rest of that hell. But at
that moment there was a lot going on. I don't
want to go into it, but let's just say I
had a hard time grounding myself to reality. And even
when I returned from that war, it was so sparsely
talked about. I mentioned it, and no one had an
idea about what I was talking about. They said they
hadn't heard of it. I said, you're crazy, they have
not heard. How do you not know? Not a single
person heard about the twenty eighth or the ninth about
what they went through the eleven. No one knew how
bad it was that I even began to wonder if
it ever even happened to begin with. And that note,
that moment when I got it, I didn't know if
that was real or not. And that's why it's still
in my pocket. But I haven't taken it out since.
Speaker 2: I'm confused again, are we talking about the note or
the letter or both?
Speaker 3: Sorry? The note, that's right, it's all right to come here. Yeah,
then I don't understand why I got it just to
hear this told me to come here. I was wort
of answer my question. Now I'm left with more questions
because there wasn't a yes, it wasn't a no. There's
something in between, and now it has me even more
dedicated to finding out what's going on.
Speaker 2: It's funny like that answers to beat ourselves up thinking
what else's going to be this? Or it's going to
be this, And oftentimes so often it's something we didn't
even think about.
Speaker 3: So sometimes it's both and nothing. Yeah at the same time.
But I haven't I haven't settled on that yet. I
think there's still a trail on this. There's a reason
why I was supposed to come here.
Speaker 2: Oh definitely, Yeah, we'll figure it out. I'm just wondering,
like when it decided to, you know, recruit you, I
guess you know what the moment was. Was it when
you got the first letter? Was it when you came
home and realized she was gone? Was it when you
went to meet her parents who said she died at
six in like or was it after when you went
and I mean you went digging up pictures of this
six year old.
Speaker 3: Right didn't make any sense?
Speaker 2: Yeah, because she would I mean, she looks the same right,
I mean imagine so otherwise she wouldn't have reacted that
way her mother, I mean she didn't.
Speaker 3: Right, It doesn't make any Yeah, it doesn't make any sense.
And you know the funny thing is, I don't know.
It might have even happened while I was gone.
Speaker 2: It just might be the castume.
Speaker 3: We're gonna get down to the bottom of this.
Speaker 2: We will up for day.
Speaker 3: This was enough, Yeah, I think so too.
Speaker 2: Now we're going to meet a kachi a totally different time. Right,
it's Halloween not and you are walking with your twin
twins and yeah, your friends? How long have you been friends?
Speaker 6: And just maybe a year and a half okay?
Speaker 2: And how did you meet?
Speaker 6: We work together?
Speaker 2: You work together? Okay, oh at the dinner. I didn't
realize it yet, so I'm going to keep going, but
write that down, okay. And how long have you worked
at the dinner?
Speaker 6: Maybe? Uh yeah, it's going on two years now, okay,
but the first one off for me a job?
Speaker 2: Okay. Anyway, it's Halloween. You were at a party, right?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Do you like Halloween? Do you like dressing up?
Speaker 6: H yeah? Away for as it dolts to be creative
and more essentially acceptable, way.
Speaker 2: I guess I've certainly changed a lot from my time,
and so I love that we don't have to talk
about this right now.
Speaker 3: If you don't want to, it's something, it's fine.
Speaker 6: I don't think it's any other. There's no bad time.
Speaker 2: Okay, no time like the reason. Well, why don't you
tell me what your relationships are with your brother?
Speaker 6: We're close? I say it's perfect. I'd say it was perfect.
They were visiting what the week, so I thought i'd
bring them over to the party so they can make
some friends here.
Speaker 2: And did they Yeah, we got.
Speaker 6: Got a really pretty women's number. I think it was
more than just friends.
Speaker 2: I'm so sorry. No, sorry, No, you don't apologize. You
take your time.
Speaker 6: He'd done, Madison had gone home ready, so you were
going to They're a bit longer the party, have a
shift next day, so I could get away with than
late okay, and Kenna did not want to leave after
he met that woman.
Speaker 2: Why did you leave?
Speaker 6: It was nearing three am, which you know we don't
have a Yeah, I don't know, but there was more
of the case that we don't have bar that we
would have to walk home, and I didn't want.
Speaker 5: To speak to you.
Speaker 3: You late.
Speaker 2: How far of a walk was it?
Speaker 6: Probably it would have been twenty thirty minutes.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm sorry, I gotta get into the nitty gritty
a little bit, Brye. Did you notice anything on your walk?
It's fine if you didn't. I'm not saying it's your
fault or nothing. To be very clear, I'm just asking
for details.
Speaker 6: Didn't all right?
Speaker 2: How far into your walk home were you when they stopped?
Speaker 6: You couldn't have been maybe fifteen minutes.
Speaker 2: Vultures they were waiting, right.
Speaker 6: I thinks so much. I wasn't really paying attention. You
can I notice them first?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Okay, yeah, I don't know what we did, but it's
to be so aggressive out the gate.
Speaker 6: But they both had guns, braun. It was Againa's first
time in the city in US period. I tried to
I tried to in to talk these officers, but they
weren't listening, and and I was older by a few minutes.
And always you would always rub the in my pace
and use it as an excuse to me my protector,
and tried to do that. Yeah, even get to say
a word.
Speaker 2: Sorry, Yeah, hm, I don't apologize. Can I offer you
a tissue? Is that insensitive as hell. It's so insensitive
I could I.
Speaker 6: Could have Okay, all right, I had only been living here.
But if she is not, I had to really I'd
heard what it's like. I'd never arniced it. It was
bleeding and seen his face. Was he went the party
as a away, called it undead masquerade? I would convinced
it that it wasn't a thing. I think he's put together,
because question could put the party I am. I poured
off his a mask and just begged him to say anything.
I think I think he did. I was so panicked,
and then I heard shouting from the police officers and.
Speaker 3: This just ran.
Speaker 6: Does the rand and kept running to hear them behind
me painting out the meat, yelling something. One of them
shut at me, braised my arm. I couldn't feel anything.
I just kept running.
Speaker 2: And is that when you saw the door?
Speaker 6: I was yelling for help and no one seemed to
be around. Don't mean to help even look my way.
That's when I saw the door. But maybe I could
I could hide.
Speaker 2: Was it open the door?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have a theory as to why you're here.
Usually this place shows up for a few reasons. Mainly
there's a mystery to solve, and I'm I being supposed
to help you solve that.
Speaker 6: But that is here? Understand?
Speaker 2: Where is what this?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Everywhere and nowhere all at once. It's here and then
also somewhere else. Sometimes I'm when else?
Speaker 6: Sorry?
Speaker 4: Is that?
Speaker 2: Okay? Would you like to stand? Would you like a
drink of water? Can I get you anything? You're bleeding?
Speaker 6: Yeah? I could have some water please?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Do you want ice? I don't know why I asked that,
because it's up to this place to give me the
water in the first place. But I'm assuming if they
want ice, you'll get some ice. So would you like
some ice?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 6: I could?
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, I'll be right back. You're okay here
for a second by yourself.
Speaker 6: Right, yeah?
Speaker 9: Okay, Yeah, there's a doll in there.
Speaker 2: Don't look it in the eye.
Speaker 10: Okay, hold up, Okay, okay, I've got your water, thank you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't see her in here, so you're all good?
Speaker 5: Okay.
Speaker 2: I have to be honest with you. I don't. It
doesn't sound like there's anything supernatural, super unnatural, paranormal, pair
abnormal so on. The list is really rather long. Uh.
In your case, I'm still gonna help you. I'm still
gonna help you, but it sounds like people being people. Unfortunately, Yeah, h.
Speaker 6: But left its body. It's still loved that.
Speaker 2: Well. No, don't apologize again. Why don't we go together? Right,
I'll go with you. I want to go out the
front door. Yeah, I'll follow, all right. And that's when
things got really weird because they walked through the door,
and I walked through right behind them. But I sure
shit didn't end up where they ended up. Wherever that was,
which I now know is with Harry. Harry, Where the
hair are you when this happened?
Speaker 8: Say that again? I'm apologize.
Speaker 2: No, that's all right. Where were you when this happened?
You were in jail, weren't you?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 8: Yes, yes, I think I may have been.
Speaker 2: May have been. Don't lie. You can lie to everybody else,
but don't you dare lie to me. You were in jail,
you had been arrested. Don't pretend like you forgot getting arrested.
Speaker 8: I didn't forget. I meant more not my apologies.
Speaker 11: Okay, I was in jail, but I was currently being
interviewed in that little holding room, so I wasn't in
the sail per set.
Speaker 2: All right, all right, and what were you who was
interviewing you?
Speaker 7: Do you remember, oh, some so and so coper trying
to figure out m M.
Speaker 11: You don't you have all these details and then that
little filiods.
Speaker 2: Yep. But that's why I ask, you know, just to corroborate,
make sure things line up, and also sometimes details move themselves.
So I just got to be very thorough.
Speaker 8: That's fair, that's fair.
Speaker 11: Well, all right, so yeah, they were they were doing
something sort of what they called an interview.
Speaker 2: It was an interrogation, let's real. Yep, all right, most
interviews are kind of good. At them myself, I.
Speaker 8: Was gonna say, is this is this one of them?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 2: See, you couldn't even tell could you? Now, cooperate exactly exactly?
You'll get the hang of this, Harry. Okay, that's a hope.
Now you're being interrogated. Walk me through the interrogation.
Speaker 6: Right, So.
Speaker 11: I might not do this, and I know it always
said this way, but I was indeed framed.
Speaker 8: Just pull that out there, I always said, I know.
Speaker 2: But everybody does always say that, like right, I'm sure
it'll be said again by the end of this episode.
Speaker 11: Right, yes, but you see, I was I was usually
the one being told that, so.
Speaker 2: Okay, I recognize it.
Speaker 8: But they were asking.
Speaker 2: Me about all.
Speaker 11: The money I had come into, where it.
Speaker 2: Had from money you had come into. That makes it
sound like it fell in your lap, Harry.
Speaker 8: Well one of the times it did it? This loss?
Speaker 2: Well, but I mean you you did things to get
that money, did you not?
Speaker 8: I roll dies, I played cars.
Speaker 2: Through some Yeah, okay, okay, I like dice. Dice are
honest that they are the most that you've got right there? Yeah,
I was keeping them on me. Would you roll for me?
Let's just see what you get?
Speaker 8: Seven?
Speaker 2: Ain't that your lucky number?
Speaker 8: Well?
Speaker 11: Yes, and in crabs, I usually play with the house
so seven umber. I won't okay, table tape me for that,
but you know that's their business, now mine.
Speaker 2: All right Now, they're interrogating you about the money that
you came into, that fell into your lap, that you
definitely gambled and didn't use any sort of magic to get.
Speaker 11: No, I'm just lucky, Okay, I.
Speaker 3: Do no magic.
Speaker 2: I just play the game and I wim Yeah, uh huh.
I think I know why you're here. I think you
think that you're just lucky. But you're actually using some
magic without your knowing.
Speaker 11: I mean that in magic normally is something you one
know about in two scene shows.
Speaker 2: No, not no, those are tricks. That's not real. I've
been talking real magic, Harry, you know, like pills and shit.
Speaker 8: All right, well, yeah, well you some sort of wizard.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, I like wizard. I'm okay with that.
I mean terms are thrown around all the time, chef, cook, wizard, mage,
which you know, depends on where you are and when
you are and when's line anyway, So anyway you're getting interrogated.
At what point does the mercurial come in and dressed
as the law officer? I'm sorry, I don't think you
know what that is. When does the second officer come in?
That is the one that tells you like your special
When does that guy come in?
Speaker 8: Oh?
Speaker 11: Oh, that would have been goodness. Oh after they had
run me through all the games and okay, the different
casinos that I had been to it one.
Speaker 2: You're right, I don't know why I used air quotes there.
It was actual evidence that they had collected.
Speaker 11: It was evidence I played. Listen, I was the one
who looked for people that they accused me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, I know that's why no one suspected you. Well,
it's because I wasn't doing it. I know better.
Speaker 11: I can win without doing the cheating and the cod
counting and all that.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm not sure the universe would see it that way.
Speaker 8: Well I think they do.
Speaker 2: They met, they made me lucky. Well, okay, okay, that
that just may be the case, Harry's.
Speaker 3: That we agree, man.
Speaker 11: So it was about after that, and it ran through
everything and said I was going to be in there
for a long time in the side, stored the money
and all that.
Speaker 2: And oh wow, you told them.
Speaker 8: No, I didn't tell them.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right. I was gonna say you and are
very different people, which I think might be the case anyway,
But anyway, sorry, I could continue. Yeah, so you didn't
tell them, but you fake told them.
Speaker 8: Well I didn't know. I told him. I wasn't going
to tell.
Speaker 2: Where it was, okay, all right? Did you ask for
a lawyer? Did you lawyer up? That wasn't a thing
back in my day, but apparently it's huge.
Speaker 8: Now it is. And they did not let me. He
didn't leave you my phone call?
Speaker 2: Oh no, okay, which.
Speaker 8: I called them outful.
Speaker 2: I knew my.
Speaker 11: Rights and okay, they said, we know your rights too,
and that was the end of that one.
Speaker 8: Okay, they let me stew on it.
Speaker 2: And maybe is that when the other the other guy came.
Speaker 8: In precisely about fifteen to one.
Speaker 2: Elida Okay, and how long did he pretend to be
a detective or whatever or did he just immediately go
into it?
Speaker 11: Well more or less they walked in. They said they
were off asive, so and so I can't quite recall.
Speaker 2: Of course you can't because they use magic so that
you'd forget it. See, this is what I'm talking about.
Speaker 8: I just thought they were forgettable.
Speaker 2: Well that's the point. That's the point of the spell.
And that's what they do, these mercurials that go and
they regroup people that have the ability to bend the
reality in the world around them, that have innate magic
in them, and they try to recruit them to their cause,
you know, before the world eats you or whatever.
Speaker 11: Right, I don't know why Thermometera had anything to do
with this, but that's that's.
Speaker 2: Fine, right, continue, So.
Speaker 11: They end up coming in and talking to me about
the case and kind of regargitating what was said and
they were doing. So they're walking around the room and
I'm noticing them looking up at the camera. They said, well,
we need to turn this off. And I thought that
might actually been my last moments because I think I
won't get in a call, and I knew that more
than likely some of those casinos may have.
Speaker 8: Hide some or paid off some.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 11: Yeah, so I think, well, you know, maybe today's in
my lucky day.
Speaker 8: But then it was as they started.
Speaker 2: Right in and we're like, yeah, what did they say exactly?
It was something like you know your you're special, you
have you know, you're so close to being awakened or
some ship like that.
Speaker 11: Yes, And I said, well, I have had my daily coffee,
so I'm pretty awake.
Speaker 2: Last I checked.
Speaker 11: I mean, at least the at least the cops, as
dirty as they were, they did.
Speaker 2: Give me okay. But Harry explained to me this, why
did they or did they not perform some magic to
get you out of jail?
Speaker 8: Well, you know, I'm not right sure.
Speaker 11: They just said hey were spatial and all that that hoopla,
and then they said, well we will bring you to
the next room.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 11: And I said, by right, I'll off fall and they
said you go take the lead open that door, and
I went all right, figured well that this.
Speaker 8: Is my time.
Speaker 11: I'm gonna be put in the back room, and then
putting cement to something, and I opened the door and
then it was in office.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, okay, it was here for a different office.
Speaker 3: It was here, I believe it, so yes, oh.
Speaker 2: Wow, okay. But for some reason, you didn't go through
the door right away here because you ran into Akachi
right out on the street. So why didn't you go
Why didn't you enter the office? Then?
Speaker 11: Well, because it was weird, and I thought I was
I thought they slipped something in a mock up.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, that's fair, that's fair.
Speaker 11: So I paused and when now, hold on, now, maybe
that ain't right, and I shut the door again and
opened it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, cries too, right, like it wasn't playing for them.
They were using magic to get you out of there.
But they seemed as shocked at the office as you were.
Speaker 11: I heard a couple of things I wouldn't say in
front of my mother, that's for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, Well, I think it's because most of the
time people people in the know, some of them have
heard of the office, but most people haven't seen the office.
So the mercurials know about the office. I mean, hell,
we've got a magic typewriter of theirs over in the
corner that we sometimes us to communicate. But I imagine it
was probably pretty shocking to see the actual office there. Sorry,
that not just.
Speaker 8: A fax machine?
Speaker 2: What did he change?
Speaker 8: Wells a magic.
Speaker 2: Top, right, there was a fax machine.
Speaker 11: It's a it's a it's like a keyboard that you
type into when it sends a message over the internet
and prints it out on the other side.
Speaker 2: Is that supposed to mean something to me? Or are
you just speaking words?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 11: I am speaking words, that is correct, but but I
don't know if you I guess it?
Speaker 2: What is not Internet? Where where?
Speaker 8: I'm not confused. I'm gonna be honest.
Speaker 2: That's all right, That's all right. Let's back up. We
shouldn't be talking about the office really intil I figure
out what's going on. Anyway, let's get back to a
kachi because I need to know why that happened. So
you didn't go into the office. You and the mercurial,
uh were like holy shit and some expletives, and then
you started what the mercurial led you out of the jail.
Speaker 11: Yes, I mean, they didn't want me to stay there anymore,
they said.
Speaker 2: And then well, yeah, they're trying to recruit you, I imagine, right,
and you need to get moving. So but what I'm
wondering is does your memory end there and then start
outside or were they doing things with their hands? Were
they doing anything to get you out of the Yeah.
Speaker 11: Well they were behind me, so I didn't see what
they were doing, but I did feel a hand on
my shoulder kind of moving me forward.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, And so I stepped through.
Speaker 11: I figured, well, I don't really know how they did this,
and maybe I am just a.
Speaker 8: Tripping I believe it, said, yeah, and figure it might
as well enjoy the ride.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I stepped through.
Speaker 11: And then the door wasn't there no more?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. That's interesting. So it seems like the
door presented itself to you the first time, maybe to
save you from the mercurial. Now that's weird because they're
not bad or nothing, So I wonder why I did that.
And then you got out onto the street, and that's
when you ran into Akachi. Right, that's correct, it's right, okay,
and the two of you, Akachi, do you remember what
happened here? I'm going to turn it over to you. Now,
what's hues?
Speaker 6: It's definitely not where I left.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's completely different now and you're in Vegas now.
Speaker 6: From New York to Vegas, Vegas never seems like a
police hiding enjoy. I never really considered.
Speaker 2: Going, Well, think you're only going to be here for
like two three minutes, right, so maybe we'll find out
one day if you like Vegas or not. And Harry,
you run into a kachi. But Akchi's bleeding at this point.
Speaker 8: Yes, I saw looked.
Speaker 11: Yes, I've seen those on occasion for sure, but it
wasn't too bad. Still, blood of course, and looked a
little a little drained of color though, whether or not
that was from the gunshot or whatever.
Speaker 8: Rod scared him.
Speaker 2: And could you don't know, I'm taking notes just in
case anybody goes through the paperwork here. Could you both
describe what you were wearing, what you looked like the
day this happened.
Speaker 11: Sure, I'm actually pretty close to work I'm wearing now.
I may not have had the tie on. Figured i'd
look a little ficial for this interview. But nice little
card again, little little button up. I have to look
official normally in my job, and I hadn't been changed
into the uniform yet.
Speaker 8: Some nice slack shoes, that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: In eye color, stuff like that too. I'm taking very
particular I see.
Speaker 8: Yeah, yes, brown hair, brown eyes, a little bit of
beard and scruff, but kept well crop short.
Speaker 11: My eggs liked it a lot that way, and I
kind of kept it, yeah, mostly mostly that sort.
Speaker 2: Of the thing.
Speaker 8: I wouldn't say, I'm short nor tall, just kind of
the middle there. Oh what else? What else would what
else would you want for that?
Speaker 2: I can't tell you because that would be feeding what
do they call that? Leading the witness? That's right, that's right, sure,
that's okay. I'm just whatever stands out your mind, just
in case you know their discrepancies, right right? What about you?
Speaker 6: I'm five five faston somewhat lean, I guess mostly because
of my dub kind of boys on my feet moving.
Speaker 2: Okay, I think you're being a little bit uh. I
don't know the word right now, but you're extremely muscular,
A little bit lane that doesn't even remotely describe I mean,
you're like a beefcake.
Speaker 7: A little bit wiry is the phrase I've heard, not.
Speaker 2: Because doesn't wiry mean like very live.
Speaker 8: Well it can mean tone and strong andtheless.
Speaker 2: Really is that if I've just been reading books wrong
my whole life, you know, like a okay, well it's
fun anyway. I'm so sorry, Cottee, please continue.
Speaker 6: It's fine of a big head of hair receping going
out my afro right now. I'm in a red suit
with black dress shirts, black dress shoes. I had a
pair of tinted sunglasses and at some point I had them,
probably fell off when I was running, but I had
ball and was on.
Speaker 3: I was.
Speaker 6: It was a Kenner's idea, but I was in a
I'm in a kind of pun Halloween costume and this
is bake Rada.
Speaker 2: It's beauty, oh proda. Okay, it's newer. It's beyond my time,
but I did. I did solve a case once where
they referenced that a lot yet paper mind, you know
anyway I have I supporse.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm the adrenaline is kind of wearing off. Some starting
to feel it again by bleeding from them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, please take it away?
Speaker 6: Where's I look behind me for a door and the
women that was meant to be coming through with me
and see no one excuse me and I'll rush over
to the first person I see in this back callyh.
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, yes, you you are you? Look you are right.
Speaker 6: I don't know how to answer that question.
Speaker 2: No, I take it.
Speaker 6: That is where am I.
Speaker 11: I'll see you in Vegas, my friend?
Speaker 8: What Vegas is you?
Speaker 11: You lose everything and have a bit too much after
trying to forget it.
Speaker 3: No, I was.
Speaker 6: I was in New York. Second. Have you seen a
lady with like a brown at or white blouse. Lady
just walked through that door. I mean there was a door, right,
there was a door there to one there.
Speaker 3: Fair enough.
Speaker 11: No, I have not my knowledge. I was in a
different room earlier. I do you need help?
Speaker 6: I think so?
Speaker 8: Yeah, all right, yeah, okay, all right.
Speaker 2: Right right.
Speaker 8: Here, I might have a handkerchief somewhere. Let's let's wrap
that around that that wound.
Speaker 2: There real quick.
Speaker 6: Thank you, thank you?
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 8: Right, let's hear that sit down?
Speaker 3: That cut right there.
Speaker 2: Let me let me Yeah, I took my damn phone.
Speaker 6: Uh m, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 3: Uh huh.
Speaker 6: I appreciate to thank you.
Speaker 8: No worries.
Speaker 2: Are you.
Speaker 8: What's your name?
Speaker 4: Some?
Speaker 6: Oh? Catch you.
Speaker 11: Harry, good to meet you. I'm gonna level with you
right now. I ain't gonna call the cops, if that's
all right with you. Peace done, glad, will an agreement.
Speaker 2: Right, did you? It didn't look too bad when.
Speaker 8: I wrapped it. Uh, let's see here.
Speaker 11: Yeah, should we? I don't think we should be on
the street. Let me let me see if we can
find something. I know a few places we might.
Speaker 7: Be able to slip into if you want to get
off the street.
Speaker 6: Here, give me this something. He's your friend.
Speaker 11: Oh, they were helping me not be where I was.
Speaker 3: Ah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And in fact, Harry, why don't I catch you later?
I meant what I said, you know about recruitment.
Speaker 8: Okay, right, I'll I'll consider it. Thank you, thank you. Yeah,
gonna be honest.
Speaker 2: That one was real weird.
Speaker 11: Yeah yeah, yeah, let's say. Let's let's let's slip in somewhere.
I know a few that that my be able to
patch you up a little bit out here. Take my hand,
I'll help you on open if you need to lean
on me. It didn't look like you lost oh my blood.
But if you do need to lean go forward.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: All right, let's see.
Speaker 8: I think it's therved on the right as well.
Speaker 2: And yeah, the door actually does not appear to them
at this moment. Harry actually takes a catch you to
get patched up a little bit before the door shows
itself again. But now we're going to move on over
to somewhere in the Pacific northwest. I think, Gus, where
were you on the day the door appeared for you?
Speaker 5: I was.
Speaker 4: Working, which is where I spend most of my time.
To be honest, I spend probably too much of my time,
as some of my friends would indicate. I spend my
time taking the photos or developing the photos.
Speaker 3: It's a.
Speaker 4: Very rarely, very rarely am I spending time outside of
those two points. Am either at the point of the scene,
whether it's virtue of my employment or virtue of my
own interest and intrigue taking the photographs and developing them.
Maybe an hour spent in leisure time at home on occasion.
But I'm pretty immersed in the world of lenses and negatives.
Speaker 2: Okay, I don't know shit about photography. How long does
it take you to develop a photograph?
Speaker 4: Well, it depends, but you know, you can start the
process as long as you're I don't know. It's kind
of like baking. You keep an eye on things until
they're done. You know, I don't like to put a
pin it. It's a little more art than science, and
a little more alchemy than art.
Speaker 2: I suppose that's exactly what I say about what I do.
Oh that's nice that in common. I'm I'm older by
the way, like the tree, like the tree? Cool?
Speaker 1: You know that?
Speaker 2: Or you know that? Just not yet.
Speaker 5: I'd just like to.
Speaker 4: Double check these things.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's a good habit to get into good instincts.
I'm telling you, guess you're going to be great at this.
Speaker 4: Awesome love to hear it.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Anyway, so you were on the day the door arrived.
That sounds so ominous, But on the day the door appeared,
you were at work? Were you developing photos? What were
you doing? Oh?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I went to.
Speaker 2: The scene of a crime.
Speaker 3: I was.
Speaker 4: You know, I'm a civilian contractor, so I go or
I'm cold. Pretty much show up and usually the preliminary
CSIZ but their thing, and then my job is to
follow after the lead investigator. I photograph what they ask
me to photograph. I put some on my own spinnet sometimes,
you know, I try to find the angle that best
represents what the lead investigator saw when they first arrived
on the scene, and then usually I end up picking
a video as well, so I use a what a
cam it's kind of like a moving picture, but in
my case, I capture it with a little it's like
a camcorder. It's a very complicated camera that takes so
many pictures that when you put them all together.
Speaker 8: It's like they're moving.
Speaker 2: Is it everything? Jittery?
Speaker 8: Jittery?
Speaker 4: Not if I'm steady enough, not if I'm holding the
camera properly.
Speaker 2: Okay, do you have this with you?
Speaker 4: Not right now? I's it's heavy. I usually keep my
Polaroid and my my DSLAR with me, but that handicam
I'm gonna have to track down later.
Speaker 2: I think d s l R. Are these all types
of tools that you use? Yeah, yeah, that's a good
way of putting it. Okay, Okay, I mean I have
weird tools too that I'm sure would look weird to you.
To you, I don't know why I got competitive. Just
then tell me.
Speaker 4: About what's what's.
Speaker 2: Writtened somehow not? Actually, you know, I felt like I'm
not in that moment. No, I know, I'm sorry. Anyway,
Please tell you.
Speaker 4: I think you're totaler than me.
Speaker 2: I think I am. But let's not stand up and check. Okay,
please continue on.
Speaker 3: Was your thing?
Speaker 6: Are you saying?
Speaker 2: No? No, I wouldn't say anything. It was you, okay, okay, Yeah, I.
Speaker 4: Was working in the dock room.
Speaker 2: I had some you, thank god.
Speaker 4: So I show up. I've got the you know, the
film real the negatives from the crime scene that I
was working on.
Speaker 2: It was, it was.
Speaker 4: It was a bit brutal, but I have become a
little too accustomed to these things, so brutal, like the
scene of the crime. There was a lot of blood, okay,
all right, Yeah, a lot of angles to take and
the lighting wasn't great, so I had to pinnick in
Finnagel for a while. And sometimes it's about replicating what
the investigators discovered on point of contact, and sometimes it's about,
you know, making sure that the people at the home
office can actually see what we're talking about. So sometimes
that can be a bit of a push and pull.
So I come back. I've got two reels of film
to develop, so I get that started in the dark room.
Speaker 2: Was there something that you were hoping to see in
these negatives? I'm just looking forward to Supernatural super unnature.
Now I get it normally.
Speaker 4: Well, that's the thing is is I don't have a
proper dark room at home because they're not really a
thing that you can. You got to be pretty precise
with it. You have to you have to have a
room that's dark, completely sealed off from yeah, exactly, completely dark.
And if you don't have that, and you can't, it's
just no no. And if you and if the lights
are completely off, then you're you're blind. And it's very
hard to work when you're blind. So if you don't
have the lights, we have to use, you know, sort
of red scattering lights just to keep things lit, but
not in a way that'll mess with the Are you okay?
Speaker 2: Is everything around? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Well, you know the thing is I develop my personal
photos at the dark crim at work, and I kind
of have to mix them in and I have to
make sure that my supervisor doesn't see those, because then
he'll ask questions about like why were you there, Why
were you back there?
Speaker 2: Why were from work resources? You know what? Back in
my day, you just did that this which is what
you did. Things change in some ways really well and good,
and I'm like, oh that's great, and then other ways.
I'm like, why the hell they change? That seems like
a weird thing to get up at about you give
your time. Why can't you use work resources for your
other time? It doesn't make any sense to me anyway. Yeah, yeah,
So you're developing personal photographs? Well okay, well hold on, yeah,
what kind of personal photographs? Not that kind of personal
Oh no, more like mine. And in that case, I
don't see anything wrong with it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's just you know, cases that i'm investigating on
the side that may not be you know, pertaining directly.
Speaker 2: To Okay, the case that I'm assigned to onto something.
What were you investigating? Maybe I can help you with that.
Speaker 4: I was just going back to places where I had
memories of a person that I was looking for, where
they had said things that were significant to me, or
we had worked a case together. So that's part of
why I was keeping it quiet because some of those
places I had worked out before. And it's kind of weird.
If you know, a civilian CSI shows back up at
a crime scene that he has previously investigated.
Speaker 2: Guilty, Well, that's what I would think.
Speaker 4: Little, a little, a little dubious. So that's why I'm
a little.
Speaker 2: They always got.
Speaker 4: Those firefuckers, the arsonists. They always go back, yeah, like
months to flame. So yeah, I I.
Speaker 6: Was visiting.
Speaker 4: The last place that he and I had had a conversation,
and he'd said things that felt really insignificant at the time,
but then felt very profound after he turned up absent,
and then I couldn't tell if the profundity was actually
inherent in what he said or if it was just
the way that I was looking back in it. And
I hate that. I hate that memories can feel different
depending on how you're feeling. I would rather they were
more concrete and unchangeable.
Speaker 2: Well that's something you're going to probably struggle with here
in particular. You get the hangings changing, yeah all the time. Yeah, well,
listen like a journey do Sorry. Well, I'm on a
journey for absolute truth.
Speaker 4: So that's fine. I'll get there eventually.
Speaker 2: Okay, Okay, you'll get there eventually.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So who's missing? Can I ask somebody close to you? Yeah?
Speaker 4: A partner of mine, not romantic partner, work partner, someone
that someone that believed in me and took a few
gambles on me. I think when others were a little
dubious of the way that I work and function. He
just sort of fish It got me from day one,
you know, like we just philosophically understood each other very
very well. We think about the world very differently, but
we we're open to other people's perspectives. We both agree
that unique perspective is very important in pursuing an absolute truth.
Speaker 2: I'm so sorry. What was the last thing you just said?
Speaker 4: The last thing I just said, Yeah, unique perspective. So
everyone's unique perspective is very important.
Speaker 2: When you're pursuing the truth, right, Yeah.
Speaker 4: Because even when you have an absolute truth, even when
it is concrete and factual, everyone's angle with which they
perceive it, their perspective on it still somehow alters it.
And that's kind of fascinating.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think they call that the observer effect observational effect,
I don't know. In some places in science and others's
magic and some it's both at the same time. So anyway,
so you were at work, you were developing photos. Did
you see something. I'm trying to figure out what happened
to cause the door to show up for you, because
it's one of two things, and I have a theory
right now, but I want to be sure.
Speaker 8: You have a theory.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, but you don't want to share it, not yet.
Tis just a theory.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean I have a theory as to why
you're here. Usually the door opens and somebody comes in
because there's some they've experienced, some sort of supernatural, super unnatural, paranormal,
para abnormal. The list goes on and on the thing,
and then I help solve that. That's what that's what
I do, That's what I'm here for. But I'm just
trying to figure out if you even had anything like that.
Did you have I mean, I'm assuming you didn't see
Bigfoot in your photograph. Not this time, nah, not this time.
So I had before.
Speaker 4: I mean, not on my own. I've never photographed bigfoot,
but that's the kind of thing that I like looking at.
Speaker 2: Is okay, all right, So maybe you have seen something.
Speaker 4: I saw something in the dark room. Yeah, that's that's
what happened that day. Anyway, it feels like it was today,
but it's kind of hard to.
Speaker 2: Oh it is today. It's just also in the past.
In a second, it's going to be today and you'll
be in the office for the first time. But right now,
I'm just trying to go back and get all the
details right. It'll feel weird. Sometimes we'll pause and have
talk like this and it'll be in a liminal space
that is either prison or past both at the same time. Whatever.
Speaker 4: So we're in the space outside the frame right now.
Speaker 6: Is that the vibe?
Speaker 2: That's a great way to think of it. And I'm
going to protectre. What do you mean, you mean like
a photo frame? Yeah, perfect, Yeah, yeah, we're outside the
frame right now. It's a great way to So what
did you see in this photograph?
Speaker 4: I don't know. I don't know if I can describe it.
And that was the thing that bothered me the most
about it. I'm used to it's rare, but sometimes when
I'm interacting with what I photographed, what I've recorded, sometimes
I see things that weren't there when I took them.
There was a negative that just seems to be paving
a bad time. I don't know how to describe it.
It was just not developing properly, and it was like.
Speaker 2: It was okay, hold on, Gus, I'm so sorry to
interrupt you. I have a bad habit of doing that
in general, but this time it was important, very careful
when you start to describe this thing, okay, because sometimes
weird things can happen. So if there's a detail that
your gut instinct says, omit redacted, just trust me, okay,
all right, go ahead, and I'll take notes.
Speaker 4: This thing seemed to be moving through the developing photo holy,
almost as if the more the photo developed, the more
it traversed confines of the photo as it was coming
to And it seemed to be when I looked away
that it got a little closer to the imaginary lens
at this point of this photo, like it was coming
towards me. And I had this feeling in the back
of my head, like when you're on a walk at
night out by yourself and you get that feeling, yeah,
like the hair stand up in the back of your neck.
And I knew that whatever this was, that it was
a mistake that I had made by capturing it in
the first place. It didn't want to be contained within
a single moment in time or within a single photo.
I decided kind of a split second decision, and I
don't know if it saved my life or if it
was an overreaction.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Really, probably saved your life. If I
had to guess. These things have a way of like
getting closer and closer until they consume you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I dumped it into the isotone.
Speaker 3: I just.
Speaker 4: Threw it into something that would corrode it until it
had no okay physical form left, and then I went
out to get some air. But my door out didn't
lead the way that it usually does, which is pretty weird.
Speaker 2: Right, I mean, it's standard for me, but I can
see why you would think it would be weird this acetone. Okay,
follow up questions real quick. One, What the hell does
the astone do? It just dissolved everything. It starts for chemical.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it starts, you know, peeling the film apart. Basically,
it doesn't work on especially other than just film. I mean,
I wouldn't recommend putting it on a living thing either,
Like you know.
Speaker 2: What happens to a living thing when you do that?
Speaker 4: I mean chemical burns, chemical burns.
Speaker 2: Okay, Okay, I'm going to write that down. That might
be a new ingredient that we can use for some.
Speaker 8: Ingredient.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well yeah, in the context of my job, because I
work with sensitive materials, we have you know, we have
the materials with which to destroy the photographs on hand,
because you know, that's part of our due diligence and so,
you know, destroying the photos and then shredding them. But
I just had a feeling, even though it was, you know,
even though it was dissolving in this this bucket, that
I had to leave. So I left and then I arrived,
which you say, a standard for you, but still pretty
elsteringly new for me.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, well you'll probably get used to it. Where
were you when you took the original photograph, you said,
at that place where your partner.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it was just the last place that
we spoke. There was nothing significant about it except for
the fact that our presence made it significant. We would
sometimes stop by a diner, you know, between here and there,
between work and other work, and we would park sort
of on like an overlook near a bridge, would sit
on the top of his car.
Speaker 6: We would.
Speaker 4: Eat together, smoke together. I've quit now I'm on the gum.
Speaker 2: Oh great, good, thank you. Yeah, it's.
Speaker 4: Not just a way of quitting a and have it,
you know, sound fair enough. And yeah, we would look
at the night sky and we would talk about things.
And it's just a spot. It's just a it's a
patch of road next to a bridge with no significance
other than that's the last time I saw him.
Speaker 2: Well, Gus, that alone makes it extremely significant. But also
everything is significant. We just don't know how right away.
Speaker 4: Off everything's significantlying is significant.
Speaker 2: Now, I don't believe that everything is significant. They don't
have to compete.
Speaker 4: Well, when a thing is significant, is important. Sometimes yes,
it can't be. It has to make room for the
things that are. So that's more so my world.
Speaker 2: I think that's just how we perceive things. I think
for us to anyway, let's not get philosophical, because I
will wax poetic. As they say, forever four hours in fact,
time we don't have.
Speaker 4: We're running at a time no.
Speaker 2: Never uh, how are checking? No, we're not running out
of time. However, I do have some follow up questions
for you. When you close your eyes, can you close
your eyes for me? Real quick? Okay, close your eyes.
Speaker 11: You are.
Speaker 2: Not actually but for the sake of this experiment, you
are back in that dark room, the room of darkness,
and you are watching that photo develop, and it is
moving from one frame to the next. I think, as
you described, yeah, opens its eyes, what color are they noted, Okay,
you can open your eyes now, you're not in the
dark room anymore. If you see that thank god. Yeah. Well,
I don't mean to scare you, but if you see
that thing again, will you let me know, like immediately.
Speaker 4: Let you know?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, I'm assuming it's easy to get a hold
of you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, probably for the most party. I hope fingers crossed again.
I have a theory, but I'll get to that in
a second. All right, I have another question. Actually, yeah,
I was gonna not ask it because it seemed a
little insensitive, but I have to know. Why wasn't anybody
else looking for your partner?
Speaker 4: Because he didn't up and vanish in the middle of
the night. It's not that he never, you know, checked
into work. You know, he left a note, and apparently
that's sufficient for some people, you know that they take
what they see at face value. They don't look for
a different perspective on it.
Speaker 2: Okay, so he left a note. What did the note say?
Do you know?
Speaker 4: It said, I've always talked about taking that trip. I'm
going to take that trip to Alaska one I've always
talked about.
Speaker 2: Has he always talked? He had always talked.
Speaker 11: All right.
Speaker 4: It always talked about it, but all the little details.
Speaker 2: Were off, right, Like what.
Speaker 4: Like the way he signed his name, signed his full name.
He would never do that when you're leaving a note,
that's like, by the way, I'm off you know, you
just sign your foot, Yeah, you don't sign your want
to actually get their full government name.
Speaker 2: And it is weird.
Speaker 4: And he wasn't the kind that would go by his
name anyway, So you know the idea that would.
Speaker 2: You even sign your name? Now that i'm thinking about it,
if I were to, you know, take off to the
mountains or something, I'd like to be like, Okay, I'm
doing that thing I always talked about. Bye, it's in
my apartment, you know, it's yeah, sincerely yours. Yeah, okay,
I don't mean to laugh, but you're right, that is weird. No,
it is weird. And I mean.
Speaker 8: Just one of those things.
Speaker 4: Where people told me to put it aside, and I
am just a person that physically can't do that. Putting
things aside is not really in my nature. I have
to see them through, all.
Speaker 2: Right, Gus. I think I think I have a theory.
Then I think my theory is well, I'll wait two
year all here, we're all here. Yeah, well you're going
to be in like a second. In like three seconds
is when you all enter in the door together and
meet each other for the first time. But I wasn't
there then when you first met. So that's why I'm
going through and doing the details. And now we're out
of time and you walk through the door and you're
all together, I think.
Speaker 6: Hmm, here, I can.
Speaker 2: Well that the same Vegas.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm brady, Yes, and just sit down.
Speaker 8: Part and so on.
Speaker 2: Yes, you do need to sit I believe that's what
you said.
Speaker 8: Sorr.
Speaker 2: I'm hot of hearing.
Speaker 4: I.
Speaker 6: Hello, this is the room I walked. I'll talk when
I run into you. You Hi, Hello, Hi Hi?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Wow?
Speaker 8: What where?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 8: Where are we?
Speaker 2: And who are you?
Speaker 8: Who are you?
Speaker 2: At least awesome?
Speaker 4: That was my question, too fantastic. I just came from
m I'm gus how who Hello?
Speaker 3: Thanks to mate.
Speaker 4: Name is Jim, Jim good name, Jim strong name.
Speaker 3: Thank you like you're outfit, very very nice.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 6: It's uh bespoke.
Speaker 8: Are you bleeding?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I was, but.
Speaker 3: I've been patched. I'm okay, all right. Let me know
I've got some experience tending to wounds it bothers you.
Speaker 6: That should be fine.
Speaker 11: I'm Harry, good to meet you, Jim, Gus and cost
and I have already become acquainted.
Speaker 3: Sane Harry, guys, I used to meet you.
Speaker 4: Jim, Harry a KATCHI less to meet you all as well.
Speaker 8: Uh do you you're right?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 8: Why we're here?
Speaker 6: Yeah? What's going on? Every time through that door? I
end up somewhere else.
Speaker 4: Oh, I'm so glad you said that, because I thought
I was going to say that and it was going
to sound insane.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I woke toward doing that up somewhere else. I ended
up here, which seems that's not where my door leads.
So I'm a little perturbed, as you might imagine.
Speaker 8: I was in Vegas with Pikasi just moments ago.
Speaker 11: So yeah, I feel like I might have had something
slipped in the drink at one point when I was.
Speaker 8: Yeah, but are.
Speaker 2: You all real?
Speaker 3: You know what?
Speaker 4: There's that's a matter of perspective.
Speaker 3: But at this part in my life, I've just kind
of learned to accept things as they are. This isn't
any weirderer than me than most of the things that
have been happening in my life. If I'll be honest,
there's a coffee machine over there. If anybody would like some,
I think I'll go ahead and make a.
Speaker 2: Brew please, I would much obliged.
Speaker 3: How do you take your coffee?
Speaker 2: Yeah, sugar, milk, splash of crepe.
Speaker 3: All right, Well, I don't think they'll mind if we
rumming jumped a little coffee here. I don't know whose
office this is. A stride you from around the area.
Speaker 8: No Cascadia, just around the corner.
Speaker 6: And I think a second, A good New York.
Speaker 8: Okay.
Speaker 6: Then I walked through that door. I don't know, it's
in Vegas. And then I walked through another door, and
I'm back here again.
Speaker 4: You got to stop walking through doors. Huh.
Speaker 8: Where are you from the gym?
Speaker 3: Stanford? I'm exactly just on my way back. Well, yeah,
well that's what we hear all the time over in Stanford.
Speaker 10: Oh.
Speaker 3: I know, but I don't know what's going on here.
But it's certainly for a reason.
Speaker 2: For reason.
Speaker 3: By the way, thank well, everything happens for a reason,
my friends.
Speaker 2: I mean, we're just okay.
Speaker 4: I can see a certain sort of comfort in that
frame of thinking.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, it's just an actuality at this point. It's
no real other way to explain it is there?
Speaker 6: Does this happened to you a lot?
Speaker 3: Well, this particular instance, I don't think I've ever wandered
into my house to find three strangers in not my
house before?
Speaker 6: Yeah, anyone else? I have no buzz, there's no signal.
Speaker 4: Hit.
Speaker 6: Does anyone else have? Whoa?
Speaker 8: My phone?
Speaker 4: Was?
Speaker 8: That's cool? Taken, that's a model, very nice, but no,
my phone?
Speaker 3: This is with me?
Speaker 4: What?
Speaker 6: That pretty old? Pretty old? Yeah? I got I saved
the eleven I think one to thirteen at this point, there's.
Speaker 4: Thirteen of them.
Speaker 8: That's a high phone.
Speaker 2: Really yeah?
Speaker 11: Uh huh, damn you must you need to connections?
Speaker 3: H uh, Well, I might be a phone around here.
I mean, I got a dimes despair if you need
to call some times?
Speaker 2: Damn?
Speaker 3: What are you doing?
Speaker 8: Slots?
Speaker 3: I'm not sure how to take that. I mean, I
don't make much, but I'm willing to give whatever I have.
Do you not have anything? I mean, that's what it
costs for the phone, always keeping on me just in case.
Speaker 4: A payphone? Yeah, yeah, I mean I'm sure we could
find a payphone.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure where burners.
Speaker 8: No, with the phone, you're talking about a cost.
Speaker 11: I mean, you shouldn't cost anything to call up unless
you got a really old plan.
Speaker 3: Oh, I see what you do. Yeah, I used to
be a prankster too. I'd go ahead and drill a
hole right in the dime, and then i'd put a
piece of fishing line and then i'd put it and
then well they got wise to that and got class.
Oh they got wise to that. They get smart enough.
Now they got a feature that prevents that from happening.
But for a while, I'd have as much time on
the phone as i'd like them are the days.
Speaker 8: I got you.
Speaker 4: I I don't. I don't usually carry a phone with me.
I usually leave it on my bike, so.
Speaker 3: I care. That's got to be heavy.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's a bit of a it's a little white,
but you know it's a That's why I don't usually
like having it in my pockets.
Speaker 8: It just it just lives.
Speaker 4: Better back with the bike. So I would say, I'll
go get it and you can do. Are you trying
to call someone?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 6: Try let my girlfriend know them.
Speaker 3: Okay, this is a prank. I see what's going on here. Okay,
now I understand this is a prank, isn't it What will.
Speaker 8: We be pranking you all?
Speaker 2: Exactly?
Speaker 3: Well, everybody in the town says I've gone half crazy.
Probably that publisher down the street, Greg, probably trying to
put a fast one on me, Like everybody in the
town believe that I'm absolutely crazy. What he's supposed to
be people from the future? Is that it like Popular
Science magazine? Is that right? You're here on your flying
cars and you're going to tell me about the utopia
that is, and then you come to Utopia to tell me. Yes, well,
of course if you never read Popular Science, it's all part.
Speaker 4: Of their science. Is the cutest way to talk about
I love that old Were you dressed as they still
have that?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 3: I'm dressed as me.
Speaker 4: I mean the the trench is very, very classic.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 4: Would you call it a trench coat?
Speaker 3: Thank you?
Speaker 8: I think it's more.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I expect to got you.
Speaker 3: Halloween cost I'm not following along here. What's going on?
It's a line man, No, it's late, it's just Craig.
I'm sorry, I'm stuck up. What Who is Greg? Greg?
Speaker 8: Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, over at the publisher down the street. He's been
trying to bespirch my name ever since. Well, he's been
my rival ever since. You see, I'm an independent journalist
and an investigator myself, and I've been on the beatn
on this very very important case to me. But he's
trying to convince the town that I've gone looney and
I've got all my marbles. I got all my ducks
in a row here Now that guys extremely sad you're
telling me, Well, I don't know. I should have a
very adverse reaction to seeing three strangers in my house,
but as you can see, I've maybe become become comfortable
with my insanity.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I feel kind of weirdly safe with you three ways
that I like I should be having a bigger response,
to be honest, but I do feel kind of like
fine in this moment.
Speaker 6: I don't think I've been through the worst. I think
meeting three strangers is nothing comparison. Has anyone seen a
lady with a brown hat, white blouse. I was speaking
to her before I left this office. Initially she was
going to.
Speaker 3: Them, oh you mean, oh oh, where she went? I
think I know what you're talking about.
Speaker 11: I was talking to an investigative sorts before I bumped
into you.
Speaker 3: Gotchi.
Speaker 8: It's Hm hmmm, you live in an office.
Speaker 3: Jim, Well, I guess that's what it looks like sometimes
a paper scattered every But this is certainly not my
office's way too clean. This is yeah, not my house.
Like I said, I opened my door ready to go inside,
and then you three were And well, now I'm sharing
coffee with you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Thanks.
Speaker 4: By the way, I love that it has no sugar
or creamer.
Speaker 3: Oh did you want some? We got plenty?
Speaker 2: Oh fantastic.
Speaker 4: You said you're an investigative journalist.
Speaker 3: Well, it's right, private investigator.
Speaker 4: Private, a private eye.
Speaker 6: That's cool.
Speaker 4: That's right, that's a very very pulp fiction novel.
Speaker 3: Right, right, come again it.
Speaker 11: I'm gonna ask a weird question because you mentioned this,
and I'm just confirming here we've all walked through a
separate door. Aside from a costume myself, we all walked
through a separate.
Speaker 8: Door and ended up in here.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 8: Where were you trying to hit Gus?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 4: I was trying to get away from the thing that
was trying to climb through the photo and gouge out
my eyes.
Speaker 11: Look, you know, Jim, I think the idea crazy might
now be leaking over to me.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, No, I'm not. I'm not crazy.
Speaker 4: Okay, I'm also supremely sound.
Speaker 3: I'm not crazy either.
Speaker 4: I listen, I see a little fucked up shit on
the rig, So you know, I'm used to, you know,
seeing pretty horrifying things, but usually they're already dead by
the time I see them, you know, like there's no
life in the room.
Speaker 3: You don't have a murder weapon on you, do you.
Speaker 4: Not? Unless a camera can kill?
Speaker 3: All right, it's checking ever, No, anyways.
Speaker 5: I am.
Speaker 4: I have two cameras on me. I've got two cameras,
like slung across my body.
Speaker 3: Say what sort of camera is that?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 4: This is my pride and joy. It is an Order
focused six sixty.
Speaker 2: It's a little ill did you sing? A little vintage?
It's like, yeah, I mean that old.
Speaker 8: My father had one of those.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well my little brother is like the same age.
Speaker 3: Say how old is that camera? Oh?
Speaker 4: This was like eighty one, I think.
Speaker 3: Yeah, eighteen eighty one.
Speaker 2: Oh god, oh god, god god, am I too late?
Holy shit? Stop? I figured it out. I know what's
going on, and I know we've met, but we also
haven't met yet. But hold on, stop talking right now,
because I figured it out. I'm not here to help
you solve the case. You're here to help me. You're
the new employees, if you can call it that of
the office. And what probably shouldn't talk about specifics like
years or someone might explode what and cameras can kill
I did hear you from the other room. I was
just trying to get the door to open.
Speaker 4: Well, you shoot people, but like nothing, sorry, someone could explode.
Speaker 2: Yeah, is that mistakes well as used today?
Speaker 4: It happened before?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, mm hm. So we have to be very
careful about It's kind of like I was telling you earlier,
Gus or later, whenever that happens, that we have to
be careful and sometimes we need to omit information from.
Speaker 4: Each other, like are we talking right now?
Speaker 2: Right now? I'm talking right Sometimes?
Speaker 4: Are we talking right now?
Speaker 3: Maybe cats out of the bag.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but we haven't gone into details yet. Should we talk?
Are we? I mean I'm all for experimenting, but I mean,
last time this happened, somebody exploded.
Speaker 4: Okay, I will.
Speaker 3: Well, everybody stands back five feet before I okay, draw
anny bombshells.
Speaker 2: Okay, it's still nineteen.
Speaker 11: Yeah, two thousands?
Speaker 2: Oh whoa wow, oh wow, Okay, that's that's pretty far.
That's the farthest I've ever met. Holy shit, Okay, this
is right?
Speaker 4: What?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 4: No, I don't know the first time.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: Okay. Wow.
Speaker 4: If I'm suffering from temporal insanity, you have to be
nice and you can't. You can't tell me again, I'm sorry. Okay,
specifics specifics? What's your favorite film? Favorite movie? Is that
too specific?
Speaker 2: That's pretty specific? Yeah. I hate it when people do
pop culture references for no Way. Yeah, I mean it's fine.
I don't hate it. Hates a strong word. It's more
like a philosophical rash. It gives me a philosophical rash.
Speaker 8: They usually have topical creams for that, not.
Speaker 2: The philosophical ones.
Speaker 8: Well, they do, it's just usually laced with something else.
Speaker 3: Oh, have an important question?
Speaker 2: Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 3: Who's winning the World Series? My money is on the
Brooklyn Dodgers. Got a on that?
Speaker 2: I mean the La Dodgers. Oh boy, oh wow?
Speaker 3: What the who? The Brooklyn Dog? The Brooklyn Dodgers against
the Yankees Dodgers. Yeah, I got one hundred dollars riding
on that game. It's gonna get me out of debt.
Speaker 4: That's a lot of money, Jim.
Speaker 3: Well it is I've getten the feeling that I don't
know that doesn't seem impressive to you. Look, I may
not make as much as many, but my salary is
just fought two thousand annually. Not bad for my independent reporting.
That is so much money only shit, Oh, I shouldn't away, then, Well,
I certainly don't do my job for the pay.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean for I don't either. I don't get
paid at all, which I guess I should mention. This
is not a paid situation. South.
Speaker 8: Yeah, we can script it. I got arrested and we're conscripted. Now,
I'm you got arrested.
Speaker 2: Okay, hold on, Well, he did get arrested, and he
did do it.
Speaker 8: I did not.
Speaker 2: You absolutely did. He's not innocent. He did it, and
we'll go over it at a later time. I'm sure.
But you are You know that you are guilty of sin, sir.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 2: You didn't maybe mean to do it, maybe you weren't
aware consciously that you were doing it, but there was
some level of you that knew what you were doing
when you were rolling that dice. I'm convinced of it. Harry, Yeah,
using magic Okay, Yeah, yeah, okay, Okay, well hold on,
let's let's slow down. You're not conscripted. You can leave
if you want to, uh.
Speaker 3: But see you later.
Speaker 2: Okay, bye. However, the universe has chosen you, I think
to work here. Normally, the door. If somebody walks through
the door, they've experienced something or seen something, and then
you know, I have to help them solve what it
is that they've experienced. That's kind of what I do.
You lot have some sort of brush with that, but
it's missing something and y'all seem to kind of have
what it takes. And it all happened at the same time,
which is how it originally happened with me and my crew.
So I think I'm just here to help you learn
how to do this, and then if that's what you
want to do, you don't have to do it, like
I said, but it is.
Speaker 4: For the same time, you know. I answer Jim's question first.
I think that's more important.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a pretty important question. I don't know. They
may show up at some point. Sometimes you walk through
that door, and as you know, it doesn't lead where
you think it's going to lead. I'm convinced it takes
you where you need to go not where you want
to go, And so sometimes you walk through that door
and you're gone for days at a time.
Speaker 4: It sounds a bit woo older if I'm being honest.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it does a lot of things sound a bit
woo you know. But I mean, look, look if you
hold on, close your eyes, close your eyes right now,
right now, everybody, come on, describe your perfect office chair, Like,
if you were to have one, what would it look like?
Speaker 3: You first, Jim, you know, I had a really nice
office chair that my mother let me borrow from the kitchen. Well, no,
I stole it and blamed it on my brother and
said that he broke it down to for a craft project.
But really, no, I stole it. I didn't have enough
money to buy a real chair, rickety old wooden chair.
It was not really much of a chair, but it
felt like home.
Speaker 2: And that's what you'd sit on in an office.
Speaker 3: Yeah, why not? It's where I started.
Speaker 2: I don't know when you want something more comfortable, like,
I mean, ceiling is the limit here? Except not release
guy's the limit I think is what it is. Anyway,
you could have whatever you A chair is a chair.
Speaker 3: Chair is a chair.
Speaker 2: You got to sit in it. You gotta think, you
gotta stew you gotta solve cases. Maybe no, but the
chair is comfortable enough to help you think you wouldn't
go for something like plump and plush and velvety leather.
M you seem like a leather guy.
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess that is time for an upgrade. Yeah, sure,
maybe a little leather. Okay, something too fancy just for
its purpose. You know, it's a chair, just sit on it.
I mean, some folks get some polstered nonsense and it's
just way too much, way too much money. I could
make a better chair. Heck, for a while, my chair
was just a stump that I rolled into my office.
Speaker 2: Okay, this experiment might not work, Okay, Harry, what about you?
Speaker 11: Well, when I think of that, I think of oh,
well them, well, them fancy ergonomic chairs, the ones that
you can sit all weird and comfortable.
Speaker 8: Ergonomic What the hell does.
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 11: Designed to fit the body in a way that does
not hurt you and promotes good pulsure Like mayonnaise. Ah,
I'm putting I ain't sitting in mayonnaise.
Speaker 4: Man, Okay, but as a mayonnaise hurts. Sorry, Now please
focus on the.
Speaker 2: Chair, right, So, we've got your chair ergonomic whatever that means.
Got it?
Speaker 11: Want to give a me you can nail in, you
can sit them backwards in all one of those things.
Speaker 8: It looks it looks kind of weird but nice.
Speaker 2: All right, Okay, I see now what you mean. I
got it? And what about you? Akachi?
Speaker 6: All right? No, but it's and I've been saving up
for them and Miller chairs.
Speaker 2: I don't know what that means.
Speaker 6: Those are real nice, really expensive.
Speaker 2: Okay, does it have his name on it? Like, how
would you.
Speaker 6: Like to look that logo on it? It's just a company.
Speaker 2: Okay, it's a company. Okay, okay, all right, all right, okay,
and what about you guys?
Speaker 4: I mean I already have the perfect office chair. Okay, No,
it's it's on wheels. It's got a little bit of
adjust to it, but like you know, it's.
Speaker 2: Would you know it? Agreed? Yes? Okay, open your eyes.
Look at the disks.
Speaker 4: That is my that's my office chair.
Speaker 2: Is that not for? Is that not which is ascribed
to me?
Speaker 4: It's che yeah, but that is my actual chip.
Speaker 3: There's a problem with Harry's chair. That isn't ergonomic at all.
I wouldn't trust that thing.
Speaker 4: To fly, does it it's does transform?
Speaker 2: No, well, I mean you can shift things around a
little bit here and there.
Speaker 4: But does it have an automatic like shoeshine or something.
Speaker 8: What's no, as they say, it's got a kneeling spot.
Speaker 2: You can you can kneel.
Speaker 7: You kneel there, you can you can put you can.
Speaker 2: Definitely did not think that that's what that was for. Okay,
thank you for explaining.
Speaker 8: No, it can be used for the things. But but nonetheless,
uh uh, you know it so you can you can
sit many different ways.
Speaker 2: Right, Well, so that was my big reveal as to
why you should be working at the office.
Speaker 4: It's a cool magic trick.
Speaker 2: It's not.
Speaker 4: I mean that's it's got the it's got the developer
burn on the seat here like.
Speaker 8: From that one I do.
Speaker 2: It even smells like you. I mean, it's not my magic.
I'm not.
Speaker 8: Is an odd thing to say. I would.
Speaker 2: No, I'm just saying like, okay, but like that's usually
what I do when I'm trying to solve a case.
I'm like, is this mine? Is this me? Was I here?
I try to smell it? You know what I mean? No,
I don't know what I smell like.
Speaker 4: That's I guess I must smell vaguely like I stopped
bath if I had to guess.
Speaker 2: But okay, mmm, well this is awkward because no one so.
Speaker 8: You did talk about smelling people.
Speaker 2: I talked about smelling myselling sort of that also weird.
Speaker 3: I spent a couple of weeks. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's fine. You don't need to apologize. Maybe I
need to apologize, but I'm just saying scent is a
good thing to rely on when you're detecting, which is
what I think you're supposed to be doing here. Okay, Now,
this is the office. It has a couple of different names.
Mostly I call it the office because that's what it is.
All right. Now, that door, like I told you, and
like you've experienced, opens to where maybe we need to go.
Sometimes it doesn't open at all.
Speaker 3: Oh I'm sold.
Speaker 2: Okay, perfect, Thanks Jim, Thanks Jim.
Speaker 11: Yeah, who do we work for if we're taking this
uh employment?
Speaker 2: I don't know because we don't get paid and there's
no real I mean, I'm sort of I guess acting
chief at the moment, but I only mean that in
terms of investigation. You don't actually like, not your boss
or whatever. It's weird, right, or maybe how do we
if you need direction?
Speaker 4: How do we survive without being paid?
Speaker 2: Just my curiosity and yeah, well, I mean yeah, you
don't have to. You don't have to, But for me,
I survive No, No, I mean without getting paid. I
mean you don't have to work here. You can walk
out that door and go back to your lives if
you wanted to fully understand that.
Speaker 4: What I'm saying is, yeah, I go, sure, I'll work
wherever here is. I'll work here. I don't get paid
working here, right, how do I eat and pay rent?
Speaker 2: Well, well, you don't have to pay rent because you
can live here and work here. I'm in just do
it awkward because of the rent?
Speaker 4: Yeah, honestly, that'll do it.
Speaker 2: That's fucking relatable anyway. Yeah, I mean you can live,
you can work here. I don't know, it's really really strange.
I've I've came in here and every time I leave
it takes me somewhere else where I need to go.
But I've never gone home, if that makes sense, So
I just sleep here if I'm honest. And as you
saw with the coffee pot, it's never looked like that before.
Speaker 3: Wow, I like that or a bad thing.
Speaker 2: That's a good thing. I like having new people in
the office because if you're from a different WIN, sometimes
things show up here that are from where you are
from and it's all new to me. H oh, it
can be very exciting. So like your chairs, sometimes things
just show up and we know they're important because gus,
everything significant.
Speaker 8: Everything they smell like us.
Speaker 4: Sorry, I keep remembering a conversation that we haven't had yet,
or we have or I'm not really clear on that,
and that's.
Speaker 2: Sort of that's totally fair. And that's because it's liminal.
You'll get used to it. It's really weird. You'll get
the frame. Okay, is this whole place outside the frame? Yes?
Speaker 4: Yes, okay, yes, guys, I know what's going on now?
Speaker 2: All right, yep. Would you like to explain don't use
any pop references.
Speaker 4: Any pop what's what's your issue with pop culture references?
Speaker 2: I just don't know them. I'm from I'm from a
WIN where you know, like and people reference it all
the time. They're like, oh, like this and like that,
and I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about, but.
Speaker 4: Sure, anyway, you know, when I talk about the frame,
it's it's what the camera is looking at you know,
it's what the person's perceiving it, and they're they're framing
the image or they're recording, you know what, the whatever,
whatever's happening in front of them, and in a in
a in a somewhat metaphysical concept, everything outside that frame
does not exist in that moment, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: But like it does.
Speaker 4: Obviously it does, but if you can't perceive it, it's
like you're outside perception in that moment. So we're outside
the frame.
Speaker 6: Does that make sense?
Speaker 11: No, it's just show Dinger's cat.
Speaker 3: I thought we weren't using pop culture references.
Speaker 8: Yeah, showing is an old philosopher.
Speaker 11: Oh like can't Yeah, well, I mean, yes, philosophy, but
but no, no, I mean if you look at it,
it's not gonna make sense never mind, never mine.
Speaker 2: I mean it might make sense, you never know. Anyway, then.
Speaker 6: It was physicist philosopher. Oh oh, I don't know. I
can explain it, but I don't know if it makes
sense to you.
Speaker 2: No, that's okay. Also, a sweetheart, would you like to
sit down? Are you still bleeding?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 4: Would you like to sit down on Harry's scary chair?
Speaker 6: I'm i think I'm good.
Speaker 7: Okay, okay, uh, where's a mad kit.
Speaker 2: I don't know. You have to try that door and
hope you get lucky. But I should warn you that
door always leads to my office. That door, I don't know.
Sometimes it leads to the storeroom where we store magical
items and stuff, and sometimes it opens to you know, bathroom,
and sometimes it opens to oh thank god, other shit. Yeah,
if you need to go just a it's magic. You
open the door and there it is. Sometimes it's a kitchen,
it's a very nice kitchen. But it's always that door.
That doesn't never that door. That door always leads to
the office. I don't know why.
Speaker 4: How many doors? How many doors are here?
Speaker 2: These two? So that one leads to the office, that
one leads to the magical store room or whatever. And
that's the front door.
Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, what are we sleep?
Speaker 2: Where do you sleep? Oh? Yeah, I mean you can
sleep wherever you want to sleep. I sleep in my office.
But I mean you're welcome to open the door and
perhaps it'll lead to where you want to sleep, or
you can walk out and go stay at a hotel
or whatever it is that you want to do. Sometimes
we work a case for a couple of days, and
it's in one area and we like to, you know,
go around and see the town. And I always have
enough in my pocket, if that makes sense. I always
have what I need in terms of how do I
survive without getting paid? I mean to bring it back
to your question from earlier.
Speaker 3: You're getting the money at med kit.
Speaker 2: Sorry, that was two things at one time, med Kit.
Try that try that door right there? And what did
you say, Jim?
Speaker 4: Was it?
Speaker 3: How are you getting paid?
Speaker 11: Oh?
Speaker 2: I'm not getting paid. I'm getting paid in joy, but.
Speaker 3: I didn't get the money for the payments, which payments
we were to go somewhere, let's say a nice restaurant
or a hotel that to demand some dough a.
Speaker 2: How are you paying scribe pocket? It's just like in
my pocket, or alternatively, we will go and I get
what I need when I'm out there, like someone just
gives me five dollars huh, stuff like that.
Speaker 3: So you're a panhandler?
Speaker 8: No?
Speaker 4: I don't you ever hear that joke that photographers are
always paid an exposure?
Speaker 3: No, I had a good one. Gotta wute that down.
Speaker 8: Jim gets it.
Speaker 4: Just a real quick question, because you know, I think
we should at least establish what we do for work,
like our actual skill sets, if we're going to be
working together.
Speaker 2: If that's because I'm a jury enough and I interviewed you,
you don't remember it because it hasn't happened yet, or
maybe you do remember a little bit of it. But
I do know what you do. But go on.
Speaker 4: Sure, But Jim, you said you're an investigative journalist and
a private investigator. That's right, Okay, I'm a civilian contracted
crime scene investigator and predominantly what I do is scene
analysis combined with crime scene photography and videography.
Speaker 2: Did not have a med kid? It had a what
is that?
Speaker 5: Is that?
Speaker 2: A cookie?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 8: No, there was, Well it was weird. There was a
mad kid. We got some nearest born and abandoning.
Speaker 2: So yeah, what what is that?
Speaker 8: Antibiotic medicine?
Speaker 2: Okay, well yeah, it just doesn't look like that. And
a weird tube? Yeah, okay, so sorry, I guess I
just did far than one a pop tart?
Speaker 8: What I just saw them on in a box next
to them?
Speaker 2: There's a box. I'm getting one. Does anybody else want one?
Speaker 3: I want one?
Speaker 2: Okay, I'll get the box. Sorry, guys, go ahead.
Speaker 4: Photographer and videographer. That's my main stick. So I analyze
scenes and images to come up with my own conclusions,
and I usually collaborate with detectives. Uh Akatchi, what what
what do you do for a living? In what way?
Speaker 2: Are you clearly a detective?
Speaker 6: I'm a waitress, I find profession.
Speaker 4: I guess are you a waitress? Are you waitress? Like
a person works at a bar and there really good
at like listening to people going through it like in
that sense?
Speaker 6: Or No, I just I just work for minimum wage
at a dina. I'm just looking for a job that
relates to my degree. I do agree mecatronics and robotics engineering.
Speaker 3: Huh, you're really educated.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but good job market isn't great right now? I'm
a waitress.
Speaker 4: Okay, And Harry, what do you do for a living?
Speaker 11: Well, I was a.
Speaker 8: A magical thaif why you keep calling me that? And
that is false?
Speaker 2: What you are? The money was not yours and you
used magic to get it.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 11: I had a very classic job in this scene. No,
I was specifically the one that watches and looks for cheats, okay,
surveillance officer. Specifically, I was the head of the surveillance set.
Should I redect the place that?
Speaker 2: This is also why I think the office picked y'all.
Y'all have good instincts.
Speaker 8: What it takes, Okay, way too much, and I win
because I'm lucky. There's a lot of sugar in it.
Oh you did find one very nice Okay.
Speaker 4: So a private investigator, a crime scene investigator, a person
whose job it is is to detect anomalism cheets. I
haven't figured out the carcious thing yet, but it will
come to me. I'm seeing I'm seeing threats. Okay, you
build crime solving robots or something?
Speaker 8: Are you will?
Speaker 2: Are you do you want to?
Speaker 6: I would just like a job that can pay me
so I can pay my rent. Yeah, I feel that
anything that does that anything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is not that. Unfortunately, and if there is,
I've seen neither. Hideing our hair, frankly, older, can I
you can have whatever you want? Sweetheart?
Speaker 6: Can I speak to you in your office?
Speaker 2: I guess yeah, yeah, absolutely, We'll be right back, y'all.
Of course, of course, what's up? Go ahead, have a seat,
I'll close the door.
Speaker 6: I I this is a lot for me right now.
Speaker 2: It is a lot, and I'm not very good at
dumping the information or introducing it. I find I've tried
being gentle and it doesn't really work, and ripping the
band aid off seems to work the best, although it's
not always the best.
Speaker 6: I don't really understand really what's going on. I think
is very clear at this point that it's something magical.
I can't there's no way. As much does it make
sense to me, It's pretty hard to deny that. I
just think there's a mistake, because if anyone was meant
to be here, it definitely isn't me. I think I
don't know how this place works, how the office works,
but I think they got the wrong twin. I think
they should have this moment earlier that could have got
it was the right one.
Speaker 2: Sweetheart. I'm really sorry.
Speaker 4: But.
Speaker 6: What can magic do.
Speaker 2: It's a dangerous question, and do a lot. It can
do anything in theory, if you're willing to pay enough.
It's not the question itself that's dangerous, Akache, it's the
way that you asked it, the way that I already
knew the answer that you would give if I asked
you a very particular question right now. You need to
be able to say no to that question. I know
that's awful. Nothing good can come from that kind of trade.
I don't think anyway, a lot of these cases that
we work our people who've accidentally made a deal, or
they've seen something and or they've brought someone back and
they weren't the same. I don't get paid with money.
I don't. I'm not paying rent, but I'm I really
do feel like I'm helping people, helping them through what
they saw, what they what they experienced. Sometimes the best
gift you can give someone is believe in them, and
I do. And I'm sorry that I wasn't. I didn't
make it in time for your brother.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, I mean we talk me, help me talk
choice with that. Hm, I shouldn't have boy hip out,
inter stayed home fucking all for mevies and just.
Speaker 2: Just now your fault, it's now your fault.
Speaker 6: The work it can I still I have a partner
at home and I don't. Yeah, I think my family.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like I said that doors, that front door will
open where you need to go. It seems like I
think I didn't want to say this in f and
all them, but I think ID it's never open to
home for me because I don't really remember what home is.
It's here, so I have every confidence if you wanted
to walk through that door and go home, you could
do that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think i'll just step up for a bit.
I need to let me. Yeah, of course, perhaps consistent though.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, come back whenever you're ready. A catchee
the office is never wrong.
Speaker 6: I'lle you backing a bit, A right.
Speaker 2: It was nice to meet you, and I think I'm
gonna stay in my office for a minute, but I'll
let you guys see what's going on out there. What
is happening out here?
Speaker 4: So they're called pop tarts. I think I've seen these around.
Speaker 8: H Yeah, yeah, you never had a pop tart before?
Speaker 3: And I don't.
Speaker 8: I haven't had one for most.
Speaker 4: American stuff is just way too sweet, so I usually,
you know, steer clear of the.
Speaker 2: Listen to that.
Speaker 6: You got a sweet.
Speaker 8: Tooth every now and then. I haven't had one in years.
Speaker 11: But I saw him there and I was a bit package,
so figured I might as well if this is all
a weird dream or louc, and I said, might as
well enjoy it as best I can.
Speaker 4: Right this pie, I'm not fully convinced that I'm not
like like maybe my ventilation got screwed up and I've
just inhaled like a lot of fumes.
Speaker 2: No way, if somebody else for a pie, does that
confirm your dreaming? Like, I'm not clear on love pie?
And I'll come out now with the pie. Did y'all
see it? If she leave, why they'll be back. Don't worry.
They just have been They've been through an ordeal and
it's not my story to tell. But you know, usually
this this office shows up to people have seen or
experience the scariest or worst thing that they've ever experienced
of the supernatural, super unnatural, etcetera, etcetera. M anyway, do
you lot have any questions? Who wants this pie? I'm
gonna have some of this here.
Speaker 3: I'll go ahead and cut it up for us.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, okay, yeah, here we go clocket knife.
Speaker 3: Hold on a second.
Speaker 4: I feel like there's stories about stepping through doors and
eating food that's offered and it's like bad for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's fairies. I hate to use that. This is
like a safe space. I feel like for the most part,
I can say anything, but that is Yeah, that is
the fight, and that that fucking that realm is real
By the way you cannot take food. Cool. Yeah, but
this is fine. Yeah, I'm just like, crack, do I
look like an elf to you?
Speaker 8: Older?
Speaker 2: I'm going to be honest. I mean, I'm okay with you.
It's a compliment.
Speaker 4: You could be completely out the worldly and I'd buy it.
Speaker 2: I mean I am, but not in that way. Hmm.
It means I investigate the other world.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, I thought there was something else to that. No, anyways,
pie anyone?
Speaker 11: I mean, yeah, yes, I I haven't had one since
I'm a mate.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, you know it strangely smells like the same
pie that I had over at the diner. Mhmm, it's weird.
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 3: So anyways, probably a dream.
Speaker 4: If we're here to pretty i'll help you. You said
we're here to help you solve a mystery.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean I think you're here to work
at the office, which means the next person walks through
that door, assuming it's not a katcha, it probably has
a problem and we need to help them with it.
That's how it works now. I will tell you it's
sometimes scary, stuff like what you saw in that photograph, Gus.
It sometimes things like that.
Speaker 4: Any things like that can come through the door.
Speaker 2: No, not through the door. I mean somebody comes through
saying they saw something like that, and then we have
to help them with it. Yeah, or we have to
find the thing. Sometimes, like we're finding artifacts or anchors
that people have, items, objects of power, that kind of thing.
Sometimes we're making sure they're in a safe spot the storeroom,
or you know, sometimes we're I don't know, righting other
worldly wrongs or something, you know, kind of balance something
like that.
Speaker 4: Older, Am I allowed to take notes?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Please do? Okayck all the notes in the world.
You're gonna need to just gonna.
Speaker 4: Just gonna write objects of power.
Speaker 6: That's cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just anything yep, like oop oop works really well. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So what do we call us? What exactly are we?
Speaker 2: Oh that's a good question. Uh. There's like an acronym
on the door, and frankly, I don't really I don't
know what it stands for. We've got a couple of theories,
but I don't know. I think I've been calling it
Department of Unsolved Mysteries.
Speaker 3: That's dumb.
Speaker 2: Sure, he is, sure, he is.
Speaker 12: Thank you for joining us tonight. You've been listening to dumb.
That's e U n produced live by Pumpkinberry. For more
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