Speaker 1: Calaroga Shark Media, Hello and Welcome to Ghost.
Speaker 2: This episode is titled Winter Escape, Part four. Evidence. The
file in front of me contains proof of forty three murders.
Each one has a name, a face, a story that
ends in a carefully documented death. Karen Mitchell, thirty nine,
environmental compliance officer at Meridian found Peace in Gardening, had
a golden retriever named Charlie. Made detailed notes about waste
disposal irregularities in Building seven. Her accidental exposure to experimental
compounds came three days after she filed her first report.
The official documentation shows she signed consent forms for trial participation,
but I'm looking at her personnel file too. She was
left handed. The consent signatures are clearly from a right
handed person. James Lou fifty two, senior researcher specialized in neurochemistry,
played violin in a local quartet called his mother Every Sunday,
started compiling data on missing test subjects, people who withdrew
from trials but never reappeared. His acute psychological breakdown during
integration testing came exactly one day after he backed up
his research to an external drive, a drive never found
in his personal effects. Maria Santos, thirty five, data analyst
with a gift for pattern recognition, recently engaged led we
Ken rock climbing expeditions, notice statistical anomalies in subject mortality
rates across multiple trials. Volunteered to participate in testing, telling
her fiance she needed to understand what was happening from
the inside. The security footage from her last day shows
her entering Building seven. No footage shows her leaving. I
recognize their faces not from memories. I have no memories
of them. I recognize them from their micro expressions in
the before photos, The slight tension around the eyes, the
almost imperceptible tightness in their smiles, the look of people
who know something is wrong but are trying to hide
their awareness, just like the expression I practiced in the
mirror this morning. My handwriting appears throughout the docum, sometimes
in margins, sometimes in official reports, sometimes in personal notes.
Subject shows increasing awareness of project implications. Recommend immediate integration protocol,
psychological barriers. Failing asset requires memory suppression. Phase three terminated,
no recoverable data, proceed with disposal, clinical language, professional detachment.
Perfect documentation of murder. But there are inconsistencies. The handwriting
shows subtle variations in pressure, in spacing, in flow, like
someone studying my style and copying it nearly perfectly, nearly
but not quite. The real tells are in the connecting
strokes between letters. Mind flow left to right. These flow
right to left, disguised by careful penmanship, but visible under
close examination, the kind of detail only a forensic document
examiner would notice the kind of detail. My sister, Rebecca
taught me to look for David's footsteps overhead, follow their
pattern three steps, pause, five steps pause, three steps, a
rhythm designed to distract from something else. But what I
pull out? More recent files, more deaths disguised as trials,
the latest from just two months ago. Rebecca Chen, private
investigator specialized in corporate malfeasance, hired by James Lue's family
to look into his death, started asking questions about Meridian's
research protocols, about missing researchers, about integration trials. My sister, No,
I don't have a sister.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: The memories collide, overlap, fight for space in my head.
Rebecca showing me proof of murders at Meridian, Rebecca disappearing,
Rebecca never existing at all. I find her case file,
her investigation notes, the evidence she collected before before what
the coffee beside me has gone cold? Seven scoops too sweet.
I can taste the chemicals now that I know to
look for them. MDRI four one nine their memory destabilizer,
but mixed with something else, something designed not just to
erase memories, but to make the mind susceptible to new ones.
Rebecca's notes detail the compound pages of chemical analysis, molecular structures,
observed effects. She'd found a whistle blow in Meridian's lab.
Someone who recognized what the drug cocktail was really designed
to do, not memory erasure. Her notes read memory replacement
the perfect way to hide bodies, turn witnesses into collaborators,
make them believe they're part of the program. The date
snapped something loose in my head. Rebecca disappeared three months ago,
two weeks after showing me her evidence, one week after
I noticed David acting strange, three days after he suggested
we get away to think. I find more of her
investigation photos. Building seven. The waste disposal irregularities, the modified
ventilation system that Karen Mitchell had questioned, A crematorium hidden
behind medical waste processing equipment, no bodies, no evidence, just
witnesses transformed into willing participants or eliminated, the choice they
give everyone who discovers the truth, integration or elimination. David's
footsteps stop. He's coming downstairs, checking on me. Following protocol,
I arrange the files carefully, making sure he'll see exactly
what they want me to find, what they need me
to believe. You're remembering, he says from the doorway. Not
a question. I look up, letting him see the struggle
on my face, the confusion they expect these people, I say, carefully,
they were murdered, they were integrated. His voice gentle, professional
by me. His smile is practiced, perfect. You designed that way,
the gradual understanding, the controlled realization of your true nature,
my true nature, I repeat, testing the words, testing him.
He slides another file across the table. More photos, more deaths.
These show the procedures, the methods, the careful documentation of
how to break someone's identity and rebuild it into something else,
something useful. But these photos are wrong too. The lighting
is different from standard meridian documentation. The angle's amateur rather
than clinical. These aren't official photos. They're Rebecca's surveillance shots, repurposed, edited,
changed to show what they need me to believe. Why
make myself forget? I ask, But even as I say it,
I'm watching his micro expressions. The slight tells that Rebecca
taught me to recognize because you were breaking, He says,
the guilt was destroying you. So you designed this a
way to remember, gradually, to accept who you are. His
eyes flick left as he says it a tell a lie.
I look at the files again, the handwriting, the deaths,
the careful documentation of murder, and I understand I'm not
remembering who I was. I'm being shown who they need
me to become. The last file sits unopened, marked, true
purpose in handwriting that's almost but not quite mine. Read it,
David says, softly, Remember who you are?
Speaker 1: I do.
Speaker 2: I remember Rebecca showing me evidence of murders at Meridian.
I remember investigating Project Integration. I remember finding proof. I
remember being caught. I remember understanding what happens to people
who discover the truth. They die or they become something else,
something useful. The choice is always the same, integration or elimination.
Rebecca chose elimination. Refused to drink the coffee refused to integrate.
They respected her choice, but they learned from it too.
Learned that family connections could break through memory conditioning, Learned
that some people needed more motivation to choose integration over elimination.
Learned how to use love against itself. I look at David,
at the coffee, at the files documenting murder after murder,
at the careful construction of a new identity built from
guilt and chemicals and isolation. I remember, I say, carefully
matching his professional tone, his perfect control. He smiles relieved,
welcome back, but he misses it. The slight tension around
my eyes, the almost imperceptible tightness in my smile, the
same expressions I recognize in the before photos, the same
knowledge something's wrong. The snow falls outside, covering tracks, erasing evidence,
a perfect metaphor for what they do here, for what
they're trying to do to me. Who's next? I ask,
Playing my part, buying time, David hands me a new file,
a new target, a new transformation to design. The coffeemaker
starts again upstairs, seven scoops, but I won't drink it,
not anymore. The lake house creaks in the winter wind,
perfect for escaping, perfect for hiding, perfect for becoming something new,
just not what they expect me to become. I close
the files, stand up, straighten my sweater. I'd like to
review the protocols, I say, make sure everything's perfect. David nods, pleased, believing,
not noticing my micro expressions, not seeing what I'm becoming.
The snow erases everything now except the truth, and I
remember exactly what that is. Rebecca taught me how to
recognize lies, how to collect evidence, how to hide what
you know until the moment to act. They think they're
making me choose between integration or elimination, But there's always
another choice if you know how to look for it,
if you know how to wait for it, if you
know how to become exactly what they expect until you don't.
The question isn't whether I'm the killer or the victim.
The question is which one are they trying to make
me become? And which one am I pretending to be.
Rebecca would know, Rebecca did know. Rebecca showed me before
they killed her, before they tried to make me forget her,
before they tried to make me become them. The snow
falls thicker, the lies pile deeper. The truth waits underneath,
like bodies under ice, like evidence in Building seven, like
proof of what they've done. I just have to stay
alive long enough to show it. Just have to play
their game long enough to end it. Just have to
remember the most dangerous person isn't the one who believes
the lies. It's the one who knows exactly what they
are and knows how to tell them back perfectly. Ghost
is a Calorogus Shark Media production, written and hosted by
Alexander Ian McIntyre, produced by Mark Francis. Executive producers Mark
Francis and John McDermott. Portions of this podcast may have
been created with the assistance of AI Calaroga Shark Media