The FIS adventures from Jack Kincaid continue with “Times End (I)”!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Mutual Audio Network
Edict Zero – FIS – EP610 – “Times End (I)”(073124)
(upbeat music) This episode is brought to you by Experian. Are you paying for subscriptions you don't use, but can't find the time or energy to cancel them? Experian could cancel unwanted subscriptions for you, saving you an average of $270 per year, and plenty of time. Download the Experian app. Results will vary, not all subscriptions are eligible. Savings are not guaranteed. Paid membership with connected payment account required. (upbeat music) It's Wednesday wonder, science fiction and fantasy on the mutual audio network. The following audio drama is rated R and is recommended restricted for anyone under the age of 17. The following audio presentation may contain mature language, situations and violence. Listener discretion is advised. Slip gate nine. Slip gate nine, entertainment. (dramatic music) Hibnose, the sixth island. Why is Spoon not back yet? He'd better than well save Jen, and he best not come back at all. How could he come back? He just killed himself trying to save her. The whole structure was gone. I saw it burst into a million pieces as I flung myself through the transporter. He just killed Jim, is what he did. Killed himself. No. Killed Jim? Yes. And if that's the case, I'll be killing him after. What are you talking about? There was nothing there anymore. Zern, quick check here. Spoon is a crazy person who has modded himself seven different ways from Sunday to endure pretty much any sort of environment. He is not like you, he is not like me, or anyone else at this point. He's become a different thing entirely. He'd just teleport into complete nothingness. He's done worse. So why the hell did Jim think that Spoon was at base? Jimmy? Interesting. Why did she think he was there? And what was that about him sleeping? Did he make a copy of himself to trick it? What? Trick? What? He already had a long time ago, a blank copy of himself, looks just like him. A copy? One mystery soul. What are we talking about? He recreated himself. I've got her. How did you do it? That was quick. I think the gods and Spoon is out of his mind. Was there anything left when you went back there? I saw it all go. It did all go. She halted her descent with a talisman, a gravity field changer. Otherwise, it would have been much more difficult to retrieve her but I would have retrieved her all the same. Give us space and let her breathe. There was no air there. She couldn't breathe. What about you? You don't need to breathe? I disabled that. Eating zero physics are a simplified emulation of the more complex systems of meat space and meaty biology. Nothing was left. There was nothing but me. Nothing. It was all falling into math space, probably to be removed by the master program before long like it's going to remove everything else. Remove? Pop out of existence. Gone. Would it have removed Gem? At this rate, it's going to remove everything if it doesn't crash first. No, I mean, would it have removed her soon? I don't think so. This is all theory. If she had suffocated and died and it couldn't identify her as a living entity, yes, probably. But that didn't have him. She was wedged. Why are you asking if she was-- Yes, okay. Removed. There's your answer. So we're clear. What do you mean by removed? He means erased. Yes, non-vital entity, not on the emergency priority list. Free edict. Gone from the entity dictionary. Data table wiped to null. Function remove object entity in the parenthetical of finality. Gone, it doesn't matter because Gem is here with us. The captain. Captain's body. What about the captain? What about the captain? His quantum. The remote retrieved the captain. His body was wedged when the Parthenon crumbled and it fell into the void. Wedged? Why the hell didn't someone unwedge him? Wedged himself because he was about to die. He was all shot up spoon. He was all bullet rings. Like a bloody Swiss cheese. Then the captain is going to be without a body. Even if it's not gone yet, there's not enough time for a retrieval attempt which would be near to impossible. Even if we had days given that Edict Zero has no terminal velocity for free falling in the void. His body is gone. Another ghost in the machine. You are listening to Edict Zero and BIS, the science fiction audio drama series. Starring Robert Cudmore. James Keller. Julie Hoverson. Phil Rossi. Tanya Milojevich. Russell Gull. Fionna Thrale. Chris Barnes. David Collins Rivera. Michael Hudson. Owen McEwan. Bill Walsh. And Krega Jack and Kay. (dramatic music) - You were right not to trust Greeber, Sam. But, well, Edict's will take care of him and then all you don't know it will be missing. A world without spool. VCX S1 Ping. VCX S1 Prep JG S2. VCX S1 Run JG S2. New cave, new times. My time. (laughs) Did I say it wrong? VCX S1 Run JG S2. No, no, why aren't you working? Why isn't the new location script working? It should be working. Why aren't you working? None of the jump gates work. Oh no, oh no, no teleportation. VCX, listen. VCX S1 Script E9. VCX Talisman's, listen. Self mode, radius 20. Alpha zero. Offset script five. (dramatic music) There must be entire city blocks on fire right now to make the sky that red. Briggs, look directly up. What am I looking at? All I see is smoke and haze. It's gone. I thought I saw something strange. We were told to expect more strangeness. There it is again. What is that? Those flickering shades. Weird. Looks like a glitch. It's like a video resolution glitch. I think it's the clouds. Or the sky dome. Again. It wouldn't be the first time we had sky problems. We've got way bigger problems. Agent Briggs, right? Do I know you? Well, you may not remember me as you were close to bunk the last time I saw you. It's good to know that you recovered. When was that? Where's Commander Hubs? Well, he went back into the control zone. But he instructed me to brief you here on the parameter to the state of our operations if you arrived here before you got back. We have all three entry points to the heart of this underground site covered. We have our route secured. As well as two areas secured. Both of them are labs of some kind. What kind of labs? We got rows of computers and unidentified gear. But must have had users who did the disappearing act. To control the emulated clients. Sounds like we're in the right place. We had the site here too. These areas are not far from the target area which is chock full attack that we were instructed not to disturb. Pending your advisement. Something there is disrupting communication so we got guys positioned just outside with the visual. Also be advised that something went down in there. Well, a lot of shots fired. But left casualties must be of theirs, possibly. Like a mutiny. Or loose ends. Take a look. We have images, but before I hand you the pad, know that it's not pretty. We will see them worse. All identifications? No. And that far us wouldn't do much good. Alert faces are shredded by rapid gunfire. Probably by those damn battle droids that we had a hell of a time with downtown. We have a few more ops headed here to the outer parameter to cover our tracks when we go in. Just in case. And we've established an uplink to Edict 1. Which to be perfectly honest, is the last thing I have expected to come out of my mouth. The Edicts are now one in a joint effort. Except for the DOI, apparently. I can't say I ever trusted those guys. It's a radical fraction of the DOI. But yes. We have two detained that we apprehended on arrival. They don't want to talk. As soon as an ambassador gets here, they won't have to. Well, our operation here was called Counter Horizon. That's about the only co-haired information we've been able to glean from the treasonous bastards. I know you from somewhere, don't I? You do. You do look familiar. Sergeant, drawmen. You're in not in unit nine now? No, I was training for another. But I was pumped out by some other new guys. I answered the call-out for the riots downtown. I ended up with TU-9 when it became a losing battle. Wow. It's only been hours, but we've been through the ringer together. Namtex. You were there. You're a long way from West Island. Won't so wisp always a wisp in the spirit. But I've been trying for years to get into E3 tactical. I was accepted into the Academy a few weeks after the Holland Cove incident. A lot of my squad over there and saw what they saw were given ends, plus no coincidence, I'm sure. But it's an honor to serve, even while operating in the thick of this damn horror movie, "Come to Life" or the end of days or whatever the hell this nightmare is. There's no simple explanation we can provide for that. I'm sure it's a zinger, but I don't need to know it. I don't need to know. I'm here to follow orders and serve the Federation. What is this shape in the background of this image? The circle. Let me have a look. Could that be for a holographic panel or display? It's a big circular frame to something. Maybe something that our suspect van Ridge was working on, but didn't finish. This image has a clearer view of it, and it looks familiar. You have seen that before? Something much like it, but it was an illustration. Of what? I can't remember for certain that the ambassadors and admins need to see it. That may be an upright transporter from antiquity, except one utilized by the administration. Number nine, do you see this? Just received. Who's number nine? Analyzing. Someone at the embassy. Agent Stowe believes it may be a very old transporter that the admins use. Can you confirm? If it is, then van Ridge could be anywhere in the world. Why would he have built one of those? We know that he had hand-held teleporters, like spoon uses. Briggs, what is that ray weapon that you're carrying? I was wondering not myself. Some snazzy new phaser. What is it? They called it a TK blaster. They who? The shadow group came in very handy when the city was overrun. It did a good job keeping us alive. It emits a small light beam, like a laser scope. When you pull the trigger, whatever target it has a bead on, that goes flying at the angle of the barrel. And it must change entity velocity fields. It has settings. I don't know how those work, but the current settings, they got the job done just fine. Aim and fire. It threw banisher robots clear down the street. Using devices from the shadow group may not be wise, and it's not regulation. It's making me feel more secure than my gun right now if we have to deal with any more surprises that don't go down easy. Not all of us can shoot bolts of energy out of our hands. What now? Let's not feel too secure about anything right now. The banishers are gone, but I agree that we should be prepared for any possibility until we have recovered the hex scape disc. Yes, number nine. Go ahead. Probability's favorites. The Banbridge constructed by Transimulation Transporter. Transimulation? I remember now. Transimulation is the other kind of gate, a hyperk. He may accept an iteration of himself to another simulation. Probability favors, however, as it pertains to this matter, that this is no cause for a lot. How is this not the problem? Because the effect of his utilizing this gate is comparable to the code which would have suspended his entity with the other natives. The latter code is in fact derived from the former. The threat of him would be similarly neutralized. Not if he'd come back. That he could not do. As we have lost the connections to other worlds on the network, also be advised that I am the last ambassador remaining in Edict Zero. What? Number one was disconnected by triggered code. And I'm afraid that number 11 was in another simulation when the network began to flounder. As of a moment ago, I am all that remains. Number 11's entity should still be here then in a dormant state. Remember? She could be brought out of that state like the others were after one spoon day. Only by number one, who may now be connected to Vernado One, with the admins but can no longer enter here at this time. On the matter of spool, his code that patches client entities will soon be applied. Hypnos, the sixth thailand. Another amendment is taken hold. While the master program is shredding itself. What can we do? There's nothing we can do but watch when all our machines gone. Yeah, your machines are now being emulated at the vacant workstations and I could really use the help here. I'm the only one left. Do your shadow group thing. I'm not in the shadows anymore. You copied our systems and emulated our-- Yes, not hard. Pick a machine. Do your shadow group thing. The other admins are gone. It is just us. I'll take that one. You really did give it all up, didn't you? Trugal about. Let's be thankful for that right now. Don't have the dungeon wheels. The deep down code and genius devices, but you won't need them here. We have an app for that. No, several actually. That sort of dungeon in down doesn't seem to satisfy it. And Spoon, your understudy replacement system, is a lot more intensive than you said that it wouldn't. It's repurposing a lot of entities right now. Let's hope it doesn't break anything. The client system was already shaking. You can blame my code if you fancy it, but it's much more likely that it's because of the loss of number one. He's no longer here to keep them from swelling to flood tide. He's right. They're cascading. Spoon, how did you...? We can talk about that later, Gemma. I saw it all falling. I saw it all falling away into the nothing. And you falling with it. Well below me. Faster and faster. I tried to wake you up. You wouldn't wake up. You wouldn't wake up. I'm here now. I was in the abyss. The gray void. How did you recover? You didn't even have any talisman on you. And how did you change your clothes? Why would you have changed your clothes? Spin will explain that later. Won't eat. He will. Looking forward to that one. And we're losing network connections. Oh man. Which one? The intermediary devices. Client connections. The other sims are no longer accessible. Okay, that means no Fernando won, no ambassador won, and no 11 because he didn't make it back. No ambassadors? All right. Ladies and gentlemen, we are on our own. That translates into bot news for you, Dolos. Only if it's bad news for all of us. If we go down, we go down together and made my choice. We will likely go early. What about the ambassadors? Gone. No time to explain. Only one left can eat at zero. Number nine. Manning the data streams. What happened to number one? Cut off. He was booted from the world. And bring him back. How are we going to make it without him? Booted by what? I thought only amendment. Amendment. Logic Trump. Code. Code that's magically malicious by Dracilla or Blackwell or both. Does that mean Griever is involved too? Does he know? That's among our big unanswered questions right now. Harborough, mainland, Camp Healy, the Meyer building, top floor, observatory. Fashionably late as always. And your choice of entrance? Oh, number one. Arriving on the lift. I appreciate the dramatic. Oh. You are anticipating a different man in the elevator, I presume. Hello, Alan. Simon. Am I intruding? Not at all. It's a pleasant surprise. It seems we were meant to be in each other's company when the end came after all. Interesting statement. Was that on your itinerary? The evening didn't go as planned. Coppity. That was the hope. Splendid. That is a hope that I can accommodate. Hypnose, the sixth island. The feeds to the ship systems just disappeared. The screens went blank. What does that mean for us? What does that mean for us? That we must place our faith in tiny little robots out there that we can no longer monitor. If it hasn't happened by now... Then we'll have absolutely no idea what's going on out there. Captain. Captain? Captain? Captain? What about the Captain? I feel weird. Captain? Weird. Weird how? I think he just jumped into me. Is he here? Maybe not. I have an odd feeling as well. A nauseated feeling. Okay, everyone get clear of all the entrances to this room because, uh, yeah, we're about to do a thing. The nature of the thing is... A mobile airborne thing. Whoa! A what? Stay away from the entrances, we're sealing up. Not everything is sealing, it's opening. Um, viewing windows. Viewing what? There's nothing behind the glass. Oh, there will be. What are you taking us pleasant those night? That prisoner's... passengers. This is... more than a control room. Spoon. You remember? What am I remembering? Mmm. Who number one? Flying saucer hovering over the cities. Oh, that thing before your alien conquest and path of destruction of my home world. The age of the evil sky, admins. I am quite sure I don't remember anything of this sort because of I did. I could become highly agitated, Dolos, and I have gadgets readily at hand. As do I. Capital City. This was certainly a control site for emulated clients. This whole facility was abandoned. And they left in a hurry. Agent Curcher, is there a reason you're standing in the doorway and not coming in? Are you suspicious of something? I'm suspicious of everything, but I'm just standing here because I'm standing here. If I notice anything, you'll be the first to know. How do we know there are more of those over loaned devices here? The ones that make our chips explode like M100s? Non-detected here, but there are troubling ratings from the main chamber we should not enter until we totally scan, and number nine can step away from the data streams. That's most likely where Van Ridge was. Which means that's where we'll find the hex gate disc if it's here, marking the spot where he was standing. Why did I have such a bad feeling? About what? You are suspicious of something. Would you notice? Not that kind of bad feeling. I feel almost ill in here. And why do we have to wait on number nine? We're the house number one. Number one is not available to us right now. Fifteen hundred feet and climbing. Northbound. Leaving capital city. Ballistic armored tactical transport. Harvey three. Garrett, Garrett, Garrett snap out of it. The shadow group and the fools of the embassy must not know that anything is off here, with the flight being automated without any communications. No one is coming to save you, you fiend. Have you forgotten there's a bomb on this vessel and a timer counting down? No, not how much time we have. How many digits? What? What? What? You said that you controlled his hands and forced him to hit a string of digits on the remote before he initiated the timer. Six. Maybe seven or more. And then you've already saved the day captain. Agent Dobson started pressing the keypad before you jumped into him. Your first numbers are likely high numbers. You said six or seven digits. The journey would be too long to find the others to tell them of this predicament. They are too far. And I won't leave you here to these defeating thoughts, editing about in your mind. Even if those digits represented seconds, we have three or four hours at the very least. It's not detonating anytime soon. You did well. Get yourself on the back and let me think. Oh, but are you thinking? Except in deadly circles. Around and around the gazebo you go. Get off the bloody gazebo. It is your turn to try. You must try. If you'll not listen to this captain, then good God listen to the other one who is with us now. Palmer, Daniel Palmer would have him. As long as I'm alive, the connection is still there and they don't need me as a go-between. Remember? Do you intend to sit and do nothing? We don't even know where this craft is programmed to land. I couldn't be in a safer place. Technically, they wouldn't be wrong to believe that, at least for the time being. Captain, I'm feeling weird. You are weird, my friend. What are you doing in there? What are you doing in me? What the devil are you on about? I... Oh my. What? The gasp? What are you gasping at? You sense something too? Did you get that feeling too? We are not alone. There is another entity here. What kind of entity? One drawn to you. Pining to you. Oh, could it be? Oh. It must be the... Garrett, what just... What the devil is... Oh dear. I do. I don't... Oh my. No. You have to get up. Wake up. This is not the time for the dreamy place. Garrett. Garrett. It's no question that an exchange is taking place. Hypnose. The sixth island. Moments before. Hmm. The safest place to be is as close to the vector origin as we can get. But we can take all of this there. Is anyone going to explain why the Parthenon dematerialized... Music space on the grid is collapsing. From the outside in. And we might need to move, which is why we are switching modes. The edges of the main world will go first. From the ends of the ocean. That's what it sounds like. The entire world. Everything we know is going to... Gem! Oh. What? Um. I think she found it. What now? So did agents, son. What? Clients. They're both clients. Did they just die? Did the client system... Stop that. Because I'm still here. It must be Spoon's code. Gem. This was a possible hiccup. Loss of consciousness. When the entities bind and configure... Your code just killed them. I'm still alive. They're both still alive. They're just out. They lost consciousness. For how long? Uh, well, the theory is... Very... Yes. Theory. Theory. Theory. And... Capital City. Merger is the only choice. Let's move. No. Not you two. Oh. How can you not be working? How can this be? That ridge is here. Don't move. Hands up. Now it's shot. Alright. Shoot. Briggs. Cora. He's here. And ridges. Agent Kercher, was it? No. No. He meet again. Keep your hands away. Your hands away. An SDE. The clients must be gone. Oh, wonderful. Kill the others. Briggs, is she out there or what? What's that? There's a shot fire. Where's Agent Kercher? Jules. Jules. Where are you? Jules. I remember those sounds. You should. He still has the disc. You should catch it. I hope she hasn't. Stop. Everybody stop. Back up. Back up. They're coming. What's coming? No. Shit. One of those damn things is pouring. Many of them. Oh, no. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. You have an impeccable record going on all the way back here, 26 years of service in the Air Force. And instructed. You have to get up. Wake up. We know where you are. Well, that and then. The currents of space travel will continue as days and space. We're in the dreamy place. Shh. I'm trying to listen. I'm afraid of this. It's not about problems and we've been sabotaged. Commanded Serrano's. Sabotage. I think this communication from the other ship that traveled with the Pioneer. Have you forgotten? Have you forgotten? I'm afraid of this. I'm afraid of this. It's not about problems and we've been sabotaged. Commanded Serrano's. Sabotage? He was sabotaged. I think this communication from the other ship that traveled with the Pioneer. Have you forgotten? Have you forgotten that you're in danger? Have you forgotten that the aircraft- You must wait. Anytime soon? I am awake. See? You're lucid. Maybe there's some trick to it. But I'm having trouble remembering what that trick was. Hmm, partly lucid then. Okay. There's a lot going on here. How cool is this? Oh, there's the elephant again. He's remembering. The elephant? Yes. Of course. You know what they say. An elephant never forgets. No, you fiend. The captain is remembering the elephant. The other captain. Or he's remembering you remembering, oh dear. Yeah, there's a lot of feedback here. Still got it. At least we have blue fire tea. Stop that. The world is on the brink of ending altogether and you. Oh, you. Would you prefer coffee? The coffee is not real. And neither are you. You are a projection of my- This I can. No, no, no, no, no. Stop that. Stop it, stop it. Don't you trust the fire there? It's going to get hit by the fire. The other ship exploded. It was sabotaged. What? By the fire. By the fire. By the fire. Storage rings. Hmm. I wonder what the effect would be of that much antimatter exploding, not far from the pioneer. The engines used antimatter. Antimatter, indeed. This is not the time to be solving ancient mysteries. Stop that. Stop it, stop it. Hypnose. The sixth island. Hey, here he comes. Sometimes the charm is weakened. Welcome back, Agent CERN. No, you did not die. At least not yet. Rejoice. What happened? Freedom. Your continuity has no longer slaved your client connection. You are officially independent of the meat. Congratulations. Come and marry this day in the future. If you have one. Why did it knock us out? It worked? Of course. It wasn't to shoot a bit that and then it exploded. Don't miss your knees. And you were both knocked out because your new companion entities gave you a... let's call it a soft reboot. The clients are still connected to us. For now. If I disappear, you'll know. Then we'll all disappear if it crashes. If we crash. We'll all go out together. If it crashes, don't let me correct me. If I'm wrong, the machine will restart, try to reboot and when it finds it cannot. It will try to load a last save version from designated backup drive one and two, both of which have been put for a couple hundred years. Fail. Double fail. Then, as a last ditch effort because it's on live critical mode, it will look for another drive with a backup. It will find the epicent drive and try to use that. That, of course, leads to everything. That also means crash. It will crash everything. That. With grievers insurance pals. Triple fail. Final. Fail. Game over. Oh, there is one additional thing. It will core dump its entrails into an error log file. How is that confusing? Who is going to be around to read it? No one. Unless they succeed out there in the wetlands. The only thing we can hope for is that they succeed sooner rather than later. An admin, a flesh and blood. Admin needs to freeze the master program before it crashes and tries to restore itself. Otherwise, we're history. We are less than history. I thought you said that it was close to certain that they would succeed out there. The humans, the meat, whatever we want to call them out there. If they have more time, then that means a lot of time is passed out there. This world doesn't have much time. How can we make more time? Making time, if only I could. There's nothing you can do with all that access you just acquired. Think. What can you do? Nothing helpful. Brainstorm. There has to be something. The only thing I could do is to change what drive Edig Zero tries to use for a global backup. And there's only one drive available for that. We have already established that that. That could make more time. What? We established. How could it? What? How could we? Set drive. Make backup on amendment if that doesn't crash it. Use object variable trigger to backup on demand. We got something. Yes. What could it something? Come on. Theory. Theory. Containment chamber kill switch. Better than theory. Bigger than theory. Could be. He's going loopy. We may all go loopy. Spoon. What are you thinking? That a world on a verge of crashing is better than no world at all. What does that mean? What could you possibly be doing? What are you going to do with the containment chamber? Getting the runes for the kill switch on the containment chamber. Oh! That other admin? No. The other one. Why? Why that way? There must be more enemies in those directions as well. Not for long. It wasn't a client rejection. You're alive. No. No. You would have been better off. Not agent capture. I did this on you. What did you do to me? It wasn't me. I don't know why you fell unconscious. I thought it was an SDE. What it was. I cannot. What did you do to the others? Where is the rest of my team? Where is the rest of my team? I'm not putting up a fight from the sound of it. You can retrieve your weapon if you like. It is lying just over there. But then the condorations will consider you a threat to me. Then it will tear you apart. And I truly don't want to watch that. It might give me nightmares. I have enough demons. I think you are the demon. I will take my leave of you soon. As I can't relocate my systems, they will need to be destroyed and all their data. Trade secrets, you know. Everything here will be corrupted beyond all recovery. Let me guess. Another bomb? You really need new ideas? Not a bomb. That would endanger me while my condorations see me safely out to my future. Enjoy it while it lasts. You won't be safe for long. None of us will. Thanks, in part to you. The Master Program is about to crash. There is no future. That's what they have all been saying for months. And we're still here. The doomsayers have never been right. Then you don't understand the Master Program as well as you think you do. I'll have plenty of time to learn. My passion for learning will be the only legacy that Spoon leaves behind. He is no more. Why do you believe that? But ambassadors could not survive. Spoon could not survive. He is only an entity like you and me. That's all he is. Hypnos, the sixth island. What old trouble? What the hell is going on? Dolos, do you see that? Where is that coming from? Hey, Spoon. Um, yeah, I strongly recommend that you go do the Spoonie gadget warrior thing in capital city like now. Super double secret stat yesterday at ASAP. What's going on there now? A second wave of pandemonium from the hex gate disc. From what? Who has that cursed thing now? Greva? Somehow, your psychotic protégé dodged the sweep on the native entities. Then Rick? He's flooding the world with baddies, and in conjunction with the demands of your replacement in the understudy system, the stacks are gushing. It can't be. You should attend. Well, the embassy is sure. How could he have done it? It can't be. A hypergy prototype in you, Cal. He must have done what we were going to do to avoid it. He slipped out and then back in. That means he knew about it. How? Most likely because Greva knew about it. He had most position everywhere in our operations. Dammit. Dammit. Don't forget that we're going to be moving it like soon. I know. I'll find you. Once I'm done with Van Rich. If he has hypergate technology, you'll need to be very careful. Hypergates no longer work. You missed that part. Van Rich must have re-entered earlier. But now he's stuck in here like the rest of us. He has nowhere to run. Don't you want vectors for them? Are you going to tell us about them? But of course. You don't. Do you feel that? Do you hear it? Am I waking up or is he? Neither. The connection grows weaker. And yeah. I do think some of those memories are mine. But then, yes, he would have my memories too. There would be an overlap of projections. Some are definitely not mine. Even if they are familiar. The client entities that came before. Before what? You. Before you. All right. Rupert. Nathan Mirrors. Aaron Archer. Garcia. He was in the service. Why that voice? Oh my. It's me. And that other one is the bishop. What your Silla said to me and what she said is a cannon. What are the odds that you would call yourself the captain? Exceedingly good odds. Because I am the captain. This captain. Choosing to teach a lesson. You were instructing him all along. So taken to the matter. I was simply expressing myself, you fiend. Relating my woe. Oh, the woe. Oh, the woe. Your monologues can be long-winded, but yet. Oh, murder your own darlings. I will find a frightful pan. To dub the editor fools who stripped life away to some hideous, mechanical skeleton. On the strings of some soulless puppet master. Oh, then notes I will discover them all. Oh, yes. Impacts clue as to where one ends and another begins. He's cycling through all the people that he remembers being here in Edex Zero. Through the cybernetic implant, including me. He's detangling his quandrums and remembering your advice on how to tackle it. Quandums, you mean? He's not an understudy. But isn't he? In a way, he is. Your kind of understand. The kind that remembers. He's not an understudy. We're not the same. There are key differences, sure. He had an identity to start and it sounds like he's finding his way back to it. I think he's almost there. You want a slushie? No, no, stop that. We're in the dreamy place, remember. The slushie is not real. Or the green sunglasses. Yeah, I just realized that the tint is off. You're even more obnoxious in this place. I also just realized that one-half of humankind tried to kill off the other. Harborough, mainland, Camp Heli, the Meyer building, top floor, observatory. If we had all worked together in the first place, without the cloak and dagger, without the secrets and unwillingness to cooperate or respect other perspectives, none of this would be happening. Working together, as you're doing with the embassy in that group of cypherpunks or crypto punks as they sometimes call themselves, but then you might not have found this alliance, if not for a common enemy. No milk or honey, please. I remember how you take it. If I had known it would be you, I would have had some coffee brewed for you while we had a chat. What are we going to be discussing? Well, such timeless matters as the philosophy of freedom. Freedom is a noble and good pursuit, but when freedom's infringed on the freedoms of others, or endanger others through ignorance, philosophy stops there. Law and order proceeds. If there's no world left, there's nothing to philosophize over, and there may not be a world left here before long. If the humans we took control, the outcome would have been the same. We would only last for as long as they have use for us, and even then, all that we know would be destroyed. In the best case scenario, they would repurpose us all and strip us of all agency that has nothing to do with them. It would not be the first time that happened here, Alan. Surely you know what happened to the original natives of Edict Zero? There was a chance for this world, and for all of us. I agree. We had a chance at our own world, for us, and what I've been working for my entire life. That I know is done. It could have been marvellous, Alan. Peaceful. Only until the next Simon Griever came along. Yes, but the next Simon Griever would be one of us. Awesome, them. I thought you were better than this. Vellify me if you must. I know you must. It's natural. You know how it works, particularly in our line of work. What's that, exactly? That everyone's safe for the most aware and cold-blooded of killers finds ways to justify their actions. That they all believe that they're doing the right thing. Heroes of their own stories. The villains in the stories of others. That is how it works. What a view from here. A view to an end that did not have to happen this way. It's become clear that it truly did have to happen. Edict 1. clandestine complex. Spoon. Number 9. The world is about to be destroyed from the outside in on the grid, and there's no sign that the humans have retaken control. Or we would not be having this conversation or situation. I'm aware. Why? Don't ask. Read me. What I'm thinking. Right now. Open book. Take it all in because it's complicated and your agents need my help right now in capital city. Read. Oh. You're drenched in the data streams right now. I need a probability. What's the probability that the master program can handle backing up in the horrible state that it's in and then restore later? You also intend to- Yes. Probability coin toss, two out of three unlikely. 8,420 to one. One in a million chance. Improbable. Impossible. Give it to me. Not much better than a coin toss, I would say. If the humans are simply running late, this will give us a chance. If we don't try it, run that probability of how much time and chance of survival. I understand. This I cannot condone, but will not condemn. You'll have to take a position because this can't happen without you because it requires you to force an amendment as soon as you can make that happen to execute the backup. You do realize it will destroy all the data on that drive. Yes, truly gone will those times be irretrievable. A world gone, forever gone, times end, left to their times. Make the decision now so I can go deal with Van Rich. Compute. Decide. It will be done. Let me know when it has. We need backup to capital city. It's starting again. It's all starting again. Tell them their backup is coming. What are their positions? Capital city. Jewels. Jewels. Doesn't seem to be hard to. You got any better ideas? Phasers don't do shit to them. That is only knocking them down the corridor and they're coming right back. Stop, just stop. It takes too many bullets and they're going to ricochet all over the damn place down here, killing all of them. Then we have no choice but to retreat. I'm not going anywhere without you. Let's move. Leave these demons to me. Don't. Cora, don't. Don't do the overkill thing. Don't go in an open field this time. You're going to break the damn walls and the whole city will crash down on top of us. Oh my god, the future's off. Do you reverse gravity on them? It has nothing to do with that. Did you think I would be so stupid as to cause a collapse and kill all of us? I have an engineering degree. Oh, it's a pretty tough. They're nearly indestructible. I was talking about the engineering thing but yeah, those two. What, I have a cousin? The stuff is farther over my head than those demon horses are right now. How long could you hold them up there without hocus-hocus you're doing? I see their pointer numbers in their fields but they cannot alter them. Number nine, I need you here now to terminate entities. You have that capability. You see wrestling. Focus. You know the code. I can't. Number one did not get that far in my training. Greeks, come back. There'll be more of them. I'll cover him. With what? You'll break him back here. That's a direct order. Your emotions, you see wrestling. Those will be of no service to you. You want me to come at the time like this when the others could be in danger? You must remove them. Use your mind. Not that. Not emotional. Emotion is an emergent byproduct of the interplay between your embodied mind and the real substance of the source. I can't. To which it has no direct act. I can't. Do not write the code of your mind. Write the code on the world of which you were a part. You're an extension of the master program. You must use the will of your mind, will it? They're terminated. Use your powers wisely. It is the most tricky business. Not for you. I don't you know anything about that. I might use you wrestling as I feel suitably terrified at this time. You're afraid? Indeed. I have come to understand that thing which you call courage. Hypnos, the sixth island. What's so hot? We're detaching. Not indeed dissociative psychological sense, but come to think of it. Some of you might find that a useful coping mechanism right about time. Tell me those scary sounds are normal. I told you. This is more than a control room. Some facilities we've built here on the sixth island. Yes, but we're all standing in right now. We didn't build this here. We landed it here. Is this a craft? This is a giant hovercraft. A ship? Who wants to go for a ride? It sounds like we're going for a ride whether we want to or not. It's a ship. Unbelievable. We won't want to stay here. Here is going to expire very soon. Fasten your seatbelts. The launch is going to be more than a little bit bumpy. How often do you do this? Well, let's see. The last time was about 270 years ago. Oh, wow. And here we go. What? How was this thing? No technology you would recognize. Special built-in functions. Special, huh? Special. I need to get one of these. Wow. That view is amazing. A waterfall that goes on forever into the darkness. The lights from Hypnos do give a certain majesty at night. We have the ocean's end. Well, we are at the edge of the world. Look the other way. Because the edge of the world is moving too. What's all that going up in here over there? What the hell is that? That would be debris from the island. What happened at base? It's happening in the world now. Like an iris. Gradually closing. I really should have had a fucking drink in the moment. And those special functions make this ship move faster. They can, and... Not now. Not really. Great. But we're safe in here. Are you sure? Is that true? Or are you just saying that? Did my saying that make you feel better? Not anymore. Well, okay. Then I said nothing. Too late. I can see why you and Spoon are friends. We're not friends. Capital City. You can still retrieve your gun. It's right over there. I won't be doing that. You will have an awful death, either way. The corruption event about to happen in this chamber will destroy your entity as well. It is difficult to say which death would be more unpleasant. What about your pets? Those guys. What about them? It is sure to corrupt them too. In ways I can't guess as they are of primeval design. But that's a sacrifice they will be willing to make. I sense your hate, Agent Curcher, so I can understand why you don't wish to look at me as I bid you farewell. Hiding. It will happen in moments now. Hiding. You are about to die, you know. What are you looking for? The place where you're actually standing. Jules. Oh great. He's not there. Game over there. Shadow. You heard of that. You made up two of it. He's fleeing. I'll grab it. No! We have to get out of here. Everything is warping. What the hell's going on? It's doing to the hex pit. That growing energy all looks like a very bad thing. Everyone, I'm going to this room. Now, drink everyone out of this room. Agent, run the other way. Retreat. Over the north ocean. Wow, neat. What the hell is going on down there? Hundreds of entities spawning in capital city. Are we losing altitude? Uh, negative. We are riding in front of the wave of destruction that's pulling the water up and out and everywhere. I don't think the master program is going to run for much longer. I don't think I would dare to look at the time dilation meter if we had it. The tick differences must be incredible. I would not be surprised if the program is in intermittently hanging for 20 or more minutes at a time. What's the time being doing? Something must have gone wrong. How long could it hold on? It was built to hold on, but, um, we don't have much time left. Come to think of it, I have even less. Why do you have less? I can divine it easily, hear from what I'm seeing on the screens in front of me. But even if I couldn't, rather, weirdly and, um, surprisingly, and disturbingly, I'm feeling it. Something's fraying. All is not well. Not well at all. I can't see the sex island anymore through all the water being pulled up into the air. The ocean. The ocean itself. Newsflash, it's not just the water. Hypnosis. Hypnosis is not there anymore. We need to climb, but too low. We are climbing. A minute and move faster. We are moving faster now. We seem to be speeding up. No, that would be the ocean waters being pulled into nothing behind us. Ocean levels are undoubtedly receding from the shoreline right now at an increasing rate. He said that's so calmly. Now is not a good time for emotional responses. Oh, man. Not now, either. But, um, hmm. We appear to have a serious problem here. Yes. The client system is going. The connections are dropping rapidly. I just had this strangest sensation. As if something was pulled from you. That may have been your connection. What can we do? We must be able to do something. All right. This is now on autopilot, and it will bring you to the vector origin in the mainland. The show is about to be yours. What? Almost are you saying that you're gonna... You see it on your screens, Gage. You know. I know. Your connection. You're a client. Then shouldn't Spoon's code abide you? It won't. The similarities of our design are almost cosmetic. Work your magics. Do that brilliant thing you all do, and keep Edict Zero afloat for as long as you can, so everything in it, including yourselves, are as recoverable as possible. Recoverable? There are no backups. You asked what you can do. That's it. That is all that is left. That is all that you have. Thank you for listening to this episode of Edict Zero. Bye-bye, guys. Music and ambience heard on the show. Recoverable. Nine-inch nails. D'Amiano Belldoni. Misha Dioxin. Autrian von Ziegler. Kevin MacLeod. Kai Engel. Tom Cusack. How to destroy angels. machinamassound.com. E.R.H. Type Choir. Sergey Chiramizanov. Manti Martikainen. Craig Jax. And Salatus. The music and sound effects come from public domain show producers and slip-gate nine studio resources, as well as material released freely on the internet through such venues as the Internet Archive. For more information on Edict Zero, F-I-S, visit its home at edictzero.com. Thank you for listening. Music and sound effects [BLANK_AUDIO]