Speaker 1: Following a production by r point of this episode contains
Speaker 1: depictions of drug use a second oil. Someone told me
Speaker 1: once that history is a spiral, a vortex, the shell
Speaker 1: of a vaulted nautilus. It has a beginning, it has
Speaker 1: an end, it has a shape. There's an impression of narrowing.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what happened. This is where I entered
Speaker 1: the spiral. Gladious class sub automated. The Udex Oil Company
Speaker 1: uses them to relay cargo between the surface and their
Speaker 1: deep grid stations on the ocean floor. Sometimes they haul garbage,
Speaker 1: a maintenance team or in this case me. My name
Speaker 1: is sinove Pan. They sent me down to Atlas Station
Speaker 1: to find a missing person. I found something else. In
Speaker 1: the subs cramped modular cabin. I bowed my head in
Speaker 1: the sink and let the tap batter my skull as
Speaker 1: hot and violent as the sub's plumbing allowed. It numbed
Speaker 1: my mind. It held me over till the treatment kicked
Speaker 1: in and found its groove in the bloodstream. It began
Speaker 1: to settle my nerves. The fear melted back into something
Speaker 1: more manageable. They called it the basilisk. The black drug,
Speaker 1: an anti psychedelic of the highest order. I'd packed four
Speaker 1: applicators plus two subdermal doses that could be deployed at will,
Speaker 1: enough for a five day trip six if I rationed
Speaker 1: it out. The water dripped from my chin. A few
Speaker 1: streams ran down my neck and darkened the corners of
Speaker 1: my shirt. I turned my head and let the water
Speaker 1: hit the tattoo on my forehead, one of twelve identical
Speaker 1: symbols on my body. You dex covers everybody in my
Speaker 1: line of work with markings like this. For my protection,
Speaker 1: they said, elder signs something like a star exploding into
Speaker 1: a labyrinth. Command insisted they did the job. That's why
Speaker 1: I had them on my crown, brow, throat, chest, and
Speaker 1: on and on. Every little advantage counts. I cut the
Speaker 1: water and rubbed one of the cabin's yellowed towels over
Speaker 1: my scalp. I stepped away from the sink, suddenly lightheaded.
Speaker 1: Part of it was the heat, and part of it
Speaker 1: was the basilisk sinking its claws into my amygdala, a
Speaker 1: familiar swoon before the tightness took hold. I braced one
Speaker 1: hand against the hull and felt the rumble and groan
Speaker 1: of the sub's carapase adjusting to external pressure. It was
Speaker 1: still descending, still sinking along its terrible trajectory toward Atlas,
Speaker 1: a place that shouldn't be. My vision blurred for a moment,
Speaker 1: I could sense the enormity of the ocean, the teeming,
Speaker 1: scuttling expanses, the crushing debt. It's the distant dirge of
Speaker 1: the world's last whales, singing the song of their extinction.
Speaker 1: It was probably a hallucination. Sometimes they leak in at
Speaker 1: the peaks and pits of the black drug's influence, sounds, voices, lights.
Speaker 1: I peeled my hand away from the hall and stepped
Speaker 1: back towards the cabin's lone cot. My equipment still laid
Speaker 1: out like surgeons tools, the applicators for umbra, black throwing knives,
Speaker 1: my scrubbed communit. Suddenly I saw something movement in the
Speaker 1: steam covered sink mirror. For a second, I thought it
Speaker 1: was just a trick of the light, some flickering of
Speaker 1: the drug through my visual cortex. But there was no
Speaker 1: mistaking the intruder. Eight hours into the journey, leagues upon leagues,
Speaker 1: into the alien depths. Somehow she'd hidden on a vessel
Speaker 1: no larger than a surface tug. I moved in a heartbeat.
Speaker 1: I'd slipped two of the knives up from the cot.
Speaker 1: My fingerprints on the handles tightened the nanoparticles at the
Speaker 1: edge of the blades to sublime sharpness. I flicked my
Speaker 1: wrist and let one fly intentionally wide. It quivered in
Speaker 1: the bulkhead behind the intruder. Then I was on her.
Speaker 1: I slammed her against the bulkhead, forearm against the flesh
Speaker 1: of her throat, blade tensed to slice. I looked into
Speaker 1: her fearful eyes, and I hesitated independence, ambition, in infinite potential.
Speaker 1: The modern world offers possibilities that previous generations would only imagine.
Speaker 1: And you DEX Petroleum is proud to provide the energy
Speaker 1: for your ascension. Through the use of the deep grid
Speaker 1: system and patented Proteus well and subsea template technology, we're
Speaker 1: able to safely harvest the Earth's deepest petroleum riches without
Speaker 1: endangering ocean or inland environments. Thanks you, DEX, Thanks you X,
Speaker 1: Thank you X. You're the flame. We provide the fuel.
Speaker 1: You Dex Petroleum, Welcome to the second oil Age. If
Speaker 1: your skin is blank, are you even really fair? Where's
Speaker 1: your ink? Where's it? Don't worry about your job. Don't
Speaker 1: worry about forever. You don't have to. With graphic tattoo tech,
Speaker 1: you change your ink as often as you like, manipulating
Speaker 1: the pigment particles under your skin, and do exactly who
Speaker 1: you want to be. Tribe up with your crew, dragon
Speaker 1: sleeves for the weekend, black bars on the job. Let
Speaker 1: the crowd know if you're looking for love, looking for trouble,
Speaker 1: looking to be left alone. Your flesh is a canvas.
Speaker 1: Graphic applicators are compatible with all com unit models and
Speaker 1: graphics software. Just press all into the skin and watch
Speaker 1: it change. Master your flesh, make it graphic recreation. Graphicking
Speaker 1: technology is not compatible with graphic kings. Pro Removal of
Speaker 1: our citing tattoos is a violation of federal and international law. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it would have been easy. A stiff head butt to
Speaker 1: the bridge of our nose, disorient her just enough to
Speaker 1: drag her back into the gladious cargo bay and restrain her.
Speaker 1: Or I could have simply opened up one of her
Speaker 1: carotid arteries where we stood. The basilisks would have made
Speaker 1: it too easy. But I hesitated. Maybe it was the
Speaker 1: fear in the blonde woman's eyes. The quivering weakness in
Speaker 1: her body, and of course I needed to know. I
Speaker 1: unpinned her from the wall, pointed to the cot with
Speaker 1: the black tip of my knife. Sit, Sit, Who are you?
Speaker 1: I'm press a journalist. Your name Tabitha Veil. I write
Speaker 1: for the New Humanist, the New York doesn't matter. How
Speaker 1: do you get aboard? I stowed away in a shipment
Speaker 1: of farm tab mules. It's a big crate. We followed
Speaker 1: out of space beneath the top layer of packages. Who's
Speaker 1: we members of the Mariner's Guild. They liked my story
Speaker 1: pitch and you stumbled out? Just now? What bathroom brake?
Speaker 1: Neighborly visit? They told me the cabin was empty, there
Speaker 1: was no passenger manifest This much was true. I didn't
Speaker 1: think I'd have to get out of the crate, but
Speaker 1: my leg cramped, and well, let's have it. I have
Speaker 1: what your pitch, the one the mariners liked the whole time.
Speaker 1: The tip of my knife never wavered. I drilled into
Speaker 1: her with my eyes tight, with the drug pupils gleaming
Speaker 1: beneath the sigel on my forehead. She also had a
Speaker 1: clear view of the mark on my throat and half
Speaker 1: of the one on my sternum. They make quite a statement.
Speaker 1: The various symbols on my arms just added a little
Speaker 1: extra flare. Old fashioned ink, a dagger, a skull, a
Speaker 1: fractured world tree. I had em all from the old
Speaker 1: days before my current line of work. Veil mostly studied
Speaker 1: the floor, cast a nervous glance or two at the
Speaker 1: other knives laid out beside her on the cot, But
Speaker 1: when I asked about her work, she finally looked me
Speaker 1: in the eye. I want to bring back a first
Speaker 1: hand account of Alasta San Why. It's the biggest underwater
Speaker 1: habitat ever constructed, and nobody knows anything about it all.
Speaker 1: We've got our some schematics and a few photos of
Speaker 1: unassembled modules. Hundreds of people live and work there. It's
Speaker 1: a central hub for deep work, and we know next
Speaker 1: to nothing about the place outside what they feed us
Speaker 1: and press releases. Some call that corporate espionage. Do you
Speaker 1: I thought I was asking the questions land spoken recombined,
Speaker 1: working side by side, even representatives of the deep Myriads
Speaker 1: and the Tritons themselves. You've never been there either, have
Speaker 1: you my first visit? I smiled? This one was sharp, bolder,
Speaker 1: than I judged at first. I flipped the knife around
Speaker 1: in my palm and laid it beside the sink, then
Speaker 1: grabbed a pair of disposable plastic cups from the medicine cabinet.
Speaker 1: I want to reveal the conditions there. We all know
Speaker 1: what it's like on the surface. But if the rumors
Speaker 1: are true, Atlas is one of the few places where
Speaker 1: recombined workers have equal footing with landsfolk, shared culture, even
Speaker 1: And what can we learn from a place where a
Speaker 1: recombined person is more in tune with their environment. It
Speaker 1: won't play well with the heartland because they're so out
Speaker 1: of tune with theirs. They need it more than anyone.
Speaker 1: You've seen the conditions they enable. She was right, of course.
Speaker 1: I had seen the recombined populations of the surface, the
Speaker 1: endless sprawl of the coastal communities where the rising tide washed,
Speaker 1: the ruins of metropolis, where a swelling population teemed beneath
Speaker 1: the walls of inland governments amid those ruins, the New
Speaker 1: California Coast, the Florida Stump, Atlanta, Mumbai, guang Zoe, Gothenburg.
Speaker 1: Those were just the ones I'd seen with my own eyes.
Speaker 1: But it was the same all over a new people
Speaker 1: live at the edges of the old, a product of
Speaker 1: the bargain you dex made to save the world. It
Speaker 1: was the price of the second oil age. I walked
Speaker 1: over to my bag and pulled out a half empty
Speaker 1: bottle of whiskey. I splashed a little into each cup
Speaker 1: and held one out to her. You'll get caught, you
Speaker 1: know that. Maybe When she reached out to accept the drink,
Speaker 1: I grabbed her forearm and twisted it just enough to
Speaker 1: make out the black tattoo on the inside of her wrist,
Speaker 1: a ten character serial number starting with the letters r CEO.
Speaker 1: You're recombined. Yeah, we both took a sip of our
Speaker 1: lukewarm liquor, and you can look at these marks without flinching.
Speaker 1: If she were pure blood Triton, she'd be in convulsions.
Speaker 1: Even some recombined individuals can experience a mild episode at
Speaker 1: the sight of an elder sign. They call it the
Speaker 1: Watts effect, the tendency for certain combinations of lines and
Speaker 1: angles to induce seizures in the triton brain. Scientists claim
Speaker 1: it's some kind of photosensitive epilepsy. The legacy of a
Speaker 1: species long adapted to an undersea world in its own
Speaker 1: mysterious architecture. But then again, I've heard supernatural explanations as well.
Speaker 1: Pick your poison. I guess yeah, we're all different, you know.
Speaker 1: Part of the human condition birth is obscure, and men
Speaker 1: are like rivers whose origins are often unknown. What's that
Speaker 1: from the Mahaparata? What happens now? I'm just a passenger.
Speaker 1: They're not paying me to deal with stowaways. As long
Speaker 1: as you don't get in my way, you're not my problem.
Speaker 1: I downed the rest of my whiskey and tossed the
Speaker 1: cup in the sink. I considered dragging her into the
Speaker 1: cargo hold anyway, it would have simplified things, but we
Speaker 1: were still eighteen hours from our destination. Maybe I wanted
Speaker 1: the company, the sound of some one else's voice. I
Speaker 1: figured i'd probably hand her over once we arrived. But
Speaker 1: for now, what's your business on Atlas Station? A missing
Speaker 1: person's case? Who goes missing on the bottom of the sea,
Speaker 1: some one who should have known better. For now, she
Speaker 1: was another way to distract myself from the weight of
Speaker 1: my destination. Atlas Station, threshold of the Triton Kingdom, the
Speaker 1: bottom of the World, m M m m H. The
Speaker 1: second oil Age was produced by Robert Lamb, Alex wood S,
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogelbaum, and Josh Stank. This episode featured en Jo
Speaker 1: Masters as Sinov Pond and Lauren Vogelbaum as Tabitha Veil.
Speaker 1: Supporting voice work by Annie Reese, Matt Frederick, Ben Bolan,
Speaker 1: Alexander Williams, Alison louder Milk, and Sebastian Lamb intro outro,
Speaker 1: and supporting music created by the Weirding Module. Learn more
Speaker 1: at Modules dot band camp dot com. Music for the
Speaker 1: graphing Media segment Fourth Way by a Lith provided by
Speaker 1: King de Luxe Records. Learn more at King de Luxe
Speaker 1: dot c A form more podcasts from iart Radio, visit
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