WEBVTT - Descent

0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:06.160
<v Speaker 1>Following a production by r point of this episode contains

0:00:06.200 --> 0:00:37.440
<v Speaker 1>depictions of drug use a second oil. Someone told me

0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:42.280
<v Speaker 1>once that history is a spiral, a vortex, the shell

0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:46.760
<v Speaker 1>of a vaulted nautilus. It has a beginning, it has

0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:52.160
<v Speaker 1>an end, it has a shape. There's an impression of narrowing.

0:00:54.400 --> 0:00:58.160
<v Speaker 1>I'll tell you what happened. This is where I entered

0:00:58.200 --> 0:01:08.560
<v Speaker 1>the spiral. Gladious class sub automated. The Udex Oil Company

0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:11.720
<v Speaker 1>uses them to relay cargo between the surface and their

0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:16.520
<v Speaker 1>deep grid stations on the ocean floor. Sometimes they haul garbage,

0:01:16.959 --> 0:01:23.119
<v Speaker 1>a maintenance team or in this case me. My name

0:01:23.280 --> 0:01:27.000
<v Speaker 1>is sinove Pan. They sent me down to Atlas Station

0:01:27.080 --> 0:01:36.520
<v Speaker 1>to find a missing person. I found something else. In

0:01:36.560 --> 0:01:40.480
<v Speaker 1>the subs cramped modular cabin. I bowed my head in

0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:44.000
<v Speaker 1>the sink and let the tap batter my skull as

0:01:44.040 --> 0:01:48.600
<v Speaker 1>hot and violent as the sub's plumbing allowed. It numbed

0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:52.240
<v Speaker 1>my mind. It held me over till the treatment kicked

0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:55.800
<v Speaker 1>in and found its groove in the bloodstream. It began

0:01:55.880 --> 0:02:00.400
<v Speaker 1>to settle my nerves. The fear melted back into something

0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:06.800
<v Speaker 1>more manageable. They called it the basilisk. The black drug,

0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:12.600
<v Speaker 1>an anti psychedelic of the highest order. I'd packed four

0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:17.200
<v Speaker 1>applicators plus two subdermal doses that could be deployed at will,

0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:22.640
<v Speaker 1>enough for a five day trip six if I rationed

0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:28.640
<v Speaker 1>it out. The water dripped from my chin. A few

0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:31.680
<v Speaker 1>streams ran down my neck and darkened the corners of

0:02:31.720 --> 0:02:35.120
<v Speaker 1>my shirt. I turned my head and let the water

0:02:35.240 --> 0:02:38.800
<v Speaker 1>hit the tattoo on my forehead, one of twelve identical

0:02:38.880 --> 0:02:43.160
<v Speaker 1>symbols on my body. You dex covers everybody in my

0:02:43.280 --> 0:02:47.280
<v Speaker 1>line of work with markings like this. For my protection,

0:02:47.919 --> 0:02:53.480
<v Speaker 1>they said, elder signs something like a star exploding into

0:02:53.480 --> 0:02:59.160
<v Speaker 1>a labyrinth. Command insisted they did the job. That's why

0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:03.440
<v Speaker 1>I had them on my crown, brow, throat, chest, and

0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:10.520
<v Speaker 1>on and on. Every little advantage counts. I cut the

0:03:10.520 --> 0:03:13.919
<v Speaker 1>water and rubbed one of the cabin's yellowed towels over

0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:19.040
<v Speaker 1>my scalp. I stepped away from the sink, suddenly lightheaded.

0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:22.520
<v Speaker 1>Part of it was the heat, and part of it

0:03:22.600 --> 0:03:26.600
<v Speaker 1>was the basilisk sinking its claws into my amygdala, a

0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:31.280
<v Speaker 1>familiar swoon before the tightness took hold. I braced one

0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:34.120
<v Speaker 1>hand against the hull and felt the rumble and groan

0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:39.080
<v Speaker 1>of the sub's carapase adjusting to external pressure. It was

0:03:39.160 --> 0:03:45.240
<v Speaker 1>still descending, still sinking along its terrible trajectory toward Atlas,

0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:53.000
<v Speaker 1>a place that shouldn't be. My vision blurred for a moment,

0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:57.120
<v Speaker 1>I could sense the enormity of the ocean, the teeming,

0:03:57.360 --> 0:04:01.640
<v Speaker 1>scuttling expanses, the crushing debt. It's the distant dirge of

0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:05.360
<v Speaker 1>the world's last whales, singing the song of their extinction.

0:04:09.240 --> 0:04:13.800
<v Speaker 1>It was probably a hallucination. Sometimes they leak in at

0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:20.279
<v Speaker 1>the peaks and pits of the black drug's influence, sounds, voices, lights.

0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:24.159
<v Speaker 1>I peeled my hand away from the hall and stepped

0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:28.320
<v Speaker 1>back towards the cabin's lone cot. My equipment still laid

0:04:28.320 --> 0:04:34.320
<v Speaker 1>out like surgeons tools, the applicators for umbra, black throwing knives,

0:04:34.920 --> 0:04:41.320
<v Speaker 1>my scrubbed communit. Suddenly I saw something movement in the

0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:45.240
<v Speaker 1>steam covered sink mirror. For a second, I thought it

0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:48.080
<v Speaker 1>was just a trick of the light, some flickering of

0:04:48.120 --> 0:04:52.479
<v Speaker 1>the drug through my visual cortex. But there was no

0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:59.000
<v Speaker 1>mistaking the intruder. Eight hours into the journey, leagues upon leagues,

0:04:59.080 --> 0:05:03.160
<v Speaker 1>into the alien depths. Somehow she'd hidden on a vessel

0:05:03.279 --> 0:05:08.960
<v Speaker 1>no larger than a surface tug. I moved in a heartbeat.

0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:11.479
<v Speaker 1>I'd slipped two of the knives up from the cot.

0:05:11.880 --> 0:05:15.159
<v Speaker 1>My fingerprints on the handles tightened the nanoparticles at the

0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:18.719
<v Speaker 1>edge of the blades to sublime sharpness. I flicked my

0:05:18.760 --> 0:05:24.080
<v Speaker 1>wrist and let one fly intentionally wide. It quivered in

0:05:24.080 --> 0:05:27.160
<v Speaker 1>the bulkhead behind the intruder. Then I was on her.

0:05:27.839 --> 0:05:31.200
<v Speaker 1>I slammed her against the bulkhead, forearm against the flesh

0:05:31.200 --> 0:05:34.880
<v Speaker 1>of her throat, blade tensed to slice. I looked into

0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:54.960
<v Speaker 1>her fearful eyes, and I hesitated independence, ambition, in infinite potential.

0:05:56.000 --> 0:06:01.320
<v Speaker 1>The modern world offers possibilities that previous generations would only imagine.

0:06:01.680 --> 0:06:04.720
<v Speaker 1>And you DEX Petroleum is proud to provide the energy

0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:08.040
<v Speaker 1>for your ascension. Through the use of the deep grid

0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:13.239
<v Speaker 1>system and patented Proteus well and subsea template technology, we're

0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:17.760
<v Speaker 1>able to safely harvest the Earth's deepest petroleum riches without

0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:24.120
<v Speaker 1>endangering ocean or inland environments. Thanks you, DEX, Thanks you X,

0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:29.480
<v Speaker 1>Thank you X. You're the flame. We provide the fuel.

0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:40.280
<v Speaker 1>You Dex Petroleum, Welcome to the second oil Age. If

0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:43.200
<v Speaker 1>your skin is blank, are you even really fair? Where's

0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:46.000
<v Speaker 1>your ink? Where's it? Don't worry about your job. Don't

0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:49.240
<v Speaker 1>worry about forever. You don't have to. With graphic tattoo tech,

0:06:49.320 --> 0:06:51.599
<v Speaker 1>you change your ink as often as you like, manipulating

0:06:51.600 --> 0:06:54.320
<v Speaker 1>the pigment particles under your skin, and do exactly who

0:06:54.360 --> 0:06:57.240
<v Speaker 1>you want to be. Tribe up with your crew, dragon

0:06:57.320 --> 0:07:00.200
<v Speaker 1>sleeves for the weekend, black bars on the job. Let

0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:02.760
<v Speaker 1>the crowd know if you're looking for love, looking for trouble,

0:07:02.920 --> 0:07:06.440
<v Speaker 1>looking to be left alone. Your flesh is a canvas.

0:07:06.640 --> 0:07:10.360
<v Speaker 1>Graphic applicators are compatible with all com unit models and

0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:13.800
<v Speaker 1>graphics software. Just press all into the skin and watch

0:07:13.840 --> 0:07:18.520
<v Speaker 1>it change. Master your flesh, make it graphic recreation. Graphicking

0:07:18.560 --> 0:07:20.680
<v Speaker 1>technology is not compatible with graphic kings. Pro Removal of

0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:27.840
<v Speaker 1>our citing tattoos is a violation of federal and international law. Yeah,

0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:35.360
<v Speaker 1>it would have been easy. A stiff head butt to

0:07:35.360 --> 0:07:38.320
<v Speaker 1>the bridge of our nose, disorient her just enough to

0:07:38.440 --> 0:07:41.360
<v Speaker 1>drag her back into the gladious cargo bay and restrain her.

0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:44.880
<v Speaker 1>Or I could have simply opened up one of her

0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:49.240
<v Speaker 1>carotid arteries where we stood. The basilisks would have made

0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:54.880
<v Speaker 1>it too easy. But I hesitated. Maybe it was the

0:07:54.920 --> 0:07:58.520
<v Speaker 1>fear in the blonde woman's eyes. The quivering weakness in

0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:05.400
<v Speaker 1>her body, and of course I needed to know. I

0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:08.560
<v Speaker 1>unpinned her from the wall, pointed to the cot with

0:08:08.640 --> 0:08:19.840
<v Speaker 1>the black tip of my knife. Sit, Sit, Who are you?

0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:25.760
<v Speaker 1>I'm press a journalist. Your name Tabitha Veil. I write

0:08:25.760 --> 0:08:28.680
<v Speaker 1>for the New Humanist, the New York doesn't matter. How

0:08:28.720 --> 0:08:31.320
<v Speaker 1>do you get aboard? I stowed away in a shipment

0:08:31.360 --> 0:08:34.680
<v Speaker 1>of farm tab mules. It's a big crate. We followed

0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:37.839
<v Speaker 1>out of space beneath the top layer of packages. Who's

0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:41.520
<v Speaker 1>we members of the Mariner's Guild. They liked my story

0:08:41.559 --> 0:08:44.960
<v Speaker 1>pitch and you stumbled out? Just now? What bathroom brake?

0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:48.839
<v Speaker 1>Neighborly visit? They told me the cabin was empty, there

0:08:48.880 --> 0:08:54.520
<v Speaker 1>was no passenger manifest This much was true. I didn't

0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:56.080
<v Speaker 1>think I'd have to get out of the crate, but

0:08:56.200 --> 0:08:58.920
<v Speaker 1>my leg cramped, and well, let's have it. I have

0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:06.280
<v Speaker 1>what your pitch, the one the mariners liked the whole time.

0:09:06.720 --> 0:09:10.720
<v Speaker 1>The tip of my knife never wavered. I drilled into

0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:14.920
<v Speaker 1>her with my eyes tight, with the drug pupils gleaming

0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:18.960
<v Speaker 1>beneath the sigel on my forehead. She also had a

0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:21.839
<v Speaker 1>clear view of the mark on my throat and half

0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:25.600
<v Speaker 1>of the one on my sternum. They make quite a statement.

0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:29.800
<v Speaker 1>The various symbols on my arms just added a little

0:09:29.880 --> 0:09:35.200
<v Speaker 1>extra flare. Old fashioned ink, a dagger, a skull, a

0:09:35.320 --> 0:09:39.160
<v Speaker 1>fractured world tree. I had em all from the old

0:09:39.240 --> 0:09:45.800
<v Speaker 1>days before my current line of work. Veil mostly studied

0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:49.080
<v Speaker 1>the floor, cast a nervous glance or two at the

0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:52.280
<v Speaker 1>other knives laid out beside her on the cot, But

0:09:52.360 --> 0:09:55.040
<v Speaker 1>when I asked about her work, she finally looked me

0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:58.680
<v Speaker 1>in the eye. I want to bring back a first

0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:02.920
<v Speaker 1>hand account of Alasta San Why. It's the biggest underwater

0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:06.199
<v Speaker 1>habitat ever constructed, and nobody knows anything about it all.

0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:08.640
<v Speaker 1>We've got our some schematics and a few photos of

0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:12.000
<v Speaker 1>unassembled modules. Hundreds of people live and work there. It's

0:10:12.040 --> 0:10:14.680
<v Speaker 1>a central hub for deep work, and we know next

0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:17.000
<v Speaker 1>to nothing about the place outside what they feed us

0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:22.520
<v Speaker 1>and press releases. Some call that corporate espionage. Do you

0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:27.520
<v Speaker 1>I thought I was asking the questions land spoken recombined,

0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:30.800
<v Speaker 1>working side by side, even representatives of the deep Myriads

0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:34.200
<v Speaker 1>and the Tritons themselves. You've never been there either, have

0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:43.360
<v Speaker 1>you my first visit? I smiled? This one was sharp, bolder,

0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:47.200
<v Speaker 1>than I judged at first. I flipped the knife around

0:10:47.200 --> 0:10:50.000
<v Speaker 1>in my palm and laid it beside the sink, then

0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:53.720
<v Speaker 1>grabbed a pair of disposable plastic cups from the medicine cabinet.

0:10:56.240 --> 0:10:58.880
<v Speaker 1>I want to reveal the conditions there. We all know

0:10:58.920 --> 0:11:00.840
<v Speaker 1>what it's like on the surface. But if the rumors

0:11:00.840 --> 0:11:03.360
<v Speaker 1>are true, Atlas is one of the few places where

0:11:03.360 --> 0:11:07.240
<v Speaker 1>recombined workers have equal footing with landsfolk, shared culture, even

0:11:07.679 --> 0:11:09.360
<v Speaker 1>And what can we learn from a place where a

0:11:09.400 --> 0:11:13.040
<v Speaker 1>recombined person is more in tune with their environment. It

0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:15.920
<v Speaker 1>won't play well with the heartland because they're so out

0:11:15.920 --> 0:11:18.360
<v Speaker 1>of tune with theirs. They need it more than anyone.

0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:24.080
<v Speaker 1>You've seen the conditions they enable. She was right, of course.

0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:27.800
<v Speaker 1>I had seen the recombined populations of the surface, the

0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:32.280
<v Speaker 1>endless sprawl of the coastal communities where the rising tide washed,

0:11:32.280 --> 0:11:37.080
<v Speaker 1>the ruins of metropolis, where a swelling population teemed beneath

0:11:37.080 --> 0:11:41.440
<v Speaker 1>the walls of inland governments amid those ruins, the New

0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:50.920
<v Speaker 1>California Coast, the Florida Stump, Atlanta, Mumbai, guang Zoe, Gothenburg.

0:11:52.280 --> 0:11:54.959
<v Speaker 1>Those were just the ones I'd seen with my own eyes.

0:11:56.000 --> 0:11:59.520
<v Speaker 1>But it was the same all over a new people

0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:03.040
<v Speaker 1>live at the edges of the old, a product of

0:12:03.040 --> 0:12:07.200
<v Speaker 1>the bargain you dex made to save the world. It

0:12:07.360 --> 0:12:16.760
<v Speaker 1>was the price of the second oil age. I walked

0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:18.960
<v Speaker 1>over to my bag and pulled out a half empty

0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:22.480
<v Speaker 1>bottle of whiskey. I splashed a little into each cup

0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:27.680
<v Speaker 1>and held one out to her. You'll get caught, you

0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:33.559
<v Speaker 1>know that. Maybe When she reached out to accept the drink,

0:12:34.000 --> 0:12:36.720
<v Speaker 1>I grabbed her forearm and twisted it just enough to

0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:39.520
<v Speaker 1>make out the black tattoo on the inside of her wrist,

0:12:40.240 --> 0:12:44.760
<v Speaker 1>a ten character serial number starting with the letters r CEO.

0:12:47.559 --> 0:12:53.360
<v Speaker 1>You're recombined. Yeah, we both took a sip of our

0:12:53.480 --> 0:12:58.960
<v Speaker 1>lukewarm liquor, and you can look at these marks without flinching.

0:13:01.800 --> 0:13:05.679
<v Speaker 1>If she were pure blood Triton, she'd be in convulsions.

0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:10.320
<v Speaker 1>Even some recombined individuals can experience a mild episode at

0:13:10.360 --> 0:13:13.440
<v Speaker 1>the sight of an elder sign. They call it the

0:13:13.480 --> 0:13:18.080
<v Speaker 1>Watts effect, the tendency for certain combinations of lines and

0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:23.200
<v Speaker 1>angles to induce seizures in the triton brain. Scientists claim

0:13:23.240 --> 0:13:27.319
<v Speaker 1>it's some kind of photosensitive epilepsy. The legacy of a

0:13:27.440 --> 0:13:30.880
<v Speaker 1>species long adapted to an undersea world in its own

0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:37.200
<v Speaker 1>mysterious architecture. But then again, I've heard supernatural explanations as well.

0:13:38.480 --> 0:13:44.160
<v Speaker 1>Pick your poison. I guess yeah, we're all different, you know.

0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:49.160
<v Speaker 1>Part of the human condition birth is obscure, and men

0:13:49.280 --> 0:13:54.320
<v Speaker 1>are like rivers whose origins are often unknown. What's that

0:13:54.440 --> 0:14:01.800
<v Speaker 1>from the Mahaparata? What happens now? I'm just a passenger.

0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:05.160
<v Speaker 1>They're not paying me to deal with stowaways. As long

0:14:05.200 --> 0:14:10.160
<v Speaker 1>as you don't get in my way, you're not my problem.

0:14:10.200 --> 0:14:12.520
<v Speaker 1>I downed the rest of my whiskey and tossed the

0:14:12.520 --> 0:14:15.800
<v Speaker 1>cup in the sink. I considered dragging her into the

0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:20.360
<v Speaker 1>cargo hold anyway, it would have simplified things, but we

0:14:20.400 --> 0:14:25.120
<v Speaker 1>were still eighteen hours from our destination. Maybe I wanted

0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:29.600
<v Speaker 1>the company, the sound of some one else's voice. I

0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:32.840
<v Speaker 1>figured i'd probably hand her over once we arrived. But

0:14:32.960 --> 0:14:38.280
<v Speaker 1>for now, what's your business on Atlas Station? A missing

0:14:38.360 --> 0:14:42.120
<v Speaker 1>person's case? Who goes missing on the bottom of the sea,

0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:49.000
<v Speaker 1>some one who should have known better. For now, she

0:14:49.120 --> 0:14:51.760
<v Speaker 1>was another way to distract myself from the weight of

0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:59.560
<v Speaker 1>my destination. Atlas Station, threshold of the Triton Kingdom, the

0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:29.160
<v Speaker 1>bottom of the World, m M m m H. The

0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:32.400
<v Speaker 1>second oil Age was produced by Robert Lamb, Alex wood S,

0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:36.840
<v Speaker 1>Lauren Vogelbaum, and Josh Stank. This episode featured en Jo

0:15:37.040 --> 0:15:40.880
<v Speaker 1>Masters as Sinov Pond and Lauren Vogelbaum as Tabitha Veil.

0:15:41.360 --> 0:15:45.680
<v Speaker 1>Supporting voice work by Annie Reese, Matt Frederick, Ben Bolan,

0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:51.360
<v Speaker 1>Alexander Williams, Alison louder Milk, and Sebastian Lamb intro outro,

0:15:51.560 --> 0:15:55.960
<v Speaker 1>and supporting music created by the Weirding Module. Learn more

0:15:56.040 --> 0:16:01.080
<v Speaker 1>at Modules dot band camp dot com. Music for the

0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:05.160
<v Speaker 1>graphing Media segment Fourth Way by a Lith provided by

0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:08.720
<v Speaker 1>King de Luxe Records. Learn more at King de Luxe

0:16:08.880 --> 0:16:33.160
<v Speaker 1>dot c A form more podcasts from iart Radio, visit

0:16:33.200 --> 0:16:37.040
<v Speaker 1>the irt radio app, Apple Podcasts or winning listener to

0:16:37.120 --> 0:16:38.040
<v Speaker 1>your favorite shows