Speaker 1: Follows the production of I are reading of This episode
Speaker 1: contains depictions of drug use. The second oilistic products, and
Speaker 1: you've heard text America on America one. It all reinforces
Speaker 1: this inland narrative that recombined people shouldn't be part of
Speaker 1: normal society, that we're not human enough. It's the same
Speaker 1: sort of repression and exclusion we've seen throughout history, and
Speaker 1: here we are doing it again. We talked, or I
Speaker 1: let her talk. She didn't require a lot of encouragement.
Speaker 1: Utex is complicit too. They profit from the pact and
Speaker 1: depend on recombined labor, but they're also the first to
Speaker 1: don themselves from the coastal communities when they need to
Speaker 1: appeal to landlocked minds. I think she hoped these barbs
Speaker 1: would prick me as well, that I'd take criticism of
Speaker 1: my corporate overlords personally. But of course that's not how
Speaker 1: I saw it. I agreed with most of it, except
Speaker 1: for the notion that anything could be done. I was
Speaker 1: through thinking the world could be fixed. All I wanted
Speaker 1: was to act and to find who I was through action.
Speaker 1: Just particles of a blade stirred to sharpness. Did you
Speaker 1: grow up unlocked? No? We moved around. I saw the
Speaker 1: coastal communities from which side. You know which side, But
Speaker 1: you've been there, right, that's your line of work, I had,
Speaker 1: and it was we polished off the whiskey. She lectured
Speaker 1: me more on the failings of you dex until she
Speaker 1: fell asleep on the cat, curled up beside my gear
Speaker 1: and knives. But I couldn't sleep, even if I'd wanted to.
Speaker 1: I paced. I walked back into the cargo hold and
Speaker 1: inspected the farm tab crate. It was exactly as she'd
Speaker 1: described it, a hollowed out burrow beny three rows of
Speaker 1: prepackaged meals. I found a pillow, a travel urinal, and
Speaker 1: a half empty water thermis. A satchel contained spare clothes,
Speaker 1: and a locked communit. I checked the other crates as well,
Speaker 1: but found only the expected towels, beer, prepackaged junk food.
Speaker 1: One contained nothing but crab crisps. I looked up veil
Speaker 1: on my communit. In the old days of the World
Speaker 1: Wide Web, they say you could turn up anything with
Speaker 1: a few choice searches. But of course, now beyond each
Speaker 1: communit's standard info base, everything's regional firewalled periodic, an online
Speaker 1: police state to keep all the cyber crime, cyber war,
Speaker 1: and self replicating malware in check. I flagged her for
Speaker 1: a more detailed web snapshot the next time I connected
Speaker 1: for a packet, but the basic info seemed to check out.
Speaker 1: I pulled up a holographic low res head shot, as
Speaker 1: well as a handful of her recent reports on recombined
Speaker 1: populations and human rights, or at least titles and audio
Speaker 1: fragments due diligence, something to occupy my mind and fingers.
Speaker 1: While the basilisk coursed through me, I leaned against the
Speaker 1: cargo holds enormous wheeled door and quieted my suspicions. She
Speaker 1: was still asleep when I walked back into the cabin.
Speaker 1: I collected my knives and gear from the cot and
Speaker 1: throw a blanket over her. That was the moment I
Speaker 1: decided not to turn her in. Are you tired of
Speaker 1: this happening to you? Hey? Honey? What's for dinner? We're
Speaker 1: having Taker times cole slaw and crab sticks. Crab sticks again?
Speaker 1: I don't even know what these are made of. What
Speaker 1: part of the crab is this again? And why is
Speaker 1: it spelled with the K like cow? Give your family
Speaker 1: the delicious farm grown meal they deserve straight to your
Speaker 1: table from the American heartland. They're fast, easy, and deliver
Speaker 1: all the nutrition a land dwelling mammal like yourself requires.
Speaker 1: Each dish is a bountiful harvest of non GMO veggies
Speaker 1: and all your favorite meats, cow, pig, chicken, and of
Speaker 1: course wrong worn fraghn. This is delicious mob farm tab
Speaker 1: because crab with a K is not okay, it's human
Speaker 1: and non human right. I for one, I'm sick to
Speaker 1: death of the traitorous liberal lean is a big media
Speaker 1: and big government recombined noncombined. Please, if someone walks up
Speaker 1: to you on the street and calls you non combined,
Speaker 1: then you have the right to punch him in the
Speaker 1: face and check for gills. As far as I'm concerned,
Speaker 1: that's their game, people, infiltration, misapeciation. But you keep your
Speaker 1: fist jeans away from me and mine. Because I'm a mammal,
Speaker 1: my heart gushes warm blood, I have nails and hair
Speaker 1: and nipples. I mean, they don't lack tape. Because I'm
Speaker 1: a man, not a fruit bat. I'm certainly not gonna
Speaker 1: stand by it. Let a bunch of half human monsters
Speaker 1: come and threaten my family with their slimy coon by
Speaker 1: politics that color. I told Vail the truth that I
Speaker 1: wouldn't say a word unless they asked, and even then
Speaker 1: I'd only my shin a suspicious crate in the cargo bay.
Speaker 1: Maybe some sounds I couldn't quite explain. It was all
Speaker 1: on her. I helped her crawl back into a crate,
Speaker 1: breaking her in meal after prepackaged meal. I hope you
Speaker 1: find your missing person. Sure you don't want me to
Speaker 1: ask around you never know. I don't think you want
Speaker 1: any part of it. You might be surprised what an
Speaker 1: impartial reporter can learn over a corporate mercenary. I'm not
Speaker 1: really a mercenary. I'm more of an agent. Potato Potato.
Speaker 1: I hope your land your story. I really do. And
Speaker 1: with one last look at her eyes, I bricked them over,
Speaker 1: replacing them with the garish smile of a cartoon farmer
Speaker 1: and his cows. I packed in the rest. I stepped
Speaker 1: back and listened to her stir inside the crate, positioning
Speaker 1: herself for the rest of the descent. And then everything
Speaker 1: was silent, just the hum and pulse of our artificial shell.
Speaker 1: I walked back into the cabin and sealed the door
Speaker 1: behind me. I pulled my communit back out and checked
Speaker 1: the progress meter. Then I flipped over to the sub's
Speaker 1: external camera and watched the feet bloom into holographic life
Speaker 1: before my eyes. The metallic bulk of Atlas Station loomed
Speaker 1: below me, like some sunken god of industrial excess. Multiple
Speaker 1: arms coiled about the surrounding sea floor, connecting its central
Speaker 1: cathedral like body to various outlying facilities and sub hangers.
Speaker 1: Its baleful lights seemed to fight back against the darkness
Speaker 1: of the abyssal plane, as if standing sentinel against any
Speaker 1: traveler seeking the dark trench beyond its watch. It was
Speaker 1: at once beautiful and blasphemous, steel and chemical glass and circuitry,
Speaker 1: so much of the natural world remade and repurposed into
Speaker 1: a squatting giant, impossible to indefinitely only to very I
Speaker 1: be found the drug was wearing off a bit early.
Speaker 1: It's an inexact science, subject to the effects of stress
Speaker 1: an environment. I shot off the communit. I slid two
Speaker 1: knives into my belt, sheaths another into my boot. I
Speaker 1: grabbed the basilisk applicator and ejected the spent vial into
Speaker 1: the sink. I fumbled almost dropped the fresh dose before
Speaker 1: loading it into place. I moved the applicator to my
Speaker 1: right shoulder and shot the stuff home. The sub shook
Speaker 1: and I fell to one knee. I heard the groan
Speaker 1: of mechanical arms reaching out to embrace the sub, the
Speaker 1: labor of its joints resonating through the high pressure waters
Speaker 1: all around us. The drug began to take hold, and
Speaker 1: I swept sweat from my scalp, flicked my fingers, and
Speaker 1: watched blood spattered to the floor grids. No, not blood,
Speaker 1: but darkness, the earth's black riches. No. I could taste
Speaker 1: it on my lips, neither oil nor blood, but only sweat.
Speaker 1: I smelled the feckin sharpness of my animal fear. The
Speaker 1: rest was mere vision. I looked down to my other
Speaker 1: hand and saw that I'd redrawn the knife from my boot,
Speaker 1: its edge gleaming. Our best self is a thing summoned.
Speaker 1: It depends on chemical balance, a careful cocktail of external stimuli,
Speaker 1: ideal weather, job relationship upbringing the right pharmaceutical fix for
Speaker 1: all the gaps. I think most people never confront that truth,
Speaker 1: but I did. That's why I walked out of my
Speaker 1: old life and into the U dex Apathis program. Once more,
Speaker 1: I drowned it all in the depths of the treatment.
Speaker 1: They wanted an untouchable agent, one who could stand unflinching
Speaker 1: in the face of the Triton's power, especially their nariats.
Speaker 1: Triton's engineered in the deep to have human likenesses. They
Speaker 1: were sirens, created to walk among us and further the
Speaker 1: Triton's uncertain ends. And I'd been conditioned to resist them
Speaker 1: body and mind. Fine, change me, refine me, just make
Speaker 1: me something other than this cluster of anxieties and dashed hopes.
Speaker 1: The cargo bay door rumbled in the next room. I
Speaker 1: heard the audible hiss of air as the sub opened
Speaker 1: itself to the vast, sprawling uncertainty of Atlas Station. But
Speaker 1: I felt my breath begin to still. The claw unclenched
Speaker 1: from my heart, My awareness tightened, the blade slipped soundlessly
Speaker 1: back into its boot sheath, and I stood to greet
Speaker 1: my hosts, M M M. The second oil age was
Speaker 1: produced by Robert Lamb, Alex Williams, Lauren Vogelbaum, and Josh Thame.
Speaker 1: This episode featured on Joo Masters as sinov Pon. Lauren
Speaker 1: Vogelbaum as Tabitha Vale and Noel Brown as tex America.
Speaker 1: Supporting voice work by Jed Drummond, Gina Rakiki, Nicholas Takowski,
Speaker 1: Eden Brown, and Jason Coke intro outro, and supporting music
Speaker 1: created by the Wielding Module. Learn more at Module dot
Speaker 1: bandcamp dot com. Music for the Farm tab media segment
Speaker 1: New Toy Syndrome by Calvin Cardioid provided by King DeLux Records.
Speaker 1: Learn more at king DeLux dot c a M. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts or whinner We listen to your favorite shows