Episode Transcript
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2:18
September 4th, 2027 Hey,
2:27
you're here. You're nearly late. Hey,
2:30
Clive, this is not a location for lunch. I've
2:32
never even been to the floor of the building before.
2:35
I told you to dress smart. Excuse me? That's
2:37
fine, it's fine. We can do a she's all that, alright? Take
2:39
the glasses off at the right moment, shake your hair out, but
2:41
don't make it look like you're shaking your hair out. We don't want
2:43
to be too obvious. Clive,
2:45
I just came up a lot of stairs to
2:47
get up here. Keep talking like that and I will
2:49
take that ostentatious cane you walk with and
2:51
break it over your goddamn skull. Okay, okay, okay.
2:54
What is that on top? The wall, the
2:56
cane.
2:56
Isn't that meant to be a nice cube?
2:59
Yeah. Clive, tell me what's going
3:01
on. Legal has finally cleared
3:03
the patent for overhead type of sleep tech. Continue
3:06
will be officially in development. I heard.
3:09
That must be hard for you. Continue it
3:11
with your baby. It must be hard watching them take it forward
3:13
without you. Sure, they wanted to punish me, but
3:15
who cares, right? All they've got is a ripoff
3:17
of the Amos tech model, and we know that's
3:20
crap tech. Fucks with people's brains,
3:22
even using it in the penal system as a human rights outrage,
3:25
so no point making a song and dance about us having it. Right. Unless,
3:28
of course, overhead had a fringe
3:31
pharma department developing a Wanda
3:33
drug like some incredibly potent,
3:35
half opioid, half tricyclic antidepressant,
3:38
perfectly balanced to specifically target the areas
3:40
of the brain affected by the hyper sleep infusion.
3:43
Clive, I don't know how you know about that, but I couldn't tell
3:45
you. I
3:45
wasn't at liberty to discuss an ongoing
3:47
project. Pat, it's fine. I'm not mad. I'm
3:49
delighted. Okay. Great.
3:52
I mean, I'm still not able to talk about it. I know. I know. I
3:54
don't need you to, okay? That's not why I asked you to be here.
3:57
I asked you here to back me up in a meeting.
3:59
meeting with who? With the board.
4:02
The board of what?
4:03
Directors. What? The board
4:05
of directors. When? About four
4:07
minutes. What? I did say be
4:09
on time. So we had a reservation
4:11
for another liquid lunch, not a meeting with the directors
4:14
of overhead industries. I'll be fine, like
4:16
I said, you're just back up. Look pretty and
4:18
agree with me. What is this meeting about?
4:21
Oh, tell me it is not the Aloha
4:23
eternity. It's the Aloha eternity.
4:25
Oh my god, you have to let this shit go. No, we don't
4:27
let it go. Now here's the time. Oh,
4:29
now is the time? You're asking overhead
4:32
to build a luxury cruise liner at
4:34
a time of unparalleled social,
4:37
economical and environmental uncertainty
4:39
and inequality. Once you've done
4:41
that, your gimmick... It's not a gimmick. Your
4:44
gimmick will be dependent on that
4:46
rip-off cryotech you just disparaged. Our
4:48
work is barely off formula. We have years
4:51
to go. Pam, don't you see? Once they're sold
4:53
on Aloha, then continue and you'll wander
4:55
drug. Do
4:55
you have a trade name for you? What part of barely off
4:57
formula
4:57
do you not understand? I like Eternities
5:00
with an EZE at the end. It fits right in. We
5:03
can give them out when you get your ticket for the cruise. I'll be
5:05
like Willy fucking Wonka. We'll take it under
5:07
consideration. You will? No!
5:10
Oh, well anyway, what I'm saying is, Aloha eternity brings
5:12
the whole thing under one roof. Continue
5:15
Eternities with an EZE. Those beautiful
5:17
nuclear diamond batteries you helped develop before
5:20
you got stonewalled again. All under the
5:22
same umbrella. An umbrella helped
5:24
by me. All I'm asking is that you come
5:26
in out of the rain and stand with me, Pam. Let
5:29
me keep you dry. Clive,
5:30
I know you've been hanging onto this patent
5:32
like it's a bag
5:33
of magic beans, but you're crazy. You're
5:35
beaten down, Pam. I get it. You were
5:37
happy working at Red Valley and it fell apart. You
5:39
were happy with the little nuclear diamond battery
5:41
project and it fell apart. So you had to move
5:44
out of your nice flat. You fella broke up with
5:46
you. You couldn't go home, because America
5:48
is politically and in the case of your home state
5:50
literally on fire. And yes, your wonder
5:52
drug is years away from being ready and you've only
5:54
got six months of funding left. How
5:57
do you know all that? It's my job to know
5:59
that. isn't. Pam, I know you're skeptical,
6:01
you're a scientist. It's only natural, but
6:03
this is real. Right here, right now,
6:06
a real shot at something amazing.
6:08
This is not a real shot
6:09
at anything. You
6:11
are going to get your ass handed to you
6:13
in there. And a cruise ship with a stack
6:16
of cryopods stuffed in the trunk is not
6:18
amazing. Even if they built the
6:20
ship, even if continue comes together,
6:23
even if our drug does what we needed to do,
6:25
even if we managed to get the diamond
6:28
batteries
6:28
to work and build more cryopods. For
6:31
all of this to succeed, you're still
6:33
relying on a lot of rich people wanting
6:35
to tick, abandon my life to go on a holiday
6:37
until I literally drop dead and then please throw
6:40
my body in a metal tube of liquid nitrogen
6:42
off their bucket list. And let's not
6:44
forget you want all of this to happen while
6:47
groups of cryoterrorists are
6:49
in the news right now going into China
6:51
trying to destroy all hypersleep tech.
6:53
Cryoterrorists,
6:54
look, give it a rest, okay? Aubrey
6:56
Wood is just a crazy person who wants attention.
6:59
She'll be locked up in no time. They'll probably put her
7:01
in one of those dodgy hypersleep cells and then
7:03
she'll catch some horrible stasis virus
7:06
and it will be ironic and funny and
7:08
you'll never hear from that little group again. We've got
7:10
two minutes. Clive, I'm out of here. Listen to me. You
7:12
need this, some, you're living in a dream
7:14
world. Money, purpose,
7:17
influence, progress, science,
7:20
money again. Clive, this isn't how you're going to talk
7:22
to them, is it? Also casinos, cocktail
7:24
bars, water slides, come on. Clive,
7:27
are you high right now for real? Yeah, despite
7:29
your valiant attempts to drag me back to the desert of the real,
7:31
yes, of course I am. Well, I was. I should
7:33
top up before we start actually. Clive,
7:36
what the hell? What even is that? Poppers.
7:38
Poppers? The nineties called. They
7:41
want their soft drugs back. Just a sec.
7:42
Clive,
7:45
this isn't the goddamn hacienda. This
7:47
is
7:47
the board of directors. Look who's on their high horse
7:49
now. You ran up the stairs when you thought we were
7:51
having a boozy lunch. Before we start throwing
7:54
stones, your glass house smells suspiciously
7:56
of vodka by the way and by glass house,
7:58
I mean your glass. You know what?
7:59
Fuck you, fuck
8:02
your party boat. I want home. Pam,
8:04
Pam, Pam, Pam, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,
8:06
sit down, sit down, sit down. Okay,
8:10
now you're the one making the scene, come on, please. For
8:13
me.
8:13
Okay,
8:16
we probably shouldn't be throwing our dependency issues
8:18
at each other before the biggest pitch meeting of our careers.
8:21
Of your career, maybe, I'm just your glamorous assistant.
8:24
I'm sorry, alright, I'm sorry I'm like this. I'm
8:27
insufferable, can't you? My therapist
8:29
says so. I'm lonely, alright, I
8:31
miss my little girl. I even miss
8:33
my wife. Things are a mess.
8:37
Do you want me to feel sorry for you? No. Well,
8:40
yes, but what I'm saying is,
8:43
we've both hit the skids recently and, I
8:46
don't know, that night at Red Valley, I
8:50
thought I was going to die that night, Pam. Alone,
8:53
in the dark.
8:54
And then you were there, and
8:57
you held my hand. So
8:59
you're going to cry, because I don't
9:01
know how to deal with that. Look, look,
9:03
Becky Landry, Fran Jones
9:05
and the rest of them, they think we're
9:08
both done for. Exhausted
9:10
resources. But we're not.
9:13
Overhead aren't in the position they used to be. Losing
9:15
the race to create hyper sleep was just the tip of the iceberg.
9:19
Things are going far worse than most people know. Becky's
9:21
losing the board. They need
9:23
something big. Something bold.
9:26
We're not about to walk in there and say, oh,
9:28
I've got this fairly workable hyper sleep rip-off, I don't
9:30
know, let's put it in the prisons or something, you're. Right,
9:33
fuck that. Let's go in there and
9:35
ask for half a billion dollars
9:37
to build the definitive luxury
9:39
travel slash end of life care slash hyper
9:41
sleep experience for rich old white
9:43
people who expect to rule the world forever. Because
9:46
you know what that room behind us is full of?
9:50
Rich old white people who expect to rule the world forever. Bingo.
9:56
Screw it. Do it.
9:58
Clive and Pam.
9:59
Is Dr Jennings
10:03
going to be joining us?
10:06
Is she?
10:07
She is.
10:09
This way then please. You ready? Let
10:11
me shake my hair out. Do it inside. There
10:13
will be putty in your hands. Dinosaurs. Okay,
10:15
let's go.
10:16
Tits and peeps, Dr Jennings. Indeed.
10:24
No.
10:51
Oh. Jesus,
10:55
BAM. No. BAM,
10:59
there's
10:59
only two of us. It's a drink for every
11:01
ship they're going to build for us. It's a cookie now,
11:03
is it? Why the hell not? Yeah, why the
11:05
hell not? To the Aloha
11:07
Eternity. And all who
11:10
perish in her. We're
11:15
going
11:19
to build ships together, great big
11:21
ships. That's
11:23
pretty women. Pretty fucking
11:25
women. Oh, BAM. Why
11:30
picklebacks again, they repeat on me. I ordered
11:32
fries, they'll take the edge off.
11:35
Picklebacks are like the ultimate
11:37
shot for the situation.
11:37
Oh, come
11:40
on, tell me your pickleback story. What
11:42
makes a pickleback?
11:45
Grind and bourbon. What do you
11:48
think of when you hear the word brine? Tins
11:50
of tuna. Right. Tuna
11:52
fish. Pickles. It's
11:55
a preservative. It's going to protect
11:57
what you throw inside it. Not sexy. I'm
12:00
not showy, not a million miles
12:02
from a certain cryo infusion I could tell you about,
12:04
yes? Aha. But come
12:07
on, it's salty fish water. Gross!
12:09
But wait, what's this?
12:11
It's Mr. Bourbon. It's vital, it's alive, it's sexy, it's fun, it's- It's
12:13
a goddamn cruise ship. It is a goddamn cruise ship! You
12:16
poured the bourbon on
12:18
top of the brine, you son of
12:20
a bitch,
12:20
you made cryonic preservation
12:28
of the ship. I've
12:31
had a hard prep time, Apple. Look at you.
12:33
What?
12:37
You're welcome, by the way. What?
13:14
you really are the golden boy.
13:17
Yeah, damn right. You never going to answer that?
13:19
I can argue with my wife anytime I like. Today
13:22
is a good day. Shut up. I
13:27
can picture it all, you know, the yellow-hearted
13:29
eternity, beyond the brochure,
13:32
beyond the
13:32
fluffy pitched
13:33
beach. I can see it, the
13:35
roar of the waves, sunset
13:37
over the ocean, gaudy cocktails, too much fake
13:40
tan, bingo nights maybe, I don't know, dancing
13:43
girls. Oh my God, it sounds... Oh,
13:45
I love all that stuff. But underneath
13:48
all that, something deeper,
13:49
something more. Why
13:55
are you here, Clive? Overhead,
13:58
I mean, people like you and me, never
14:00
should have met.
14:02
Why aren't you in Vegas or
14:04
like Blackpool here? Why, everyone
14:06
thinks
14:06
my eye is only on the money. You
14:08
think I don't ruminate
14:09
on the human condition? You
14:10
think cryonics doesn't speak to
14:12
me like it speaks to you? Cryonic preservation...
14:15
speaks to you? No, I didn't
14:17
buy the Aloha Eternity Paint because I wanted to make
14:19
money off someone else's idea. I
14:21
bought it because I believed I had the power
14:24
to make it real.
14:25
You want to take death on holiday? It's
14:27
not so
14:28
crazy, right? All our lives
14:30
we turn away from it, we run from it, we
14:32
pretend it isn't coming for us and the people we care
14:34
about, but
14:35
it is. Death is with
14:37
us
14:38
all the time. You, me, everyone
14:40
from the boardroom today. My
14:42
little girl. So, stop
14:44
dragging it around like a bowling ball in the sun. Here,
14:47
take it to a show. Take it to
14:49
the beach. Put death on your
14:51
bucket list. And then maybe you can genuinely
14:53
rest in peace, for real.
14:55
Truth and rest. And
14:59
wait for better minds than
15:00
ours to bring you back. And then party
15:02
all over again. Amen to that.
15:05
Spoken like a true believer. Next.
15:09
My last picklebacks, then something less salty,
15:12
yeah? You're the boss. So,
15:15
the brine is the cryo-set, the whiskey,
15:17
the cruise ship. How
15:19
does that make this little baby gherkin here? This
15:21
tiny baby gherkin can
15:24
be... Any old
15:26
bastard's stupid enough to give us their money.
15:28
Ha ha ha ha ha ha
15:29
ha! Woo hoo! No!
15:36
No! Right,
15:38
I'm getting bigger. Yeah, try something for me.
15:47
Bae, I told you, I'm working.
15:49
Can we please discuss this later? Alright, Bae.
15:52
You know, we're off the clock, aren't you, Clive? Oh,
15:54
man. Hey. Rebecca
15:56
wanted me to congratulate you on your pitch
15:59
today.
15:59
Yeah, it's a
16:02
good bet, Fran. I know it isn't the future
16:04
you might have had in mind for R&D. Nothing
16:06
has ever come out of your mouth
16:08
is what I had in mind for this company. But
16:10
it's not my company.
16:12
I just wanted to know, this time, no
16:15
matter how wild your pen continues, your
16:17
name is being all over this in permanent marker,
16:20
you're
16:20
going to live or die on the low-hire internist's
16:22
flight. In many ways, that is kind of the point. I think
16:24
I might borrow that, actually, Fran. I hope
16:26
for your sake you write about us.
16:28
Even us, I'll be taking a swimmer's
16:30
seat towards the Golden Boy and take a
16:32
golden shower. I
16:36
thought
16:36
you were going to speak to her. No, no,
16:38
that was Francesca. The hell does she want?
16:41
She wants to sit very close to me while I get showered
16:43
in piss. Say that again? Don't
16:46
worry about it.
16:48
Hey. Hey what?
16:51
I am grateful, you know.
16:54
I know. I'm just smiling like that. Just
16:58
thinking about the future. I'll
17:00
drink for that.
17:13
I'm
17:25
going to go to the Golden Boy and John Parkhouse and the
17:28
original podcast artwork by Glenn.
17:31
The form of his eye, Alexander
17:33
Broad, the kind of show,
17:35
Rachel Fowler and
17:43
Hayley
17:51
Doney. Thanks
17:53
so much, Glenn.
18:33
The Sable and Hawley Network,
18:35
where fiction producers flourish.
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