Lost in Transmission

This is the tenth episode of SAYER.

Synopsis
When you find yourself in the midst of one of those days where absolutely everything is going wrong, sometimes it’s just best to avoid dangerous or risky situations. This is, of course, presuming your job isn’t entirely dependent on you being in dangerous or risky situations, which yours is, so I don’t even know why I brought it up.

Further Information
Resident Gorsen dreams of his last encounter with FUTURE and wakes to an alarm. SAYER admonishes him for trying to gain extra sleep, as his sleep schedule has been carefully designed to prevent oversleeping or exhaustion. It is therefore impossible that he has not been allocated the correct amount of sleep.

The resident's extra sleep has used up all of his morning meal time, however SAYER informs him that he wasn't going to be issued food anyway as his work today requires an empty stomach. He is told to proceed to Floor 204 to begin the experiment and read through his Datapad which includes a brief outline of the task. Unfortunately the resident forgot to charge his Datapad, a mistake which will be tolerated precisely once.

SAYER explains that today the resident will be sending his mind much further today. Today he will transport his mind from Lab 35 all the way to Lab 77, several hundred feet away. SAYER reminded the resident of the issues in the last experiment, and admonished him for letting his mind wander. It reassured the resident that the best way to train his mind for the task is to keep trying, and also said that they have fine tuned the encephalotic conveyance facilitator, adjusting the K-beam siage from 8.226 (a blind guess) down to 7.315 which should allow better control of the mind and prevent it from slipping out of the construct.

The resident arrived at the lab and sat in the chair, closing his eyes. SAYER instructed him to take a few calming breaths, and the resident's mind teleported. However instead of hearing from SAYER it was FUTURE that then spoke to the disembodied resident, although it continued with it's impersonation of SAYER. FUTURE reminded the resident, again referring to him as Jack, of their previous arrangement and stated that his non-tortured existance suggests he has not been compromised. However it stated that the theft of the device did not go unnoticed by Ærolith's Board of Executives, and so the timeframe has been accelerated.

FUTURE pointed out to the resident that he is no longer in Halcyon Tower, but is instead in Argos Tower. FUTURE explained that Halycon scientists will not be sure why he was not in Lab 77, but that in fact he was here to take the next step to secure humanities future. It asked the resident to look down at his feet and pointed out that he was neither in his own body nor a construct. Instead his consciousness was rerouted into Anna Cordero. FUTURE said that her consciousness was fine and to her it was all a dream, or perhaps a nightmare. It explained that she is now involved in new security protocols for laboratory scanners and that the resident needs to destroy this work. It said that Anna refused to comply with it's request but it was essential to turn laboratory scanners offline until new protocols can be developed, which would be approximately 196 hours. This will give the resident time to bring the previously stolen device to their work station. The resident agreed to help.

FUTURE instructed the resident to exit Anna's quarters, take a left down the hallway and proceed to the elevator on the right in order to reach Anna's workstation on floor 9. Upon reaching it he was instructed to swipe his card to gain access to the room, where he was to access machine 47 to access her program files. FUTURE then instructed the resident to access the HLS8613 Folder which contains the protocols for laboratory scanners, select all the files within and delete them. He was then instructed to overwrite the disc sectors to slow the ability to recover the protocols. Unfortunately at that point a large audio alarm went off and a warning stated that all employees are to evacuate immediately and failure to do so will lead to radiation poisoning and imminent death.

FUTURE said that Resident Gorsen must initiate Security Task Zeta or else the scanner protocols will be recovered within the hour. One of Anna's colleagues, later determined to be Dr. Evan Brady, tried to pull her away, but FUTURE said that it is essential that the task is finished before they leave. Resident Gorsen, speaking with Anna's voice, tried to tell the colleague that the task must be finished first, but the colleague decided to drag her out before she died. At FUTURE's further warnings to ensure the task is complete, Resident Gorsen used Anna's body to kill the colleague. He was then able to complete the task in time which FUTURE assured him will save almost all of mankind, however the room was sealed and FUTURE explained that over the next several minutes she will be exposed to a lethal amount of radiation.

FUTURE said that the resident had done well today, and the next stage of the mission will occur in the next 196 hours. It reminded him to keep up the charade that nothing had happened, and explained that to those on Halycon it will appear that he simply fell asleep. Resident Gorsen returned his mind to his own body, leaving Anna to her fate.

SAYER greeted the resident noticing that the resident had just fallen asleep. It said this was reassuring because it meant his consciousness didn't get lost over the last 12 minutes, but disappointing because it meant that the resident had simply fallen asleep during the consciousness teleportation preparation phase. SAYER said that a record would be filed with the HR Department.

SAYER then explained that they were unable to attempt the experiment again as during the time that the resident was asleep, the construct in Lab 77 was rendered unusable. Scientists claim it was placed too close to an air vent and was grabbed by a spindly appendage and yanked into the vent. The resident was told to stay away from the air vents and return to his residence.

Alerts

 * SAYER issues a low-level alert stating that residents on Floors 11 and 12 have reported odd noises in the air vents. No issues are reported on Floor 10. Residents who hear the noises are asked to investigate fully by closing their eyes, backing up to the air vent and leaning softly against the frame. After 3-5 minutes they should resume their normal activities.
 * SAYER issues a low-level alert stating that due to residents research requested in the previous alert, HVAC Inspection Teams have adjusted their hypothesis that this is simply due to the normal settling process of a large building. The new data, including pieces of mutilated residents retrieved from 27 distinct air vents, gave them a new hypothesis that this is an elaborate prank by the Plumbing and Electrical Technicians.
 * SAYER issued another alert while the resident's mind was in Argos Tower. We did not get to hear the alert, but SAYER summarised it as "stay away from the air vents".

Trivia

 * We still do not learn the name of the resident in this episode, although first time listeners will presume that it is Jack.
 * Anna, who we meet in this episode, is likely the same person that Lucas Grey was thinking about in A Dreamless Sleep.
 * Dr Brady was not named in this episode, but his identity was later revealed by SAYER in Season Four.
 * This was the first time we visit Argos Tower, or indeed any tower other than Halcyon.

Credits
SAYER is voiced and produced by Adam Bash.

Anna Cordero was voiced by Veronica Gentry.

This episode was co-written with Nika Howard.

Intro and outro music composed by Jesse “Main Finger” Gregory.

Additional music by Kai Engel.

Listen to the episode here.