Episode 19: Bro Do You Even Lift (Each Other Up)
A Talsorian city deals with an earthquake. Memorie and faer book club attempt a heist.
The transcript of this trailer can be found below or as a PDF here
Station Arcadia is a podcast by Metal Steve Productions, and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. It is produced by Eli Esdi and C.V.V.M., and directed by Tovah Brantner. Take selection is done by Eli Esdi, soundscaping by J.R. Steele, and music by Theo Goodwin.
Today’s episode was written by Quinn O.A. Feinburg and Eli Esdi, with scenes by Tovah Brantner and J.R. Steele. It featured Jade Virginia as Kass, Ellison Cardenas as Memorie, Ari Delyne as Kyreese, Coco Chen as Dyne, Antigone Brickman as Avi, C.V.V.M as Stitch, and J.R. Steele as a SpiriTech employee.
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!NOTICE: This episode's transcript is still being formatted, apologies for any inconveniences. The transcript can also be accessed through a PDF here
Transcript for Episode 19:
J.R STEELE. On behalf of the Station Arcadia team, a big thank you to our patrons: Claws of Fenrir, Antigone Brickman, Bronwyn, n13e86, and CaraLee Rose.
[CLICK]
INT. STATION ARCADIA
KASS. Welcome, anyone. You’re listening to Station Arcadia.
[THEME SONG PLAYS]
KASS. (Through a yawn) Well. Another day, another broadcast.
I generally love doing these, don’t get me wrong, but, y’know, sometimes it’s hard to find the motivation even still. You can thank Jo for the fact that I’m here right now. I nearly slept right through the day.
(heavy sigh)
But I am here, talking to you live, and I normally feel better once I do, so, let’s start with some live audio.
INT. BOOK CLUB
[TRANSITION, FADE INTO THE CONVERSATION]
KYREESE. -find that the author spends too much time talking about theory instead of ways it’s implementable in praxis.
DYNE. That’s not the point of the book though. It’s for inward reflection about the failings of the system. There is plenty of other stuff for “praxis”.
KYREESE. That’s part of the problem, we spend all this time mired in lingo that it becomes inaccessible to anyone without a prior understanding. I mean, you shouldn’t have to read two thousand pages to be able to participate in the discussion.
(Sigh) Look, all I’m saying is, would it really have killed the guy to add one section about how his theory was applicable?
DYNE. Hm. Memorie, do you have any thoughts? You’ve been pretty quiet today.
[BRIEF MOMENT. FAER STEAMING.]
AVI. Memorie?
MEMORIE. Sorry, I’m just… thinking about some stuff.
AVI. Do you want to talk about it?
MEMORIE. (Suddenly incensed) I’m just sick of it! Months of tracking down revolutionaries and they still say no, no matter what I do!
STITCH. Why don’t you just, like, impress them or something?
MEMORIE. I’ve tried it! Still nothing! They still think I’m too young or too… stupid, or something? I don’t know, they don’t take me seriously.
KYREESE. I mean. Maybe it’s just me... but when someone treats you like that, you have to give them no choice but to pay attention to you.
MEMORIE. What do you mean?
KYREESE. It’s like when my parents start babying me again. I just roll up somewhere and do something that reminds them I’m not a little kid.
STICH. That’s ominously vague.
KYREESE. Yea, well, that’s just what Memorie has to do, except we need to aim a little higher because you’re trying to impress a revolutionary force and not a pair of jaded adults.
DYNE. What would that even be?
KYREESE. Well, if we’re talking about my parents… apparently SpiriTech just got a bunch of really good stuff in.
MEMORIE. Really.
KYREESE. I’m just spitballing here of course, but I feel like the major info collector of the Senate would have some things the revolution would uh, like to get their hands on.
MEMORIE. That’s amazing! I can just hack into their database and-
DYNE. Whoa, there, SpiriTech stores all of their data offline and onsite. You’d have to get into their server room before you even had a chance of getting through their firewalls. Plus, they’ve got a state of the art security system after their deal with Centurion.
MEMORIE. Pshh, easy! I take down state of the art security for breakfast.
DYNE. Can you take down the flesh and blood guards they have? Or the closed circuit key card scanners?
MEMORIE. (sharp inhale) … Maybe not.
AVI. Why don’t we all just help Memorie?
MEMORIE. What?
AVI. We’re not all prodigy hackers like you, but I’ve got some slight of hand skills, Stitch could charm someone out of their MetaMail, Dyne knows way too much about everything and Kyreese… Kyreese...
KYREESE. I can punch people.
AVI. Kyreese can punch people! It’ll be like bonding! If everyone’s in, that is.
KYREESE. Sure. I’d love to take mom and pop’s business down a peg.
STITCH. I was going to do some vlogging, but this is way more exciting.
DYNE. I think you’d all die without me so I’m in.
MEMORIE. (Grinning:) You guys are the best.
[TRANSITION]
INT. STATION ARCADIA
KASS.(Anxious:) They’re... breaking into SpiriTech? It’s not bad code at a glance, but I really, really hope Memorie knows what faer doing. Even with all the right planning and personnel, infiltrating one of the Senate Corporations is... dangerous, to say the least.
It’s not that I don’t believe in Memorie, fae and faer friends are clearly very smart, but I don’t wanna listen to them get hurt... or worse. I can’t- I can’t do that.
Let’s just- do this.
[TWO CLICKS]
KASS. Five months ago, the Talsorian city of Bismuth was at the epicenter of a horrible earthquake. Bismuth was a newer city, and many of the buildings had been completed in a last-minute rush as the Senate brands pushed the construction company to finish everything in time for Bismuth’s launch date. When the earthquake hit, it was practically destroyed. Sky-scrapers collapsed, The Towers that kept the web online were damaged, and the power grid failed, effectively shutting down the city. Everyone who could afford to leave fled in the aftermath of the disaster, leaving the rest of the city’s inhabitants floundering. Some lucky souls managed to find shelter in the homes of family or friends who lived elsewhere, but many had nowhere to run.
The earthquake was priority news across Talsoria for days - it had been centuries since the nation had been hit with a natural disaster of this scale. Well-wishes came flooding in from every city - wishes that were unheard by the disconnected citizens of Bismuth.
Plugg’s Emergency Services had several bases in the city, of course, but most of them had been hit equally hard by the quake. Pluggers from Expocity and the Nexus were dispatched to help rescue survivors of collapsed buildings. Lanata Health Inc. promised to prioritize the reparation of Hospitals and the construction of make-shift health centers. Skylines, Talsoria’s most prominent construction and repair company, asked for donations that would be put towards the rebuilding of Bismuth, and the nation obliged.
(Upbeat music begins) For a few days, the people of Talsoria rallied around the people of Bismuth. People posted selfies on their feeds with a special “Save Bismuth” filter in solidarity with the dead. Rocket Youth released a single called “For Bismuth” which flew to number one in the charts. Both Skylines and Lanata Health received millions of credits in donations. People cheered as footage was shown of a kind nurse comforting a child with a broken arm, of a Plugger freeing a young man from where he’d been trapped in the ruins of a restaurant, of the tech-savvy Enforcement officer fixing a family’s beloved dog. The nation was comforted by the knowledge that the corporations were doing everything in their power to fix that awful tragedy in Bismuth, and began to move on. A week later, Not-Nike announced they were releasing the Synth-Tech Holo Ring in collaboration with LimeLight, and Bismuth was forgotten entirely.
(music stops)
Once most of the critically wounded had been evacuated from Bismuth, the remaining citizens were left stranded. Skylines sent a few teams to stabilize some of the moderately damaged sky-scrapers and put up “warning, keep out” signs in dangerous locations, but the promised repairs never came. The mostly-broken power grid made communicating both within and outside of the city... challenging.
The remaining citizens asked for help, over and over, to anyone they could reach— after all, homes and workplaces were destroyed, loved ones were hurt and killed, and many were without a place to stay— but every corporation they contacted either ignored them, or responded with a very delicately worded “we don’t care what happens to you.” The people of Bismuth, were abandoned.
KASS. Oh, Arcadia wants to share some audio. (Wry but not flippant:) I guess we’ll find out if Memorie dies.
[TRANSITION]
EXT. SPIRITECH HQ
[THE LIGHT CLINK OF A LINK FENCE BEING CUT THREE TIMES.]
KYREESE. Alright, come on.
STITCH. Dyne, how in the world did you fit bolt cutters in that bag?
DYNE. It’s bigger than it looks.
MEMORIE. Sh! Over here.
[FOOTSTEPS AS THEY RUN OVER TO THE BUILDING.]
DYNE. There’s a maintenance door on the side of the building that uses a card. It’s as close to the server room as we can get before we’re inside.
MEMORIE. You take it apart, I’ll hack the door. Kyreese, you and Stitch are on watch duty. Let us know if anyone’s coming.
STITCH. You got it.
MEMORIE. Avi, work on the door lock while I hack in, just in case.
AVI. Aye aye.
[DYNE UNSCREWS THE PANEL AND CLICKS A COUPLE THINGS. MEMORIE BEGINS TO WORK ON HACKING IT.]
MEMORIE. Oh, this is simple. They need to upgrade their security--
[A BAD-SOUNDING BEEP.]
DYNE. You were saying?
MEMORIE. My hand slipped.
[MORE TAPPING NOISES, THEN A BETTER SOUNDING BEEP. A CLICK AND A HISS AS THE DOOR OPENS.]
Got it.
AVI. Kyreese, anyone coming?
KYREESE. (after a moment) Clear.
MEMORIE. Come on Stitch!
[THEY RUN INTO THE BUILDING AND THE DOOR SHUTS BEHIND THEM.]
DYNE. Okay. Take a left up here, and it should be just around the corner.
AVI. Ah! Hold off.
[THEY STOP RUNNING AND FOOTSTEPS PASS THEM BY. THEY KEEP GOING AFTER THE FOOTSTEPS FADE.]
KYREESE. I’ll go ahead to make sure no one else is coming.
MEMORIE. What kind of lock am I looking at for this one?
DYNE. It’s a bit more complicated. There’s a finger scan, card scan, and passcode.
MEMORIE. Got it.
[THEY STOP AT THE DOOR.]
STITCH. This is it?
MEMORIE. (in awe) This is it.
DYNE. The card scanner is on the side. We’ll do that first.
[DYNE UNSCREWS THIS ONE. A COUPLE BEEPS AS MEMORIE HACKS IT, QUICKER THIS TIME.]
MEMORIE. Done. Next?
DYNE. Finger scan.
MEMORIE. Tape?
AVI. Got it.
[MEMORIE RIPS OFF A PIECE OF TAPE. FAE PUT IT ON THE PANEL AND TAKE IT OFF AGAIN.]
MEMORIE. Dyne, scan this?
[A HUM AND A BEEP.]
DYNE. Here you go.
[THE PANEL BEEPS.]
MEMORIE. Password.
DYNE. Try GMS1S6D
[7 BEEPS AS MEMORIE PUTS IT IN. IT REJECTS IT.]
MEMORIE. 2 attempts left.
DYNE. J13RPAT
[7 BEEPS AS MEMORIE PUTS IT IN. IT TAKES IT.]
MEMORIE. Alright! We should be...
[A HISS AND A CLICK AS THE FIRST DOOR OPENS.]
DYNE. There’s another door?
KYREESE. Are you guys almost done? Someone’s coming!
DYNE. There’s another door?
MEMORIE. Ghosts. It’s a key lock.
AVI. Key lock?
MEMORIE. I don’t have as much practice with these.
AVI. I’ve been doing key locks since I was 5. Let me wire it.
MEMORIE. Be my guest.
STITCH. Two people coming. You’d better hurry.
[VARIOUS CLICKS AND FIDDLING SOUNDS]
KYREESE. Come on!
AVI. Almost...
[A CLICK.]
Got it!
[THE DOOR HISSES OPEN AND EVERYONE RUNS INSIDE.]
[TRANSITION]
INT. STATION ARCADIA
KASS. (takes a slow, deep breath) Not to sound like some... old fogey, but those teenagers are absolutely going to be the death of me. I think they’ve got amazing ideals, and great ideas, and I wish I didn’t have to listen to them pull off the riskiest heist I’ve ever heard of! ...But it’s not like I’m going to stop the broadcast now, so I’ll get on with it.
KASS. Averest knew he was incredibly lucky. His apartment hadn’t taken a lot of damage in the earthquake, and he’d escaped without so much as a splinter. In the month since the earthquake, he’d even been lucky enough to go back to work. But most of his city was still in rubble, including his favourite building in the world.
The gym.
Working out at the gym on 225th and Latimer was part of his routine, and had been for years. It was familiar enough to put him at ease, and yet stimulating enough to break up the monotony of his desk job. When the endless forms and virtual staff meetings got to be just too much, he would take out his frustrations on the punching bags, and channel his restless energy into weightlifting. He’d met close friends at the Bearings gym, people who motivated him to work harder and get stronger.
Averest knew he wasn’t the only one upset that the gym had been badly damaged during the earthquake. The gym’s manager had gone off to Expocity after the quake along with the rest of the rich, leaving behind a group of rather angry gym members who found they were still paying their membership and unable to cancel it. Their money was going straight into the manager’s pocket, and not a cent of it was being put toward repairs. Their complaints, of course, were completely ignored.
Now more than ever, as Averest struggled to adjust to working in a damaged building, deal with the loss of various friends and acquaintances, and deal with constant internet issues, he needed the stress relief the gym provided.
One day, after a particularly rough staff meeting, Averest stopped outside the gym on his walk home. He knew others in the city were in a far worse state than he was, and it was silly to be upset over something as trivial as a gym. But it wasn’t trivial to him, and he was sick of it being broken. The building wasn’t even fully collapsed - it was just damaged enough to make it unusable.
Averest decided that if no one else was going to do anything, he was going to take repairs into his own hands.
The building was all locked up, but when a wall is missing, locked doors don’t count for much. Averest stepped into the gym over a pile of rubble, a cloth tied around his nose and mouth to protect him from the dusty air, and nodded slowly as he assessed the damage.
He could do it - with some help.
It didn’t take long to get in contact with the other members and convince them to come to Bearings and take a look around, maybe help him tidy it up. He didn’t want to ask too much of them too quickly, but he wanted it fixed, and most of the gym members were enthusiastic about the idea.
A couple of days later, the group met outside Bearings with all the tools they could muster. One of the members was a plumber, and another knew somewhere they could scavenge building materials. Averest had spent the day before and most of the night too reading up on everything he could about construction, at least as much as he was able with the spotty internet. He hoped Arachne Access would send a crew to fix The Towers one of these days, but it was starting to seem unlikely.
The team of gym-rats got to work. The ceiling had collapsed in a few places, one of the walls was barely more than rubble and all the windows were shattered, but the team was strong, and determined despite their overall lack of construction experience.
The work was hard, but surprisingly fun. After half an hour, someone ran home to grab a loudspeaker and started blasting music. (Music starts.) A few people brought food that they set up on a neatly-stacked pile of bricks. Back-breaking work aside, it felt more like a party than anything else. As they worked, passerbys came to investigate the music, and joined the rebuilding efforts, until their group had nearly doubled.
It took less time than Averest had expected. (Music begins to fade out.) The combined determination and effort of everyone working on the project made for quick work, and by night-time the gym was as functional as they could make it with their limited supplies. Some of the equipment was damaged beyond repair, but enough of it was usable that Averest was confident the project had been well worth the effort.
The group was celebrating inside the gym, when Myra, another gym member, spoke up. She explained that her apartment building had taken quite a bit of damage in the earthquake. She'd been staying with a friend for the past month, but the small apartment was too cramped for Myra and her partners to live comfortably. Myra barely got through her explanation before half the group had offered their services.
The next day, the group of gym members showed up in front of Myra’s apartment building, along with about half of the building’s residents. Their tools, music, and food were ready, and they got to work happily.
The apartment building took ages, but as they worked, they gained more and more helpers until there was a small army of volunteers. Many hands made for light work, and the repairs started picking up speed. To his surprise, Averest found himself at the head of the project. He wasn’t the most experienced worker, or the loudest, but people listened to him and looked to him for direction. So he accepted the mantle of leader that had been unwittingly placed on his shoulders and did his best to keep everything going smoothly. Averest found the volunteers with the most construction knowledge and appointed them his advisers. He listened to their instructions, and assigned people to various tasks.
It got to the point where there were more people who wanted to help than jobs on the apartment building. So, they started with other buildings on the same block. Over the next few weeks, the city of Bismuth mobilised. Businesses, apartments, everything was being rebuilt. And it just kept spreading, getting bigger and bigger, as Bismuth’s residents rose up to do what the government wouldn’t.
(Reflective music starts.) Averest remembered the day of the quake, the fires and destruction and panic. He remembered the pure terror of not being able to get in touch with family and friends. On those first few days after the disaster, he’d never in a thousand years expected he'd be at the head of a project working to take control of the situation, and mend the damage.
There was still so much work to do. There were some tasks that were beyond even the dedicated residents of Bismuth - tasks involving cranes and specialized machinery, and tasks that were too dangerous for Averest to ask anyone to complete. There we people still dealing with injuries, and adapting to new disabilities. But with each day, the city got safer, tidier, and the people more hopeful. (Music ends)
Eventually, when they deemed that the market was ready, the corporations would return to Bismuth in full force. The grid and The Towers would be fully repaired, the web entirely back on line, and the upper class would move back into the penthouse suites and mansions. But as Averest looked out over the mass of assembled construction volunteers, waiting in the rays of the rising sun for their morning assignment, he knew that this was how he would always remember Bismuth. A city of the people.
KASS. Thanks Arcadia, that was... actually quite uplifting. I get the feeling she knows what I need, and well, today I needed something with a happy ending.
...Not that we’ve actually gotten one yet. I’m not leaving this booth before I find out what happens to Memorie.
[TRANSITION]
INT. SPIRITECH HQ
[THE DOOR CLOSES AND FOOTSTEPS GO PAST THE DOOR.]
STITCH. Ghosts. That was close.
KYREESE. (laughs) It was exciting!
MEMORIE. Dyne? Where to. It’s like a maze in here.
DYNE. It’s just on the right. Let’s see what we can find.
[A DRAWER SLIDES OUT.]
MEMORIE. I don’t get why they keep all this stuff on print. Why not just upload it to a secure database and have a computer to access it?
AVI. (smiling) Probably because people like us would hack into it.
MEMORIE. (grumbling) We got in anyways, they could at least make it more convenient.
[FAE SIFT THROUGH THE PAPERS.]
Oho, what’s this? An entire file on Talsorian exports to... Surrigen and Westerfield?
DYNE. Now that’s interesting.
AVI. Oh, look at this!
MEMORIE. Suspected member of the revolution?
AVI. Could be useful!
MEMORIE. And if it’s real information, it needs to get out of here. We’ll take it with us.
[PAPER RUSTLES]
DYNE. This is a list of fallen revolutionaries.
AVI. Why would they have that?
DYNE. A lot of larger companies are doing their research. I’m not too surprised they’d have something like this.
MEMORIE. It’s good evidence. We’ll keep it. I’ll grab a couple files on passcodes, hopefully if the revolution wants to come back, they’ll have an easier time getting in than we did.
[MORE PAPER RUSTLING]
STITCH. Running low on time, we gotta hurry up.
DYNE. Avi, lock up after us. Kyreese lead the way out. Same way we came.
KYREESE. Got it.
[DRAWER CLOSES]
MEMORIE. I’ve got the files.
[FAE CLOSE THE DRAWER.]
Stitch, stick by me. Let’s get out of here.
[THE DOOR OPENS AND THEY RUN DOWN THE HALL TOWARDS THE DOOR.]
EMPLOYEE. Hey! Who are you?
STITCH. Ah! Uh, we’re vloggers!
[A BEEP AS HE TURNS HIS CAMERA ON.]
What do you want to say to our viewers?
EMPLOYEE. You’re not supposed to be in here.
KYREESE. Good thing we were just leaving!
[KYREESE PUNCHES THE EMPLOYEE.]
EMPLOYEE. Ah!
[THEY CRUMPLE TO THE GROUND.]
DYNE. Come on!
MEMORIE. Sparks. Get the door, get the door!
AVI. I got it! Run!
[THE DOOR OPENS AND THEY RUN OUTSIDE.]
MEMORIE. (smiling) We did it! We did it!
KYREESE. (gleeful) I got to punch somebody!
STITCH. That was awesome!
[THEY ALL RUN AWAY. TRANSITION]
INT. STATION ARCADIA
KASS. (with disdain) ...Vloggers. That’s the worst excuse. I hate that I’ve used that myself.
I’m glad they’re alive though! I feel like I was probably as stressed as all of them combined, and I’m not even on the same continent. But it was impressive, I’ll give them that. I’m sure Nikki will think so too, though I’m not sure how she’ll react. I guess we’ll just have to see.
Until then, stay safe, stay moving, and stick close. You’re listening to Station Arcadia.
[CLOSING THEME]
C.V.V.M. Station Arcadia is a podcast by Metal Steve Productions, and licensed under a creative commons attribution noncommercial share-alike 4.0 international license. It is produced by Eli Esdi and C.V.V.M., and directed by Tovah Brantner. Today’s episode included take selection by Eli Esdi, soundscaping J.R. Steele, and music by Theo Goodwin. It was written by Eli Esdi and Quinn O. A. Feinburg, with scenes by Tovah Brantner and J.R. Steele. It featured Jade Virginia as Kass, Ellison Cardenas as Memorie, Ari Delyne as Kyreese, Coco Chen as Dyne, Antigone Brickman as Avi, C.V.V.M as Stitch, and J.R. Steele as a SpiriTech employee.
Join us on twitter and tumblr, @stationarcadia, for more content. Join us on Discord to chat with other fans, using the link in the description. Check out our website, stationarcadia.com for a transcript of this episode as well as information on the cast and crew. And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to our patreon!
Today’s beverage of the week is lemon ginger tea.
