1-3 Sequential Intrigue

In which Jonas becomes worried that Bethany is involved in some sort of dark conspiracy. 

inc: The Podcast is:
Allyson Levine as Bethany
Raimy O. Washington as Jonas
Leah Cardenas (@leahgabrielle____) as The Announcements
Ellis MacMillan (linktr.ee/mothscraps) as The Robo-Archivist
Katie Ploetz as Gil

inc: The Podcast is written, produced, and edited, by Monte D. Monteleagre and Alexander Wolfe, and is a production of Wolf Mountain Workshop.   For more information, or to contact them about other projects, they can be found at montedmonteleagre.com, and writingwolfe.com, respectively. 

Find us online at incthepodcast.buzzsprout.com for links to all our social media, or connect with us directly @incthepodcast, or at incthepodcast@gmail.com.

Emotional support for inc: The Podcast is lovingly provided by: Birdie, Rodeo, Jewel and Sakura.

New episodes every other Monday.

https://www.redbubble.com/people/incthepodcast/shop

Happiness is Productivity.
Productivity is Happiness.

Transcript

The buzzing at the end of the theme song fades into the S.I. Theme, becoming a low bass drone that builds into a gentle but driving synth-noir soundtrack. Eventually we fade into the general room tone of the office, but with a single bass guitar still playing. This bass will continue throughout the show, constantly underscoring the moment. Apologies in advance for that, Monte. 

Scene 1
JONAS is talking to themselves quietly and furtively. We have no way to know this, but they haven’t slept in at least a day and a half. 

JONAS: …but it couldn’t be, because data just doesn’t play around like that…it doesn’t make any sense…unless of course…but no, that could never – 

BETHANY: What’s all that? 

JONAS lets out a little scream. 

JONAS: Nothing! It’s projects! Papers, personal, just doing some personal paper projects, you know, boring stuff really, not the kind of boring stuff you like, different boring stuff. General boring stuff. 

BETHANY: …uh huh. Okay. Speaking of the boring stuff that I like, did you send the numbers on Oceanic vs. Semi-oceanic Numerical Discovery and Base Systems over to Amari for cataloging? 

JONAS: Yeah, yeah, I got that done earlier this shift. Why? 

BETHANY: Because I got some feedback from Amari that the numbers were well organized, delivered on time, and entirely professional. 

JONAS: So? 

BETHANY: So you’re telling me you did that? 

JONAS: I can do my job. That’s why I’m doing this now, because I was doing that before and finished up all the “that” so I started on the “this”. Plus there’s gonna be more of “that” later, so really right now is the only time I had for “this” before I go back to doing “that”. 

BETHANY: And this is…? 

JONAS: Personal. 

There is a moment of silence and bass guitar.

BETHANY: I’m suspicious for a lot of reasons, but against my better judgment I’m gonna let this play out. 

JONAS: I appreciate that. 

BETHANY: It is a small office though, so maybe we could keep the conspiratorial muttering under your breath to a minimum? 

JONAS: Can do, Boss. 

More silence and bass guitar.

BETHANY: Oh yeah, there’s definitely something going on with you. Keep it down, please. 

Other instruments fade back in with the bass and the soundtrack becomes the S.I. Theme once again, which slowly fades down to underscore JONAS’ monologue. During this monologue, JONAS speaks like JONAS. That will change. 
Scene 1.1

JONAS DIARY V/O: Dear Illegal Personal Diary I’m not really supposed to have on the ship, I’m storing you in the least used and most filthy Waste Removal location within reasonable walking distance. It isn’t pleasant, but it’s the safest spot for something like this. Something this unscrupulous. Something this scandalous. Something this…conspiratorial. 
I just noticed it a week or so ago. I was at my post, working diligently, completing all my tasks, smashing all my goals, you know, the regular sort of stuff I do, when my eyes, completely unbidden, drifted across the EBI folder, which somebody must’ve carelessly left out and open at my workstation. I was, of course, busy with my incredibly important job so I couldn’t be partaking of that sort of distraction, but a small brown stain on the bottom edge of a page caught my attention like a coffee table catching the corner of your smallest tentacle in the middle of the night. 
Suddenly. And it made me swear. 
If you tilted your head a bit and kinda squinted at it, the stain resolved itself into the vaguest shape that somehow seemed familiar to me. I knew this shape, though I had never seen it before…but how…? My mind bucked, throwing itself again and again at the problem it couldn’t solve, yet was swiftly becoming obsessed with. 
I knew it. I knew this shape in a different way than I knew the dozen or so I was taught the names of at school. I knew this shape with my very being. The ever-shifting beast that was the truth beneath the stain ripped and tore at the confines of my mind. But what was it? 
It came together in a leap of logic that could’ve made a computer flush in abject shame and despair. The abstract shape of the stain wasn’t abstract at all, far from it, in fact, it was a perfect top down floorplan of our office if you reflected it in a mirror, every cabinet and desk and all four corners exactly where they should be, rendered in perfect scale to the real thing. It was even missing a door. And right at the edge of one filing cabinet there was a small star with an eighth point added, just like the moon-pirates used to do in all of the early development stories that were supposedly the next step in edu-tainment. 
I sat just a few feet away from that filing cabinet every single day. This mystery had caught my attention and made itself my partner, but it was about to learn why all my educators have described me as “difficult to work with” and, “an immense distraction to themselves and others”. 
It was only a matter of time… 

The other instruments fade back out and we have just the bass again, which slowly fades back to underscore the dialogue. 

Scene 2 

BETHANY: You know, I’ll be honest, I didn’t expect your spirit to break this fast, but the work you’ve been doing lately is really good. You’re hardly making any mistakes, you’re not causing all that many disruptions, you barely complain about the life you find yourself trapped inside of somehow because of forces beyond your control, and the off-white glands swelling in your major joints indicating lack of sleep really go nicely with the uniform. 

JONAS still hasn’t slept. Reality is slipping a bit. They’re holding it together, but the bass guitar reveals all. 

JONAS: Do you think we should clean up in here a little bit? It’s dirty, right? 

BETHANY: Do you know what a non-sequitur is? 

JONAS: Bethany, come on, stop responding in ways that don’t logically continue the established conversation. Should we clean? There’s a lot of dust. I could start with this filing cabinet, here. Look. Ugh. Filthy. 

BETHANY: It’s always dusty, it’s a dusty ship, just be glad the gravity only pulls it in one direction now. We’ve got other stuff to do. Besides, Janitorial will handle it within a couple years if we get a request in by the end of the week. 

JONAS: Yeah but we don’t need to bother Janitorial, do we? You said it yourself, I’ve been doing good lately, think of it as a gift. 

BETHANY: Cleaning implies a level of passion that died long before you arrived in this office. 

JONAS: Oh. Okay. That’s fine. It was just a thought. 

BETHANY: No problem, the occasional thought isn’t bad, let’s just remember that we’re trying to do our jobs here, not win any awards for it. 

JONAS: I got it, understood. 

BETHANY: Alright, then. 

Silence and bass, always the bass. 

JONAS: You know, speaking of Janitorial, I was talking with one of their people outside the cafeteria the other morning. 

BETHANY: Oh yeah? 

JONAS: Yeah, nice people. We actually got to talking about dust. 

BETHANY: That quick, huh? That’s a heck of a way to start the day. 

JONAS: They said that some scientists back planetside had actually studied the makeup of dust. 

BETHANY: No kidding? 

JONAS: Yeah, looking back it seems pretty obvious that it’s something that’s happened, I just never thought about it, you know? 

BETHANY: Sure. Perfect breakfast conversation. 

JONAS: They were telling me that in a contained area, like a small office in the bowels of a large ship, the dust can be made up of almost 62%  follicular and skin flakings from employees. 

BETHANY: Lovely. 

JONAS: And that got me thinking, you know, since I’ve been here for a while now, a good bit of that must be mine, huh? It’s kinda weird to think about just how much of each other we take into our bodies just by breathing in this enclosed space for hours and hours on end. I’ll bet if you looked inside your lungs, there’d just be a little pile of me at the bottom. Just a dusty little Jonas pile, hanging out in Bethany’s lungs. Growing bigger by the day. Interesting, right? 

Silence, and a bass guitar REALLY hinting that JONAS is on the edge. JONAS, outwardly, is still maintaining pretty well, all things considered. 

BETHANY: Jonas? 

JONAS: Yes? 

BETHANY: You have my permission to clean, as long as you promise to never say anything like that again. 
Scene 2.1

The other instruments fade back in again, and the S.I. Theme begins. JONAS has begun to slightly channel a 1940’s detective.

JONAS DIARY V/O: It wasn’t easy, but then again, nothing about my job ever is. Except the easy stuff, of course. By using cleaning as my ruse, I was able to inspect the filing cabinet with Bethany being none the wiser. I felt bad for deceiving my coworker, but then again, this could be dangerous. They don’t pay many of us to play hero, after all. Technically, not even me. 
The clue was ingenious, and it took me a very long time to work it out. Somebody lacking my detective caliber might’ve given up the trail entirely, but I noticed a series of seemingly unrelated scratches and dents near the bottom of my metallic, file-holding, friend. I had never been in the Planetary Scouts, but when I looked at those imperfections, something in my head told me that’s where the answer lay…but why…? 
I took a small impression of the scratches and dents on a scrap sheet of paper that was lying nearby, and mentally filed away a note that we really did need to get Janitorial Services to come by, this place was filthy, and I hadn’t done much actual cleaning. 
As I sat at my desk, pretending to work, my mind was spinning and obsessing like a passenger on one of the torture-carnival rides from planetside. But was I one of the ticket-holding passengers there to enjoy a few minutes of carnival thrills, or one of the state-mandated prisoners about to endure years of whirling and twirling as they served their barbaric sentences? Only time could tell. 
What was the connection between the Scouts and this clue? Why couldn’t I let that piece of it go? Where was this mystery taking me? Why have my headaches started to pound like an off time bass riff in a post-synth-jazz song? It just didn’t make any sense. 

The other instruments fade back, and we return to just the bass and the room tone. 

Scene 3

JONAS still has not slept, and is no longer really holding it together. 

BETHANY: You’ve been staring at that bunch of papers for the last quarter of a shift, you gonna file those anytime soon? 

JONAS: Huh? Oh, yeah, definitely. Just…just doing the last few checks. 

BETHANY: You’re double checking things now, too? Do you need to go to Medical? 

JONAS: No, I’m fine, I’m fine, hey, random question, were you ever in the Scouts, by chance? 

BETHANY: Scouts? Like, the Planetary Scouts? 

JONAS: Yeah. 

BETHANY: No. I wanted to be, but my caregiver didn’t like the politics. I just wanted to learn metallic whittling, and intergalactic morse code, and how to make people feel guilty when they don’t buy something from your little booth while they’re out and about, but, you know, whatever. Why do you ask? 

JONAS: Oh, just thinking of childhood, I guess. We…I… had to double check a lot of things in my childhood, so that’s probably why my mind went there. 

BETHANY: Gotcha, gotcha. Were you ever a scout? 

JONAS: Yeah, for a little bit. 

BETHANY: Did you like it? 

JONAS: Eh. I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention. 

Instead of fading in nicely, the rest of the instruments crash back in suddenly, propelling us into another JONAS monologue. 
Scene 3.1

JONAS DIARY V/O: Intergalactic morse code. That was the key I was looking for. Slashes and circles, the oldest messaging trick in the messaging trick book of messaging tricks. 
Unfortunately, I had spent too much time in the Scouts doodling with a stick on the ground instead of listening to any of the Leaders, so I never actually learned any intergalactic morse code for myself. However, that wasn’t anything that wouldn’t be solved with a quick trip to the Communications sector during a break. Hand over a little bribe, get a little info from the people who know it best, bing bang boom, clue deciphered. And that’s exactly how it all went down. 
One priceless family heirloom later, and I was in business for myself. The message on the cabinet was short, as I knew it would be. It was also just a string of numbers, which I didn’t expect and which weren’t helpful in the slightest. 21-13-23-950. It meant nothing, unless there was something inherently important about a number just slightly over 211 million. 
After a few hours of thought on the subject, turning my mind down every back alley of thought it dared to walk, I concluded there was nothing important about that number, inherently. It was a very dull few hours. I needed something to drag my interest out of the boredom bar it had been secluded in. And I knew just the thing… 

The rest of the instruments don’t stop so much as they kinda all fall away. 
Scene 3.2

BETHANY: If you’re really just gonna sit around reading the EBI folder this brazenly, I’m gonna assume your work is done, right? 

JONAS: Everything is cataloging, and there’s nothing to do until it finishes. 

Awkward pause with non-awkward bass. 

BETHANY: Are you, uh, are you doing okay? 

JONAS is not doing okay.

JONAS: Yeah, why? 

BETHANY: You’ve been very…quiet and almost professional lately. 

JONAS: People get quiet and vaguely professional sometimes. 

BETHANY: And you’ve spent the last couple hours muttering a number really quietly to yourself and then saying “no” in this sad and frustrated voice. 

JONAS: Yeah. You know, people do that sometimes, too. 

BETHANY: Do they? 

JONAS: How long has it been since you’ve been around a bunch of other people?

BETHANY: It’s been a good little while. 

JONAS: Then yeah, people absolutely do that sometimes. 

BETHANY: Okay, well, be careful with the folder. It’s technically contraband. 

JONAS: I can cover it with other work if anybody comes in. It looks like everything else in here. 

Another awkward pause with non-awkward bass.

BETHANY: What story are you reading? 

JONAS: It’s one called Playing Anti-Chess While Dying Alone. 

BETHANY: Where’s that at? 

JONAS: Let me find it here, it’s uh, no planet designation, Incorporation Date: 5.01.9356.QQ.
 
BETHANY: I meant, where’s it at in the folder? 

JONAS: Kinda beginning toward the middle-ish. 

BETHANY: What page number? 

JONAS: There’s page numbers? 

BETHANY: Inside left, down at the bottom. Every fifty pages. 

JONAS: I never noticed that. 

BETHANY: Yeah, it’s really helpful when you get into the hundred millions. Otherwise it all just kinda runs together. 

JONAS: …hundred millions… 

Other instruments underscore this moment of understanding. 

BETHANY: Jonas? 

JONAS: Huh? 

BETHANY: What page is your story on? 

The following number is read as “two hundred eleven million, three hundred twenty three thousand, nine hundred fifty.”

JONAS: 211,323,950. 

BETHANY: That’s toward the beginning? It can’t be. 

Same as before but “One million, eight hundred ninety five thousand, four hundred…..and fifty…..ish.”

JONAS: Oh, I mean, uh, 1,895,450. Ish. 

BETHANY: Yeah, that sounds right. You sure you’re okay? 

JONAS: I’m fine. 

BETHANY: Because those were two very different numbers.
 
JONAS: Totally fine. 

BETHANY: Okay then, I’ll take your word for it. Don’t work too hard, okay? Just enough to get the job done, we don’t want anybody knowing we can put in actual effort here. Then they’ll start expecting things from us. 

JONAS: Nobody’s ever had to tell me that before. 

BETHANY: I…I believe that, Jonas. I do. 
Scene 3.3

The rest of the instruments make a nice subtle entrance again. JONAS’ voice has gone beyond a bit of 1940’s detective and straight into parody territory. 

JONAS DIARY V/O: Without even knowing it, Bethany had blown this mystery wide open. Page numbers. Of course. And every 50 pages… it fit perfectly. Too perfectly. It was almost as if Bethany wanted me to figure this out somehow. But how could they know about it when I had been playing everything so normal and nonchalant? 
It didn’t add up. 
But I couldn’t get sidetracked with questions like that. I had a date with Page 211 million, 323 thousand, 950, and all my hearts were pounding like an adolescent about to entwine tentacles for the first time. 
As I scanned the story, it all began to piece itself together in my mind. Love. Betrayal. Intrigue. And then, my worst fears realized. Murder. And all centering around the person that was currently sitting half a room away from me. 
Bethany. 
I leaned on the table, adopting a posture of work-worn weariness while I tried to process this. It just didn’t make sense. It didn’t fit the picture of the person who I’d come to know and be trained by. My leader. My teacher. Aboard this ship, my only possible friend, although they would deny it. And so many unanswered questions… 
Why would Bethany do something so callous and cruel? 
Why point me in the right direction? 
Why leave a trail of obscure clues in the first place? 
What was there to gain with so much to lose? 
I knew I’d have to confront Bethany sooner or later. The tension between us was unimaginable. The room might as well have been a closet, every move and every moment magnified by stress. I, of course, kept my cool, but I knew something had to be done. 
Remembering a vague plot point of a story I’d nearly been forced to read during my educational period, I charted my course and launched my psychological attack. 

The other instruments fade back out, leaving a bass guitar and a JONAS who has passed the point of no return but is desperately holding back the flood. 

Scene 4

JONAS is actively puddling the floor with sweat. We can’t hear this at all, but it should be known. 

JONAS: (Very stressed.) Hey, do you wanna hear this story I just read? 

BETHANY: No thanks. 

JONAS: Oh, uh, okay. 

Awkward silence. Subtle but insane bass guitar. 

JONAS: Are you sure? It’s a really good one. 

BETHANY: I’ve either read or uploaded a good majority of them, I’m sure I’ve heard it before. 

JONAS: Yeah, but you might not have. Or you might’ve forgotten. That can happen. People forget. 

BETHANY: They do, but I’m also working and don’t really need the distraction right now. 

JONAS: Oh, well, yeah, that’s understandable, I’m just saying, it’s one of my new favorites… 

BETHANY: Jonas, you might’ve finished everything I gave you for today and it’s fine if you want to read that old thing quietly as long as you’re not caught with it, but you don’t get to ruin my day and put me behind schedule because you want to read me a story. 

JONAS: Am I allowed to improve your day and give you the fire you need to finish out your shift with a story? 

Small pause. Space madness.  

BETHANY: (With a sigh.) Is it a long one? 

JONAS: No it’s pretty short. But very important. Short but important, so you gotta listen really good. 

BETHANY: How short? 

JONAS: Couple minutes. 

BETHANY: Okay, I’m gonna start working again in a couple minutes then, whether you’re done or not. 

JONAS: Okay, okay, totally, deal. “Royal Swine” Discovered by Bethany. Uploaded and saved by Bethany. Incorporation Date: – 

BETHANY: Okay, see, when it says “Discovered by Bethany” that’s a pretty big clue that I already know the story. 

JONAS: I think you’ll still want to hear this. 

BETHANY: You’re so friendly, yet so wrong most of the time. 

JONAS: As I was saying, Incorporation Date: 8.28.8282.R. 

BETHANY: Lotta eights and twos in that date. 

JONAS: Are you going to interrupt the whole way through? 

BETHANY: Only as long as it amuses me. 

The EBI Theme begins to mix in with the bass guitar, which gets a bit less insane. 

JONAS: Royal Swine. 
Two quadrupeds worked the fields near the communal burrows. They were Brizanch and Penambra, and they had known each other ever since they had grown old enough to begin working for the fellowship of families they belonged to. 
The plots of land were right next to each other, set a small distance away from most other plots, in a small hollow formed by stones that would not be moved and a small creek that aided in irrigation when the rain refused to fall for the long periods that it did. None of the other quadrupeds wanted to work that particular area because things didn’t grow particularly well, so you never really felt like you were doing any good working there, you were just kind of existing. 

The EBI theme is silenced with every interruption, and resumes when the story does.

BETHANY: Jonas I already deal with my own terrible job, this isn’t exactly making my day better. 

JONAS: You’re the one who put it in the folder in the first place, give it a chance. 

BETHANY: You of all people should know that everybody makes mistakes. 

JONAS: Ignoring that… 
Since they had the worst place to work in the whole of the fields near the communal burrows, Brizanch and Penambra bonded quickly, forming a friendship that really helped the two of them get through the day in a more or less neutral to pleasant state. Their friendship got so strong in fact, that Brizanch told Penambra a secret one day when they were alone. 
Brizanch told Penambra that they had discovered a way to manipulate the bile vesicles on their back in a way that made a little sort of a humming sound. It wasn’t very pleasant, but it was fun in an annoying, half-tuneful sort of way. 
Penambra was very excited about this and spent the whole rest of the day jiggling and jostling their own bile vesicles until they were able to hum right along with Brizanch. And that’s what they did for days and weeks and months and years. Spent their time together in their little field-patch, away from most of the others humming along to one another and just trying their best. 

BETHANY: How heartwarming, this is almost done, right? 

JONAS: Just…could you just…please? 

BETHANY: I’m pretty sure your couple minutes is up. 

JONAS: It’s almost done, I promise. 

BETHANY: It had better be. 
Scene 4.1

JONAS: The humming and the field-tending continued until there came a growing season that was the driest anybody could ever remember. Everybody’s patch of field started producing like Brizanch and Penambra’s, and Brizanch and Penambra could barely grow anything at all. Times were tough, and there was less humming between the two friends and more arguing and attempting to coax life from a ground that was unwilling to give it. 
After one particularly bad argument Penambra walked off, in that haughty way that most quadrupeds seem to have. Brizanch watched them go, and then returned to their work, humming a soft, if angry tune to themselves. 
Penumbra returned soon after, with a group of the Elders of the community who had been informed about Brizanch’s humming, and were there to put a stop to it. Brizanch wouldn’t be allowed to return to the communal burrows until the drought stopped, since all the troubles the group had been having were clearly tied to Brizanch’s newly found ability to hum. 
It took months for the drought to break, and in that time Brizanch never hummed. Never spoke a word, in fact. And when the rains finally came again and the creek swelled and the fields grew in their beautiful purples and golds, they brought confusion and tragedy with them as Penambra disappeared. 
They were found weeks later when the water receded, having drowned in the raging, muddy, creek. The death was ruled to be an accident. Even though they knew one had nothing to do with the other, Brizanch never hummed again. All the joy had left it somehow. 
Brizanch just tended to both fields, and kept to themselves. Forever. 

Scene 4.2

Small pause. Thoughtful bass. The EBI music fades away. 

BETHANY: Are we done? 

JONAS: What’d you think? 

BETHANY: I think that’s longer than you said. 

JONAS: No, no, deeper than that. 

BETHANY: Jonas, what are you getting at? 

JONAS: I just wanna know if it hit you emotionally at all. You know, dug up any memories, connected to any pieces of your past, explained through art some terrible piece of your history and compelled you morally and emotionally to some sort of outburst or statement that might be a clue in a mystery currently being solved, you know, general stuff like that… 

BETHANY: Huh. Have you been feeling alright, lately? 

JONAS: Oh come on, we don’t wanna talk about me, we wanna talk about you. 

BETHANY: Let me see your pupils. 

JONAS: My pupils are fine! 

BETHANY: Jonas, let me see. Mhmm. All your pupils, Jonas. Yup, that’s what I thought, look at the middle ones. Look how small they are. 

JONAS: There’s nothing wrong with my pupils, this is all a distraction. You’re trying to distract me! 

BETHANY: Okay, first off, the wall panels shouldn’t be calling the floor sealant immovable, secondly, what could I possibly be trying to distract you from? 

JONAS: Oh sure, you can play dumb all you want but I know about your old partner and what you did to them! 

BETHANY: Excuse me? 

JONAS has gone full Pepe Silvia. The bass tells all. 

JONAS: 
Yeah that’s right, I found it. I found your little clues that you hid. I know all about the stain you put on the bottom of the EBI folder that looks like our office if you reflect it in a mirror, I know about the slashes and circles you put there, designed to look like regular wear and tear but in reality giving me a secret in intergalactic morse code, leading me back to the EBI folder and to a very specific story which tells the tale of two creatures with names that begin with the letter “B” and the letter “P”, both working a dead end job until, after an argument, one kills the other, exactly mirroring what must have happened in this exact office before I came to work here. 
You are Brizanch, your old coworker was Penambra, the two of you got into some sort of fight and you killed them. And ever since, your conscience has been driving you insane, forcing you to leave clues and a trail to a piece of evidence that was obviously written by you as a form of confession! 

Small pause. Insane bass fading down into normal-ish bass. 

BETHANY: Are you done? 

JONAS: (Slightly out of breath.) Yeah, yeah, that’s all of it. 

BETHANY: Okay, we’re gonna take you to medical. 

JONAS: You’re gonna have my mind wiped, I knew it! 

BETHANY: Jonas, there’s no point in wiping an empty mind. You’re just sick. 

JONAS: I’ve never felt better in my life! A little obsessive, I guess, a little nervous and on edge, maybe, but what could you expect, I’ve been working as a detective for weeks! I’m just a little stressed is all! Is it hot in here? Why is it so hot in here? What did you do to the heat, you sadistic murderer? 

BETHANY: No, Jonas, you’re sick. You haven’t had your data inoculation have you? 

JONAS: Hah, see, I’m not crazy, you’re crazy, there’s no such thing. 

BETHANY: Jonas…hold on. 

A few papers are shuffled around and we hear some typing. 

BETHANY: (Reading from a computer.) Teammate Jonas is overdue and should immediately report to medical for routine inoculations. Any illness or injury occurring during a shift that may have been prevented by a routine inoculation will not be covered or treated. Reminders will not be sent about routine inoculations, as they have been labeled an unnecessary expense. 

JONAS: But I’m not sick! 

BETHANY: Not physically, no. We deal in data, Jonas, that’s how we can get sick. So much information flows through here that if you’re not properly vaccinated against it, certain pieces get into your mind, multiply, and begin to take over. Some people get really obsessive about doing the job perfectly, some people get addicted to the data stream and refuse to stop working until they physically can’t, and some people, like you, begin to connect random bits of extra data that don’t actually go together until it becomes a full blown conspiracy. 

JONAS: But the story, the story fits so well, it’s perfect.

 BETHANY: We’re playing with big numbers. The EBI has hundreds of millions of entries. You can find one in there that fits almost any existing conspiracy, and a thousand more that haven’t even been considered. If you look at some of the background meta-data for that story, you’ll see that it’s not real. There was an eating contest on one planet where these beings had to consume a bunch of soup with little bits in it made to look like their alphabet. Two of them became sick afterwards and expelled most of the soup from their bodies, and all the little alphabet shapes fell in such a way that they made this story. 

JONAS: So my big conspiracy, the thing I’ve spent so many hours on, the thing that’s taken up my entire waking life lately… 

BETHANY: Word vomit, Jonas. It’s all word vomit. 

JONAS: Oh. 

The bassline finally comes to a conclusion. 

JONAS: Huh. Well, I’m gonna go to medical. 

BETHANY: Feel better, detective. 
Scene 5

There is a brief period of silence, and then the bass guitar starts again. 

GIL: This is Gil. I have found this diary in my favorite Waste Removal location. I have been enjoying it while removing waste, but then it just kinda stops for no reason, and that makes me sad. It makes me wonder what the overall point of the story was, and question my own assumptions that I’ve made thus far, and that leads me into a dangerous level of introspection that I did not anticipate, nor agree to, when I began enjoying this light entertainment. 
Once again, this is Gil, I am removing waste, this is not my diary, I just wanted my opinion to be known. 

Slight pause. Funky bass lick. 

GIL: Hi there, Gil again. I guess this story isn’t going to go anywhere anymore, so I’m just gonna throw this out. It’s been here for years and years and I just can’t hope anymore. I have to live my own life. I can’t get sucked into this. 
Once again, this is Gil, this is still my favorite waste removal location, but I think this will be the last time I visit. Too many memories. Too many broken dreams. 

Slight pause. Funkier bass lick. 

GIL: Gil again. I didn’t throw it out. 

Light sobbing. 

GIL: I just don’t know what my life has become… 

One final funky bass lick, and the credits theme begins to fade in. 

Credits

ROBO ARCHIVIST: (Episode Title) inc.

LEAH: inc is written, produced, and edited by Monte D. Monteleagre and Alexander Wolfe. 

ALLYSON: Hi, my name is Allyson Levine and I voice the character of Bethany.

RAIMY: Hello, my name is Raimy O. Washington and I voice the character of Jonas.

(Anybody who has done a character voice will do that vocal pattern when they say the name of the character and it will be edited into that voice as well. 

KATIE: Hello, I’m Katie Ploetz and this episode I played Gil.

ELLIS: My name is Ellis MacMillan and I am the Robo-Archivist.

LEAH: And I’m Leah Cardenas.  I read the ship announcements as well as the Credits. 

Find us online at incthepodcast.buzzsprout.com for links to all our social media, or connect with us directly @incthepodcast, that’s @ I-N-C the podcast, all lowercase, all one word, all the time. 

As a fledgling show attempting to take lift off, we’re not above asking you for a little help in spreading the word. Ratings and reviews on whatever platform you consume content on helps feed the algorithmic beasts that control all our lives from behind the shadows, and if you’re far too unplugged from the system for that, word of mouth has always been a wonderfully organic way to build a community and we'd be delighted to be the latest podcast you tell people to listen to, knowing full well that most of them never will. One must imagine Sisyphus happy, after all. 

inc is a production of Wolf Mountain Workshop.

Happiness is productivity.

Productivity is happiness.