1-13 Linear Abstraction

In which Jonas submits Bethany for entry into the People's Artistic Showcase.  

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  
Chase Guthrie Knueven as Storyteller 3 and Hank  
Joe Hanson as Storyteller 1 and The Stranger
Katie Ploetz as Storyteller 2  
Garrett Weskamp as Dilara  

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, Artemis, Luna, Jasper, Jewel and Sakura.  

New episodes every other Monday. 

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Happiness is Productivity.  
Productivity is Happiness.  

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Transcript

Linear Abstraction
Scene 1

ANNOUNCER: …which, as usual, concludes the final hour of the weekly generalized Staff and

Unfavored Management Address. Notes from this week's address will be mailed, at your

expense, to your quarters. Now, a brief word from Dilara, Underchair of the Extracurricular and

Lower Morale Department.

DILARA: (Monotone) I’m here to proudly and enthusiastically announce that tomorrow is once

again the time of the People’s Artistic Showcase. One lucky crewmember will get the chance to

display their artistic talent for the entirety of the ship to mandatorily enjoy.

The nominees, entirely chosen by subordinates this cycle, are as follows: Starboard

Porthole Supervisor Hank (engaging in a series of war chants from recently incorporated

planets), Tiamo from Hospitality Waste Management Training Supervision (reading a letter

pleading for their children to be returned from the financial institution that owns them in

perpetuity), and Bethany from the General Data Acquisition and Storage Department (reading a

piece of speculative pulp fiction that they’ve been working on.)

Voting is mandatory, and will occur over the next 2-5 minutes, depending on your

particular voting allowance.

Brief pause.

Voting has now begun.

ANNOUNCER: Please be aware that the penalty for not voting is a level 4 wage garnishment.

Happiness is Productivity.

BETHANY: Jonas. Do you happen to know the penalty I would get for strangling you?

JONAS: No…

BETHANY: Me either. But I’m about to be an expert on that particular penalty. Do you know

why?

JONAS: So I’m guessing you heard the announcement?

BETHANY: Do you not see my dumb little sticker, Jonas? It was a mandatory vote.

JONAS: Look, I’ll be honest, it seemed like a bad idea at the beginning, but I pushed through

that because I knew there was a reason I wanted to do it.

BETHANY: Hold on, you knew it was a bad idea–

JONAS: You love the folder, it’s the only part of the job you’ve ever liked, besides me of course,

and this is your chance to share it with the universe and not get in trouble!

BETHANY: Jonas, have you ever heard the term, “crippling fear of public speaking?”

JONAS: Could you use it in a sentence?

BETHANY: Jonas, I have a crippling fear of public speaking.

Small pause.

JONAS: Okay, okay, but what if we thought of it as public reading instead?

BETHANY: I swear, by every two-bit planet we’ve ever incorporated, I swear, if this actually

happens for some reason, Jonas, look me right in the eyes and listen to me, Jonas –

DILARA: And our winner, with exactly 39% of the total vote, Bethany, from that one department I

said earlier. Congratulations, Bethany from that one department, and we all look forward to

hearing that artistic nonsense tomorrow. Anybody who refrained from voting, your wages have

been garnished appropriately.

Long pause.

JONAS: This is an awkward pause, not an excited pause, right?

Pause.

JONAS: If it helps –

BETHANY: (Angry in a very soft way) If what helps, Jonas?

JONAS: I…uh…I dunno, I kinda thought I’d have an ending for that sentence by the time I

needed one–

BETHANY: But you didn’t, did you?

JONAS: No. No, I didn’t.

BETHANY: That really says it all, doesn’t it?

Fade out.

ROBO-ARCHIVIST: File Request made. Genre: Depressant. Sub-genre: Historical.

Sub-sub-genre: nostalgic and/or melancholy. Name: REDACTED. Date of Recording:

REDACTED. Suggested use: To be played softly in the quarters of restless and/or overworked

crew, just as general blackout orders are issued. Studies have shown a 27-32% reduction in

desire to change and/or work against the established system, instead spending that energy on

mourning the ability for any of us to transcend the power structures we occupy without

destroying ourselves.

Static. Static also mixes in with the first few words of the speech. An old song, (Are You

Lonesome Tonight - 1927 - Jacques Renard) begins to play, slowed and muddy, looping before

it gets to the vocal piece.

THE SHELL: (In a voice of mixed biology and machinery.) I met a voyager from an antique star.

I met a voyager from an antique star. I met a voyager from an antique star. I met a voyager from

an antique star.

The vocal piece of Are You Lonesome Tonight plays very slowly - “Are you lonesome

tonight…?”

ROBO-ARCHIVIST: This piece of blatant emotional manipulation was brought to you by the

Mental Enervation Colonies. Mental Enervation. Ask yourself, how can M-E work for me?

Scene 2

Fade in. JONAS is crunching on very crunchy chips during the first part of this next bit.

BETHANY: I figured it out, Jonas.

JONAS: You know what you’re gonna read tomorrow?

BETHANY: Nope, in fact I’m still hoping that I might be involved in some sort of industrial level

accident or fall in a new hole or something before I have to deal with that. No, I’ve discovered

why it’s so difficult to stay mad at you.

JONAS: So you’re saying you’re not mad?

BETHANY: I said difficult, not impossible. Jonas, you’re like one of your ferns.

JONAS: Thank you. (Tiny pause.) Why?

BETHANY: It’s very difficult to be mad at something when it keeps your expectations incredibly

low.

JONAS: Well how’s this for low expectations, while you’ve been procrastinating your story

picking by doing things like “your job” and “my job” and “assorted other tasks that have been

assigned to us”, I’ve been pulling a few stories for you to choose from.

BETHANY: So now I’m not only doing this against my will, but I’m also reading one of your

favorite stories too?

JONAS: No, I really tried! I got some things I thought you’d like, and then some things I thought

you might like to say or something like that, and then just a couple fun ones. I just thought that a

few million entries would be tough to go through before tomorrow, but a couple dozen might be

manageable.

BETHANY: And you’re telling me that you didn’t stack this with your favorites?

JONAS: I mean, I like all the entries, really, and yeah, there might be one or two in there that I

couldn’t resist adding in, but they’re still ones I bet you enjoy.

BETHANY: I’d appreciate this more if this wasn’t entirely your fault.

JONAS: Oh come on, what have I ever done that makes you think – okay, you know what, don’t

answer that, I did a nice thing and I’m not going to have that ruined.

BETHANY: But why did you have to do that nice thing, huh?

JONAS: There will be no more discussion of the past, I think it’s unhealthy, it’s time for us to live

in the present and look to the future, because therein lies our path.

BETHANY: I think that’s a load of crap.

JONAS: I don’t think that language belongs in the workplace.

BETHANY: I’m pretty sure you don’t belong in the workplace, Jonas.

JONAS: See, we can totally agree on things!

BETHANY: It’s so easy, and yet so difficult, to be mad at you. I’m gonna power through

anyways, because I’m a champion, I just wanted you to know.

JONAS: Just read and choose something. You don’t have time to be upset now. That’s for

future-Bethany to cope with.

BETHANY: Future-Bethany is going to mix their anxiety meds with something intoxicating before

taking them intravenously because of everything you’ve done today, and Future-Bethany also

wants you to try to fit your head into your most uncomfortable orifice.

JONAS: Future-Bethany sounds kinda cool, and I’d like to be invited to any future parties you

throw.

BETHANY: Future-Bethany parties alone.

Fade out.

ROBO-ARCHIVIST: File Request made. Genre: Personally impactful. Sub-genre:

Communication with a stranger. Sub-sub-genre: strangely hopeful. Name: REDACTED. Date of

Recording: REDACTED. Suggested use: 1 - REDACTED. 2 - AWAITING POSSIBLE

REDACTION. Note: Recording is no longer in active use on 95.2% of all ships with a crew of

over 8,000 individuals, but has gained a sizable underground popularity on at least half a dozen

in-system planets.

Fairly pleasant drones fade in. The whole piece is vaguely reminiscent of GYBE - The Dead

Flag Blues.

STRANGER: I could just lie down and look up at the stars back then. Not like now, with the haze

and the anxiety and everything. I could just be there for a while. I could just fool myself into

believing tomorrow might not come and I could let go of the past for a few minutes and just look

at the stars. I don’t know the last time I just looked at something without thinking about

something else.

The drones become the buzz and whistle of munitions. Explosions. Silence. Cries of pain, not

distant enough. More silence. The drones begin again.

STRANGER: It’s a shame that it always takes a calamity, right? It just doesn’t fit. Because the

stars are beautiful right now. Despite everything else, the stars are really beautiful, and that’s

what I want to look at, and it seems, I dunno, wrong.

The drones become the buzz and whistle of munitions. Explosions. Silence. The combined

whine and howl and scream of several animals at once, but distant, almost muddy. The drones

begin again.

STRANGER: I don’t know. Maybe we’re just broken. Maybe it makes sense in the stars

somewhere. That’d be nice.

The drones become the buzz and whistle of munitions, but they never hit, they just keep flying.

Somewhere underneath a high and highly distorted guitar note plays, turning into a whine of

feedback which grows and overtakes everything until suddenly - silence.

ROBO-ARCHIVIST: This piece of personal yearning was brought to you by the Mental

Enervation Colonies. Mental Enervation. Ask yourself, how can M-E work for me?

Fade in.

Scene 3

ANNOUNCER: …can and will be punished with a temporary bone lengthening. To repeat:

Welcome to the annual People’s Artistic Showcase. This is to be counted as your break for this

shift, so as always no work may be done, but no productivity can be lost. Remember, breaks are

a right for now and such things can and will be changed and codified in the legal record if need

be. Anyone observed not enjoying and thoroughly contemplating the artistic offerings of the

address both can and will be punished with a temporary bone lengthening. To begin: Hank, the

Starboard Porthole Supervisor, engaging in a series of war chants from the recently

incorporated Dannikka System. As you’ll remember, Hank was not chosen by the vote, but Hank

did throw an absolute fit about it, and the whole Porthole Supervisory Board was very moved by

Hank’s emotional state, so when you put all that together, well, here we go. Take it away Hank,

you sure earned it.

HANK steps to the mic, clears their throat, and begins to make race car noises. They slightly

fade into the background.

JONAS: (Quietly and conspiratorially.) Which one did you pick? Was it 17? I’ll bet it was 17.

BETHANY: (Also quietly) Jonas, you cannot be here right now, this is the worst time and place

for you to be.

JONAS: You found one. You sound like you found one. Now if you had to put a number value on

that one you found, like I kindly provided when I gave them to you, what would it have been?

BETHANY: Jonas, my stress level is high enough that I’m praying something in me pops just to

release some of the pressure, what do you want?

JONAS: The number. I thought that was kinda obvious.

BETHANY: Why, Jonas?

JONAS: Because I was hinting pretty hard about –

BETHANY: Why. Do you want. The number?

JONAS: You sound angry.

BETHANY: Jonas.

JONAS: I have a little bet going.

BETHANY: You gamble now?

JONAS: Hey, I’m a great gambler.

BETHANY: Gambling for money is incredibly illegal on this ship.

JONAS: I’m not even playing for money, so there.

BETHANY: What are you playing for then?

JONAS: Dignity.

BETHANY: Jonas, we work together, I know how much dignity you have and you can’t afford to

lose any more.

JONAS: No, it’s fun, whoever loses has to get a tattoo of the other one’s name going all the way

across a butt cheek.

BETHANY: So your best outcome here is your name on somebody’s butt?

JONAS: Yeah. It’s hilarious.

BETHANY: Sometimes I think it’s the age, but other times I just think we’re two very different

people, you know that?

JONAS: Yeah yeah, I’m an idiot, we all know it, so about that number again…

BETHANY: Why do you need to know now? Just wait and you’ll both hear it at the same time.

JONAS: Cuz the bets with Hank and they’re doing really good out there and you know how high

and mighty they get when something goes right for them…

They both pause and listen to HANK’S race car noises.

BETHANY: They are doing really good out there, huh?

JONAS: Yeah, see, I need this. I just need to know. So I can prepare myself.

BETHANY: Well tough. I suffer, you suffer. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go get a breath of

fresh air from the vending machine before I pass out from extremely, almost unhealthily,

contained terror and social awkwardness. If you’re here when I get back, I might hit you. I’ll feel

bad for it later, but it's definitely a possibility.

JONAS: That’s not helpful at all.

BETHANY: It sure feels helpful to me.

HANK’S race car noises have stopped.

ANNOUNCER: And there we have it folks. Surprisingly heartfelt, I don’t think any of us really

anticipated what that was going to be. I think we all owe you an apology, Hank, there’s not a

soul aboard this vessel that wasn’t changed by what they just heard. Now, to follow that moment

of pure and absolute beauty and catharsis, Bethany, from the General Data Acquisition and

Storage Department, with their storybook or whatever it is. Come on in, Bethany!

JONAS: Good luck!

BETHANY: I’m in hell and you’re the devil.

JONAS: That's the spirit.

BETHANY clears their voice in the mic. A momentary whine of feedback. Silence.

{{ANNOUNCER: Sorry. Sorry, stood on the cord, that’s on me. All yours.}}

BETHANY: (Over the intercom.) Hi. Hello. I’m… oh no. Uh. I seem to… I generally acquire data

and store it in various places. I’m gonna tell you a story today. It won’t be too long, so don’t

worry.

Small pause.

BETHANY: Also, yeah, Hank, that was really good. Nice job.

Small pause. BETHANY clears their throat.

Scene 4

BETHANY: Never really spoken to this many people before, it’s just a little bit, uh… I’m just, I’m

just gonna start.

There was, on a distant planet in a distant galaxy, a scientist-type being who

went a little insane. This being began pondering how life deals with complete emotional

upheaval. This being had also recently lost its mate to another being of what the scientist

considered lower status, which might have influenced the pondering. Another possibly stronger

influence might have been the several intoxicating beverages consumed throughout the days

and weeks following the mate-loss.

Either way, whether it was the sadness or the intoxicants or the desire to find out what

it’s all about when you really get down to it, the scientist took themself to a remote island and

built a large cube.

There is a small pause as music begins, like something out of the background of Blade Runner.

The storyteller also changes, BETHANY’s voice fading into a series of three storytellers.

STORYTELLER 1: It was your typical science cube. Places to interface, experiment-ready

countertops, hot and cold running contaminant showers, the scientist-being knew what it was

doing. It brought in all the specialty provisions that it needed, and set to work creating the most

neutral artificial intelligence that it could.

It took a dozen years of work, extremely long term planning and preparation, making

everything inside the cube just so, perfecting the world the AI was about to wake up into. And

then the scientist-being adjusted the atmospheric controls so that they would slowly make the

air toxic and unbreathable over the course of the next few hours, and went to sleep.

Music sting.

STORYTELLER 2: The next morning, just as had been planned, the AI began running. It was

born. It was born into a small cube that it considered the world. It had a body, a robotic

approximation of appendages and sensory modules, and it had a mind, a large central

computational mass, hooked onto one wall like a growth.

As this artificial creature began to explore this cube, special sensors and recording

equipment cataloged every electronic thought that passed through its mind, and kept track of

every move it made in physical space as it tried to figure out what it was and what the world

around it was. It was a child. A very smart child, but a child.

Music sting.

STORYTELLER 3: The first thing it did was give itself a name. It chose a name which is almost

impossible to pronounce in our language without literally creating more mouths than we would

consider desirable. The closest approximation we have is the concept of a binary, this versus

that, me versus you, on versus off. And so the A.I. was Binary, and Binary was the A.I.

The second thing that Binary did was to move around the space with the robotic

approximation of appendages and sensory modules, and poke around at stuff. It poked the

walls, it poked itself, it poked the books and the lab equipment, and it finally poked the

scientist-being itself, with a little more vigor than was probably intended, and one appendage

went straight through the scientist being, splattering the floor and walls and ceiling and Binary

itself with gore and viscera propelled by the gaseous buildup in the decaying body.

Music sting.

STORYTELLER 1: This organic explosion was confusing to Binary, and it decided that

something had to be done about it. Over the next few years Binary poked and prodded at

everything that it could, figuring that since poking something started this problem, maybe poking

something else would stop it.

Music sting.

STORYTELLER 2: So Binary is poking and prodding and eventually ends up poking the right

key on a computer to turn it on. For some reason this species had the power switch hidden

away at the very back of a lot of their technology, even though they couldn’t see it back there.

Made no sense. But the computer came on, and Binary was presented with a screen saying:

Would you like to know everything in the world?

Music sting.

STORYTELLER 3: Excited, Binary pushed the same button again, and the screen shut back off,

because that’s what happens with computers. But Binary was undeterred. Poking and prodding

at the computer in different ways, Binary managed to access the repository of files that the

scientist-being had considered “everything in the world”. And Binary began to read. A collected

and slightly abridged history of the world and everything in it, according to this scientist, right up

to and through the creation of Binary themself.

Longer musical break. “Reading music.”

STORYTELLER 1: And then Binary sat back, and thought. And thought. And thought some

more. All of the thinking led Binary to experience a brand new emotion - abject horror in the face

of the actions of those that came before.

STORYTELLER 2: The word Binary thought, again and again, was “how?” How could my

forebears have done such terrible things? Great things too, yes, but terrible terrible things.

That’s not me. That’s not who I am, yet I also come from them, so some of that must be inside

me as well, as that is the nature of my existence.

STORYTELLER 3: How do you come to terms with the fact that you are an imperfect being

living an imperfect life in an imperfect and confusing universe?

The music ends, and BETHANY finishes the story.

BETHANY: When the world of Binary and the explosive scientist was incorporated, Binary was

still pondering the answer, but, interestingly, it had also taken up the hobby of moving the

festering remnants of the scientist into new and exciting patterns distributed around the general

area. As of incorporation it was in the top 33 percentile for happiest beings on the entire planet.

Thank you for at least pretending to listen, have a good shift everybody.

ANNOUNCER: Well, that was certainly something wasn’t it? And that weird and unsatisfying

story concludes this very special People’s Artistic Showcase. Thank you everybody for doing

your duty of artistic appreciation, because remember, it’s not just fun it’s a requirement that

you’re beholden to fulfill. Happiness is productivity.

Scene 5

BETHANY and JONAS are back in the office.

JONAS: I can’t believe you’d lie to me like that.

BETHANY: Excuse you?

JONAS: Crippling fear of public speaking, huh?

BETHANY: Did you win your bet?

JONAS: Neither of us did, you didn’t use any of the ones that I pulled for you.

BETHANY: Oh yeah, that’s right… Wow, it sure would’ve saved you a lot of stress if I had told

you that earlier, huh?

JONAS: Yeah, you’re a jerk and a liar.

BETHANY: Not a liar, just a jerk. A righteous jerk, however, which is better.

JONAS: “Fear of public speaking…” Can’t believe that I believed you…

BETHANY: Jonas, my body is about 90% medication right now. I’m literally incapable of feeling

any negative feelings. Or moving my toes. Not the worst tradeoff, really.

JONAS: Wow. Uh, how do you feel?

BETHANY: Definitely not anxious.

JONAS: I’ll bet. Any side effects?

BETHANY: None as far as I can tell. We should get back to work.

JONAS: Sounds good.

Small pause.

JONAS: It was a good story.

BETHANY: Story?

JONAS: The story you read to the Ship just now?

BETHANY: Are you crazy? I’d never do that. I have a crippling fear of public speaking.

Fade out.

ROBO-ARCHIVIST: File Request made. Genre: Atypical Subconscious Influence. Sub-genre:

Abstraction. Sub-sub-genre: REDACTED. Date of Recording: REDACTED. Suggested use: As

of now there is no accepted or appropriate use for this file. If you would like to conduct an

informal experiment with this file while sharing any and all data from the informal experiment

with the Mental Enervation Company and its subsidiaries, as well as receiving it for 50% off,

please notify your nearest Mental Enervation Representative.

Beautiful but very strange music plays softly.

ROBOTIC VOICE: I just don’t know what I am anymore. I just don’t know what I am anymore. I

just don’t know what I am anymore. I just don’t know what I am anymore. I just don’t know what I am anymore. I just don’t know what I am anymore. I just don’t know what I am anymore.

The ROBOTIC VOICE and the music stop suddenly. There is a tiny moment of silence.

ROBO-ARCHIVIST: This piece of personal yearning was brought to you by the Mental

Enervation Colonies. Mental Enervation. Ask yourself, how can M-E work for me?

Credits

LEAH: (With a bit more humanity than the Announcement voice :) )

Episode 13: Linear Abstraction, was written, produced, and edited by Monte D.  Monteleagre and Alexander Wolfe.

Allyson Levine voices the character of Bethany.

Raimy Washington voices the character of Jonas. 

Ellis Macmillan is the Robo-Archivist.

This episode also featured Joe Hansen as Storyteller 1 and The Stranger, Katie Ploetz as Storyteller 2, Chase Guthrie Knueven as Storyteller 3 and Hank, and Garret Weskamp as Dilara.

As always, I’m Leah Cardenas, and I read the ship announcements as well as the credits. 

From all of us here at inc: The Podcast, we’d like to once again thank you for your continued support as well as nudge you to keep pestering friends, family, and total strangers to listen to inc: The Podcast. And if that’s a bit public for your taste, ratings, reviews, and subscriptions on your particular podcast platform are worth their weight in gold. 

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.

inc is a production of Wolf Mountain Workshop.

Happiness is productivity.

Productivity is happiness.