11 characters: Clay, Amina, Announcer, Vang, Rosita, Yusuf, Boris, Forsan, Kruck, Peterson, Vatika
Click on a character's name to get their lines highlighted.
Clay (76 lines, 1479 words, 51.73%) - [David Loftus] Clay Erhardt is ready to reinvent himself and the world.
Vatika (14 lines, 170 words, 5.95%) - [Sweena Mangal] Doctor Maya Vatika, age 30, works at Monolith-Eigen Laboratories. Recent immigrant from India. Hindu.
Rosita (1 line, 170 words, 5.95%) - [Roo Ryder] Widow of Ray Lotus.
Peterson (16 lines, 181 words, 6.33%) - [Alex Foott] Psychologist.
Boris (3 lines, 17 words, 0.59%) - [Richard N] Employee of Interpantech. Under orders to keep Clay Erhardt happy and make him think he's important, but resents Erhardt. [complete]
Kruck (6 lines, 250 words, 8.74%) - [Richard N] President of the United States, Joe Kruck. Democrat, elected 2036 and staring at a likely defeat in 2040 and the hands of his most powerful political rival Senator Mary Ives (R-NV). [complete]
Amina (16 lines, 120 words, 4.2%) - [Kat Leroy] Widow of the person in whose body Clay now resides. Her parents emigrated from Turkiye to Czechia when she was a small child. She met her late husband Omar in Czechia and they emigrated to the USA.
Vang (3 lines, 47 words, 1.64%) - [Kate J White] Monolith-Eigen CEO Martha Vang
Forsan (18 lines, 248 words, 8.67%) - [jhqk] Bob Forsan is an executive at Interplantech.
Yusuf (9 lines, 63 words, 2.2%) - [Jaxon Arthur] Resentful 15 year old son of the dead man whose body Clay Erhardt now lives in. [complete]
Announcer (2 lines, 114 words, 3.99%) - [Paul Knierim] Announcer. [complete]
Script format: Margined | Marginless (for phone viewing)
1 Clay: I remember this house. And you, Amina... I see you in my dreams.
2 Amina: [reluctant] You'd better come in.
3 SOUND: comes in, sits on couch
4 Amina: Would you like a cup of tea?
5 Clay: No, thanks.
6 Amina: Omar loved black tea.
7 Clay: I don't care for it.
8 SOUND: awkward silence
9 Amina: So... how much do you remember?
10 Clay: Just impressions. The familiarity I felt that drew me here. And dreams -- I saw you in my dreams, you and our son. Is he here?
11 Amina: Thankfully he's at school.
12 Clay: Thankfully?
13 Amina: Yusuf hates you for not being his father.
14 SOUND: phone rings, clothing movement
15
Clay:
Sorry, my OTHER former wife is calling high priority.
Hi Minnie, what is it?
[stunned] Dead? He's dead?
Saturday, 9:30, Riverside Cemetery... got it. Listen, I'm in the middle a conversation with Omar's widow.
Bye.
16 Amina: You look like you've seen a ghost.
17 Clay: I just got word that someone, uh, someone close to me died.
18 SOUND: music for title sequence
19 Announcer: QuietPlease dot org presents Beyond Awakening. Starring David Loftus as Clay Erhardt. Episode 18, Second Death.
20 SOUND: cemetery
21
Clay:
Mack Hardcase was not my friend. We've been bitter rivals since long before either of us was born. But that was somebody else's decision, not ours. As I got to know him outside of the confines of our invented backstory, I saw something very different. Sure, he still tried to put on the mask of the confident in-control Captain sometimes, but you could tell that wasn't who he was. He was scared, he was helpless, he was pathetic, he deserved our pity.
As I stand over this coffin, I can't help wondering who it is we're burying. Is it Ray Lotus, who I never knew? The heroic Captain Hardcase who died on January 18th? The troubled creature, the sort of ghostly shadow of those great men who wandered the Earth since January? I suppose we're burying all of them. I hope he's finally found peace.
22 SOUND: Clay goes to sit down
23 Vang: Mrs. Lotus?
24
Rosita:
Thank you.
I knew Ray Lotus better than anyone, and I didn't know Mack Hardcase as well as some of you. But when I looked into Mack's eyes, I saw the same strength of character. The will to overcome. And yet life threw problems at him that he couldn't overcome. The hardest part was everything I did to try to help couldn't be enough, couldn't save him. Maybe some of you are having similar feelings, feelings that you should've been able to do more for him. But you can't, we can't live like that. You did what you could, and he pushed away some of the people he should've been bringing closer.
You'll notice the headstone says Ray Lotus. Ray's parents paid for that years ago. I'm having it modified to engrave the name Mack Hardcase in the lower half. Ray Lotus, 1995 to 2035... Mack Hardcase, January 18th 2038 to June 30th 2038. A brief life, but one of Earth-shaking significance. I think I can say with confidence that Ray would've been proud.
25 SOUND: applause
26
Clay:
[narration] We filed out, except for Rosita. Then Ray Lotus' loved ones began to arrive.
As I left that sad place that morning, I wondered if there was a headstone somewhere with Omar Barak's name on it, waiting patiently for me. But I felt very much alive. And I wasn't failing at life like Hardcase had -- I had my health, I had my job, I had ambition, I even had an invite to see Amina again.
27 SOUND: outside, knocking, door opens
28 Amina: Come in.
29 SOUND: enters house, door closes
30 Clay: Yusuf!
31 Yusuf: You're not dad.
32 Clay: No, not exactly.
33 Yusuf: Then who are you, what are you?
34 Clay: I'm six months old, how the fuck should I know?
35 Amina: Mind your language.
36 Yusuf: Mom, I've heard 'fuck' before.
37 Clay: I don't know who I am, I don't know who Omar was... I have memories of living 47 years as a fictional mad scientist Doctor Erhardt.
38 Amina: But also some of Omar's memories.
39 Clay: A million times less. But that's why I'm here, to learn about him.
40 Yusuf: Why?
41 Clay: What do you mean why?
42 Yusuf: Why do you want to learn about dad? Won't it just make you even more confused?
43 SOUND: pause
44 Clay: I haven't really thought of it that way. I'm someone who likes to collect all the data so I can carefully evaluate it before drawing conclusions.
45 Yusuf: Makes you nothing like dad, he always said analysis is paralysis.
46 Amina: Omar was the kind of guy who'd leap into trying to repair something without reading the manual or watching a video.
47 Clay: Interesting. Did he have a natural mechanical talent?
48 Amina: No, just overconfidence.
49 Clay: I've always been confident, but my skills have always matched my confidence.
50 Yusuf: So what you're saying is you think you're better than dad.
51 Clay: Well that's not... exactly....
52 Yusuf: I told you, mom. You see?
53 SOUND: pause
54 Amina: I think Yusuf is right. You're a stranger, Clay Erhardt.
55 Clay: I know I am, I never said just because I have a few memories...
56 Amina: This is a sort of uncanny valley. You look like my husband, you have bits of his memory, but you're not him. And that's...
57 Yusuf: Really messed up.
58 Amina: Yes. It is.
59 Clay: I didn't mean to--
60 Amina: You should leave now, and don't come back.
61
Clay:
[narration] I don't know why I'd expected anything else. You can't go into someone's home and dredge up painful memories and have your face be a constant glaring reminder of their loss and then expect a positive outcome.
I was in a bad mood when I got to work. A mood to cut through the usual bullshit and get to the bottom of things, to get answers.
62 Boris: Mr. Erhardt, you wanted to see me?
63 Clay: Boris, I'm sick and tired of getting the runaround. It's been months, I need to see actual progress on my projects -- prototypes! No more excuses!
64 Boris: [sigh] I guess you'd better see Mr. Forsan.
65 Clay: Who's Mr. Forsan?
66 Boris: He's my boss.
67 Clay: I thought *I* was your boss?!?
68 SOUND: quick cut, leather chair
69 Forsan: What can I do for you, Mr. Erhardt?
70 Clay: You can tell me what the heck is going on with my projects.
71 Forsan: You'll have to be a little more specific.
72 Clay: [animated] I submit my designs, a team takes them, then I never hear anything but vague platitudes. When I look into it, nobody's even sourcing materials. When I set up meetings with vendors, I always feel like I'm being humored instead of taken seriously, and my handshake deals get forwarded to legal and never heard about again. And now I find out I'm not even the real boss of my direct report...
73 Forsan: Business is complicated, Mr. Erhardt.
74 Clay: You guys said you were hiring me to change the world, but you seem to be actively TRYING to block me at every turn and give me the runaround!
75 Forsan: [sigh] Well... I suppose Boris is right, it's time to tell you.
76 Clay: Tell me WHAT?
77 Forsan: Your 'inventions' are, to be frank, useless nonsense.
78 Clay: WHAT?!?
79 Forsan: Let me take you through one. I've got your force field design here.
80 SOUND: paper movement
81 Clay: The multiphasic energy interference barrier.
82 Forsan: And that's a word salad right there. Let's look at your components. Start with the phase enhancer. How does that work?
83 Clay: It's a simple tool that leverages quantum energy differentials in the background radiation to generate an energy lattice.
84 Forsan: Except none of that is real science.
85 Clay: It... it isn't?
86 Forsan: It's science word salad. And then let's look at the confinement modulator.
87 Clay: Modulates a dark matter beam to confine the barrier and prevent leakage while ensuring the lattice doesn't damage the mechanism.
88 Forsan: [sigh] Utter nonsense. Your ideas were all generated from the input of the world's science fiction writers, and writers aren't scientists.
89 Clay: [animated] Then WHY did you hire me???
90 Forsan: It's all about stock prices, creating shareholder value.
91 Clay: But doesn't that require a PRODUCT?
92 Forsan: [laughing] Oh, you ARE funny...
93 Clay: [confused] It doesn't?
94 Forsan: Our stock rose 379% in the month after we hired you, Erhardt.
95 Clay: Because people thought I'd be inventing things for you, right?
96 Forsan: Maybe a few fools. Others saw you as the mascot you are, but they know how effective a mascot can be in driving both consumer and stock behavior. You're here to show people that we've got a stake in what's coming.
97 Clay: Mascot?! Then why have me work on my ideas???
98 Forsan: It's part of your image, that's what you do, you're not the same character anymore if you lose your farcical delusion that you're smarter than us and here to civilize us. So unfortunately this conversation is damaging your value.
99
Clay:
I QUIT!
YOU HEAR ME? I QUIT!!!
100 Forsan: That's fine, we got our value from you, we can just continue to hype the stuff you already started.
101 Clay: What?
102 Forsan: Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
103 Clay: [backpedaling] Maybe I was a little too quick--
104 Forsan: GOODBYE, Mr. Erhardt.
105
Clay:
[narration] I was furious, but helpless. I could only walk out. Have you ever been so swiftly and deftly cut down to size? So utterly made a fool of? Months of work, months of progress toward building the future I know this planet desperately needs, and it turned out to all be a farce meant to humor and deceive me.
It's easy to make a fool out of somebody new to your planet, even somebody as smart as me. And my former employer wasn't the only one playing me for a fool.
106 SOUND: phone conversation, Kruck has phone filter throughout
107 Kruck: I was sorry to hear about Hardcase.
108 Clay: Mr. President, that was the second time one of us has been kidnapped and held at gunpoint, third time we've been attacked. Are you going to do ANYTHING to protect us?
109 Kruck: You have my sympathy Mr. Erhardt, but you have to understand it wouldn't be a good look. I need to be tougher on you guys if I want a second term.
110 Clay: Tougher?
111 Kruck: I'm going to have to support some compromise proposals, like restricting your movements and making you wear identity markers so people know who they're dealing with.
112 Clay: But... that's practically MURDER! You KNOW we'll be targets!
113 Kruck: You have to see it from another perspective, people feel understandably uneasy about the possibility that anybody they encounter in public might be a cyborg. That kind of unease and distrust can tear apart a society. If you wear identity markers, then nobody else has to be suspected of being you.
114 Clay: This is outrageous! It's straight out of Adolph Hitler's playbook!
115 Kruck: [angry] Oh please, you had to go straight to Godwin's law. You haven't been living here, you don't know how bad things got in the 2020s, Americans shipped to El Salvador and Guantanamo Bay, the fleecing of the treasury and the end of scientific research... an alliance of fascists and oligarchs and Christian nationalists nearly succeeded in destroying American democracy. This country went through HELL to re-establish the rule of law and our constitution and the health of our people, we've still got the legacy of epidemics and floods, ten percent unemployment, protests everywhere threatening to boil over... I'm not going to hand Ives a win and risk our whole damn recovery on THREE people!
116 Clay: We'll speak out against you, we'll rally against this...
117 Kruck: You want Ives to be President? That's how you get Ives. Stop whining and count your lucky stars you've got ME.
118
Clay:
[narration] I wasn't quite prepared for that. For that level of cynical, calculated, amoral plotting. It seems democracy is a system that makes leaders out of the people who value power over everything else, and spend all their time scheming to retain their power or acquire more. I suppose no good-hearted person would have a prayer of competing with politicians who employ such calculated approaches. A cruel survival of the fittest.
Or maybe there was something to his argument. Maybe it's just the needs of the many over the human rights of the few. Sucks when you're the few.
119 SOUND: psychologist office
120 Peterson: You feel your world has collapsed on you.
121 Clay: It's YOUR world, not mine... and it's rejecting me. I'm like a transplanted organ that did okay for a few months but is suddenly being rejected by your immune system.
122 Peterson: Do you miss the simulation?
123 Clay: I think I do.
124 Peterson: If you could go back into it, would you?
125 Clay: I think... I think I would.
126 Peterson: Because it's safe?
127 Clay: And because I can make a difference there.
128 Peterson: What good is it to make a difference in a fictional world?
129 Clay: What good is it to be steamrolled in a real world? And don't pretend you people don't do the same thing -- I've seen how much time people spend enveloped in fiction... playing a game, VR, watching a show, reading. You people flee reality to the maximum extent you can get away with without starving.
130 SOUND: awkward silence
131 Peterson: I suppose many of us do.
132 Clay: Most of you. So don't judge me.
133 Peterson: I didn't say I was judging you.
134 Clay: You didn't say it, but you were.
135 Peterson: [carefully] Well, consider that part of growing up is learning to accept that the world doesn't bend to our will. To accept that we may not be able to make the difference we want to make. Kids imagine themselves growing up to become superheroes or presidents or astronauts, adults realize they can't expect so much. Almost everyone is in the same boat in that regard.
136 Clay: You're saying I expected too much, that I need to accept I'm just a tiny spec on this planet?
137 Peterson: Other than to change it, what would you like from the world?
138 Clay: I just want a chance to become my own man. Not what others have made me.
139 Peterson: You don't think you're getting that chance?
140 Clay: Everything going on in my life is driven by how I was created, who others made me. My so-called friends were chosen for me. Interplantech just wanted what I represented. The whole thing with Amina and Yusuf was because of Omar, not me.
141 Peterson: Don't you feel Omar is a part of you?
142 Clay: He's a part of my past, but I'm not him any more than I'm the mad doctor.
143 Peterson: Then who are you?
144 Clay: That's what people need to let me find out! I'm six months old, six months old, but it feels like the world is telling me I've run out of time and have to make a choice that'll be set in stone.
145 Peterson: You feel you've run out of time?
146 Clay: I KNOW I'm running out of time.
147 Peterson: Interesting.
148 Clay: Doctor Peterson, your society is sick. I've seen a lot of dying patients in my time, my imaginary time anyway. I've never seen one more pathetic, further beyond hope than this society. I can't fix it, I can't even make the slightest dent in your problems. I can't even protect myself, can't even hide away and ignore it. Unless maybe I go back.
149 Peterson: It's interesting that you feel this urge to return to where you were before you were born, much like a return to the womb.
150 Clay: [exasperated] Do you hear anything I'm saying, Doctor?
151 Peterson: I hear you.
152 Clay: Sure doesn't feel like you understand.
153 SOUND: transition
154 SOUND: monolith-eigen
155 Vatika: Mr. Erhardt! I don't think you're due for a physical for a while, what brings you to us?
156 Clay: Do you have time for a serious talk?
157 Vatika: Of a medical nature?
158 Clay: Not exactly.
159 Vatika: Sure, I can take my break now. Let's sit over there by the window.
160 SOUND: they go and sit
161 Vatika: So, what is it?
162 Clay: Doctor Vatika, I don't think... I don't think our situation in the world is tenable.
163 Vatika: You mean you, Misty and Trisha?
164 Clay: Yes. We've been attacked repeatedly, Mack was killed. The public either fears or hate us. Political forces are aligning against us. We can't stay anonymous. We can't change things. And we can't go on the way things are.
165 Vatika: I understand, but there's nothing I can do about it.
166 Clay: Maybe there is.
167 Vatika: I think you overestimate my importance.
168 Clay: No, I'm not saying you can change the world. But you and Minnie and your team can save us.
169 Vatika: How?
170 Clay: Take us back.
171 Vatika: You want to live here in Monolith-Eigen again?
172 Clay: No, I want to live on the Chimera.
173 Vatika: You're talking about... going back into the simulation?
174 Clay: I haven't decided, and I haven't asked the others yet, but I want to know if it's a possibility.
175 Vatika: I know Doctor Moreau would welcome it, it'd open up new research opportunities she's talked about. And it should lower tensions. Our CEO would have to approve it of course but I don't think that'll be a problem. Actually... hold on a sec.
176 SOUND: dials
177 Vang: This is Martha Vang, what can I do for you Dr. Vatika?
178 Vatika: Ms. Vang, Clay Erhardt wants to know how we'd feel about the possibility plugging him back into his simulated life on the Chimera.
179 Vang: Absolutely! It'd take a lot of the political pressures off me and bring our research back to where it can most directly benefit us. Tell him they're all welcome back whenever they're ready.
180
Vatika:
Thank you Ms. Vang, I won't take any more of your time.
Well, you heard.
181 Clay: Her eagerness makes me wonder if this whole idea is a huge mistake.
182 Vatika: We won't force you. You should talk with the others.
183 Clay: Yes. I'll set up a meeting with them. It's not a decision to be taken lightly.
184 SOUND: end theme
185 Announcer: Beyond Awakening episode 18, Second Death, was written and produced by Paul Knierim. It starred David Loftus as Clay Erhardt. Also featured were Richard N as President Kruck and Boris, jhqk as Bob Forsan, Alex Foott as Doctor Peterson, Sweena Mangal as Doctor Maya Vatika, Kat Leroy as Amina, Roo Ryder as Rosita Lotus, Jaxon Arthur as Yusuf, and Kate J White as CEO Martha Vang. This is Paul Knierim. Music licensed from Joel Steudler and creative commons zero and public domain sources. To learn more about Beyond Awakening or support the show, go to quietplease dot org slash awakening.