[WARREN IS PACING UP AND DOWN THE QUARANTINE SUITE EATING GRUEL ANXIOUSLY FROM A PLASTIC BOWL WHILE A RECORDING OF GORDON PLAYS]
GORDON
[animatedly, no longer meticulously scripted] … it’s all hidden in plain sight. It’s not even hidden! Everyone’s heard about the guy who got pushed off the top floor of the Overhead office in Düsseldorf. Everyone knows about the woman from Applied Sciences who boarded a flight to Hong Kong and never got off at the other end. And we all know about the guy who received his P45 from the Bio Science lab and then his flat burned down 3 days later while he was sleeping. This isn’t swept under the carpet. We all know. This is lore. Look… Let me find the notes I took when I spoke to - hang on -
[GORDON SCRAMBLES THROUGH PAPERS, KNOCKING A DRINK OVER AND CURSING]
WARREN
[confused] What are you talking about?… I don’t get this. I don’t get what’s happening here.
GORD
How do you mean?
WARREN
Right, stop, stop, stop.
[GORD PAUSES THE RECORDING]
GORD
Are you alright, Warren?
WARREN
I don’t understand.
GORD
Would you like to take a break and finish your breakfast? -
WARREN
An hour of sombre silence sitting in the rain getting stood up by his buddy and we then smash cut to full rabbit hole red-strings-on the-cork-board Gordon. Something’s missing. What’s happened to Oscar?
[PAUSE]
GORD
Is that rhetorical or would you like…-
WARREN
I mean we can imagine what happened to Oscar, this is Red Valley. Something bad. But we have the inside track, don’t we? Gordon doesn’t know that. So, what happened to Oscar?
[NO ANSWER]
WARREN
Not rhetorical.
GORD
Oh. We don’t know.
WARREN
Don’t worry about spoilers if it’s later on, you can just tell me now.
GORD
He’s never referred to again. This is the next chapter.
[WARREN FINALLY STOPS MOVING]
WARREN
This is the next chapter? Are there, like, timestamps on this, how much time has passed?
GORD
These recordings are taken from cassette tape. There are no timestamps.
[WARREN IS THINKING]
WARREN
He cares very much about presentation.
GORD
I’m sorry?
[HE STARTS PACING AGAIN]
WARREN
No worries. What’s next?
GORD
Would you like to take a break and finish your breakfast?
WARREN
No, I don’t need to - I can do two things at once -
GORD
Okay.
[WARREN SWALLOWS HIS MOUTHFUL]
WARREN
What even is this stuff by the way? And the guy that dropped it off, he just said hi and disappeared. Like what was that?
GORD
That’s a young man called Marm-
WARREN
Forget it. Forget it. Next.
GORD
Right.
[GORD SKIPS TO THE NEXT CHAPTER]
[AT THIS POINT GORDON HAS LOST ALL OF THE PRESENTATION SKILLS HE WAS HONING IN HIS INTRODUCTION - IT’S PURE STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS]
GORDON
So, you don’t even need to look that far to find other people like me. Well not like me, but you know what I mean. I found the places online where they gather, where they talk. All Overhead. From all around the world. Sharing their theories, their fears. They think it’s fun. Finding out the next terrible thing that happened in this place. They’re a gang. They call themselves the Headlice.
WARREN
[mouth full] Fuck Sake! What? Ugh.
GORDON
I’ve spoken to plenty of them. Earned my credentials. Caused quite a stir, turns out I’m not the only one who thinks bad things are going down at Red Valley. They joked about it. Just the latest canaries down the coal mine, they said. I keep them sweet, to know what they know. But I will never be one of them. I am no Headlouse. You want to stay ahead in this company, you better do it alone.
[WARREN’S ANXIETY IS GROWING]
WARREN
No.
GORDON
The latest theory is just bananas. Cryogenics. Human cryogenics, or cryonics, or whatever it’s called!
WARREN
[upset] Oh man… No! Next!
GORD
Okay.
[GORD SKIPS]
[WARREN AGITATION CAN BE HEARD CLEARLY AS, PARALLEL, GORDON SOUNDS EXCITED, FEVERISH]
GORDON
I have just been shown the most gnarly thing I have ever seen. I’ve been hassling the guy with the Demolition Man username for proof, and they finally sent me this. It’s video of an actual catastrophic triple point cryonic event taken at Red Valley! Triple point is when temperature and pressure combine to create simultaneous solid, liquid and vapour. Basically, freezing and boiling at the same time! And I just saw that happen with a fucking person in the middle of it. This guy was in a block of ice and then in an instant he was just… alphabetti spaghetti, he was slime! Oh God… I feel sick. But like… in a good way. I think this source is the real deal. Someone actually inside the cryonic project. Someone who actually worked with Bryony fucking Halbech -
WARREN
Fuck sake! What? Listen to yourself… No, no, no, no. NO! Fuck!
[WARREN THROWS HIS BOWL AND SPOON WHICH CLATTERS AGAINST THE WALL
[GORD STOPS THE RECORDING]
GORD
Would you like to talk about it, Warren?
[WARREN LAUGHS HOLLOWLY]
WARREN
[freaked out] I don’t fucking know what you are man. You don’t even sound like him. And that doesn’t sound like him. Not the Gordon that I know.
[PAUSE]
WARREN
I mean. Yeah. When I met him, he was sat at his desk in Archives, and… yeah. Fine. He was, wasn’t he? He was just like that, I thought he was a nutjob. But tha… that’s when I was… I wasn’t really me, not really… Oh… Christ this is all so fucked up… We all become different people.
[WARREN GROWS MORE UPSET AS HE KEEPS TALKING]
WARREN
[shouting] He shouldn’t be here. If I hadn’t walked in that office that day, if I hadn’t fed whatever it is that drives this ridiculous behaviour, he’d still be sat at his desk shopping for a fucking tortoise, in 2020, where he belongs. I made him come here, and he never left.
GORD
Would you like to listen to any more recordings?
[WARREN IGNORES HIM]
WARREN
Why am I awake? I mean, why now? What’s the point of me just being in here on my own going out of my head?
GORD
Aubrey would like to discuss that-
WARREN
Yes, I would like that too. So why isn’t she here? I’m awake, I’m me, how can this, how can me listening to nothing but tapes of him and your creepy voice be Plan A?
GORD
Aubrey would like to discuss these matters personally -
WARREN
It isn’t Plan A, is it?
[NO ANSWER]
WARREN
This isn’t how it was meant to go, is it? Something’s gone wrong.
GORD
Warren, I think at this point we should take a moment to breathe and reflect -
WARREN
Fuck. There is no we. Where’s Aubrey? Is she even here?
[NO ANSWER]
WARREN
Hello?
[A NEW VOICE COMES OVER THE COMM]
AUBREY
I’m here, Warren.
[CUT]
WARREN
He’s gonna die, isn’t he?
AUBREY
If I believed that, there would be no point in keeping it from you.
WARREN
So, what’s happening, why have you left me in here?
AUBREY
It’s a very busy time right now, Warren…
WARREN
Oh, come on.
AUBREY
It’s true! I assure you there was plenty of fuss when you first woke up. I know you’re probably used to being the main event -
WARREN
Come again?
AUBREY
I’m just saying, this is a particularly complicated time right now -
WARREN
Why? Tell me why!
AUBREY
I can’t explain one part without explaining the rest, and I can’t explain the rest until you’ve seen it, and you can’t see it until you’re out of quarantine.
WARREN
Then let me out, I’m fine. Is this even a real thing, or are you just watching me to make sure I don’t stab myself in the hand or something?
AUBREY
Quarantine is quite real, Warren. It’s been 44 years. We need to give you treatment to make sure you’re safe out here. And we need to make sure you haven’t brought anything dangerous with you. There was some nasty stuff around back then.
WARREN
You haven’t told me anything Aubrey. I don’t even know how we’re still at Red Valley, it’s been 44 years, what even happened out there-
AUBREY
You and Gordon were put in hypersleep in the two available cryopods. I sealed you in the tunnel below the station and destroyed any access in or out.
WARREN
And no one has come looking -
AUBREY
I sealed you in. I buried the whole lab.
WARREN
How?
AUBREY
With explosives. Took a lot of work to get back in here you know.
WARREN
I - do you even know what you sound like to me? -
AUBREY
[calmly] Warren. What matters right now is that you’re safe. The answers will come. I know that nothing I’m saying or doing right now is helping very much. And you’re right, this isn’t exactly how I wanted to do things. I’m sorry, but here we are. I guess this was never going to be easy. But I need you to trust me. We’re doing everything we can for Gordon.
WARREN
Okay. Thank you, I guess.
AUBREY
I really can’t stay I’m afraid. But it won’t be much longer. Alright?
WARREN
Alright.
AUBREY
Alright.
[AUBREY PAUSES BEFORE SIGNING OFF]
AUBREY
You shouldn’t blame yourself you know. Gordon was always going to end up here, one way or the other. You heard him on those tapes.
WARREN
Maybe. The day I met him, it changed things. You can’t pretend otherwise. And that’s on me.
AUBREY
You know that’s exactly how I feel when it comes to you. All we can do now is try and make things better. While there’s still time.
WARREN
[exhasperated] Oh, what do you mean while there’s still tim-
AUBREY
Oh my God, it’s a turn of phrase! It doesn’t mean anything!
WARREN
You cannot help it, can you? You have to be dramatic!
AUBREY
I do not!
WARREN
You do so!
AUBREY
Oh, go to sleep!
[AUBREY CLICKS OFF]
[PAUSE]
WARREN
Gord?
GORD
I’m here.
WARREN
You ran to mum when I threw the breakfast bowl, didn’t you?
GORD
I can only do so much in my capacity as a caregiver.
WARREN
‘Caregiver.’
[WARREN LETS OUT A BREATH, CALMER NOW]
GORD
Would you like to return to the memoir?
WARREN
I don’t know.
GORD
There are multiple recordings related to you.
WARREN
Yeah… I don’t need to hear any of those right now.
GORD
Okay.
WARREN
How… how does it end?
GORD
The memoir?
WARREN
Yeah.
GORD
It hasn’t ended.
WARREN
Humm… Of course, let’s… let’s be optimistic. To be continued.
GORD
Indeed.
WARREN
Well… Go on then.
GORD
Go on what?
WARREN
Give me another Porlock haiku.
[A SLIGHT PAUSE]
GORD
The pink-footed goose. Its squawk heralds a new day. Covered in bird shit.
WARREN
Excellent. It’s very on brand. How many of these have you got?
GORD
119.
[WARREN SITS DOWN ON HIS BED]
WARREN
We best crack on then.
GORD
Metropolis zone. Is where I always give up. Just a faff, I think.