¶ Episode Introduction and Mimetic Effect
If you're a podcast host, listen up, this one's for you. My name is Allie Jackson. I'm the host of Finding Mr. Height, a dating and relationship podcast that I've been doing for four years now, sharing my positive and practical approach to dating that's built on my own life experience. And I wanted to share another experience.
That I've had my secret behind monetizing my show. It's called Red Circle. And I was just telling my colleague about how much I love their platform. With Red Circle, not only am I getting a seamless hosting experience, but I also love the support I receive in ad sales. It's not just typical.
ad sales either. It's targeted opportunities based on my show and my life. And the platform is super simple. You just set your preferences and Red Circle matches you with sponsors that align with your show. You can vet every opportunity and their platform gives you great analytics. More recently too,
my Red Circle team has brought me opportunities outside of my podcast on social media to really augment the podcast partnerships, bring them full circle. I just can't recommend them enough. If you want to give it a try, go to redcircle.com to get your free trial. That's redcircle.com for... free trial. Hi everyone, this is Anna. I want to thank Plantain, Kenneth Shaughnessy, and Nathan Black, who just joined our Patreon this month. Thank you all for your support. We are really glad that you...
like the show as much as you do. If you would like to join them, you can check out the link to our Patreon and our Ko-fi accounts on our Twitter and check out the rewards that we have available. All right, thank you and enjoy the episode. Okay, let me try this again. There's... What was I talking about again? Damn it, I think it was important. There's... Oh, there's a stain on my shirt, for one thing. Has this been here all day? Why didn't anybody tell me? What were we talking about?
So I'm doing an experiment with people where we're trying to tell others about... Let me try this again. Just as an example. It's sort of like... Okay, so there's a part in the show where one of the characters can turn people's faces into books? That sounds dumb. It's cooler when you watch it, but he can write stuff into their life, and then they can't... They can't...
Wow, I'm completely losing my train of thought. Wait, wait, wait, no. That's not what I meant to say. I was talking about... Fuck, you made me forget. Give me a second, it's on the tip of my tongue. This isn't working. Bye. I suppose the fact that I can say it into my radio with no weird sudden distraction or forgetfulness kind of implies that... It... doesn't think anyone is listening. Oh well. No new information here. Maybe I should try recording it and... Uh...
Something like a... Wait, no, that wouldn't... You know what, never mind. There's a mimetic effect in the site, affecting everyone. except for five, er, six of us, who are affected by a different mimetic effect that prevents us from telling anybody about either of them. Which is stupid, and I hate this very much. Anomalies are the worst.
¶ Post-Reset Team Reorganization
Aren't you their boss? Technically, Xiao is everybody's boss. They're the only legitimate level four in here. Uh, Xiao isn't the acting director, though? Only because they were one of the ones that opted out. How's the head? It sure is. Radiger, the hand. Ring finger back on. Pinky gone forever. Hurts a lot. Can I see? Sure.
Oh, I want to see two! Don't take it off! That's an order. Stay on topic. We need a course of action here. According to the upper management meeting, engineering lost progress on the site intranet, so we're starting back on square one for that. We're starting at square one for everything. Not botany, though. Apparently it didn't affect plants or alive things. So...
The renewable food project is more or less undisturbed. Is that why people's injuries didn't reset either? Probably. It sucks about the pinky. It's fine. So everybody at least tried to tell somebody about the memetic? Tried? Yeah, I couldn't get anything coherent out. Yep.
Every time I tried, I ended up rambling about Mandarin grammatical structure. Okay, but what happened when you tried to talk about the skip? Shut up. Being in research, I'm in a good position to look into the skip itself. See if there's anything we missed. That's going to be hard now that all the notes are gone. I know, but I can safely say that my team's memories are still at least somewhat sound. Lancaster, I want you watching your patients and taking notes on the-
Other effect. Yep. What do I do? I don't know. I'll come back to you later. Harley, you lost all your recordings? Unless they made it out somewhere. Yeah, they're gone. Let's be optimistic and keep going with those. You have lines of communication with everyone, yeah?
More or less. Think you could stay in contact with them to keep resources in check? Make sure everybody's playing fair? Is that all I can do? Rediger, eyes. Yeah? Yeah. Okay, we need to find somebody else to be on surveillance with her, remember? Right.
Haldi's working on it. Security took the brunt of the BC2 re-collapse, so a lot of them were the ones that got teleported back into the rubble when we reset. Who else is on surveillance right now? Just me. I'll watch the recordings back when we're done here. What? That doesn't sound... Weren't there other ones? It can't have been just you. There were three of us. What happened to the other ones? PC2. Shit, dude, that really sucks. Are you like-
Okay. What? We should move on. Yeah. So, what? You were just watching the cameras by yourself for eight hours every- 20 hours. Excuse me? I'll take a shift. You sure? Okay, somebody needs to, because that is not helping. It seems easy, and I'd rather not wait for whatever else you want me to do, so yeah, I'll do it. It's a very small room.
Why would that be an issue? Shove it, shrink. It's not a problem. All right. All right. Everybody got a plan of action? More or less. Good. We've got work to do, everybody.
¶ Uncovering the Mysterious Wall Device
You shouldn't be drinking that. You shouldn't be drinking that. You're gonna get stomach ulcers. Besides, I've only had one today. Fine. So, found anything? Well, sort of. Why do you have that? I need to drill a hole in your wall. Okay. Also, why? Right before we reset, I saw something really weird. Yeah, I also saw...
Something weird during the anomalous monster fire that reversed time. Harley, I'm serious. All right, what was it? It looked like a glowing wire. I asked maintenance and engineering. Nobody knows what it is. It went toward your office, so I'm assuming I can get to it from here. All right. I mean, what's the worst that could happen? The walls put themselves back together eventually anyway. Great. Okay, come over here. Whoa.
What happened to your wrist? Oh, that's nothing. I think I just fell on it during the fire. Pretty nasty bruise. Yeah, uh-huh. Can you just hold onto this for me? Have you gotten it checked out? It looks like it could be a... hairline fracture or something. Harley? It's fine. Alright. So, are you still planning on therapizing Agent Love? Um, sort of. She blew off my offer for sessions, but we made a compromise.
Can you hand me that little saw? The mandatory friendship compromise? She has to eat lunch with me for a minimum of 20 minutes once a week. It's not therapy. It's just being coworkers. Nice. Classic. Speaking of which, you're drinking again. All the alcohol came back. Buddy. Do you blame me? You were doing really well for a while. I will bring it up to Rivera if you don't. I'm working on it. All right?
Don't look at me like that. Tell me about your feelings, Harley. No. Tell me about your feelings. I have a saw. I feel useless. Why? It's pretty clear that there's nothing helpful I can... Really do. Well, that's not true. Blank, there's nothing I can do that anybody else can't also do. Well, maybe, but that doesn't mean you're useless. I don't even get invited to the meetings. I asked about you. They said...
It's complicated. There are already a lot of people in that room. I'm working on it, okay? What about you? How long did it take to dig you out this time? I didn't see. I was helping get somebody out from under the rebar. He was faster than last time. Are you? Are you good? Yeah, I'm good. Hang on. Is that what you're talking about? What? Give me the saw.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's it. That's it. That's the thing I saw. Looks like it's moving. It'd probably be a super bad idea to pull on it, wouldn't it? I would venture to guess yes. Well, it's not actually... I don't think it's actually moving. I think it's just sort of glowing. Is it a wire or a tube? I think it might be a combination of both. It's connected to something. Look how far back it goes. Yeah. Colcline. One step ahead of you.
¶ Surveillance and Rift Anomalies
And so I'm all bloody and covered in mud from the under the log thing. And I must have hit this kid like eight times before the sergeant pulled me off of him. Want to know how many push-ups I had to do for that one? 500. In a row. It took me forever. You don't talk much, do you? Hey! Don't touch me. Okay! Jeez. You're really weird. You know that... What, were you living in here or something? Sleeping. Sure.
Totally not creepy. Everyone keeps a sleeping bag in their office. Is this all we do then? We just stare at all those screens for 12 hours? Cool, so I can leave then? Pretty sure I've got it down. Yes, please leave. I will! Wait one second. What? Look, on the rift. I don't see anything. color it's in black and white no it's lighter right there no you're right is it is it cracked no that's impossible
You didn't have cameras on the skip during the blackout? No. Do you think there's something you could do to it that would... cause a blackout? Or... reset time? All right. Other than that, how's it going? Uh-huh. All right, I'm getting you cleared with Hodges today, so soon you'll have some equipment to, uh... Oh, good. I trust your judgment. Just try not to touch it unless you have to. We still don't know what it's for. No, I said don't touch it, Lancaster.
Great. If you get to a point where you need to mess with it, tell me before you do anything. I don't want any more injuries or anything on our hands, and that thing could be dangerous. Engineering is working on the internet again. I may see about getting their help getting into Carson's computer. Have Love or Radiger talked to you yet? Yeah, that...
I wouldn't put too much stock into that theory. I mean, I've been around the skip a lot. I think I would have noticed if somebody had hit it or something. And it might be a kind of hazardous thing to try testing out. So... I'm putting a pin in that one for now. It's worth checking out, but yeah, don't worry about it. Tell them not to worry about it. It's the kind of thing I can investigate myself or tell Masterson about.
And this is off topic, but did they happen to mention if they found a third person for the surveillance office? Alright, we'll have to figure that out too at some point, I guess. Thanks for the update, and let me know if anything weird happens, or if you... Figure out what it is and don't touch it. All right. Godspeed, boys. Check in later. How do you make normalcy?
¶ Adjusting to Anomaly and Team Dynamics
How do you take a hopeless, terrible situation and hope to turn it into something that just... feels like life? How long does it take before you adjust to it all? Maybe what I should really be asking is how did we as a species get so good at turning everything mundane? I mean, look at me. I'm sitting here longing for the days of my previous status quo.
You know, the status quo where I worked for a secret shadow government organization that contains and studies things that literally break every law known to science. That was my normal. For years. It's amazing, the things you can get used to. But hey, we've got more leads. This whole thing, the reset, it feels like a chance to restart. Maybe this time we'll get a little closer. Or we'll get a little more... evened out. I wouldn't mind relaxing for a second. It's been a long time. I'm not...
Sure. About the others. Lancaster's been my friend for years, but working with him can be frustrating. He's stubborn. And he doesn't always listen to me. Or to other people in general. And things would be much easier with Klein if she would tell me what she's thinking instead of throwing out some vague excuse or telling us she's taking care of it herself.
Officer Radiger seems... difficult, to say the least. And Agent Love, well, Agent Love is Agent Love. Pretty sure I don't have to say anything else. on that. But we can't exactly choose the cards in these situations, can we? I'll come back with anything we find about the mysterious device in the walls. That's... what I'm choosing to focus on. So, think upon that, Overwatch Command, or whoever else is out there. And as always, if you can, find us alive. Thank you.
Episode 8 was written and produced by Anna McGuire. The voice of Harley is Ian Charles. The voice of Lancaster is Jackson McMurray. The voice of Agent Love is Tabby Bardal. The voice of Klein is Tasha Ritter. The voice of Radiger is Anna McGuire.
If you like our show and want to support us, follow us on Twitter at Site107 or visit our website at www.findusalivepodcast.com. This podcast, along with all content relating to the SCP Foundation, is released under a Creative Commons Sharealike 3.0 license. Thank you for listening.