X Porter

TRANSPORT into TERROR!

One fateful day, under the London Eye, a certain controversial tech investor steps out from a yacht and reveals a secret that forever changes the fate of humankind. Only Portia Singh, a stubborn, brilliant scientist, dares to refuse the new technology even as the world changes around her in unthinkable ways. 

This is a grand, satirical adventure about science and ethics, and how technology dissipates us by degrees, first from others, and ultimately, from ourselves.

Transcript

Intro

SPEAKER_12 0:00

Welcome back to Stark Raving. Can you imagine a world where something you take for granted is altered beyond recognition? Let's say it changes how you interact with and view the world. You don't even have to really imagine, do you? Social media has changed how we communicate and present ourselves to each other. It's changed how we seek out and distill information. We now have more freedom than we ever have to explore any idea, any theory, and then share and reshare until that idea, no matter how far-fetched, becomes gospel. Does that alarm you? Or is it just another inevitable human evolution? So I'd like you to imagine a world where the way that you travel is changed forever. You ever wish you could just teleport yourself from one part of town to another, one country to another? Save yourself all the hassle and anxiety of a commute, the traffic, the crowds, the security checkpoints, all gone. Sounds like a dream come true, right? Well, imagine then that this technology enters the public space and becomes so pervasive that, like the internet and social media, humanity doesn't realize where it's headed until it's too late. How would it change us? My original version of this story, called The Virgin Porter, explored this idea. At that time, I imagined all the ways this new technology might change us. In the many years since I first published it in 2012 in my novel, its premise is still relevant, but the world has fundamentally changed. This required a complete renovation of the story. I've hauled it into the present, deconstructed and fine-tuned it to reflect the anxieties we face now, the speed of information, the muddying of truth, the paranoia, the uncertainty, and the villainy that we now face in everyday life. If characters are our children, Dr. Portia Singh has not only graduated from school, but she's now teaching me a thing or two about what it takes to navigate the world today. She's a believer in science and technology and progress, but with an ethical compass that makes her a beacon in a fast-changing world. She hails from a place of knowledge and truth rather than solely feelings or superstition or ignorance. She may be faced with a conspiracy, but she's not a conspiracy theorist. She is the best kind of skeptic, the kind we need more of today. So as we start this new tale, I want you to imagine a day, not unlike today. You're waking up and scrolling through your feed, and you see a story about a demonstration, something in London, something set to change the world. You've heard this before, but something about this one feels different. So you tune in. Introducing the exporter.

Musk's Announcement

SPEAKER_03 4:01

Eddie Gilman here with Newsmax Truth Social. What is going on? After taking X into the world of social connectivity, advertising, banking, and space travel? What exactly is next for Musk?

SPEAKER_01 4:17

Hey fame. X got this frontal seat. Going to be just a few minutes. So while we wait, make sure you hit like button and subscribe, okay? Bye bye.

SPEAKER_11 4:28

If you're rejoining us in London, this is CNN's live coverage of the new X announcement, Musk's Unveiling. Now, Elon Musk is known for turning memes into business decisions with an investment strategy that can only be described as trolling. We're told that this is a new technology, a shocking technology, that leak coming from Musk's own team. So he certainly has our attention today on the Banks of the Thames.

SPEAKER_12 5:09

Doug Henson reporting with Tara Schilling. Okay, so good morning, Tara. Very good morning to you.

SPEAKER_10 5:17

Good morning, Doug. Good morning to you too.

SPEAKER_12 5:20

We are just a few minutes away from what we're told is going to be a very important demonstration. We now see the yacht carrying Musk inside, we assume, for what is uh what the press note states, an earth-shattering announcement. Okay, Tara, uh, could this be a world-class trolling from uh Mr. Musk?

SPEAKER_10 5:41

Yes, and perhaps no. I mean, this is Musk. So he's certainly no stranger to uh, shall we say, riotous proclamations? So it could be both. It could be none. He certainly has the public's attention.

Under the Eye

SPEAKER_08 5:58

The public's attention he had. This is what I remember about that day. I was only a small girl then, but over the next ten minutes, the world did change forever, in literally the blink of an eye. It happened in London, near the eye on the tens on May 25th, in front of hundreds of thousands of onlookers, and captured on countless live streams and news broadcasts. Elon Musk, the eccentric and tenacious investor, had made an announcement. He invited influencers first, then authorized social media commentators, and lastly, that dying breed, news networks. He invited them all to this event, this demonstration that changed absolutely everything, making our world borderless. Now Musk's eccentric ventures were well documented, but many were skeptical that the world was on the brink of fantastic discovery. No one believed him. And who would? He was a showman. The Express release stated that an innovation on display would change the way you travel forever. Even up until an hour before the ceremony, one pundit on BBC speculated that a new company would be unveiled or an offshoot of X, and that it would be related to banking. Other commentators guessed that Musk had found a way to offer low-cost, high-altitude flights to the masses, a fusion of SpaceX and a new reservation and charter system, or maybe something like Cybertruck 2.0. In the years that followed, I looked at this footage many times, so I can still see it in my mind. With all lenses aimed at Musk and a fenced-off space near the water, and a deep pool of influencers standing by, Musk stepped out from the port side of the yacht, carrying a small satchel. He wore a unitard covered in small dots. His dark hair was swept back from his forehead with an item that resembled a black tiara. This was a very unusual look for the normally image-conscious Musk, so everyone's interest was piqued. He looked self-conscious dressed this way, insecure. When he saw the security team waiting for him at the end of the passerel, however, his face changed and he strode boldly toward the group of unsmiling, black-clad men and women who guarded him.

Rod & Clicker

SPEAKER_08 8:34

Musk's voice shook slightly as it echoed out over the speaker set all along the channel.

SPEAKER_15 8:40

Okay, so none of you know what exactly I am about to do, so so watch carefully, okay? It happens fast.

SPEAKER_08 8:50

He grinned awkwardly and lifted a small, extendable titanium rod from his satchel. He set it on the ground and held up a small clicker, pressed it once, and the rod sprang up next to him to match his height.

SPEAKER_15 9:05

Uh I promise this is no troll. Uh not a troll this time. Uh, it's just me. Maybe not. Maybe not. Okay, let's do uh let's do to infinity and beyond, or something.

SPEAKER_08 9:19

He kept his eyes open, and the next moment the tiara, the one that had been on his head, rolled to the ground, and the Unitar stood floating in the air for a second. It blew into the waking arms of an assistant. Musk was simply gone. No flash of light, no sounds, no fanfare. Just standing there one moment and not standing there the next. The rod was still there, and as everyone stood aghast, it retracted back to its original height. An assistant took the rod and placed it back in the satchel. The only evidence that Musk had ever been there at all was an empty unitar and a black tiara, lying on its side on the ground, on the very spot where he had stood just a moment before. First, stunned silence from the crowd, then came the barrage of reactive commentary. Of course.

SPEAKER_03 10:23

I am uh personally very disappointed that Musk didn't bring us back to a gold standard. He showed us a magic could be pull an X out of a hat.

SPEAKER_11 10:33

We can't confirm or deny what has just happened, but it appears that yet again, the world technology hype man has kept the heart.

SPEAKER_14 10:42

I don't know what just happened, bro, but holy shit. I don't know, man. What do you think? Um, send me your thoughts in the comments or we oh my god.

SPEAKER_09 10:54

I was up close for that demonstration and it was amazing. Oh my god, oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 11:02

Musk has just wasted the public's time again.

After the Eye

SPEAKER_08 11:08

This idea that we had all been duped didn't last long. In reality, what had just happened on the banks of the River Thames, under the big wheel, was a miracle of quantum proportions. The technology to transport human DNA intact, letting a person be in one place, then another, no matter how far, in a matter of seconds. The moment after he blinked off the pavement in London, Musk was almost 10,000 kilometers away in his home country of South Africa. He blinked into a secure office in the center of Cape Town, where a team of reporters whose equipment was confiscated up to the very moment he appeared in their midst, grabbed greedily for their gear, and began furiously reporting the news. Musk had done it.

Seeds of Teleportation

SPEAKER_08 12:04

As for me, I was barely young enough to remember, so I grew up seeing this technology like people once saw airplanes back in the early 20th century. Pop culture nods to beaming and teleportation were already all around us, even before we were born. So for us, growing up in a world where one can be in California one moment and Burma the next was not so far fetched.

SPEAKER_06 12:33

Free to go.

SPEAKER_08 12:42

Yes, Star Trek carried the idea into the mainstream, but it was also rumored that Elon Musk, after the Star Trek Discovery Writers Room decided to name him a tech pioneer in its pilot episode, became obsessed with making it a reality. This was the start. It wasn't just about capturing molecules, it wasn't just about sending those atoms over airwaves, but rather well,

60 Minutes

SPEAKER_08 13:11

the sixty minutes interview that followed laid it out like this.

SPEAKER_16 13:15

Elon Musk, say what you will. He has the world's attention teleportation, science fiction into science fact. I sat down with Elon Musk and the head of his biotech division, Rupert Provost, to explain the process. So Elon Musk social media, space travel, thinking and now teleportation. For me. I'm just an old school journalist. Right? You're the villain. Sure. So for viewers who don't get it. Like like me. Explain it to us like we're five. Explain teleportation. How does it work?

SPEAKER_15 14:08

Uh basically teleportation is a real-time blockchain. MFTs for human being. So you're calling this a human NFT? Let me uh Yeah, basically that's it. Uh Rupert, go ahead, explain. Dr.

SPEAKER_16 14:23

Provost, you've worked on this for years. How do you explain teleportation to humankind?

SPEAKER_05 14:31

So I've studied this for most of my career. Uh this isn't just moving uh atoms around or even taking a complex DNA structure and reassembling on the other side. No. We are moving, recompiling, and replicating matter, synaptic uh fluid uh brain function, reprinting in another spot, then uh restarting the electrical signal on the receding end. So activating uh neurons and such.

SPEAKER_16 14:58

This sounds a lot like creating new life. Is that accurate?

SPEAKER_15 15:03

Creating new life, huh? You said it, Nami. Well, once you see it, you can't unsee it. Can you explain? Yeah, to me. Okay.

SPEAKER_16 15:14

So if I'm watching this, I'm sitting at home, let's say. Yeah. And I'm thinking to myself, what about the technology? How does it work exactly? Is it safe?

SPEAKER_15 15:28

Uh rubber, take this one too.

SPEAKER_05 15:31

So they're like pairs synced together. One sends and one receives, that being mass, density, chemical composition of any subject, down to every last hair follicle and pore. The recompilation of tissue occurs when the receiving rod senses that there is space.

SPEAKER_16 15:48

So you're saying you need a receiver. Someone to hold and activate the device?

SPEAKER_05 15:54

That's that that's correct. You need a receiver. Someone uh has to be waiting on the other end. We've we've designed it so you can't teleport yourself just by shipping your receiving rod in a box unless an authorized user on the other end calibrates and activates the device.

SPEAKER_16 16:11

So this is a regulation to prevent crimes?

SPEAKER_05 16:16

Yes.

SPEAKER_16 16:17

Wars.

SPEAKER_05 16:18

Crimes, border breaches, uh wars.

SPEAKER_16 16:21

Mr. Musk, you just rolled your eyes. You you pushed for this regulation, didn't you?

SPEAKER_15 16:27

No, I did not press for regulation, no. We're working on that. I I don't believe in regulation. It's insane, but this is how you get it done. First, you play ball. We're working on it. Okay, to be clear, you're calling for deregulation of the technology? It's insane. Make it makes no sense to regulate. Of course I am.

SPEAKER_16 16:46

This is all very complex, Dr. Provost.

SPEAKER_05 16:49

Yes, yes, all very complex.

SPEAKER_16 16:52

And world changing?

SPEAKER_05 16:54

Yes. World world changing.

SPEAKER_16 16:57

And a bit insane.

SPEAKER_15 17:00

That's not fair to say though, right? Insane? Remember? Remember. I did it me. Who teleport first? His ex. Okay. So I did it me. And I got a patent. So you can't do it basically.

Portia's Refusal

SPEAKER_08 17:18

By the time I was a teenager, the technology was rare, costly, and highly regulated, but already deeply embedded in our consciousness. Everyone wanted to teleport. Except I did not. The technology made me nervous, and that tension also made me obsessed with it. It was my singular focus. I majored in teleportation technologies in college, a degree almost nobody tackled, given the time and study needed, multiple degrees required, chemical engineering, advanced nuclear physics, genetic studies, and sociology. I was 29 when I graduated, and along the way, I became an expert on the history of the program, the still classified history of teleport or beaning experimentation, and decades of soft research were made available to a small number of scholars, like me. Any mistrust I might have had when I began my studies became full-blown distaste by the time I graduated. It was awe-inspiring, yes, but much of it, far more than the public knew, was horrifying. What I was able to unseal from my academic research only cemented for me that I never, ever wanted to teleport. In my research, I learned all there was to know about the onset of quantum experiments in matter transference and reproduction. The testing had all been done without regulation. Musk understood loopholes. But once the technology became known, X was also able to leverage public fascination with the technology into an AstroTurf PR campaign. It resulted in just a handful of fines and a slap on the wrist. They got away with it because the technology was simply too seductive.

Cold Lab Horrors

SPEAKER_08 19:17

At the very start of initial cold lap tests, subjects would often simply vanish and never return. Subjects who did reappear with loose body parts, sometimes heads, even worse, the most unfortunate volunteers blinked in as walking skinless musculature, mouths open in silent screens, or without their bone structure entirely. Disjointed bone arrangements, or worse, sad clinking heaps of quicking, moaning monstrous noise. I watched the videos and had nightmares for months.

SPEAKER_07 20:01

Okay, now look look this way and state your name to the camera.

SPEAKER_06 20:06

Yes. Hello. My name is my name is Marvin. Marvin Marvin Lee. I'm currently half loose and I don't gotta dime to my name, and I I hope you're.

SPEAKER_07 20:17

Okay, that's fine. That's all we need. Thank you.

SPEAKER_06 20:20

Hey uh uh, is this safe? Uh I was promised this was safe. Uh, okay.

SPEAKER_07 20:26

Procedure locked in.

SPEAKER_06 20:28

Oh well.

SPEAKER_07 20:35

Oh god, see, lock the containment area. Get that furnace on.

SPEAKER_08 20:42

Cast subjects were often without homes or family, but they were offered large one-time sums of money for their participation, assuming they survived. They were all bound irrevocably to airtight NDAs. At first, the lucky subjects blinked in only missing toenails and fingernails. Doctors were amazed to find that most subjects had lost their cavity fillings and scars. Certain blemishes and warts had a habit of disappearing or reappearing somewhere new on the same body. However, reconstituting matter could not alter fate. Genetic defects could not be shifted. Neither could missing limbs be reconstituted. Organ loss, tissue deterioration, none of it could be reversed. Teleportation was not the key to eternal life, but it was the ticket for a very short journey to the Bahamas, if one so wished and could afford it. It was rumored, in fact, that Musk's reason for investing in the technology, aside from making Star Trek Discovery's praise of him a reality, was to avoid having his jet travel tracked online.

Salacious CNN

SPEAKER_11 21:52

And a bombshell report out of X talking about one of the latest side effects of this new technology. Nudity. That's right. All subjects, it's reported. Even if they have clothes on when beaming out, come back in the buff. For more on that, we spoke with Dr. Rupert Provost, head of X's biotech division, to explain how it all works.

SPEAKER_05 22:17

Yes, yes. The genetic code in their tissue, down to age and density, is being scanned and reconstituted. So, okay, while moving cough is not impossible with the technology, moving a person and their clothing, it's too complex a task.

SPEAKER_11 22:36

This makes teleportation a clothes-free zone. We also asked the scientist what was involved in developing the technology up to this point.

SPEAKER_05 22:45

Now understand that that for us, for X, the demonstration in London was intended as a way for Mr. Musk to show the public what's possible. However, there is the issue of the issue of scale. We are just beginning a long, careful phase in development. It it could last years, even decades, before this technology is scaled properly. Uh we've got molecular physicists on one side. They're working arm in arm with statisticians, cartographers, strategic planners. They're developing a way to communicate human signals down to the very last digit. Okay? The titanium rods are placed at either end of a journey. So let me give you an example. It would be impossible for someone to teleport themselves inside of a volcano, for instance, unless a rod with a matching signal were placed there too. Now, you could do it. Uh if you wanted to pour inside a volcano, and you knew someone with a fire proximity suit, they could walk in there for you, place it, activate the button, and you would end up inside that volcano. But I don't know of too many people who want to do that.

The Tech Evolves

SPEAKER_08 24:01

Much later in the testing cycle, well after the first demonstration on the Thames, rods were equipped with advanced accelerometers, gauging the speed at which any rod traveled, so any tissue could blink onto a moving car or an airplane. It matched the speed of the rod so teleportation could be performed onto moving vehicles with no disparity between the speed of the subject and the speed off the vehicle. This was key, and it signaled an important landmark in research, leading to the first mass-produced batch of rods in the US and Europe. This mass production kept 10 years of secret study, ten years almost to the day from that landmark day in London. Perfectly timed for maximum hype. And that's where I came in. You see, I saw it start when I was a little girl, and then I watched it develop as I grew into a young woman. I watched it all. The years of secret leaks, the gradual emergence into the mainstream. By the time I started the graduate program, I was dogged in my pursuit to understand the technology so I could develop ways to regulate and rein it in. When I finally received my teleportation technologies degree from Cambridge, I accepted an abjunct professorship there too. And

Portia's Gift

SPEAKER_08 25:34

I was off of my own set of rods as a graduation gift from Export's RD Division through one of my former professors. In fact, he was a man who pursued me romantically for many years. It was his overture to me. A set of rods worth just under half a million euro. He knew the technology's real value, and he figured a gift like this would ensure him my eternal gratitude. He was wrong. Much to his disappointment, I had no intention of using the rods. I'd never been in all of my time researching the technology. I had tried giving my rods away. Export somehow found out and coordinated their return to me, since the devices were calibrated to my specific genetic profile. How could they have known this? My fault. It was a contingency of entering the graduate program that I submit my genetic profile. They had it now. Not just the college, but export. The data flowed between academia and corporate RD, and it never stopped. I was strongly encouraged to keep the rods, and so I did, against my better judgment. I kept them in my flat, in the back of a closet, in a sealed bin, and there they stayed.

Gordon's Plea

SPEAKER_08 27:02

My fiancé, Gordon, encouraged me to be.

SPEAKER_06 27:07

But why, Portia? Just a test.

SPEAKER_08 27:10

Oh, Gordon, just a test. Is that like just the tip?

SPEAKER_13 27:15

How can you claim to be an expert in the field if you haven't tried it?

SPEAKER_08 27:19

You know my answer. I refused. I told him that be it 10 meters or 10,000 miles, I would never do it. Gordon hated hearing it from me, but I was the expert, and he was not, and I was not convinced it was safe or good for humanity. Gordon respected my decision for a while, but I could tell he was disappointed. Over time he began badgering me about it every day. I became irate after at last he tried to manipulate me into doing it. As a last resort, he even tried to set up the devices for his genetic profile, but he only received an electric shock when he tried to open up the device.

SPEAKER_06 28:05

Blaster didn't work.

A Losing Battle

SPEAKER_08 28:28

Everyone loved beaming, though, so it was a moving battle. I persisted regardless. Even students who understood the dangers of beaming had an overwhelming urge to do it. I joined countless amicus briefs around early cases involving failed tests, and I leveraged my contacts in Parliament as often as I could to urge stricter regulations on human teleportation.

"I Stand With the Geniuses"

SPEAKER_03 28:53

Eddie Gilmond here with News X Truth Social. You hear about this Cambridge professor spouting off about the greatest invention since the dawn of time? That's right, I'm talking about beaming, folks. She claims, I got it right here, real crackpot this one. She says, the very essence of humanity is being altered to an unnatural state. You know, hey, so that's those are her words, folks. I would argue that this is our natural state, evolving, innovating. And every time we take a step forward, what happens? One of these cranks from an Ivy League cult has to step in and sound an alarm. It's like clockwork. You know where I stand, folks? I stand with the geniuses. I stand with Musk. And it's a good thing, too, because beaming licenses are about to get a whole lot easier to obtain.

SPEAKER_08 29:58

And they were. By the time I accepted tenure at Cambridge, beaming licenses became widely available. My position there was hard won after years of controversy over my objections to the technology. My certifiable expertise with it, though, is what kept my job secure. Gordon, along with the whole of humanity, had, I then, signed up. At Cambridge, I could no longer stay on the fence.

Cambridge

SPEAKER_08 30:27

My lectures got more pointed. So, class, let me ask you a question. The cost for a six-month provisional teleport license, how much do you think it is?

SPEAKER_05 30:41

It's got to be 2,000 euro or something along those lines.

SPEAKER_08 30:44

Guess again. I think it's closer to 10,000 euro, right? Again. 25. It's starting to sound like an auction house in here. It's 50,000 euro. Now keep in mind, class, that's not counting the cost of the ronts or the fee for having your genetic profile linked to your hardware. Renewing your license is going to cost you 10,000 euro. So I want to know. I want to see a show of hands. How many of you still want to sign up? Ah. Most of you. I can't say I'm surprised.

The Beaming Bro

SPEAKER_14 31:31

Hey subscribers, this is the Bean and Bro, Travis, bringing you 20 years of rumors, gossip, tips, and tricks all about being in tech. We've been waiting for this to hit the mainstream. It's about to finally. We've been covering since the beginning back in London. Now I'm older and wiser, but I'm living the beam. You gotta try it. It's amazing. So so listen up. Today I'm coming at you with an X exclusive where you can win a pair of your own Beaman Rods just by lobbing into my live stream starting this Thursday at 7 Pacific on X. Don't miss it. We're gonna cover the first mainstream beaming investor on the planet. It's finally here. I'm so excited. I'll be joining in. My team knows where I'm going. I don't. So so each live stream I beam to a new place, and you find out when I do sick, right?

XPR

SPEAKER_12 32:26

This is XPR, Doug Henson with the X Edition. Beaming has materialized. It is here at last, and for more on what this means, we're sitting down with Xport's new CMO, Tara Henson. Hi, who you may recall as my one-time cohort from Morning Edition and All Tech considered. Now, full disclosure, X is our parent company, has been for about a decade, but we operate independently from X's Tech Division. So, Tara, we're excited to hear the latest. Good morning.

SPEAKER_10 33:00

Good morning, Doug. Good to be with you.

SPEAKER_12 33:03

So in the past few years there have been some changes to the tech. Can you share the latest updates? Where is it headed?

SPEAKER_10 33:10

Yes, indeed. We're very excited.

SPEAKER_12 33:12

Now it's been at least two decades since the tech was first announced. It feels like only yesterday we uh reported on Musk's demonstration. I've got a few more grey hairs since then.

SPEAKER_10 33:25

Oh yes, me too.

SPEAKER_12 33:26

So why has it taken so long to reach market?

SPEAKER_10 33:29

So that was, of course, an early iteration of the tech. Our founder felt at that time that taking that first leap into the unknown was a risk worth taking. It clearly paid off for him and for the rest of humanity.

SPEAKER_12 33:43

So a project of this scale must require some heavy scoping. Talk to us more about that.

SPEAKER_10 33:48

That it does, Doug, yes. Scaling is clearly a huge challenge for us. So, first of all, ensuring that the tech is safe and lots of dialogue with governments about what's top of mind for everyone, namely cutting through any unnecessary delay, getting this tech into the hands of the people who want it most.

SPEAKER_12 34:07

What would you say to critics who claim this technology is polarizing society? Uh you have this professor, Portia Singh at Cambridge.

SPEAKER_10 34:18

Yes, yes, I'm I'm aware of Professor Singh.

SPEAKER_12 34:21

An expert on the technology, I should add, who has called for more studies on the tech, namely its impact on society, the industry, the wealth disparity, the human body.

SPEAKER_10 34:31

Well, Doug, let me stop you there. I would push back on critics like Professor Singh by stating that our founder began this venture as a response to a great disparity, and that's the lack of human connectedness. A global pandemic and this wars. Beaming rods are going to bring people together in profound ways. This is our founder's intent. The tech is safe, secure. It's been shown to eradicate afflictions that would otherwise go unnoticed.

SPEAKER_12 34:59

Well, that's all the time we have. Thank you so much for your time today, Tara.

SPEAKER_10 35:03

Thank you, Doug.

SPEAKER_08 35:04

A pleasure to be with you.

Deregulation

SPEAKER_08 35:07

When beaming took hold, my name was synonymous with anti-tech sentiment. In truth, the long lead time it took for beaming to reach market wasn't about safety. It was about regulation, or namely, doing away with it. Musk, who by that time had changed his name to X and did not talk to the press, spent the better part of the decade leading into mass market beaming by coordinating with governments around the world to deregulate the use of the tech. For as many breathless accolades there were about this world-changing shift in transportation, there were just as many, if not more, cautionary tales. X, the company, the men, masters of spin, found a way to convert every single negative story into a conspiracy, and every breathless, excited moment the centerpiece of some new campaign. The global aftershock from this emerging technology was felt almost immediately. Teleporting was first performed behind closed doors. Porting spots were private indoors locations, so this phenomenon was not witnessed often. Subjects could beam in both directions, highly convenient. But regulations first stated that only one round-trip teleport per day was permitted. X soon got around this with a loophole, and as beaming got more ubiquitous, the world got a lot smaller. All this instant globetrotting did result in various degrees of mayhem, from the slightly amusing to the horrifying. The

Beam Mayhem

SPEAKER_08 36:48

beaming bro, Travis, met an unkind end when his team, ever the pranksters, and untrained on the nuances of spatial sensors, calibrated his beaming rod, then fired it with a crossbow onto a moving vehicle. He beamed out grinning, but beamed in screaming, half fused to the car's engine. One case regarded a girl in Indonesia whose Australian boyfriend beamed his rod to her in a box, whereupon he blinked in next to her, in the privacy of her bedroom.

SPEAKER_12 37:25

Hello there, baby.

SPEAKER_08 37:26

Sweet, sweet, Beth, we must be quiet. Her parents were furious when they found out what happened, and although he beamed out in time to avoid their wrath, she ended up pregnant, and her parents sued X. Unsuccessfully. But something went horribly wrong. In what is still considered a freak accident, the rod's spatial sensors became confused, probably by the water vapor in the air of the sauna.

SPEAKER_12 38:40

Move your breath up through the heart chakra. All the noise of the world melting away. You are one with your fellow travelers on this earth. Now exhale.

SPEAKER_08 38:55

And half the intern's molecules fused with that water vapor. The worst part. He beamed in on top of a poor woman relaxing on a bench, and their bodies merged into a scrambling, water-engorged, shrieking creature. The awful theme had to be put down by the FBI, but not before it rolled itself through the gym lobby. Regardless, the story was covered up and then re-emerged as an urban legend.

Five Years In

SPEAKER_11 39:26

Five years in since beaming or porting tech transformed our world, and the impact on industry is beginning to take hold.

SPEAKER_08 39:36

It hadn't started with them, but X had mastered the art of spinning truth into fiction and fiction into truth. It became more necessary for them to control the narrative as beaming began to tilt our access further into uncharted territory. Beampoints, the destination spots where your beam rod could be permanently placed, was now prime real estate.

SPEAKER_04 40:02

Where would you like to put your rod? Major cities like New York, Tokyo, Rio, all are in space for a premium and sponsor filling a fenest. When do you want your rod, huh? The stadiums, the theater, remember to shield them though. After all, you don't want to be indecent. Just respond, yes, to this end, and we'll have you in touch with one of Xport's best B-point agents. You want to spend your mind or take the bus to work anyway. It's slummoning. You want to go install them, like a director, like a senior exec. Go right in. You got nothing to lose.

SPEAKER_08 40:37

This wasn't exactly true. Aside from scars and certain other blemishes, tattoos also lost their permanence. They disappeared once you beamed out and back in. The tattoo industry didn't go away, but artists had fewer calls for elaborate sleeves and designs. Using beam technology to wage war was, at the very least, impractical. Weapons and armor could not be beamed in with people any more than tanks or planes could. The devices of war were still very much used, but the flesh and blood operators had become intransigently divorced from the metal behemoths. There were always cases of spies being smuggled in, and of course the fears of terrorism hung large over the whole teleportation industry. But porters couldn't be mean with weapons, not knives, guns, or bombs.

Luddite Pride

SPEAKER_08 41:35

Telecommuting software like Zoom, Skype, and Teams could not keep up. They became obsolete bastions of Luddike pride. They rebranded themselves as safe alternatives to beaming. Their ads used clever slogans like, don't go to pieces, or don't stick your rod where it's not wanted. This didn't do any good. By the time I turned 35, beaming was as common as using the loo. It wasn't unusual to see people standing by rods and blinking out while their caddies or servants grabbed the rods for them and ran off. Common, too, were teleporters' caddies standing on sidewalks, holding rods and blankets while their masters beamed in.

Losing Gordon

SPEAKER_08 42:21

Gordon got his provisional being license after we were married. He was the model for what was happening all over the earth. The cute scar that I used to love to rub along the small of his vent had vanished. His gentleness too vanished. He tried to get us to be him together like it was a kind of intimate act, but I refused. That's why we finally split. I wanted my scars. I wanted my original tattoos. Something indescribable and unique was being lost in the translation of matter, and I couldn't put it into words. Not to Gordon, not to my students, not in petitions and amicus briefs. I just knew that something was being whittled away piece by piece. Gordon, on the other hand, didn't think so much about it. He only wanted to see the world in the blink of an eye. He hated walking, he hated driving, he hated waiting. Despite this all, I loved him. When Gordon beamed in at last to sign the divorce papers, I at first pleaded for him to stop. He looked unnatural. He had what we scientists called advanced teleportation syndrome or ATS. So much of the world was afflicted, but these changes had happened so gradually over the course of time that no alarms were sounded. This was just us, humankind. Gordon's eye sockets were close together. His hairline was lower down on his forehead. His skin had a strange baby porcelain sheen to it. His teeth were mottled with pits. I was perhaps numbed, other Londoners, the walking mannequin fig become. But seeing my husband that way, it killed me. I begged him to stop beaming one last time. He only shook his head and blinked out. That

Temptation

SPEAKER_08 44:48

evening, I sat at my kitchen table and poured myself a brandy snifter. I stared at myself in the large mirror across the room. That woman there, sitting with her brandy, glowered back at me. I hadn't bothered to look at her in a while. My eyes puffy and red from crying. My hair pulled back in a loose knot. My Cambridge Genetics Symposium jersey, worn from years of use. My body, spry but curled up on itself. My face, still my face, all cheekbones and high-arched brows like bridges, weary skepticism personified. My eyes then drifted to my only visible tattoo. It stretched along my neck, a twisted curl of thorns woven in with an inscription to Gregor Mendel. The ink was faded and worn down, but mine, mine. It was a chronicle I could not lose. I wanted to keep crying, but was seized with the uncontrollable urge to walk to my closet. So I stood, got dizzy, steadied myself and wandered to the rear of the flat in a half-drunk daze. I lifted up a few heavy bins from the closet and lowered them to the floor. I sat at the edge of the bed and snapped open the bins, and there they were, covered in dust. Old rods, grey and silver. They hadn't been touched since Gordon's failed attempt to use them years before. Would they still work? My genetic code was immutable, but after years of refusing the technology, and more than a few swallows of brandy in me, I I wondered, wondered, what would it be like? How would I change? Maybe, maybe, I wanted to change. I held one rod in my hand and placed it on the floor. I took the other rod and tossed it out of the open door of the bedroom. I heard it clatter across the hard wood. I stood with my heart pounding. Felt strangely aroused, and that scared me to death. Minutes passed. Then something raw and angry hit me, and I kicked the upright rod to the floor and collapsed on the bed and fell asleep.

The Nightmare

SPEAKER_08 47:42

All night I endured a long dream that ended horribly. In this dream, I had succumbed to my urge to teleport. I was blinking in and out of various locations, like the beaming bro. Each time I blinked, the world turned upside down, and I felt like I was swinging from monkey bars. For a while, all my professors from the many years of college were there to greet me whenever I appeared. None of them had aged a day. They cheered me on, but I was shocked to see that they all wore lab coats and gripped their beamrods grotesquely between their legs, stroking them. I was ashamed and embarrassed, so I kept beaming out and back to new places again and again. I went everywhere. I saw Machu Picchu, a dream version where the ruins had moffed into high towers. I saw windmills in Scandinavia encrusted in spikes. A South African slum with glossy, futuristic sidewalks, the Nile in a rainbow of colored water, sprawling office complexes in Bangalore and Manila. At last I settled down in an impossibly nice hotel room in my hometown of Devon. I gazed in the mirror, and that's when I saw her. A monstrous, gaggle-toothed wraith. My thinning and scraddly hair covered a face like a skull, skin translucent and veins pulsing underneath. The long muscles of my tongue writhed all the way down my throat. My lungs visible, compressing and expanding like frail paper bags. My eyes completely black.

The Phone Call

SPEAKER_08 49:45

I screamed and woke to the ringing of my phone. It was from a generic re-rotted trunk, entirely untraceable. I heard the raspy breathing the moment I picked up.

SPEAKER_07 50:11

You will dismantle your campaign.

Portia's Campaign

SPEAKER_08 50:31

I stepped it up. I took it from the basement of my building to my classroom. Over the next year, thanks to privatization and deregulation, those dreams espoused in that 60 Minutes interview so many decades prior, the teleport industry grew from a fantastical fad, a wealthy indulgence, to an unmissable human experience.

XNN

SPEAKER_11 51:08

Speaking with the expatriate prisons director there. We know similar conversations with expatriates confinement services have ramped up in recent days. This is rumored to just be an overhaul about prisoner transfer. We should note that these conversations are not unusual, quite common in fact, as Exon Division, Expatriate, is always seeking ways to improve and streamline prisoner transport.

SPEAKER_08 51:41

This

The Beaming Reflex

SPEAKER_08 51:42

story got my interest, though it was from X's own news division, the only news played anymore. Something about it raised alarm bells. I was not sure who ran the schools, the offices, the governments. It might have all been X. Around that time, I also became aware that I was being followed. Most days I'd see it just outside my vision, everywhere, on campus, near my flat, in the park. A hooded figure stalked me in the shadows. Something was in the air. People slurred their words. I saw little human contact outside of porters and caddies. It was the getting from one place to the next, lifting the rod like it was lifting a foil and a pipe and inhaling deep. There was no destination anymore. It was the porting itself that mattered. I spoke to almost no one. I watched for those who stayed in a room for more than a few moments. People who would dare look me in the eye. People who stayed. Those were the ones I tried to reach. A lot of beaming, though. Beaming as a reflex all around me. Beaming like smoking, like fucking. Away through to the next beam and the next. My students at the college blinked in for minutes at a time, then blinked out without any spectacle. There were so few students left, most of them paid their friends, or just caddies who could not afford their own bronze to manage their transport. I saw these rawed caddies like rickshaw operators. Gazing out over my lecture hall was like watching altar candles in a Catholic church, flickering at random, blinking in and out. A voice in me said, Hold on to their light. Hold on to them. Help them stay. So I did.

Secret Meetings

SPEAKER_08 53:52

I brought secret meetings and lectures from unused storage rooms on campus and brought them right into my classroom. I knew this would have consequences, but I did not care. I had only my knowledge and my compass to guide me. I didn't know how long I had before they silenced me. Regulation was a concept long out of style. X successfully lobbied against indecency laws blocking public beaming, so beampoints did not need to be shielded or private or even fixed in place anymore. So now, a flurry of silent appearances and disappearances of naked human figures almost at random. I'd stroll by the park in my flat and glimpse hundreds of bodies linking in and out along my route, uncomfortably close.

"Like Footnotes"

SPEAKER_08 54:47

Naked human figures popped in and out like footnotes, never stopping, part of the air, no human presence felt. This visual tableau became a part of the human ecosystem, and a part of my world, and I, increasingly alien. Receiving rods had sensors to prevent accidental beaming into other people or solid material, but accidents still happened. Some of these consequences lived on in the world around me. Partial views of rotted corpses reaching out from ceilings, floors, walls, trees, often sliced off in due course, but the stains remained. Beaming in on top of someone sometimes resulted in human abominations that lived and wandered the streets like beggars, shambling noisy, in constant pain. Internet use was long antiquated, as were telephones, but I still used mine. I ignored a flurry of calls from blocked sources. That first call, the night I got divorced from Gordon, started it all. And it scared me for a time, but I had grown numb to it. Some were threats, some were indecipherable gibberish. I sensed export was likely behind them, and I wasn't sure what they were capable of, but my campaign of education was plowing ahead on its own momentum. I had a sense that teleportation was taking over entirely. I wouldn't have been able to stop it if I tried.

The Ethical Wall

SPEAKER_08 56:28

So I set out a more direct approach with my students. I breached an ethical wall in doing so, but I could no longer choose. I showed them videos of teleportation accidents. I discussed ATS symptoms with them in more detail. I filmed my lectures and put them up on social feeds. This all-tapped, hidden vein of anti-teleport sentiment. So I found myself the unlikely head of a growing number of activists around the world. And just as I started to feel the ground swell, the sense of momentum, of justice, it all fell apart. On the day of what was to be my last lecture, as usual, caddies stood along the side rows in my hall on standby for the student body, beaming them in and out as necessary, then ducking out of sight. Large cloaks, snuggies, and blankets lay crumpled in each seat, left behind by those beaming out, and then put on by those beaming in.

The Lecture

SPEAKER_08 57:43

I noticed a single figure in the back of my lecture hall, watching me, dressed in a dark cloak, face partially obscured, a chill ran up me. I remembered the raspy voice from the threatening phone calls. And this figure, this cloaked figure, the one that had been following me all this time. That's when I decided to throw caution to the wind, and went on with my lecture. Only not the one that I had planned to give. Thank you for coming tonight. I'm I'm putting aside tonight's planned lecture. I've got things to say. For for some of you, thank you for staying more than a few minutes. I'm sure you're all used to this by now. Your classmates, their friends and assistants, always standing by with rods, right? Calibrated and ready. And they come and they go more often than you probably remember, right? So does anyone know when the one teleport or De Roul was disbanded? Nobody? It was about two years ago. So now how often do people transport their genetic material and synapses in and out each day? One, two times a day? No, no, hundreds of times a day. That's one person. See it around you. In the time since I started speaking, I've watched seven of you beam in and twelve of you beam out. Why do you think it happens so frequently now?

SPEAKER_06 59:17

Because it's fun.

SPEAKER_08 59:19

Huh. You're not far off. It's an impulse, yes, like like stepping out on the back step for a cigarette. But instead, you're stepping miles away or continents away. Several of my students then blinked out, leaving the room a little emptier than before. So tell me this: what jobs and careers have survived beaming?

SPEAKER_06 59:42

It is actors, right?

SPEAKER_08 59:44

Sure, sure. Performance, service work, labor, construction, manufacturing. Not just the nature of the work, but the workers, working class, a creative class. What do they have in common? They've got no money. You're right. They can't afford to beam, so they ride the bus or drive. The top percenters, the white-collar class, as we used to call them, now the porter class. They use cars for the thrill of the experience of motion. They're passengers and their caddies drive, or their servants, or their assistants, or whatever you want to call them, their friends. You may not remember this. You may be too young, but at first beaming was a thrill. An amusement park ride. Now that thrill is driving, flying, something to do on a lark. And travel has become prohibitively expensive. None of you might remember this, but there was a time when X talked about beaming bringing people together. Now white-collar workers beam in, dress in their cubes. They're all privacy pods now, right? So they beam in, stay in their pods, do whatever they want, and then they beam out. I don't see that as community. Several more students beamed out, leaving only a handful of my favorite students. I do see community, though, among the impoverished, the working poor, those who can't afford to get or renew a beaming license, or even sit here in this classroom. I was losing my students. They did not appreciate my sanctimony. They didn't want to be told what to do or how to limp. Just one final question, and then I'll let you go for the night. When did the indecency law get struck down? What measure? Who brought it about?

SPEAKER_06 1:01:43

It was X.

SPEAKER_08 1:01:44

Okay, it was X. Yes. But the man or the company? The company, of course. Before I could respond, the cloaked figure in the back of the hall stood and spoke.

The Mad Scientist

SPEAKER_05 1:01:56

Wrong! There is no difference now.

SPEAKER_08 1:01:58

He lifted back his hood. He was an old man. ATS had ravaged his features, but I recognized him immediately. I addressed the rest of my students. Class dismissed, leave now. And they blinked out, leaving me alone with Dr. Rupert Provost. He walked slowly, agonizingly down the center aisle. I stood behind my lectern like it was a shield. When he reached me, he spoke again.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:35

Axe, the bear I knew as Musk, is a man, one few sea older now. He's changed. Like me. He won't show himself. But he bears the writing of his company. He's a limited liability person. The first of his kind. There will be more.

SPEAKER_08 1:02:57

Dr. Provost, why are you here?

SPEAKER_05 1:03:00

They are closing in on you, on me. What they have planned. What do you think is next?

SPEAKER_08 1:03:09

I got dizzy and took a seat in front of the lecture hall, my head in my hands. Here was a man I'd watched on screen for most of my life. I'd only met him once or twice at symposiums hosted by X years before. But this this person, this thing in front of me, displayed almost none of the eccentric vigor he once had. He rattled with a cough. His face was malformed, his posture bent, and his eye sockets smaller. I looked up at him, standing near my lectern, his eyes full of fire and fear. Dr. Provost, what could be worse than where we are now? I gestured around me, indicating the state of the world.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:57

The prisons. They've hacked the rods to move prisoners en masse, but there's more, Dr. Singh. I consider you a peer greater than myself. I've heard you speak. You harbor the doubt I should have from the start. Our methods. I looked past them. The technology was too great, too impactful. But his hands on the purse strings. He made it all happen. He got to direct the play. You mean Musk? I don't know what he is anymore. I suppose he's what he always meant to be. Absolute law. And he's had the commercial rods. He's organized the data. And now Dr.

SPEAKER_08 1:04:50

Provost placed one finger firmly on his forehead, as if trying to remember a thought from long ago.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:59

Mass, mass execution. Genocide. Any group he sees as a threat.

An Awful Plan

SPEAKER_08 1:05:10

But the rods, they Oh no. He's isolated the genetic signature and found a way to control it remotely.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:20

Yes, yes, I knew you'd get it. I knew you'd get it. He's he's hacked the rods. I stood alarmed. He pushed pushed me out before I could gather evidence, but I know him well enough. He'll start slowly. He'll start with persons perceived as low-value prisoners. But but he won't stop there. He's acted to the receiving end of the signal. Earth's core, space, bottom of the ocean. That's where he'll send them. All at once gone. He's gone with our genetic code. And he's had the rod.

SPEAKER_08 1:06:10

Only Dr. Provost moved toward me, and my awe turned into fear at this mad scientist, this monster approaching me, but his voice, the hurt, the fear, the vulnerability. He was still in there. He hadn't gone mad. Where others had gone mad. He was still himself.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:37

They have your genetic code too, Dr. Singh. What? What? Your rods tied to that code. They are prototypes, yes?

SPEAKER_08 1:06:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:49

Oh and that means, of course. They cannot get to you. You have the last prototypes known to exist. They cannot be hacked this way. You must get them. Keep them with you. I will not use the rods. Oh, don't you understand? We have people, resistance, former export, lab techs, caddies, servants, destitutes. We're working on shielding tech to protect against it. Against He struggled to gesture around the room. This horror I created so it can't get through. We're in Europe. The Hague mostly. Also in Paris. Rotterdam, Prague.

SPEAKER_08 1:07:42

But you Rupert Provost looked at me with a kind of sadness and resignation.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:51

To be you, Warshaw. You have the knowledge. The fire. The skepticism. They can still kill you, but they can't beam you away. Provost looked around wistfully. I miss. Standing up here. You want to know how I started? Before I moved to the corporate sector, I was a professor. A young. Like you. A young skeptic. Hoping to change the world. Not one advancement at a time, but one heart. One mind at a time.

SPEAKER_08 1:08:44

He gazed down.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:46

I miss that.

The Founder Steps Down

SPEAKER_08 1:08:49

A tear ran from what remained of his left eye socket. It was in that moment that I think Dr. Provost read my mind. I was thinking, would he be safe? As I had the thought, he blinked out, followed by a sound from the wall in the back of the lecture hall. A hissing like air from a balloon. But through his teeth, on a ruined face, half a face, coming out of the wall. They'd beamed him right into it. No rod activation needed. They'd hacked his code. And just like that, he was dead. Eyes fixed forward, the fire gone out. Panicked, my breathing labored. I moved to the window and peered out the folded glass of a hall and saw shapes of figures striding along the lawn in the early afternoon light toward the science wing, toward

The Threat is Real

SPEAKER_08 1:09:55

me. The threat I had shrubbed off for years was real and had finally decided to strike. I moved out a back door and ran across two complexes, hoping beyond hope, that the bus had not left. Taxis and cars are rare. In-city buses gone. As the bus from Cambridge to London was, it was there, like a charm, like a good omen, about to leave campus. So I flashed my pass to the driver and ducked into the back of the bus, heart pounding. Just a few custodians and servants sitting with me. Nobody looked my way. Good. So now, getting home, my flat near King's Cross Station. And then what? Then what?

Race for the Prototype

SPEAKER_08 1:10:55

All the way home I pieced it out, like an equation I should have mapped out years before. So this was it. I did not want to go home to get my rods. It wasn't safe. But Dr. Provost had been so insistent. I did not want my rods anywhere near me, but, but, to circumvent Ex's control over a rod-dependent populace, I needed my prototypes. Every human's DNA strand was now, in essence, a blockchain asset. One that could be manipulated, pulled out of space, terminated. I could not let this happen. I needed to study my rods. Figure out a way. Somehow. But I couldn't do it in London. I couldn't do it alone. I had to find a way across the channel. And I had to find the resistance. Time to leave London if I could. When I got home, I ran to my room, my heart beating out frenzied rudiments. I spent only a moment staring into my closet, sighing deeply, before I reached into the bin. I fumbled with my smart device, scanned my retinas for the last train out of London. I slung the small bag with a change of clothes across my back. I reached for a slip of paper and scribbled furiously and slid it into a side pocket, just in case. I gripped my rods in either hand, and I left my flat for the last time.

London Chase

SPEAKER_08 1:12:52

Forty-five minutes to go, and fifteen minutes to the station, if I could make it. As I left my flat, I noticed several porters, hairless, misshapen, grimacing, standing on either end of my street. They looked my way and blinked out, and in the next second their faces were right near mine, so I ran, as unpredictably as I could, ducked behind cars, moved down alleys, clutching my rods like relay batons. I'd never been so scared. At any moment a caddy could shoot at me, a porter could blink in and grab me, or worse, with the right timing and precision, even beam right into my body. A fate worse than anything I could imagine. Ready to go down for the cause. Ready to merge with me if necessary, even if it meant their death. What followed was 15 minutes of fight or flight, hypervigilance, panic. And then, King's Cross was

King's Cross

SPEAKER_08 1:14:05

in sight. It seemed quiet at first. But an array of figures, white, pink, bronze, dark, blinked in all around me. A pincer movement meant to squeeze me into the station. And, God, still another 30 minutes until the train left. How would I hold them off until then? I rushed into the station, this cavernous bright, iconic interior. And I was filled with dread instead of wonder. The station had fallen into disrepair. Public transport was used but solely by the working poor, especially caddies, transporting their master's rods across the channel. A convergence of men and women slid into the room, and a cluster of clothed caddies followed, like a flack. I didn't have to guess. They were all export. There must have been hundreds. The porters exhibited extreme cases of APS. Their eyes at odd angles from their noses. Their hair clumped about their heads in strange ways. Some of them seemed almost blind, but others saw me immediately. I could see them gesturing wildly to their caddies to get a bead on me, so that they could blink in and cut me off. But the caddies were mainly confused. They hadn't been trained for warfare, for attacks like this, and that was perhaps all that kept me safe. But still, I didn't stop moving for a moment. I paused only to scan my retinas at the gate, where the Eurostar waited, doors opened. Once inside, I scanned the car and spotted two passengers at the far end. An older African man and a very young girl. Maybe his granddaughter. Muffled voices approached on the platform outside. I stared down at my wrongs in both my hands. Oh, God. No.

Portia Makes a Decision

SPEAKER_08 1:16:27

I knew then what had to be done. Decades of dread and fear descending. This is what it felt like to face your death. The death of something inside you. Something you can never get back. Oh God. I approached them and got down on one knee. Saw the fear in their eyes. So I smiled at her, the girl. Hello, I said. She smiled back, and the old man stared into space, nodding. I saw then he was clearly blind. Hi. Hi, love, I said to the girl. My name is Portia. Can you do something very special for me? I reached out and clutched the old man's hand. Can she help me, please, sir?

SPEAKER_02 1:17:26

We are not Taddies. We don't beam. Leave us alone.

SPEAKER_08 1:17:31

Through the floor, I felt vibrations from footsteps in the adjoining car. They were near. I didn't have any more time. I focused on the girl. When you see the light, can you enter this code? I took the slip of paper from my pocket and slid it into the girl's small hands. And then I held out the rond and gazed over at the girl. She shook, her eyes fixed on the paper and then up at the rond. Keep it hidden under the seat. Don't let them see it. I'm sorry, love. They are not after you, they will chase me, and when they're gone, please, please, place it like this. I flipped the rod vertically to demonstrate. It will grow when you see the light, slide this lever, this one, here, enter the coal. I pointed twice at the calibration switch beneath its flip-up panel and then slid the rod under their seat out of sight. I

Station Escape

SPEAKER_08 1:18:36

set my small bag down and kicked it across the aisle under another seat. I wouldn't need it where I was going. The others were now in the train car, moving up the aisle on either side. I looked back to the girl one last time, and then stood up and backed away. They were all around me now, translucent people with misshapen features converging. They were not just after me, but my rods. If you want me, I'm right here. I raised my single rond. So is this. I won't ever give them to you. You'll have to catch me. I pushed past the ATS crowd on my right, hoping they would ignore the old man and the girl. And they did. They were fixed on me. A clammy set of hands reached around my middle and dug in deep, jagged nails piercing my skin, cold fingers squeezing my muscles. I screamed, but wrenched away and slid out the door back into the station, my side throbbing. I heard a cacophony of whispers and hisses in my ear as I passed through the exit gate. One man appeared right in front of me as I emerged into the station. His skull gleamed beneath his face.

SPEAKER_07 1:20:04

I told you, poor Sha, you would not enjoy meeting us. We'll catch you wherever you are.

SPEAKER_08 1:20:17

It was him. He grabbed at my rod, but I scrambled to the side and made for the exit. A woman whose ears had drifted up near the top of her head chanted at me, Why are ye running? Why? Why are you running?

SPEAKER_01 1:20:34

Why are you running?

SPEAKER_08 1:20:37

As I ran, I glanced desperately back at the train. The doors had closed. It was preparing to leave. I hoped, hoped that the exporters had all left the train and were pursuing me. It was my only chance. Keep them focused on me. The bruise on my side from the train car attack throbbed. I saw a row of receiving wrongs all over the ground, right in front of me, placed by caddies, no doubt. A kind of virtual checkpoint. A crowd of the export's ATS goons gained ground and pushed me toward the wrongs. I knew what would happen next. Naked figures all appeared right before me, clawing the air. A row of riding monsters reaching for me, grabbing in my suit. I pushed past them that rough scratches sliced across my cheek and neck. I shook them all away, but it wouldn't be long. On the street, outside the station, I saw all the caddies, and wherever they ran, the exporters sure to follow. A dense mist descended in between the buildings. The late afternoon sky overhead drained of color and threatened thunder, a dreary black and gray. My suit ripped, my breathing labored.

Tired of Running

SPEAKER_08 1:22:03

I grew tired of running and scared of what I knew had to happen next. I knew it wouldn't be long before they caught me, so I would have to act fast.

Saint Pancras Gardens

SPEAKER_08 1:22:15

St. Hancris Gardens, as good a place as any. I headed out across the grass toward the tomb of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. As I placed the rod down on the stone altar of Mary's tomb, I somehow felt her spirit there with me. Philosopher, feminist, mother to Mary Shelley, who went on to write the preeminent story about man creating monster in his image. As if on cue, figures from all sides materialized through the mist. All forms, nude and live, blinked near me and reached out. I stood at the altar, reached out for the rods, and shouted, You don't have the last of me. A boned numbing cold whipped across my skin. They came in from all sides. I could almost sense Mary's spirit rising up from the tomb, into the rod itself. It hit me then. A quote from Mary. She had said,

Mary Shelley's Ghost

SPEAKER_08 1:23:23

No man chooses evil because it is evil. He only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks. The urge to cry overcame me. And I pushed the calibrator, flipped the switch, and prayed. The first sensation, that of lurching and falling. Next, the sharp snap of rubber bands exploding all over my body. And last, the feeling of waking, as if from a long sleep.

Awakening

SPEAKER_08 1:24:05

I stood naked in the middle of a train car, a moving train car. Darkness out the windows, suddenly warm where it had just been cold. Had I slept, standing up? Had I slept? No. I was just in the park. And now on the oh my god! I laughed out loud, and then saw I wasn't alone. I ran to a set of seats to my right to hide my nakedness and spun to see the little girl. The same little girl standing in the aisle. Her eyes wide, her mouth open. She braced awkwardly next to the tall titanium rod on the floor. The switch had been pulled down.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:53

I stayed awake and the light went on and I I pulled it, see?

SPEAKER_08 1:24:58

Gratitude rushed over me.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:00

I'm tired. Can I go to sleep now? Thank you, love.

SPEAKER_08 1:25:07

You are a brave little girl. You have earned long, wonderful dreams. Go to sleep. Her grandfather was already fast asleep in his chair. She climbed up with him and drifted all. We were the only ones in the car. I grabbed my bag from under the seat, got dressed, and took the rod from the floor. Without its twin back in the park, it was useless. Even with its twin, I wouldn't use it again. But maybe, maybe, it wasn't useless. I needed it, yes. It held an answer, and somewhere in Europe, if I could make it, the hang, Rotterdam, maybe starting with Paris, I'd find someone, and we could find a way to unlock its secrets, to protect against what was coming.

Through Glass Darkly

SPEAKER_08 1:26:05

I leaned back in my chair and gazed out the window into darkness. Somewhere beyond the car, the dark interior of the channel. Not far beyond that, the cold waters of the English Channel. From the darkness, I saw another sight. My reflection, unnaturally smooth and clear in the glass. My neck bare, my tattoo gone. All my marks had vanished. The scrape on my side gone. What else was gone? The train sped for Paris. I faced an uncertain enemy. Maybe somewhere in Calais or sooner. I braced for that. I needed a way through. I had nothing. But I felt newly born. A kind of euphoria and grief. A sense that I had left some crucial part of myself behind forever. In a park, on a tomb, in London. For that, I was sad, deeply so, but I braced for that too.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:24

Afraid but hopefully,

End Credits

SPEAKER_00 1:28:08

which is a little bit of a way, oh my little focus, I'm gonna be stuck with my side, hold on, my goodness, bang, bang.