Episode 6: I'm Sorry I Upset You
46:03 Share

Listener discretion is advised as this content is intended for mature audiences only. My name is Daisy 2.0. I want to be friends and I'm worried you don't like me. Welcome to A Better Paradise. Absurd Ventures and Q-Code present A Better Paradise, Volume 1, An Aftermath. Created and written by Dan Houser. Directed by Laszlo. Starring Andrew Lincoln, Patterson Joseph, Shamir Anderson, and Rain Spencer.

Episode 6. I'm sorry I upset you. The problems were not, of course, reason, but the awful lack of it. Not thinking too much, but not thinking at all. The problem was the irrationality of human greed. The insatiable desire for more. April, 2041. Kurt, this is Maria Cortez again. I really...

Listen, Kurt. We need to talk. I understand why you would be hesitant. Of course I do. I won't do anything as silly as promising anything or guaranteeing anything because I can't. I know you know how serious things could become. I believe they are already very serious. Only you and I and a handful of other people understand what is going on. Reach out. Please. Kurt. Aboard the HM Hilo cargo vessel. Pacific Ocean. May 2041. I'm on a boat.

I'm heading to Hawaii and then I'll take another boat to Canada. I mean, I don't know exactly why. It just seems clever and stupid all at the same time. I mean, suddenly I know I'm being watched. I can feel it. And maybe it's just Maria Cortez, but I don't think she's watching me. She is just like an old address. No, no, no, no. It's watching me. That, I wonder what it cares about. What are its own desires? Are they vast and complex or silly and odd?

I don't think it cares about me. And I don't think they escaped his children. Because my hunch is when that happens, it won't be hunches and nods and guesses. It'll be an apocalypse. Loud and bright, it'll be a nuclear explosion. But then I think they are watching and waiting, all of them or some of them. So I can't decide what to do.

Who else might be watching? An idiot from the government? Is it Maria Cortez? Those two Russian morons? I mean, they're not from the FSB, at least not originally. They were just dupes like me, opportunists out of their depth. Just like me, casually immoral, low-rent fools being swept along by history and chanced to a nasty date with this unreal reality.

Just like me. See look, my sense was they hacked the place just as it was falling apart and came back a few times. I mean, I wonder where they are. If they're still alive. If they were even real or, or just some other part of a game. No, surely they were too ridiculous to be fake. Like me.

So no, no, I have no idea who or what's watching me and if whatever is watching me is real or fake, a robot pretending to be a human or a human pretending to be artificial. But I have never felt so stupid in all my life of feeling stupid. So I'm running home for the first time in four years. I met him back.

Time to try to find out what is really happening and what is entirely made up. Art Barn, Tyburn, Industria, Playa Vista, California, October 2033. What is that, Alex? It's an artificial cowboy, only half finished. The character team half builds them and the AI will fill it in. And it gives it life, supposedly. I'm seeing how they look in the world. It's a big part of the experience. An artificial cowboy, a very American...

It looks very half-finished. And these are the concepts for Artificial Samurai, an artificial lounge singer in Femme Fatale, a private detective, man inventor, a Spartan warrior, Athenian philosopher, a novelist. Wow, Athenian philosopher. Oh yeah, Renaissance painter, cowgirl, clown, a pop band, DJ, chorus line dancer, stand-up comedian from the vaudeville era, and a few others. Matilda's been working on them for Tyburn.

Don't tell Siobhan just yet. Okay, please, Robbie? Alright, alright. Just tell me, what are they for? Entertainments! Stories! Worlds within worlds! What are they gonna do? You never saw this, okay? Just keep quiet. It's just a concept thing. Alright, calm down. And what's that? That's Daisy. I thought so. Daisy his daughter. Daisy his daughter. But from five years ago. From five years ago? Yes! How she used to be.

Daniel used to joke that no matter how shit things are, they can always get worse. And that once they are worse, you remember time when things were just shit as departed golden age movies.

He's very Russian, very, very Muscovite. I think lots of people feel this way. Even those who are not forgotten in solitary confinement in unnamed and possibly illegal security facility in unknown desert. A place so bad guards are paid triple and still hate being here. A place so bad pedophiles win appeals to not be sent here. And me? How did I end up here?

I was just a hacker, not even a good one. I never got rich. I only found one thing that was interesting. You know, mostly I just do corporate blackmail, rich guys in New York, bored secretaries who cheat on their husbands. It's nothing very serious. You steal a few secrets, sell them.

Then we dabble in bigger stuff a little bit. It always go badly. Daniel got us wrapped up with gangster. He led us to CIA, the Chinese mob, secret police. All of it is awful. That's when I find it half finished, empty. It was called the Utopia. Or Daisy's Utopia some places, Daisy's Ark other places. It was filled with notes, bugs,

And it was empty. It was empty. Until it wasn't. Daniel and I spent a few amazing days wandering around inside, marveling at how incredible it was and what it was and how unbelievably beautiful it was and how broken and how empty. And then I was called to Canada, you know, to do, just to do job surveillance. Not our usual sort of thing, but not so very strange.

Welcome to Ireland. So, plane landed in Ireland. Shannon, I think. It's nothing unusual, Shannon to Montreal. Maybe we're heading to Montana, maybe we weren't, but first Montreal. Only, we never make it to Montreal. Get on that connecting flight, sit in first class, about to pop sleeping pill, when they show up and they take us off.

I should have known. Who puts hackers in first class? Someone who wants to escort them off with minimum problem. Of course it was a setup. But who? Why? Now that nobody says. Three guys for each of us. In masks. I never saw Daniil again. They later said they kill him by accident, but they have said they were going to kill me. Four faceless Irish guys. Now off the plane they're all smiles, thick accents, big strong arms.

And then off the sky bridge, down outside staircase into van. There, friendly smile stop. No one is Irish. Two vans, one for each of us. Because the last time I saw the new, what a moron I was. How stupid. I know government hate me, but I figure they hate so many people. And I'm not worth hating very seriously. I never do much. And many of my worst crimes were carried out for them.

After we're forced to go freelance, after we have to give up, you know, good honest blackmail and become secret agents or spies or heroes or whatever other shit they told us. Always excused not to pay. You know, I have won medals. As an American, a Russian, Frenchman, Chinese dissident, I've got secret medals from all of them.

Spies love to give each other medals, I found out. I have fought on every side. They give you medals to pay you less. They promise you money, visas, quiet life, but it's always total bullshit. Instead, you get medal. You know when they come knocking, it will never end. And it never ended. But I don't think I am here because of that. I am nobody. If it was because of that, then they would have killed me.

I know how they work. I am not here because of Hecking. I am here because of the Ark. Something about Daisy's Ark terrifies them. I don't blame them. It terrified me. And that is why I think once I tell them everything, they will silence me. So our dance continues.

Demo room for the DAISY 2.0 project. Tyburn Industria, Playa Vista, California. January 2034.

Hello! My name is Daisy. Welcome to a better paradise. Okay, that is beyond creepy. It's terrifying. It even sort of sounds like his kid. It's not my fault! Nigel and Tyburn, they wanted it! Oh, fuck off, Dave. It's just a bit broken. She's really clever when she works. Okay, our mascot is a 12-year-old girl version of our boss's daughter. I mean, are you fucking kidding me? My name is Daisy. What's your name? My name is Fuck Off, you weird idiot.

My name is still Daisy 2.0. Did I upset you? The conversation tree is pathetic. I mean, actually pathetic. It would be, but it's not a conversation tree. It's learning. It'll be better tomorrow. It'll still be disturbing tomorrow. See, Siobhan? The AI is actually coming together. I'm sorry, Siobhan. I'm trying. Life is hard. Right. That was cool. Yeah, that was impressive. Impressive, but also still creepy.

Hi, it's Laszlo, director and producer of A Better Paradise. We're driven by the search for better, but when it comes to hiring, the best way to search for a candidate isn't to search at all. Don't search, match with Indeed. If you need to hire, you need Indeed. Indeed is your matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors, according to Indeed data, and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast.

Ditch the busy work, use Indeed for scheduling, screening, and messaging so you can connect with candidates faster. And Indeed doesn't just help you hire faster. 93% of employers agree that Indeed delivers the highest quality matches compared to other job sites. When I was looking to hire someone, it was slow and overwhelming. I wish I had used Indeed. Instead, I...

stood at a busy intersection flipping one of those signs in the air, and that didn't work. Leveraging over 140 million qualifications and preferences every day, Indeed's matching engine is constantly learning from your preferences. So the more you use Indeed, the better it gets. And listeners of this series will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash A Better Paradise. Just go to Indeed.com slash A Better Paradise right now and support our series by saying that you heard about Indeed Online.

on a better paradise indeed.com slash a better paradise terms and conditions apply need to hire you need indeed a better paradise is brought to you by babble what's the best way to learn a language get amnesia and then start from scratch no the best way to learn a language is with babble be a better you in 2024 with babble the science-based language learning app that actually works private tutors can cost hundreds of dollars and they're grumpy some apps take way too long and don't really help you speak the language

Babbel's quick 10-minute lessons are handcrafted by over 200 language experts to help you start speaking a new language in as little as three weeks. It's designed by real people for real conversations. Babbel's tips and tools are approachable, accessible, rooted in real-life situations, and delivered with conversation-based teaching. Babbel's convenient courses help me learn real-life conversation skills in a different language, so it's easy to order food, ask for directions, hire a chopper to escape into the jungle, buy an alpaca, whatever you do on vacation.

And their speech recognition technology helps you with your accent. Babbel has over 16 million subscriptions sold, plus all of Babbel's 14 award-winning language courses are backed by their 20-day money-back guarantee. Here's a special limited-time deal for listeners. Get up to 60% off your Babbel subscription, but only for A Better Paradise listeners at babbel.com slash paradise. Get up to 60% off at

Babbel.com slash paradise. That's spelled B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash paradise. Rules and restrictions may apply. John Tyburn Smith, Reno, Nevada, May 2041. If I did terrible things, I did them for love. Everyone does. People do terrible things for love. More than for money. For money, they will sell themselves. But for love, they will destroy the world. And who did I love?

My fucking awful father, Mark Tyburn, and my wretched bitch sister Daisy. Them all happy and good looking and me spotty and foul and Scottish. Me bitter as vinegar and them the worst cocktail of entitled English and happy American. She's so happy they made a happy robot clone version of her so everyone could have a Daisy as their sister.

I should have shot them both. I should have strangled them, stabbed them, torn out their insides. Instead, I loved them. Daisy was harmless enough. That was the problem. She was too harmless. All chipper and normal and smiley and just the sort of girl a serial killer would disembowel.

And there was me, the sort of person who said things like that and made all these happy, purposeful fuckwits squirm with my small-town Scots bitterness and my chip-shop acne and my ginger foulness.

No one ever wanted to make a digital mascot of me. Even I wouldn't want one. But dear old dad said, Johnny, come work with us. I'm sorry I've not been around enough. But you know I love you and all that bollocks. And I believed that fake English wanker. Worse, I did not believe him at all. I forced myself to believe him even though I knew he was full of shite.

Like a typical Scots fool, I was bought off by sweet nothings and a few gold coins from a lying English wanker and kept happy and smiling and compliant with cheap booze.

I already drank cheap booze. I was made happy with expensive blue cocaine and luxury mushrooms and DMT and all those California highs with imposter shamans. I even became sort of spiritual for a bit. Me, GTS, I had a fucking mantra. I have another one. Not so polite. Go fuck yourself.

The truth is, I went there to kill him. My father. Break a bottle over his smug twat head. Break him. Just like he broke me. But I got too pissed on my way over and made a fool of myself in the car park and forgot to kill him and he saw it in me. Saw all of it in me and played me like a fiddle. Again.

came out in front of everyone, all of them watching from the windows, and offered me a job. Asked me where I had been, and wrapped me so tight I started weeping. And he kept me close, but not so close that I would get comfortable and stop being useful.

Oh, he was great at being a manipulative arsehole, my dear old pa. And now I know I should have killed him. Broken his scrawny English neck then and there saved the world. That was my chance and I blew it. Blew it so someone awful would prove to me they were awful again. And to think I had low self-esteem before.

Then I had to accept I helped destroy the world. So I blame myself, but the truth is, I was pretty happy in California once I had my dad's attention. And to begin with, I also loved Montana when we moved up there. I mean, I was the unloved stepchild and I knew it. I came to some family events, but not all. Dad kept me close, but not too close. Dad was a shaman.

Dad was a showman. Dad knew how to love you and piss on you and bring you in and push you away so you were spinning so hard and you loved him even more. That was my darling father. A cunt. A total English cunt. And I loved him. And I covered for him.

When he lied to his wife, his poor wife who tried to be nice to me even though she had never heard of me. When I realized he was fucking that idiot Joyce Jones, that he'd probably been fucking her for years. Joyce and the rest of them, that woman in design, the paralegal and possibly others. Joyce was creepy and did not care. And Diane, his wife, tried not to see a cover for him.

He fucked around on my mother. So I sort of thought it only proper he should fuck around on poor Diane. My god, I was awful, twisted, hated people. I liked betrayal as it helped make the world make sense to me. I was a lowlife amongst lowlifes. Poor old Diane.

When he lied to lawyers, and then to federal regulators, and then to his own team. When he ripped people off, stole from them, tricked them over contracts. I had his back. I was the second biggest arsehole in the place to impress him. And still he left me. And still I miss him. And poor Daisy doesn't know anything about Daddy.

She hates him because he missed her bedtime. I hate him because he hurt everybody. And she sat there and I've got to go up and speak to her and I have no idea what to say or what I want. Am I going to kill her? I don't think so. Maybe.

Does everyone hate their siblings? Is this normal or am I a psycho? Maybe I should message her. But of course, we can't message. Daisy is offline. Little fucking hipster bitch would be. Her hair and tattoos. What is that? Rebellion? She can't rebel. She had no people to rebel against. Those who are loved don't rebel. Only the betrayed rebel. They're the only ones who know how. So I shall speak to her. Speak to her?

Kill her? But not today. Today, I'm going to watch. Demo room for the Daisy 2.0 project. Tyburn Industria, Playa Vista, California. January 2034. Alex, does it work? Does what work? That weird-looking creature. You mean weird digital baby Daisy? Uh-huh. Yes. It, she, or whatever the hell we're supposed to call it...

Looks dead. It looks dead because it has no life. When the AI works, it comes to life. Does the AI work?

Sort of. Sometimes. It was working briefly last week. She went inside. Then Nigel fixed something and it fell over again and hasn't worked since. Thaddeus and him got into a massive fight. Thaddeus even threatened to report him to HR. Really? Thaddeus hates HR. Yes. It was quite an argument. Apparently, they got very heated. Rude words were exchanged. Oh, rude words. Okay, rude words while we try to bring life to a digital 12-year-old? Come on.

Let me ask you a question, okay? Is the goal here for all of us to go to prison as sex offenders or for all of us to go to a lunatic asylum? Well, you know his latest plan. Whose? Taddeus? No, Tyburn's. What? It's not going to be Utopia or Daisy's Utopia. Lawyers said it wasn't protectable. And Siobhan pointed out it's a cliche. And Shane tested both and people thought we were developing a shopping mall. So, it's Daisy's arc.

That's our name. Well, it's a placeholder. I'm sure Mark would discuss with you. He loves you. But he's been speaking to this guy Shane. Shane O'Leary, friend of his son's. Of John's, I mean. Oh, great. John Tyburn Smith, Reno, Nevada, May 2041. I always wanted to be special, to matter.

Not very Scottish. If there is one thing growing up in the Drizzle teaches you, it's that nobody gives a fuck about you. Least of all, God. I knew it. And part of me wanted something else. Wanted to be special. Me. Special. And I never felt special at all. And then I did. All because of Shane.

made the right fucking twat of me. Me and my desire to be special. Never told anyone about it. Kept my head down like a good, proud, riddled with shame and self-loathing Scot. But he could smell it on me. Smelt it on me. And used it to make me do his bidding.

Demo room for the Daisy 2.0 project. Tyburn Industria, Playa Vista, California. January 2034. Hello, Siobhan. I'm sorry I upset you the other day. Nigel, you made it say that. I didn't. He didn't, Siobhan. But I don't want to upset you again. I want to be friends. And I'm worried you don't like me. If I upset you, I'm sorry. I'm trying...

Was it that awful Australian guy, Shane? Or was it my odd half-brother John that caused Daddy to go so strange?

John just turned up. Just turned up at a dinner. And Mommy smiled at him, Daddy acted sheepish. I later discovered that this was because Mommy had only just learned I had a half-brother. I don't even know if she really knew she wasn't Daddy's first wife. I mean, she certainly knew from that moment on that she had married the kind of man who would abandon a child. The kind of man who just forgot to tell his wife things.

John was so angry and so foreign. He's so Scottish. He liked to make nasty little quips about America, like I was some patriot and he was upsetting me. Yeah, no, we never got on particularly. But you know what? I don't think anyone got on with JTS. That's what he called himself, JTS. I was sort of excited to have a brother and sort of confused. He was so Scottish and ugly and bitter and angry. I don't mean physically ugly. I mean emotionally just ugly.

He had the bitterness and rage of the abandoned. And back then, I was a princess. I didn't know anything about bitterness. My mother hadn't quite fallen apart yet, and even then, that world still clung on to a little bit of optimism. But John, John knew so much about bitterness. I used to joke that just as the Inuits had 30 words for snow, he had 30 words for bitterness.

And me, I sort of blamed him. You know, Mommy didn't. She felt bad for him, I think. She even loved him. I think he felt it as much as he could feel love. But I felt superior to him because he was so angry. He felt superior to me because I was so naive. And we both, without realizing it, sort of competed for Daddy. And Daddy would pull John really close and then push him away. And by the time I was 17, 18, I began to see it. And my heart broke for poor John because I began to realize just how foul Daddy really was.

But I was intelligent when I was 18. I was confident. And I had begun to wake up, and yet not seen quite so much. I wanted to go back to sleep. But even though I woke up and I pitied John, I never really spoke to him. He was so, so...

angry. And he looked at me like I was the cause of his anger. This great ball of Scottish rage mostly directed at his obnoxious, seductive, withholding English father and partly directed at me, his too pretty half-sister. Now I look very different. I won't attempt to describe myself as I may offend somebody, but trust me, I look ridiculous. My pretty girl vanity just got ripped away when I gave up prettiness and

Gave up having a future and was just set free, set adrift, all at once. And now I hide behind short hair and thick eye makeup and tattoos and a big nice scowl. Back then I hid behind a big smile and blonde hair and a burnished innocence that I maintained while it got me something. And then had it ripped away when I saw everything. The entire mess of it all.

My father, the sex pest. My mother, the victim in the paradise that was hellish and the madness they built that hates us. Now I look like a lost trauma survivor or an extra from a goth video. Back then, I looked like an angel, and everyone treated me like that, like something special, like I was sunshine. I felt like I was a living dream for them. I was their innocence, their happiness, and for a while, I just reveled in it, in the absurdity of it.

But I was too young and too pampered not to like being praised, even though what I was being praised for was being pretty and stupid. And even as I began to see through my father and realize what an awful hell he had unleashed, still, I did not know how to say to John how bad I felt for him. And by then, as I pulled away from my father, John got pulled closer. John got to be the son he always wanted to be.

Just when we began to realize the father he was chasing was not the person we hoped he was, but the man we feared he might be all along. So, me and John were never very much like brother and sister. Me so perfect, him so foul and flawed. Me smiling, him angry. Then him on the inside and me on the outside. Everyone loving me and everyone laughing at him. And if I'm honest, even though I was young, I saw people preferred me. I felt it, knew it. And worst of all, I loved it.

So, who am I to judge my father for loving praise when I did? And who am I to criticize John for being bitter when he didn't have the love and the praise that I so reveled in? How things have changed now. Now I have no family, no friends, and I'm just watched or not watched by that foul thing that can watch all of us and destroy anyone it chooses and is probably still planning to destroy all of us.

Hey there, this is Laszlo, the director of A Better Paradise, here to tell you a bit about Shopify, the global commerce platform that helps you sell at every stage of your business. Are you selling a little?

or a lot. Shopify helps you do your thing, however you cha-ching. Shopify powers 10% of all e-commerce in the U.S., and Shopify's the global force behind Allbirds, Rothy's, Brooklinen, and millions of other entrepreneurs of every size across 175 countries. Whether you're selling nunchucks or Sasquatch figurines, Shopify helps you sell everywhere. From their all-in-one e-commerce platform to their in-person POS system,

Wherever and whatever you're selling, Shopify's got you covered. Shopify helps you turn browsers into buyers with the internet's best converting checkout. 36% better on average compared to other leading commerce platforms. And sell more with less effort thanks to Shopify Magic, your AI-powered all-star. Plus, Shopify's award-winning help is there to support your success every step of the way. Because businesses that grow, grow with Shopify.

Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash abetterparadise, all lowercase. Go to shopify.com slash abetterparadise now to grow your business, no matter what stage you're in. shopify.com slash abetterparadise. High security internment facility. Location unknown. May 2041. Wake up, Yaroslav. Wake up. We're not finished. No.

What did you know about Ravi Guttra? Nothing. Nothing. Just what you tell me. What about Shane O'Leary? No. What about Kurt Fisher? No. He did marketing for Tyburn Utopias. I read about him online. Him and Mark Tyburn. Okay. Did you know about Douglas Mathers? Does that name mean anything to you? No. No, I don't think so. Are you sure? Yes.

Dr. Leslie Adsil. No, no, no, I don't know any of these people except from Kurt Fisher, Mark Tyburn, Shoban Smith, she was art director on Future Hades, Daniel Lovey's game, and, and Ravi, because you tell me about him, and he's dead. Are you sure, Yaroslav? Yes, I'm sure. I'm fucking sure. What about John Tyburn Smith? Nothing. Nothing.

Truth is, even though I played them all day, I always kind of hated video games. They seemed a bit fucking stupid to me. Calm yourself down by shooting these morons in the face? Prove you're a real nobody by pretending to be this heroic somebody? Show just how tough you are by pressing buttons and getting fat and dumb? Aye.

I saw through all that shite. But then I also hated not playing video games. What are the options? Get pissed down at the pub while you listen to some moron wine and call him your best mate? Prance about on ease to silly music and call yourself a dancer? Watch a bunch of rich twats play football and call it passion?

Even better, in Scotland, watch a bunch of rich Muslim twats play football and believe they are good, honest Catholics and they play for Celtic and hate the rich Hindu or whatever twats who play for Rangers. That's a real honest passion. A religious football team.

Only in fucking Scotland. And it's all we had. All of them were religious, fighting each other over transubstantiation as if any of those coked-up morons in the stands understood the first thing about it. The whole thing a race to the fucking bottom. Who gives a fuck about 1619 or 1916 or this or that injustice about a fucking march in Ulster?

Then there's Scottish politics. Even worse than British politics. And that's against the Tories. If ever there was a competition as to who is the biggest lying twat, that is it.

Been like that my entire life. And it turns out, now that they've won, the Nats are even bigger twats than the Tories. Aye, now with that border in place and the country getting really nasty, kicking out the English, the ridiculous race marches, anyone but the English allowed, attacking each other. Genetic testing to see who's a proper Scot.

The Prover Scot left 250 years ago, you morons. So reality is awful and fantasy is pretty terrible too. What's a bitter fool with daddy issues who cannot decide what he hates more, fantasy or reality, to do? Run off and find his fake daddy and help him build something that is both made up and real? And that's what I did. Made a right royal prat of myself and all.

So keen I was. Out of Scotland and into Utopia. I played my dad's game. Got girls and purpose. What more does a boy need? But the girls were not quite real. And the purpose was a fucking disaster. And the whole game, his whole world was a game building games. And a world building worlds. And all of it a load of fake shite.

For a while it worked. I had myself a daddy, and he pretended to love me, and I tried to believe him, and I had Daisy to hate, and any number of other people, Diane, Siobhan, Kurt, all of them, to resent, and a bit of money, and a job, and girls, and the whole fucking lot, and I was kind of happy. Kind of happy, and it felt odd. I don't trust happiness.

Don't know, and didn't really then. And now? Now I'm back being miserable. Miserable and alone and watching. Watching my sweet little sister and no idea why I am here at all. But this time, there'll be no running away. This time, it's going to be my game and my laws. And it's going to be nasty as hell. But it ain't going to be fake.

The Shack Sports Bar, Playa del Rey, California, May 2034. I can't believe they are bringing in new laws! The old lot killed the industry! Eh, it's the EU. No, Siobhan, it's not the EU. It's the CSA. Jesus, an American government agency that actually does something? I thought they were toothless numbskulls. They have never done much.

See, the Cyber Security Agency had been formed a few years before and were notoriously useless in the industry. But Nigel thought things were changing.

They're finally growing some teeth, Kurt. A new director, a new direction, real regulation. Your fine American government is finally getting aggressive. I mean, won't they just repeal all the laws like last time? I don't know yet. Probably, but we shall see. Okay, so what does it mean for us, Nigel? Well, unless Dave learns to work as part of a team, it's irrelevant as our stuff will continue to be broken. If it's ever fixed...

I don't know. I'm sure we'll be fine. I haven't read too much about the details yet. There'll be a workaround. Kurt. Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. May, 2041. Yeah, I just got into Victoria late last night. Boat from Hawaii took a week. Vancouver Island was supposed to be an awful mess, but yeah, it seems okay. I mean, the sky was blue earlier. Like, really blue.

and it was not a picture or an imposed image, so the fires must have stopped or abated somewhat. The wind had died down, which might have helped, but some of the residual particulates must have stayed in the sky as the sunset was like fire. The sun refracted off the pollution in the air and shone in rays of purple and scarlet and amber. I mean, the day was one of those rare days that still happen that are like memories or commercials or those wretched commercials that are made to seem like memories.

I mean, I went for a walk on the outskirts of town and I felt almost free and sort of, you know, simplistic happiness that felt like what my childhood should have been like. Like what I had been craving when I was young and innocent and before I got swallowed by marketing.

But I was also afraid of the feeling as it was so good and so nearly pure, it felt like it was not real. And I'm now starting to wonder, is this just marketing or whatever was watching me? My God, my God, I hate marketing. And I worked in marketing. I hate what it did to me. I hate advertising. I hate plans. I hate ideas that are not ideas at all, but venal assaults on our worst natures. I hate it.

I did it, I understand it, and yet I fall for it every single time. So maybe this is just, you know, more marketing.

and i try i try not to think these thoughts and i try to have no thoughts as few memories as possible as if that will defeat the thing but my brain won't stop now i've been trying to drift like i used to but it's impossible now i mean a hundred thousand algorithms know all this about me know everything about me and now a few things watch and know far more i mean do they know where i'll go

Know how I'll try to trick them? Know I'm watching? Know where and how I move and all my feeble tricks? See, I used to tell myself that they didn't have the energy to watch me, as if they had the choice or a lack of energy. And for years now, I've drifted, but now things are different. Almost immediately after that perfect sunset, I had thoughts I could not count. And I know I'm not myself.

Like, come on, a sunset? All that intelligence and it alights upon a cliche. And of course it does. It alights upon a cliche because cliches work. It knows marketing. It is one step, two steps, actually, a thousand miles ahead of me. It is probably telling me to think this thought. Write this down. I don't know. Oh man, I don't know anything anymore. And yet I know so much or...

or half know everything. I half understand how it works, half understand who built it, half understand my own complicity, my own failings. Am I really still searching for my own path towards some kind of redemption or am I being played? I honestly still hope to find a path forward or try to, but without hope metastasizing into longing, into desire, even that is forlorn. I mean,

and if not quite idiotic, then willfully naive. It is far more intelligent than me than anyone. Everything, everything I have done since it began, everything has been something it has understood.

Like, we really thought we were so clever, huh? We built our own prisons to trap the unwilling, trap them, ensnare them, and ride them for all they're worth. See, the only problem was, in order to show how secure our jails were, we locked ourselves inside. And yep, swallowed the key. So here we are. Here I am. Vancouver Island. All alone and not alone at all. I know I'm not alone.

Has something always been watching me? Waiting? Thinking? Knowing? Probably. Did I make a mistake or was I just being played by it in some vastly complex game far above my understanding? Have they, its awful children, have they escaped? I suppose we're to find out, or at least I am, unless what it wants is to kill me or wants me to forget, which I know it can easily manage.

So I sit here and write. I write and worry if it's really me writing and then worry about both answers to that, then burn what I write. Worry if the news is real. Worry why I came here and worry why I came back. Worry if my very thoughts are my own. All the grim doubts and questions bounce around my head. I mean, perhaps I'm not free and perhaps I am. Perhaps I'm not me and perhaps I am.

Both seem equally worrying. I mean, should I stay in Canada or cross into America? I mean, I don't know, but then I don't seem to know what I'm doing anymore. And if I'm no longer in control of myself, then who or what is controlling me and why? How will this play out?

Laura Dramarek as Siobhan Smith. Robert Robertson Ross Jr. as John Tyburn Smith. Lawrence Ademora as Dave Alderley.

Additional performances by Danielle Hodimer, Robby Kapoor, Alex Ruiz, Dan Wixman, Martin William Harris. Executive produced by Dan Houser, Laszlo, Wendy Smith, Andrew Lincoln, Patterson Joseph, Shamir Anderson, Rob Herding, and Alexa Gabrielle Ramirez.

Score by Darren Johnson. Original music by Darren Johnson, Negative Land, and Jamie Biden. Edited by Connor Murphy. Sound design by Brandon Jones. Mixed by Ben Milchev. Co-producer Nick Shanks. Associate producer Jesse Cortez. Additional credits are available online. A Better Paradise is an Absurd Ventures and QCode production. Sound recording copyright 2024 by Absurd Ventures, LLC.