Episode 7: We Ourselves

Episode 7 - "We Ourselves" - Credits

Written and Directed by Sarah Shachat.

Script Editing by David K. Barnes.
Performance by Karim Kronfli as Nicholas Carrick.
Original Music by Alan Rodi.

Sound Design by Zach Valenti.

Produced by Sarah Shachat, Zach Valenti, and Gabriel Urbina,

along with Angel Acevedo, Jenn Schneider, and Amy Tanguay.

Episode 7 - "We Ourselves" - Transcript

Announcer: This episode contains depictions of fantasy violence and strained family relationships. Listener discretion is advised.

[Unseen opening credits music plays.]

Announcer: Long Story Short Productions presents... Unseen.

[Unseen Theme continues playing.]

Announcer: Episode Seven. We Ourselves by Sarah Shachat.

[Music fades.]

[A door is unlocked, then opened. Two sets of footsteps enter a room. The door closes behind them.]

[The footsteps continue walking through the room.]

CARRICK: You’re lucky, you know. Not many people see what I have back here. I’ve got the storefront, of course, and then the storeroom behind that. Then there’s the office where I handle most of the high-ticket items, but this?

[The footsteps continue, then stop as the speaker reaches his destination.]

CARRICK: This is my private collection. It’s where I keep some things just for me. For a rainy day. Or if one of them fits the bill for an especially odd collector. And the Unseen World? [He laughs.] Oh, it’s full of oddballs.

[A few more steps. Music begins playing.]

CARRICK: Do you see anything you like? Anything on the shelves that calls out to you?The vials themselves are just glass. Ever-so-slightly wonder- worked, but nothing special. It’s what’s in them that’s interesting.

[A few more footsteps. A glass vial is picked up.]

CARRICK: What do you think it look like? Some people say mercury. Sort of a... silver muck. Others say they look like honey, or maple syrup.

[A liquid sloshes as the vial is swirled around.]

CARRICK: I suppose they do look a bit like preserves. To the casual observer, it might look like I have the world’s most well-protected jam collection.

[He chuckles a little at that. A few more footsteps.]

CARRICK: I once had a burglar break into the shop. Completely Veiled - poor guy had no idea that magic was a thing. He walked right past this room, right past memories worth thousands, and tried to make off with my old Marantz turntable instead. Not that he even remembers how to use a turntable. Anymore.

[A pause.]

CARRICK: Anyway - I’m glad you’re here, you know. It’s good to finally meet you, Patience. I can’t imagine the shouting match involved in getting your mother to loosen her grip and let you come out East. Or anywhere. But I am very glad you managed it. I know your mother hasn’t taught you much about what I do. Alexandrine has bigger plans, and that’s fine. Nicolas isn’t the Requin in charge of the clan. Hell, Nicolas isn’t even a Requin anymore.

[He sighs.]

CARRICK: No, I’m Nicholas Carrick now. The surname’s a small thing, but it’s more... American. Little easier to stomach around these parts. See, when I got to New York? No one wanted to do business with Nicolas Requin. No one.

[He takes on a New York accent as he says:]

CARRICK: But Nicholas Carrick? Ah, he’s all right. Old Nick’s got this nice little antique shop, up on third avenue. Well, it started off as antiques, yeah? But he’s, uh, what the word? Diversified. He sells records now. You know? Vinyl. Old memorabilia, collectibles, that kinda stuff. And if you ask real nice, and you got the right kinda glint in your eye, he’ll show you the back room, where he’s got all these funny little glass jars. And as for what’s in them? Ah, you gotta see that for yourself. But don’t worry: it’s the sort of thing you never forget.

[He laughs. Returns to his regular speaking register as he says:]

CARRICK: All show, of course.

[More footsteps.]

CARRICK: The voice and the name and the little record shop in the front.

[A chair creaks as Carrick sits down on it.]

CARRICK: But show is important. The tiny signals we offer to each other that we’re on the same side: they’re very important. A little nudge here and there to make me more... appealing? Invaluable.

[The music ends.]

CARRICK: It’s the same as my work, really. You know what the first rule of memory magic is? Write detailed labels.

[A glass vial clinks as it is picked up and liquid sloshes inside of it.]

CARRICK: Oubliation is a delicate art. Delicate and precise. It isn’t a simple matter, to extract a memory out of a mind.

[There's the pop of a lid being removed. A faint hum can be heard.]

CARRICK: For starters... a memory is a living thing. Our magic gives it shape, makes it definite. It let us turn our thoughts and feelings... the little voice behind our eyes that narrates our path through life... into something else...

[The vial clatters a little.]

CARRICK: Into this... strange sort of quicksilver. Funny, isn’t it? We think of our minds as being the purest part of ourselves. But when you actually see it? Our ideas, made real? They all just look kind of like wine that’s gone off.

[The lid closes with a snap, and the hum stops.]

CARRICK: But, oh, I’m getting ahead of myself. The point - what you need to remember - is this: a memory can only be in one place. Once a memory is taken... once it’s out of a head and into one of these vials... that’s where it is. We can’t copy memories, only... transport them. And once something is taken from you, you’re left with a... a fleeting impression. A memory of the memory as the fog descends. And a moment later?

[He snaps his fingers.]

CARRICK: Gone. Like it was never even there.

[There's a pop from another vial, and a soft ringing sound.]

CARRICK: Of course, the reverse is also true. Once a memory is out in the world, it’s there for the taking. A memory wants to be in a mind. It isn’t hard. You simply bring the vial up to your head... and...

[There's a sudden rushing, sputtering sound. The ringing stops.]

CARRICK: And something comes out of the fog. Something that isn’t yours. A landscape you never walked through. A snatch of life you never lived. Except... it is yours now.

[Music begins playing.]

CARRICK: Yours to keep...

[There's a strange tearing sound, followed by another rushing, sputtering noise. The ringing resumes.]

CARRICK: Or to give back. That is the very essence of the work I do. Memories. Never shared, but given and taken.

[A lid snaps into place, and the ringing stops.]

CARRICK: People have tried, of course. To get around that zeroth rule. To copy memories, or refine them in some way so that they can live across minds, between minds. Who doesn’t want to see the world from someone else’s point of view? To not just make a memory of your own, but to get to show someone how you feel... how you think...

[A pause.]

CARRICK: For centuries people have tried. You know what’s the closest anyone’s ever come? To figuring out a way to see the world through someone else’s eyes? Going to the movies.

[He laughs a little.]

CARRICK: Ah. But again... I’m rambling. Get to the point, Nicholas, you’re boring your niece. Here’s the point: in order for a memory to be taken, I have to give it. And if the memory isn’t in anyone’s head, then how does a humble purveyor like your uncle know what they’re selling? Hence: write detailed labels.

[Paper rustles, and a pen writes something on it under the following:]

CARRICK: It isn’t enough to simply write, say, “Day at the beach.” There’s a million of memories like that. You need to get specific. In that bit of life in the jar, what are you going to find? How old are you? How bright is it? How soft is the sand beneath your feet? And above all else... how are you feeling?

[The pen clatters as it is placed down.]

CARRICK: There’s a thousand and one things you need to evaluate in that one moment. When you still have the memory of the memory.

[The page rustles as it is picked up.]

CARRICK: I have symbols for everything. Simple ones, never more than three strokes of the pen. A symbol for a pleasant memory. A symbol for romance. One for adventure, and one for danger. And one for anything rare or unique. This one? That I’ve been using as my example? Just a little pedestrian seaside dawn. Boring and predictable. You can’t even tell where it is. Whoever lived it didn’t have any eye for detail. Bargain bin material, at best.

[He exhales, annoyed.]

CARRICK: Still, I might be able to get something for it. There’s always someone that will put down money just for the thrill of having a bit of someone else’s life rolling around their head. That sorta stuff’s never gonna pay the rent, but if you’re doing business here in New York and you’re not keeping something around for the tourists? You’re crazy. And, Patience, your uncle’s odd, but he’s not crazy.

[He laughs.]

CARRICK: You’d know all of this already, if... well, if my darling sister wasn’t such an insufferable stick-in-the-mud.

[A drawer opens, and vials clink as Carrick rearranges some of them. A few footsteps as Carrick moves around the room.]

CARRICK: Oh, Alexandrine is a brilliant magician in her own... unique way. And she has been a great leader for our family. But oubliation was never her style - too focused on the little details. Too cerebral. Pun not intended. Which is fine. For her.

[A vial sloshes.]

CARRICK: But keeping you away from all of this? That I don’t understand. When you were a kid, maybe. But you’re a young woman now. And you’re already going to have a tough enough go of it in the world - all of humanity too wrapped up in their own heads to even see who you are. And the Unseen World’s almost as bad. Years of recriminations, grudges, resentments...

[Carrick scoffs.]

CARRICK: Personally, I think they’re just jealous. They’ve never gotten over the fact that God gave us harpies wings...

[A leathery stretching sound, followed by a gust of wind.]

CARRICK: It’s all they ever see.

[A chair squeaks as Carrick sits down on it.]

CARRICK: Their loss. They’re so focused on the... aviation of it all, they never pay attention to our real gift.

[Music begins.]

CARRICK: Memory magic is our people’s art, Patience. We invented it, and we are its first masters. Letting memories have a life beyond their maker? That... that feels important. It can even change people, you know. Give them a new perspective. Or help them let go of an old one. I like the idea of being able to, uh, fit someone with a better set of mental glasses.

[He chuckles a bit.]

CARRICK: And I like the idea that if someone angered me I could do far worse than killing them. That I could take their lives... piece by piece... until nothing was left of them. Oh, come now. You don’t think your mother lets me putter around the Upper East Side just because I’m her baby brother, do you? I have to do my part for the clan every now and then. And there’s nothing quite like an expert in Oubliation when it comes to making a problem vanish into thin air. Our family finds its uses for me... from time to time. But it’s bought me my freedom to, well, putter around the Upper East Side and play with the limits of memory. And... once in a blue moon... they do return the favor.

[A pause.]

CARRICK: Case in point: I’m very glad that you came to visit, but... I’m afraid I had a bit of an ulterior motive to luring you out to New York, besides getting to lecture on my favorite topic. I was wondering if you might be willing to help your uncle with a... a problem. I have an interesting dilemma on my hands. Want to hear about it?

[A pause.]

CARRICK: Good girl. I know family’s complicated, especially ours. But you can always count on it. I promise, it’s not stuffy clan responsibilities or any bureaucratic nightmares. It’s... well, it’s complicated. And it’s important. Let me explain. Five weeks ago, a man came shop. The kind of man that you see and -

[Carrick snaps his fingers.]

CARRICK: - instantly, you have the measure of him. Thin. Pale. Sunken cheeks, watery eyes. Kind of man that has tried to squeeze too much life into too short a span. On the other side of the Atlantic, we call them Hoovers, but here in the States they’re known as Siphons. Men - and women, I suppose, but they're mostly men - who make a living by making memories, and selling them to enterprising collectors like your uncle. The memories of learning a language, for example, very useful to the wealthy man in a hurry. Or the memory of a romantic evening out with a famous actor. Or the exquisite joy of seeing your first child born. If you’re willing to give it, there’s always a profit to be made.

[A pause.]

CARRICK: Never become a Siphon, Patience. You live day to day. Experience to experience. You waste your life obsessing over what others crave, not on what you want. And one day you look back and realize that you don’t have a life - just holes. Patches of black fog.

[The music ends.]

CARRICK: Mmm, plus the pay’s not actually all that good. Well, not unless you bring in something truly exceptional. Which almost no one ever does. See, that’s the problem: what is a memory worth paying for? How much would you pay for a memory of say... skydiving?

[There is a soft tink of glass. We hear the sound of rushing wind, as if we are falling from a great height.]

[There is a wooshing sound, and the sound of falling cuts off.]

CARRICK: Eighty dollars American, tops. Everyone thinks to sell their memories of jumping out of an airplane, but the truth is no one wants to remember doing it. They just want to have done it. How about... swimming next to a great white shark?

[Another soft tink of glass. We hear bubbling and churning, as if we were far underwater.]

CARRICK: How much would you pay for the memory of looking into the fathomless eyes of death itself?

[Waters churn and twist around us.]

[Another transportive woosh, and the underwater sounds cut off.]

CARRICK: Personally? I wouldn’t pay a cent over three hundred.

[A vial clatters.]

CARRICK: Ahh. How about... standing at the top of Mt. Everest?

[A third tink of glass. Winds howl around us, like we're somewhere very high up.]

CARRICK: The very roof of the world... how much is that memory worth?

[Another transportive woosh, and the sound of wind cuts off.]

CARRICK: Eight hundred dollars. And falling. More and more people climb the damn thing every year. See, Patience, this is what most people don’t understand. It’s not a matter of magic, it’s a matter of economics. Something isn’t valuable because it’s interesting, or breathtaking, or even meaningful. It’s valuable because it’s rare. It’s valuable because it’s gone.

[A few more steps. His chair groans as he pulls it out and sits on it.]

CARRICK: A memory of the last concert a famous band played before they broke up? That sells. The memory of the last meal made with a now- extinct ingredient? That sells. The strange night in which you found yourself drinking with a young and beautiful prince, twelve hours before he went missing? That - well...

[He chuckles softly.]

CARRICK: That one more than sells. That one lets you retire to the tropics. This man who came into the shop... it obviously wasn’t the first time he’d sold off parts of his history. But as we started to go over what he wanted to sell me, it was all rubbish. Anarchic parties and long trips around the world and so many strange odds and ends. Bargain bin material, all of it. I said I’d give him nine-hundred dollars for the lot.

[He laughs.]

CARRICK: He looked like I’d just punched him in the face, the poor fool. But then... then he showed me this.

[There's a rustle as Carrick produces a new vial. This one hums with power. We hear it throughout the following:]

CARRICK: I have no idea how he got it. Second hand, almost certainly. A man like him would never experience something like this in the flesh. I don’t know if he stole the memory or inherited it or... something else. I didn’t much care. He had it. And I had to have it. That’s all I gave a damn about that night.

[He picks up the vial, and the humming gets louder.]

[Music begins playing.]

CARRICK: You see, there’s certain items that are out-of-bounds for memory dealers. Things we’ve all agreed are off the table. No memories of killing. No memories of war. Nothing that involves taking a person and then making them... less than they are. Simple, really. We can’t exactly offer payments for memories of a murder, can we? It’s just... distasteful.

[His fingers click against the vial.]

CARRICK: Of course... certain events are too important, too unique, to keep off the market. Even if they do involve... unsavoriness. Exceptions must be made, occasionally, in the name of the art. He had an exception. The bastard actually had a memory of a Coup De Tonnerre.

[A pause.]

CARRICK: I can’t remember how old I was when I first learned about the Coup. Knowing your mother, you probably learned all about it when you were still in école maternelle. Perfect bedtime story for your four-year-old: once upon a time every now and then, two great harpy families go to war - but in a civilized fashion. One champion from each family, sent in to settle the matter. A contest of strength, and power, and mind, to put an end to the dispute. Well, at least, that’s the theory. In practice, they tend to be more of a... pause in hostilities. A bit of detente. Until the next crash of thunders.

[A small pause.]

CARRICK: I’ve never seen one, you know. Not ever. Unusual, given how often our family has fought them, but there you are. I wasn’t even born when Alexandrine won hers. But outside of our rather... eventful family history, they’re exceedingly rare. Not more than three a decade, they reckon. And that number’s only getting smaller. I couldn’t buy this memory fast enough. I had to have it. I gave him five thousand dollars and he scampered off.

[He laughs.]

CARRICK: More fool him. I would have given him the whole store, if he’d asked for it. Then I got back here, and I actually took a look at the memory itself. And more fool me.

[Music ends.]

CARRICK: Well, go on, then. Aren’t you curious? Try it out. See what comes out of the fog.

[A lid is pried off the vial. There's a woosh, and we are transported to an open air field. Around us, we hear the chatter of dozens of people.]

CARRICK: You’re there now, aren’t you, Patience? You can see it. This memory is only about a decade old, by my estimate. But this place is one of our people’s oldest battlefields.

[We hear stomping on the ground, soft, but growing faster and louder as Carrick speaks.]

CARRICK: Somewhere in the forest of Fountainebleau - only an hour south of Paris. But the forest is thick, dense, and rocky. Just the place to hide a small arena. In the memory, you’re in the crowd. The second row from the front. There’s maybe a hundred people here. The two warring families, of course. But a few others besides. Harpies. The odd fae. An Unveiled human or two. Anyone who could beg, borrow, or steal their way in here.

[The stomping accelerates.]

CARRICK: You see rows of masked figures, watching, waiting. Everyone wears a mask to the Coup, of course. You’re wearing a mask. It’s one of the old laws. You leave any affiliation you have as you enter the arena. Only two people stand unmasked: the champions from each family. It is, after all, a battle between two individuals, not two armies. Well... that’s how it’s supposed to work. But you see tiny flashes of identity all around you, don’t you?

[We hear the jingling and jangling of various bits of jewelry and clothing.]

CARRICK: A gold band here. A silver necklace there. Specks of paint, half-hidden ornaments. A thousand and one private little ways of saying...

[The stomping reaches a crescendo, then stops. A thunderclap rings out.]

CARRICK: My clan is going to come out on top.

[A large gate opens.]

CARRICK: Then the first gate opens.

[There are footsteps on sand. Around that, applause.]

CARRICK: You see the first champion as he walks into the arena, clad in silver. He’s tall, with long black hair, tied into a bun. You see his wings tense as he takes his spot on the floor. A thought crosses your mind. Well, not yours, of course, but whoever made this memory, which means now it crosses through your mind. “My God. He looks so young.”

[Another gate opens, and we hear a second set of footsteps in the sand.]

CARRICK: You turn your head just as the gold champion emerges. They’re shorter than the silver champion, but more muscular. They’re young too - can’t be more than twenty-eight - but they’re trying to look older.

[The crowd cheers.]

CARRICK: They say you may live to be four-hundred, and never see anything like a Coup. Two beings, at the peak of their magical ability, going toe to toe. Only two rules to what they can and can’t do. Rule number one: no physical contact. Only magic. And rule number two: the combat goes on. For as long as it has to.

[The cheering subsides.]

CARRICK: For a moment, you see the two champions just stare at each other. And then all hell breaks lose.

[Another blast of thunder.]

CARRICK: You try to push to the front as the combat begins. The silver champion is faster, by a fraction of a second.

[We hear the various sounds of spellcraft and combat as Carrick describes them:]

CARRICK: You see a flick his wrist, and the ground beneath the gold champion’s feet splits open. They only stumble for a moment, though. A breath of air is all it takes to get their first spell in place. Just a breath. And suddenly there’s a tornado on the arena floor.

[The sounds of the battle and the crowd cheering continue under the following:]

CARRICK: I’m not sure how long we’ve been settling our disputes this way. With one big battle to the death. I’ll take it over all the cruel ways humans comes up with to one another. But what makes this memory such a rare thing is that feeling that you’re getting right now, as you watch. The knowledge that one of these combatants is about to... well, win. And the other is... not. You see it start to happen. Everyone in the audience senses it. The silver champion takes one hit and then another. He falls to the ground. Gasps for air. The gold champion is right over them. They raise their hand and...

[Carrick exhales, annoyed.]

CARRICK: And then the unthinkable happens.

[We hear footsteps, followed by a shoving sound.]

CARRICK: It was one of the other spectators. Pushing their way to the front. One moment you’re there. The next, you’re losing your balance -

[We hear a whistling, windy sound, as if we were falling.]

CARRICK: - you’re falling, you’re on the ground. And in that moment? The one moment you take your eyes off the arena?

[A blast of thunder and a blow. The crowd cheers.]

CARRICK: You miss it. The coup de grace.

[There's a bit of electric crackling, followed by a wooshing sound, and the ambiance of the arena vanishes.]

[We hear the hum of the vial. It grows fainter as Carrick puts a lid over it.]

CARRICK: Well, not you, but the memory. Whoever made it. Atrocious, isn’t it? A real Coup De Tonnerre, from an eyewitness. Up there for the taking. If it wasn’t missing the climactic moment, it would be the oubliation event of the decade. The auction alone would be, well... well, I don’t know even want to think about it. Instead, it’s a... a Rembrandt with a hole burnt through the canvas. A curiosity. Maybe even valuable to the right buyer. But it’s not a Coup. It’s... [With his Brooklyn accent:] "It’s a swing and a miss." [Back to his regular register:] Something is either there, or it isn’t. That is one of the foundational pillars of oubliation. You can move a memory from one head to another, but... you can’t make it into something it’s not.

[The vial clatters slightly.]

CARRICK: Which is deeply frustrating, when you get as far into the business as I have.

[Music begins playing.]

CARRICK: Because something you learn when you’re around memories as much as me, Patience? They’re not discrete things. We make them that way, in our minds and with magic. But that’s our doing. The memories themselves? Well, they’re more fluid than that. They're shared. They’re - they’re the give-and-take between a hundred million cells connecting through a trillion synapses. They’re a cacophony of on and off and light and dark and relax and stress and urge and stasis... Well, we’re a collage of all of those things, happening all at once. But it’s too overwhelming, so the mind makes a list. It orders, it creates labels to understand all the noise. It tells itself a story.

[A small pause.]

CARRICK: We are constantly imagining that story. It’s the thing we do best of all. We do it so often and so completely that we imagine ourselves. Each and every day we persuade ourselves that we are. It is our very first, and most lasting, magic trick. You see... no matter how many stories you hear about how it doesn’t work, about how it can’t be done... well, I’ve always thought there might be a way to... well, even if we can’t share memories, that we could... combine our stories. What do they call it on TV? Doing a crossover? And if any memory deserves a better story, it’s this partial Coup. So I kept going through it. Looking for... anything. A detail. An angle. Some way to see what the person who lived this missed. And every time, I’d ask myself, “Are you watching closely? Are you really seeing everything there is to be had here?” And I kept going back. Just... looking for - oh, for anything. Hmm. And you know what?

[A pause.]

CARRICK: I found something.

[The music ends.]

CARRICK: Have you figured it out yet? What all of this has to do with you, Patience? Well... Let me show you.

[There's a crackle of electricity, then, with a woosh, we return to the ambiance of the arena.]

CARRICK: Once again, you return to the hidden arena, Patience. You find yourself looking through someone else’s eyes, waiting for the start of a Coup de Tonnerre.

[Through a series of rushing, wooshing sounds, we go through the sounds of the battle in fast-forward.]

CARRICK: You watch the two champions take their place. You watch them struggle. You find yourself pushing to the front of the crowd, as the the warriors face each other... And, of course...

[We hear the same footsteps, shoving, falling...]

CARRICK: You find yourself tripping. Falling after being shoved.

[The other sounds fade away. We are just left with the rushing wind of the fall.]

CARRICK: And missing that critical moment.

[There is a distant blow.]

CARRICK: And that’s all there is to it, isn’t it? Look again.

[A bit of crackle, and a woosh.]

[We return to earlier. Again, we hear the footsteps, and the shove, the fall...]

CARRICK: You can’t see the battle. That’s gone.

[Music begins.]

CARRICK: So instead, look around you. Look at the people. Look at the person who just shoved you out of the way, so they could see. It’s only for an instant - blink and you’ll miss it - but whoever lived this memory, there was a moment where they saw the person who shoved them out of the way. You see it now, too, don’t you? The way I finally saw it, after weeks of going through this. Because the culprit... well... she’s short for starters. Wiry. Thin. Her wings aren’t fully developed. She shouldn’t be here, she’s far too young to be here. But she’s here anyway.

[A pause.]

CARRICK: I guess she just couldn’t help herself. She'd spent so long hearing her mother talk about the fabled Coups de Tonnerre. She wanted to see one. The same way I want to see one. So she’s snuck in there. God knows how, but she found a way. Even though there are laws against someone as young as she is being there. Old laws. Laws our people carved in stone.

[A small pause.]

CARRICK: But... she doesn’t care. She wants to see this with her own eyes. That’s why she takes her mask off. She wants to get a good look at what’s about to happen. She doesn’t want to miss a thing. And as you find yourself falling in this memory... you also find that you did the pushing, didn’t you, Patience? You’re so young. You can’t be a day over thirteen, but you’re already so strong. And you look so, so much like Alexandrine.

[There's a wooshing, accelerating sound, and the action returns to the battle in real time.]

CARRICK: So you see, my dear niece? This moment right here? This is where you come into all of this. I have one half of this memory...

[A blast of thunder, and a blow.]

[A crackle of electricity, and a wooshing sound, which makes the ambiance of the arena vanish.]

CARRICK: And you have the other. In fact, you have a whole memory, but well, I think we can do a little better than that. I think we have an opportunity to advance the art. Because if I can do this, fuse the pieces - and I can do it, Patience - then it’ll be the next great leap forward. It will remind the Unseen World that we’re more than a pair of wings. It will remind them of our real gift. It will give us power.

[A pause.]

CARRICK: Don’t think I don’t appreciate the magnitude of what I’m asking, either. To give up one’s memory of something like that is... well, it’s no small thing. But you understand, don’t you?

[A pause. Then, he exhales.]

CARRICK: No matter. I don’t need you to understand. I just need you to... do something for your family. Or did you think your mother had finally found some kind of a heart in that chest of hers? That she was letting you come out here for... what? A bit of fun? An education? Just to get rid of you for a while? Please. And honestly, what did you expect? An underage child, sneaking into a Coup? The scandal if anyone found out... Leave alone what would be done to you...

[He takes a deep breath.]

CARRICK: Alexandrine was so upset when I told her that she almost... well, let’s just say that you’re very lucky that I persuaded her to let me solve this my way.

[He cracks his knuckles.]

CARRICK: Don’t think of it as losing something, Patience. Think of it as... giving something back. Something that was never yours to begin with. You just... took care of it for a little while. Family... You can’t ever get rid of it, so... it’s all about the give and take, isn’t it?

[Footsteps as Carrick steps closer.]

CARRICK: One day, Patience, you’ll be on the taking end. I promise you. But for now... hold still.

[One final tink of glass, which echoes out.]

[Musical score ends and transitions to the Unseen Credits music.]

Announcer: This has been UNSEEN, by Long Story Short Productions, based on an original idea by Gabriel Urbina, with additional conceptual design work by Sarah Shachat. Today’s episode was written and directed by Sarah Shachat, with script editing by David K. Barnes. It starred Karim Kronfli in the role of Nicholas Carrick. Original Music by Alan Rodi, and sound design by Zach Valenti. UNSEEN is produced by Sarah Shachat, Zach Valenti, and Gabriel Urbina, along with Angel Acevedo, Jenn Schneider, and Amy Tanguay. For more information on the Unseen World, please visit Unseen.Show. Thank you for listening.

[Music fades out.]

End of Episode.