blind hands on different parts of the elephant.

TRANSCRIPT:

Transcript Edited by Jenah.

[Warning: This episode contains a depiction of violence. Listener discretion is advised. It also contains some loud and abrupt noises, the time stamps for which will be in the description ]

Loud noises timestamps:

21:53 – 22:06

23:02 – 23:15

Episode 65: double knot.

 [Opening theme plays.]

MIKEY

Mm, this tastes good you guys.

MICHAEL

Yup

MIKE

No you’re too hungry to say that for certain. It’s just Finnish McDonalds. 

MIKEY

Well it’s hard to get a burger and fries wrong.

MICHAEL

Mikey, I know you. 

MIKEY

Uh–Yeah, you do?

MICHAEL

So I know that once you get your belly full and we get you back to the apartment you’re gonna fall asleep.

MIKE

Wait, where is going to sleep?

MICHAEL

Oh, Mikey can have my room. [MIKEY: That’s really not–]

MIKE

And you’ll sleep where?

MICHAEL

On a time iterated version of my bed, thanks to this puppy.

MIKEY

I thought that you guys didn’t use calculators anymore.

MIKE

We don’t want to. It was just the only way to make it back from Alaska. We don’t have anything anymore. 

MICHAEL

That’s a perfect segue back to my point. You gonna conk out immediately. That means we need to get answers on the car ride home. We need to get started on a fix asap. 

MIKEY

Uh, sure, anything you want to know. I’m an open book. 

MIKE

I’ll start then. How did you get back Latvia from Alaska

MIKEY

A–Alaska? N–No I was at O.V.E.R. and then after that I was in the woods outside of the Flinchite compound, which unless I was tricked with time travel shenanigans was in Latvia not Alaska. And then when I escaped you were waiting for me. How do you not know my whereabouts?

MIKE

So you’re not the Mikey that we left in Alaska.

MIKEY

No. Uh, not that I know of. 

MICHAEL

[grunts]

So he’s still on the island, probably.

MIKE

Mikey did you send a note to anyone? Like to us on the island? A warning?

MIKEY

What is this island that you’re talking about?

MICHAEL

Agattu Island, Alaska.

MIKEY

I wasn’t aware of any of that. How did you get to Alaska?

MICHAEL

Our questions first. Mike, what was he asked you on the island? Something about some notes? You know when I was trying to shoo you out the room to keep from propagating?

MIKE

Well maybe you shouldn’t have shooed me out of the room, partner?

MICHAEL

What did he say, pilgrim?

MIKE 

Something about the mattress, notes in the mattress? 

MIKEY

Oh! Oh, I have–I have notes from a mattress. Here–[paper crinkling] Here, read them it was definitely a Mikey but it wasn’t me. I found them in the mattress in my room at the compound. He must’ve put them there. Mike none of this happened to you? I was hoping you’d remember something. 

MIKE

Can’t say that I do.

MIKEY

But–Aren’t we connected? That time with the O.V.E.R. cart and popping the tire and you got really hurt.

MICHAEL

No there’s connectivity theory, there’s decision matrices, there’s corrections. Hell, there’s five years of time between you and him. You may as well be talking to a different person with that much time between ya.

MIKE

Mikey you have to keep in mind you’re as distant from me as I’m distant from our cowboy friend here.

MICHAEL

Darn tootin’.

MIKE

So it’s hard to say what will propagate all the way to me. Propagation, that one wasn’t even on your list Michael. It’s not like we understand what’s going on. It’s a bunch of blind hands, on different parts of an elephant and the elephant is time travel. Anytime we attempt to explain something, we’re feeling the truck and we’re calling it a snake. 

MICHAEL

And we don’t know what we don’t know. 

MIKEY

And you two weren’t there in the forest with me? The bears and the berries? Those weren’t you? Something tried to keep me from starving out there. It’s all in the letters. 

MIKE

Alaska Mikey asked us that too. 

MICHAEL

Well I’m sure the answer to that mystery is all very fascinating Mikey but what I want to know is why a slew of our folks are dead. Everyone we can account for from this perspective in time. And we can’t reach our Base neither. 

MIKEY

You can’t reach Future Base? Is your Base connected to our Base?

MIKE

It’s not that simple, I feel like we just went over this. Were you there for what happened? Why is Base gone, Mikey? 

MIKEY

I…got everyone killed. 11 people according to Ty and three hamsters, but he doesn’t know about that.

MICHAEL

[laughing]

Welcome to the club pilgrim. I’ve been there a few times. 

MIKE

Yeah, and Michael remembers everything, all of the wipeouts. Most of everything. He’s taken a lot of bullets for us. 

MICHAEL

Sometimes actual bullets, partner. Now it’s your turn to go through it. Trial by fire. 

MIKE

Which is why we need to know what happened. We got back and everyone was gone no explanation.

MICHAEL

So get to talking Mikey-boy

MIKE

We were doing T.B.D.O. part two. We found the guy who Ty killed that night when we were doing T.B.D.O. part one. The guy that Hunter told us about when we first started at O.V.E.R. You know, T.B.D.O. one, the mission where you two showed up and killed one of team and completely derailed it? Causing the need for a T.B.D.O. two where everyone died? 

MIKE

Mikey…we didn’t–

MICHAEL

We didn’t want to kill him. Sometimes you gotta do a job. Kill or be killed and all that. 

MIKEY

Whatever, I’m not trying to re-litigate what happened with Ravi. I can’t remember the guy’s name, the one that Ty killed? I tried to remember it but so much has happened. It was like…Ka-zu-bu-mu Burgers? No…no I’m just thinking about cheeseburgers right now. Thanks for that by the way. You’re right, [MIKE: Burgers…] I feel a lot better and I’m getting very sleepy

MIKE

Berzina? 

MIKEY

Yeah, how’d you know?

MICHAEL

Cause Kasimieras Berzina was killed inside of O.VE.R.

MIKEY

He worked at O.V.E.R. Charlie said he was always looking over his shoulder for Ty. 

MICHAEL

And Charlie knows everything about everyone, god bless her. 

MIKE

How many Berzinas does that make, Micahel?

MICHAEL

We’ve seen him die three deaths. 

MIKE

Why would he continue to work for Ty if Ty kept killing him?

MIKEY

Work for Ty? 

MICHAEL
You found Berzina and then what? Ty got tipped off and he killed everyone?

MIKEY

No, I was with Hunter on the mission. We interviewed Charlie about the suspect and then Hunter the opportunity and said he was going to kill everyone but me. And when I got here Ty confirmed that everyone else was dead. But he said that he killed you two? 

MIKE

So…Hunter betrayed the Base and Ty sent you to Latvia to protect you [MIKEY: No, um– ]. I don’t understand.

MIKEY

No, Punished Hunter used a calculator to send me to Latvia, and I don’t know where he got the calculator from. 

MICHAEL

Why Latvia?

MIKEY

He said that he didn’t want kill me? That it wasn’t a very useful way of dealing with Mike Walters. But he didn’t say why Latvia. He had to have known it was right outside the compound, right? 

MIKE

So he got rid of you and he just, what? Killed everyone else?

MIKEY

That’s what he said he was going to do. I think he blew up the Base too. No one was there except the hamsters but he got on a walkie talkie with someone. I didn’t recognize the voice and they just put the whole thing in motion right in front of me. But the particulars don’t matter cause we’re going to use the calculator to save them. 

MICHAEL
Did you get any documents or anything from Ty or Berzina when they worked at O.V.E.R.?

MIKEY

Wait, we’re going to correct this right Michael? Can we talk about that–

MICHAEL

[talking over Mikey]

Or even job descriptions. I don’t know ‘em. I know that Ty worked in interfacing–[MIKEY: Michael!] It’s you that’s answering questions right now Mikey. We don’t even know if we can trust you. The last Mikey that we found came with a note saying not to trust him. This could be a trap. 

MIKEY

Why were you waiting outside the compound to begin with if you didn’t know I was there? 

MIKE
To see if that’s where Alaska Mike came from. We weren’t expecting you to run out. 

MICHAEL

It sure is strange how everyone is getting lucky these days. We’ve all been hitting triple sevens. Except that poor Mikey hogtied in Alaska. 

MIKEY

You hogtied him out there and left him to die? 

MICHAEL

We don’t know what we did yet, we’re waiting for that to play out. 

MIKE

We have to save him now that we’re all safe. Michael he could be connected to us couldn’t he? 

MICHAEL

Can’t be too careful. 

MIKEY

Michael every time saving people comes up, you’re wriggling out of it. What’s going on? What’s the point of all of this if not to rescue the Base?

MICHAEL

Do not underestimate the precarity of our situation. Of course rescuing Edgar and Base are top priority, in that order for the sake of transparency. But I think saving one, saves both. But we’re the last ones left. We’re a dying breed. One false move and the whole species goes extinct. There’s no one left to correct for us. Mike was right. We’re trying to understand what an elephant is by feeling its trunk. We could get trampled without knowing that the feet even exist.

MIKEY

I think the elephant metaphor might have reached its limit. 

MIKE

That’s where we’re at now Mikey. We know what we have to do now but it’s going to take planning and preparation. You said that no one was at Base? Then how did Hunter kill everyone?

MIKEY

No idea, I wasn’t there. He killed Innocent Hunter too, by the way, that’s what Ty said. 

MICHAEL
I couldn’t get a hold of Innocent either. 

MIKE

Well if we don’t know what happened then we can’t really go around correcting things can we? 

MIKEY

So what do we do?

MICHAEL

We figure out what happened and then we figure what we can do about it.

MIKE

And we don’t get killed in the process. Very important part of the plan. 

MIKEY

Okay then, let’s plan.

MICHAEL

We’re gonna have to start reconnaissance once we get back to the apartment. You ready to work hard Mikey-boy?

MIKEY

No–[laughs] Not at all honestly. I am very beat. 

MICHAEL

Well. We’ll get you back up on your feet and then we’re gonna put you to work. 

MIKE

He’s really gonna crack the whip on you Mikey-boy.

MIKEY

As long as everything gets corrected then crack the whip. 

MICHAEL

I’m gonna remind you that you said that. 

MIKE

Well I think that’s enough shop talk for one car ride. Mikey do you want to tell the tale of how you survived the forest outside the Flinchite compound? 

MIKEY

Sure, I mean a lot of it’s in the letter but I didn’t write those. Okay so, there were these bears all throughout the forest right? And I asked Ty about it and he said that bears are mostly extinct in Latvia so I don’t know where these came from. Which is why I asked you about them. And so every morning I’d wake up and I’d find these berries and I’d find these bears outside my shelter, my shelter that I made and I’d have to take a rock–a big old rock that I found in the river, and I would throw it at the bears [beginning to fade out] and I would hit ‘em right in the forehead and I was shout get the fuck out of here bear! And they would scamper off. And I followed the river…[fade out]

[SCENE TRANSITION]

MICHAEL

Cheers Mike, to finally being home.

MIKE

Yeah, cheers, heavy quotation marks around home, though. 

MICHAEL

Regardless, на здоровье, pilgrim.

MIKE

на здоровье, мой брат [glasses clink] Where did you even get this whiskey?

MICHAEL

It was a birthday present from Boris.

MIKE

Birthday…? When is your birthday?

MICHAEL

I don’t know, partner. I just thought it was funny one day to tell him it was my birthday. Didn’t think he’d get me something. 

MIKE

Do you have, like, a day that you prefer that you tell people?

MICHAEL

Not really, not anymore. Don’t care anymore

[MIKEY snoring]

MIKE

I picked June 11th. No reason, I just like how it sounds. My birthday’s on June 11th. [MIKEY snoring] Christ, I don’t snore as bad as Mikey does, do I? [MIKEY snoring] Like you can hear me loud in the other room?

MICHAEL

Course you do. Doesn’t Edgar make fun of you for it? 

MIKE

Yeah but he’s teasing. 

MICHAEL

Yeah he’s teasing ya, he ain’t lying. But what do you make of all this?

MIKE

The snoring? It’s nothing, I’ve got earplugs. I don’t think it’s sleep apnea, well if it were sleep apnea that would explain some stuff–

MICHAEL

No, Berzina–

MIKE

Oh! I have no fucking idea.

MICHAEL

I’m trying to piece it all together. Mikey left us one helluva puzzle and just went off to dreamland. 

MIKE

Okay then let’s think about it. Berzina was…at O.V.E.R.? Why? Uh to…recruit people for the Flinchites, which is where he found Ty? 

MICHAEL

That would make sense, Berzina is Latvian and the compound is in Jūrmala. 

MIKE

And if that’s true then we had it backwards. Ty looked like he was in charge of things because he was the only guy that they let us see. But assuming that he was in charge of the whole operation would like assuming that an engineer at google is the CEO because he was in charge of Google+. And just like someone at a tech company with a side project Ty was working on WOEBEGONE which he was using company funds to experiment on even though no one at the company knew that he was running it. 

MICHAEL

Which means that Ty wasn’t using Berzina to thwart his own game of WOEBEGONE when Berzina tailed us on the way to CANNONBALL. 

MIKE

Right, what if Berzina was doing some work off the clock to thwart Ty because Ty was trying to kill him to climb up the ladder? That’s what it looks like. Trying kill him in one or more timelines. 

MICHAEL

Or the whole encounter during the CANNONBALL mission could’ve been a trap set up by Ty that Berzina fell in. But killing someone further up the ladder at the Flinchite compound can’t be easy. It’d be like trying to kill all Mike Walters. You’d have to hunt ‘em to extinction. Set traps in their natural environment and snare ‘em. Which might be why we’ve seen Berzina die no less than three times. And why Ty tossed him in the ocean with us. 

MIKE

Great. So we have a theory. Does it make any fucking sense at all? 

MICHAEL

[sigh] Who knows. Times tied in a knot and everyone’s lying to each other. We;re not going to sit down and write the gospel tonight over a bottle of whiskey. 

MIKE

We’re going to need to untie it a little bit if we’re going to fix this mess that Mikey got us into. 

MICHAEL

That ain’t even this knot, that’s a double knot on top of this one. That’s how it feels too. Like a rope cinched, tied across your throat. Knowing that you just collapsed a universe of possibilities down into the worst possible one. Everyone’s dead. It’s hard to catch your breath. 

MIKE

Do you think that Matt is going to hold up his end? 

MICHAEL

That shit’s your plan Mikey, you tell me. 

MIKE

He’s gonna be scared.

MICHAEL

He’s already scared. 

MIKE

Of course he’s already scared. He’s been through all of this and he’s still doesn’t have a good idea of what any of it means. 

MICHAEL

He’s gonna chicken out Mike. You saw the look on his face. Now. I’m still a Mike Walters. Far be it from me to call anyone else a coward, but I think he’d gonna leave us out in the cold. 

MIKE

Okay, let’s say that he does. Then what? 

MICHAEL

Well then either everything else goes exactly according to plan or all the remaining Mikes die and it’s all over. Completely over, never to be reversed again. 

MIKE

And how would you feel if that happened?

MICHAEL

Nothing at all, by definition.

MIKE

I mean, in the moments right before, when it’s inevitable, like would it be a relief? Closure? Finality? 

MICHAEL

You know it wouldn’t, pilgrim. Terror, regret, probably a lot of physical pain. People die without closure all the damn time. Most of ‘em do. Mike Walters don’t get closure. It’s a physically impossible proposition. And eleven people are dead. 

MIKE

I know, I was just putting it out there. 

MICHAEL

And it ain’t happened yet, so no coping with it now. 

MIKE

Ten-four

MICHAEL

Mikey’s gonna a need a couple days. He’s rough right now. So we’ll plump ‘im up and get some supplies and an action plan. We might need even more time than he does. But then we’re going in, guns blazing. 

MIKE

We have to do it and we have to do it soon with all of our infrastructure gone we’re sitting ducks. And if Ty finds out we’re alive then we have a whole new set of problems. 

MICHAEL

And if Ty gets to us before we get the plan in motion, Matt’s going to launch himself head first into a lethal situation, thanks to you.

MIKE

Oh god, I wasn’t even thinking about that. 

MICHAEL

Or he’ll chicken out and sit at home getting high and watching through that movie playlist you made for him on letterboxd.

MIKE

It’s a good playlist. I made it for myself and shared it with him. 

MICHAEL

You put Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives on there and I know you ain’t seen it. 

MIKE

It’s good, you know good. Like, look at the art on the poster. 

MICHAEL

I know it’s good. I’ve seen it. But I don’t know if Matt will have fun watching a surrealist film from Thailand on his lonesome.

MIKE

It’s supposed to be… engaging–visually stunning. 

MICHAEL

Yeah and maybe he’ll get too confused to finish the movie and come to our rescue so that I can explain it to him.

MIKE

We’ll watch it together when we’re all safe. How ‘bout that.

MICHAEL

Sure pilgrim. When we’re all safe. [pause] Well, sun’s coming up here in a bit, partner. We stayed up all night. You gotta get some shut eye. 

MIKE

You should too.

MICHAEL

No thanks.

MIKE

Michael, you have to sleep. It’s our first night back home–home in quotations. You have to be exhausted. 

MICHAEL

Huh–Well, I usually get up about 25 minutes from now or earlier. 

MIKE

Shit, it’s after 5AM? 

MICHAEL

Yup. Finish your drink or pour it out and go to bed. 

MIKE

One last order of business?

MICHAEL

Better be quick.

MIKE

Are we going back for the Mikey that we left in Alaska? [silence] What, what do you think is going on with him? Why are you being so standoffish about this?

MICHAEL

Did you read the letters that Mikey gave us? Only made me more wary. 

MIKE

Yeah and he told us what happened, in the car. About the forest and the bear and the berries? I think he just hallucinating. Low light, hunger, paranoia. You know, sometimes I see this huge man in my room, like so tall his neck hits the ceiling and he has to scrunch over to fit his whole body and his eyes are glowing. And it turned out the be the light from the smoke detector but I can still see the guy in the dark sometimes even though I know it’s not a person. 

MICHAEL

What about the stuff in between? What he said about the compound. 

MIKE

That he had to do some awful stuff. We did some awful stuff in the compound too and plenty of other awful stuff of our own volition.

MICHAEL

I think that he was involved in the lost year.

MIKE

That is a big leap and a serious accusation Michael. 

MICHAEL

Think about it. He does something terrible, and immediately knows that he and Edgar both know about it. It all lines up. He’s doing something to Edgar. Like the lost year. 

MIKE 

We don’t even know that Edgar was in the Flinchite compound during the lost year. Every time he starts to open up he changes his mind. And we quit asking a long time ago so we don’t know shit. 

MICHAEL

I don’t think it’s a coincidence.

MIKE

I don’t think it’s a coincidence. I think that it’s one possibility and that there might be hundreds of equally possible explanations. 

MICHAEL

Read the letters, it’s the lost year and he’s just getting started on it. 

MIKE

Michael, it’s late and I shouldn’t have brought it up.

MICHAEL

And Edgar ain’t alive for me to confirm it with him. 

MIKE

He will be soon and then we’ll deal with it. One thing at a time.

MICHAEL

I didn’t kill him in Alaska because he’s Mike Walters. I thought it would be hypocritical. 

MIKE

I know Michael, I might as well be a mind reader, we had the same thought. We’re not entirely different people. 

MICHAEL

Do you trust this Mikey? The one sleeping in my bed? 

MIKE

Yeah why not, we’re pros at seeing through our own tricks. I think he’s who he says he is. Do you really think that he could slip by an eagle eyed cowboy?

MICHAEL

[chuckles] Flattery.

MIKE
Teasing but not lying.

MICHAEL

Maybe you do listen to me when I talk. 

MIKE

Always. I discard like two thirds of it, but I’m listening. 

MICHAEL

Heh, well, get some rest, partner. I’m going to work us all to the bone tomorrow.

MIKE

Ten-four captain, you should get some rest too, but I know you won’t so you’re in charge of breakfast in the morning. 

MICHAEL

[scoffs] 

As if one of y’all is going to cook for me.

MIKE

Oh it’ll happen one day. It’ll be a pleasant surprise one morning. Let’s do it on your birthday. Alright, night Michael. 

MICHAEL

Night, Mike. Sweet dreams. 

[Door closes]

MICHAEL

[deep sigh]

Okay. Fuck. Okay.

MICHAEL 

[button pressing]

And it was…

[button pressing]

MICHAEL

[deep breath]

Okay. What the fuck am I doing.

[inserting magazine in handgun]

[time travel noise]

[MICHAEL groans and coughs]

MIKEY

The fuck? Michael? Michael! Michael, you came back for me! And you found your cowboy hat! Michael I thought I was going to fucking die out here. Okay I’m going to level with you. I was working with Ty–no working with isn’t the right term. I wasn’t working with Ty, like he he made me– 

MICHAEL

I’m sorry, partner. 

MIKEY

No! No, no–Michael no, just–just–get me out of here and we can fix this.

MICHAEL

We really can’t. 

[MIKEY gasps]

[gunshot]

MICHAEL

[groans]

[gunshot]

[button clicks]

MICHAEL

[sighs]

[time travel noise]

[I Will Die Three Deaths plays]

I will die three deaths 

One I have already met 

One when I truly pass 

And one when I’m forgotten  

I will die three deaths 

With at least one life of regret 

But hopefully two half-lived 

So I can make a whole out of it.  

And when I found 

I can’t escape the sound of my voice 

I was disappointed 

A pseudonym 

Spoken like a hymn to heal 

Myself, disjointed  

I will die three deaths 

And not dwell on any one of them 

And until the next 

Try to make progress  

And where I find I’ve wasted my time,

 I wonder If that is dying too 

And if so, then my time to go 

Couldn’t be anything but soon . 

Anticipation’s the wrong word 

But I’m prepared to.