EP0010 – Paradigm Shift (Season One Finale)

Attention everyone: this is a message from your moderators.

It has come to our attention that a recent post in our community may have had the effect of leading users to believe one of our more prominent members is in danger.

Written and produced by Kale Brown. Artwork by Kale Brown. 

Starring Merry N. (@muddyevilist) as community user VideoHomoSystem-C.

All music and sound effects used are available under a CC0 license. Music was ‘Sphere’ by Andrew Kn and ‘Ambient Bass Deep Atmospheric Pad’ by waveplaySFX. [LOUD EERIE NOISE] was ‘Sci-fi Ambient Drone’ by Niedec. 

Visit us on Twitter at @sinkholepodcast or visit the website at sinkholepodcast.com. 

Transcript

INTRO: [Someone inhales deeply; their inhale has a distant, echoing quality to it. A strange, rattling sound grows in volume and speed before fading into eerie, warbling music. There’s a strange crackling sound. The voice whispers “Sinkhole.” The pitch and speed of the music drop, fading into the next track.]

[A low, slow hum fills the background. The melody is subtle and largely ambient.]

[someone shifts in their chair. A phone screen is unlocked, and then their chair creaks again as they lean closer to the microphone and play the following voice clip.]

[POST FROM USER VIDEOHOMOSYSTEM-C]

VideoHomoSystem-C: Everyone’s buzzing about one-thirteen’s last post having gotten pulled in limbo, apparently [near-audible air quotes] ‘at the poster’s request’, but I feel we’re missing the point. 

After one-thirteen got into the myst about Calliope, I went off and got myself a little too deep into the corporate substrate of MVM from just post the Sinkhole and figured something out: as it happens, Paradigm Research is a MagneVice holding. 

Paradigm, the company that closed off the Hole for [audible air quotes] ‘research’. 

Paradigm, the company that has one-thirteen under contract.

Not entirely shocking, I know- feels like most everything is under the thumb of MVM- but if you go looking, the parallels are obvious.

From Calliope, I mean- when you’re looking, the same names are coming up: Doctor Francesca Boyd, Martin Dupont, Mikhail Federov-

And talking of Mikhail Federov, actually, it turns out he’s site director of Paradigm for the Hole! Funny, that. 

I’m not saying that after Calliope folded MVM brought it back under another name to keep on at their pet project, but I’m not… not saying that. Seems a little funny that right after one-thirteen puts up the Calliope experiment audio it gets pulled and they go quiet, is all.

I can’t be alone in thinking that, can I?

[END OF POST FROM USER VIDEOHOMOSYSTEM-C]

[speaker leans back in their chair.]

[with thinly-disguised sourness] “Attention everyone: this is a message from your moderators.

It has come to our attention that a recent post in our community may have had the effect of leading users to believe one of our more prominent members is in danger.

As your moderators, we are obligated to remind you that circumstantial evidence of wrongdoing is not sufficient to justify the dissemination of a user’s personal information by staff. 

However, we understand and share in your worry, and should further evidence come to light, may reconsider this decision.”

[long, grumpy pause]

I’m not angry.

[deep breath] 

Honestly, I’m not even surprised.

What I am… is a little disappointed.

I expect to encounter this sort of behaviour from regular users, at least to some degree. 

I don’t expect this sort of behaviour from the moderators. I had honestly thought that a certain amount of common sense was prerequisite for the position. 

Paradigm Research being a subsidiary of MagneVice Medical Tech and just happening to have one of the same staff members as Calliope does not make it a rebranded Calliope. 

They research the Hole. It makes perfect sense for them to have hired someone who worked in the area and has a personal investment in furthering its research.

On top of that, Mikhail Federov was married- is married, actually- to one Doctor Timothy Morris… who happens to be someone who fell into the Sinkhole when it opened.

Personally, I don’t think a man wanting to be part of a project that might one day bring his husband back is a particularly suspicious coincidence. 

The biggest coincidence here is that we’re already a little bit familiar with Doctor Morris. If you had a chance to listen to my last post before I flagged it, you probably remember that one of the people involved was referred to as ‘Tim’. 

As it turns out, what we heard was a snippet of conversation between a Doctor Sasha Hyles and a Doctor Timothy Morris. 

This isn’t a movie. I haven’t been kidnapped by agents of a nefarious company hellbent on mysterious ends. Nobody forced me to flag my own post. 

I flagged my post because it occurred to me that, even with Calliope gone, I might still run into legal issues for posting it. I won’t, so I’ve rescinded the flag, but I don’t regret being careful. 

And if I’ve been unusually quiet, it’s because I had a lot to think about. I thought I made that pretty obvious, but I guess nothing is ever obvious anymore unless you’re feeling it yourself, huh?

[pause]

I’m sorry.

I’m just… [sighs] I’m frustrated. 

I’m sorry. 

I understand that VHS-C’s post made people worry about me… and I think I can also understand how growing up with nerve-tech may have shaped this generation’s relationship with emotions in a way that might make it difficult for you to not assume the worst about any situation you don’t have a direct line into.  

You were worried about me. I’m not blaming anyone for that. 

I’m just… it’s just frustrating to me how quickly members of this community are willing to invade my privacy. 

I’ve been very clear about how I feel about that. 

It is both frustrating and deeply disappointing to me to realize that I am the only one in this relationship who has spent any amount of time considering the feelings of the other. 

You were clearly very worried about me.

I mean this in the kindest way possible: that is not the same thing as actually caring about me.

And from my perspective, this behaviour makes me feel an awful lot more like a thing you’re afraid will be taken away from you. 

That doesn’t feel great. 

I already get treated enough like a thing just for being one of the hundred-twelve. 

I’m not an object, and if I do leave this community, that attitude is gonna be why. 

Since my privacy apparently doesn’t matter to any of you, sure: I’ll tell you what I’ve been doing instead of posting. I’m sure you’d find out anyway. 

[shifts in chair.]

Part of the reason I haven’t been posting is because I’ve been consulting with Paradigm about our discoveries. 

With a little persuading, I convinced them to give me permission to continue posting the audio from the tapes on the grounds that, as the people who supplied the necessary materials, you have a right to be involved- but now I almost wish I hadn’t bothered. 

Maybe I really should have up and disappeared without a word. 

It almost seems like that’s what you wanted to happen.

[pause]

I don’t mean that. 

I’m just- 

I’m just… 

you know what? I lied.

I am angry. I’m hurt. 

I’m trying to be understanding and forgiving, but I’m hurt. 

I was gone a week. Nothing I said or did should have given you the impression that I thought I was in danger. 

But all it took was a single post from a user already notorious for stirring shit up for their own amusement to start an absolute shitstorm-

[LOUD, EERIE NOISE, LOUD AND IMMEDIATE]

[apartment windows audibly rattling]

Do you hear that? Sounds a little bit different, doesn’t it?

I had to move because one of you came to my home.

I had to ask my contact at Paradigm to find me a new apartment while still trying to convince them that you should be allowed to be involved in this project.  

How many times am I going to have to do that?

I’m sure some of you-

[LOUD, EERIE NOISE]

I’m sure some of you have already started calculating my position based on the direction of the sound, haven’t you? 

That’s what you did last time, right? 

[pause]

I’m trying really hard not to be angry, but honestly? I feel like I have every right to be. 

I know things have changed. 

I know that.

[LOUD, EERIE NOISE]

I really do know that.

[long pause]

I’m going to let myself be a little… a little mean here, and say something I would normally keep to myself.

Of everyone in this community, I am probably the least likely to get myself disappeared by a malignant corporate entity, purely because I grew up in an age where the default method of defense to that sort of thing was not to just let it happen and trust your friends to save you. 

I’m fairly young, but I’m also kind of old, and you know what? I can be pretty old-school.

I will be the first to admit that multinational corporations like MagneVice are deeply suspicious. In my opinion, you’re right to be nervous about them. They don’t always have the same goals as their subsidiaries, and my experience has been that they’re usually up to unsavoury shit. 

That’s not a reason why you should go poking around in their business, it’s a reason why you shouldn’t. 

If I start feeling like someone’s coming to get me, I’m not going to send out an S.O.S. to the community and go in headfirst, I’m going to bug out and hide in an abandoned building for a while.  

What’re they going to do, use facial recognition to track me? They can’t account for different patterns of sinkage to tell people with cranial asterikoiloptosis apart because it doesn’t recognize us as having faces. 

Or maybe they’ll just pull me into a white van in the middle of the night- except you can’t really do that to someone like me. We’re maybe the least grabbable people on Earth, because it’s incredibly fucking difficult to tell where our sinkage patterns are when we’re wearing clothes. 

So if you were to, say, try and grab me by the arm or shoulder, there’s a very real possibility you might get a fistful of fabric and go elbow-deep into the void. 

There’s only one other person I know of in this community who would be as difficult to kidnap as me, and that’s nevverhappy, who I will note was one of the few people in my corner during this fiasco. 

I did notice that, and I’m grateful. None of this is directed at you.  

Congratulations on your surgery, by the way. I hope you recover quickly.

But yeah.

To the rest of you: the people you should be worrying about are yourselves and each other, because if somebody was going to try and make me do something I didn’t want to, this would be the place to start.

At this point in my life, this community is the closest thing I have to a family. That’s why I put up with the shit you do.

I am an extremely un-kidnappable person. 

Unless you also have a head full of stars, you’re not.

I am going to take a little bit of a hiatus while I sort through these tapes, and I swear to god, if I come back to find out that one of you has gotten yourself into trouble with MagneVice because you wouldn’t stop poking your nose into places it doesn’t belong, I’m going to lose my fucking mind. 

Here’s looking at you, VideoHomoSystem-C. Keep your shit stirring manageable while I’m gone. I’m not asking.  

Now.

You won’t hear from me for a little while, but I will be back. Nothing bad is going to happen. 

I’m not going off to do anything reckless. I’m just going to go through some tapes, isolate some signals, and cool my head. 

I’m not like the rest of you. It’ll be fine. I will be fine. Try not to get too anxious. Take up a hobby.

And please, for the love of god, behave. 

[The ambient music fades into the next track.]

[An eerie, warbling music akin to the opening music plays, rising in volume and then slowing and quieting.]

[LOW, THRUMMING AMBIENCE]

SINKHOLE was written and produced by Kale Brown. 

In order of appearance:

Starring Amy Y. as the narrator of Jacksonesque. 

Starring Elias Taylor as Kennedy Jackson.

Starring Josh LeCompte as Soper Realty board member Matthew McConnaugh and Alice Kyra as Soper Realty board member Kathleen Strike.

Starring Rebecca M. as Eileen Acton and Jesse Hall as Anonymous TectoVision Employee.

Starring S.J. Ryker as NEVROS Advertisement Narrator, and Merry N., [REDACTED], and Jesse Hall as the NEVROS ad shills.

Starring Alice Kyra as the Influencer.

Starring Shay v. G. as Alan’s Neighbour.  

Starring [REDACTED] as the Poop Deck’s galley rat, DJ Pinch Roller. Music was ‘Growin Crops on the Side of a Hill’ by Sex is for Parents. 

The Jirelli’s Convenience jingle features both the voice of and music composed by Amy Y. 

Starring Cam Clark as Doctor Sasha Hyles and Kris Allison as Doctor Timothy Morris. 

And finally, starring Merry N. as community user VideoHomoSystem-C. 

Special thanks to Elias Taylor for scientific consulting. Be sure to look him up if you’d like to read his work on nuclear receptor evolution.

Additional thanks to Cory Brown, whose enthusiasm for this project was instrumental in it coming to fruition. 

SINKHOLE will return for season two when it’s good and ready. Follow us on Twitter as @sinkholepodcast for more information. 

Stay safe out there, and try not to fall into any holes.

[The ambient music fades into the next track.]

[An eerie, warbling music akin to the opening music plays, rising in volume and then slowing and quieting.]