M follows the production of my R Radio. This episode contains depictions of drug use and mild violence. The second oil age, Jack's was dead. I stripped her of her skin suit. The blood from her shattered nose dribbled through the lines in her face. It pulled in the sutured wound down her cheek. Bruising and fingertip contusions on her throat told the story of her death. As I pulled one of her arms out of this suit, I glimpsed to name and date tattooed on her shoulder. I tried to block it out, to banish it to the uncertainty of peripheral vision, but the math was too easy, ramifications too tragic, even with someone like her. My hands trembled as I pulled the last leg free. I longed for a shot of basilisk to wash it all away. The fit wasn't perfect, but the suit would work. I grabbed her communit and left the spent squid gun where it lay. One of the twin plexiglass pods had already been emptied by Hoffman, I imagined. I checked the other pod and expected to find a Utex pressure suit inside, or something like Thetis's get up. But this was even more alien, more alive. It looked like a cross between a suit of SA m R I armor and a mollusk open wide to receive a humanoid form. The material looked neither solid nor liquid, The outer surface dark and covered with shell like bumps and walls. The pink, spongy interior left little doubt of its organic nature. I knew what it was. Marsh had mentioned Fukeland's disappearance in a portion of the proteus. This was the Triton biotechnic repurposed as a pressure suit. It made sense. No human technology would enable a seafloor walk this deep down, not for landsfolk anyway. Numerous fears tumbled through my mind. How was it activated? Would it fit me? Was it safe? But I didn't have time. It was this or nothing, the embrace of a living pressure suit, or certain death in the tunnels beneath that us. I slid open the plexiglass and watched tiny tube feet and polyps rise up from the inner meat of the suit, as if reaching for my body. I took a deep breath, turned and backed into its embrace. The appendages crawled over me, pulling the suit into position. The proteus grew around my body, enclosing me like an iron maiden of amorphous flesh. I realized the Tritons must have used something similar to bring me down. It felt familiar. It hurt, but for only a moment, the suit seemed to shift and adjust to my size and shape, even my injuries. It hardened around me. I felt soft pressure against my nose and mouth. Then I was breathing again. Everything went dark for a moment, then swelled back into existence. I don't know if I stared through transparent tissue or if the proteus connected with my mind somehow, but I looked down at my hands, now seamless gauntlets of crustacean armor. I stepped out of the pod. I grabbed the wheel of the airlock and gave it a turn, then another. I glanced one last time down the tunnel for sign of Thetis or Triton pursuers, but there was only Jacks's crumpled corpse, her daughter's name gleaming back at me in the harsh light. I threw open the hatch and jumped down the well of depressurized water. The hatch closed after me, and the chamber flooded. It pressurized in less than a minute. The suit didn't so much as groan but SALTI. We can't live in a san cat though. We're not even gonna do when attack comes in. It's o Kape Valley. I built another than cattle ands at the proof Forlorman about Sauti, it's not how living on her surface works. The seawater keeps wating because of climate cheek nursery. That's a fearmongering by anti energy obstruction is who you? You don't want to live in the castle. I ne cheve in it where it's dry, but her pass for you. You have salt water, dude, and we can still be playing them make My name is Tabitha Vail, and I'm leaving this recording on a dead man switch for release at the eating of the Mess. I want there to be evidence of where I went and why I did it. I've arranged passage to Atlas station, the DX Degrade station. There's a high probability I'll wind up in custody, and I'm uncertain what steps they might take to silence the press. But there's a story there that needs to be told. They're listening to this, they're aware of my journalistic focus what it means to be recombined, or to be landsfolk, or on whichever side of all of the other lines in the sand we used to turn human against human, on what continues to divide us in a time when connection might just be enough to save us, and on the rare corners of society we actually foster connection. Atlas, It's one of those places. I've obtained passage aboard a cargo sub and I have limited arrangements on Alice. I'm depowering my community for the journey. Hopefully this message will prove unnecessary. Thank you for believing in me and in a better world. I emerged in new absolute darkness, the very darkness. I realized that covers most of the Earth. Eternal midnight is the true norm on our planet, interrupted by occasional sunlit shallows and the rise of continents. The surface is but a fraction. I took a step into the unknown and felt rock and mud slide beneath my feet. Panic shattered through me, and then a lamp bloomed to life somewhere above my head, casting a meager sphere of bio illumination in the thick, gloomy waters. The glow was enough to reveal the airlock hatch set in the jagged outcropping above my head, as well as the small cliff upon which I stood. Utter emptiness yawned beyond the trench, plummeting hatal depths. I backed away from the brink, my limbs moving as if in jelly. I turned toward the adjacent cliff side and noticed first one reflector topped steak, then another marking the path of ascension, a narrow, snaking trail up the side of the great trench. I turned and followed. Visibility was limited. The bioluminescence revealed no more than three stakes at a time. I had no way of telling how far ahead Hoffmann had gotten, or how far up I had to climb to reach the plateau. So I plodded along the suit, seeming to augment my steps just enough to prevent outright exhaustion. At times I caught movement out beyond the orb light and panicked till I realized that pursuers would not be so shy. If they knew where I was, then they'd simply take me. More likely, it was some animal of the deep, intrigued by the light. I don't know how long I climbed. Occasionally my feet slipped on the rocks and mud, but each time I avoided the spill. Finally I saw the faint aura of the cliffs above me. It couldn't be more than a ten minute climb. I paused and stared off once more into the vastness of the trench, one of the many deep sea gouges that the Tritons called home. The darkness seemed to move, and at first I suspected hallucination. I had never gone this long without the drug. But then I glimpsed the faint tinkle of bioluminescence. A writhing wall of viscous aglutinations moved within my light, a tapestry of coiling tentacles that continually formed and dissolved as it moved through the void. It was the Proteus, or at least some massive portion of it, en route to or returning from its toil. I couldn't guess that it's eyes. I quickly turned to redouble my efforts lest it somehow alert its masters to my whereabouts. I climbed until the plateau opened up before me. There squatted the vibrant blur of Atlas Station and its surrounding spill of infrastructure. The squalid desolation of Ludex I marked the gleam of departing subs, mostly larger crew transports evacuation protocol. The reflector stakes marked a path to the nearest airlock. So I slogged on through the mud and gravel toward the abattoir that awaited me in those haunted halls. Yeah. The second oil Age was produced by Robert Lamb, Alex Williams, Lauren vogel Bond, and Josh Than. This episode featured Angel Masters as sinov Pond, Lauren vogel Bond as Tabitha Vale, and Jonathan Strickland as Salty Squid, supporting voice work by Gina Rikiki intro outro, and supporting music created by the Weirding Module. Learn more at Module dot band camp dot com. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

M follows the production of my R Radio. This episode contains depictions of drug use and mild violence. The second oil age, Jack's was dead. I stripped her of her skin suit. The blood from her shattered nose dribbled through the lines in her face. It pulled in the sutured wound down her cheek. Bruising and fingertip contusions on her throat told the story of her death. As I pulled one of her arms out of this suit, I glimpsed to name and date tattooed on her shoulder. I tried to block it out, to banish it to the uncertainty of peripheral vision, but the math was too easy, ramifications too tragic, even with someone like her. My hands trembled as I pulled the last leg free. I longed for a shot of basilisk to wash it all away. The fit wasn't perfect, but the suit would work. I grabbed her communit and left the spent squid gun where it lay. One of the twin plexiglass pods had already been emptied by Hoffman, I imagined. I checked the other pod and expected to find a Utex pressure suit inside, or something like Thetis's get up. But this was even more alien, more alive. It looked like a cross between a suit of SA m R I armor and a mollusk open wide to receive a humanoid form. The material looked neither solid nor liquid, The outer surface dark and covered with shell like bumps and walls. The pink, spongy interior left little doubt of its organic nature. I knew what it was. Marsh had mentioned Fukeland's disappearance in a portion of the proteus. This was the Triton biotechnic repurposed as a pressure suit. It made sense. No human technology would enable a seafloor walk this deep down, not for landsfolk anyway. Numerous fears tumbled through my mind. How was it activated? Would it fit me? Was it safe? But I didn't have time. It was this or nothing, the embrace of a living pressure suit, or certain death in the tunnels beneath that us. I slid open the plexiglass and watched tiny tube feet and polyps rise up from the inner meat of the suit, as if reaching for my body. I took a deep breath, turned and backed into its embrace. The appendages crawled over me, pulling the suit into position. The proteus grew around my body, enclosing me like an iron maiden of amorphous flesh. I realized the Tritons must have used something similar to bring me down. It felt familiar. It hurt, but for only a moment, the suit seemed to shift and adjust to my size and shape, even my injuries. It hardened around me. I felt soft pressure against my nose and mouth. Then I was breathing again. Everything went dark for a moment, then swelled back into existence. I don't know if I stared through transparent tissue or if the proteus connected with my mind somehow, but I looked down at my hands, now seamless gauntlets of crustacean armor. I stepped out of the pod. I grabbed the wheel of the airlock and gave it a turn, then another. I glanced one last time down the tunnel for sign of Thetis or Triton pursuers, but there was only Jacks's crumpled corpse, her daughter's name gleaming back at me in the harsh light. I threw open the hatch and jumped down the well of depressurized water. The hatch closed after me, and the chamber flooded. It pressurized in less than a minute. The suit didn't so much as groan but SALTI. We can't live in a san cat though. We're not even gonna do when attack comes in. It's o Kape Valley. I built another than cattle ands at the proof Forlorman about Sauti, it's not how living on her surface works. The seawater keeps wating because of climate cheek nursery. That's a fearmongering by anti energy obstruction is who you? You don't want to live in the castle. I ne cheve in it where it's dry, but her pass for you. You have salt water, dude, and we can still be playing them make My name is Tabitha Vail, and I'm leaving this recording on a dead man switch for release at the eating of the Mess. I want there to be evidence of where I went and why I did it. I've arranged passage to Atlas station, the DX Degrade station. There's a high probability I'll wind up in custody, and I'm uncertain what steps they might take to silence the press. But there's a story there that needs to be told. They're listening to this, they're aware of my journalistic focus what it means to be recombined, or to be landsfolk, or on whichever side of all of the other lines in the sand we used to turn human against human, on what continues to divide us in a time when connection might just be enough to save us, and on the rare corners of society we actually foster connection. Atlas, It's one of those places. I've obtained passage aboard a cargo sub and I have limited arrangements on Alice. I'm depowering my community for the journey. Hopefully this message will prove unnecessary. Thank you for believing in me and in a better world. I emerged in new absolute darkness, the very darkness. I realized that covers most of the Earth. Eternal midnight is the true norm on our planet, interrupted by occasional sunlit shallows and the rise of continents. The surface is but a fraction. I took a step into the unknown and felt rock and mud slide beneath my feet. Panic shattered through me, and then a lamp bloomed to life somewhere above my head, casting a meager sphere of bio illumination in the thick, gloomy waters. The glow was enough to reveal the airlock hatch set in the jagged outcropping above my head, as well as the small cliff upon which I stood. Utter emptiness yawned beyond the trench, plummeting hatal depths. I backed away from the brink, my limbs moving as if in jelly. I turned toward the adjacent cliff side and noticed first one reflector topped steak, then another marking the path of ascension, a narrow, snaking trail up the side of the great trench. I turned and followed. Visibility was limited. The bioluminescence revealed no more than three stakes at a time. I had no way of telling how far ahead Hoffmann had gotten, or how far up I had to climb to reach the plateau. So I plodded along the suit, seeming to augment my steps just enough to prevent outright exhaustion. At times I caught movement out beyond the orb light and panicked till I realized that pursuers would not be so shy. If they knew where I was, then they'd simply take me. More likely, it was some animal of the deep, intrigued by the light. I don't know how long I climbed. Occasionally my feet slipped on the rocks and mud, but each time I avoided the spill. Finally I saw the faint aura of the cliffs above me. It couldn't be more than a ten minute climb. I paused and stared off once more into the vastness of the trench, one of the many deep sea gouges that the Tritons called home. The darkness seemed to move, and at first I suspected hallucination. I had never gone this long without the drug. But then I glimpsed the faint tinkle of bioluminescence. A writhing wall of viscous aglutinations moved within my light, a tapestry of coiling tentacles that continually formed and dissolved as it moved through the void. It was the Proteus, or at least some massive portion of it, en route to or returning from its toil. I couldn't guess that it's eyes. I quickly turned to redouble my efforts lest it somehow alert its masters to my whereabouts. I climbed until the plateau opened up before me. There squatted the vibrant blur of Atlas Station and its surrounding spill of infrastructure. The squalid desolation of Ludex I marked the gleam of departing subs, mostly larger crew transports evacuation protocol. The reflector stakes marked a path to the nearest airlock. So I slogged on through the mud and gravel toward the abattoir that awaited me in those haunted halls. Yeah. The second oil Age was produced by Robert Lamb, Alex Williams, Lauren vogel Bond, and Josh Than. This episode featured Angel Masters as sinov Pond, Lauren vogel Bond as Tabitha Vale, and Jonathan Strickland as Salty Squid, supporting voice work by Gina Rikiki intro outro, and supporting music created by the Weirding Module. Learn more at Module dot band camp dot com. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.