WHAT WILL BE HERE
EPISODE 3
APU Shutdown

MUSIC: Mid-tempo synth music plays.

INTRODUCTION
What Will be Here, episode three: APU Shutdown. Content warnings for this episode include swearing, discussion of apocalypses, discussion of the demise of humanity, and mentions of pandemics. See the show notes for more details and a link to the transcript.

Part One: JULES

SFX: Recorder clicks on. Shuffling as Jules sits down and drops her bag

JULES
(Sighing)
Hey, hi! Okay! Finally on base. I'm a little late cause my folks wanted me to stay behind for a bit. Sasha needed a system update. But hey electric cars, what can you do?

So, good news: we got all of our materials. Bad news: we lost all our power. But I’m still trying to look on the bright side of things. Heh, get it?

SFX: more shuffling as Jules moves around on her chair

JULES
Actually, I’m a bit jittery. I can’t tell if this is excitement or nerves. Probably both... It's one thing to talk about doing something, but another to actually do it. I mean, I can’t wait to see everyone in action!

But I really am, I don't know, anxious? I mean, a lot of it’s on me. Chemistry is at the heart of making rockets launch, and guess who’s the chemist? It seems easy in theory, follow the basis of Newton's 3rd law, and then with the proper account of chemical combustion, the rocket will propel itself. How fun!
I’ve made and launched rockets before, but on a much smaller scale, just little hobby rockets. But I had to stop when Savannah’s military recruiters showed up...

Pause.

JULES
(sounding a bit more chipper)
But this time will be different, and that's good! This isn’t just some side project rocket, no! This is a chance to do something amazing with some amazingly smart people! It's gonna be so fun to have building buddies and get some quality bonding time!

Beat.

JULES
(sounding a bit deflated)
The team already had a handle on the power outage down here with backup generators which…frankly I just never really thought about that. But Suri, Dane- they both seemed so prepared for this, like they’d just assumed it would happen eventually. I know our lives have been pretty different, but there’s knowing and then there’s knowing, you know?

Pause.


JULES
But I'm sure we’ll have time to learn all about each other. I mean, I already know Ari pretty well. I’ve even met their folks, who were actually just as great as they told me they were... I don't know much about Kei’s personal life yet, but that’s already started to change! Suri and Dane are still pretty much a mystery. Dane swears a lot but I think he likes me, and I know for sure Suri doesn’t, but I don’t know why yet. I’m really hoping these conversations will help bridge that gap!


Yeah! This is a chance to make things better, both relationship-wise and for the future! Even though we’ll all probably be long gone by the time anyone hears this, that doesn't mean we can't focus on the now. Good relationships are important when dealing with a big project like this. And I’m looking forward to making new bonds with new friends- Ow!

SFX: Bang as Jules hits her leg on the table.

JULES
Mother fuuuudger, I forgot that table was there. I'm gonna turn this off now before I hurt something else.

Jules laughs.


JULES
See you in the future!

SFX: Recorder turns off


Part Two: KEI
SFX: Recording clicks on.
KEI
Power’s out. Again. I was right in the middle of soldering a few key panels to the rocket, but Savannah decided I needed to take a break so, thanks for that, I guess. If I knew it wouldn’t get me killed, I’d try to turn the lights back on myself. Wouldn’t be too hard. All I’d have to do is scale the nearest transmission line and do a hard reboot of the distribution grid. Could probably reallocate a little more power away from, say, the Savannah warehouses and put a little more towards the people that really need it. I would be dead the moment my feet touched the ground, but I think it’d be worth it. I brought it up to Armani and they threatened to confiscate my climbing gear. So that’s that.
SFX: Sound of shuffling as Kei begins to walk around.
KEI
There’s a weird energy spreading through the underground. You can feel it, seeping in through the vents. I don’t think folks are going to stand the darkness much longer. And it’s not like this is the first time Savannah’s turned the power off. It’s, what, the third time this month? Each time the outages last just a little bit longer. We gave out our generators to some of the underground. To people that need it. It’s quiet here, with the lights out, but you can hear the whisperings about what will happen when our overlords give up on us completely. What if Savannah shuts the power off for good? I wouldn’t be able to power anything in my lab or most of my hand prosthetic but more importantly-
SFX: Kei grabs onto the mic frantically, sounds of muffled handling.
KEI
I won’t be able to power my phone. My online presence will be gone! The Savannah employee monitoring my internet activity will miss me dearly. They won’t be able to see when I google how fast a black hole would have to spin to reverse the flow of time or the chemical makeup of cheese. It’s a travesty.
SFX: Sets the mic back down. Pulls out eir chair and sits down with a sigh.
KEI
I wish Savannah would give us some warning before they turned off the power. I don’t want to think of how many people are trapped in the subway tunnels or in elevators. Or people like me who were in the middle of extremely important work. I’m just glad I wasn’t in the vents this time around. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve definitely had a nap or two in those dark vents but when everywhere else else is pitch black too...
Not something I want to do again anytime soon. You can just feel the walls closing in around you. Not literally, of course. But it feels like it. And I know the underground can feel it too. The weight of the dark pressing down on them. No one dares do anything about it though. Apparently a hundred years ago, people would riot until the city turned the lights on again. An outpouring of anger and disapproval. A visible Fuck You to world. Now, no one wants to risk speaking up, least they get snatched up by Savannah’s Customer Relations department. Which is fair. No one wants to get taken by Savannah. No one really comes back from that and, if you do, you really don’t want to.
SFX: There's a beat. Kei takes a steadying breath.
KEI
The worst part of the outage is being forced to wait. That lack of control. You just sit there or stand there or pace here and wait there. And that feeling just gets worse and worse. You can feel the air being sucked out of these vents and sucked out of the underground. And we can’t do anything about it! We don't have infinite generators and I can’t rig up some sort of electrical lighting system. There’s no power now, when I need it. So we have to use what we have already in order to survive, in the only way that we know how, and to help people in the only ways that we can and it just feels useless because no matter what we do the lights are going to keep going out and we're going to have to sit in the darkness and wait for them to come back on. We have to wait for someone to decide that we are worthy of these lights.

Whose decision is it that we are worthy of... of some basic human dignity!? We can't light fires. The smoke has nowhere to go. We can't get any more generators. Savannah monitors everything we buy, or want to buy, and if we do buy too many things they’ll get wise to what we're doing and eventually decide to shut us down- us being Us and the underground- but people need to live and breathe and eat and if Savannah on high has decided that we are not worthy of lights what else could they decide that we're not deserving of? Hmm? What is a human worth and how much can humans stand before we decide that we're worth more than an artificial number that's been assigned to us?
Pause.
KEI
Sitting in the dark isn't awful once you get used to it, but sitting in the dark wondering when someone is going to decide that you deserve to see, that you deserve to be and breathe and live? That’s the worst part of it. It's not like we can complain or challenge our ranking. We just have to sit there and take it.
Kei lets out a deep breath.
KEI
The underground's not completely dark. There's this spot in the vents, twisting way up into the tunnels, where you can see this small patch of sunlight. And just past that metal grate you can juuust barely see the hint of trees. I don’t really need to go into that section of ventilation anymore but sometimes it's nice to just go sit and watch when everything gets to be too much. I think, um…I think that's what the underground needs. A little beam of hope. A glimpse of something better than what we have already. I don't know if this rocket will be that for them…in fact I highly doubt it.
Once I have some more free time, when all this is finished, I’m going to rewire the electrical grid in the underground. That way, the next time Savannah decides to pull the plug, we’ll be ready.
SFX: Recorder turns off.
Part Three: ARMANI

SFX: Recorder clicks on.

SFX: Armani’s voice echoes.

ARMANI
Well, looks like all of our usual reasons for flickering lights were a bust.

SFX: Armani turns on a lantern with a click.

ARMANI
Kei's checking out something...not entirely sure what. I should probably look into that eventually. In the meantime, let me tell you about darkness.

Darkness is one of humanity's primeval peers. It's been with us for eternity. We fear it, naturally. When you can't see your own hand in the forest but you can hear all the things that can see you, your heart starts racing as every step you take signals out "Dinner walking by!"

It's been a long time since we've had darkness, though. Ever since electricity became ours to command we've been steadily brightening up the streets and the difference between night and day is when the stock market is open.

Even before that though, we very rarely had true darkness. The stars were usually visible in their brilliant glory to guide and comfort us. And the Moon! Rumor has it that it's bright enough to light up an open field when there's a full moon.

Part of the reason we fear darkness is because we create the things that it might hold--the things we can’t see, the things we don’t want to see. Werewolves, vampires, ghosts, goblins--all of them created from the worst parts of humanity. Because when you're in the dark, you're alone with your thoughts. And not much is scarier than the stuff we know we're capable of.

Of course, we're not technically capable of sinking our teeth into someone's neck and sucking the lifeblood out of them. These things are metaphors for our own humanity. Although that doesn't stop us from being terrified of the creatures we create to inhabit the dark. It almost seems like anything we put in the dark is either a trickster or actively trying to eat us.

On the other hand, darkness is a blank slate from which we can create. I can't even count how many mythologies begin with a vast darkness, whether an empty chaos, or an eternal ocean or even someone just waking up.

SFX: We can hear the cat thunking in the vents, the metal thudding against paws and a muffled meow or two.

ARMANI
Kei must have an idea of some sort...Night, too, is often so much more than just a time to sleep. It's the time when we talk to our ancestors, when the veil between our world and the next is thin. It's when we go through our own little cycle of death and rebirth from one day to the next. For the Egyptians and Mesopotamians, night was what happened when a sun god descended into the underworld. For one, each sunset was a death followed by a battle. For the other, nighttime was simply a time to hold court for the dead, and the living did not receive light during that time.


There's all sorts of math to explain darkness, lumens and candles and micromoles with angles and atmospheric haze, but for us it's so much more than that. It's simultaneously the absence of information and the potential for so much more. The cycle of day and night is our own little microcosm of our entire existence.

On the other hand...sometimes we should fear the darkness. While our ancestors worshiped the sun itself they only ever had clouds, night and the very occasional eclipse obscuring it. We've always sought ways to control the darkness--fire, marble tiles, light bulbs, even those weird hoverlights from Seedling Enterprises. But when you try to control darkness, you lose a little something. You lose the time that was reserved for your own thoughts, because Savannah wants you working when the lights are on. Of course, if they need an excuse to make your life hell, they can just turn them off.

I don't think that's what's going on right now? Kei says we're on the same line as a pretty power-hungry building, so cutting off our power specifically would be tricky. Maybe it's just a random power outage. Regardless, once you control darkness and light you control so much more. For a lot of history, darkness was used to hide things. Whether lovers meeting in the woods in the thick of night, or resistance meetings being organized.

But...it's also the time when kings send in their knights to take "taxes". When assassins slip out of alleyways, when the corporate-owned police force suddenly shows up at your door when you're too tired to argue with them. Night is when things get stolen, broken, and mysteriously disappear only to be replaced by the "officially-sanctioned” whatever-Savannah wants.

Darkness should be a comfortable state in which we can exist while also respecting its power to make us unknowing. But as I'm sitting here with this little desk lantern like so many people before me...I have to wonder if it's really our place to be afraid of darkness.

SFX: Kei opens a door.

KEI
Are you recording in the dark?

ARMANI
I've got a lantern.

SFX: CAT. IN. THE. VENTS. The thudding intensifies.

Beat.

ARMANI
Kei?

KEI
Yeah?

ARMANI
What was that?

KEI
Why are you asking me?

ARMANI
You were just in the vents!

KEI
I mean, yeah, but I was in the lower ductwork. Under the floor. That came from the ceiling.

SFX: SCAMPER SCAMPER THUNK

ARMANI
Kei what's in the vents?

KEI
(Teasing)
What, scared of the dark?

ARMANI
Kei, I just told future aliens about how we have vampires and other creatures of the night and you expect me to be calm about mysterious footsteps in the vents that aren't yours?

SFX: A significant thud, then a plaintive meow, then more thudding as Armani and Kei talk.

ARMANI
Well, that mystery was of very short duration.

KEI
Cats aren’t exactly known for their dramatic timing.

ARMANI
I wonder how long it’s been in there?

KEI
I wonder if I can get it to come out… retire the ratvac once and for all.

ARMANI
I’d be glad to see the end of that little ankle stabber.

KEI
Oh stop whining, it’s never gotten you.

ARMANI
Well right now I'm a little more concerned with our new friend. Signing off. Hopefully this isn't our last message.

SFX: Recorder clicks off

Part Four: DANE


SFX:​ Recorder clicks on.

DANE
(oddly upbeat)
Welp. While the power’s out, this is as good a time as any to get my recording done.

SFX: ​DANE begins typing as he speaks.

DANE
It’s a good thing I remembered to charge my external battery this morning. Mom taught me to keep it at the ready for situations like this. Wouldn’t be the first time Savannah cut the power before I could save my work.

Dane laughs a bit.

SFX:​ The typing slows, then stops.

DANE
(serious)
Oh. Oh no...That is so batshit insane. The fact that I just said that. And ​laughed. Ugh.

The thing is, no one ​wants ​to believe they’re facing the apocalypse. And, even more than that, no one wants to believe that ​they’re ​not going to be the ones to survive it. Call me a pessimist, but if we’re being honest here: this is the end of the fucking world. We can ​say​ we’re building this rocket for the aliens or for the future, but that isn't true: it’s the last hurrah in hopes that some-fucking-body will remember that we were here. Since we all know deep down that pretty soon, we won’t be anymore. Even Jules knows it, or she wouldn’t have started this. She just puts a smile on it.

I…I get it, though - people don’t want to face that reality, not all day every day at least, and I can’t blame them, because it feels like the demise of the human race is happening too slowly and too quickly at the same damn time.

Like, Savannah went from slowly taking over to scooping up the last remaining competitors all at once. ​That shit​? That was fast, and they planned it that way, so that no one could stop them. It’s better to ask forgiveness than permission, but of course they’re not interested in forgiveness. Unless you can sell it.

But the shift to everybody wearing masks in the face of pandemic after pandemic? The way that no one says “goodbye” anymore and instead they just beg that you stay safe? Little things like that came in waves. They crept into our daily lives so slowly that by the time everyone had adopted them, they seemed like they’d been the norm all along.

And when everyone thinks something very strange is very normal, it gets that much harder to fight against it. Humans are adaptable like that - circumstances change around them, and they just learn to accept it. Which usually is okay, except this time, we’re all just accepting our impending dooms hurtling toward us at mach speed.

Like these blackouts? It was not always like this. Before any of us were born, they were actually pretty uncommon and a cause for concern. But now? They happen just about every other week. And I can still remember; I was like, five when our family decided to just invest in a generator, a lifetime supply of batteries and brand new flashlights. And I remember when our moms taught us how to start a fire out of almost anything for when the heat gets cut off. And just like that, the power outages stopped seeming weird. We adapted to a new reality. We accepted it.

He huffs and scoffs.

DANE
So that’s how we end up in a world where no one bats an eye at getting your thumbprints scanned every time you go to the grocery store. A world where Savannah has the access codes to every house topside, and you wouldn’t be shocked to find a Savannah officer sitting at your kitchen table, or going through your drawers. It’s a world where we’re all scared of small-talk, because if Savannah even ​thinks​ you’re saying something out of line, they’ll hear it, and you’ll go missing the next day. No one smiles, because you can’t see it behind the masks anyway. And you keep your head down as your kids go through metal detectors just to get to class on their first day of second grade.

Pause.

DANE
Well, Jules smiles. I don’t really understand her - she’s pretty much in Savannah’s pocket, but she’s doing all this, and somehow she’s still smiling. Anyway, all that is ​normal now. And once you accept it, it becomes that much harder to remember how things used to be. It’s... ​easier​ to remember down here.

Beat.

DANE
Savannah pretty much ignores the Underground; we’re not the profitable kind of people. Some folks do work in their factories, but really, it’s lots of artists and philosophers down here, engineers who couldn’t afford a college degree… physicists who could but then couldn’t stomach working for the devil. So, you know, people that aren’t exactly easy to exploit. We’re invisible to them as long as we don’t make too much fuss.

Beat. Dane chuckles humorlessly.

DANE
I have a hard time with that part, sometimes.

Beat.

DANE
We don’t even use money in the Underground, really. It’s trade and barter and hope that when you’re sick your neighbors will remember how you treated them when they were. Our old buildings don’t have Savannah Smart Locks - we have keys, and we hide them under doormats and give spares to our friends... And Savannah doesn’t really care if we say something a little controversial down here, since we don’t have any power to sway anything up above.

Beat.

DANE
I should tell Jules I found a silver lining. She’d get a fucking kick out of that.

Beat. Dane lets out a breath.

DANE
People barely remember that there was a time when you could just be a, a, a - post office worker and spend your days delivering mail and get a measly paycheck and go home to your family! And maybe a doctor making five times as much money lived next door! And that was fine, in a way, because you didn’t have to ​be​ a doctor to interact with the rest of the goddamn world! You could just… just be a ​person​. Like, that was fucking ​real​ once, and we’re just accepting ​this​? I’m supposed to be satisfied with living most of my life buried alive, all because I can say “Savannah sucks” down here? As long as I don’t say it too loudly? It’s bullshit!

SFX: Dane stands up from his chair quickly. He breathes heavily for a moment, calming himself down.

DANE
It’s bullshit. And it’s normal now. Nobody protests anymore. Nobody is making petitions or calling government officials. Because none of those can do anything now. We accepted too many new normals, and then we realized we were fucked way too late. What’s the point in calling a senator about controlling Savannah when Savannah owns that senator’s house? Owns that senator’s kid’s schools? Owns the very air that they fucking breathe?

Beat.

DANE
It’s too late. The planet is dying and it’s people like me who are definitely going to die with it. It’s the end of the fucking world and the new normal is going to be nothing.

Part Five: SURI

SFX: Recorder turns on.

SURI
The power went out today. You probably heard. I’m not sure if there’s ever a good time for the power to go out, but as usual, it wasn’t a great time for the power to go out. Kei gave quite the colorful indictment of Savannah Power when eir soldering iron stopped midway through a circuit, and Jules was so stressed she didn’t even tell em off. Dane just double checked his external battery and went right back to typing away, it was pretty funny. I can tell he’s angry, though, even when no one else can.

We’ve loaned out our backup generators to people who need power more than we do. Folks on mechanically filtered oxygen or meds that need refrigeration, folks who need to charge their prosthetics, you know, just normal human things. Just normal human things that mean some people die without power. Savannah knows that, of course. And you know what? That would be enough for me, even if that was all they’d done wrong. It’s not, but it’s enough.

Now that we’ve finished running around making sure everyone is okay, we can’t do too much until the power’s back on. These outages don’t usually last more than a day, but you never really know. Instead of sitting around twiddling my thumbs, though, I’m -

SFX: Suri walks over and picks up a bag that sounds like it’s full of small metal parts.

SURI
-going to take this opportunity to do some art. And you get to come along for the ride.

SFX: Suri starts walking with this bag.

SURI
I’ve had this idea ever since I found all of these scrapped optics parts. Dumpster diving near research labs and universities can be the best source of inspiration sometimes. There were mounts and leveling tools but also all of these mirrors, prisms, and lenses! Some of them were cracked - I bet they were literally thrown out - but they were all perfect.

You don’t get any sunlight here in the underground, because it’s, well, underground. BUT - there’s one spot where a beam of light shines down from the surface. Just a little spot of sunlight. It’s quite the marvel. Every time I see it I’m surprised something hasn’t fallen in and blocked it yet. And if I’m lucky…

SFX: Suri stops walking.

SURI
Yes! Still here! We’re in business.

SFX: Suri puts her bag down, starts unpacking a bunch of small metallic things with a clatter and jumbles.

SURI
A power outage is the perfect time to play around with this little light beam. Usually the lamps down here wash it out, but not right now! They’re all off! I have a vision that involves bouncing this spot of light all over this tunnel, reflecting it with these mirrors, maybe refracting it with some of these lenses, scattering it. Everywhere. I’m going to paint with light!

SFX: Two things are combined, clicking or twisting into place.

SURI
The hardest part will be getting everything into place, but I brought some stuff to rig it all up. Don’t tell Kei, but I borrowed a bunch of stuff from eir scrap bin… and a tool or two.

SFX: A sound of a tool, followed by more building.

SURI
I won’t be able to leave this stuff here. Kei will want eir things back, Armani will need the optics tools for the rocket’s navigation systems, and Jules would probably… I don’t know, probably tell me to stop littering.

SFX: Sound of Suri gently hammering metal pieces together. Sound of a drill under her speech.

SURI
This art piece begins and ends today. But there’s something kind of beautiful about that. Catching light, just for a moment - but for that moment, you’ve made something beautiful.

SFX: Building sounds continue.

SURI
But it’s not really about the finished product anyway. It’s about the making. I get told a lot how pointless it is to pursue art these days. The only way to make money involves pandering to those who have it, feeding their ego for scraps. I’m not about that. Never was.

SFX: More building sounds, including a metallic thud.

SURI
(as an aside)
Huh, I wonder how that sounds on the recorder.

SFX: More building sounds, including electric crackling sounds and cranking.

SURI
Art is about more than money. It’s about more than the finished product. It’s about… hell, it’s about so many different things. Emotion, expression, challenge, fun. Sometimes it’s just fun. This, I admit, is pretty fun.

SFX: Suri cranks something into place. It’s fun.

SURI
But I remember the family portrait I drew when I was little. It was a simple thing, just pencil and paper… but when I showed it to my moms, they both teared up, smiling wider than I’d ever seen them. It’s still on our fridge. That’s art.

Or, years ago, when I painted a huge sign to hang from an overpass when Gaut was visiting town… I know he saw it before they could get it down, I was watching his face with binoculars. The expression he had? Art.

Or when Jules had this crazy idea to have us all make a bunch of recordings and launch them into space. This is art too, and ultimately, it’s why I said yes, I think. Also Dane had already said yes and I’m not letting him do this without me, but still. The art aspect is a part of why I said yes.

SFX: Footsteps approach, building noises pause.

ARMANI
There you are. I was wondering where you ran off to.

SURI
I got bored.

Pause as Armani looks at Suri’s handiwork.

ARMANI
What are you making?

SURI
Oh, you’ll see.

ARMANI
You’ve got quite the conglomeration of mirrors there. And… is that Kei’s welder?

SURI
Shhh! I’m borrowing it!

ARMANI
(laughs)
Your secret is safe with me.

SURI
Good. Did you, uh, need anything? Or were you just looking for company?


ARMANI
I had a question about-

SURI
Wait, hang on.

SFX: Footsteps approach recorder.
SFX: Recorder clicks off.
SFX: Recorder clicks on.

SURI
Oops, I forgot to turn you back on. I really don’t have a good track record with this thing, do I?

SFX: Suri walking back over to the setup.

SURI
Well, I’m almost done and I didn’t want you to miss the final moment here. I’m putting the last mirror in, and it’ll make the light hit a prism, and that light is going to hit a bunch of other things.

SFX: A mirror gets slotted into place. Suri takes a couple steps back to admire her work.

SURI
Wow. That’s it, yeah. I wish you could see it too. This 3D sculpture of sunlight, bouncing and scattering across the room.

SFX: A few footsteps.

SURI
I can even stand in the middle of it. Wow.

SFX: Suri stands silently for a moment. Then, a hum as the power comes back on. Things power up and switch on.


SURI
And there’s the power. Well! It was fun while it lasted.

SFX: Recorder click off.

MUSIC: What Will Be Here theme plays, hopeful piano music.

CREDITS
This episode was written by Brad Colbroock, Chandler Harrison, Cole Burkhardt, Di Reese, and Tal Minear, with script editing by Evan Tess Murray. It was directed by Brad Colbroock and sound designed by Tal Minear, and features Jona Lune as Jules, Vico Ortiz as Kei, Kathy Youssef as Armani, John Y. Kamara as Dane, and Sahar Iman as Suri. The theme music is by Benny James and the transcript is by Caroline Mincks. What Will Be Here is primarily produced in Long Beach, on the stolen land of the Kizh Nation.