Dead
Draft script from VVFA podcast episode “Digital Ghost”.
Formatted for Virtual Futures — Near Future Fictions Vol.1 — and read on March 7th 2017 at Light Of Soho, London.
A journalist investigates the disappearance of a lab technician from an experimental space station.
Written by Jasmin Blasco, Andrew Friend and Sitraka Rakotoniaina
SCENE 1
Journalist : This is the sound of all human life in space.
Sandra Malone : Yes, that’s everyone, the Body Area Network. Everyone’s heartbeats, monitored in real time.
Journalist : So, how can anyone go missing?
Sandra Malone : No one can ever really go missing. We track everyone’s health status through a network of bio-sensors, and keep extensive records.
This is Sandra Malone, an independent insurance claims investigator, contracted to Planetary Resources.
Journalist : I have to assume that there’s a lot of personnel assigned to data collection and analysis?
Sandra Malone : No, it’s almost completely automated. PR has been investing in their AI infrastructure for years. The system keeps learning, it analyses data in real-time and produces diagnostics — it even suggests prescriptions.
Journalist : That sounds quite encompassing.
Sandra Malone : The system has a better understanding of your health than any doctor could have.
Journalist : Impressive. So this system must be quite useful in generating insights on the impact of space dwelling on the human body.
Sandra Malone : Indeed. It can identify and flag at-risk individuals and dynamically reassign tasks or missions. Real doctors rarely get involved.
Journalist : So, let me get this straight: if the system is automated, it’s a closed loop. Can anybody access that information?
Sandra Malone : You’d need to buy a license from PR. Like the infrastructure of the network, the information it contains is also owned by the company. The Body Area Network is currently one of PR’s biggest economic assets.
Journalist : I see, so as an employee, you don’t own your data. Must be strange. Not so different, from not owning your own body?
Sandra Malone : Well, PR owns the data it collects from your body. Your body remains yours. And it’s not as though PR owns anyone’s soul…
Journalist : Sure, but what about if your body goes missing?
Sandra Malone : It’s highly unlikely that anyone would go missing.
Journalist : What about in the case of Tan Yee?
Sandra Malone : Please tell me you are not one of those conspiracy nuts.
News Anchor :
“In other news, Planetary Resources, the company who had employed Tan Yee, has issued a release stating that the lab technician’s body was still nowhere to be found, fuelling further speculation… ”
Tan Yee was working on “Pathfinder”. An experimental platform for self-sustaining space dwellings.
After years of costly legal battles, the Supreme Court finally repelled PR’s right to withhold his data on the grounds of “unethical conduct”. A decision seen by many as an opportunity to finally grieve.
SCENE 2
A large crowd is gathered outside the new extension of the Koukoko-ji Temple, overlooking Ruriden, Tokyo’s first LED-enhanced columbarium, where urns have been replaced by light-emitting statuettes, covering the walls.
Inside, tombstones are made of light, a digital graveyard renamed the “LED festival” by the neighbouring residents.
Journalist : What do you think happened?
Tan Yee’s Relative : Honestly, I think the company is responsible. They did something during that “solar flare”.
Journalist : You believe that PR would know about those ahead of time? Those are notoriously unpredictable.
Tan Yee’s Relative : Who knows what they can or can’t do… If PR didn’t do anything, why didn’t they release his data earlier?
Journalist : Technically, no crime occurred. PR had to be prosecuted before they released his bio-data.
Tan Yee’s Relative : No crime?! You either are on the station… or dead. And it was one of those experimental spacecraft, more secret than the military.
Journalist : You think he saw something he shouldn’t have?
Tan Yee’s Relative : Some believe in that “commune”. You know, right?
Journalist : Sounds unlikely.
Tan Yee’s Relative : I know, but wouldn’t it be amazing? A self-sustaining station. A new Earth. If people start doing their own thing out there, then guys like PR could lose their power. Right now, it feels like they are trying to privatise the Heavens.
After years of struggle, enough funds were pulled together to bring Tan Yee into the digital afterlife.
These digital graveyards are monuments for the preservation of information, an archive of the deceased’s identity.
Many of these urns carry the hope that technological advances may resurrect their consciousness hidden in the entangled mass of data. Maybe one day, Tan Yee will re-emerge from the cloud.
SCENE 3
3 years ago on June 15th at 13:26 GMT a huge solar flare knocked out all orbital communication. And essentially…
Sandra Malone : Space went dark. All that we really know is that his heart rate monitor never showed when comms came back online.
It’s actually the lack of information which leads to so much speculation.
Sandra Malone : People are either incredibly naive about what PR are capable of, or they are equally enthusiastic in their skepticism.
Journalist : What about you?
Sandra Malone : I’m a realist. I have to be.
Sandra’s role is to determine if the circumstances that led to injuries are PR’s responsibility or if they occurred in breach of contract, such as skipping their daily exercises routine. In space, physical activities are mandatory to help workers cope with the absence of gravity.
Sandra Malone : On the 5th at around 11:30 GMT, Tan Lee’s wearable shows a heart rate increase. That is to be expected given that he had started his exercise routine.
Journalist : And then?
Sandra Malone : Then, the event occurs, we lose track, and then — that’s it.
Journalist : That’s it?
Sandra Malone : Yes, that’s it. We found no body, and no anomaly on the station’s log.
Journalist : Really? And? Could a body actually just vanish?
Sandra Malone : Are you at all familiar with the contract that all PR employees have to sign? Specifically the part about what happens to their bodies in the event of an accident.
If you die in most orbital facilities operated by PR. The company will wrap you up in a body bag to freeze you. And then:
Sandra Malone : … they shake you until you shatter into a million pieces.
Journalist : So are you saying that PR could have vaporised him?
Sandra Malone : No. I’m trying to demonstrate to you that you cannot self-vaporise. This process isn’t instant. It involves exposing the body to the vacuum of space for over an hour. Then, bring it back in before turning it into dust. Plus, we don’t just shove the body through the airlock. The bags are attached outside the spacecraft so they don’t drift away. Besides, it’s illegal to litter in space. Objectively, that kind of suicide, isn’t even an option.
Journalist : The most popular theories actually suggest that he may have been murdered.
Sandra Malone : Yeah, the perfect crime, perfectly executed, during one of the largest solar flares in history.
Journalist : Um, it does sound a little too perfect.
Sandra Malone : Reality strikes you as perfect? A complicity between irregular solar patterns and the opaque and presumably nefarious machinations of PR?
Journalist : Yes, I —
Sandra Malone : … implying that somehow PR knows so much that it can predict the sun’s behaviour in advance?
Journalist : You’re saying that PR can make back door deals with the heavens.
Sandra Malone : No. What I’m actually saying is — digital ghosts, irrational explanations about the workings of the universe — these are symptoms of grief, ways to cope with the impossible.
As I am talking to Sandra, I wonder what kind of images we leave behind after we gone, or what kinds of image we produce while we are still alive, for that matter. Perhaps we are already encased in our digital mausoleums, endlessly replaying to ourselves the chapters of our existence?
