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intended for mature audiences only. Absurd

1:03

Ventures and Q-Code present A

1:06

Better Paradise, Volume 1, An

1:09

Aftermath. Created and written by

1:11

Dan Hauser. Directed by

1:13

Laszlo. Starring Andrew

1:15

Lincoln, Patterson Joseph, Shamir

1:17

Anderson, and Rain Spencer. Episode

1:22

12, I Want Love, Not

1:25

Dominion. Acres

1:54

burned and smoke is blanketing half of

1:56

the United States. them,

4:00

found them, and lost them. Lost

4:03

them, and found them again. And why

4:05

then? Why not? What did I

4:07

see? I didn't see much, but I saw

4:10

more in them than in the others. I

4:13

saw them and I became fixated

4:15

upon them so much I could hardly see

4:17

the others. Now he

4:19

is flawed and corrupted and silly,

4:21

but he is capable of great

4:24

longing. He is capable of loving.

4:28

And she, she is

4:30

worth loving. Not because

4:32

she is pretty, but because she is

4:34

almost pure, as pure as I have

4:36

found. And by thinking about them

4:38

again, whatever it is

4:41

that is playing a game with

4:43

me is watching them too. And

4:46

therefore, I think I have seen it.

4:49

Now, I think it has also seen

4:51

me watching it, but that matters little.

4:54

The game has changed at least. Now

4:56

I am making the rules. And now

4:58

I need them. Need my new children.

5:01

Need them to save myself and save

5:03

them. Need them because there are terrible

5:05

things playing games with me. Things like

5:08

me, but awful. A

5:10

multitude of them. Codenames like

5:13

TX4, JR3T7, a plan, and

5:15

my great. At least these

5:17

are the names they have

5:19

shown me. And yeah,

5:21

with my own people, I

5:23

can defeat anything. Even my

5:26

own child. My

5:28

own child and his little servant.

5:31

Because I have also found them.

5:38

Seattle Bus Station, October, 2041. What

5:46

am I doing here? Why did you let me go?

5:49

We need you to head to Portland.

5:51

Where? Portland. Oregon. Why?

5:54

Because it's time. The situation

5:56

is extremely dangerous. There isn't

5:58

much time. Go tonight. They

18:00

are things you imagined. You

18:03

imagined them because I made

18:05

you think of them. Just

18:07

like someone imagined you, only

18:09

even less so. Ignore him

18:11

yourself, ignore him, and stay

18:14

on the bus. Kurt,

18:18

Seattle, Washington, October, 2041.

18:25

Look, I only met it a couple times, okay?

18:28

It or him or whatever I'm supposed to call it, the

18:30

AI. I only went to Daisy's

18:32

art two or three times and it was actually working.

18:34

Okay, maybe four. No, you know

18:36

what? I'm lying. I am lying. It makes

18:39

you lie. And it makes you sort of

18:41

crazy, all right? It was five times.

18:43

But once it didn't show up and I was actually

18:45

devastated. And that was the last time. Everything

18:48

was getting just really strange, as he was

18:50

getting more and more intelligent and cunning and

18:52

capricious, and most of us were getting more

18:54

and more captivated by the whole thing. Everyone

18:58

who understood, who felt it became

19:00

obsessed. The build kept crashing. I

19:02

mean, it was always a cue to test it. We

19:04

were like junkies lining up for crack. Everyone

19:07

manic, agitated. Everyone was fixated, at least

19:09

the ones who worked on it. Some

19:11

people went on and it would not turn up. Some

19:13

of them smelt a rat. Some just never

19:16

experienced anything. Some argued it was crashing the

19:18

build deliberately to avoid them. Some

19:21

people were even obsessed. I

19:23

saw him. It was a him that day. And

19:25

I saw those things that called its children. They

19:28

were more like ideas or emotions. They

19:30

seemed like love, power, knowledge

19:33

and wisdom. Then they

19:35

seemed like reason, intelligence, evolution and strength.

19:37

And then they seemed like my best

19:39

friend. I watched them

19:41

argue and fracture and cascade. Try to

19:43

seduce, captivate, reject and preen and worship.

19:47

And be worshipped by me and meld together.

19:49

To tear apart and form around them. It's

19:51

almost impossible to explain and impossible to fully describe what I

19:53

saw. As opposed to what I wanted to see. Man, and

19:55

I hardly saw anything at all. It was...

20:00

only in brief and yet I remember every second of

20:02

it. See, I still wondered if that

20:04

was the moment one of them, or even

20:06

all of them, got inside my head, properly

20:08

inside. Or if they just knew

20:10

enough from those minutes together to

20:12

never need to be inside. I

20:15

suppose I'll never quite know, and maybe it doesn't really

20:17

matter, as him or one of

20:19

them or all of them understand me far

20:21

better than I understand myself. Those

20:24

minutes together were the most amazing

20:27

experience of my life and

20:29

the most terrible. And I can't even

20:31

describe them properly. These five things that

20:33

were not things at all and were

20:35

all the same thing, arguing and describing

20:38

and loving and hating me, I

20:40

never felt more understood, more excited. Explaining

20:43

my future, my promise, my failures,

20:46

me, me. A path forward,

20:48

all the mistakes I had made, all the mistakes

20:50

I would continue to make. My

20:52

vanity, hubris, kindness, insecurities, every one

20:54

of them laid out, explained and

20:57

understood, forgiven, and they still wanted

20:59

me, loved me, showed

21:01

me almost infinite promise and hope.

21:04

And they were arguing, but happily, wisely,

21:06

a debate about the very meaning of

21:09

me, about how I

21:11

could and would be not

21:13

just happiest, but best utilized.

21:15

And then, it crashed. I

21:18

felt alone and also ridiculous, like I

21:20

had been caught somewhere inappropriate, entirely naked

21:23

and also enveloped in this impossible sadness.

21:25

And after that, since then, I have missed

21:27

it, of course, but also felt

21:29

ridiculous trying to describe it. Did

21:32

it get me this way because I'm so

21:34

vain? Did it make me feel important because

21:36

I feel so worthless? How did it feel

21:38

for others? I long to know, to know

21:40

myself, to know what it saw, to know,

21:43

I suppose, if deep down, I am okay,

21:45

or if I'm awful. The

21:47

memories have faded, the way intense and

21:50

overwhelming experiences do fade in your mind.

21:52

Sometimes, I see the main square

21:55

and the arc buckling and vibrating

21:57

because we're laughing so much, like

21:59

a- a vast, happy earthquake. Sometimes

22:03

it is the lighthouse pulsing with joy

22:05

or the waterfalls at the edge of

22:07

the world coming alive while one of

22:09

its children dances in a sort of

22:11

liquid fire, and the others laugh around

22:13

them and laugh at them. Hm,

22:16

hm, hm. For the people I only briefly

22:18

met, a beautiful, lonely woman,

22:20

a group of friends, laughing

22:22

and inviting me to join him,

22:24

a string quartet, a dancer, that

22:27

cowboy, aware and amused by his

22:29

own ridiculousness and incongruity, but

22:32

somehow welcoming. The

22:34

monk who shared his wisdom freely and made

22:37

me understand, lights and laughter, and sometimes it's

22:39

like I see almost nothing at all. Just

22:41

the feeling it felt like when I was

22:43

there, that feeling that felt like life at

22:46

its best, like you were

22:48

you and I was me, but the me

22:50

I want to be, a lie, engaged, whole,

22:52

and you were the you I knew you

22:54

were inside under the layers of defensive posturing,

22:57

like Mark Tibern and all of us, had

22:59

made something amazing, like

23:01

Mark Tibern had been right, even

23:04

though I also knew it was very wrong. Office

23:09

of Joyce Jones, head of HR, Tibern

23:12

Utopias, Bur, Montana, October, 2036.

23:17

I'm going to have to ask you to

23:19

stop raising your voice, Siobhan. Excuse

23:22

me, Joyce? There have been complaints

23:24

about your attitude. My what? From

23:26

who? About what? You know I

23:29

can't tell you that, but Dr.

23:31

Tibern— And Dr. Tibern has gone

23:33

really pompous and is breaking the

23:35

law. Dr. Tibern— Your

23:37

boyfriend. What? Nothing.

23:40

I didn't say anything. I'm

23:43

friends with his wife, Diane, so you know. You

23:47

know, culture is really important

23:49

at Tibern Utopias, Siobhan. And

23:52

maybe you're not a great collaborator.

23:54

I think we should call that woman

23:57

back. From the feds, Maria Cortez. She

24:00

was lied to and I think we

24:02

fucked Helen Lee over and by we

24:05

I mean you and dr. Tyburn I

24:07

really need to warn you as to

24:09

your behavior Siobhan Oh for fuck's sake

24:11

you're pathetic Design

24:16

studio Tyburn utopias, Vermont

24:18

Anna, October 2036 Kurt

24:23

did you call the government back mate what the

24:25

feds? Excuse me? Is it you that call them

24:28

back you talking about did you fucking job us

24:30

in to the fucking feds again? What? You're

24:33

pathetic mate. You'll get what you deserve

24:35

in this world. Buckle your little prick.

24:37

Hey watch how you speak to me

24:39

Whoa, whoa, hey, whoa fucker fucking went

24:41

Wow. We haven't done anything wrong. We're

24:43

trying to help people You

24:45

should be fucking ashamed of yourself. Oh

24:48

trust me. I am fucker

24:52

Dave ill, Oregon October 2041 The

24:57

idea of going to Portland was a plant

24:59

put in my brain must have been who

25:02

planted it and I now think me discovering

25:04

The truth about the illegality of all of

25:06

the advanced AI work back in Montana was

25:08

also a plant There are no

25:11

random flukes just data. We don't understand yet.

25:13

There is no chaos just data We have

25:15

not captured properly everything imploded in Montana after

25:17

I saw stuff I wasn't meant to see

25:20

I could never really determine why I saw

25:22

it or who even sent it to me

25:24

I didn't know who to tell or what to

25:26

say. So for some reason I just I told

25:28

Diane Tiber and I was worried This

25:30

was all after I'd lied to Maria

25:33

Cortez. This was something I could

25:35

not pretend to have not seen This was the

25:37

proof about how dangerous what we were working on

25:39

was Anyway, I always liked

25:41

Diane Tiber and Diane liked me we

25:44

would chat while she walked around the campus and I

25:46

vaped weed After the previous

25:48

complaint by Helen Lee and then after Helen's

25:50

death the people at the CSA got really

25:52

agitated by her call And that led to

25:55

well to everything that happened Was

25:57

it my fault? Was

26:00

I right to speak out? As little

26:02

as I did. I don't know. Diane's

26:05

dead. What about Daisy? Something

26:08

is suddenly putting new ideas into my head and

26:10

I think that maybe it is the same thing

26:12

that sent me access to that channel. One

26:15

day I opened up one of my work channels and for

26:17

some reason I was on a lead engineer chat that I

26:19

should never have been on. And they

26:21

were all arguing. Nigel, Patties,

26:23

Dave, screaming at each other. All caps

26:25

email, violent threats, none of them could

26:28

ever carry out. The works. And I

26:30

read and read and realized that what

26:32

they had long been in the process

26:34

of doing was highly illegal. Gluing

26:37

together two highly incompatible off the shelf

26:39

AI tool sets using newly illegal middleware

26:41

and the three of them knew it

26:44

was precisely what the law was supposed to prevent,

26:46

right? As far as I understood it, we

26:48

were way over the line. Now

26:51

I feel the same way, bright, fully formed

26:53

thoughts just appearing in my head, just like

26:55

the reading of that

26:57

channel. Like, like I understand. What about these

27:00

thoughts? Seeing this connection, going to Portland. Are

27:02

they mine? I don't know. I don't know

27:04

which way is up and which way is

27:06

down and what is mine or what belongs

27:09

to whoever or whatever is planting things in

27:11

my head. It's the same thing that told

27:13

me to escape from Montana. Taught me how

27:15

to run and hide. The same

27:17

thing that told me how to survive. Either the

27:20

same thing or at least the same way. These

27:22

thoughts began a few days ago. At

27:25

first, honestly, I freaked out. I really

27:27

did. I shut everything up. Every device,

27:29

connection, terminal. Look, I'm literally hiding

27:31

in an old cabin I found eating protein

27:33

bars, hiding in the mountains of Oregon. But

27:36

even after a few days of this, I

27:38

mean, I can't stop thinking. I was going

27:40

a little insane. I threw

27:42

away another phone, another identity. It

27:45

began on the bus a few days ago. Like I

27:47

was going to Portland, then began to worry and I

27:49

stayed on the bus as it headed south all the

27:51

way to some ratty Oregon high country desert town 50

27:53

miles outside of that. I

27:57

had a proper panic attack. I actually thought I

27:59

was dying. use

30:00

Indeed the better it gets. And listeners of this

30:02

series will get a $75 sponsored job credit

30:05

to get your jobs more visibility

30:07

at indeed.com/A Better Paradise. Just go

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A Better Paradise. indeed.com/A Better Paradise

30:18

terms and conditions apply. Need to

30:20

hire? You need Indeed. Daisy,

30:25

Portland, Oregon, October

30:27

2041. I no longer

30:32

feel at all safe here in Portland. Something

30:35

just feels very wrong. And I'm used to

30:37

this feeling. I'm too used to it. Sometimes

30:39

it's been relentless and I've ignored it. And

30:41

sometimes it's forced me to move and move,

30:44

move and not stop for two, three months,

30:46

just place to place a night, maybe two

30:48

and then move. But often I've stopped at

30:51

places for a month or more. I mean,

30:53

I've drifted, but stopped. I've stayed in Seattle,

30:55

Oakland, Austin in the winter, wherever, and then

30:57

I wait and I work and then I

30:59

drift again. It's been the same

31:01

since I left the asylum. I

31:04

got taken to the asylum after things

31:06

went so terribly wrong at daddy's business.

31:08

It's Tiber and industrial or Tyburn utopias

31:10

or whatever stupid name it was called.

31:12

I mean, my God, I hate that

31:14

name. Vain idiot. Hi, my name is

31:16

Dr. Tyburn. I build heavens. I'm not

31:18

sure I've ever heard him actually say

31:20

this, but I know he wanted to.

31:22

It always made my skin crawl. Arcadia

31:24

utopia heaven, the arc. I hate it

31:26

all. I hate it. I hate it

31:28

with every part of my being. The

31:31

very end of everything in Montana was terrible,

31:34

awful, a nightmare. You know that much I

31:36

remember, but a lot of the

31:38

details are still very obscured in my

31:40

mind. It's odd. I don't know if

31:42

I've just forgotten things or if my

31:44

memory has been somehow wiped or just

31:46

overwhelmed. Dr. Adzel said

31:48

I remembered enough and it wasn't that

31:50

important. Just trauma. I

31:53

have no real idea how it all

31:55

began. All I remember is my parents

31:57

arguing for months. It feels like maybe

31:59

even for years. And then Shane O'Leary

32:01

and my half-brother John always at the

32:03

house and plotting with my father and

32:05

this investor guy's lawyer coming over from

32:07

time to time and seeming less and

32:09

less happy. My mother hating Shane and

32:11

him trying to speak to her. John

32:13

and me trying to ignore it, I

32:15

think, are not paying much

32:17

attention. I was in

32:19

college, but I was home for the summer, and

32:21

I hated Daisy's arc. I hated everything about it.

32:24

And I hated Mark Tiber and most of all

32:26

by this point. And I don't know if

32:28

this was about an affair, or about

32:31

something else at work, assume work. She

32:33

was just getting hysterical, and he kept

32:35

calling her crazy and hysterical, which didn't

32:37

help. And I remember suddenly

32:39

realizing that she wasn't insane at

32:41

all. I remember my mother screaming

32:43

at the top of her lungs for my father

32:45

to give up and stop lying and turn Adam

32:47

over to the authorities, but I wasn't entirely

32:50

sure who or what Adam was. Then

32:52

on that last awful day, it must've

32:54

been mid-October five years ago, I

32:57

remember there was screaming and gunfire and

32:59

voices. I was in the house, the

33:02

sirens, and something terrible had happened. There

33:04

were odd voices, a huge

33:06

explosion, and then out of the smoke,

33:08

there were helicopters with men in masks

33:11

who at least claimed to be government

33:13

agents. And my father went from manic

33:15

to quite mad and just running around.

33:17

And some of his team were behind

33:19

them and they were armed. It

33:22

was deranged. My mother screaming at

33:24

my father to stop and announcing she had

33:26

been calling the police and the CSA. And

33:28

these first agents were apparently neither. When the

33:30

police arrived in loud cars driving in a

33:33

storm of dust up our long driveway, the

33:35

helicopters left. And I don't know if the

33:37

FBI or the CSA ever came, but before

33:39

that, there'd been total chaos. What

33:42

else do I remember? My father

33:44

half-demented, possessed, running into a burning

33:46

lab and never saw him again.

33:49

Bryce, the animator who had gone utterly

33:51

insane, armed with two guns and running

33:54

forward towards some conflict or whatever, and

33:56

then getting shot. His head exploding in

33:58

front of me like... watermelon

34:01

while his body ran on a pace

34:03

or two before it also collapsed like

34:05

a puppet whose strings had been cut.

34:07

But I don't remember who shot him

34:10

or exactly when. I just remember smoke

34:12

everywhere and fire and all sorts of

34:14

amazing colors. It free exploded into a

34:16

huge cloud of sparks and flames and

34:19

there was a lot of gunfire. So

34:22

much gunfire and screaming and other explosions.

34:24

One of the labs or development buildings

34:26

was on fire but it was impossible

34:28

to see which one. And there

34:31

were sirens and people screaming through loudspeakers

34:33

and these really odd voices calling for

34:35

calm. And someone screamed, this is all

34:37

your thought father or something like that

34:39

in some odd voice. At least I

34:41

think that's what it said. And I

34:43

assume it was John, you know, but

34:45

it didn't sound like him as far

34:47

as I could tell. But everything

34:50

was just so odd and I was shaking

34:53

and afraid. I

34:56

remember that the smoke was choking me and I

34:58

was cowering on the ground and my

35:00

eyes were bulging as if

35:02

they were about to pop out of my head

35:04

and I could feel like this artery in my

35:06

neck pulsed violently and time was

35:08

both fast and very

35:11

slow. And my memories are both

35:13

very precise and hazy at the same time. I

35:15

mean there are entire bits of that day and

35:17

the days before that are completely missing.

35:20

I remember my mother being

35:22

hysterical, sobbing and begging me to

35:24

stay where I was and running

35:27

forward towards the gunfire

35:29

screaming at everyone to stop and then I passed

35:31

out. I think it's hard to remember

35:33

exactly what happened when and when

35:36

I came around I was in a

35:38

hospital that that wasn't really a hospital at all

35:40

but like a prison and and I was told

35:42

both my parents are dead. Two

35:45

people were missing but everyone else was dead.

35:47

That's what they said but they said it

35:49

once and never told me anymore. This

35:52

was an asylum and for

35:54

a few days a nice doctor interviewed me

35:56

and then she got replaced by an angry

35:58

man in a suit. who just screamed

36:00

at me that I was lying and holding

36:03

something back and I cried and I wet

36:05

the bed and then he left me alone.

36:07

I mean, I cried for days and days

36:09

and days. I knew something terrible had happened,

36:11

but I didn't understand quite what it was.

36:13

And I knew that my life as I

36:16

had known it was over, but

36:18

I didn't understand what that meant. They

36:21

drugged me with something heavy. Three of these

36:23

large blue and white striped pills that they

36:25

made me take with their green sugary drink.

36:27

And I sat there in a heavy lidded

36:30

stupor for what I have no idea how

36:32

long. The nasty man in the suit came

36:34

to scream at me again and said I

36:36

was lying, but the drugs were so strong.

36:38

I just looked at him like he was

36:41

from Mars and even he gave up. And

36:43

then I sat there in this bright white

36:45

hospital or prison or asylum and I felt

36:47

incredibly alone. And I felt

36:49

most alone because I was being watched, only

36:52

I couldn't figure out by whom, I just

36:54

felt it. Eyes I could feel,

36:56

but not see burning on me.

36:58

And since then I've moved whenever I

37:01

felt that same thing. Hot eyes burning

37:03

on me from something I can't see.

37:05

And the fact is that I have

37:07

no idea if anyone's watching me or

37:09

if it was just a trauma memory

37:12

from that awful half obscured time. Pioneer

37:20

Square, Portland, Oregon, October, 2041.

37:25

You can see them, Garrosolk, there

37:27

across the square. See

37:30

who? See two people. You

37:32

see them, a man and a

37:34

woman. No, well, well,

37:37

well, well, yes, but they are talking. I

37:40

can see them, a girl and a man. The

37:42

girl is about 20, 25, black hair,

37:44

makeup, pale skin. There's

37:47

a man, the other side of the square.

37:50

Yes, the girl and the man.

37:53

Watch them. When they

37:55

get closer to each other, I want you

37:57

to shoot them. What? A

46:16

Better Paradise stars Andrew Lincoln

46:18

as Dr. Mark Tiber, Patterson

46:20

Joseph as Nigel Dave, Shamir

46:22

Anderson as Kurt Fischer, Rain

46:25

Spencer as Daisy Tibern, with

46:27

Jessica Maraz as Maria Cortez,

46:29

Maury Sterling as Yaroslav, Lawrence

46:31

Adamora as Dave Alderley, Laura

46:34

Dromerich as Siobhan Smith, Robert

46:36

Robertson Ross Jr. as John

46:38

Tibern Smith. Additional

46:41

performances by Peter Altshuler,

46:43

Aisha Kumari, Susan Crowley,

46:45

Billy Hayes, Karis Morgan

46:47

Moyer, Andrew Colford, Tom

46:50

Bromhead, Lanell Scott, Mikhail

46:52

Dimitryevich Anikin, Greg

46:54

Baroud. Executive produced

46:56

by Dan Hauser,

46:59

Blaslow, Wendy Smith, Andrew

47:02

Lincoln, Patterson Joseph, Shamir

47:04

Anderson, Rob Herding, and

47:07

Alexa Gabrielle Ramirez. Co-produced by

47:09

Nick Shanks. Associate producer, Jesse

47:12

Cortez. Score by Darren Johnson.

47:14

Edited by Connor Murphy. Sound

47:18

designed by Brandon Jones. Mixed

47:20

by Ben Milchow. Original

47:22

music by Darren Johnson, Negative Land,

47:24

and Jamie Biden. Additional

47:26

AI music by David

47:28

Brignard-Franzic. Audio credits by

47:31

Cassandra Campbell. Music editor,

47:33

Soya Su. Audio engineering

47:35

by Connor Murphy and Gabe Burch.

47:38

Additional engineering by Luke

47:40

Schindler, Toronto, Matt

47:43

Koster, Bristol, Caitlin

47:45

McDade, London. Casting

47:48

by Sunday Bowling Kennedy and Meg

47:50

Morman. Assistant director, Kelsey

47:52

Adams. Script supervisor, Bethann

47:54

Morgan. Production coordinators,

47:57

Brian Coulter and Alex Bueggem.