Work Text:
07.03.2025 1535
ONE DAY AFTER LANDFALL
HOBART CONVENTION & EXHIBITION CENTRE
HOBART, AUSTRALIA
PARTIAL TRANSCRIPTION OF PRESS CONFERENCE WITH CAPTAIN ROALD AMUNDSEN (RA), MODERATED BY LEON AMUNDSEN (LA). ADDITIONAL SPEAKERS: STEPHEN WALKER (SW), KRISTINE BENNETT (KB)
TRANSCRIPTION BEGINS
LA: Next question, please. Yes, you, thank you.
SW: Stephen Walker, Daily Mail. First of all, Captain, let me offer my sincere congratulations to you and your crew for the successful closure of the Weddell Rift. Humanity certainly owes you its thanks.
RA: It would be ungracious of me to decline, I suppose.
[laughter]
SW: Of course. However, some are saying your decision to preempt the PADC assault on the Rift with an independent strike team of your own constitutes a breach of etiquette. Care to comment on that?
[pause]
RA: A breach of etiquette? Was the question of the Rift reserved to the PADC for solution?
SW: Captain, what I mean to say is—
RA: It is my understanding that the kaiju threat remained as long as the Rift stayed open. It is also my understanding that the Weddell Gyre is considered international waters under the Antarctic Treaty System. Am I mistaken?
SW: [inaudible 0:58]
RA: Very well! Next time we find ourselves with an otherworldly invasion, I will be sure to leave its resolution to the unwieldy machinery of the PADC.
LA: [quickly] Thank you. We’ll have our next question, please.
KB: Kiss Bennett, Associated Press. PADC scientists are saying the EMP blast released by Frostreaver has severed communications in a nearly four hundred mile radius around the exclusion zone. Given that it could take days before we reestablish contact with the Antarctic mainland, is there anything you’d say, if you could, to Marshal Scott and the rest of the Terra Nova Shatterdome?
TRANSCRIPTION ENDS
02.03.2025 0627
FIVE DAYS BEFORE LANDFALL
HALLWAY OUTSIDE CAFETERIA 2D.33.6A
TERRA NOVA SHATTERDOME, ROSS ISLAND
CONVERSATION BETWEEN LT. HENRY ROBERTSON BOWERS (HB) AND JUNIOR SCIENTIST APSLEY CHERRY-GARRARD (ACG)
TRANSCRIPTION BEGINS
HB: There you are. D’you know, I was looking all over for you?
ACG: Birdie? I didn’t—why are you—
HB: Uncle Bill said to tell you the transport leaves in half an hour, and if you’re not on it it’s my neck on the chopping block.
ACG: I— [pause] He didn’t say that.
HB: Well, no. I made up the bit about the chopping block. But he did say to hurry.
[pause]
ACG: [laughs] All right. Message received.
HB: And message sent. Budge over, will you? What’s that you’re looking at?
ACG: It’s silly.
HB: Try me.
ACG: Do you remember on the way back from the Fangridge site when we stopped for samples, and Bill let me take a tooth?
HB: I said, you have a funny idea of what constitutes a souvenir, Cherry, and you said, well, it isn’t about the tooth, is it.
ACG: You do remember.
HB: Of course. That’s what this is?
ACG: What’s left of it, anyway.
HB: It does look rather smaller now.
ACG: Soon there won’t be anything left of it but blue. [pause] I know they won’t let me take it on the transport. Precautions, and all that.
HB: Bit more than a precaution. Defiler’s exclusion zone was a good fifty miles. Even the Wall would have a hard job keeping out that much blue.
ACG: When you talk like that it makes me remember how little I’ve seen.
HB: You've seen a live kaiju up close, Cherry. Not many people can lay claim to that.
ACG: Only as a passenger really.
HB: Well. Counts for something, doesn’t it.
[pause]
ACG: Please don’t make me go, Birdie.
HB: Sorry, Cherry. Orders from on high. All civvies out.
ACG: Yes—I know. I wouldn’t let me stay, either. I’m just an intern.
[shuffling]
HB: Cherry. You aren’t just anything. You know that.
ACG: Only when you say it like that. No, don’t. I’m being dramatic.
[pause]
HB: Here, I have an idea. [rustling, clanking] Hold this for a moment.
ACG: What—
HB: Go on, it won’t bite.
ACG: Lieutenant Bowers, is this a PADC issue camera drone?
HB: Well, technically, once I tampered with it, it was officially no longer PADC issue—
ACG: Birdie!
HB: [laughs] Here, give me your phone. [pause] There, that should do it. Keep an eye on me, all right? Write one of those articles of yours, maybe. Make me look good so my mam will stop texting me at odd hours.
ACG: I don’t think there’s anything in the world will stop that. But I shall. Thank you, Birdie.
HB: You’re welcome. Now, up you get. [grunts] If I don’t have you on the transport in five Uncle Bill will have my guts for garters.
ACG: You know he won't.
HB: First time for everything, Cherry, that's what I always say.
TRANSCRIPTION ENDS
03.03.2025 0832
FOUR DAYS BEFORE LANDFALL
GUEST SCIENTIST HOUSING - DORMITORY 5H.7988
TERRA NOVA SHATTERDOME, ROSS ISLAND
CONVERSATION BETWEEN STAFF SCIENTISTS CHARLES SEYMOUR WRIGHT (CW), FRANK DEBENHAM (FD), AND THOMAS GRIFFITH TAYLOR (GT)
TRANSCRIPTION BEGINS
CW: —thinks he has the fucking right to decide when to send us all back, as if I don’t know my own fucking contract back to front—
FD: Steady on, Silas.
CW: Don’t give me that. You were as wild as I was when you heard—
GT: Our Jessie’s got a less explosive way of showing it is all.
FD: Well, yes, I was pretty cross, but did you really think they were going to let us stay?
CW: Let us do our jobs, you mean? Finish our fucking research?
FD: In the middle of a warzone? No, not really.
CW: Bill and them did it already—that trip into the exclusion zone—
FD: Yes, and that was after, and it nearly killed them! Honestly, Silas—
CW: I’m not running.
FD: It’s not running, it’s a bloody evacuation order!
CW: It all sounds the same to me.
GT: Or, what if—and you’d do well here to listen to your elders and betters—
CW: Elder, anyway.
GT: I’m choosing to pretend I didn’t hear that—what if, lads, we did neither?
CW: What?
FD: Oh, no.
GT: Oh, yes, I think you mean.
FD: Griff, you can’t mean—
GT: I absolutely do.
FD: That’s experimental technology!
GT: [over FD] That’s experimental technology! My dear Jessie, you really don’t have to be this predictable—
CW: What the hell are you both talking about—
FD: The Fangridge tissue sample, Silas.
CW: The brain?
GT: The tissue sample, I think you’ll find.
CW: Don’t give me that, you’re a fucking geologist.
GT: And your radiation, that’s got fleshy bits hanging off it now, does it?
CW, FD, GT: [talking over one another 3:40-5:09]
FD: [inaudible] can’t say the benefit outweighs the risk.
GT: You know it does. If we can figure out what their goals are—find out why they keep targeting population centres—
CW: We’re a fucking population centre. [pause] But I take your point.
GT: And in any case the casing should shield us from any attempt at neural tracing.
CW: You think the Owner will see it that way?
CW, FD, GT: [talking over one another 5:13-6:01]
GT: Give that to me—
FD: Please, let’s not—
CW: Christ, that stinks—
CW, FD, GT: [talking over one another 6:02-7:34]
GT: [inaudible] watch yourself, it’s still secreting blue.
FD: How long is it going to keep doing that?
GT: That, I think, would be a question for our illustrious biological department, which departed—hah—on this morning’s transport.
CW: Only one way to find out now, I guess.
FD: So we’re really doing this?
CW: Fuck, I guess we are.
[mechanical noises 7:52-8:34]
FD: [inaudible] readjust the headpiece? Not too keen on scrambling my brains.
GT: More than they already are?
CW: Would it kill you to be serious for once?
GT: Very probably. Ready?
FD: Griff, I just had a thought. How much electricity is this going to take?
GT: Oh, heaps.
CW: Could you be any less precise.
GT: Sorry, don’t know how much that is in freedom units. Here we go.
CW: Griff—
TRANSCRIPTION ENDS
05.03.2025 2247
TWO DAYS BEFORE LANDFALL
K-SCIENCE LABORATORY 5B.658
TERRA NOVA SHATTERDOME, ROSS ISLAND
CONVERSATION BETWEEN DR. EDWARD LEICESTER ATKINSON (EA) AND CAPT. LAWRENCE EDWARD GRACE OATES (LO)
TRANSCRIPTION BEGINS
EA: Titus.
LO: Thought you’d scarpered by now.
EA: Could say the same for you.
LO: Ha.
[no speech to transcribe 0:09-2:31]
[glass clinking 2:31-2:33]
[no speech to transcribe 2:33-3:19]
EA: Pass me the—?
LO: Right.
[glass clinking]
EA: Obliged.
[no speech to transcribe 3:30-5:58]
EA: Marshal was looking for you earlier.
LO: I know.
EA: [pause] As bad as that?
LO: Mm.
[no speech to transcribe 6:10-6:45]
LO: Jane. I was hired to work on the Jumphawks. I'm not here for a trip to the bloody Rift. And here he is telling me he doesn't even want the bloody Jumphawks taking him all the way.
EA: Hell of a EMP range on the last one.
LO: But supposing they need extraction.
EA: They could walk back.
LO: Ha.
[no speech to transcribe 7:21-8:20]
LO: It’s bloody stupid he’s letting the boffins draw a kaiju here at all.
EA: Instead of?
LO: Going for the Rift.
EA: You’d leave a Cat 5 to wreak havoc on Australia?
LO: It's already here in the world, isn't it? We can't shove the damn thing back into its hole. The least we can do is keep its relatives from crawling out after it. And they will be coming.
EA: This soon?
LO: I leave the particular details to you lot. But you’ve read Simpson’s report.
[pause]
EA: That's what Amundsen's been saying.
LO: Well. The man's got a brain, hasn't he.
EA: Don't let the Owner catch you talking like that, Titus.
LO: What's he going to do? [laughs] Take me with him?
[pause]
EA: Titus.
LO: Jane.
EA: He isn’t. Is he really?
LO: You think he just wanted to tell me personally that I’d be dropping him off and heading home with the civvies?
[pause]
EA: Titus—
LO: Wanted the pilots to feel included I shouldn’t imagine. Not that I—
[klaxons]
EA: Shit.
[klaxons continue over rest of transcript]
LO: [inaudible 10:29] Jane. What is it?
EA: [shouting] New signature.
LO: But Jimson said—
EA: I know what Jimson said [inaudible 10:40] a new bloody signature.
LO: [inaudible 10:54]
[pause]
EA: Christ, the size of it.
LO: Well. Will you look at that.
TRANSCRIPTION ENDS
06.03.2025 2247
ONE DAY BEFORE LANDFALL
LOCCENT MISSION CONTROL
TERRA NOVA SHATTERDOME, ROSS ISLAND
CONVERSATION BETWEEN DR. EDWARD ADRIAN WILSON (EAW) AND MARSHAL ROBERT FALCON SCOTT (RFS)
[TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: The following transcription is incomplete and was pieced together from fragments recovered after the reclamation of Terra Nova Shatterdome. Most of the Shatterdome’s electronic records were not backed up in time prior to landfall; I have done the best I can. For a full record of written documents recovered from Terra Nova Shatterdome please see Appendix B. -ACG]
TRANSCRIPTION BEGINS
EAW: [inaudible 0:01] samples out on the last transport. That’s Q wing and the rest of the labs officially shut down; Taff has redirected their power to the main hangar. What are you doing, Con?
RFS: Writing.
EAW: Concerned about the cloud?
RFS: Well, we knew it wouldn’t hold out forever.
EAW: Funny thing, isn’t it, resorting to pen and paper at the end of the world.
RFS: [inaudible 0:36] think it’s the end of the world?
EAW: [laughs] No.
RFS: No, I suppose not. [pause] Imagine [inaudible 0:47] lugged a typewriter all the way out here.
DATA CORRUPTED
REST OF FILE LOST
TRANSCRIPTION OF NEXT FILE BEGINS
RFS: What’s that?
EAW: Kaiju tooth. [inaudible 0:08] the Fangsplitter site. Cherry must have left it behind.
RFS: Doesn’t look [inaudible 0:17] much of it left.
EAW: Everything that made it a tooth is still in there, somewhere.
DATA CORRUPTED
REST OF FILE LOST
TRANSCRIPTION OF NEXT FILE BEGINS
RFS: [inaudible 0:01] can’t believe the nerve of him, acting as he did. We ought to have taken the Jaegers out for a spin when we had the chance.
EAW: Against five men in a submarine.
RFS: Don’t you bloody start that [inaudible 0:23]. Don’t you play the peacemaker when you know as well as I do he’s signed our death warrants.
EAW: It wasn’t his idea [inaudible 0:37] draw Frostreaver here.
RFS: No, it was ours. Our lives on the line. Yours and mine and the Jumphawk crews’. And we wouldn’t [inaudible 0:50] if he hadn’t closed the fucking Rift! [pause] Sorry. I’m sorry, Bill.
[nothing to transcribe 1:20-1:48]
EAW: Everything came from the sea, once upon a time. There are worse ways to go than by returning to it.
RFS: When you say it like that I almost believe you. Do you, Bill? [pause] Think we’ll go.
EAW: No.
RFS: No. [pause] No, I don’t either.
DATA CORRUPTED
REST OF FILE LOST
TRANSCRIPTION OF NEXT FILE BEGINS
RFS: [inaudible 0:01]
EAW: I know.
RFS: [inaudible 0:04]
EAW: I know, Con.
DATA CORRUPTED
REST OF FILE LOST
TRANSCRIPTION OF NEXT FILE BEGINS
RFS: Stick it in one of the specimen bags and hope to high heaven it’s still here when we’re done, I suppose. Can I borrow one?
EAW: Oh, I suppose so. Although I left the requisition forms in my office, which has now been hermetically sealed, so—
RFS: [laughs]
EAW: [laughs]
RFS: Come on, then. [inaudible 0:29] bag ourselves another kaiju.
DATA CORRUPTED
REST OF FILE LOST
NO FURTHER TRANSCRIPTIONS AVAILABLE