Recording · 12–13 November 1986
Ward session recording 09
Playback is optional. The transcript below is complete.
What you can hear behind the voices
A low mains hum at the same pitch throughout. No rain. No footsteps. Nothing in the room moves for the whole recording.
Transcript
[The first thirty seconds have been physically cut from the tape and spliced out.] KESSLER: — hour nine. Subject is settled. Eyes closed. Respiration normal. [pause, hum] KESSLER: Odile, can you hear me. ALDAINE: Yes. KESSLER: Are you asleep. ALDAINE: I don't think that word is doing what you want it to do any more. KESSLER: [pause] What day is it. ALDAINE: Thursday. KESSLER: It's Wednesday. ALDAINE: It's Wednesday for you. [pause, hum] KESSLER: I'm going to ask you some questions. ALDAINE: I know. Blue. Fourteen. My grandmother's kitchen. The one with the yellow door. No, I don't want to stop. Yes, I'm warm enough. [pause. the hum continues. Kessler does not speak for nineteen seconds.] KESSLER: [quietly] Those are the answers. ALDAINE: Those are the answers. KESSLER: I haven't asked the questions. ALDAINE: You will. They're on the clipboard. You wrote them last night at the desk with the green lamp and you numbered them one to six and you crossed out four and wrote it again underneath. KESSLER: [pause] Yes. ALDAINE: I'm not frightened, Theo. KESSLER: I am. ALDAINE: I know. That's question five. [pause, hum] KESSLER: Odile. I'm going to switch the fixture off. ALDAINE: Not yet. KESSLER: Why not. ALDAINE: Because there's somebody who comes and reads all of this. Not tonight. A long time from now. And I want to still be here when they do. KESSLER: There's nobody here. ALDAINE: Not tonight. [pause] ALDAINE: Wren. [the hum continues to the end of the reel]
Also written down
Every question Kessler asks on this tape is written, in advance and in this order, on the clipboard photographed in the observation room. The reveal is legible on paper.
This recording is fiction, written and produced for ADRENOCHROME: The Halcyon Protocol.