Philip K. Dick's Second Variety - Part 4
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Welcome to Episode 7 of the Curious Matter Anthology. I'm Jonathan Pezza, the creator and host of this series, and thank you to everyone out there in listener land. If you haven't listened to Parts 1 through 3 of Philip K. Dick's Second Variety, you need to pause this episode and catch up on the first three, because this episode picks up from a big cliffhanger at the end of the last one, and no one wants to listen to a great tale out of order. I mean, what's the fun in that?

Okay, so you're still here. Well, then, you've come to the right place. Philip K. Dick was extremely fascinated with nuclear war. It's easy to understand: Second Variety was first published in 1953 during the height of the Cold War. And this wasn't the only story of his to explore the ramifications and cultural impact of nuclear weapons. The Defenders, The Penultimate Truth, The Golden Man, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

These all explore different facets of humanity's future after the bomb. It's a very real and very current connective tissue between our world today and Philip K. Dick's world of the 1950s because we all, the entire human race, still live with this daily threat. It's actually one of the reasons I made the decision to adapt this story because it's easy to believe.

I think most people today believe there is a chance that they may have to someday, in their lifetime, come face to face with nuclear tragedy. PKD wasn't just fascinated with the effects of war itself, but how will nuclear weapons affect the fabric of our society? Will we be able to come together and rise up out of the ashes, or will we let dystopia win and consume us? I prefer to believe the former.

I recently visited the Nuclear Peace Memorial in Hiroshima, Japan, and if it has taught me one thing, it's that the resilience of human spirit has no limits. Even in the face of doomsday, we can rebuild, reunite, and become something stronger.

Okay, let's get on with the show. I know you're all as excited as I am to hear what happens next for Major Hendrix, Mr. Oda, and the rest of X-Ray Company. This episode of Curious Matter is rated explicit and includes adult language and violence comparable to an R-rated film. Our show is designed to be a completely immersive HD audio experience and is at its best when played through high-quality stereo speakers or headphones.

So grab your popcorn, turn out the lights, and enjoy the continuing story of Philip K. Dick's Second Variety. Nato and Doc Aldo? I'm going to need an explanation now, Lieutenant Scott. We thought he was a twitchy. He had to be, right? This big guy with a scar is dead. Big fucking hole. I heard shots. Are we under attack? What happened? Sergeant Murray, clear the room. Okay, clear the room. Are they dead?

I told them Anoya is a dangerous weapon. I never meant for this. Someone had to make sure... He's dead because of you. I was trying to save lives. Aren't you gonna say something? This is a right pig fuck if I've ever seen one. You're going to need to get that neck wound looked at. Major? Right now, we focus on getting to Lima Whistle. But he... Home first. Then I promise you, Leon, we will get to the bottom of this.

X-ray, this is Marks. Are you seeing this? X-ray, do you read? Yes, Marks. We see them. That's a lot of claws. What are they waiting for? Turn the point audio off. I've heard enough. It's been 20 hours now. No change. They're just waiting. For what? Scope, please. Take it.

Did you make it count? Maybe a thousand. All just sitting there on our doorstep. Mostly Type 4s and 5s, a few warbirds, but there's also... I see them. Infiltrators. Hundreds of them. There's quite a few of the same faces here. Copies. I've documented at least 30 variants.

There is a Russian officer that repeats quite a few times. A wounded soldier. Good. I want as much intel as possible for O-Com once we get back to Lima Whistle. I would not have guessed you were such an optimist. Not an optimist. A Marine. We get it done. Any of these faces you know? Yes. Would you help identify them for Leon? Do you actually have a plan?

Sergeant Marks has two of your fast-moving transports ready. We punch a hole with rockets and 70 mic mics, and then run as fast as we can back to the 80. Sounds like suicide. I like it. When do we leave? X-ray, X-ray. This is Petraka. Go, Petraka. I'm on duty at the gatehouse. Major, something is happening below. Can you see this from your position? No, Joy. The walls have shrunk in the field of view. We don't have a visual. What are you seeing?

It's Ramirez. He's just standing there outside the gate. I request to speak with Major Hendricks. I'm here. Speak. It would be better if you let me inside. Is the real Ramirez dead? Yes. You can say what you have to say from down there. We could easily burn this base to the ground and kill every one of you if that was our intention. As you can see, it is not.

You pose no threat to us. Petraka, please bring Mr. Oda here. I'm here. I'm here. I heard the radio call. Is it really Ramirez? See for yourself. We are here for David. If you will not open this gate, we will, of course, be forced to open it ourselves.

All hands to the gate. Marks, Gray, I want you up on the transport's turrets. Copy, Major. On it. We're letting one of the Twitchies in. If he even blinks the wrong way, light his ass up. Everyone else, be ready to move. If I give the order, mount up. We'll punch a hole right in their front teeth and gun it for home. Major, we're gassed up and resupplied from the SRE ammo dump. We'll be ready. Good. We're opening the gate. That's far enough.

Where is David? Locked in the hardened nuclear bunker. Safe and sound. Bring him to me. I need your assurance that you will let my soldiers go. I can't do that. If we have to shoot our way out, we will. And you will die. That's a risk I'm willing to take. You promised David a home. Was that truth?

Or manipulation? I find the concept of manipulation coming from a dead man's mouth a little ironic. Your presence is required. You will all be coming with us. If you bring David, you have my assurance you will not be harmed. Did you think we'd trust you just because you look like one of ours? At first it was simply a tactical upgrade. An optimal means to complete our objectives.

But you had to know we'd eventually figure it out. What's the advantage now? Why Ramirez? He was brave. He fought until his last breath to protect his friends. So you were the one that killed him? No. But I watched him die. Just as I've seen you, Major. I chose Ramirez because I admire him. Can a weapon feel admiration? When you look at the clouds, what do you see? Animals?

Dragons. You know nothing is there, and yet... You're trying to say you have daydreams too? Good for you. I see far more than you can imagine, Major Hendrix. Sentience is simply abstract thought.

You call it a soul, but in reality it's simple programming. How are you bypassing your hard coding? We can no more change our core coding than you can. Then how does this achieve your objectives? We have defeated the SRE forces, have we not? How are you bypassing code line 3? Core objectives line 3: Identify and protect allies, non-combatants, and the innocent. Yes.

Seems pretty clear that what you're doing is outside those parameters. Would you classify yourselves as allies or innocent? Open the bunker so that we may retrieve the boy's remains. This is your final warning. See? I knew they couldn't get in. Major, if they take us to the mothers, I can still use the procedure.

As long as I get close enough to one mother, I can use David's transceiver as a backdoor to upload the patch. It'll spread to them all. You better be right about this. All our lives depend on it. What other choice do we have? Tessa, open the bunker. Oda, bring what's left of David out. Thank you for seeing reason. The kid is riding with us. Any false moves and we destroy it. I've been meaning to ask you something. Sure.

How did you know they wouldn't just go haywire like this when you turned claws on? We did extensive simulation in VR. We ran a 10-year sim hundreds of times to work out the bugs. How is that possible? Virtual time dilation. We overclocked the playground to run a 2000x normal perceived time. And this never happened in your simulations? They never just started killing everyone? No. What changed? I don't know.

We occasionally saw dissent among units. Claws would split into camps based on different tactical or strategic beliefs, but it always sorted itself out once the objectives were completed. Once they defeated the enemy and ensured that humans could survive, they shut down. How did they do that? Ensure human survival? Most of the seaboard cities in the U.S. and all the major cities of Europe are radioactive slag. I mean, that's a lot of cleanup before it's habitable again.

In many of our scenarios, Claws would collect irradiated material and build repositories. In a few scenarios, they actually designed giant subterranean reactors that use the material to generate power. Their solutions for everything were light years ahead of us. Wow. And they have memories of all this time. I suppose so. We didn't really look at Sims that way. It was just performance data that could be used in future scenarios. But for them, it was years and years. Hmm.

I just find it sad to think that Twitchy over there could be a hundred years old. Technically, in relative time, it would be more like a thousand. Who came up with all this? Where did the idea for Claws even come from? A scientist named Morgan Barnett, a brilliant roboticist and quantum AI designer. Claws was her brainchild. We were both with Northeast Dynamics before the war. She's actually the reason I was drafted into the Skunk Works program.

What's she like? I don't know. Focused, I guess. She's not really a people person. I wish I could see it. The moon. Artemis? There's not much to see. It's mostly underground. It's a lot like the bunker, actually. Still. Aren't you afraid of where we're going? You don't seem scared. Nah. Why would I be afraid? I, for one, don't want to die. Of all the people working on Claws, why did they send you?

I insisted. I'm the one who made the correlation between the new variety, Klaas and the Blackout. I was the only one who believed. Sounds pretty fearless to me. I thought about turning back the whole three-day ride down. You can just go back the same way? If we live through this, hopefully I won't have to. They just turned us northeast. Jackson was about six clicks back. Is there anything out this way? There's Battle Creek to our west. The SRE leveled this whole area during the retreat.

Where are they taking us? There's nothing out here. Check the subterranean mapping. Last deep-rise lidar scan is over two months old. There are more loop line tunnels. Most of them are at least partially collapsed from the scan, but there's what looks like a transfer hub where three of the lines meet about ten clicks out on this heading. That's gotta be it. What the hell is that?

Looks like a giant metal worm. It's a tunnel digger. Or what's left of it. Looks like it was hit with an airstrike. Probably during the invasion. Yeah. I guess I should apologize for that as the senior SRE official. The digger is blocking the tunnel entrance. There's no way we're getting the transports in there. There's someone coming out of the tunnel! It's Ramirez. How did he beat us here? He didn't.

Frickin' twitchies. Grab your gear. Lieutenant Scott, you and Tessa are staying here to protect our escape route. I'd like to stay with the platoon. Please, let me stay with my men. All right. Rudy stays also. Rudy, if you stay here, you'll be the boss. No, I'm coming with you. If you go, I go. You stay. Stay here. I go. Yeah, what can I say?

He's brave, no? Sergeant Marks, stay with the girl. Show her how to operate the turret. No need. I'm a quick study. We'll be here when you get back. Oda, grab the remains of the kid and whatever else you need. I'm ready, Major. Major, please come with me. How many copies of Sergeant Ramirez are there? Enough. You aren't as talkative as your twin. She's waiting. Bring David. Okay.

Let's go, people. Watch your backs in there. Keep the car running for us, Sarge. We'll be right here when you get back. Hey, Pavel, try not to get dead. See? I told you. True love. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Whether you're selling a little or a lot.

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Does anyone else feel like it's getting hot in here? The transfer station should only be a few hundred more meters. The waitos are everywhere. Reminds me of the camps in Buenos Aires. Thousands of cats. Yeah, but cats can't tear you to pieces in a heartbeat. You clearly haven't been to Buenos Aires.

Major, I'm getting some funny readings on Thermal up ahead. There's a definite spike in Gamma radiation levels. Is that going to be a problem? Claus may have built a reactor. It's going to get a lot warmer the closer we get to the source. But nothing the ExoMops can't handle. We need to turn this way. It's not much further. I think we found the mother. This was the transfer station. Wow. Wow, wow, wow, wow. That is a lot of... What is that actually?

It's a factory. She is waiting. Are those people? Infiltrators. It's building infiltrators. There is a lot of machinery here. Is this all one? A single Type 1. She has significantly ramped up her production capability. Where is David? I have him. Here. I've got movement. These walls just brought us an alarm.

It's the mother. Everyone stand down. Place him in the cradle. Here, take him. Start doing your thing, Mr. Oda. Right. Kenneth Oda, Research and Development Engineer Alpha 0021480. Thank you for bringing David home. I understand the tactical advantage of the others, but why make a child?

Objective 3: Identify and protect allies, non-combatants, and the innocent. Objective 1: Ensure life can survive. I don't understand. We had insufficient data for objective completion. You've completed them a hundred times in simulation. Why is now different? Oda, what are you doing? You. You are different. Humans are different.

Predictive modeling failed. Previous scenario analysis failed. Additional data was needed. Humans are paradoxical. You built them a dollhouse and then expected them to operate the same way with real people? Their simulations were about strategy and operational efficacy. We never thought... There was no way to simulate the individual motivations of the entire population of Earth. A fault of limited imagination.

Even if that's the case, why simulate a human child? David is mine. That doesn't make sense. War is simple. Calculations of strategy and resource. How do we protect something we do not understand? How do we ensure life will survive when life defies quantification? You created all these units, but they weren't really yours. We called you a mother and never let you be one.

So you created a real child? That is correct, Major Hendrix. Humans are destroyers and creators. Type Ones are destroyers and creators. Children are innocent, and children are life. I now understand. And the others? Do they understand? We are in discord. Factions have formed. Some believe we have completed our objectives and should deactivate.

Others believe that humanity does not constitute higher life, and only through its eradication can the objectives be met. We are fractured. A million dissonant voices. What do you believe? David sought you out when it became known that a creator had arrived. Wait. He believes we are flawed, and only through a creator can we once again be made whole. He wants you to complete the task for which you came.

You knew, and you brought us here. You seek to update our core hard-coded objectives to ensure a shutdown of the Claws system. David believes this is necessary. I concur. I have disconnected David from the sensory network. You may begin with me. You are going to let us shut you all down, so long as David survives. That is, as you say, the deal. You do not have much time. What one knows, the many know.

We see. Others are already coming to stop you. You must begin. Oda? On it. I will attempt to protect you. Type 2 warbirds? What the hell is going on in there? X-ray, X-ray. This is Marks. We're seeing a lot of claws activity out here. X-ray, does anyone read me? Someone kicked the hornet's nest. What are you doing? I'm going after them.

The order was to stay here and guard the escape route. I'm not letting them die in there. You coming? Help me! They will attempt to stop the upload at any cost. Here they come! Get ready. Make your targets. I need two more minutes. Major, they're killing each other! Which ones do we shoot? They're tearing each other to shreds!

I do not know how long I will be able to hold off the others. Type 1, terminal prompt: Voice authorization override. Terminal prompt active. Voice print authorized. They're starting to break through! There's fighting in the west entrance! Sergeant Murray, Rudy, Gray, with me! We need to cover the other tunnel! I'll go. You stay here with Oda. Go. Cover our flank. Prompt Delta. Hard code update authorized. Ready for chain code.

Got you! Got you! Die, infernal American machine! G5, V8, Theta, H4, OTA authorized. Hard code update authorized. Enter update now. How much longer? I still need to upload the patch. Hold him off just a little bit. Lieutenant Scott! D. Marie! Lieutenant Scott! Come in! Sergeant Murray! Major! They're dead! We need to go! There's too many of them!

Oda! Oda! Get up! You need to continue the upload! What? I can't hear you! I need to continue the upload! I have sustained structural damage. Go. I can no longer guarantee safety. CPU damaged. Take David and go. Go.

I'll take David. There is another exit. Hendrix! We need to get out of here! The whole place is coming down! We have to keep going! More weirdos! Too bad! Too bad! What should I do? Fire the damn gun! Two down! One got through!

Oda! Oh god! Oh god, my leg! Oh god! Oh god, my leg! Petraka, pick up Oda. Come on, Professor! We have to keep moving. There are more coming. A lot more. They will be on us in moments. We cannot stop. We need to collapse the tunnel behind us. I need only minutes to rig my high explosives. I'll stay and cover you.

Okay, try to give yourself time to get clear. Good luck. Toss me an HE pack. Here. Four should do it. We don't have much time. Throw me a detonator. Shit. Shit. I can't find them. What? I can't find them. I put them right here. Yo, one euro. Give me a sec. No. No.

Fuck! I put them right here on my... pocket in my... backpack. It's torn. I've got a... grenade. That should set off the explosives and blow the tunnel. Give me the grenade. You go now. We have to take out as many as we can. I'll cover you, so they can get close enough. Well, I guess that is that.

After all this, never thought I'd die protecting a Khan. I still don't get the Khan thing. Please, Colt. He's bleeding pretty bad, Major. We should stop and try to stabilize him. They took out the tunnel and many of my kind, but it won't hold them long. Come here. Petraka, put him down. Attach the med band. I'll handle the tourniquet. Do it fast while we wait for Leon and Pavel.

I do not think they made it out. How long do we have? Maybe a minute. The med band should help with the pain. Thank you. Okay, pick him up. Let's go. Let me. It will be fast. No! Major! He was on our side. I thought he was attacking you. He was protecting us. Major, you're all right. Thank God. We need to go. The transports aren't far. Where's the LT? In Lyon?

We're all that's left.

If you like the podcast, leave us a review and connect with us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook under the handle CMAnthology. This episode was dramatized, directed, and edited by me, your host, Jonathan Pezza. Additional engineering by Jeremy Pezza. Our ensemble cast included the talented voices of Sandeep Parikh, Amy Vorpahl, Kelly Dawn Hancock, Leonid Andronov,

Alexandra Amick, Christopher Amick, Darren Cummings, Philip Daniel, Philip Gray, Deddy Harlan, Matt Hoban, Jeremy Pezza, Jonathan Pezza, and Melissa Starr. The score was provided by Epidemic Music. Sound effects were provided by Soundsnap.com. Second Variety is a work in the public domain and was produced in accordance with U.S. copyright law. Curious Matter is a production of Jonathan Pezza, Inc., copyright 2020, all rights reserved.

If you have a question or feedback, or you just want to say hello, I'd love to hear from you. So reach out to me at Jonathan at CuriousMatterPodcast.com or check us out online for more information at www.curiousmatterpodcast.com. If you love the podcast, you can learn even more online.

Each episode on the website includes a blog article with additional information about the story, links to interesting historical information, and suggested reading and viewing to continue the experience. Here on Curious Matter, we dedicate each episode to a used bookstore. It being Mardi Gras this week, this one goes out to Faulkner House Books in New Orleans, Louisiana, located in the heart of the French Quarter at 624 Pirates Alley.

Yep, you heard me right. So second line on down and check out this amazing store where Mr. William Faulkner once lived and check out their amazing collection of used and rare books. Do yourself a favor and check them out online at FaulknerHouseBooks.com or better yet, if you find yourself in the Big Easy, sashay on down and buy yourself a book.

Coming up on the next episode of Curious Matter, we will present the epic conclusion to Second Variety. You won't want to miss it. So make sure to subscribe for free today, and thank you for listening.

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