DELorean

You're listening to K63, a Spotify audio series.

Time, 9 45 a.m.

October 23rd, 2022.

Session number two, K63.

For the record, Dr. Eliza Knight.

How did you sleep, doctor?

Fine.

Do you dream?

You have a lot of questions for me this morning.

You could get to know someone based on the questions they ask.

I thought you wanted to get to know me.

Yes, I dream sometimes.

Do you?

Yeah, they're not exactly dreams, but yes.

Do you remember what you dreamt last night?

No.

You seem so sure.

Don't you even want to try?

Try what?

Remembering your dream.

I just don't remember.

Doesn't that happen to you?

Only when I'm afraid of what I might remember.

You did your hair differently.

It's up.

You're noticing a lot about me today.

I've been curious about that Joker tattoo you have on your forearm, which doesn't really look like it came from 2062.

Are you afraid, doctor?

What do you think?

I think you are.

Do you find it enjoyable to imagine me being afraid?

No, it's not my intention to scare you.

I don't fit that narcissistic profile you think I do.

And which profile do you fit?

Let's see.

Okay.

I was a lonely child.

I read a lot, like a lot of children from my generation.

The IP generation.

Do they call us that already?

IP generation?

Inter-pandemic generation.

Those who grew up between waves of deadly infection rates.

It set us apart.

I grew up eyes glued to a screen.

My first dates were virtual.

Unlike everyone in my generation, we learned to fear physical contact and trust the distance more than closeness.

From my generation, a simple kiss became an act of faith.

I had several partners.

Nothing serious.

Like everyone else, I went to therapy.

And?

And then therapy ended.

It was terminated?

No.

Everything ended.

The world, you said.

It's a curious thing, the end of the world.

I always imagined maybe because of movies or books that the end of the world would be a catastrophic event.

Natural disasters, earthquakes, fire.

The world collapsing as a result of some huge accident, that's what I thought.

Have you thought about that?

What the end of the world will be like?

No.

Not really.

I find that hard to believe.

Come on, we're in New York.

How many times have we seen the city blown up by aliens in the movies?

Everybody here must think about the end of the world sometimes.

Nuclear explosion, an asteroid, massive tidal wave that reaches the tip of the Empire State Building.

They're just what-ifs, but there's something very soothing about all of them, isn't there?

Which is?

That they destroy us all at once.

If the world came to an end in any of those ways, we wouldn't have time to even notice.

Ask me.

Ask you what?

Ask me how the world ends.

Well, I'm curious to ask you some other questions.

None of those are important.

Ask me how the world ends.

Okay, you mentioned that your dreams aren't dreams.

What do you mean?

Are they nightmares?

Do you find it difficult to discern when you're dreaming and when you're not?

If my reality were this room with gray walls and I had to live with these horrible fluorescent bulbs as my only source of light, and then I would have to eat at this table that smells like rust for the rest of my life, yes, I would probably have a hard time distinguishing reality from my dreams.

And that's not the case with you.

You're not asking the right questions.

What are the right questions?

I'm trying to learn more about you and what brought you here.

You don't want to ask the right questions because you don't want to hear the right answers.

And according to you, that's because I'm afraid.

Yeah, you're afraid.

Of what?

Of me.

Why should I be afraid?

You think I've been looking into you because I know your full name, which you never told me.

That makes you nervous.

Have you been investigating me?

Not in the way that you imagine.

I haven't been to your apartment when you're not there.

I haven't hacked into your accounts.

I know your name because you investigated me, or rather when you will investigate me.

Verb tenses are complicated in these circumstances.

Anyway, it's difficult to forget a name if you've heard it since you were a child.

You don't have an English accent.

Is that because you grew up behind a screen?

An effect of growing up in the intra-pandemic generation?

Intra-pandemic.

No, I don't have an accent for an entirely different reason, and it's surprising to me that this is what you're worried about instead of asking me the right questions.

Could you explain to me, just out of curiosity, why you don't have an English accent?

38 years of artificial intelligence and neuroscience have allowed translators to evolve from the ones you have in your phone.

Not only can we download any language, we can also download specific accents from regions, cities, and different years, and we can speak them all rather well.

It's not something that I have to think about, it just happens.

Oh, wow, I didn't think you'd be able to get phone service down here in this closet.

Excuse me, it might be an emergency.

Promise I won't go anywhere.

Hello?

Where were we?

You're worried.

Worried?

Your expression, you haven't frowned like that before.

It's new, it's not an I don't understand what you're saying frown, it's an I'm worried frown.

Look, I'm going to give you a piece of advice for our next meeting.

Call it homework, if you will.

Okay.

Imagine that time is a path in a park, a trail.

You're at one point right now, tomorrow you'll be further along, and next year you'll be even further down the path.

You see it, right?

It's crucial.

I see it.

Okay, good.

Now imagine there's a Dr. Night at each of those points.

The Dr. Night that we're interested in is at the other end of the trail in the future, and that version of yourself wants to tell you something, to give you a piece of advice about her past self, which would be you today.

What advice would you give her?

You want me to do this now?

No, no, no, no.

You couldn't.

That would be, you know, imagining the future Dr. Night giving advice influenced by information you've learned just now.

No.

But you could establish an agreement instead.

You'll communicate with the future Dr. Night while you're asleep.

She'll give you good advice.

And the next time we meet, you'll tell me what you dreamt.

And maybe she'll tell you about us.

About us?

About you and about me.

You think that you and I will meet in the future and that the relationship will be so relevant to me that I, or rather my future self, will let me know in my dreams.

Is that it?

Exactly.

So you traveled back in time through dreams.

No, no, doctor.

I didn't travel like that.

I'm just, I'm trying to give you an example of the world where I come from.

I traveled in a much more complex way.

You're a scientist or are you in the army?

If I was a scientist or in the army, I wouldn't be trapped here.

Okay.

I'd be prepared for such situations.

I'm just a regular person that was sent here precisely because of that, because of who I am.

And who are you?

We'll get there.

We're talking about time travel mechanisms.

Okay.

Describe the time machine that brought you here.

Where did you leave your ship or capsule or whatever?

What was it like?

And if you like, I could give you a piece of paper and you could draw it for me.

No, there's no machine.

Let's leave the DeLorean out of the equation.

You don't remember historical events that could convince me, but you do remember a small detail in a movie.

Come on.

No, no.

Just because I like going to the movies, just because I saw the godfather and the man from earth, that doesn't change the fact that I'm a time traveler.

It just makes me a time traveling movie buff.

I made you laugh.

What did you expect?

What?

Nothing.

I was just looking at you.

Anyway, we weren't talking about movies.

We were talking about something much more complex.

I find this game strange.

What game?

You pretend to be interested in my delusion.

You focus on things that aren't important, things you don't understand.

According to you, I'm crazy.

Why would you want to know how I traveled in time?

Honestly.

I don't think you're crazy.

I'm curious to understand you and help you.

Do you want to know?

Yes.

Tell me how you traveled back in time.

Lasers create circular beams of light that twist space and time.

Take a laser and see what happens when it's near a jet engine and take a watch with you.

Just for the record, a laser.

A group of lasers.

A group of lasers surround you.

And they alter gravity.

Doctor, that's how it works.

To travel into the future, the key word is speed.

To travel into the past, the key word is gravity.

A gravitational field produced by a ring of lasers.

A time machine based on a circular beam of light.

And where is this technology now so that you can return back home?

Well, that's the sad thing, Doctor.

These journeys have one rather large inconvenience.

It's a one-way trip.

Then why would you want to come?

The people who live in the colony on Mars don't think about coming back.

Colony on Mars?

Well, it hasn't happened yet, but it will.

I'm not very clear on the small details, but the colony on Mars is important.

My point is, they don't think about coming back.

They took a one-way trip.

Like you.

But they have a purpose, I suppose.

I also have one.

To save the world.

Well, when you put it like that, I mean, it's, you know, it's obvious and a cliche, but yes, certainly.

Save the world from what?

I mean, if it was a virus or climate change, I think you're a little too late.

You see, you talk as if you believe me, Doctor Knight.

We've taken a real leap forward, you and I.

I'm just following your train of thought.

To save the world from what?

Save the world from a person.

Ah, yes.

Marie, right?

Marie Baker.

Is she some kind of a terrorist?

She's a person like me or you, a normal and invisible person in the grand scheme of things, but she, she's very important.

Well, how are you planning on doing that?

I mean, how do you, how do you plan on stopping this person from doing whatever it is that she is going to do?

No, no, no, no, no.

I'm not going to stop her.

You have to do it.

You, Doctor, you'll stop Marie Baker and save the world.

And why would I do that?

Because you, without a doubt, will change your whole belief system.

And at the end of this road, you will believe me.

Case 63.

Created and written by Julio Rojas.

Adapted by Mara Velez Melendez.

Directed by Mimi O'Donnell.

Starring Julianne Moore and Oscar Isaac.

Executive produced by Julianne Moore, Oscar Isaac, and Mimi O'Donnell.

Produced by Katie Pastor.

Sound design and mix by Armando Serrano and Daniel Brunel.

Score by Moat.