Episode 04: Crossing the Black

Previous episode:	Episode 03: Critical Condition
Next episode:	Episode 05: Out of Time
Episode 04: Crossing the Black
Series overview
Series:	Hunt the Truth
Season:	Season 1
Episode specifications
Episode:	04
Air date:	April 19, 2015
Run time:	14:01

Episode 04: Crossing the Black was the fourth full episode in the first season of the Hunt the Truth audio drama. The episode was originally released on Soundcloud on April 19, 2015.

Official summary

“

Rumors of discontent across the military and rumblings in the Outer Colonies are detected. A mandatory meeting at ONI branch headquarters takes an unexpected turn.

”

Plot summary

Still haunted by the realization that the military could have heard his unsanctioned interview via Waypoint, Benjamin Giraud begins to fear that the conversation will get flagged by the Office of Naval Intelligence. Ben calls Mshak Moradi, trying to get more information from his conspiracies. Mshak tells him about how the local soldiers are becoming restless and that the cause of this was Master Chief going AWOL. He even said that people are questioning the Master Chief's motivations. He also stated that many other factors where beginning to scare him. Ben had to end the call when he received a message from Michael Sullivan stating that Ben had to travel to ONI's Boston Headquarters. Ben quickly realizes this is because of his recent interview with Thomas Wu. After arriving in Boston, Ben goes to a nearby pub and meets up with his old friend Petra Janecek. While speaking with her, Ben begins freaking out about the situation and Petra informs him that the military is watching them and will start listening in if he gives certain visual cues. Petra admits to Benjamin that she has no faith in him successfully releasing his whole story. Just so he doesn't lose all of his information, Ben sends all of it to Ray Kurzig. After he leaves Ben notices an obsidian sidewalk around the ONI campus. He also notices that nobody else dared to walk anywhere near it and that no birds were in any of the nearby trees. Ben walks past the obsidian to enter the facility.

Audio transcript

• Thomas Wu (in call): I shouldn't be talking to you.

• Benjamin (in call): W- wait, Thomas, hold on-

• Thomas: I can't. Leave us alone. [termination sound]

(Call ends)

• Giraud: Oh God. O- no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no! Go down! No way! No way! No way that- you did not just-

• Giraud (voiceover): If you want privacy online, ChatterNet is a pretty good bet: not foolproof, but relatively difficult for the government to monitor. Waypoint, on the other hand, is wide open. Supposedly, the Office of Naval Intelligence has software on the network capable of listening to every single conversation galaxy wide, and if you say the wrong thing... the conversation gets flagged.

• Giraud: (continuing) Oh God! What did I just do?!

• Giraud (voiceover): What I had just done was conduct an unsanctioned followup interview with a survivor of a war camp, accused him of lying about it, basically got him to admit that lie, and then ended by possibly indicating my employer, the most powerful military agency in history, in either bribery or coercion. I'd done all of that on Waypoint. I thought I was going to throw up.

• Giraud: (continuing) Wait a min- wait a minute- wait a minute- wait a minute-

Giraud (voiceover): Maybe it wasn't that bad. I went and listened back. Would they flag that word? What about that one? That phrase sounds bad by itself but not in context. The factor in tone of voice, right? I was sitting there emotionally guessing how an insanely sophisticated algorithm is weighted. Basically, I was trying to outsmart a legion of robots.

• Giraud: (continuing) Damn it, Ben!

• Giraud (voiceover): It was too late. Those words were gone. That data had been processed. And I had either been flagged, or I hadn't. I had no idea what would happen next. I'm Benjamin Giraud and this is Hunt the Truth.

• Mshak Moradi: Benjamin!

Giraud (voiceover): I've never been so happy to hear from Mshak Moradi. I made him triple check the security of our call.

• Moradi: (continuing) Relax! We are under the tin foil hat of secrecy. (laughs) Seriously though, we are fully secure.

• Giraud (voiceover): Mshak could probably tell I was desperate when after months of his unsolicited theories, I actually solicited one.

• Giraud: (continuing) What's going on out there right now?

• Moradi: I'm glad you asked. Strong patterns: a lot of chatter in the military bars, soldiers drunk and unhappy. Local graffiti corroborates these complaints. The helmet overfloweth!

• Giraud (voiceover): This is how Mshak talks. For a while I thought maybe there was an actual group of people somewhere that used these terms, but there's not. It's just Mshak.

• Moradi: (continuing) My prognosis? Ripples in the ranks. Army, Orbital Shock Troopers, Marines. Across the board; men at arms, up in arms.

• Giraud (voiceover): When soldiers get frustrated, they get sloppy with their communication. The more frustration, the more unsecured chatter. Right now, there was a lot of both.

• Moradi: (continuing) And there's a sizable leak of, booyah, worthy transmissions distilling the slush.

• Giraud (voiceover): Ah, the slush. That immense soup of data siphoned off of insecure networks. The preferred source for nutjobs everywhere. The data's all legit, there's just such an ungodly huge amount of it that it's practically useless. To Mshak's credit though, he somehow managed to draw somewhat sound conclusions from it on occasion. It was kind of amazing. I asked why there was so much discontent across the military.

• Moradi: (continuing) M.C. One-one-scepter.

• Giraud (voiceover): That's Mshak for the Chief.

• Moradi: (continuing) He's off being creative. He could be off the grid. FLEETCOM's trying to smokescreen like they're on top of his posish, but their not. The trombones are playing the brown note on that one and the grunts are a-grumbling. The military is one pissed off polygon right now.

• Giraud (voiceover): Apparently, some are even questioning Master Chief's motivations and allegiances. The word traitor has been used.

• Giraud: (continuing) Seriously? If he's disobeying orders that's bad, but calling the Chief a traitor? The guy who legitimately saved humanity multiple times, that's just- come on.

• Moradi: Either way, you haven't considered the underlined question. M.C. is the precedent for free reign in the military. He's responsible for protecting a galaxy. A job that big requires absolute mobility. But then, that's a lot of power to give one man, hence the dichotomy, Benjamin. Power and responsibility.

• Giraud (voiceover): Mshak was getting philosophical, and making a lot of sense. When it comes to threats against us though, this issue of power and responsibility has always been shrouded in secrecy. As civilians we don't know what's happening, who's out there, what their doing. And according to Mshak, that ignorance could be about to blow up in our faces again.

• Moradi: (continuing) There's something else afoot, Benjamin, out here in deep space. I hoped these events would turn out to be random, but now it's... it could be bad.

• Giraud: (voiceover) Mshak was a lot of things, but never vague. I asked him what sort of bad he was talking about.

• Moradi: (continuing) Electromagnetic fluctuations, slipspacious disruptions, epidemic data corruption. All of it, ya' know, what's happening? It's quiet, it's slight, but it's effecting... everything. Ripples on a gigantic scale. I'm talking whole star systems, it's just- I don't want to say I'm frightened, ya' know what I mean? (phone ring) But to be honest-

• Giraud: I'm sorry, Mshak. Hold on a second. Just... hold on.

• Giraud (voiceover): As Mshak's sketch of a horrifying reality started to emerge, the last thing I wanted to do was interrupt him but I'd just been reminded of a more immediate, horrifying reality. From Sully, an event on my calendar, no message.

• Giraud: (continuing) Oh no.

• Giraud: (voiceover) My stomach dropped. My flight to ONI's Boston headquarters left in three hours. They were calling me in. This had never happened to me before. I said goodbye to Mshak. It now seemed painfully clear that my Waypoint conversation with Thomas Wu had been flagged. By the time I landed on Earth I was one giant ulcer. I'd spent every sleepless night's hour running over everything in my head. The conflicting stories I'd heard, the gut twisting possibilities of what would happen in Boston. I looked and felt like death. All I was looking forward to at this point was Petra Janecek. I'd hit her up right before I left, asked if she'd meet me near the ONI campus. Thankfully, she said yes. Petra and I are in the same line of work. We make the government look good. The last time I saw her was six years ago in New Mombasa, the day it happened. We were both there. We both saw the Chief do what he did. But afterwards, while I retreated to a quiet little hamlet across the galaxy, Petra stuck around and made a name for herself. I was hoping she could throw me a lifeline, so I threw some cold water on my face, pulled myself together, and met up with her at a local pub.

• Petra Janecek: Ya' know, for a guy just returning from a six year spirit-walk in deep space, I'm impressed. You actually showed up on time.

• Giraud (voiceover): Same old Petra. She'd already knew I got the Master Chief assignment and she was not happy. Apparently she was still waiting for her face to face exclusive with the Chief. I refrained from laughing out loud at that little fantasy, but she continued with the ball busting anyway