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Episode 07: Who's Listening

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Episode 07: Who's Listening
Cover artwork for Episode 07: Who's Listening.
Series overview

Series:

Hunt the Truth

Season:

Season 1

Episode specifications

Episode:

07

Air date:

May 9, 2015[1]

Run time:

18:15

 

Episode 07: Who's Listening was the seventh full episode in the first season of the Hunt the Truth audio drama.[2] The episode was originally released on Soundcloud on May 9, 2015.

Official summary[edit]

“ In scanning the slush, Ray makes an interesting discovery. Petrosky returns to tell a terrifying truth about the origins of the Spartan program. And FERO finally surfaces, helping concoct a plan to expose ONI’s ugliest secrets.[3] ”

Plot summary[edit]

After multiple failed attempts at contacting Mshak Moradi, Benjamin Giraud begins to get worried something might have happened to him. Ben gets contacted by Ray Kurzig and they arrange to meet. Ray tells him that he managed to uncovered an Office of Naval Intelligence record on Jacob Walker and found the supposed former soldier was neither retired nor in active duty. Ray also managed to analyze the voice from the recording of Ben's interview with Jacob, and matched it with the voice of Jacob in a commercial for a car dealership. With this revelation, Ben contacts Anthony Petrosky again, and asks him to reveal to him the rumors surrounding the SPARTAN-II program. Ben learns about the flash cloning and takes time to think over what the clones would have had to endure. To Ben's relief, FERO finally contacts him. She tells him Mshak has been tracking the "deep-space anomalies" he mentioned, and that she has a way to reveal what Ben has found. She tells him that in order to make an impact, he would need to tell powerful politicians who have been kept in the dark what he has found, and to have ONI brass in the same room so they don't have a chance to cover it up.[4]

Audio transcript[edit]

  • Moradi (voicemail): Ah! If you think this is Mshak, think again! If it was Mshak-
  • Giraud: What makes him think that these are funny? What makes him think that these are funny? Wait- you- this is what you choose to leave on your phone for- I mean it's not even funny. It's not funny!
  • Moradi (voicemail): Good luck!
  • Giraud: Mshak, it's- neither of them are funny!
  • Giraud (voiceover): It had been three days since the Deon bomb. That friendly old boxing coach I interviewed? The guy who's facts weren't lining up? Turns out he'd been dead for seven years. Who had I spoken to? I had no idea. Whatever we'd thought this cover-up was, it now seemed like something far more sinister. Ray and Petra did the smart thing. They cut ties and left. Mshak was the only one that hadn't bailed.
  • Giraud: God! You know what?! It's not funny, Mshak!
  • Giraud (voiceover): Instead, he'd given me a potential break through. Apparently I was about to be contacted by FERO. A mysterious insergent with intimate knowledge of ONI's tactics and buried history. That was the good news. The bad news? I'd heard nothing since. FERO was a no-show, Mshak was AWOL, and I'd spent the past 72 hours listening to these two ridiculous prerecorded messages over and over.
  • Giraud: Ya' know what?! Who do you think you're outsmarting?! I'm the only human in existence who wants to find you!
  • Moradi (voicemail): Good luck!
  • Giraud: (sigh)
  • Giraud (voiceover): My team had been reduced to this man. In a weird way, I'd been comforted by the idea of Mshak's constant surveillance. I like knowing that at least somebody was out there, even if just to corroborate my existence.
  • Giraud: Mshak, are you there right now? Are you listening?
  • Giraud (voiceover): And now, he was gone. I was beginning to worry something had happened to him.
  • Giraud: Mshak, are you listening?! Just tell me if- if you are!
  • Moradi (voicemail): Wha- is that you?
  • Giraud: Mshak?!
  • Moradi (voicemail): (breathing heavily) I'm so glad you got through.
  • Giraud: Oh man! Where have you been?!
  • Moradi (voicemail): So now I can rub it in your face that you're now three whole days behind me!
  • Giraud: Oh, come on! Oh my God! Oh my God, if I ever get a hold of him I'm gonna kill him.
  • Giraud (voiceover): I'm Benjamin Giraud, and this is Hunt the Truth.
  • Ray Kurzig (in call): Hey, Ben. It's Ray. Um, listen... is there any chance we can grab a drink?
  • Giraud (voiceover): Ok, I was really glad to hear from Ray. With Mshak MIA, my imagination had been running wild. If anything had happened to either of them or Petra, that was on me. So getting this call was a huge relief. But, Ray's never been a "let's grab a drink" kind of guy. I rushed over to meet him at this dank dive bar near his place.
  • Giraud: So, I'm here with Ray. And, uh, a lot of loud drunk people.
  • Kurzig: (laughs) Think of all of them as providing cover, allowing us to talk in secret.
  • Giraud: Exactly, exactly. And Ray is aware I'm recording this.
  • Kurzig: Yes. I'm trying not to think about it honestly, but-
  • Giraud: Oh- you- it's fine. So... why'd you hit me up?
  • Kurzig: Well, my scavenger finally got back to me. He had been waiting on some additional military records on Walker.
  • Giraud (voiceover): I did not see that coming. I figured Ray would want to stay as far away from the topic of government cover-ups as possible. But if he was talking, I was all ears.
  • Giraud: And?
  • Kurzig: All the ONI military records still check out.
  • Giraud: ONI handles all military records so...
  • Kurzig: Well, almost all.
  • Giraud (voiceover): Ray explained that every enlisted soldier has to sign an affidavit that their service was voluntary. That way later on, if some grieving family member tries to claim it was involuntary, ONI is covered. But the office created to handle all those records... is a rubber-stamp joke. Of the roughly two hundred thousand involuntary service claims they've received over the years, they have ruled the exact same way: family loses, ONI wins. Every single time. The process is so automatic, Ray says that when his guy pulled the records, it was the first request the system had received from a human being in fifty years. And Ray was giddy, so I knew he was going to deliver the punchline.
  • Kurzig: One hundred and eighty days after a soldier's service period ends, the system is supposed to refile the record from active duty to retired.
  • Giraud: No.
  • Kurzig: Yes.
  • Giraud: Walker's records weren't retired.
  • Kurzig: And they weren't active either.
  • Giraud: What?
  • Kurzig: Jakob Walker is the only soldier in the entire military database that is neither active, nor retired.
  • Giraud: They missed that? How could they miss that?
  • Kurzig: (laughs)
  • Giraud: Nobody checks?!
  • Kurzig: Nope. Nobody but me.
  • Giraud: (laughs)
  • Giraud (voiceover): Ray had caught ONI in a major admin snafu. And I guess he was on a role, because what he said next blew my mind. Mild mannered analyst, Ray Kurzig, had used my recording of Walker's voice as a template to scan the slush... for voice matching audio. That was straight up pirate stuff.
  • Giraud: You what?! Ray.
  • Kurzig: (laughs)
  • Giraud: You're an animal right now. Who are you?!
  • Kurzig: (laughs)
  • Giraud: (laughs)
  • Kurzig: Oh, you are gonna love what I found, Ben.
  • Jakob Walker (commercial): Get ready to take back the road, Ganymede. This is your chance to be one of the first on the planet to have your very own Hog.
  • Giraud: No.
  • Kurzig: Here is our boy, Jakob, nineteen years ago hawking utility vehicles for some random dealership!
  • Giraud: Oh my goodness. It's a commercial?
  • Kurzig: Yeah. He's an actor.
  • Jakob Walker (commercial): Visit or call a qualified dealer. It's beauty, and the beast.
  • Commercial (Pig oinks)
  • Giraud: (laughs)
  • Giraud (voiceover): I couldn't believe it. I was listening to one of the military sources ONI provided me doing a commercial... for a Hog dealer on Ganymede, when records had him stationed on the other side of human space. ONI had completely faked Walker, and Ray had caught the stupid bastards red-handed.
  • Giraud: That's incredible! (laughs)
  • Kurzig: (laughs)
  • Giraud (voiceover): Sitting there, having that drink, all the frustrations and anxiety that had been blaring in my face for weeks... started to fade. We ordered another round. Ray was actually being funny! I don't even think we were talking about the story anymore, and for a little bit, I felt... normal. It didn't last though. Implications were percolating in the back of my mind and it wasn't long until it all came roaring back. If Walker's boot camp stories weren't real, then the fog around the Chief's origins extended beyond his fabricated age sixteen enlistment. How far did it go? Where did the truth even begin? All I knew at this point was who I had to speak to the moment I walked out of that bar. It was the only person that Walker's tale had contradicted, and it was somebody I had totally blown off. I just hoped Anthony Petrosky would take my call.
  • Anthony Petrosky (in call): (laughs) Oh so now, now you want to hear my story, huh?
  • Giraud: Yeah. Yeah, hey. Look I owe you an apology.
  • Petrosky (in call): Mhm.
  • Giraud: When we spoke, I didn't know what to believe and I...
  • Petrosky (in call): (sighs)
  • Giraud: I really should have given you the benefit of the doubt.
  • Petro