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Episode 08: Drip, Drip, Drip

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Episode 08: Drip, Drip, Drip
Cover artwork for Episode 08: Drip, Drip, Drip.
Series overview

Series:

Hunt the Truth

Season:

Season 1

Episode specifications

Episode:

08

Air date:

May 17, 2015[1]

Run time:

17:56

 

Episode 08: Drip, Drip, Drip was the eighth full episode in the first season of the Hunt the Truth audio drama.[2] The episode was originally released on Soundcloud on May 17, 2015.[1]

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]

Waking up, Benjamin Giraud finds he has been messaged by Petra Janecek multiple times throughout the night, telling him to call her. After calling her back, Petra, angry at Ben, demands he give her an explanation for what has happened. Petra, realizing Ben is confused, tells him to check his feed. Petra hangs up and Ben checks the news. He finds a story that was leaked to the public saying the Master Chief attacked a political negotiation between the humans and Sangheili on the Outer colony world, Biko. According to the leak, the Master Chief killed several humans, captured the head of the negotiation, Richard Sekibo, then proceeded to escort the Sangheili delegation to safety. With Petra relaying condescending comments politicians were making on Earth, Ben starts to get annoyed, but he is suddenly cut off by a supposed communications failure in his quadrant. Needing to make contact with Mshak Moradi and not willing to wait for the communications problem to be solved, he packs his things and heads to an undisclosed location.

After setting up, Ben finds a message from Mshak, telling him to call him. Ben calls, and Mshak tells him that the Inner colonies want the Chief dead and that tensions are heating up in the Outer colonies in reaction to both the leak and Ben's latest audio log. After listening to Ben's past audio logs, Mshak compiled all cases of exotic pediatric autoimmune disorder (the same disorder John's clone developed) and created a relatively accurate star map showing the distribution of selected SPARTAN-II program conscripts. The map showed the Office of Naval Intelligence heavily favored the Outer colonies when selecting candidates, leading Ben and Mshak to believe ONI did this due to it being easier for them to cover their tracks. Mshak then tells Ben about two Spartans who committed suicide after encountering their clone.

Later, FERO contacts Ben again and explains the situation. She tells Ben the Chief will eventually be vindicated and that when that happens, ONI will suffer from it. Ben is told the meeting with the Unified Earth Government senators and ONI brass has been scheduled and that when the time comes, FERO will hack in and get Ben an unbroken feed to tell the senators what he has found. Ben calls Anthony Petrosky and asks him if he wants to help corroborate his story when breaking it to the senators, to which he agrees. FERO informs Ben there is one more leak, security camera footage of the Master Chief attacking the human delegation on Biko.[4]

Audio transcript[edit]

(message tone)

  • Petra Janecek (voicemail): (chatter in background) Ben, what the hell have you done? Do you have any idea how much insanity this is causing, I can't even-- What are you doing?
  • Assistant (voicemail): The voice--
  • Janecek (voicemail): I know what they are! Why are you putting them in my face?! Hold the report!
  • Assistant (voicemail): I just thought that--
  • Janecek (voicemail): Ben, hold on, I need to fire an idiot for cause.

(message ends)

  • Benjamin Giraud (voiceover): This was the first I'd heard from Petra in a while.

(another message begins)

  • Janecek (voicemail): Ben, get your ass out of bed and call me now!

(message ends)

  • Giraud (voiceover): And judging by the messages she left me overnight, something major was happening. I hit her back right away.

(call begins)

  • Janecek (in call): Well, Ben, congratulations. You now have us all fully engulfed in flames. Would you like to explain why?
  • Giraud: Uh, wha....
  • Giruad (voiceover): I had no clue what was happening.
  • Janecek (in call): Any time today, Ben.
  • Giruad (voiceover): Petra picked up on that.
  • Janecek (in call): Ugh. You didn't do this.
  • Giraud: I, wha--, wha--, what do we even....
  • Janeck (in call): (sighs) I don't have time for this. Check your feed, call me back.

(call ends)

  • Giraud (voiceover): I did what she said. And the feed hit me with a tsunami of information unlike anything I'd ever seen. Every journalism outlet, every social hub, seemingly every person alive was buzzing about the same thing. The leak. The leak! It had hit the open network overnight, and it was all about the Master Chief. I didn't understand. As far as the public was concerned, reports of Spartan activity had almost always been categorically unknowable. And now he was front-page fodder? I skimmed the stories frantically, saw the same tags popping up over and over: collusion with the enemy, civilian casualties, abducting a hero, assassinating an icon.
  • Giraud: Oh no. Oh no. Oh my God, what could-- oh no! What?
  • Giraud (voiceover): The Master Chief did that?
  • Giraud: What the hell is going on?
  • Giraud (voiceover): Those were just the facts reported by journalists. The opinions of the public were far scarier, like missiles firing wildly in all directions from every corner of inhabited space. This leak about the Master Chief, whatever it said had already begun deeply dividing people, sending ideologues on both sides scrambling to gain the moral high ground. I needed to see the source material. It didn't take long to find. Everyone had the same file. A suppressed incident report from an embassy in the outskirts, that had already been viewed almost a half a billion times. What it said was perfectly clear. Ten days ago, in the outer colonies, the Chief had suddenly appeared, in the middle of a densely populated city at a regional embassy, where inside, long-awaited peace talks between human and alien delegates were on the cusp of an historic agreement. The Chief stormed in and instantly killed the body guard of outer colonies ambassador Richard Sekibo, starting a firefight that would claim nineteen human lives. He abducted the ambassador, and blasted an escape path through security personnel, mowing them down with extreme prejudice as he escorted the alien delegation to safety. Once aboard his waiting evac ship they fled the planet, leaving years of diplomatic work in ruins. The next day, local officials picked up a signal beacon which lead them to a nearby field. There, they found the architect of the talks, revered peace activist Richard Sekibo, last seen in the Chief's custody, lying dead in the grass. I'm Benjamin Giraud, and this is Hunt the Truth.

(call begins)

  • Giraud: Petra, what is happening?
  • Janeck (in call): I don't know, but I've been fact-checking for seven hours and it looks bad. The Earth hacks are calling him the "Fallen Spartan". Bastards.
  • Giraud: Wait, wait-- you think this might actually be true?!
  • Janeck (in call): Just-- just tell me now, was this FERO? Did she do this?
  • Giraud: No, I-- I don't--
  • Giraud (voiceover): I told her I didn't know, which was technically true but it was a cop out. Of course it was FERO, but why? It didn't make sense, why smear the Chief like this? After everything he'd done to save our asses? After everything ONI had done to him? Over the years he'd faced unimaginable catastrophes. We had no idea how many lives had hung in the balance. ONI had kept us all in the dark. But whether the Chief had always made the right call or not wasn't the issue, he should never have had to shoulder all that weight. But now he was shouldering all the blame. It wasn't right. As Perta relayed what some of the talking heads were saying about Chief on Earth, I started getting downright pissed.

(static)

  • Giraud (voiceover): Then, she was gone. Waypoint was gone. My COM pad, everything, gone.
  • COM pad AI: Your COM pad is experiencing unusually high volume. On sight diagnostics are required. Would you like me to schedule an appointment?
  • Giraud: Yes!
  • COM pad AI: First availability is in twelve days at 3 PM. Would you like me to schedule this appointment?
  • Giraud: Oh my God. This is a joke.
  • COM pad AI: I'm sorry. I did not get that. Would you like me to schedule this a--
  • Giraud: Yes!
  • COM pad AI: Appointment scheduled. All services disabled. Goodbye.
  • Giraud: No! You mother--
  • Giraud (voiceover): They were cutting my communications off for twelve days? This was no quadrant failure. ONI was trying to shut me down. And of course, they where doing it quietly. Mshak's security hacks had been keeping me a step ahead of them for the most part, but I didn't have time for this. I had to find out if we were actually stirring things up. I'd needed to find Mshak and to do that I needed a safe place to secure working comms. So I packed some essentials and headed out, taking back routes, dodging surveillance. Moving my work space to an undisclosed location was a precaution I'd been needing to take anyway. ONI's latest move had just gotten me to pull the trigger. When I got where I was going my contact help me set up shop, and once I was live, this was the message that was waiting for me.
  • Mshak Moradi (voicemail): Ben-jo-boss! Lovin' what you did with the story man. Really great