Hunt the Truth Season 1/Transcripts/Three: Difference between revisions

==EPISODE 03: CRITICAL CONDITION==

'''Benjamin (voiceover)''': Ray swiped through document after document corroborating this. He even showed me medical insurance claims for a pediatric autoimmune specialist in 2517 - exactly when Katrina said John got sick. I was laughing, but I didn't find any of it funny. I'm Benjamin Giraud, and this is ''Hunt the Truth''.

'''Office of Naval Intelligence AI''': Office of Naval Intelligence. [chime] Public relations.

'''Jacob Walker (in call)''': Well, as you can see, I've pretty much permanently stationed myself on this beach.

'''Benjamin (voiceover)''': That was my next interview. Jacob Walker, retired navy. He lives in a beach community way out on Castellaneta. The first thing I noticed about Walker when he answered my call was that he wasn't wearing a shirt, which made us both laugh. He explained that after twenty-eight years of service, as far as he was concerned, it was all R&R, all the time. I couldn't argue with that philosophy. He slipped on a T-shirt and I asked him about the Master Chief.

''''''Walker (in call)'''''': Oh, hell yeah, John - you bet your ass I remember him. (fades, continues)

'''Benjamin (voiceover)''': Walker's career began three decades ago with Naval Force Reconnaissance School at Black Sea. Little did he know boot camp would turn out to be something he'd never forget. Walker was there alongside the young man who would become the Master Chief. The gravity of that was not lost on him.

'''Walker (in call)''': ... training exercises, whoever finished last got the brunt. I mean, last one in on the 20-mile? You're walking back while we catch a Pelican dropship. And that there's some downright lethal terrain, too. Reach is ... well, it ''was'' a tough planet. But John - man, he- he took lead every time. Lot of risk and responsibility. Didn't ''have'' to, but- hell, he did it. And then, halfway in, he started to hang back, you know, and- help the stragglers. You're injured, whatever - he'd be right there helping you out.

'''Benjamin (voiceover)''': Walker's in his early fifties now, but he seemed lit up with the energy of a much younger man. It seems the will that he and the other recruits had, in a sense, borrowed from John so many years ago, was still inspiring walker. It was remarkable - he knew John, lived with him for months, yet to him, John still seemed to be an almost mythical character.

'''Benjamin (voiceover)''': Anthony Petrovsky, retired Orbital Drop Shock Trooper I found through Meshach Miradi. Yes, ''that'' Meshach Miradi - the truther who's been messaging me for months. And yes, I was pretty desperate for leads. We'll leave it at that. But Petrovsky was definitely ''not'' on Sully's list of approved sources, so I went off-grid and contacted him through Chatternet. Here he is, talking about his only encounter with John.

'''Benjamin (voiceover)''': Petrovsky left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Now it's no shocker that Spartans go through a few augmentations and upgrades, but those are fully developed adults. Could a seventeen-year-old - probably still growing - even survive that kind of procedure? It seemed horribly risky, and what if what Petrovsky was saying was true, and John was only thirteen? Well, that was one hell of an accusation to make, the ethical implications of which were nauseating. I was still thinking about it the next day when Ellie Bloom's name popped up in my call list. I'd let her listen to a rough version of my first episode and she had feedback for me. I didn't want to risk anyone listening in, so I let the call go, then hit her back on Chatternet.

'''Benjamin''': Deon Govender, yeah?

'''Benjamin (voiceover)''': She said they'd outlawed it forever ago, after a kid got injured. Afterwards, there was a long-standing controversy over how youth boxing was illegal, but no one seemed to care about all the gravball concussions kids were getting. Regardless, by the turn of the century, she tells me nobody really boxed on Eridanus II anymore. She even gut-checks me, telling me to go ahead, ask anybody from the colony, they'd tell me the same thing.

'''Ellie (in call)''': And there sure as hell wasn't a league for kids to do it at the high school! That's like saying there was a gun range at the toy store. It just didn't happen. And the other thing - those kidnappings by rebels in Elysium? Also didn't happen.

'''Benjamin (in call)''': Hold on. I- I know ''that's'' not true. Y- you're wrong. OK? The Insurrection had a well-documented presence in Elysium.

'''Thomas''': You know, after what they did, you can defend them? They left us locked up for weeks. They let all those people j- jus- jus- just die. And they did that all over the Outer Colonies. I mean, what does it matter if it was Elysium or somewhere else? After everything that they did, that-

'''Benjamin (voiceover)''': I suddenly became lucid myself, with a single, awful realisation: that entire conversation had just taken place over Waypoint. Anyone could have been listening.