11 characters: Announcer, Mayor Hu, Peters, Sergey, Larissa, Therapist, Hernandez, Singh, Nurse Okonkwo, Tojo, Marissa
Click on a character's name to get their lines highlighted.
Marissa (1 line, 10 words, 0.42%) - [Virginia Hargrove] Marissa Flint is 68 years old, still communications chief because she likes her job. [complete]
Larissa (12 lines, 149 words, 6.2%) - [Lindsay Townsend] Larissa Flint. Younger sister of Marissa. Formerly chief mechanic, now retired at age 62. [complete]
Mayor Hu (49 lines, 806 words, 33.51%) - [Patrick McCook] Mayor Hu has been mayor for 20 years, assuming the office a couple months after the last season ended. This is his moment to shine. A likable guy who does his job well and with humility. [complete]
Peters (13 lines, 521 words, 21.66%) - [David Loftus] Salish Peters, former chief mechanic and former mission specialist, now retired. Now aged 92 years. Developing dementia, but doesn't know it yet. You've got a big acting challenge here to figure out how to portray the progression of dementia over time, can't be totally overt at first because it has to evolve. [complete]
Therapist (18 lines, 216 words, 8.98%) - [Ahmad Joudeh] Tam Peters, therapist to all and husband of Salish Peters. [complete]
Tojo (5 lines, 119 words, 4.95%) - [Gwenith Knight] Chief mechanic Farah Tojo is now in her 40s and thriving. More mature than last season, maybe more professional, but still the same upbeat personality. [complete]
Hernandez (28 lines, 241 words, 10.02%) - [Lindsay White] Eva Hernandez has been the mayor's aide for 20 years. She'd kinda like a crack at the big job herself, since she feels like she's already doing most of the work. But she loves Mayor Hu, so she's not going to make her move while he's in charge. [complete]
Singh (7 lines, 188 words, 7.82%) - [Loretta Chang] Doctor Yen Singh is a competent medic who cares about her patients with solid bedside manner. She's not nearly as interested in theoretical stuff and research as her predecessor Doctor Stone was. [complete]
Nurse Okonkwo (8 lines, 80 words, 3.33%) - [ikirutsu] A nurse who works with Doctor Singh, and a wife concerned for her husband. [complete]
Sergey (1 line, 11 words, 0.46%) - [Alexander Grace] Sergey Kochergan, now a fervent believer in the righteousness of the coming end of days and an anti birth permit counter-protester. [complete]
Announcer (4 lines, 64 words, 2.66%) - [Erin Suminsby] Reads opening, closing and credits. [complete]
Script format: Margined | Marginless (for phone viewing)
Listen along as you read:
1 Announcer: Previously on 253 Mathilde...
2 SOUND: will insert clips of important things to remember at beginning of each episode
3 Announcer: And now, 20 years later...
4 SOUND: large crowd mumble
5
Mayor Hu:
[sfx: over microphone] Ladies and gentlemen and other honored guests, the most incredible era humankind has ever known is about to draw to a close. For a hundred and thirty four years, our little world has been accelerating through our galaxy -- moving imperceptibly slowly at first, and now inconceivably fast. It's been quite a journey. We've documented so many new worlds, we've sent our people to live on a dozen of them. And now, at long last, we're about to turn off our world's engines for the final time.
Yet our journey does not stop today -- rather, today is the day we're forced to accept that our journey cannot EVER stop, nor even slow down. In one sense, this is a day of endings... but in another sense, this is just the beginning of our journey through the universe that can never end. After today we can no longer bind ourselves to this galaxy and will fly off at a tangent into whatever lies beyond.
Now let me turn you over to one of our most beloved elders, the man whose ore discovery and engine innovations turned our original modest mission into a circuit of the galaxy. Mr. Peters?
6 SOUND: Peters wheels up the stage
7 Peters: Thank you, mayor. Don't forget Larissa Flint's contributions while you're flattering me.
8 Mayor Hu: Of course.
9 Peters: I want you all to look up at the ceiling dome now.
10 SOUND: effect for projection change, and some gasps and murmurs in the crowd
11
Peters:
[slowly reading prepared remarks but occasionally stumbling] This is a live projection of the view from the surface, made to look as if the dome were clear and we could peer directly up into space. Quite a different view from what we older folk remember, isn't it? The sky compressed... the stars we once knew now red-shifted or blue-shifted into a beautifully unsettling rainbow. This is our universe now and forever more, the way things look when your velocity is just a tiny fraction of a percent short of lightspeed. I know how... [momentary confusion and mind wandering]... I mean... just look at it...
When Commander Peters led our ancestors off Earth, the plan to reach Proxima Centauri in under 800 years seemed dauntingly ambitious. And yet here we are, not even a fifth of the way through the mission time he planned -- I mean, from our perspective anyway not Earth's, to them we've taken eons -- but here we are and we've done so many things Commander Peters could never have dreamed of! So many things I couldn't have dreamed of myself 40 years ago. All those first contacts with alien species, our envoys scattered like seeds across the galaxy. We've radically transformed our understanding of the universe and our place in it. So what I mean, what I ask you, please... please don't let yourself be sad today.
12 Sergey: [shouting happily from crowd] Blessed be the day that brings the beginning of our end!
13 SOUND: crowd shouts of 'shut up doomer!' and 'doomer creep!'
14 Peters: But, uh, please don't be quite as happy as that doom cultist. What I mean is, be proud... of the amazing things we've accomplished, together, in a single lifetime. I mean, a single lifetime for me, my lifetime, but it's staggering to think how hundreds of thousands of years have gone by for those we've left behind us. For my children, Aniket and Judy, back on Earth... they've been dead for almost as long as anatomically modern human beings had existed at the time we parted ways. Whole civilizations have risen and fallen, new species evolved, just since we left Tau Ceti... [growing confused losing place] The sky compressed, look at it. The stars we once knew now red-shifted or blue-shifted into a beautifully unsettling rainbow. This is our universe now and forever more, the way things look when your velocity is just a tiny fraction of a percent short of lightspeed...
15 Mayor Hu: [clears throat to try to signal Peters]
16 Peters: [wryly] I think the mayor is trying to tell me it's time. Larissa Flint, you there somewhere?
17 Larissa: Over here.
18 Peters: Oh, of course... I don't see as well as I used to. Larissa, it was your hard work that brought us up to this tremendous final velocity. Now's your moment.
19 SOUND: engine lowering sounds throughout following
20 Larissa: [solemnly] As I press this button, the outer ring of engines dies. Now ring four. Three. Two. And finally... it's done, our acceleration has ended.
21 SOUND: clapping
22 Mayor Hu: Congratulations everybody! Enjoy the party, you've earned it!
23 SOUND: party sounds
24 SOUND: opening theme
25 Announcer: Quiet Please dot org presents Two Fifty Three Mathilde. After leaving the solar system in the 22nd century, the asteroid 253 Mathilde now travels the galaxy at near light speed. For her residents, the journey has been 134 years... for the rest of the galaxy, it's been hundreds of thousands of years.
26 Announcer: Episode 20 - The Beginning of the End
27 Therapist: You did really well today, Salish.
28 Peters: Don't I always?
29 Therapist: I mean your speech.
30 Peters: Oh, yeah. Was like being acting mayor again. Don't miss those... those talks to people, I mean speeches, those speeches I had to make back then. But getting to do something that matters again for the day was nice.
31 Therapist: Everything you do matters.
32 SOUND: salish rummages through a closet
33 Peters: Not like that, the end of a part, uh, section of our mission.
34 Therapist: Are you looking for something, Salish?
35 Peters: My wings, now we're back to low gravity I want to try flying in the arboretum again...
36 Therapist: You gave those to Singh, like 25 years ago.
37 Peters: You sure?
38 SOUND: multicom
39 Therapist: I'd better take this.
40 SOUND: acceptance tap
41 Larissa: [sfx: processed] Doctor Peters, I'm at your office but you're not here. I really need to see you, it's urgent.
42 Peters: Can't you stay a while?
43 Therapist: I'll be right there Larissa.
44 SOUND: conversation end beep
45 Therapist: Sorry Salish, some of us still have jobs to do. I'll be home later.
46 SOUND: walks out, door opens and closes
47 Peters: [wryly] Maybe I'll have to schedule an appointment.
48 SOUND: scene end
49 SOUND: therapy room background
50 Therapist: The nightmares are getting worse?
51 Larissa: Yes, but that's not why I'm here.
52 Therapist: Oh?
53 Larissa: I had a blackout.
54 Therapist: Had you eaten recently? Consumed alcohol?
55 Larissa: [annoyed] It's nothing like that. I guess I should say a memory loss.
56 Therapist: What happened?
57 Larissa: It was after the engine shutdown ceremony. I remember leaving the party feeling a bit overwhelmed. And the next thing I remember, I was in a rec room wondering how I got there and it was over an hour later.
58 Therapist: Did you see Doctor Singh?
59 Larissa: Yes, she said there's nothing physically wrong with me. Suggested I come to you.
60 Therapist: [thoughtfully] Maybe this is an echo of your past trauma.
61 Larissa: You mean the brain graft from my clone?
62 Therapist: Yes. Your nightmares have an identity crisis theme that reminds me of what you went through, and this daytime incident feels related to me.
63 Larissa: [skeptical] But... that was over 40 years ago.
64 Therapist: The human mind works in mysterious ways. And you were keeping yourself busy until you retired, now you have more time to think about it.
65 Larissa: But how would it cause my memory loss?
66 Therapist: It might've been a perfectly ordinary situation at first, the kind where you walk into a room and can't recall why you came in, common enough in your 60s. But your mind was primed to catastrophize the situation into a new sort of identity crisis, so it strengthened the memory block and created a narrative around it.
67 Larissa: Do you think it'll happen again?
68 Therapist: I don't know. This is all just a theory anyway. But I'd like you to come in three times a week for now until we get to the bottom of it.
69 SOUND: Hu's quarters background
70 Hernandez: That's better. But keep your hand as far up the neck as you can while your index finger is touching the fingerboard.
71 Mayor Hu: Like this?
72 Hernandez: Good. Keep your hand relaxed and loose.
73 Mayor Hu: Alright... and now I play?
74 Hernandez: Give it a try.
75 SOUND: insert the rustyviolin sample
76 Hernandez: STOP!
77 Mayor Hu: Are your ears bleeding?
78 Hernandez: Just a bit. Sorry.
79 Mayor Hu: Can't say I was enjoying listening to me either. I'm gonna blame the low gravity, can't control anything well until I get used to it.
80 Hernandez: You'll get better. My daughter played terribly for years, but she's quite good now.
81 Mayor Hu: Guess you'll have to clear a lot more time in your schedule for giving me lessons.
82 Hernandez: I won't mind, I always enjoy time with you.
83 Mayor Hu: Working for me for 20 years, I'd have thought you'd had enough.
84 Hernandez: Work is different.
85 Mayor Hu: [teasing] Ah, so you *don't* enjoy time with me at work?
86 Hernandez: Why don't you try playing that piece again, but slower this time? Don't rush it.
87 SOUND: setting down violin and standing up
88 Mayor Hu: Actually, I've got to rush right now, because my second shift is about to start.
89 Hernandez: Oh yeah, mine too.
90 SOUND: time transition music
91 SOUND: medical, a few people in background
92 Singh: Have you made a decision about birth permits, mayor? Will we decrease them gradually, or keep the current birth rate for another generation and then eliminate births all at once?
93 Mayor Hu: Not yet, doctor... I'm still listening to the arguments. About our new gravity, you think we'll be able to avoid bone density issues?
94 Singh: I'm hoping the new exercise routine will work, if it doesn't we may have to do injections. There's not much data on this level of gravity, it's a lot less than we had for the first century of our mission when this was a much more massive asteroid.
95 Mayor Hu: There's a lot of aspects of this low gravity that'll take some getting used to. Glad we've got these magnetic shoes so I can at least walk normally.
96 Singh: [mildly amused at the image] Until you hit a carpeted area and float off into the middle of the room.
97 Mayor Hu: We might just have to rip up all the carpets.
98 Singh: Wouldn't rush that, maybe in a month nobody will be using the shoes and we'll all be used to it.
99 Nurse Okonkwo: Excuse me Doctor Singh, wanted to let you know I've discharged Mutombo.
100 Singh: Thank you nurse Okonkwo, you can go home now.
101 Mayor Hu: I wonder what other troubles the loss of gravity will cause us.
102 Singh: There's good things about it too. Maybe you're too young to remember it clearly, but sleep was so much easier back in the day. You could hardly feel yourself being pressed down into the mattress and there was never any discomfort to make you toss and turn. And that's how it'll be again. Wait 'till you feel it, bet you'll feel refreshed tomorrow.
103 Mayor Hu: Well it's been a big day and a long day, so I think I'll go try that out now.
104 Singh: Sweet dreams, mayor.
105 SOUND: exits, then do a quick link of some sort
106 SOUND: mayor enters quarters and undresses for bed, clothes rustle and creak of bed
107 SOUND: multicom signal, acceptance sound
108 Mayor Hu: Yes?
109 Hernandez: [sfx: processed] Mayor, communications section finished piecing together another mission report from UDF 3457-C. You said you wanted to know...
110 Mayor Hu: It can wait for tomorrow. Everything can wait for tomorrow. I need some shuteye.
111 Hernandez: Alright. Good night, mayor.
112 Mayor Hu: You should get home and relax, Eva. Your shift was over hours ago.
113 Hernandez: But it's the first day of low gravity, what if something--
114 Mayor Hu: You worry too much, Eva. Nothing's going to happen and our people can handle anything that does.
115 Hernandez: Okay. Good night.
116 SOUND: call end
117 Mayor Hu: [a few yawns]
118 SOUND: sheets rustle
119 SOUND: slow musical fade to express end of day, until silence
120 SOUND: multicom beeps persistently until mayor rolls over and grabs it
121 Mayor Hu: [groggy] Yes?
122 Tojo: [super urgently] Mayor, there's something wrong with our shields! I'm reading a 10% power drain and growing!
123 Mayor Hu: [groggy sarcasm] Good morning to you too, Chief Tojo. Any idea why?
124 Tojo: Not yet, we're looking into everything. Unfortunately we don't understand the technology as well as we should, since we borrowed so much of it from the alien shuttle 20 years ago.
125 Mayor Hu: How long before we're in trouble?
126 Tojo: The drain rate isn't linear so it's hard to say, but I'd guess it could be 10 minutes or even less until particles may start to get through, you should start evacuating everyone to the deeper levels immediately.
127 Mayor Hu: We're in empty interstellar space, is that really necessary?
128 Tojo: Even interstellar space has about one hydrogen atom per cubic centimeter, and at our speed we'll hit billions of them in the blink of an eye.
129 Mayor Hu: But can something that small really hurt us?
130 Tojo: I'd expect massive explosions and radiation, there's a reason we needed shields.
131 Mayor Hu: Okay, I'll start the evacuation. Good luck, Chief Tojo... we're counting on you.
132 SOUND: hallway with people, who grow alarmed when alert starts
133 SOUND: evacuation alert sound
134 Mayor Hu: [loudspeaker] This is the mayor speaking. We're implementing evacuation plan 1B, repeat 1B. Evacuate near-surface levels, get as deep as you can in a calm and orderly fashion. This is not a drill. Section chiefs, do a head count and keep your people together if you can. Elevators will be removed from the shafts, you'll float down the shafts for maximum throughput. Don't forget to help the elderly, the disabled and children!
135 SOUND: fade out and in for indication of slight time passage and location change
136 SOUND: hallway with panicked people, jogging footsteps of mayor and hernandez
137 Mayor Hu: [loudly] This way! Please stay calm, no jostling, you'll all get out!
138 Hernandez: [loudly] The mayor and I will be the last ones off this level, you have time, you'll be okay.
139 SOUND: explosion shakes the hallway
140 Marissa: [sfx: loudspeaker] Depressurization event on levels one through six! Emergency hatches sealing!
141 SOUND: hatch seal sound
142 Mayor Hu: Damn, that's only one level above us!
143 Nurse Okonkwo: Let me through, let me through!
144 Mayor Hu: You can't go back that way, nurse Okonkwo.
145 Nurse Okonkwo: Mayor, my husband is still on level six! He was looking for our cat, the evacuation alarm scared her!
146 Hernandez: Ma'am, we can't let you open that hatch.
147 Nurse Okonkwo: He could still be alive! You can't just abandon him!
148 Mayor Hu: We won't, if there's any chance at all I'll go get him myself.
149 Hernandez: Mayor, that's suicide!
150 Mayor Hu: The major damage may all be at the higher levels, it could be just a slow leak on level six. Get me a pressure reading.
151 SOUND: pressing some buttons, a beep or two
152 Hernandez: 50 kilopascals, half normal atmosphere... but it's falling rapidly! You won't be able to breathe for long!
153 SOUND: opening emergency locker, taking out oxygen tank
154 Mayor Hu: That's why we have these emergency lockers with oxygen tanks, I'll be fine.
155 Hernandez: Wait, let me go instead!
156 Mayor Hu: Sorry Eva, your artificial hand could slow you down, I've got a better chance.
157 Nurse Okonkwo: Good luck, mayor... remember, unit 12!
158 Hernandez: I'm projecting five minutes before the pressure up there goes below the Armstrong limit and your bodily fluids boil off!
159 Mayor Hu: I'll be back in four.
160 SOUND: opening hatch, whoosh of air, further alert sound, movement sound, hatch close sound and air stop
161 Hernandez: [foreboding] I hope that wasn't the terrible mistake I think it was.
162 Nurse Okonkwo: [trying to convince herself] You'll see, they'll both be okay.
163 SOUND: quick sound scene transition, probably change of music
164 SOUND: sound of running along metal, occasionally pushing things out of the way, faint hiss in background, occasional oxygen tank gulps
165 Mayor Hu: [with light exertion, occasional pants] Could've sworn unit 12 used to be closer...
166 Hernandez: Can't you run any faster?
167
Mayor Hu:
[with light exertion, occasional pants] I have to make sure one of my magnetic boots is always touching the floor, or I'll drift off and take too long to fall. Makes sprinting a little complicated.
Ah, finally there.
168 SOUND: door opens
169 Mayor Hu: [calling out loudly] Okonkwo? Obi Okonwko, are you still in here?
170 SOUND: moves into another room
171 Mayor Hu: [calling out loudly] Obi?
172 SOUND: stumbles
173
Mayor Hu:
[frustration and fear] Damn.
I've found him, looks like he took a fall and hit his head, I'm carrying him back.
174 Hernandez: [sfx: processed] Are you sure you have time for that?
175 Mayor Hu: You tell me.
176 Hernandez: [sfx: processed] About two minutes to the Armstrong limit.
177 Mayor Hu: We'll make it. Listen, he's got a nasty gash, get a medical kit ready to stop his bleeding.
178 Nurse Okonkwo: [sfx: processed] I've already got one in my bag, just bring him down to me and I can take care of him!
179 Hernandez: [sfx: processed] Hurry!
180 SOUND: explosion shakes the corridor, some thuds and air hiss in foreground as well as increased background hiss
181 Mayor Hu: [grunts and lets out a yelp of pain]
182 Hernandez: [sfx: processed] [alarmed] Mayor! Mayor Hu, are you still there?!
183 Mayor Hu: [panting] I think... we're done for.
184 Nurse Okonkwo: [sfx: background, processed] Oh no!
185 Mayor Hu: [gasping and struggling through pain] One of the big climate units came loose and slammed me into the wall in that jolt, crushed my oxygen and my leg.
186 Hernandez: [sfx: processed] I'll come up and get you!
187 Mayor Hu: [gasping for breath throughout] No! That's an order Eva! Last impact widened the hole, air's escaping faster, prolly hit the armstrong limit any second now. Get yourself further down, you can't trust level 7 to hold in the next impact!
188 Hernandez: [sfx: processed] I can't just leave you to die!
189 Mayor Hu: [gasping for breath throughout] Yes... you can. It's your job. I... hope... [gasps one last time and passes out]
190 SOUND: end theme and credits