♪ [dramatic music]
[screaming]
[Jaz] Your heart!
[Caspar] Your surgery.
We've got to get him out of here.
♪ [dramatic music]
[wet splat]
[Caspar] This isn't the game.
[Jaz] Martin's dead, Errol.
Does that mean anything to you?
[Errol] It means we've got to go.
[Dom] '‘The Janitor' is here. He will save you all.
[Jaz] '‘The Janitor' is carrying the one damn flashlight that works.
[Dom] Capacitor LED Bulb. No batteries.
[Dom] Eddie Coetze didn't kill Abraham.
It was the monoxide.
[Caspar] The toxic fumes?
[Errol] Killer fog.
[Devil] Hello, Caspar.
Come and play with me.
[Caspar screaming]
[Errol] What happened? The fog?
[Dom] It's gone, or we'd be dead.
[plastic crackles]
[Denny] Fire!
[Eddie] I get it, Denny. You're an artist.
[Denny] Foley Artist!
[Denny] I create sounds to order.
Make them better than they really are.
[Eddie] She's here with me.
She dies...
and it's your fault!
No-one's listening to you, '‘cause why should they?
You're a joke, Eddie.
[Dom] '‘The Janitor' will save her.
[Jaz] Sure he will. But he can't take much more of this.
None of us can.
[Psychopath Fitch] Weapons... now!
[Jaz] If I don't grab him out of there,
he'll stay in there for good.
-[Dom] I've got it. -[Jaz] Go, go save her.
[Dom groans]
[Jaz] Errol, do you know where you are?
[Jaz] You're in a recorded loop,
and you're going round and round in circles.
There's no Level Boss to find here, Errol.
[Sophie] I came to make things right.
And all I had to do...
was die!
[Jaz] No!
♪ [dramatic music]
[Julia] You aways let me down.
I have no faith in you.
All the men in my life...
Such disappointments!
[voice echoes] [Jaz] Dom!
[Jaz] We failed her.
[Errol] Huh, yeah, great job.
We made her look like the spare bed at a fucking party.
[Caspar] Have a heart, would you?
[Jaz] Yeah, we're all just trying to stay human.
I suppose it's a little absurd.
[Caspar] Stick with your instinct.
[Errol] What, you've got people to save, Dom?
[Dom] Maybe, even you.
[Errol laughs]
[Dom] Map.
[Errol] Jeez!
♪ [ominous music]
[Eddie] There's logic, even to madness.
[Denny] Who knew?
[feet landing on floor]
[Dom] The quickest way to the next level,
is through that door.
[Jaz] That open door?
[Jaz] We all see that a door, in a lock-down,
has been left unlocked and open?
[Dom] Yes, it's Eddie Coetze.
[Jaz] Yeah, of course it's Eddie.
[Jaz] But that doesn't bother you? No, of course not.
[Jaz] Anyone else?
[Errol] We've gotta keep moving, let's play, come on!
[Errol] Thank you!
[Jaz] I can make out some lights in the buildings outside.
[door squeaks open]
[Felix] There are no lights...
Just fires!
[Errol] Merry Christmas, Felix!
[Errol] It's June.
[Felix] It doesn't matter.
It's the end!
[Felix] It's the end of everything.
[Errol] No, no, no, no...
Not today ok, you're saved.
'‘The Janitor' is here.
[Dom] Yes, he is. And you are.
[Felix] Look, this thing is just happening
in more than one building, okay!
It's just happening in more than one city!
And the fucking '‘Janitor' is not going to mend that!
[Felix] Good?
[Felix] He cannot help.
No-one can help. Because no-one is coming!
[Jaz] Because no-one outside knows there's been a pulse-bomb.
[Felix] Pulse-bomb?
[Felix] It's much more bigger than that, okay!
[Felix] You guys have to think bigger, okay!
[Jaz] Everyone in this building.
Is variously insane!
[Errol] Hmm!
[Felix] You have to think bigger, Sunshine, okay?
[Felix] Like, think bad sunshine.
[Felix] Solar storms...
Solar flares!
Coronal mass ejections!
Power is off. Everything is down.
[Felix] Everything!
[Felix] Everywhere!
[Jaz] It's '‘Pulse: Paradigm'.
It's game code...
Felix worked for months on a sequel to '‘Pulse'.
[Caspar] '‘Pulse: Paradigm'.
A pattern.
A pattern of events.
[Errol] Day One. Year Zero.
[Errol] Strap line:
"“It's Cosmic"”.
[Caspar] It's dumped, is what!
[Jaz] For a re-boot of the original.
All this...
His head's all wrapped up in most of wasted effort.
[Dom] Come with us.
[Dom] See for yourself that this isn't real.
[Felix] Go out...
and be a witness of slow death by sunshine?
No... never!
[Errol] Too bad, Felix.
[Errol] It's too bad.
[Errol] Still... Lovin' your pitch!
[Felix] Well, you know, quite amazing what you can do
with some chem-sticks... and some balloons!
-[Felix] And, ah, drain-cleaner, of course!
Add to that tin-foil, and a couple of bottles of water.
[Errol] You got water?
[Felix] I emptied the water.
[Jaz] You did what?
[Felix] For the gas, guys!
[Felix] For the hy-dro-gen!
[Felix] You know? The stuff of sunshine.
[Felix] It was for the balloons!
[Felix] Look at them!
[Dom] Hydrogen gas and a naked flame?
[Errol] Think '‘Hindenburg'.
[Jaz] Are you fucking crazy!
[Felix] Aren't we all?
[Jaz] Who unlocked this door?
[Felix] Eddie!
[Felix] He asked me to wait... to save the show for an audience.
[Jaz] Front row - that's us.
[Felix] For me to unveil the truth!
[Jaz] So he could set us up!
[Jaz] Fuck!
Ah!
[Jaz] Fuck.. [deep breaths]
[Jaz] Jesus, Cas, are you ok?
[Caspar] These are pages from my Journal.
[Cas yells]
[Dom] No! No!
[Denny] What? Now, Eddie?
[frantic banging or door]
[voice echoes] ♪ Eddie
[Julia] Eddie! This is life!
[Dom] Ah!
[Dom] '‘The Janitor' must go and save Caspar Lee.
[Dom] He'll come back for you.
[Felix] No need.
[Felix] Everything has changed, yeah?
Forever.
So I just think I'm going to sit theree and wait for the whole thing to pass.
[Caspar breathes heavily]
[panicked breathing] -[Eddie] Now!
[Errol] Stop worrying, Jaz, okay, he's not gonna-
-[Jaz] He's killed Thabo-
[loud explosion] -[Jaz] Fuck!
[footsteps recede]
[Jaz] No!
[Jaz] It's Cas!
[Dom] He's got to be behind the door.
[Dom] Here!
[Jaz] Cas?
[Dom] He's taken him.
[Jaz] He killed him.
[Jaz] Oh, God!
[Errol] We don't know that.
[Errol] We do know he was lured.
[Errol] Distracted.
We all where. We still are!
[Jaz sobs]
Have you guys read this shit!
[Jaz] Uh-hm.
[Errol] Don't you love-birds get it?
[Errol] '‘Uncertainty'...
Classic game-play!
[Jaz] Fuck the game!
[Errol] Is he alive... Is he dead?
Eddie doesn't want us to know.
[Errol] Not now!
[Errol] Not for sure!
[Dom] Well, then there is hope.
[Errol] He wants us to find him.
[Errol] He wants us-
[Dom] Look, you saw which way they went?
Down is still the only place for them to go.
[Errol] We'll see.
[Dom] Hey...
We will find them.
[Errol] And whatever the fuck-else Eddie has in mind!
[scraping] [Errol] Aagh!
[deep inhale]
[Eddie] Hello, Caspar.
[Caspar] Ah! It hurts when I frown!
[Eddie] So don't.
[Eddie] Blame Denny-from-Audio.
Only a Foley-Artist would prefer an industrial stapler
to an actual hand-gun.
[Caspar] I've been stapled?
[Eddie] Think yourself lucky!
♪ [tense music]
[panicked breathing]
[Caspar] Where am I?
[Eddie] Separated... that's where you are.
[Eddie] And there's comfort to be had in companionship.
You're isolated... all alone.
[Eddie] That feeling of dread.
And feeling that something bad,
and I mean really bad, is going to happen.
[Eddie] You alright?
It is...
But, guess what?
It will all be your own making.
-[Caspar] What have you done? -[Eddie] Me...?
You're the one about to reshape the level-geometry.
Being alone is key.
[Eddie] Where the worst terrors, are always your own...
Walk on, Caspar.
There's no staying here.
[Caspar] Please!
[axe bangs onto floor]
[Eddie] Do what you do!
[Eddie] Build a new environment!
Something to suit your fractured psyche...
[Eddie] We both know how it'll look.
[Eddie] Chop-chop!
[scraping and crawling]
♪
[Jaz] And Eddie thinks all this is helping the creative process.
[Errol] Look, the Canteen is that way.
There's food, water and...
[Errol] Alright.
[muffled cries]
[muffled] Help!
[Dom groans and struggles]
[Errol] It's just waiters.
How dangerous can they be?
[Eddie] Sick building...
Sick people.
Environment as a metaphor.
The perfect game-playing setting.
for a life lived... Yours.
Discovering who our protagonists really are
can be way more rewarding than simply battling monsters...
[Eddie] Back-stories... can make the game!
[Caspar] A '‘monster' stole my thoughts...
Hacked into my journal.
[Eddie] For months.
'‘Survival-Horrors' need mysteries to solve, after all.
[Caspar] Not my own!
[Eddie] If they're worth telling.
[Caspar] My past? My present?
[Eddie] Where it strikes an emotional cord.
Involves the big themes... Love. Loss. Comedy...
Tragedy!
[Caspar] Then... you have taken my life.
[Eddie] It's a distinct possibile.
♪ [dark music] [Dom panting]
[Errol] Is that Crispin looking all oven-ready?
[Crispin] We try.
[Errol] You do.
[Jaz] Eddie's quite the oracle.
[Jaz] And where exactly are we.. Crispin?
[Crispin] Can't you see?
[Errol] I get it.
[Errol] I really do!
[teacup smashes]
[Eddie] Caspar as hypochondriac.
A life spent searching for the perfect illness...
Finds it right here.
[labored breathing]
[Eddie] In a '‘sick-building', where else?
With a syndrome all its own...
[Caspar coughs and splutters]
[Jaz] Errol!
We need to find Caspar.
We don't have the time.
You've got all the time in the world.
[cutlery scrapes] [crashes onto floor]
[Eddie] This building was sick long before the pulse.
Dying of dilapidation... Poor ventilation.
Blocked ducting. Filters long gone bad.
Mold bringing the bad air.
'‘AirXodus'!
Our anonymous canary down the coal mine.
Singing his croaky songs of toxins and allergens.
Clue... is in the name.
You wishing us all free of this rotten, choking, dying place.
You, wishing it dead!
So you kill it with a pulse-bomb.
[Jaz] If he's not here, we're leaving.
[Crispin] We need your capacitor.
[Dom] You can't have it, man.
[Dom] It's the one thing electrlcal that still works.
[scoffs]
-[Errol laughs] -[Jaz] Aliens?
[Errol] And Felix said it was '‘bad sunshine'.
[plate smashes on floor]
This was by design.
[Errol] Which is what we say.
[Errol] But Caspar thinks I did.
Or maybe even Eddie.
We need your capacitor.
[Dom] Well you can't have it!
[Hare] Did we ask for a fucking flashlight?
[Jaz] What... Mar...
[Jaz] It's Marty.
[Jaz] What the fuck did you do to Marty?
[Alice / Jaz] Look at what they did to Marty.
[Jaz / Alice] Wake up!
[Caspar breaths raggedly]
[Caspar] The bomb wasn't me.
I mean... me?
Why would I?
Why would I stay if it was me?
[Eddie] All that unrequited love for Errol?
[Caspar] I'm not like Errol!
I just build games.
I don't play them!
[Eddie] Guilt. Self-loathing.
All the traumas of an unhappy past.
And I'm not talking '‘Errol'.
[Caspar breathes deeply]
[Eddie] Someone else.
Someone so long gone...
But never, ever forgotten.
[retching] [wet splat]
[creeping and crawling]
[squirming]
[clatters onto floor]
[banging]
[Crispin] Take it away!
[Dom breathes fast]
♪ [fast music]
[Julia] Too little, too late, as always!
[shouts angrily] Too little! Too late!
[whimpers] [Jaz] Oh no!
[Jaz] They're all fucking dead!
Eddie told us all about you.
[Eddie] Uh-uh!
[Eddie] You'd like to avoid those irksome memories of home...
I know.
[children's voices shouting] [birds wings flapping]
[boiling kettle whistles]
[subway train wheels clatter]
[train horn blows]
[Eddie] We both would.
[subway train horn blows]
[Eddie] '‘Home is where the hurt is', after all.
[paper falls onto floor]
[Eddie] But you can't avoid it..
[Eddie] You can't!
[ragged breathing] [coughing]
[Eddie] Because I won't let you.
[Eddie] You will find your way back to the bad...
memories...
[whispering voices] [shouting]
[whispering voices]
You'll hear it coming...
[Eddie] We both will.
[Eddie] You hear yours?
[boiling kettle whistles] [water bubbles]
[coughing and wheezing]
[Jaz] The author was a classical mathematician.
[Jaz] They say the Tea Party was hidden satire...
on the new abstract maths where.
size isn't absolute, where...
measure is irrelevant, and impossible...
illogical things can happen at any time.
[Crispin] '‘Alice in Wonderland'.
[Jaz] Yeah, I've read the book.
[Crispin] You've got the syndrome.
[Jaz] We put some of it in the game, but...
where the hell is all of this going, Crispin?
[crackling]
[Jaz] No!... No!
[water boiling and bubbling]
♪ [tense music]
[plastic pops]
[Crispin] It all makes perfect sense!
[mouthing] [Jaz] Crispin! No, please!
[voice echos] [Julia] Did I suffocate you?
[voice echos] Was I really that bad?
Or was it you.
Always too weak.
[Julia] For ever needing, that nudge, that push to face harsher realities.
Think about that while you are dying.
[boiling kettle whistles]
[wheezing]
[kettle whistles, wheezing] [crawling sounds]
[Devil] Hello, Caspar...
Come and play with me.
[Devil] I want a hug.
[Young Caspar] Cockroaches...
[crawling sounds] they like the damp.
They eat the paste.
Can't fly...
Can only run.
[wheezing]
[plastic pops]
[Crispin] The Tea Party's dilemma.
[Jaz] Okay, okay!
'‘Time' is missing. 'Time' is a he. He's gone.
They're stuck forever, at 6 o'clock.
[Crispin] Rotation-around-the-table.
Flat.
[Hare] Footsteps around the fucking table.
[Crispin] Then... Alice arrives.
[Jaz] So that's it!
[Jaz] Postit '‘AWS'...
Just rotate that message in magical 3D!
Back in my head, in my syndrome!
To the fucking aliens!
[Jaz] You think I get to show them that we're here?
[Jaz] Ready, waiting for them to come?
[Jaz] That won't happen.
Least of all '‘cos I can't.
But most of all,
because there are-no-fucking-aliens!
[Crispin] You will show them.
And they will come...
[finger snap]
♪ [intense music]
[Jaz] Uh-uh!
[Jaz] Aaah!
[Jaz] Uh-uh!
[Eddie clears his throat]
[Eddie] Corruption is a fearful thing...
But fear's good. Its own reward. An instinctive key to survival.
[Eddie] Most of us have it in abundance...
Of course some of us,
have no fear at all.
[squirming]
[Jaz gasping for breath]
[Errol] Ah!... [laughing]
I get it now.
Using him to stress her into an episode.
[Errol] I see what you're trying to do!
[Errol] But get in line...
It's been a busy night.
And, you will kill her first, I can tell.
[Jaz coughing and wheezing]
[Errol] She's not there yet...
[Errol] But I am... I can help.
You know we put her AWS into the game...
[Errol] And I'm in the game...
So you're looking for the syndrome?
[Errol] I got it!
It's right... here.
[Errol] Ain't Hatters always looking for time?
[Errol] It's '‘time'. He is here. The Level Boss.
[Errol] And time's up!
[Man: Aagh!]
[Dom] Ah! Aaaah!
[Errol] Fuck!
[Jaz] Where were you?
[Jaz] I knew you'd step up.
[Errol] I had to try it.
[lightning and thunder]
[Devil] Caspar...
[Devil] You won't tell!
[Devil] I know you won't...
Come here!
[Eddie] This is a classic.
[umbrella flaps]
[distorted voice] [Lori] Come close, Caspar...
I want to show you something...
[Lori] Look!
[paper flutters into floor] [Lori coughs]
[Young Caspar] They got to your books too, huh?
[Lori] Mom says the cockroaches ate the binding glue.
[Lori] Ruined dolly's hair.
[Young Caspar] Are you still trying to hide food?
[Lori] Mum worries...
You won't tell.
[Lori] I know you won't!
♪ [slow tense music]
[Lori] Maybe they ate my binding glue too?
[Eddie] Monsters in full view often disappoint...
[Eddie] But the best are always real.
[Eddie] Even if it's your own sister. Hm?
Eddie] You wished her dead, Caspar.
Many a times.
Your guilt, and self-loathing is writ large.
And it's written down right over...
here.
'‘Croup' rarely kills kids...
But Cancer?
[Eddie] All the toys,
books, your mom's time, her soothing voice...
[Eddie] It was all Lori's, never yours.
You resented her for all that attention.
All that... Love.
Conclusion? Hm...
Only by being really ill, did you get it.
Deserve to get it!
[Eddie] Been looking for illness and love ever since...
Thought you'd find both here.
So you planted the pulse bomb.
[Dom] Copies of Caspar Lee's journal.
[Dom] There's more in the hallway.
[Errol] Ah, so Eddie left us a paper-trail?
[Dom] Jasmin... He could still be alive.
We can still save him.
[Errol] You reckon I saved us all?
-[Jaz] No!
You killed a Level Boss like you wanted!
You struck a pen in his eye, like it was an ink-well!
It just happened to save us...
Sweetheart!
[Errol] Ouch! Harsh.
[Lori] Caspar!
♪ [slow tense music]
[papers flutter onto ground]
[Eddie] There it is!
[Eddie] Your emotional connection to the narrative.
People like you more than you think, Caspar.
You're a tragic figure,
and tragedy is good game design.
[Eddie] You're the classic loyal-dog trope.
[Eddie] People die!
It's numbers.
Loyal-dog dies!
[screaming]
[Dom] Hello, Santa.
[Santa] Merry Christmas!
[Eddie] You're our mystery E.M.P bomber.
[Jaz] I don't recognize you.
[Reflection] Because you're not you anymore.
[Meadow] I'm going to kill them all.
Hi there!