Smiling Ones On Space Station Mir | CreepCast

Speaker 1 Every who down in Who Newville liked the holidays a ton. But where to get great prices on gifts? They had no idea.
None. They searched and they searched for great gifts under $25.

Speaker 1 Gifts for spouses and friends and even their toddlers. When suddenly one who shouted, Walmart has what you want.
Knowing they have Lego, tree hut, and no prices to flaunt.

Speaker 1 So they enjoy the holiday season as who's often do. Cheering and shouting, Walmart has incredible gifts.
Who knew? Find gifts they'll love under $25 at Walmart.

Speaker 2 Hello, I'm Diane Morgan. If you know who I am, you know who I am.
If you don't, who cares?

Speaker 2 I'm here to explain Italian Time, a holiday phenomenon where Italians throw away their clocks and gather for eternity with San Pellegrino.

Speaker 2 I've been at this party so long that I've eaten five courses, hugged someone's grandma twice, and been offered a job in the family restaurant.

Speaker 2 So this holiday season, make sure to bring enough San Pellegrino to last you through the meal, the aftermeal, and the entire goodbye ritual. San Pellegrino, holiday on Italian time.
time.

Speaker 1 Welcome back to Creepcast. Today we're reading the smiling ones on Space Station Mir.

Speaker 1 Would you like to tell us about the afternoon?

Speaker 1 Sorry.

Speaker 1 The author of this story is someone named Darius Pilgrim.

Speaker 1 And I think that's his actual name.

Speaker 1 He is the author of this story, which you can get as an e-book on Amazon. He also has another published story that Nick's iPad has once again crashed for the 13th time today.

Speaker 1 It's It's going to make me lose my mind. He's also the author of Wrong Roads: Scary Stories from Coast to Coast, or at least he was one of the contributors to the anthology book of it.

Speaker 1 So he's got a couple of things published out. This story comes highly recommended.

Speaker 1 As a matter of fact, we're going to be reading it on Darius's website, dariuspilgrim.com. That will be linked in the description.
So you can keep up with the stuff there.

Speaker 1 Harry says this is a good one. I've never read it before.

Speaker 1 People have recommended this to us in the subreddit a couple of times. So hopefully it's cool.
Sounds like it's cool.

Speaker 1 We haven't done a space story since. Mr.
Floppy? Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 What was that one? The other astronaut on this trip died. Dariuspilgrim.wordpress.com slash the smiling dash.

Speaker 1 The dash smiling dash ones dash on dash space dash station dash mirror

Speaker 1 forward slash

Speaker 1 And it will be in the link as well, but if you want to type it out which I like to do I thought that I would just put that. You've never done that before.

Speaker 1 Dariuspilgrim.wordpress.com forward song. I'm not going to do the whole thing.

Speaker 1 Before

Speaker 1 we went and got ice cream right before this.

Speaker 1 Children.

Speaker 1 Like children.

Speaker 1 We did something.

Speaker 1 Before we got ice cream before this. Before we went to our scale we stole and got ice cream.
Yeah, ice cream.

Speaker 1 And while we were getting ice cream, Allison referred to me as Hunter's friend, and he quickly corrected her and said, co-worker. Yeah, well.

Speaker 1 there's no jest, there's no joke to his tone. He hasn't shown any humor in that statement since then.
So, you know, the uh, we got ice cream, though

Speaker 1 it's pretty good.

Speaker 1 Do you like space stories? I feel like

Speaker 1 they are very hit or miss. Guess they never miss, huh?

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 I feel like they uh can do some really cool stuff like

Speaker 1 I forgot about him

Speaker 1 He just really flashed over there

Speaker 1 That's the dumbest draw I've ever seen. Come on, man.

Speaker 1 Wait, the dumbest? I mean, just like the chip, the big cheese smile with the little, the tiny.

Speaker 1 So, the smiling ones on Space Station Mirror. What I was saying is, like, a lot of them are either really good.

Speaker 1 You can do cool stuff with them, like the themes of the comet going through space and stuff that we saw. in the writing during the other astronaut on this mission died uh six weeks ago

Speaker 1 uh

Speaker 1 And I'm trying to think of, I know there's some space stuff I've read that's kind of lame. I think I read one about like a bug on a spaceship when I was younger that was kind of just like lackluster.

Speaker 1 The setting's very creepy, but you got to do something with it.

Speaker 1 If you had, do you like this? The name of the story? Yeah, I think the smiling ones. I mean, similar to the other astronaut died, it's like,

Speaker 1 why would there be smiling ones in the middle of space, right?

Speaker 1 Can we get a drawing of the

Speaker 1 what

Speaker 1 is that just a stack of drawings?

Speaker 1 Well, some drawings I've done.

Speaker 1 What else in there?

Speaker 1 We saw that one. Everyone saw that one, yeah.

Speaker 1 Why does he always draw my neck so long?

Speaker 1 Five seconds before we started recording, he said, he asked, who's your favorite superhero? I was like, I'm probably Batman.

Speaker 1 Just had that ready to go.

Speaker 1 That's really good. Whoa, what's that? Oh my gosh, it's like a skull coming out of a hand.
I don't know. Hold up.

Speaker 1 Can you get that one and smile dog out

Speaker 1 just can you just hold them both up to the camera at the same time

Speaker 1 no that's not the one i asked you to get out

Speaker 1 all right let's read this story okay smiling ones on space station mirror can i be controversial off the top

Speaker 1 i think the the the title is a bit of a flop for me you don't like it

Speaker 1 is that where you're asking me why I felt about it? Yeah. Feel about it.

Speaker 1 What would you rather it be called?

Speaker 1 I don't know. I need to read the story first to make a title name.

Speaker 1 I just don't like smiling ones. You don't like smiling ones? You don't like that? Just a bit tryhard.
And then also, Mirr. Isn't that what they gave Jesus? That's Mirror.
Spelled N-Y-R-R.

Speaker 1 It's different.

Speaker 1 What's this like shifty little, you're in a mood right now. You're acting like a goblin.

Speaker 1 All right. Part one.
March 19th, 2001, the Russian space station Mir disappeared from low Earth orbit. There's no collision or explosion.
One minute it was there and the next it wasn't.

Speaker 1 For 24 panicked hours, a select group of scientists, intelligence agents, and government officials worked tirelessly to simultaneously figure out what had happened and prevent the general public from discovering that anything had occurred at all.

Speaker 1 Exactly one day later, Mir reappeared in the precise location it had last been observed. It appeared relatively unchanged, but for one major exception.

Speaker 1 The space station, which had been unoccupied for months in preparation of deorbiting, was now inhabited. The fact that you've never heard of this proves the cover-up was successful.

Speaker 1 Figuring out what caused this anomaly and what happened during the 24 hours Mir was missing is an entirely different matter.

Speaker 1 I know this because I was there in Ross Cosmos Mission Control on that day in March so long ago. Never told a single soul this story.
I'm an old man now. I don't have long left to live.

Speaker 1 Many needs to hear the truth where there's no one left alive to tell it.

Speaker 1 Were you about to say something?

Speaker 1 I don't want to be negative. You already don't like it? No, it's not that.
It just reminds me a lot like a Twilight Zone episode. Okay.
Is that right? Called The Parallel. You watched that one?

Speaker 1 Oh, a specific one. No, I don't think so.
What happened? While it's on the parallel, an astronaut's going up into outer space, and then he all of a sudden he just

Speaker 1 blacks out, and the people on Earth are like, where did the spacecraft go? And he wakes up in basically an alternate reality. And then he

Speaker 1 has to basically go back out into space or whatever. But it was like going into space, it put him into an altered timeline.

Speaker 1 Or an alternate reality where when he landed, he was on like a different version of Earth.

Speaker 1 But this whole idea of like going up, blip, gone. I see.

Speaker 1 Hello.

Speaker 1 Why'd you point at Nick when you walked by? How are you doing, Nick?

Speaker 1 Good.

Speaker 1 You gonna hang out with us? No, I just came to make sure that I clicked on it.

Speaker 1 He's been in a did you get nervous? Yeah, I always get a little nervous. You want to hang out for a second and listen to the next paragraph of this?

Speaker 1 What is gone? What are you on right now? What

Speaker 1 is that? Strange movie. He's been weird.
You didn't even do the thank you, patrons, for watching. Thank you, audio listeners.
None of that.

Speaker 1 You can say it now. Thank you.

Speaker 1 Thank you, patrons. Thank you to people listening on audio platforms like Spotify and Apple Music.
Be sure to give us a rating over there. We really appreciate it.
It means a lot.

Speaker 1 And of course, thank you to our lovely patrons who support the show with your hard-earned cash. It means the world.
Extra content over there for you if you're interested. And there might be more.

Speaker 1 I can't, I honestly have no idea if there will be merch when this episode's up, but there might be that too. Creepcast.shop or store.
Creepcast.store.

Speaker 1 No one else noticed it, but when we were pulling into my driveway, the person behind me ran over a turtle.

Speaker 1 No, it didn't. Is that what's been bothering you?

Speaker 1 Kind of.

Speaker 1 Kind of. Where?

Speaker 1 On the road? Out on the road? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Or was it the turtle? I was just in the middle of the road. You weren't

Speaker 1 in a weird mood till we started recording.

Speaker 1 It's been.

Speaker 1 You were fine talking to that other guy. You're fine talking to Allison.

Speaker 1 I ask him questions. He's like.

Speaker 1 Got family annihilator eyes all of a sudden.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 1 just whatever

Speaker 1 in the days leading up to the anomaly there had been a distinct sense of gloom hanging over the mission control room every one of us there had dedicated

Speaker 1 what are you doing

Speaker 1 in the days leading up to the anomaly there had been a distinct sense of gloom hanging over the mission control room Every one of us there had dedicated our lives to the space station, and now it was all about to end.

Speaker 1 Mir was launched into orbit by the Soviet Union in 1986 for what was supposed to be a five-year mission.

Speaker 1 Now, 15 years later, the Plucky space station that had survived the end of the Cold War and collapse of the USSR was showing its age.

Speaker 1 It was cluttered, dirty, worn, and rapidly deteriorating when the Russian government decided to finally divert all funds and manpower to the newly built International Space Station.

Speaker 1 Yet it still held a special place in the heart of every Russian who had ever looked up to the stars and dreamed of what was out there.

Speaker 1 Multiple attempts were made by various private organizations and individuals to fund the continued existence of the station or even buy it outright.

Speaker 1 One company even tried to purchase Mir and turn it into a permanent orbital movie and television studio.

Speaker 1 In the end, it proved too expensive to be feasible, leaving us, a skeleton crew of scientists, astronauts, and engineers, to despondently monitor the last few days of the station's existence.

Speaker 1 It was like watching a beloved family member wither away in hospice care.

Speaker 1 I was a member of the communications division of Mir Mission Control, once a 25-person department, now dwindled down to just six essential personnel.

Speaker 1 I was home in bed when I received an urgent call at 4 in the morning.

Speaker 1 The call stating that an emergency had occurred and requiring me to report to Mission Control immediately.

Speaker 1 I arrived to find the normally tranquil control room in a frenzy of activity that verged on panic.

Speaker 1 My head was spinning as I was briefed on the situation. How could this be true? Something as big as a space station doesn't disappear without a trace.
It seemed impossible.

Speaker 1 We all did our best, but there wasn't a whole lot anyone could actually do. All of our trafficking systems seemed to indicate that the station had simply ceased to exist.

Speaker 1 Visual inspection of the station's normal trajectory confirmed this. Washington had also been discreetly contacted and vehemently denied involvement.
Beyond that, what could be done?

Speaker 1 We activated every radio telescope we could get access to, hoping for a miracle.

Speaker 1 We even convinced the Americans to clandestinely use the Hubble telescope to aid in a visual search, but it was like looking for one particular grain of sand on all the world's beaches, and we all knew it.

Speaker 1 The next 24 hours passed in a haze of coffee, cigarettes, and sleep deprivation. Then, 24 hours to the second after it went missing, Mir suddenly and inexplicably

Speaker 1 reappeared as if we had collectively wished it back into existence.

Speaker 1 The monitor showed the station there, intact and seemingly whole, where a moment before there had been nothing but empty space and distant stars.

Speaker 1 Stunned silence engulfed the room, stretching out for what felt like hours. Then the radio crackled to life and I jumped in my seat, breaking the trance.

Speaker 1 We were receiving a radio transmission from an unmanned space station that had just reappeared as if by magic.

Speaker 1 It made no logical sense. The voice that came over the mission control speakers was breathless and panicked.
Mayday, Mayday, Mayday.

Speaker 1 This is Gosmanot Olisky Lodovsky, attending the contact Soviet space program in Moscow. Please, does anyone read me? Over.

Speaker 1 Can you imagine if I'm just

Speaker 1 gone?

Speaker 1 Where are you? Pop, it's back.

Speaker 1 That's what happened to Mir, right?

Speaker 1 Huh? That's what happened with Mir.

Speaker 1 Is that not what happened? That's exactly what happened. You're being sarcastic.
It's fucking scary.

Speaker 1 What?

Speaker 1 It's scary.

Speaker 1 Why are you laughing? For a moment, no one reacted. It felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room.

Speaker 1 My mind was reeling, trying desperately to maintain a grip on reality in this world of sudden insanity.

Speaker 1 Ladovsky. Alexey Lodovsky.
The name registered with me. I'd heard it somewhere before, but I couldn't remember where.

Speaker 1 We looked at one another in confusion, no one wanting to take responsibility for the situation, no one knowing how to proceed.

Speaker 1 Finally, the director made his way to the communication communications station to take command of the situation.

Speaker 1 I exchanged a confused look with the operator in the terminal next to mine, a small, bespeckled man named Kovlev.

Speaker 1 Chief designer Sergei Korlev was a legend, the founding father of the entire Soviet space program and arguably the founder of the modern astronomy as a whole.

Speaker 1 He had also been dead for over 30 years. Director Koptev somehow kept his cool, not missing a beat.
I'm sorry, Cosmonaut Lodovsky. The chief designer is not here at the moment.

Speaker 1 Might I be of assistance to you?

Speaker 1 He replied with a barely detectable quiver in his voice. The only other sign betraying his trepidation was his hand gripping the transmitter so tightly that the knuckles turned a ghostly white.

Speaker 1 Affirmative,

Speaker 1 Rosmonod. We're starting to work on it as we speak.
In the meantime, it's very important that you stay calm and try to answer one questions as best you can.

Speaker 1 I'm going to turn the radio over to my colleague Yokolev, who will ask a few basic questions and take your biometric information in preparation.

Speaker 1 Said Koptev, then whispering to Yakovlev, get him to take his heart rate, blood pressure, temperature, and anything else you can think of.

Speaker 1 Just keep him talking, keep him distracted, and listen for everything and listen for anything unnatural going on up there. This whole thing is unnatural, sir, replied Yakovlev.

Speaker 1 Director Koptev glared at him and motioned for him to put on his headphones he then turned to the rest of the room and raised his voice the rest of you i need prepared for a briefing up and in for upfront in exactly 30 minutes in the meantime no phone calls or communications with anyone outside this room no wives parents children or anybody else were going completely silent failure to observe this protocol will result in immediate termination and incarceration he walked briskly into his office and motioned for the other senior department heads to follow half hour later we had gathered gathered in front of the mission control room under the large central screen.

Speaker 1 Director Kopdev stood facing us, his countenance an emotionless mask. The sound of Yakovlev quietly speaking into the radio drifted up from the back of the otherwise silent room.

Speaker 1 Kopdev cleared his throat and began. As you all know, Russia's predecessor state the USSR was responsible for a great number of milestones in space exploration.

Speaker 1 One of the most important of these accomplishments was putting the first human into outer space, Yuri Garagin, who completed an orbit around Earth on April 12, 1961.

Speaker 1 A black and white picture of Gagarin, dressed heroically and covered in metals, appeared on the screen.

Speaker 1 As the Soviet Union was at the time in the midst of a space race with the United States, any possible failures were deemed poor for morale.

Speaker 1 As such, each attempt went unannounced and was shrouded in secrecy. Garigin succeeded and was paraded as hero for the world to see.

Speaker 1 The failures were covered up and the details remain classified to this day.

Speaker 1 The first of these secret attempts was made in 1957, a few months after the success of Sputnik by a cosmonaut traveling what amounted to a modified intercontinental ballistic missile.

Speaker 1 Instruments tracked his progress to a height of 186 miles, at which point the transmission suddenly interrupted the rocket seemingly disappeared and cosmonaut was never heard from again that man's name was alisky ladovsky this is uh so this is based on the um lost cosmonaut conspiracy have you heard of it before so basically what he said that before russia successful attempts the united states monitored that they had several missile launches or like

Speaker 1 station or what were you called satellite launches into space that uh historically there was never anyone on they're like no they did do stuff there were animals that were sent like you know like at the dog and stuff but right between like the animals and people they just sent stuff up there so the conspiracy is they were sending people up every time they died it was covered up until eventually Gagarin lived and and then they publicized him as the first so the idea being they sent a bunch of people into space to just die

Speaker 1 so it's working off that A series of gas rose from the small crowd. I could feel my heartbeat thumping away in my temple.
None of this made sense. Now I hope

Speaker 1 We must all try to keep level-headed, remain rational, and rely on scientific training in trying to unravel this mystery.

Speaker 1 I cannot call in any more assistance, as that would only open the door to more leaks of information. So, people you see

Speaker 1 around you here in this room are going to have to be the ones to figure this out. He paused for a moment as we each looked around the room.

Speaker 1 It was only half as full as it had once been at the height of the program. My mouth fell very dry as Cop Dev continued.

Speaker 1 To solve this puzzle, I'm going to need 100% effort and dedication from every single one of you, and it will not be easy.

Speaker 1 As far as I'm concerned, the events of the last 24 hours represent a total paradigm shift to all the previous understanding of physics and astronomy.

Speaker 1 So, I want you to toss Arcon's razor out the window, because the premises of which we base reality have changed. As such, all possible explanations are on the table, even the seemingly improbable.

Speaker 1 No hypothesis should be discarded without thorough examination. This is a scientific discovery as its purest.
This is what the Russians were born for.

Speaker 1 It goes without saying that a lot more than the fate of one cosmet is at stake. Odd silence filled the room as the gravity of the situation settled on each of us.

Speaker 1 My chest felt heavy and my throat tight. Director Koptiv took a seat and Markov, the head of tracking and communications, took his place center stage.

Speaker 1 Central screen changed to the familiar image of the Mir space station.

Speaker 1 This is the highest resolution image of Mir we have from before the anomaly, captured about 15 minutes prior to disappearance, he said in a hoarse smoker's voice and here is an image of me accurately the picture changed over to one that looked superficially similar but something was clearly off a few moments later the screen switched again now showing both images side by side after only a few seconds of studying the difference quickly became apparent in the newer image the coloration of the space station was far darker almost as if coated in a layer of soot.

Speaker 1 Scratches and dents covered its surface, where there had been few previously. Many of the solar arrays were broken and twisted, and some of the modules showed cracks and other signs of wear.

Speaker 1 A few were even missing. This was clearly a very changed space station from the one that had disappeared the day before.

Speaker 1 The other thing that stuck out to me were the windows, clear and reflective in the first image, completely darkened in the second, as if someone had taped black construction paper to the inside of each of them.

Speaker 1 Markov continued on to introduce another of the many mysteries confronting us. After reappearing, the station's internal clock seemed to be malfunctioning.

Speaker 1 The time was still correct, but the date now read March 20th, 2045, 44 years into the future, and the exact same length of time from Ledevsky's disappearance in 1957 to today.

Speaker 1 That possibly be a coincidence? Perhaps, but the sinking feeling in my gut told me that it was not. Either the computer was malfunctioning, or Mir had really been somewhere else for 44 years,

Speaker 1 while only 24 hours had passed here.

Speaker 1 Thought still makes me shudder to this day. Markov went on to highlight a few more strange occurrences.

Speaker 1 First, the life support system, which had been shut down for months since there was no one left on board, was found to be engaged and operating when Mir reappeared.

Speaker 1 Something else up there was breathing. be it Lodovsky or something else.
Furthermore, if the man on Mir really was Ladovsky, how could he possibly know how to activate the life support system?

Speaker 1 Technology in 1957 was extremely primitive compared to what it is up there on the space station now.

Speaker 1 There's no way he would have been able to access a computer system and navigate the complicated process to manually engage life support.

Speaker 1 Secondly, the cameras and microphones used for video communications, which were in working order before the anomaly, had either been deactivated or were malfunctioning.

Speaker 1 Getting these back online as soon as possible would be a top priority for my communications team.

Speaker 1 After this, Markov took a seat and Nikovlev, my communications team member who worked at the terminal next to me, was called up front.

Speaker 1 His face was white as chalk, his forehead beaded with sweat, and his hands and legs were shaking as he stood before the control room.

Speaker 1 I have spoken at length with the one calling himself Alesky Ludovsky.

Speaker 1 He is coherent, rational, and articulate, though he seems just as confused about this situation as we all do, and wants to come home.

Speaker 1 He claims to have no memory of how he got onto space station or of anything from the last 44 years.

Speaker 1 He says his last memories are crossing into space on a rocket in 1957 and then waking up aboard Mir today. Kovlov paused to take a sip from a bottle of water resting on the podium.

Speaker 1 His hand was shaking so violently that he struggled to get the cap off. Something about the way he said this made me doubt his sincerity.

Speaker 1 So I went back and double-checked the recording and something strange stood out to me. Each time Ladovsky would answer a question, there were several moments of silence and static.

Speaker 1 And upon further review, I detected that he was keying and realizing his radio transmitter in rapid succession before speaking. He paused again, wiping his glasses on his shirt.

Speaker 1 I soon recognized this is Morse code, and well, here is what was transmitted. Screen above him changed to a white background with the following stark black text.
Translation of the Morse Morse code.

Speaker 1 The smiling ones are with me. The smiling ones are here.
Do not trust the smiling ones. Don't tell them you know.
It will hurt me if they know. It's the end of part one.

Speaker 1 Are you just looking?

Speaker 1 What?

Speaker 1 And I would eat my words and say that the smiling ones bet at the end made it really scary.

Speaker 1 Because before I was like, I don't know what the smiley ones title, but I don't know.

Speaker 1 What's got you in this mood? You're being stupid sarcastic right now. And I don't know what I'm saying.
I legitimately really like this. I don't believe you.
I like it a lot.

Speaker 1 He's doing the Morse code there. And

Speaker 1 that's a fun twist at the end. These are all gimmicks you wouldn't like.
I don't know what character you've adopted. Do you not like it? I'm enjoying it.
I am too. No, you're not.
This is

Speaker 1 when you enjoy things.

Speaker 1 When you enjoy things, you sit over there and you're like, oh, this rolls. Yeah, this is sick.
Yeah, it's not. You're not like,

Speaker 1 that was scary. That was really scary.
That was cool.

Speaker 1 I thought that this was good and I'm excited to see what happens next.

Speaker 1 Because I can't tell if the people doing Morse code are the smiley ones or not.

Speaker 1 Well, I think it's interesting. Or do you think that he's in a parallel universe that he's able to talk with us right now? Like it's static.
Like he's there, but he's not. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 Like he's still existing in an alternate timeline or something

Speaker 1 to me this sounds like gun to your head kind of thing like they're around him making him talk and answer questions, but he's trying to get a warning out. I think interesting

Speaker 1 This video is sponsored by our partners at factor fall is here between the kids being back in school and the days getting shorter your routine is getting busy plus the holidays are upon us and all that makes it hard to stay on top of your eating habits Thankfully Factor has got you covered factor powers your day sun up to sundown with nutritious breakfast or on-the-go lunches and premium dinners It's just two minutes you you can heat, eat, and enjoy.

Speaker 1 Each week you can choose from 65 different menu options and you are sure to find something you like. And now you can go to global with their introduction of Asia-inspired meals.

Speaker 1 Try bold flavors from China and Thailand or get their new Mediterranean diet options packed with protein and good-for-you fats.

Speaker 1 97% of customers say that Factor has helped with them live a healthier life. And with options like Calorie Smart, Keto, Protein Plus, and vegan, it's pretty easy to see why.

Speaker 1 And the best part of Factor is there's no prep work, no grocery lines, and virtually no cleanup.

Speaker 1 Eat smart at factor meals.com slash creepcast 50 off and use code creepcast 50 off to get 50% off your first box plus free breakfast for one year.

Speaker 1 That's code creepcast50 off at factor meals.com slash creepcast 50 off. Creepcast 50 off.
Creepcast 50 off. Creepcast 50 off.
Creepcast 50 off. 50% off your first box plus free breakfast for one year.

Speaker 1 Creepcast 50 off. Get delicious ready to eat meals delivered with Factor.
Creepcast 50 off. Offer only valid for new factor customers code qualifying auto-renewing service.

Speaker 1 Display URL and promo code on screen and just read. Outro, thank you to Factor for sponsoring the video to now back to the episode.
Creep cash 50% off. Creep cash 50% off.
Beat Creep550 off.

Speaker 1 I want to take a quick moment to thank today's sponsor, Ridge Wallet. That's because Ridge has some of the most durable and stylish wallets on the market.

Speaker 1 But now, Ridge has taken their game-changing wallet and made it even better. And they've done that with the new Ridge 2.0.

Speaker 1 Ridge 2.0 wallets are now 10% lighter, giving it the perfect balance of form and function. And plus, the wallets are more modular with improved cash straps and money clips.

Speaker 1 And the overall improved surface design gives it a sleek look. The wallet holds up to 12 cards, which I don't know a lot of people that need more than that.

Speaker 1 And you can get it however you want because the 2.0 comes in over 50 colors and designs, including pro sports and college teams. And whatever you choose, Ridge has their built-for-life warranty.

Speaker 1 So if your wallet's ever lost or stolen, they've got you covered. And for a limited time, Ridge is having a huge Black Friday sale.
So right now, you can head to Ridge.com to get up to 47% off.

Speaker 1 That's right, up to 47% off your Ridge purchase. After your purchase, they'll ask where you heard about them.
And if you remember to use code Creepcast, we'd certainly appreciate it.

Speaker 1 Thank you so much to Ridge for sponsoring the show. We are now back to the episode.
Part 2. I read those words and immediately felt ill.

Speaker 1 I made it to the lavatory just in time to vomit a thin gruel of cigarette butt flavored coffee into the sink.

Speaker 1 After washing my sick out of the basin and splashing my face with cold water, I looked into the mirror. My face was pale and haggard.
Large bags had formed under my bloodshot eyes.

Speaker 1 It was the face of a man who had been working for over 24 hours straight.

Speaker 1 I remember having, during that surreal moment, lost in reflection, a vague presentiment that things were about to get much worse and much stranger.

Speaker 1 If I had known just how horrifying the next 60 hours would be, I would have gladly accepted termination and incarceration.

Speaker 1 Been worth it, not to know what I know now.

Speaker 1 I left the bathroom and made my way back to my station. Through the glass window on the opposite side of the room, I could see a small group of directors arguing in Copdev's office.

Speaker 1 An uneasy quiet had settled over the mission control room, punctuated by mouse clicks and the clacking of keyboards. Each operator I passed avoided eye contact.

Speaker 1 either completely focused on the tasks they had been assigned, or doing an excellent job staring at the screen and faking it. Gossip and idle talk are strongly discouraged by the Russian space agency.

Speaker 1 When I arrived back at my terminal, I looked over to see Yakovlev hugging his elbows to his chest and staring vacantly into space.

Speaker 1 His chair had been pushed back from the desk and he reclined, stretching away from the radio transmitter resting there as if it were a snake coiled to strike. What did I miss?

Speaker 1 Yes, snapping him from his trance, he looked over at me through cloudy eyes. No more Morse code so far.
But Lodovsky has been pleading for rescue non-stop. He was really starting to get to me.

Speaker 1 I told him that we are currently discussing the best way to get him off mirror. Then I had to mute him.
There's seriously something off about that guy.

Speaker 1 Yeah, no kidding. They muted the transmission? I think they muted

Speaker 1 his transmission, maybe. Well, if it's his transmission, it's like you need to listen to his transmission.
I mean, what if he's very like, oh my gosh! And like,

Speaker 1 they're probably just freaking him out. He's probably just incessantly being like, okay, come get me.
Yeah. Get me.
That kind of thing. Yeah, Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 The door to Koptev's office was closed, but the argument inside had grown heated, and I could just make out a few words, all of them harsh.

Speaker 1 Through the glass, I could see Markov gesturing angrily and occasionally pounding a fist on the desk. Koptev sat calmly at his desk, hands clasped in front of him.

Speaker 1 So is this what you think they're discussing in there? How to get Lodovsky back to Earth? From what I can gather, this is precisely what Assistant Director Ivanov wants.

Speaker 1 I heard him yelling something about Lodovsky being a national treasure and a hero of the Soviet Union.

Speaker 1 He thinks immediate rescue is the only option, and that we can figure out who, what, and why later on. Once Lodovsky is safely back on solid ground.
This guy who's been up there 40 years?

Speaker 1 That's a hero. They even questioned, like, shouldn't he be, like, super old?

Speaker 1 Hmm.

Speaker 1 That's what I'd say. Shouldn't he be like 100? Shouldn't this guy be old and also have starved to death like, you know, 43 years ago? Shouldn't that guy not be alive? Yeah.

Speaker 1 I rolled my eyes, though I honestly honestly hadn't expected any other reaction from the assistant director. Ivanov had been a cosmonaut himself in the 80s, had even resided on Mir for a few months.

Speaker 1 He was a fiery and passionate man with very traditional values, the type to yearn in secret for a return to the greatness of the USSR.

Speaker 1 Now, close to retirement, he had been skipped for the job of director in favor of the younger and more level-headed Kopdev. Ivanov bitterly resented this fact.

Speaker 1 He must have seen this as an opportunity opportunity to upstage Copdev and as a possible propaganda victory.

Speaker 1 In Ivanov's mind, rescuing Ladovsky would open the door to the mysteries of the universe, and Russia would be the first to step through the vanguard into the unknown.

Speaker 1 I take it that Markov has other ideas. I asked.
The head of trafficking and communications was standing in the office now screaming and pointing at Ivanov, shaking with fury. Quite an understatement.

Speaker 1 I've never I never thought of Markov as a superstitious man, but he seems to think that there is something sinister and possibly supernatural going on up there.

Speaker 1 He's asked Koptev to cut off all communication with Mir and proceed with deorberding as planned.

Speaker 1 He wants to let the station burn with Ludovsky still on?

Speaker 1 Still on it? Cover this up like nothing happened?

Speaker 1 I asked. Mikovlev gave a solemn nod.
And what about Kopdev? Where does he stand? You know as well as I that the director is a cautious man.

Speaker 1 I think he is weighing out his options and will try to gather more information before making a decision.

Speaker 1 There is so much about this that cannot be rationally explained, but I think Kovtev believes Ludovsky has gone mad. Conversation was interrupted by Koftev poking his head out of his office.

Speaker 1 He spoke loudly so the entire room could hear. I want all personnel except Communications Department to put the hold on their current task.
Spend the next half hour researching the smiling ones.

Speaker 1 Scour government records, historical archives, the internet, and anywhere else you can think of for any reference to that phrase.

Speaker 1 Communications, I want your full attention to restoring our visual link to the space station. I want to see what's going on out there.
I will expect reports in 30 minutes.

Speaker 1 He shut the door and the arguing inside resumed.

Speaker 1 Kavlev and I made eye contact for a fleeting moment, then returned to our terminals and got to work.

Speaker 1 Half hour later, we were once again gathered in a semicircle with Koptev, Markov, and Ivanov standing in the middle beneath the central screen.

Speaker 1 Each department reported their findings, but all were variations of the same theme. There were no substantial mentions of the smiling ones to be found.

Speaker 1 I like how he steps out of the office and he's like, I need you guys to go to Google, you know, library. Everyone, log into Wi-Fi and use Ask Jeeves for smiling one.

Speaker 1 Remember, Wi-Fi password is Russia number one, but the number is in O and then period and the hashtag pound sign. Everyone go to Bing, turn safe search off.

Speaker 1 Type in smiling one, if not that, print out newest image. You know what I mean.

Speaker 1 You know what I mean.

Speaker 1 Coptev, clearly frustrated, turned to the communications department, and it fell to me to act as spokesperson. I stood up from my desk and faced the director.

Speaker 1 I could feel the eyes of every person in the room crawling over me. My left leg was shaking involuntary.
Sir, I have some good news as

Speaker 1 Mir and all cameras are now active.

Speaker 1 The strange news is that every camera on Mir seems to be blocked or covered by something. My guess would be black electrical tape.

Speaker 1 Koptev and Markov exchanged a look while Ivanov stared at the screen confused. After a few moments, he turned to me, his neck glowing crimson under his collar.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Excellent work, communications department. We will take that under advisement.
Anyone else have anything to report? said Director Koptov.

Speaker 1 A man from the life support department stood up and cleared his throat.

Speaker 1 Director, I've been going over the data for the life support systems and I'm running into some inconsistencies. First,

Speaker 1 though the station's internal clocks as 44 years have passed, it appears that the life support system

Speaker 1 remained deactivated the entire time. In fact, They were only reactivated the moment of Mir reappeared in low Earth orbit.

Speaker 1 Secondly, though the electron oxygen generator is activated and working as intended, there is something very strange about the numbers coming from the Vodkov carbon monoxide scrubbers.

Speaker 1 They basically aren't doing anything. There is no carbon dioxide in the air, only oxygen.

Speaker 1 Either there is either a malfunction in the Vodkov data collection system or whatever is up there isn't breathing. Markov finished his sentence, glaring at Koptev, his eyes full of fire.

Speaker 1 I don't like this, sir. Stop being so superstitious, Markov.
Ted Ivanov. You're like an old provincial peasant woman making the sign of the evil eye.
Pah!

Speaker 1 There clearly must be a malfunction in the unit. It's the only rational explanation.
Besides, a national hero is up there. He is alone and afraid, and not in his right mind.

Speaker 1 It is our duty to rescue him. It must be our first priority.
Opdev's face was blank and hard as stone. He gave each man a dead-eyed look, which silenced any further bickering.

Speaker 1 Men and women of Roscomos, it appears we have reached an impasse. None of us have any idea of what happened to Mir or how Lodovsky got aboard.

Speaker 1 I will not risk bringing this man back to Earth without first understanding what has happened to him. So, we have but one option left.

Speaker 1 We must speak to Lodovsky again and we must ask him directly, who are the smiley ones. I know the message requested we are not to bring it up, but I see no other choice.

Speaker 1 I must know what we are dealing with. Simply a deranged man who wants to come home or something else.

Speaker 1 Like, hey, what's the smiley ones? And he just gets like eviscerated.

Speaker 1 It's like, well, that was a bad idea. Well, that was probably kind of.
Well, we shouldn't have done that. My bad.

Speaker 1 Do you know what, guys? On me. Seriously, my bad.
He paused for a moment and looked around the room, eating the eyes of anyone brave enough to look up. Finally, he turned towards our station.

Speaker 1 Yokolov, you've already developed a rapport with Ludovsky, so I will ask you to continue speaking with him.

Speaker 1 I want the rest of you searching for clues to a possible explanation. You are free to chase down any leads you come across.
Now, let's get to work.

Speaker 1 Cosmonaut Ludovsky, this is Roscosmos Mission Control. How do you read? Over.
Anxiety and exhaustion had turned Yakovlev's face an ashy-gray color.

Speaker 1 As he held his headphone to his ears, I could tell he was fighting to keep shaking.

Speaker 1 Koptev, Markov, Ivanov, and the other directors were huddled behind his chair. I read loud and clear, Roscomos.
Good to hear your voice again.

Speaker 1 Please, tell me you have a rocket on the way to get me here. To get me.
I'm ready to feel soil under my feet again.

Speaker 1 His voice was calm and steady. Seemed in high spirits.
We're still working on that, Ludovsky. It's quite a complicated process and will take some time to organize.

Speaker 1 In the meantime, there are a few questions I'd like to ask you. There was no response but dead static.
Kavalev looked to Cop Dev, who nodded for him to continue.

Speaker 1 Kozmunat, I need you to tell me where you have been for the last 44 years. Bowski gave an exasperated sigh.

Speaker 1 Last thing I remember was escaping Earth's atmosphere on my rocket in 1957, and then waking up here today. There is nothing else.
Okay, cosmonaut.

Speaker 1 Then how about you help us better understand your situation by checking on the visual communication system?

Speaker 1 There seems to be something blocking the camera, and you c can you find it on the console in front of you and remove the obstruction?

Speaker 1 Several moments of silence followed before the radio crackled back to life.

Speaker 1 I like how the explanation's like, oh,

Speaker 1 you know me, I'm a boomer. We should not have put so many flashing lights.

Speaker 1 Like all the cameras are visibly taped up, and he's like, oh, I'm a cloud.

Speaker 1 Markov gave a derisive snort. We all knew that the camera was in the direct center of the terminal where Ludovsky sat.
Very clearly labeled and easy to find, even for someone from the 50s.

Speaker 1 Nikovlev looked again to the director, who nodded for him to continue. Nikovlev took a deep breath and keyed the mic.

Speaker 1 Who are the smiling ones?

Speaker 1 Instantly, the mission control room was filled with a shrill, inhuman screech, impossibly loud and high-pitched. It felt like a hot drill burrowing into both of my temples.

Speaker 1 Underneath the shriek was a continuous stream of rapid mechanical clicks, like a damaged hard drive trying to boot up. I immediately felt nauseous.

Speaker 1 I watched as Zhakovlev ripped the headphones from his head and the directors covered their ears. After 10 agonizing seconds, the line went silent.

Speaker 1 I still heard and felt the noise reverberating in my head and I rubbed my ears with the palms of my hands. What the hell was that? Screamed Markov, hands cupped over his ears.

Speaker 1 The radio cracked and sputtered, and then Ludovsky's voice returned, now high and panicky.

Speaker 1 He pleaded on the verge of tears. Calm down, cosmonaut.
I need you to identify the source of that noise. Senjakovlov was yelling like a deaf person.
Unknown.

Speaker 1 What noise? I don't hear anything on my end. There's nothing.
Just please get me out of here. Listen, Ludovsky, there is nothing to be afraid of.
We are trying to help you.

Speaker 1 We received the Morse code you sent. You need to help us understand what your message meant so that we can help you.

Speaker 1 Fucking dumbass.

Speaker 1 What was the secret message you tried to send?

Speaker 1 The thing you don't want anyone to hear. What was that about?

Speaker 1 I like how.

Speaker 1 I like how they're like, what about the smiling one?

Speaker 1 Like the loudest noise ever. And they're like, so so yeah, those the smiles.
That was weird. What about the smiling ones

Speaker 1 that was weird did you hear that and ladovsky's like

Speaker 1 no

Speaker 1 i don't what

Speaker 1 i'm i'm winking

Speaker 1 comrade i'm winking when yakovolev let go of the transmitter ladovsky's voice came screaming over the speakers now fraught with terror no no i have no idea how they know i didn't say anything I didn't send any message.

Speaker 1 I said it. I have no idea what they're talking about.
Please, you have to believe

Speaker 1 Now he was groaning. Oh, no.

Speaker 1 No more, please. Please, no more.

Speaker 1 The line went dead for several minutes. The directors looked around the room in silence, avoiding eye contact.
Finally, Yakovlev said, what we were all thinking.

Speaker 1 Is it just me? Or is this guy like a total pain in my ass?

Speaker 1 The actual line he says is pretty. Is it just me, or did it sound like he was talking to someone else?

Speaker 1 Wow. Incredible detective work from the company.
God, your intuition is amazing. Is it just me, or when he turned and said, I didn't hear that, and then said, No, no, I don't know how they know.
No.

Speaker 1 Someone there with him on the space station?

Speaker 1 Before anyone could answer, the radio clicked on and he was back.

Speaker 1 Perhaps once I have my feet back on the ground and some food in me, I'll remember more. Any word on my rescue mission?

Speaker 1 Buddy got turned into a stick puppet.

Speaker 1 They got their hand up him right now, just talking.

Speaker 1 But it's funny, is we never see it, which I will say, the smiling ones at the beginning were kind of like I see a lot of smiling faces that could be kind of cheesy, but the fact we don't see anything is fine.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Makes it more inventive.
But we don't see what's happening. He's like, no, no, I don't know.
Please, no more. We don't see it.
So for all we know, it could be like

Speaker 1 they've like got a little tiki bar and they're making him like dance like they pull

Speaker 1 this is what's on uh the space station with ludovsky

Speaker 1 that's just behind him at the chair

Speaker 1 that has to have a little astronaut helmet on of course of course and they put an astronaut helmet on and so he's got that and staying behind when when he heard like they make him pull up and they're bringing him to the dance floor he's like no no,

Speaker 1 it's been 44 years. Kovlev picked up the transmitter to respond, but Cop Dev grabbed his wrist and stopped him.
The static was interrupted by a series of long and short clicks.

Speaker 1 I grabbed for my pen and began to write down the Morse code message, which reads, do

Speaker 1 not

Speaker 1 let.

Speaker 1 But that was as far as I got. The message was cut off by the screeching of that same shrill, piercing tone, louder this time.

Speaker 1 The mechanical clicking was there again, but was now accompanied by a deep, wobbling bass note.

Speaker 1 The frequency of the wobble increased faster and faster like the spinning of a giant coin, the volume rising.

Speaker 1 The screech pierced through my brain like hot iron, and

Speaker 1 I could feel the bass in the pit of my stomach and all the way down into my testicles. It felt like I had been kicked there.
My stomach turned over and I could taste the bile rising in my throat.

Speaker 1 I looked around the room and found I was far from the only one experiencing this. Everyone was covering their ears.
Some had grabbed waste baskets to vomit in. Others leaned back in their chairs.

Speaker 1 Eyes rolled back in their skulls. I was vaguely aware of one other noise.
Somewhere in the blackness of space, Lodovsky was screaming. Lodovsky tried to say something like,

Speaker 1 Yeah, just decimated. Yeah.

Speaker 1 That's the end of part two.

Speaker 1 Now on to part three. I awoke with a thin, coppery taste in my mouth and a throbbing headache above each eye.
The signal must have cut off at some point, though I have no memory of this happening.

Speaker 1 For the briefest moment of bliss, I thought I was home in bed, safe and comfortable. My greatest worry, the inevitable cry of the alarm clock.
Then I rolled over and couldn't find my pillow.

Speaker 1 When I tried to look for it, I woke up and found myself face down on my desk. I hadn't slept in so very long.
I wanted so badly to close my eyes and drift away.

Speaker 1 To give me the beat, beat boys free my souls want to get lost in your rock and roll and drift away

Speaker 1 to pretend this wasn't happening but it was and self-deception would get me nowhere there's a job to be done by god i was going to do it what a fool i was should have stayed asleep I shook the cobwebs from my mind and rose from the desk, trying to ignore the piercing ring in my ears.

Speaker 1 Looking around, I could see other Roscosmos operators and engineers coming to similar predicaments.

Speaker 1 Some wiping vomit from their mouths with the back of their hands, others massaging their necks or temples. Is everyone okay? Is there anyone injured?

Speaker 1 Came the loud voice of Director Koptiv, clear but strained like an out-of-tune instrument. Scattered confirmations echoed throughout the room.

Speaker 1 I was about to attest my own well-being when I happened to glance over at Yakovlev and stopped short.

Speaker 1 His forehead resting on the keyboard in front of him and the headphones he'd been wearing to communicate with Lodovsky were still covering his ears.

Speaker 1 I could not immediately tell if he was breathing, but he definitely wasn't moving. I rushed to his side and peeled off the headphones.

Speaker 1 A thin stream of blood trickled from each of his ears, forming small pools on the desk. Tenderly, I lifted his head, cradling it in my hands and calling his name.

Speaker 1 His eyes were closed and blood dripped from his nostrils.

Speaker 1 After a few moments, his eyelashes fluttered and his eyes opened, but they were distant and opaque as if he didn't see me at all, as if he were in a dream state, off at some distant wonder.

Speaker 1 His face was blank, loose, and emotionless, except for his mouth, which was curled up into a large, toothy, and humorous grin. He didn't speak nor seemed to hear me at all.

Speaker 1 I screamed for a medic, but what I got were two intelligence agents in charcoal-colored suits. They lifted Yakovlev from the chair by his elbows and led him from the room.

Speaker 1 He wafted between them, grinning and dreamlike, in the the direction of the medical facility. It's the last time I would ever see him.

Speaker 1 With Yakovlev out of the picture, the task of manning the radio fell to me.

Speaker 1 Markov tried to make the burden upon himself, but Koptov was having none of it. I'm sorry, Markov.
I admired your tenacity, but we each have our own have our roles to play.

Speaker 1 And as a department head, your role is supervising our department members and providing advisement to the director. When Markov continued grumbling, Koptov turned to me.

Speaker 1 Will you serve your country and complete the assigned task with vigor and professionalism? Yes, I will. I replied automatically.
The product of decades of training.

Speaker 1 Even as I spoke these words, my brain was screaming. No, I won't.
Let me go. Leave me in peace.
But it was too far, too late for that. Turned back to Markov.

Speaker 1 Would you deny him the chance to serve Russia and fulfill his duty?

Speaker 1 No, I suppose I cannot. Grasped Markov, speaking of Koptev, but locking eyes with me.
He turned to follow Koptev.

Speaker 1 I swallowed hard and placed the headphones over my ears, but Markov turned back and snatched them off my head. No more headphones, said to Koptev.

Speaker 1 He can hear what the rest of us here on the overhead speakers well enough, and I won't lose another man in my department to whatever is up there.

Speaker 1 Koptev nodded his approval and added, Cut the audio feeds as well. I don't want to hear that noise or anything else from the cursed space station until we're good and ready for it.

Speaker 1 Ludovsky will just have to stay iced for a while until we clear a few things up.

Speaker 1 Could have kissed him for that. I was not ready for this shit.
Then the pair turned and walked off, continuing their rounds, checking for injuries among the operators.

Speaker 1 That's kind of cool that the guy that had headphones on just dies.

Speaker 1 He's smiling now. Yeah.
Well, smiling one. He has a humorless grin that almost feels like his face is just stretched.

Speaker 1 Yeah, like it's been pulled rather than it's kind of the you're actually frowning when you do it that way Because the top of your mouth going down That's closer. What if it was like the ABGN mouth?

Speaker 1 I love that. You just can't see any of his teeth ever, so he's just like.

Speaker 1 Did you like

Speaker 1 fucking diarrhea shit sandwich? Did you like ABGN or the Nostalgic Critic better? I've never watched any of them. I didn't have internet until I was in college, so I missed that whole wave of stuff.

Speaker 1 I watched Nostalgia Critic a lot.

Speaker 1 Which one's he?

Speaker 1 He would do movie reviews, but like

Speaker 1 it would always be gags about like he'd get really mad over like minute details and stuff like that. And it was, it was like more comedy.
Was he the one with the red tie? Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Doug Walker.

Speaker 1 He's also, what I like about him is like, he's still around.

Speaker 1 And a lot of those older guys have got like real butthurt about not being like as popular as they thought they would and stuff. But every time I see Doug, he's just like, he has a good humor about it.

Speaker 1 Like, on an episode of SpongeBob, they made fun of him. They had, they had a character wear the red tie, and like the joke was he lived in his mom's basement.

Speaker 1 He was like really upset over something that didn't matter. So Doug posted a video of him watching that and like, like, he was heartbroken.

Speaker 1 And he's like, he pulls out his phone and calls AVGN and goes, SpongeBob doesn't like you. Like, he can't process criticism about himself.
He's a good, he's a good sport about it. So

Speaker 1 hey, this episode is sponsored by Tushi. Tushi's luxury bidet that your bathroom has been missing.
Over 2 million butts love tushi, and yours will too. I it wets my asshole.
It makes it clean.

Speaker 1 This holiday season, give the gift of clean with one of tushy's premium bidets. Things can be pretty messy in our bathroom, and that's why I use tushi.

Speaker 1 We have them installed at the studio and in our bathrooms in my house. It's awesome.
Using clumps and clumps of toilet paper is gross and honestly pretty wasteful.

Speaker 1 People who have made the switch up to tushy use up to 80% 80% less toilet paper and with less toilet paper means less clogged toilets and less gross bathroom experiences.

Speaker 1 The other thing I really like about tushi is that it's really easy to use. It takes no time to install and no additional plumbing or power tools needed.

Speaker 1 Restore balance to your bathroom and get the luxury bidet everyone's talking about. Tushy.
Remember, a-hole is only a naughty word if you wipe.

Speaker 1 For a limited time, our listeners get 10% off their first bidet order when you use code Creepcast at checkout. That's 10% off your first bidet order at hellotushy.com with promo code creepcast.

Speaker 1 Thank you to Tushi for sponsoring this episode. Now back to the episode.
After confirming there were no other major injuries, Cop Dev appeared at the podium up front once more. The room fell silent.

Speaker 1 He began the greatest motivational speech I would ever bear witness to. It goes without saying that we are all experiencing something completely unique in our species history.

Speaker 1 It is in my personal opinion that we are in communication with some kind of undiscovered life form.

Speaker 1 If this is true, it will forever change our understanding of the universe and alter the future path of humanity.

Speaker 1 Whatever these smiling ones are, we can all attest to the fact that this is first contact. Yet that's really what's going on here, has been less benevolent than we might have hoped.

Speaker 1 Regardless, our job as scientists remains the same. Not to have opinions and beliefs, but to provide proof.
I have asked so much of you already, but now I must ask for more.

Speaker 1 We need to figure out what we are dealing with here. We need more information.
We need proof. But the fate of the human race may depend on it.
Room was silent.

Speaker 1 The atmosphere grabbed with the seriousness of the task at hand. I want the communications team to focus on analyzing that sound, but do not listen to a recording directly.

Speaker 1 We've all seen what that can cause. The rest of you, keep searching for any clues that might tell us who these smiling ones are,

Speaker 1 where they come from, or what they might want. It's about time we finally catch a break.
I put this in your capable hands. He smiled warmly.

Speaker 1 I'm counting counting on you, and I'm proud of every one of you. There's no other team in the world I'd rather be working with than the one I see before me here today.

Speaker 1 So, analyze we did.

Speaker 1 Breaking the noise down, searching for similarities in the sound wave patterns to no sounds from Earth, comparing the frequency and amplitude to mysterious recordings collected during various natural disasters and from the deep ocean in outer space.

Speaker 1 We worked for hours, all for naught. Nothing even came close.
The sound was completely alien, unlike anything anyone had ever heard or produced.

Speaker 1 It was more complex than anything we had even considered possible. The noise defied our very understanding of sound waves altogether.

Speaker 1 We had been affected by ultrasound and infrasound frequencies far beyond the range of what was previously thought possible, but we had all heard it and experienced the reaction.

Speaker 1 Denial was not an option. Others had better luck.

Speaker 1 Via confidential maneuvering by the Russian Foreign Intelligence Agency, we were able to obtain from the United States Space Surveillance Network higher quality satellite-based images of the exact moments Mir disappeared and reappeared.

Speaker 1 For once, the Yankee spying actually benefited Russia, and the results were stunning. From these new angles, we discovered something previously overlooked.

Speaker 1 At the exact instant of vanishment, something had appeared in the path of the space station which momentarily blocked out the dim light from distant stars in the background.

Speaker 1 The image showed nothing directly behind Mir except absolute blackness. The same thing occurred at reappearance.

Speaker 1 The images were taken at a high frame per second rate, and in a few of those frames, we could actually see the space station partially obstructed by this void, as if it were disappearing into whatever was there in the darkness, like a photo of a diver disappearing into a pool.

Speaker 1 Various hypotheses were tossed around, but all kept coming back to the same explanation. A theoretical phenomenon known as a wormhole, or something akin to it.

Speaker 1 Till this time, wormholes, tunnel-like structures connecting two separate points of space-time, though congruent with Einstein's general theory of relativity, had remained purely hypothetical.

Speaker 1 Now, here we sat, an entire room of physicists and scientists staring at possible evidence of an actual wormhole, excitement and terror bundled together into a peculiar knot of emotion.

Speaker 1 There are a few different theories on wormholes. Some believe they connect together two vastly distant points in space, perhaps billions of light years apart.

Speaker 1 Others propose a linkage of the same place in space at two different times.

Speaker 1 Still others advocate of the multiverse theory, propound the idea of wormholes connecting a point in our universe to another point in a completely alternate universe.

Speaker 1 Any of these seemed a possible explanation for our anomaly.

Speaker 1 Though the potential evidence was exhilarating, the fact that it had appeared in the exact same location twice in the span of 24 hours implied implied that the wormhole had been controlled or even manufactured by some kind of intelligence.

Speaker 1 A sinister prospect given the events that had transpired since Merged reappearance. There was one little problem with our wormhole theory, however.

Speaker 1 Unlike a black hole in which the event horizon, a boundary in space-time beyond which events cannot be observed, prevents light from escaping due to gravitational pull, a wormhole would not produce an event horizon.

Speaker 1 Peering through the mouth of a wormhole, more of a 3D sphere rather than a 2D hole, should reveal to us what is on the other side.

Speaker 1 For if matter can pass through, then so can light, though distorted by the curvature of space in the wormhole.

Speaker 1 All of our theoretical models visualize a wormhole as something similar to a bubble in space, with intense light radiating from inner rim of the mouth, quickly dimming as our view moves towards the center, and in the center, we should be able to see right through to the planet's stars or nebula on the other side.

Speaker 1 In our case, we saw nothing. No ring of light and certainly no stars.
Nothing but an empty field of pitch black. Three possible conclusions can be drawn from this.

Speaker 1 Either our understanding of wormholes is way off.

Speaker 1 What we're seeing in the images is not actually a wormhole, but something else altogether. Or it is a wormhole, but whatever universe it leads to is a vast empty void where not even light exists.

Speaker 1 Which,

Speaker 1 if you're looking at scientifically,

Speaker 1 like would have to be

Speaker 1 the most likely option if what you're looking at,

Speaker 1 again, assuming all this actually happened,

Speaker 1 would be the most likely option because the fact that anything exists, according to like scientific theory, is a super, super impossibly rare occurrence.

Speaker 1 that like you know big bang everything exists as it is so any other universe a wormhole would peer into would more than likely have nothing because nothing's far more likely than something, right?

Speaker 1 But I also don't know if models of the wormholes were that in tune in 1957. Maybe, yeah, it would be because Einstein was around and he theorized it.

Speaker 1 He also theorized that like black holes would be like

Speaker 1 a bending of light. Like

Speaker 1 the light would kind of bend in two forms around it.

Speaker 1 So it looks more like an axis rather than like a hole.

Speaker 1 And then when we got actual footage of black holes now, he was right. So the dude was pretty on his game.
Imagine in the 1940s being like, well, it would bend light in time to look like this.

Speaker 1 And then 100, almost 100 years later, they're like, yeah, yeah, he was right. Damn.
Yeah, that guy knew what he was talking about. He was smart.

Speaker 1 Man, that guy must have been an Einstein or something. Oh,

Speaker 1 okay.

Speaker 1 Real convenient that Einstein guy had no idea.

Speaker 1 He couldn't match the name.

Speaker 1 It's like that scene from the Sopranos when Chris is like, isn't it crazy that Lou Gehrig died of Lou Gehrig's disease?

Speaker 1 That's so good.

Speaker 1 I love Chrissy. My favorite Chris joke on that show is after

Speaker 1 Olivia dies, and him and Adriana are high as a kite at Tony's house, and no one will say anything nice about Olivia. And Chris is like,

Speaker 1 You know, they say that

Speaker 1 there's never two of the same people. Everybody's unique.
But how would they know? Because you'd have to

Speaker 1 get everyone on the planet to line up and look at all of them. And even then, there could be someone dead.
And he goes for five minutes. He's like, the point is.

Speaker 1 The Tony Sister goes, thank you, Chris.

Speaker 1 Thank you.

Speaker 1 The new revelation had produced an atmosphere of excitement in the mission control control room, and in Director Koptev especially.

Speaker 1 Here we few stood, unique among all humans living and past, perched upon the precipice of the utterly unknown.

Speaker 1 We were living out a scene from the pages of a science fiction novel, except it was reality, a surreal, terrifying, astonishing reality.

Speaker 1 May have been a bit of a stretch, but by this point, Koptev had thoroughly convinced himself, and in turn all of us, that we had encountered a newly discovered life form, extraterrestrial, extra-dimensional, or otherwise.

Speaker 1 We couldn't help but feel excitement. This was every astronomer's dream.
Any who said otherwise was either lying about their own dream or lying about being an astronomer.

Speaker 1 At the same time, it was a horrifying prospect for what it meant for us, for our planet, and especially what it meant for Ludovsky.

Speaker 1 To Koptev, we were on the threshold of a discovery which would alter the destiny of mankind. But among the other directors' opinions of how we should proceed still differed.

Speaker 1 They began to argue again, passionately and excitedly, not bothering this time to retreat to the confines of the office. This is our chance, yelled Assistant Director Ivanov, brown eyes bulging.

Speaker 1 To step out from under the shadow of the United States and take our rightful place as premier among the nations.

Speaker 1 His face was flush and beads of sweat stood out of his wrinkled brow. We'd be fools not to reach out and take it.
I propose we send

Speaker 1 No, the universe is ever known. We must do this for the benefit of all mankind and for the glory of Mother Russia.
So

Speaker 1 I like how Ivanov's so fired up about getting the guy back and stuff like that. And I understand that's kind of what's motivating what he's saying, like for Russia to be on top.

Speaker 1 He's near the end of his career, as mentioned.

Speaker 1 And I get all that. But it's also funny because, what are you going to do with wormhole travel?

Speaker 1 Maybe 200 years from now when we have tech that lets like people colonize space and live and travel to far off planets, but it's like right now we're going to go through and be like, yep,

Speaker 1 a whole lot of nothing. All right, I'm on my way back.
That's crazy.

Speaker 1 Total darkness. Wow.

Speaker 1 I sure hope this works the other way

Speaker 1 or else.

Speaker 1 But also, like,

Speaker 1 I realized I was wrong because Ladovsky's from the 1957, but this space crew's like, what, 2001, it said? 2002. So, yeah,

Speaker 1 I was off with that. They certainly would have wormhole theory.
Yeah. That's correct.
A few muffled agreements rose from the assembly.

Speaker 1 The room was filled with the quiet tension, almost palpable, like a steel wire ready to snap.

Speaker 1 All eyes turned to Markov, who sat with one leg crossed over the other and an ironic smile plastered to his face. Do you have anything to add, Markov? asked Koptiv.
Yes, Director.

Speaker 1 I still think it should be destroyed. Do you orbit the space station with Lodoski still on board? No.

Speaker 1 I don't think we can risk that. I think we should destroy it while it's still in orbit.
I'm not sure how yet. Maybe with a nuke, just to be certain.
So I'm 100% on Koptev's side.

Speaker 1 Like, just blow it up. Yeah.
Yeah. 100%.

Speaker 1 Immediately. Bro, I've been gone for 44 years, man.
We ain't missing you. Yeah.
Sorry.

Speaker 1 According to the records, you never died up there. You don't even exist.
Thank you for your assistance, comrade. Beep.
Yep.

Speaker 1 Yes, no, everything will be fine. Ship on way.

Speaker 1 A few surprised exclamations rose above the general murmur that followed his remark. Kovdev looked at him aghast.

Speaker 1 How many more people might be hurt, or worse, if we bring this thing back to Earth? We understand nothing about it, sir. Nothing.

Speaker 1 Ivanov may be right, and by capturing it, it may open a door to a whole new world of discovery. But once the door is opened, who knows what Mike walked through from the other side.

Speaker 1 The risk is too great. We may well be signing the desert certificate of the entire planet, and welcoming our own destruction.

Speaker 1 I say we destroy it immediately and remove that possibility. Whispered approvals rose from a few of the gathered.

Speaker 1 Cop Dev and Markov locked eyes, Markov's smile gone now, replaced by a look of iron determination.

Speaker 1 I understand your sentiment,

Speaker 1 Markov let out a frustrated grunt and crossed his arms. Copdev continued.
Besides, Ludovsky may still be alive up there. If there's still a chance to save him, however slim, we are obliged to try.

Speaker 1 I don't think you are.

Speaker 1 I don't think you have to try at all, actually. Again, on paper, that guy is dead.
He was never even up there. So...
Ivanov was beaming. So what?

Speaker 1 We go with Ivanov's plan and invite chaos onto our planet? No.

Speaker 1 We will still need more data to make a decision. We need to know who the smiling ones are.
Thank you for your input, gentlemen. But I believe I have a plan.

Speaker 1 The grin on Ivanov's face twisted into a sneer as he turned back to Koptev.

Speaker 1 And what might that be?

Speaker 1 We contact Lodovsky again, but this time we bluff. We tell him we have a Soyuz capsule prepared to launch.
We tell him rescue is on its way. Then we see how he reacts.

Speaker 1 Feel the color draining from my face. Scopdev turned to me.
Think you can handle that?

Speaker 1 Forced myself to nod. This is good.
I like the session here. There's a so I'm liking the story.
I enjoy it. I feel like there's a few

Speaker 1 times that like honestly, it being titled the Smiling Ones and like the word of the smiling ones use is one one of the story's biggest faults. Yeah.
Like just because it. It's too cheesy.

Speaker 1 It's too cheesy.

Speaker 1 It completely cheapens the story. Yeah, it cheapens the story.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I think you could have just literally been like, you could have just called it like they. It could have been them or it could have just been like,

Speaker 1 I don't know, the

Speaker 1 forgotten space station. Like just anything that was just like something that's just, or it could have just been called Mirror.
Yeah, well, I mean, like, in the story. Like, have the guy in the story.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. They are in here.

Speaker 1 I don't think you refer to him as anything

Speaker 1 i think it's just a thing of you are wondering the whole time is there actually someone there yeah you know and you can have him scream to somebody and be like i didn't tell them anything and you're like is he just crazy i don't know but here's the thing and this is kind of what we're like when we uh had the interview with uh dathan we kind of talked about patreon exclusive patreon exclusive the author of pen pal it's on it's on patreon it's on patreon listen to us to interview him on patreon if you want um we were talking about with him is like there's this crossroads between what i want to do and what does well Because there was if this was written around like 2014, 2016 area, stuff about like smiling people was killing.

Speaker 1 It was, it was like... How new is the story? I have no idea.

Speaker 1 But my point is like, if that could have been like a strategic move. Yeah, being like, oh, oh, I see what you're saying.
Where he's like, well, that's just the hot thing. That's what sells.

Speaker 1 That's what people want to read. And maybe that's part of the reason it's successful.
And like people are recommending it now because they read it from that. So could be some of that.

Speaker 1 But for the story, I feel like the smiling ones is a disservice to it. 100%.
Because if you take that out, it's a good story. Yeah, it's great.
I love the simple premise of just,

Speaker 1 you know, thing goes missing, it comes back, and now it's floating. And we have this dilemma of, do we help save somebody?

Speaker 1 Oh, wait, I feel like literally humanity might be at jeopardy if we let this thing back on Earth.

Speaker 1 Yeah. That's fun.
And I also like how...

Speaker 1 Ivanov is kind of set up as like he's desperate for something to happen. So he wants to bring this.
Very proud man. Yeah.
Yeah. It's also also like, that was the other thing.

Speaker 1 I feel like the story could trust itself a little bit more.

Speaker 1 Like, we have that dialogue between our protagonist and then the guy who died, who he was talking to, where they kind of have an explanation about the directors.

Speaker 1 Like, oh, Ivanov says this, Koptev's a man that believes this and stuff like that. But honestly, you don't need that because it's, that's present enough in their dialogue.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, also, just having a character say, someone Google the smiling ones is just that was rough. That was rough.
Yeah, I agree. but it looks like in 2018 this story

Speaker 1 uh was posted in those leave to one best original monster 2018 okay and then in 2020 he expanded it into a novel at so like kind of a novella length ebook okay so so i guess it is more a little bit more recent so 2018 First called the Smiling Ones.

Speaker 1 That's still around the time I think it was doing well, I would say. Yeah, because I was in high school coming out of high school.

Speaker 1 So, yeah, I think Smiling Ones probably helped it around that time. So,

Speaker 1 I'll give him some levity there. I say I give him some levity like I'm some grand jury on it.
But

Speaker 1 I will be merciful. Oh, thank you, Master Isaiah.

Speaker 1 Thank you. You're welcome, Darius.
No problem, Darius. Darius Pilgrim.
I sat at Yakovlev's former console with the radio transmitter in hand, stealing myself against the task which lay before me.

Speaker 1 Someone had cleaned up the bloodstains, thank God. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to continue.

Speaker 1 I could feel the huddle of directors hovering over my shoulder, staring daggers into my back and waiting breathlessly for me to begin. The room had fallen quiet once more.

Speaker 1 On the main screen above me, the white numbers and letters indicating timing and positioning of the mirror camera feeds glowed brilliant white against the inky darkness of the background.

Speaker 1 Took one final deep breath and, bracing myself for the worst, flipped the radio receiver to the on position.

Speaker 1 The hiss of static filled the room, a warm and comforting sound in comparison to that horrendous otherworldly screech. This is Roscomos Mission Control.
Attempting to reach Cosmonaut Lodovsky.

Speaker 1 Do you copy? Over.

Speaker 1 Nothing. Static.
I repeat. This is Roscomos Mission Control for Cosmonaut Lodovsky.
Do you read me, comrade?

Speaker 1 More static. More nothing.
Turned to Coptiff. Keep trying.

Speaker 1 He has to be there. Unless the Smiley ones stopped torturing him and finally decided to kill him.
But Markov bitterly. Cop dev opened his mouth to reply, and the radio crackled alive.

Speaker 1 Affirmative. I read your loud and clear mission control.
It has been quite a while. Welcome back.
Your voice is different. What happened to Yokovlev? He is indisposed at the moment.

Speaker 1 I'm sorry to hear that, Mission Control. But I hope you might have some good news for me.

Speaker 1 Roger, affirmative. I just got off this line with the head of the crew over at launch pad.
They've got the Soyuz rocket all lined up and ready to go. Should be headed your way within T-60 minutes.

Speaker 1 Arb,

Speaker 1 are you serious?

Speaker 1 Has a heart attack. We'll get the champagne on ice for you down here, comrade.
Just get yourself squared away and ready to go. What do you say? Are ready to come home?

Speaker 1 The hiss of silence returned. There was no reply.

Speaker 1 I bet I'm talking

Speaker 1 Finally, after what felt like at least a century, it was probably more like 45 seconds, Vdovsky's voice returned.

Speaker 1 Transmission cut out momentarily. Kopdev and Markov exchanged a glance.
I mean, I want to know how long before the capsule arrives.

Speaker 1 All said and done, probably just under two days before the docking process is complete. Possibly sooner, depending on where in orbit you are when we launch.

Speaker 1 Oh, well.

Speaker 1 Okay, you're really coming.

Speaker 1 His voice was thin and confused. We're really coming.
The line went dead once again for a minute, then two.

Speaker 1 Soft sound of static purring from the speakers. Then it roared back to life.
This time Ludovsky was shouting, but the transmission was quieter and muffled, as if he was turned away from the receiver.

Speaker 1 No, you can't do this. I won't let you do this! I don't care what you do to me, not anymore! My life is already over.
It's been over! I won't let you do this to anyone else!

Speaker 1 Followed by complete silence. No static this time.
Lodovsky was still keying the mic. I could hear the quiet hum of Mir's oxygen generators in the background.

Speaker 1 It went on for about 15 seconds, then Lodovsky's voice returned, louder and agitated with an edge of dark humor

Speaker 1 and now the voice was even louder ladowski was screaming directly into the microphone you fools you fools don't do it cancel the rocket ship don't send it leave me here you cannot let them you cannot let them get you hurt

Speaker 1 And then the sound began again, impossibly loud now, impossibly harsh. The white hot drill in my head turned back on, and it was screeching, piercing, burning, scrambling my brains to paste.

Speaker 1 I dropped the transmitter to cover my ears, but it seemed to have no effect.

Speaker 1 Suddenly, a hand shot out and snatched the transmitter from my desk, and the Koptev was shouting into it, screaming over the alien shrink and deep resonance of the bass. Who are they, Ludovsky?

Speaker 1 Who are the smiling ones? And Ludovsky screamed back through a wall of suffering. He screamed to be heard, but also to overcome the agony he was in.
His words were quick and panicked. No! Not who!

Speaker 1 What? They're parasites! They're the opposite of life! In the absence of life! They come from this other place! From the horrible other place!

Speaker 1 They want what we have! They've already taken it from so many! So, so many! And now they want ours!

Speaker 1 His voice was fading and gurgling, growing thick as if someone was pouring motor oil down his throat. He struggled through somehow and continued.

Speaker 1 Take them my way.

Speaker 1 Don't let them handle the orders.

Speaker 1 Don't let them come to Earth.

Speaker 1 Don't let them come to Earth.

Speaker 1 Markov grabbed me by the shoulder and shook violently. Cut the feed! Cut the goddamn feed!

Speaker 1 No! Howled Coptev, pushing Markov away. Not yet! We need more! Just a little more! Keyed the mic again.

Speaker 1 What do they look like, Lodovsky? What do they look like, damn it, I have to know!

Speaker 1 What the fuck do they look like? But Lodovsky had no words left. He was crying, screaming, howling in pain.

Speaker 1 The piercing screech grew higher, the bass lower, and the drill in my brain went into overdrive. It felt like my head was about to rip into two right in the middle of my face.

Speaker 1 Then Ludovsky answered without saying a thing.

Speaker 1 The blackness of the main screen at the front of the room was substituted for a maelstrom of color as the tape covering the camera was ripped away, revealing the most abhorrent scene my accursed eyes would ever fall upon.

Speaker 1 All right. So, for one, you're an excellent voice actor.
That was very cool. Good job.

Speaker 1 Also,

Speaker 1 that was a very cool segment. Yeah.
Of them screaming and him, like, trying to get through and that little like, they've taken it from so many.

Speaker 1 Like.

Speaker 1 It says a lot, but not too much, I think, especially when the guy's like, they've taken it from me. And it's like, okay, is that saying Ludovsky?

Speaker 1 Or is this something else that's like in the form of ladovsky these things are make are puppeting to make him try to so they can invade another planet or something i feel like a lot of people would have done something like everything's totally fine why don't you just come up here and help me already you know like getting like really low and creepy like oh that's creepy he you know that does that seems weird i like that they kind of took the route of him like just being like fuck it i'm already dead i'm dead yeah they're gonna kill me regardless i'm not gonna take more people with me that was a fun surprise i didn't expect that That was good.

Speaker 1 And then him not and him like with his final moments ripping off the tape. That's been covering up.
That's sick.

Speaker 1 The first thing I noticed was Ladovsky's face, the only familiar feature in the bizarre scene before me. He was young, blonde, and probably handsome once.

Speaker 1 Now his face was distorted, like a newspaper ink image stretched across silly putty.

Speaker 1 Black tendrils swarmed around the edges of his face, sticking to the skin, tugging at his ears, wrapping around strands of hair and pulling them backwards into the dark mass behind.

Speaker 1 He tried to speak, his mouth opening and closing like a dying fish, but the invading tendrils squirmed around his lips and snaked down his throat, and all that came out was a sickening gurgle.

Speaker 1 One orange-clad arm also protruded from the dark writhing mass, and his gloved hand gripped the radio transmitter.

Speaker 1 As I watched, a dozen black vines wormed their way around his wrist and hand, creeping like spilled liquid before tightening like sinew, peeling his fingers from the microphone off one by one till it floated freely in the microgravity of the space station.

Speaker 1 The piercing sound cut off abruptly, the hot drill in my brain shut off, and the mission control room was bathed in a terrible silence as we watched Ludovsky's arms submerge into darkness.

Speaker 1 So Lodovsky used his last minutes to unplug the mic. That's hard.
That goes hard. Unplug the mic and reveal what the thing was.
Yeah, that goes hard. What a G.

Speaker 1 His shifting eyes were the last thing I saw.

Speaker 1 Bulging brown irises filled with grim determination one moment, speakable horror the next, and then suddenly dead and glassy as he finally let go and surrendered to the void.

Speaker 1 Lodovsky disappeared, absorbed into the squirming darkness behind him.

Speaker 1 Nothing human left to hold my focus, I had no choice but to turn my attention to the rest of that macabre scene.

Speaker 1 The space Lodovsky had occupied just a moment ago was now filled with a grotesque and faceless monstrosity.

Speaker 1 It looked like a floating ball of liquid mercury, three feet wide and three feet tall, but blacker than the darkest night.

Speaker 1 Its surface seemed to constantly squirm and shift and it shimmered with rainbow iridescence, like an oil slick on a rain puddle.

Speaker 1 At least eight thick tentacle-like appendages extended from its central mass, each wrapped around computer terminals, door handles, ceiling hooks, and other equipment to keep itself in place in the station's microgravity.

Speaker 1 All over its surface, smaller tendrils appeared and disappeared, wiggling and curling in on themselves.

Speaker 1 Behind the creature that had once been Ludovsky loomed three three exact duplicates, each devoid of any discernible face.

Speaker 1 The background was a tangled mess of floating tentacles, weaving through one another and twisting around each other like spaghetti noodles, some attached to equipment in the room, others gripping the first creature as if laying hands upon the shoulders of a troubled friend.

Speaker 1 Suddenly, all four creatures moved as one, squirming swid-like around one another and spreading into a line across the capsule.

Speaker 1 With a jerk, their attention seemed to snap to the camera in the terminal. Though without faces, it was hard to tell for sure.

Speaker 1 The scene froze like that for a horrifying moment and I peeled my eyes from the screen.

Speaker 1 Ross Cosmos mission control room was still in silent, each person petrified in place like a statue, slack-jawed, with eyes locked on the main screen.

Speaker 1 I turned my attention back to the video feed, and now the core of each creature was bubbling. boiling, churning like the waters of a maelstrom.

Speaker 1 The center of each opened into a tiny white hole, which quickly grew in size. Expanding to cover most of the creatures' bodies.

Speaker 1 Then stretching and twisting, each of the holes transformed into a shape I recognized all too well. A smile.

Speaker 1 No eyes, no ears, no nose, no face, just enormous, empty, inhuman smiles. Then the noise was back.
This time, I wasn't hearing it, I was feeling it.

Speaker 1 It was inside of me, inside my head, and it was coming from them. From their smiles, it was coming from the smiling ones.

Speaker 1 I tried to look away, but I couldn't. My body felt completely paralyzed.
Their smiles were growing. Sound was rising, screeching in my head like the billion swarming wings of a demonic locust plague.

Speaker 1 The drill in my head switched back on, but now the torque was turned up to the highest setting and was joined by the thrum of a jackhammer breaking concrete.

Speaker 1 It felt like the two hemispheres of my brain were being torn apart. I could smell burning electrical wires and taste copper in my mouth.
In my peripheral vision, I saw a flurry of movement.

Speaker 1 The men and women around me, the pride of the Roscosmos State Corporation for Space Activities, were hurting themselves.

Speaker 1 Some slammed their faces into their desk over and over again until blood poured from broken noses and shattered mouths.

Speaker 1 Some picked up pens and pencils and violently stabbed themselves deep in the air canal, then pounded them further in with the palms of their hands.

Speaker 1 Others gouged their eyes or sawed at their wrists with any sharp object they could find. Then everything faded away until my entire world was a white hot ball of pain and I lost consciousness.

Speaker 1 My eyes snapped back open and I stared at the screen. The smiling ones were gone, and in their place were four small gray humanoid aliens with buggy black eyes.

Speaker 1 My head, I heard four distinct voices speaking together. Let us in.
My vision went dark and I was gone. Then I was back.

Speaker 1 Four giant bipedal lizards appeared on screen, oozing dark green slime like okay.

Speaker 1 They're switching forms.

Speaker 1 I would say the implications that Ludovsky wasn't, but no, he saved him at the end. So anyway.
Now four giant bipedal lizards appeared on screen, oozing dark green slime-like sweat.

Speaker 1 Black venom dripped from their jaws. Their reptilian eyes stared in my soul and their voices shrieked in my mind.
Let us in. The tenebris veil of an unconsciousness folded around me once again.

Speaker 1 Then I was back. Now four angelic beings floated on the screen, translucent but gleaming like the sun around the edges and draped in flowing gowns of a million impossible hues.

Speaker 1 Their beautiful voices sang a harmony in my head.

Speaker 2 Let us in.

Speaker 1 A scream of shadow fell upon me once more, and I was gone. Then I was back.
Now the inside of the space station was an alien forest filled with a swirling fog of green and gold.

Speaker 1 Through the mist emerged four giant mushrooms. Their uppery skin was a constantly shifting kaleidoscope of psychedelic color explosions.

Speaker 1 Each swayed and shivered in a primeval dance, followed to the beat of their own secret music. Four spongy voices sprouted in my brain.
Let us in.

Speaker 1 The black curtain fell once more, leaving me in darkness, eternal darkness. Infinite, perfect, timeless, egoless, uncaring darkness.
This was the void. This was their home.

Speaker 1 The universe, if nothing had ever existed, I'd always be here. I'd always be here.
Then I was back, but not to Ross Cosmos mission control. I was on Space Station Mir.

Speaker 1 The noise was gone. The molten javelin of pain in my head had disappeared.

Speaker 1 Four human figures stood before me, three men and one woman, dressed head to toe in the bright orange spacesuits of the early Soviet space program.

Speaker 1 Through their clear bubble helmets, I could see their countenances. Young, attractive, proud, full of vigor, smiling warmly.

Speaker 1 I recognized each face, recalling the pictures of the so-called lost cosmonauts that our recent research had turned up.

Speaker 1 Is that a bear trap for me?

Speaker 1 Because I said this is based on lost cosmonauts, but it's kind of just based on them. I would give it to you.

Speaker 1 Cards there hold it up.

Speaker 1 I feel special award.

Speaker 1 They were Andrei Mitkov, Sergei Shiborin, Maria Gromova, and the last, of course, was Alexei Ladovsky. Smiles on their faces remained.

Speaker 1 Their lips did not move, and I could hear their voices in my head, kind and composed. Let us in.
Please. Let us in.

Speaker 1 If it had been in my power, I think I would have. Then I watched as their smiles grew larger and larger, contorting their faces into massive inhuman grimaces.

Speaker 1 Skin of their lips and cheeks began to rip and tear away, revealing toothy, skeletal grins. Their hair fell out, their skin dripped away.
Worms crawled from their empty eye sockets.

Speaker 1 The glass of their helmets shattered. Their spacesuits deteriorated and fell away.
And the smiles just kept growing. I tried to scream, but my body was still paralyzed.

Speaker 1 I heard the bones in their jaws snap simultaneously and the smiles engulfed their entire face, flipping them inside out.

Speaker 1 I closed my eyes and in my mind I again heard their voices, now desperate and horrid, chanting. Let us in, let us in, let us in.
Rising into a horrible crescendo.

Speaker 1 When I opened my eyes, I was back in Roscosmos mission control. The writhing, tentacled abomination still filled the main screen.

Speaker 1 My mind was filled with a horrible cacophony as the four voices morphed into four million, screaming in a hundred alien languages, but somehow all saying the same thing. Let us in, let us in.

Speaker 1 People around me seemed to be in some kind of hysterical religious ecstasy, some laughing, some weeping, some howling like wolves and tearing their flesh to shreds with their teeth, others seizuring violently in their chairs.

Speaker 1 Let us in, let us in. Then I heard another voice, this one not in my head, but coming from a little ways behind me.
It was the strong, clear voice of Director Koptif crying out, Cut the feed!

Speaker 1 Cut the feed for the love of Mother Russia and everyone you hold sacred! Cut the goddamn feed! And I tried. My hand reached out for the button on the terminal, which would cut all contact with mirror.

Speaker 1 It cinched closer, closer, closer. Then it wrapped around a pin laying on the desk, pressed the button extending the tip, and turned it towards me.

Speaker 1 I watched in horror as my hand brought the pin slowly towards my face, aiming directly for my eyeball. I was powerless to stop it.

Speaker 1 My hand felt like it was under someone else's complete control and it moved closer, closer, closer until it was almost touching my cornea, filling my entire field of vision.

Speaker 1 Then something hit me hard in the side of the head. Stars danced and exploded before my eyes and I was falling to the floor in slow motion.

Speaker 1 Somewhere far above me, Markov had pounded the button on the terminal, which cut the video feed. Then he had an officer chair in his hand, smashing the computer terminal to pieces.

Speaker 1 The main screen went blank. The piercing screech and wobbling bass disappeared, replaced by the weeping and wailing of the injured and dying, begging for help.

Speaker 1 Markov stood hunched, breathing heavily, still holding the office chair. Koptev stood next to him, white as a ghost.

Speaker 1 Ivanov lay dead at his feet in a pool of blood, his throat torn out by his own fingernails. Markov grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet.
I blinked my eyes and surveyed the room.

Speaker 1 I was met by a scene of bloody carnage that looked more like a battlefield than a mission control room. Forgive me for hitting you, Markov whispered, and he straightened and turned to Koptev.

Speaker 1 Now will you believe me, Director? Now will you heed my advice? Koptev nodded sadly, his eyes watering. I'm sorry, Markov.
I should have listened. We shall proceed with your first idea.

Speaker 1 We de-orbit Mir as originally planned, and the world knows nothing. We burn them.
We burn them all and pray that is enough. And God help us if it isn't.

Speaker 1 March 23rd, 2001, the world watched in wonder as the space station Mir re-entered the Earth's atmosphere near Nadi, Fiji, and disintegrated over the South Pacific Ocean.

Speaker 1 An official statement from Roscosmos announced that Mir ceased to exist at 5.59 GMT.

Speaker 1 At the time, Mir was the largest spacecraft ever deorbited, and there were concerns that sizable pieces of debris, particularly from the docking assembly, gyrodynes, and external structure, could survive re-entry.

Speaker 1 Officials in New Zealand issued warnings to ships and aircraft in the South Pacific, and the Japanese government warned its residents to stay indoors during the 40-minute period when debris would most likely fall.

Speaker 1 Nothing came of it. Mir is thought to have burned up completely during atmospheric re-entry.
Though rumors and speculation abound, no significant debris of the wreckage of Mir were ever recovered.

Speaker 1 At least, not officially. And that is the end of the story.
And that's the end of the story. What a cool.
So it's based on a like, why did Russia deorbit an actual space station? That's really cool.

Speaker 1 That is cool. That is really sick.
I like that. It's a good detail.
Okay, so

Speaker 1 what did you think of the ending?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I feel kind of sad. I don't really like the whole smiling motif.
I think the whole like going crazy thing. I just like, I don't know.

Speaker 1 The idea of it, I mean, I like that you swing for the fences and you have this big thing.

Speaker 1 I just like wonder if there's just ever any way to ever approach these monsters in a different way that isn't just like, we all go crazy and we rip out our eyes and we're ripping out, we're ripping out our throat.

Speaker 1 Like, can the horror of just like,

Speaker 1 the inevitable,

Speaker 1 I guess, just like something,

Speaker 1 I don't know. So, I mean, like, it's Lovecraftian.
It's just like the horror of the unknown.

Speaker 1 Is that enough of this thing of like, instead of having it be like these floating things that are smiling, and now I see this alien forest, and I can hear all these alien languages?

Speaker 1 I just wonder, is it more...

Speaker 1 They always just kill you. Yeah, and it's just kill you versus a thing of like, is there something of like,

Speaker 1 I don't know. Even even like i like mixing like science with spiritual stuff of like

Speaker 1 taking your soul like oh shit like it's just like doing something that's different of like

Speaker 1 these weird aliens that exact exist out there are actually there because they collect souls and this is like how we perceive angels or just just something weird which that's a bad idea too i'm just saying that i don't we've i've seen that we've seen it are in event horizon the movie that kind of thing like to me i was honestly just more freaked out by the idea of, like,

Speaker 1 I guess, like, government officials making irrational decisions based off like pride and that kind of thing. And then also just the mystery of being like, I don't know what is on there.

Speaker 1 What is on there? You know what I mean? I think, I think at the end of part three, it was at its strongest when Lugdovsky was on the other end and he was like, don't, don't do it. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 But then, like, starting it, and it's like, oh, there's black tendrils, and he gets pulled in. I think after he pulls the tape, it loses me.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I almost wish it would have been a thing where it's like I pulled it.

Speaker 1 And I don't think that

Speaker 1 what if he starts to pull it, but then stops. I like the idea of him pulling it.

Speaker 1 I mean, like, for my, my, my subjective, like, my own opinion, it is always so much more effective in these scenarios to just be like, he pulled the tape, and like, what I saw was something crazy.

Speaker 1 And you just like leave it to where it's like, oh my God. Like,

Speaker 1 the more you describe something, the more you're talking yourself out of interest, which,

Speaker 1 which also makes it when you have a satisfying creature, it makes it that much better because you're like, that was awesome.

Speaker 1 But if you don't have that strong basis for something that just like, I mean, really

Speaker 1 fits that scene, to me, it just like, man, like we were going straight up and immediately in my mind, I was just like, and there it goes. Yeah.
You know, and I think everything before that, great.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Simple dynamic.
You have like all the, you know, people back and forth. You have a bit of a power struggle thing.

Speaker 1 The idea of like a guy from the 40s, and now you have this like rose-colored kind of goggle guy being like, oh my God, that's like a nation's hero or something. I think all that's cool.

Speaker 1 I'm glad they didn't go into the thing of like, we're up here. We always have been.

Speaker 1 But even like the let us in kind of thing, like even the high-pitched screech thing to me is scarier than just having, like, instead of having them say, like, let us in, let us in,

Speaker 1 just having like an

Speaker 1 ear-piercing screech where it's like, I don't know what that is. Yeah.
But just like, you can kind of sense it and it's fucking just disturbing. I don't know.
I kind of had the idea.

Speaker 1 I like the direction when the guy next to him at Mission Control died, and it says his face was in a joyless smile. And I thought the implication was like the face, like the skins being pulled back.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, oh, that's kind of clever because it's not actually a smile. It just looks kind of like a smile because of like the stretching that happens.
Like it's changing biology.

Speaker 1 So then I had the idea, what if the smiling ones that he's seen up there are like the other dead cosmonauts, like their bodies have been possessed by something?

Speaker 1 And even if that's the case, I don't want to see it, but that's just a cool idea I have. Yeah, I mean, it's okay.

Speaker 1 I just, I guess it's just, I don't, like to me, even something scary would be like when you fly a certain height in the air, you like you go in like that black void.

Speaker 1 You go into like, like, there is no, like, the space, the moon landing is all fake, whatever. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 And it's like, if you go certain high up you like integrate on what well what's pat i thought that it was other stuff it's like no we have no idea what's being like it could have been like a reflective dome or something

Speaker 1 or something yeah like to me that like that's an that's a more interesting thing of like just like making you question these kind of things not that you'd ever be like well that's bullshit but it's just the idea of being like what if that was the case and it's not and it's less about and i you know i love body horror is my favorite thing ever but in situations like this just you don't need,

Speaker 1 I don't think you need that. To me, I was like totally hooked with everything.
I started off the podcast being a bit goofy and stuff, but I did get, I mean, I was bought in over time.

Speaker 1 And it was unfortunate, too, because at first I was sitting there and like while we were reading it and it was really good.

Speaker 1 I was like, oh, God, people are going to make me eat my words with this fucking beginning thing of the smiling ones and stuff. Cause I was like, this is good.

Speaker 1 But then it just immediately, I was like, oh, there it is. It was like kind of like being like, this is a diaper.
And you're like, no, this is like a Chipotle burrito. Fuck, it's pretty good.

Speaker 1 And the opener, you're like, no, that's shit.

Speaker 1 this is actually a diaper i don't know why i thought this was a chipotle burrito or whatever well it's like like the reason i bring up me thinking about the that lost cosmonauts is in my head i'm like that's a cool idea but then the story's like no no no this is what it is and this is what it is and this is what it is and it kept describing it's like okay sorry i thought of i've

Speaker 1 had fun with you know the beginning of the episode i talked about that twilight zone episode the parallel

Speaker 1 awesome like if you guys were interested interested in this story, too, I would really recommend watching that episode. It's fucking great.

Speaker 1 Literally, the guy goes up and when he lands on Earth, it's like a different world.

Speaker 1 I forgot the whole hook to it, but basically, it's just a thing where it's just off.

Speaker 1 And it's like he's existing in this world. And it freaks him out so much that he's like, I want to go back up.

Speaker 1 I want you to fly back up. And like the world that he's in, they're not like evil, but they're like, whoa, why? It's just like, it's a little different.
It's very like him just being like,

Speaker 1 I mentally cannot stand being here kind of thing. Like, it's just, this is not where I'm supposed to be.
Very unsettling. I don't know.

Speaker 1 It's just very, it's, it's just something with everything that we ever say. And I always say, you know, simplicity is the king.
And it is.

Speaker 1 Like, the more you can just simplify something into just like a simple idea and you don't try to skew it out.

Speaker 1 Because that's another problem with this is that you have the cool thing of like, well, that's weird. Why did it re-enter?

Speaker 1 And then it's like, and then also there's like monsters and they like make you do existential. Like, and they smile at you.
If it just would have been

Speaker 1 just focus on the space station thing and don't include the other stuff. I think it would have been awesome.
And conversations between

Speaker 1 conversations and stuff was very cool. Yeah, I enjoyed that.

Speaker 1 And it was very well written. And that being said, it's not like this is a total flop or anything.
No, no, no. This is good.

Speaker 1 Obviously, people like it a lot. It's just very highly acclaimed.

Speaker 1 When doing these things, at least for me here, because I'm mainly, I guess, pretty, I guess, hard on it, but I would say that it's just, you get done reading it, you're into it, and then it's just that rug pull moment just feels so unsatisfying.

Speaker 1 So like it's just a kind of a bummer versus a lot of the stuff I think that like I'll think about it in a positive light, whatever.

Speaker 1 But is it something where I'm like, oh, I'd want to like revisit afterwards? Ludovsky being at the control panel and like talking to them and they can't see anything. That was awesome.

Speaker 1 I really enjoyed that. Yeah, like the tape and everything is just weird.
But it's also, but then it's like, okay, so then the weird holographic rainbow balls were like, cover up the camera.

Speaker 1 Put the electrical tape over the camera. You know, like, it's just shit like that.
Or they don't, they're, they're entire, they're the smartest beings that have existed in like whatever.

Speaker 1 They don't understand Morse code, but they understand 500 other alien languages, word, and they're all and like

Speaker 1 the they're so smart that they, he says they are the land without time, they're forever, and it, but I assume at the end when they were transforming every time he woke up, it's like all the different species they've over, yeah, definitely.

Speaker 1 It's just so it's like they've conquested galaxies, and then it's like we're the only species,

Speaker 1 we're definitely sending ships up and they're like okay go ahead now tell him to yeah

Speaker 1 to me that it's just uh don't even go there it does because you just that's the problem with a lot of sci-fi horror stuff that i don't like i and i'm not a huge sci-fi guy in general but it's like uh even that movie apollo 18.

Speaker 1 you ever see that movie apollo 18 yeah i fucking hate that movie such a cool setup of like astronauts gone wrong then they went missing whatever horrifying to be like oh yeah it was the 60s or whatever and now we're going up there and these are guys who just didn't make it.

Speaker 1 The idea of even just being on a spaceship that's like, you're going to crash and die is insane. But then it's like, yeah, there's moon rock aliens.
Yeah, the little bug things.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we can't let you come back to Earth. And it's like, oh, yep, the government blew it up.
It's just like, can it not just be a thing of them going there? And, you know, maybe you do see something.

Speaker 1 I guess I'm just saying, like, the aliens and stuff.

Speaker 1 This is already such a horrifying idea. You don't need the floating tentacle monsters to make it.
It's scary enough beforehand.

Speaker 1 What What if the entire thing was Lodovsky on the other end or someone who thinks they're Lodovsky or whatever?

Speaker 1 I mean, I thought where it was going for a bit, once it set up the wormholes of space and time, Lodovsky just passed through a wormhole from 1957 to 2001 or 2002, whenever it was.

Speaker 1 And he is just there and he's lost his mind. And he's just alone in there being like, okay, they say they want.
I mean, I say I want.

Speaker 1 And I thought to myself, like, that'd be crazy if this just an isolated guy out there.

Speaker 1 If you just have a crazed man, yeah whatever and then it's just a thing of like you'll say they do send oh my god we'll send this up somebody to help you he's up there it takes two days to get up there he docks he comes back they're like hey just seeing how it's going and it's just ladovsky who answers and you're like oh where's the other guy yeah yeah like that kind of thing where

Speaker 1 or even something of like a human body shit he's sick

Speaker 1 and now it's like okay well if we go like you can't go into you'll get sick and you can't bring it back down to earth so it's like this moral thing of him being like please i don't feel good like i think just simplify it well i mean even simple even Even the scene where, like, they said that the Americans saw the ship go up and there was something that covered the stars, right?

Speaker 1 For a second, I'm like, oh, maybe whatever's that, there's like a giant shape, like almost like a kraken in space. Like some, even then, it'd be an alien, so I wouldn't like it as much.

Speaker 1 But the idea of something like a ship floating through space or like a being the size of a ship that's like consuming things.

Speaker 1 I think there could have been all kinds of stuff. One of the scariest things I ever seen in my life, I'm not even joking.
Like legitimately, I cried after I saw it when I was a kid.

Speaker 1 At the end of Men in Black,

Speaker 1 when the Milky Way is in a fucking marble thing. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know how much that fucked me up?

Speaker 1 And I'm like, you could do something like that where it's like a puppet master thing. Yeah.
You know, like that within itself, that's fucking horrifying. Yeah.
And it's like, I don't,

Speaker 1 it's just the trope. It's just as soon as you do creepy smile.

Speaker 1 The creepy smile. The creepy smile killed it for me.
It's the shape of the smile. That's what I was doing.
It's floating around. They come around and they're smiling.
I'm like, you know what?

Speaker 1 I would have done? I would have have whipped up my c and beat off on the screen.

Speaker 1 I would have

Speaker 1 all over the fucking screen and been like, eat it. This is the reaction.
That's actually the scariest. That actually fucking scared the shit.
I did not see him walk up. And that scared me so bad.

Speaker 1 He has a fucking like red blanket around him. He looks like a little, like,

Speaker 1 he looks like a little Italian woman.

Speaker 1 That was a little. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 This is the ending, by the way, that you started by saying, eh. Now you're like, you know what I would have done? I would have whipped up.
I've got you fired up talking about it. I don't know.

Speaker 1 I mean, like, all in all, it's just, these are, I fuck, this is the, these are the stories that piss me off the most because it's done so well. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And then all of a sudden, the guy was like, I have this awesome story. What if it was like a flying like tendril guy and they're smiling? And then they say, let me in, and everyone dies.

Speaker 1 Everyone kills themselves. Yeah, it's just at the point where it's just all this creativity to the point to where it's, I, I don't, I, simple things can be just so much more effective.

Speaker 1 And like, actually, just like,

Speaker 1 God damn, that nerve the fuck on me. Like, I said, even the fucking men in black guy of like an alien with the marble, that like legitimately scared the fuck out of me when I was younger.

Speaker 1 So I don't know. All in all, you know, I, it's just,

Speaker 1 if I, I mean, not to be a dick, bit of let down.

Speaker 1 Everything you said then to be fair,

Speaker 1 to be fair, I did say it with my dick out on the screen. That's pretty rough.
If you sat there, though, and the guy was like trying to get in your head to let us in,

Speaker 1 Like floating around like this

Speaker 1 Are you freaked out by our a even if I was floating in the void

Speaker 1 What are you gonna do to a guy who's just like I'm

Speaker 1 floating there

Speaker 1 Lados you never yeah La doce you never thought to do this shit did he

Speaker 1 got a little lotion bottle

Speaker 1 Okay, all right. I like I like...

Speaker 1 I mean, what would the aliens do?

Speaker 1 Let us in. You come and get me.
I'm covered.

Speaker 1 I am Waffle House Hash Browns. I am smothered and covered, dude.

Speaker 1 Seriously, onions and cheese all over. That's what I am.
I also like the idea that maybe the... Shit yourself.

Speaker 1 I also like the idea that maybe like...

Speaker 1 All the dead, all the lost cosmonauts went into the wormhole. And then when Mir went in, they all found their way to it at like the same point in time.
So, like, maybe

Speaker 1 Ludovsky was the only one living up there with all the dead bodies of the other lost cosmonauts and he lost. But there's so many cool elements here.
And I just wasn't satisfied by the payoff.

Speaker 1 The more that I think about it, the more I'm like, you just could have like pissed or shit yourself. And it's like, what would they have done?

Speaker 1 Would they have pursued you? Let us in. And it's like, just diarrhea all in.
I mean, I don't think they had the idea to stab themselves. It's like they're being forced to by

Speaker 1 imagine.

Speaker 1 What did they gain out of that's what if i sat there and i was just like my

Speaker 1 rip my dad my dick off i just shove things up my ass i'm like okay

Speaker 1 what do i do now that that's crazy um

Speaker 1 you say what is the what is the end game that's like the one thing it's like the it reminds me of this in resident evil 3

Speaker 1 extinction the one of the dumbest movies of all time

Speaker 1 the world is a desert planet and yet umbrella is underground, being like, How do we control the world? It's gone.

Speaker 1 There's zombies on a desert planet. That's like what it's like.
We're intergalactic beings, and we exist in a place. And he's like, Hell, they exist in a time where there is no life.
What do you mean?

Speaker 1 You've came across how many thousands of aliens? Yeah, they clearly. What do you think? You seem to be doing pretty fucking good.

Speaker 1 They exist. You know what else? That's how all the alien species, it's like one.
You know what else? Apparently, this alien species that has conquered galaxies, nebulas of people, creatures, need

Speaker 1 this one astronaut to convince them to send a shuttle up. They can't just go down to the planet themselves.

Speaker 1 And also, even if that is the case, why then start screeching and making everyone on the ship on the mission control center kill themselves? How does that help them sending a shuttle up?

Speaker 1 Like, they're going to scream. Half them are going to die and the other other half are going to be like, they raise a point.
We should go get them. Take a metal rod, put it in your piss.

Speaker 1 Every time they screech, you're sounding. Maybe that's what the let us in is.
It's like, oh, we'll stop if you send a ship up.

Speaker 1 But if they're super smart, they can't do that if they all stab themselves in the eye. If you just looked at me, you're like, I like this.

Speaker 1 What would they do? It's like, eee! You're like, oh,

Speaker 1 well, I think it's supposed to make you kill yourself. Like, it compels you to kill yourself.
I don't think they were doing it to relieve the pressure. It's like...
No, no, no.

Speaker 1 I thought they did the streets and thing because it was like torturous. No, no, no.
Because remember, he's reaching to turn it off and his hand grabs a pin and he's like resisting it. Oh, fuck.

Speaker 1 I put a big pin in my eye with my gun.

Speaker 1 The point is... I'm just saying, can you imagine the alien being like, he's stabbing his eye, but he's still gone.
Okay,

Speaker 1 the point is,

Speaker 1 their plan didn't make a lot of sense.

Speaker 1 Whatever. I don't...
I was about to say, I don't want to go too hard at the ending, but we have gone so hard on the ending.

Speaker 1 Look, it's the reason I'm fired up is because it was good, and I wasn't satisfied by the way it was. Yeah.

Speaker 1 There's never, there's never any point, Isaiah, that I should come to the conclusion that you should beat the monster by beating him.

Speaker 1 Okay, so Darius, I feel like you've raised that as a potential strategy in multiple stories we've read. I don't think, I think, I don't think I've ever said stick a metal rod up your

Speaker 1 hypish thing or sounding of words by the idea like you, you pushing some kind of stuff. And that's a flaw.
Then that's a flaw of the story. If my conclusion comes that I can beat your system,

Speaker 1 you present some sexually adverse scenario at the end of a story.

Speaker 1 Then that's an issue. Because stories I do like, you couldn't beat it that way.

Speaker 1 Okay. My point is,

Speaker 1 I

Speaker 1 that there was good stuff here from the author.

Speaker 1 There was a lot of good writing, prose.

Speaker 1 I would be interested to see what they do with other stories. Because if that ending had kind of ended at part three, Stellar.
I really liked it. but

Speaker 1 yeah it didn't it didn't

Speaker 1 so um

Speaker 1 uh thanks for listening uh if you're listening on the audio platforms like Spotify and Apple Podcasts hope you gave us a good rating I'm sure we deserved it on this one uh and then and then the uh and also hey patrons thanks you also forgot to do an intro oh yeah that's right that's a long weekend long week man long fucking week or at least get a long week break on that one

Speaker 1 long week

Speaker 1 Nick's not giving me anything.

Speaker 1 Looks like he's smelling his own fart over there.

Speaker 1 Thanks to you, patrons. We appreciate you.
And also, if you haven't signed up to the patron yet, we do have an interview with Dathan Auerbach coming out soon.

Speaker 1 I think it's author out by the time this up. So it might already be out, but it is the author of the pen pal.

Speaker 1 Author of pin pal. What?

Speaker 1 Just everything you're saying is wrong in some way.

Speaker 1 Just in little ways, something you're saying is incorrect every time. We have an interview with him.
It was fun. It was much cleaner than this.

Speaker 1 If you're in your car right now, listening to this, and you're still just having both hands on the steering wheel,

Speaker 1 I want you to really wonder why didn't you click off or turn it down or turn it off?

Speaker 1 Even now, as you still don't click off, it's still going. Dude, you need to click off.
Click off!