[Ambiguous tension ambience]

Narrator 2: (Unidentified Speaker) “Can I help you find anything, sir?”

[Phineas exclaims in surprise. The tension ambience is abruptly replaced by the sound of small items clattering and tinny music in the background.]

Narrator 3: Phineas is startled out of his shopping reverie by a morose shop assistant.

Narrator 1: He almost drops the items he’s holding. A tube of concealer goes skittering off across the shop floor and the employee helpfully picks it up for him.

Narrator 2: (Shop Assistant) “Mmm. Not really your shade.”

Narrator 3: Phineas is in an odd little corner store, here on a semi-residential boulevard of the Highest Light.

Narrator 2: A quiet part of the city, away from its glamorous, bustling center. The shop is weirdly picked over. There are some dried fern jerky sachets hanging there from a rack —

Narrator 3: Lightly salted.

Narrator 2: — and the makeup selection is not ideal, but it’s pretty quiet.

Narrator 1: There are no other shoppers, and most importantly, there are no notaries anywhere to be seen.

Narrator 3: Phineas completes his perusal and makes his way over to the checkout counter.

Narrator 1: He dumps his little armful of crap onto the counter here, and the shop associate rings it up for him.

Narrator 2: The small talk is stunted and awkward as Phineas checks out.

Narrator 3: (Phineas) “Weird weather we’re having.”

Narrator 2: (Shop Assistant) “Yeah.”

Narrator 3: He’s got a selection of cheap makeup, some snacks. There’s an anti-inflammatory unscreen ointment there to try and make his purchase seem like a regular assortment.

Narrator 2: He’s hunched back into his shoulders, trying his best to hide behind his new beard and his hood. Luckily, this shop attendant does not seem to give a shit. They seemed tired, overworked, and honestly kind of depressed.

Narrator 3: While the small talk remains halted, he gazes at a rack of magazines there by the checkout.

Narrator 2: Miscellaneous headlines ranging from “Economy still bad!” to “Valor transactions stuck at standstill!”

Narrator 3: There’s another that says “Introducing Tripotentiary Weepe!”

Narrator 2: [noise of disgust]

Narrator 1: “10 best things that Spahr did before he was fired!”

Narrator 2: “Puzzles for you and your grandma!” They’ve got something for everyone here.

Narrator 1: “Kozma Laszlo sells Midst!” She’s got her photo there on the cover.

Narrator 2: A “Midst shares sold here!” sign is stuck behind some mops in the back corner of the shop, ripped at the edges as though it had been hastily torn down. (Shop Assistant) “Yeah, so, because of the Valor freeze, I have to take your information manually and they SAY it’ll get processed in four to six weeks, so… yeah…”

Narrator 1: The shopkeeper laboriously records a fake name from Phineas, takes his account information that he shares on a little notepad and shoves the receipt down on a spike crammed with many, many other receipts, presumably to be processed eventually.

Narrator 2: (Shop Assistant) “Do you need a bag? Thank you for shopping with us.”

Narrator 1: And Phineas is out the door, off into the city with his new wares.

[Door opening. The shop ambience gives way to the bustle of a city street.]

Narrator 3: Clutching his motley collection close to his chest, he passes through some of these, a little bit more claustrophobic side streets, almost like alleys, here in the Highest Light.

Narrator 2: It’s raining. The storm has arrived and has fully engulfed the city.

Narrator 1: Dense cumulus clouds smother the Highest Light today, restricting views from the glassy promenades around Phineas, obscuring the usual glimmering vistas outside with a luminous damp fog.

Narrator 3: For the Highest Light, this is considered “dark.”

Narrator 2: Dark in heavy quotation marks here. Rain gushes down glass windows enclosing the city streets, and filtered rainwater cascades from interior fountains, water features. A cool, misty, filtered wind blows upon Phineas as he furtively works his way through these weird streets back to his apartment.

Narrator 3: A lot of the shops he passes have signs that say “Closed until further notice,” or are just completely empty.

Narrator 2: Normally bustling restaurants are barely occupied or entirely vacant.

Narrator 1: The few places that remain open have a few people here and there, gathered under awnings and by doorways, speaking urgently in hushed tones.

Narrator 2: Fomenting, one could even think.

Narrator 1: Who can say?

Narrator 2: Phineas feels like he doesn’t know where he is anymore. This city is unrecognizable. So much has changed here so fast. He can’t believe everything he’s heard in the news. Spahr fired? Moc Weepe, that creepy dude from Midst, is now in charge of the whole Trust and we’re calling him the Tri-potentate or whatever? What the fuck? What is even happening here?

Narrator 1: He passes by yet another of those innumerable wanted posters for Clara Mire, alias “Lark,” as he turns the corner into his old residential compound. The posters are all over the place. Yikes.

Narrator 3: He wasn’t sure he’d be able to even get back into his apartment, or if they would’ve reassigned it to someone else while he was away, but when he and Lark made their sneaky, surreptitious way here yesterday, he still found his spare key hidden under that ornamental potted plant.

Narrator 2: Sitting quite dead in the hallway.

Narrator 3: And it still fit the lock. The place was just as he left it. Just as crummy then as it is now, and well, he unlocks the door again, now…

[Door sliding open]

Narrator 2: And finds Lark, holding a kitchen shear at his face, halfway through a haircut, looking wild. (Lark) “You’re alone?”

Narrator 3: (Phineas) “Of course! I told you, I’m not going to turn you in!”

Narrator 2: She shoulders him aside roughly, pokes her head out into the hallway, glancing up and down for backup, for Company. (Lark) “Hmmph.”

Narrator 1: There are none to be seen.

Narrator 2: She seems almost MAD to find that Phineas hasn’t betrayed her yet.

Narrator 3: Phineas pulls the door shut behind her, closing them both into his crummy apartment. It is so weird to have Lark here.

[It’s quiet inside, with the sound of the rain drumming on the window.]

Narrator 2: At least it’s marginally more comfortable than sharing a mail car with her.

Narrator 1: They haven’t talked very much yet. Priority number one has been figuring out how to disguise themselves.

Narrator 2: Lark wasted no time and displayed no sentimentality whatsoever in deciding to cut all of her long hair off. But there’s still her whole scar to be dealt with, and her face plastered on every street corner.

Narrator 3: (Phineas) “Lark, why don’t you wash your face? I got some makeup here. I’m going to set it up and we can get at it.”

Narrator 2: He posts up at a shitty little card table in his living room — well, it’s not really a living room, it’s sort of the one room that he has, it’s like a studio — next to a rain-streaked window overlooking a neon-light-studded street below.

Narrator 1: The view is kind of Blade Runner-y, but it’s during the day.

Narrator 2: If you can imagine such a thing. Lark is on her way back to the bathroom, but she pauses, glances back at him. (Lark) “Why do you live here? This is terrible. Weren’t you like number two boss Consector?”

Narrator 3: (Phineas) “Um… I guess I never had enough Valor to get a better spot? Also, getting anything fancier than this would’ve cost more than I really had or wanted to spend since I was trying to get up to zero. The Highest Light is expensive, in case you couldn’t tell? A normal one-bedroom these days is going for… anyway, it’s bad. It’s all about location.”

Narrator 2: Lark returns to the bathroom to complete her haircut, shuts herself in for some privacy. [The sound of scissors snipping through hair.] Her grim reflection looks back at her from the mirror, her blackened scar curling up over her cheek. She examines it warily — her left hand, the dendritic darkness on her arm and neck — and finds herself reflecting on the Grandmother’s offer to treat it, to halt it, and the Grandmother’s warnings about what would happen if she didn’t.

Narrator 3: The scar is growing, the infection accelerating. Lark can feel it inside of her, a gnawing, a calling.

Narrator 2: A point of no return somewhere on the horizon, creeping toward her.

Narrator 1: The spiderweb is reaching for her.

Narrator 2: Entangling her. She reaches up to touch her face to examine the scar, charcoal fingers grazing fold-riddled cheekbone. Maybe she SHOULD accept the treatment and reject the Fold. Maybe she should.

[Mysterious indistinct whispering. A rushing, flowing, sizzling sound grows louder.]

Narrator 1: Maybe she should.

Narrator 3: Maybe…

Narrator 2: Like water freezing over, or an icy rime coating a branch, a thin vein of opalescent white suddenly begins to creep through the scar on her face where her fingers rest.

Narrator 3: There is a deadness, a deafness, a stifling silence that consumes her mind as the spiderweb begins to dull.

[The flowing sound thins to a trickle, slows, stops. A high-pitched tinnitus-like ringing. Lark breathes heavily. Complete silence.]

Narrator 1: With a bang, she drops the scissors, heart pounding, gasping.

Narrator 2: She hears a call from the other room.

Narrator 3: (Phineas) “Lark?”

Narrator 2: She grips the edge of the sink, breathing heavily, her scar normal again, no opalescence to be seen, the dullness retreating, the sizzle of the spiderweb rushing back in like a dam bursting. But before her eyes, new black tendrils of scar stretching and curling, consuming even more of her cheek. It slows. It stops. She studies herself on the sink, breathing hard as the sensation stabilizes. What the hell?

Narrator 1: Whatever that was, she does not want to try that again.

Narrator 3: Phineas knocks on the door. (Phineas) “Lark? You okay?”

Narrator 2: She opens the door. (Lark) “Fine. Dropped the shears.”

Narrator 1: Lark, with her hair now shorn, cropped close to the sides of her head, joins Phineas at the small table by the window.

Narrator 2: Phineas has set up a couple of small mirrors there on the table, one facing each of them so they can work on their disguises.

Narrator 1: Okay, makeup time. How do you do this? She unscrews some of… this, whatever this is.

Narrator 2: Smears it onto her cheek.

Narrator 1: Starts face-painting herself.

Narrator 2: That’s how it works, right?

Narrator 3: She’s clearly never touched makeup before. She’s doing an awful job.

Narrator 2: Phineas is TRYING to let her do her own thing, not interfere, not micromanage, but… this is like watching a train wreck. He can’t let this go on.

Narrator 1: Oh no.

Narrator 3: (Phineas) “You’re using, uh, ah… Lark, may I? Uh.” And he reaches over with a sponge to help apply some foundation to Lark’s face, some setting powder.

Narrator 2: Surprisingly, she lets him.

Narrator 3: Between the makeup and the short hair, it’s starting to help. (Phineas) “Lark, let’s try something a little bit different. We want you to look NOT like the poster, so, try this — this is how they taught us for, uh, how to behave at like, Company functions, um…” He stands up straight, he puts on a grin, puts his hands on his waist demonstratively.

Narrator 2: She just glares at him, looking more like her poster than ever.

Narrator 3: (Phineas) “Take it as a suggestion.”

Narrator 1: She looks so furious. She’s just scowling at him. Also, her scar is… wait a second, is that — is it…?

Narrator 2: Is it just his imagination, or has it grown? Sure looks like it has. Up close and personal, applying her makeup like this, he can’t HELP but notice.

Narrator 3: (Phineas) “Lark, is this… scar getting… bigger?”

Narrator 2: She meets this with surly silence, clearly resistant to giving him any information about herself that he doesn’t already have.

Narrator 3: Phineas sighs. (Phineas) “Lark, look. I know you don’t like it, but we only have each other right now. You are the most wanted person in the cosmos, and the ONLY reason I’m also not on a poster right now is because they think I’m DEAD. Just being NEAR you puts me in more trouble. Look, I went down to the corner store, I made it back, without turning you in. We BOTH came here to help Sherman. Can’t we trust each other, just a little bit?”

Narrator 2: Lark shoves Phineas’s hand away from her face. (Lark) “The only thing I trust is that up until recently, you WERE the Trust. I guess I’m not totally convinced by your sudden change of heart. We both know I’m your ticket to getting back everything you lost and more. Don’t you want to change out this crappy apartment for a mansion? Don’t you want to trade in your black bead you’re still wearing for a mountain of Valor? What exactly is stopping you?”

Narrator 3: She glances at his abacus and then back up at him.

Narrator 2: What IS stopping him?

Narrator 3: Ooh, story time. Phineas sets down a makeup brush and lets his eye wander out the window, onto the neon-lit street below. (Phineas) “I haven’t always been a Trustee. My first memories are from the Delta, this awful place at the end of the cosmos. And it was there that I got rescued. Jonas Spahr had come down, some junior Adsecla mission. That was when I first heard what the Trust even WAS. They brought me here, and placed me with the Family, this, like, child-fostering organization for Unlifts. They were kind, they were nice enough, but… at the end of every day, you’d get to see a bill. Start you off young, racking up Caenum, even as a kid. It was affected by all kinds of things: how much you ate, how well you got along with the other kids, what kinds of questions you asked, and how well you followed instructions. But the biggest debt of all was already on your account before you even got there… because the Trust saved your life.”

Narrator 2: Lark is watching him quietly, listening.

Narrator 3: (Phineas) “They were always trying to find out what you were good at, so they could tell you what to DO with that life, to repay that debt. Endless surveys, placement exams, asking ‘What are your strengths’ and ‘What do you want to be,’ and… I guess I just got fixated on the Company because they were the thing that pulled me out of the worst place imaginable.”

Narrator 1: He traces a single raindrop coursing down his window pane.

Narrator 3: (Phineas) “My next steps were always assigned. Doing this for Valor, doing that for a reward, to prove that I could handle the job, the office that they’d bestowed upon me. But… that led me to beating up Sherman… out of… desperation? To prove myself to…”

Narrator 2: He almost says “to Spahr,” but instead lets it hang.

Narrator 1: Phineas looks Lark in the eye, unwavering for once.

Narrator 3: (Phineas) “Why did YOU… kill Maximilian Loxlee?”

[distant thunder]

Narrator 1: Mmm. Here it comes.

Narrator 2: (Lark) “I hated him. He had…anger issues.”

Narrator 1: A pointed glare at Phineas.

Narrator 3: He accepts the jab, but it’s not a real answer. He continues to watch her levelly, waiting.

Narrator 2: Lark is realizing that telling Phineas the truth… it can’t possibly make things worse, can it? What is he going to do, turn her in HARDER? If anything, maybe she can make him understand. He was right that they only have each other right now. If he’s really telling her the truth, if he’s ACTUALLY trying to change and leave all this Trust stuff behind, then… maybe telling him her side of things will only improve her chances of surviving. But it’s hard, she’s never talked about this to ANYONE.

Narrator 1: She takes a deep breath.

Narrator 2: (Lark) “Maximilian Loxlee… murdered my mom.”

Narrator 3: Phineas stares, eyes widening.

Narrator 2: (Lark) “He didn’t even know I was there, but I saw the whole thing. I was thirteen.”

Narrator 1: Phineas can’t believe this is happening.

Narrator 3: IS this really happening?

Narrator 1: Maybe this is a strange dream.

Narrator 3: Trustees everywhere would DIE for this story. Hearing this now is on par with learning what really happened to Amelia Earhart, putting to rest every last Kennedy conspiracy, and conclusively identifying the Zodiac Killer. Calling this kitchenette conversation “historic” is an understatement.

Narrator 2: Lark continues to speak, staring off into the middle distance in a kind of detached, disassociated way. It’s the only way she can get this out. (Lark) “He was a regular visitor to the manufacturing islet. He liked to strut around and watch the assembly lines, the fuse braiding stations, the glass blowers. He really liked to visit testing, though. My mom and I worked in testing. It was this big, dark warehouse with no windows. We had these huge vats of Fold isolate for checking the lightbulbs before they shipped out. We’d lower them in on racks, switch ’em on. If there were tearrors, we’d send them back, if not, we’d clear them for shipping. Whenever Mr. Loxlee showed up, he’d send everyone else away except my mom. Sometimes I’d sneak up on the catwalk above the testing vats and watch them, but most of the time I was happy to get out of there. Mr. Loxlee… scared me. He scared most of us there. He loved talking to my mom though. That’s the real reason he came to visit testing so much: just to talk to her.”

Narrator 1: She’s fiddling with her little divination bag as she’s telling this story, turning it in her blackened fingertips with her left hand.

Narrator 3: Phineas is getting kind of a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. (Phineas) “What did they talk about?”

Narrator 2: Lark shrugs. (Lark) “The future. HIS future. My mom kind of… knew things. Mr. Loxlee would always ask her about big business decisions and stuff, get her advice on personal problems, sometimes. Any big choices he had to make. I heard him call her his ‘secret weapon’ one time.”

Narrator 1: Lark does NOT mention how Mr. Loxlee had smiled as he said that, and how he had touched her mother’s cheek.

Narrator 2: (Lark) “One time he came to ask her about something, and he… did not like… whatever she had to say. I couldn’t hear them up on the catwalk. The vats were really boiling that day; a batch of bad lightbulbs. [Distant bubbling sound fades in.] But I could see them, and I watched Mr. Loxlee… get mad. Really mad. He was so much bigger than her. I was so afraid he’d look up, but he didn’t. [Bubbling intensifies, drowning out all other sound. It reaches a crescendo and then fades.] Afterwards, he picked up her body and put her in one of the vats and lowered a rack on top of her so she’d go under. While he was doing that, I crawled over to this Shadowbox, this huge type of lightbulb, hanging from the catwalk above where he was standing, and I… made it fall. It hit him, and glass went everywhere, and he fell down, but I could see he was still moving. So I slid down the ladder, I picked up the heat sink, and I hit him again. I hit him, and I hit him, and I hit him, until he stopped moving. I knew if I didn’t do it right, he would get up and he would kill me, so I had to make sure.”

Narrator 1: Lark now turns to look out the window with Phineas.

Narrator 2: (Lark) “At some point I realized there were people, a few people watching from the doorway. I don’t know exactly when they showed up, but… I knew they saw what I did. They were kind of frozen and seemed just as scared of me as I was of them. I knew who some of them were, there was this nice guy from the… fuse assembly department.”

Narrator 1: She glances at Phineas to see if he gets it.

Narrator 3: He gets it. (Phineas) “Francis Peabody?” Phineas says. “Fuze?”

Narrator 2: Lark nods slowly. (Lark) “We just kind of stared at each other for a moment, and then they all ran off, and I knew I had to go. I ran out the back way to shipping, I grabbed some of my mom’s things, and I got inside one of the lightbulb crates that was about to ship out.” Lark ends the story there. She doesn’t really feel like telling Phineas about the next fifty years. This is the part that matters, the part that defined everything that came after.

Narrator 3: Should Phineas say something like “I’m sorry that happened to you”? Should he say “Wow, that sounds hard’? Should he pat her hand? This is so inconceivably different from the version of the story that the Trust has always publicized, where a psychopathic delinquent murdered the great and beneficent Mr. Loxlee—

Narrator 2: —Valorous is his memory—

Narrator 3: —in cold blood, and then vanished into the shadows. This is also the most words Lark has said in a row to him, maybe to anyone, and he kind of wants to go throw up. But he manages to say, (Phineas) “Fuze… Francis was going to tell us about you on Midst.”

Narrator 1: Lark nods slowly.

Narrator 2: (Lark) “Yeah. If it matters, I really, really didn’t want to kill him. I wish he could have just stayed quiet, but he was too scared of what might happen to him if he did.” She glances over at Phineas meaningfully. (Lark) “I guess it was all for nothing anyway. Secret’s out now.”

Narrator 3: (Phineas) “How do you think it got out? Who exposed you if it wasn’t Fuze?”

Narrator 1: Lark’s gaze defocuses again.

Narrator 2: (Lark) “I think I have an idea.”

Narrator 1: The conversation trails off into a little bit of a silence here, as they continue to watch that rain for a little while. Lark tries on a scarf, a pair of glasses, examining her covered up scar in the makeup mirror.

Narrator 2: Phineas did a pretty good job.

Narrator 1: Yeah, she really doesn’t even look like herself.

Narrator 2: Except for that scowl.

Narrator 3: Phineas focuses in on the reflection of himself in the rain-streaked window. Maybe he could find some hair dye at a different store? Or maybe the beard is good enough? It’s probably enough. The person at the shop didn’t recognize him.

Narrator 2: Out of his armor, Phineas barely recognizes himself.

Narrator 3: (Phineas) “Y’know, Lark… We might both have fucked-up childhoods, but… maybe we can make sure that at least Tzila’s isn’t. Or at least not fuck it up even more than we already have. Let’s go find her dad.

Narrator 1: And they stand from the table. They gather their things.

Narrator 2: And Lark holds the door. (Lark) “After you.”