08 – Sleep Well, My Darling
Series: Roy Kaplan
Season: Out of Sight
Release Date: April 5, 2025
Episode Summary: A stranger in the city comes to Kaplan looking for an old flame. Kaplan offers to help, but soon realizes there’s something larger and darker hiding beneath the surface.
PRODUCTION CREDITS:
ORIGINAL SCRIPT: Jesse Peng
EDITING and PRODUCTION: Jesse Peng
COVER ART: Jesse Peng
MUSIC: Beacon
VOICE CAST:
KAPLAN: Jesse Peng
WES: Caleb Jensen
BABATUNDE: Marion Toro
CAIN: Ben Kramer
DOCTOR: Noah Lanier
REM: D Casellian
WORKER: Steven Jobson
FISHERMAN: Wyatt West
RECEPTIONIST: Melissa Bowens
PHONE: Rebecca Clifford
THUG: Mike Castoro
A special thanks to our $10/month Patreon subscriber, Jennifer Ford :)
07 – Family Dysfunctions | Roy Kaplan Home | Out of Sight Home | 09 – Calling Card
OUT OF SIGHT: SLEEP WELL, MY DARLING
INTRO: Let’s see a man who’s neither tarnished nor afraid–it’s Roy Kaplan, Private Investigator!
(INTRO THEME.)
KAPLAN: (V.O.) Kaplan speaking. Do you love the city? I don’t know if that’s a fair question, because you’ve never been outside of it, same as me. It’s a small world we live in, four million people all crowded together into a little safe zone butted up against the bay. I can’t say I’ve ever really wanted to go to another city–I get into enough trouble in this one–but I can’t help but be curious sometimes. I wonder how that would be, to board a ship for weeks and weeks only to arrive in a place that’s completely different from everything you’ve known. I bet it’s pretty scary.
(MUSIC TRANSITION.)
KAPLAN: (V.O.) It was a gloomy afternoon, raining on and off for hours. It wasn’t a good day for me–I was on the third day of a theft case with nothing to show for it. That happens sometimes, even to me. I had just given my client the bad news when I heard the commotion.
BABATUNDE: (OFF) No, that’s impossible!
RECEPTIONIST: I’m telling you, Miss Babatunde, there’s no tenant under that name.
BABATUNDE: He said he lived here!
RECEPTIONIST: He must have misspoken. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do. Is there anything else I can help you with?
BABATUNDE: No. No.
(FOOTSTEPS. BABATUNDE COLLIDES WITH KAPLAN.)
KAPLAN: Oof.
BABATUNDE: Oh, I’m so sorry, I wasn’t looking. Are you okay?
KAPLAN: Oh, I’m fine, don’t worry about it. Um, I couldn’t help but overhear you at the desk. Are you looking for someone?
BABATUNDE: It’s nobody you would know.
KAPLAN: Probably not, but I’m Roy Kaplan. I’m a private investigator. I’m a fair hand at finding people, if you’d like me to take a stab at it?
BABATUNDE: An investigator? Then maybe you can help. My name is Adebola Babatunde.
KAPLAN: How do you do.
BABATUNDE: I’m looking for my fiance–his name is Madison Langley. I haven’t seen him since the Oceanic Network broke.
KAPLAN: The Oceanic Network–you mean you’re from a different city?
BABATUNDE: You couldn’t tell?
KAPLAN: Well, I try not to jump to conclusions. I can count the number of immigrants I’ve met on one hand. Two, now. So what’s the situation? You were in some kind of extreme long-distance relationship doing video calls or something?
BABATUNDE: Until the network went down.
KAPLAN: That would have been…about five years ago. Babatunde, I don’t mean to be a downer, but do you even know if your fiance is still alive?
BABATUNDE: I do not. But I believe he is.
KAPLAN: Okay. Just…temper your expectations, I guess. How did you two meet? You two didn’t get engaged over the network, did you?
BABATUNDE: No, we met in person. He was a navigator for a trade ship. He stayed with me when the ship was at port, and we stayed in touch through the network. But then he was injured and couldn’t sail anymore. Not too long after, the network broke. Do you think you can find him, Mr. Kaplan?
KAPLAN: I can’t make any guarantees, but I’ll do my best, and my best is very good.
BABATUNDE: Then do your best. Tell me if there is anything you need to know. I need to find him, or what’s happened to him.
KAPLAN: I’ll do what I can. You must care about this guy a lot, to look for him after all this time. You’re a long, long way from home.
BABATUNDE: I love him, Mr. Kaplan. And I have always wanted to travel.
KAPLAN: All right. Well, I hope you don’t regret it.
(MUSIC TRANSITION.)
KAPLAN: (V.O.) Babatunde told me what she knew. Madison Langley was a pretty normal guy, or at least as normal as anyone who would want to take on the high seas for a living. Before his injury, he had been a reasonably fit man who lived in free city housing–after all, he wasn’t in the city for nearly half the year, so there wasn’t any point spending lots of money on rent. I started with the basics–looking him up in the city directory. The last mention of him was four and a half years back, a few months after his injury. That didn’t mean he was dead, he might have moved house to somewhere unlisted. I checked obituaries, too. No mention of him. That didn’t mean he was alive, he might have died and not been identified or found. Maybe not alive and maybe not dead. What a way to start.
(LIGHT RAIN. FOOTSTEPS IN WATER.)
KAPLAN: (V.O.) The best lead I had was Langley’s old navigator job, so I headed east to the shipyard. There were stacked shipping containers full of imported minerals and chemicals and who knows what else that would be distributed to the city or sent on to the next one down the oceanic trade route. There were a lot of containers–you can only get imports over water, so everything was there–but I didn’t see many people. Only one cargo ship goes out a week, and that wasn’t the day.
WORKER: (OFF) Hey! Hey, you!
(FOOTSTEPS APPROACHING. WATER SPLASH.)
WORKER: You’re not supposed to be here. Dock workers only.
KAPLAN: Oh, I’m sorry. I was looking for someone who works here, his name is Madison Langley.
WORKER: Who?
KAPLAN: He’s a navigator. He started maybe five, ten years back. Do you know him?
WORKER: From five years ago? Are you sure this guy still works here? Navigators don’t usually last that long.
KAPLAN: They don’t?
WORKER: Yeah, most navigators are only on for a couple of years before they quit. Lose their nerve or get injured or settle down in another city. It’s a pain in the neck–good navigators are hard to train.
KAPLAN: Oh. I never heard about that.
WORKER: I bet you haven’t. Nobody cares about sailors until they want to see another city for themself. Come on, out with you. Dock workers only here.
KAPLAN: Ah, wait. I’ve got a photo of Langley here, do you recognize him?
WORKER: Hmm, no. There’s nobody on the ships who looks like that. I don’t think he’s here anymore.
KAPLAN: I see. Sorry to bother you, then.
WORKER: Maybe you can try the fisheries, if your guy is still in the city. Some navigators go that way, though I don’t see why. Not like the fishing boats need oceanic navigators.
KAPLAN: Really? That’s interesting. I’ll give them a shot.
(MUSIC TRANSITION.)
KAPLAN: (V.O.) It was a slim lead, but it was better than anything else I had, so I headed to the south side of the bay to the fisheries. It seemed weird that ships would run through navigators so fast, and that the job needed an actual person instead of an automated system, so I did a little reading on my way over. It turns out that modern navigation is a lot harder than it was back in the old era. Even though some people still call automated location tracking GPS, real global positioning systems don’t exist anymore. The old era satellites don’t work, or we lost contact with them a long time ago, so now we use long-wave radio towers. Problem is, once you’re about 30 kilometers outside city limits, the location tracking doesn’t work so good anymore. Modern oceanic navigators depend on radio beacons along the coast, dead reckoning, and celestial navigation systems. That’s right, out there on a floating piece of metal in the open water, the only thing between you and seeing humanity ever again is math. Makes you shiver.
(SEASHORE AMBIANCE. LIGHT RAIN.)
KAPLAN: (V.O.) I reached the southern docks around four o’clock. It was kind of nostalgic. When I was younger, I liked to spend time around here and feed the stray cats. I didn’t see any of them now. The rain must have scared them off.
(DOOR OPENS. KAPLAN ENTERS.)
CAIN: Hey there, welcome to the shipyard. You looking for something?
KAPLAN: Yeah. I’m looking for someone who might have worked here a few years ago. Do you know if anyone can help me?
CAIN: Maybe I can. I am the foreman right now. Jessop Cain’s the name. Who are you looking for?
KAPLAN: A man named Madison Langley. I’ve got a photo here. He used to be an oceanic navigator before getting injured.
CAIN: Madison Langley, huh? Bit of a looker, it seems. And who are you?
KAPLAN: Kaplan. Roy Kaplan. I’m a private investigator.
CAIN: Interesting. Why don’t you take a seat, Roy? I’ve got a couple of cold drinks in the fridge down here, if you’re interested.
(REFRIGERATOR DOOR OPEN.)
KAPLAN: Aren’t you working?
CAIN: It’s not alcohol, it’s just soda water.
KAPLAN: I’ll pass all the same, thanks.
CAIN: Suit yourself.
(CAIN TAKES OUT A BOTTLE AND POPS IT OPEN.)
CAIN: Ah, that’s good. So why’s a private detective looking for an old navigator?
KAPLAN: One of his friends hasn’t heard from him in a while. I thought I’d try and see where he went.
CAIN: Hm. And who told you he worked with us?
KAPLAN: Nobody did. I heard some navigators end up working with the fishery and figured it was worth looking into. Was that false?
CAIN: No, plenty of sailors end up here when they lose their nerve for the wide ocean. It’s a way to get a taste of the sea without having to be away from home six months of the year, and we can always use more hands on deck.
KAPLAN: Oh, I see. So it’s not just navigators, it’s sailors in general.
CAIN: Right. Well, I don’t know your Langley fellow. I can try asking around. Sailors tend to stay in touch.
KAPLAN: That would be great.
CAIN: You got a card or something? Just so I know who to call.
KAPLAN: A card? That’s kind of old-fashioned. But yeah, I might have one around here somewhere.
(BODY PAT DOWN. KAPLAN PULLS OUT A CARD.)
KAPLAN: Here.
CAIN: ‘Roy Kaplan, Private Investigations.’ What a dangerous occupation you’ve got.
(DOOR KNOCKING, THEN OPEN. OUTSIDE RAIN NOISE.)
FISHERMAN: (Urgently) Mr. Cain, sir, the generator’s malfunctioning again!
CAIN: What? Again?
(CAIN GETS UP.)
CAIN: Sorry, I’ve got to take care of this. I’ll keep your card under here so I don’t forget it.
(CAIN SETS CARD ON TABLE. SETS BOTTLE ON TOP.)
KAPLAN: The fishery has its own generators?
CAIN: It takes a lot of power to send out enough boats to feed the entire city.
FISHERMAN: Sir, the generator!
CAIN: I hear you, I hear you. Roy, I’ll give you a call if I hear anything about your man, all right?
KAPLAN: I appreciate it.
CAIN: (Walking away) All right. What’s the problem now?
(CAIN AND FISHERMAN EXIT. DOOR CLOSES.)
(MUSIC TRANSITION.)
KAPLAN: (V.O.) So that was discouraging. I didn’t have much to go on, so I visited the city’s hall of records to check community service reports. It looked like Langley had missed his quota every single month for the last four and a half years–the same time he fell off the city housing list. That was serious. Not filling community service quotas means no health services, no food dispensaries, and no bank account access. I could understand if it were a few months here and there, for a guy who’s out of the city a lot, but missing every single month for that long could only mean a couple of things: either you weren’t in the city anymore, or you were dead. Neither of those were good news. I decided to head back to my office.
(ELEVATOR DING. FOOTSTEPS.)
KAPLAN: (V.O.) I just wanted to lay everything out one more time. See if there was anything I’d missed that I could try in the morning. It was dark then, and the building was mostly empty. My mind wandered–I was trying to spin things around, trying to see if there was some angle where maybe I could help Babatunde or at least let her down gently. Maybe if I’d been paying more attention, I’d have noticed I wasn’t alone.
(FOOTSTEPS.)
THUG: You’re Kaplan?
KAPLAN: Uh, yeah? Can I help you?
THUG: Don’t move.
(WHACK. BODY FALLS.)
KAPLAN: (V.O.) I don’t know what they hit me with. I never even saw it.
(MUSIC TRANSITION.)
(FADE IN TO HEARTBEAT, BREATHING.)
KAPLAN: (V.O.) The room was dark. Not the darkness of a black night, not the darkness of a locked gaol cell. It was dark like the end of a very long tunnel, where the only choice you’ve got is to move forward. So I moved, and the darkness moved with me.
(BED CREAK. FABRIC MOVEMENT.)
KAPLAN: (V.O.) There was a mask on my face. Whatever was in it tasted bitter. I didn’t like that. I took it off.
(KAPLAN TAKES THE RESPIRATOR OFF AND DROPS IT. COUGHING.)
KAPLAN: (V.O.) Sitting up was hard. I was a puppet on strings that had been all tangled up. More pins and needles than one of Notion’s fancy costumes. Nothing moved like I wanted it to. My fingers curled around something smooth and cold. The cold felt wrong. I couldn’t say why.
(LABORED BREATH. SOUNDS OF MACHINES COME INTO FOCUS.)
KAPLAN: (V.O.) There were lines taped to my arms, strung up to bags that had run dry. I couldn’t see what was supposed to be in them, but it wasn’t important anymore. What was done was done. I took the catheters out. Anything my fingers could reach, I took it out.
(RIPPING. PULLING AND DROPPING CABLES. ALARM BEEPING.)
KAPLAN: (V.O.) I breathed. It hurt, deep down in my chest. Someone must have taken my skin and bones and muscles and shaken them all up and put them back wrong. I still had that bitter taste in my mouth, but I had to keep breathing. If you breathe, you live. That’s simple math. So I breathed, in and out. Light came to me slowly, blurred shapes resolving into lines in the darkness. I was on a bed in a room. Not too far away was a monitor with some lines and numbers on it. I tried to see what it said, but that just made my head hurt more than it already was.
(SLOW MOVEMENT. COUGHING.)
KAPLAN: (V.O.) My fingers still felt cold, and I looked at them. There was a shiny pole along the side of the bed and my hand was curled around it, gripped tight. It didn’t even look like my hand. Too pale and thin. I realized then why the cold felt so wrong. I wasn’t wearing gloves. I wasn’t wearing any of my clothes. Someone had put a robe on me, stiff hemp fabric with a bleached smell that made me sicker than I already was. It was cold and it scratched and I didn’t like it. I wanted to fix it. I got up.
(CREAKING. LABORED BREATH. FALLING TO GROUND.)
KAPLAN: Agh!
KAPLAN: (V.O.) The floor was so excited to meet me that it hit me square in the face. A warm welcome if there ever was one. There was debris everywhere, cloth and medical supplies and little packages like a storm had stopped through for a quick laugh. Gale force winds to cause trouble for the cleaning staff. That’s just bad manners. Nobody has them these days.
(KAPLAN GETS UP.)
KAPLAN: (V.O.) I pulled myself off the ground like I was digging my way out of a shallow grave. Everything ached, most of all my head. Someone must have hit me hard. Knocked something loose that shouldn’t have and filled it up with noise.
KAPLAN: (Quietly) Wes? Wes, can you–(coughs) Can you hear me?
(WHOOSH. BREAKING GLASS.)
KAPLAN: Wes? Is that you?
(INDECIPHERABLE.)
KAPLAN: Did you say something? Where are you?
(INDECIPHERABLE.)
KAPLAN: (V.O.) All I could hear was the noise. Wes couldn’t help me. I was on my own.
KAPLAN: Shit.
(SLOW BAREFOOT STEPS. DEBRIS MOVEMENT.)
KAPLAN: (V.O.) That room was ten paces and the whole ocean across. I had to float my way to the other side across a minefield of crap just to reach the sink. Someone had really made a mess of the place. I was just glad they hadn’t taken it out on me.
(KAPLAN COLLAPSES AGAINST THE CLOSET.)
KAPLAN: (V.O.) The wall had a closet. Locked. It didn’t look like anything special. A tumbler lock, probably four or five pins. An easy lock, even among the easy locks.
(KAPLAN TRIES TO OPEN THE CLOSET. IT DOES NOT OPEN.)
KAPLAN: (V.O.) It didn’t open. I reached and tried to pull the pins over the shear line, but my mind just…slipped. I couldn’t grab hold of it. Whatever I’d been shot up with was messing with me.
KAPLAN: So that’s how it’s gonna be?
(DRAWER OPEN. RUMMAGING ITEMS.)
KAPLAN: (V.O.) It doesn’t take telekinesis to open a lock. A stiff wire and something to use as a tension wrench, that’s all you need. There wasn’t much to use, even with all the cupboards ripped open, but I found a large-gage needle and a pen with a flat metal clip. Those would do just fine. With the edge of the sink and the strength of a million men, I bent them into shape and went to work.
(LOCK RAKE. A FEW ATTEMPTS, THEN DOOR OPENS.)
KAPLAN: My bag’s here, too. Good. Now to get out of here.
(KAPLAN GRABS HIS THINGS AND EXITS. HE IS NOW WEARING SHOES.)
KAPLAN: (V.O.) I let myself out of the room. Nobody stopped me. No alarms went off. Maybe they were overconfident. Maybe they were just stupid.
(SLOW FOOTSTEPS.)
KAPLAN: (V.O.) It wasn’t a hospital they were holding me in. At least, not any of the city hospitals. It was clean enough, but it didn’t take a detective to guess they hadn’t put me there for a nice little nap.
(FOOTSTEPS. MACHINE AMBIANCE. MECHANICAL NOISE.)
KAPLAN: (V.O.) I wasn’t well. I was nauseous and heavy in all my limbs and it was a five-step process to put one leg in front of the other. My head was full of noise and I was seeing hazy ghosts of machines, monstrous twisted metal figures the size of a train car with engines powerful enough to vibrate your skin off. They cried out to me in machine language, beeps and tones and stuttering rhythms. Some of them sounded almost like human voices. I wasn’t sure I liked that.
(FOOTSTEPS, THEN STOP.)
DOCTOR: (MUFFLED) I’m telling you, I know what I saw. The cabinets were flying open, something ripped the tools out of our hands.
DOOR OPENS.
DOCTOR: He must have been doing it somehow, and–
KAPLAN: Put the phone down, Doctor.
DOCTOR: (Scared) M-Mister Kaplan. How did you…?
KAPLAN: Didn’t you hear me? Here, I’ll help.
(WHOOSH. PHONE FLUNG AGAINST THE WALL AND BREAKS.)
KAPLAN: That takes care of the phone. Now we can talk.
DOCTOR: Get away from me, you monster! You–ghk!
(FOOTSTEPS. CHAIR CREAK. GRABBING, ROUGH.)
KAPLAN: Do you see this, Doctor? This thing has enough power to launch this grappling hook thirty meters, and I’ve got it directly under your chin. I don’t think either of us want to see what will happen if I press this switch, but my hands aren’t all steady right now because of the drugs you put in me. Are you listening?
DOCTOR: I’m listening! I’m listening! I’m listening!
KAPLAN: Good. Who brought me here?
DOCTOR: I don’t know! I swear I don’t, they just showed up and handed you off to us!
KAPLAN: And who is ‘us’? What is this place?
DOCTOR: It’s a private health center, we work in the interests of public health and–ack!
(KAPLAN GRABS THE DOCTOR.)
KAPLAN: I’m not in the mood for jokes, Doctor. Answer me straight.
DOCTOR: We do surgeries! We do cybernetic surgeries and neural implants and preparative surgery for robotic surrogates! That’s all, that’s everything! Please don’t hurt me.
KAPLAN: So you were going to cut me open and plug me into something, is that it?
DOCTOR: I’m–I wouldn’t really call it that, but–no, I’m talking, I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you! Yes, we were going to perform surgery! But only because they made us! And we never actually did anything!
KAPLAN: No, but I bet you wanted to. Have you done surgeries for these people before?
DOCTOR: Y-yes. But only a few times! They were safe surgeries, I promise! No complications. We’re not trying to hurt people, I swear…
KAPLAN: If you think performing invasive surgery without a patient’s consent isn’t hurting them, you’ve got bigger problems, Doctor. Take out your wallet.
DOCTOR: What?
KAPLAN: Wallet. On the desk. Now.
DOCTOR: O-okay.
(WALLET DROPPED ON DESK, THEN PICKED UP. RIFLING THROUGH CARDS.)
KAPLAN: Harlan Dearborn. That’s your name?
DOCTOR: Yes.
KAPLAN: Get out of here. I’m sick of you.
DOCTOR: Oh, thank you, I’ll just take this back and–
KAPLAN: The wallet stays here.
DOCTOR: What?
KAPLAN: Out. Now. Or do you want me to throw you out?
DOCTOR: I’m leaving! I’m leaving!
(DOCTOR FLEES. DOOR SLAMS.)
KAPLAN: (Long exhale) What a damn mess.
KAPLAN: (V.O.) When it comes to nasty people, rotten doctors really are the worst. I could make sure that Dearborn saw some consequences, but first, I had to figure out how and why I’d ended up here.
(DRAWERS OPEN AND CLOSE. PAPERS MOVING.)
KAPLAN: (V.O.) There were books and records, all things that would be useful in shutting this place down but not anything that explained where I came into it. I kept going and found some bottles of powder in the middle drawer.
(UNSCREWED BOTTLE. CAREFUL SNIFF, THEN COUGHING.)
KAPLAN: (V.O.) They weren’t drugs. They seemed to be…spices. Imported spices in unlabeled bottles. What was up with that? I dug through some other drawers.
(RUMMAGING IN DESK. PAPER MOVEMENT.)
KAPLAN: What the hell?
KAPLAN: (V.O.) Right there, under a couple of forms, was a business card. My business card, complete with a wet glass mark right over the middle. Suddenly, everything made a lot more sense.
(KAPLAN CLOSES THE DRAWER.)
KAPLAN: I need to get out of here.
(KAPLAN TAKES OUT HIS PHONE.)
KAPLAN: (V.O.) I suppose I don’t really need to tell you what happened after that.
KAPLAN: Call Rem.
PHONE: (DIGITAL) No contact ‘Rem’ found.
KAPLAN: What? What do you mean, Rem’s not in my contacts?
(KAPLAN MANUALLY DIALS. DIALING TONE, THEN PICK UP.)
REM: (FILTER) Hello?
KAPLAN: Rem, it’s Roy. I need some help. Can you come pick me up?
(MUSIC TRANSITION.)
(OUTSIDE NIGHTTIME AMBIANCE. RUNNING.)
REM: Roy! There you are. I was surprised to get your call.
KAPLAN: Who else was I supposed to call? It’s not like I can call Notion to drive halfway across the city at the drop of a hat. Our relationship isn’t that good.
REM: Why not Wes?
KAPLAN: What? How’s Wes supposed to pick me up?
REM: Oh. I don’t know. I just thought–never mind. Are you okay? You don’t look great.
KAPLAN: I don’t feel great. I’m full of drugs and not the fun kind. I don’t know how long it’ll take to flush out.
REM: They drugged you? That’s insane.
KAPLAN: It sounds like they were planning some kind of surgery. Got lucky they didn’t.
REM: That’s horrifying. God, are you okay?
KAPLAN: I don’t know. My head hurts and I’m still seeing things. I probably should see a doctor. A real doctor, I mean.
REM: Okay, I’ll drop you off. I’ve got my bike parked around here. Do you think you can sit in the back without falling off?
KAPLAN: Yeah, I can manage that.
REM: Okay, great. I’ll help you up.
(REM AND KAPLAN GET ON THE MOTORBIKE.)
KAPLAN: Thanks.
REM: Don’t mention it. How did you end up in this place to begin with?
KAPLAN: It’s a long story.
REM: Tell me later, then. I’d love to hear it.
KAPLAN: Hm. I’ll think about it.
(BIKE ENGINE.)
REM: All right, we’re ready to go. You’re comfortable back there?
KAPLAN: As good as it’s gonna get.
REM: Great. Let’s ride.
(BIKE ENGINE, FADE OUT.)
(MUSIC TRANSITION.)
KAPLAN: (V.O.) I’d been kept in that nightmare house for over twenty-four hours. I hated to think what they could have done to me in that time, but the hospital assured me there wasn’t any lasting damage. They gave me some fluids and something for my splitting headache, and after some sleep and a meal, I felt almost good as new. They kept me for observation, and I called up Babatunde to update her on what had happened. She identified the unlabeled spices as melegueta pepper and turmeric, which I’d never heard of, but she told me they were common in her city. The thing is, they’re not approved imports here. So wherever the doctor got those spices, it was through alternate routes. I had a pretty good idea of how. All that was left was to see it for myself.
(FOOTSTEPS. SEASHORE AMBIANCE.)
WES: This is a bad idea.
KAPLAN: Wes, you think all my ideas are bad ideas.
WES: Someone snatched you and doped you up yesterday, Roy. You’re lucky you got out. Now you want to dive back in?
KAPLAN: Oh, look, the cats are back! Here, kitty, I got you a snack.
(CATS MEOWING.)
WES: Are you listening to me?
KAPLAN: I heard you. But I’ve decided to see this through.
(KAPLAN GETS UP, WALKS.)
WES: What for? What do you get for this?
KAPLAN: Wes. We’ve known each other for a long time. Shouldn’t you know by now?
WES: This man has been missing for over four years. He’s assuredly dead–it’s just a question of if you can find his corpse. Just tell your client what happened and protect yourself for once in your damn life. You’re a thief and a con man, Roy. You don’t even care about this kind of crime.
KAPLAN: It’s true. I don’t. It’s not my business if people are paying big money for illegal exotic spices.
WES: Then what’s the point?
KAPLAN: Just stick with me, Wes. I think you’ll understand when you see it for yourself.
(MUSIC TRANSITION.)
KAPLAN: (V.O.) In the end, it was a small thing that tied the pieces together. That little business card that Jessop Cain had set his cold drink on that managed to find its way into the drawers of that nightmare house. Why would a fisherman send thugs to my office to sap me down and take me out of the picture just for asking about Langley? Because Cain had something big to hide, the answer to Langley’s disappearance and the imported spices and something even bigger behind it all. Things lined up like this: If you want to import illegal goods, you need a boat. If you want to use a boat, you need a navigator. And if you want to hide a boat, you put it in a shipyard.
(DOOR UNLOCKS, OPENS. FOOTSTEPS. DISTANT MACHINE NOISE.)
KAPLAN: (V.O.) It was midnight, and the fishery shipyard was empty, or close enough. I could feel the rumbling of their generators, powerful engines pumping energy into a lot more than just a few fishing boats.
WES: The generators lead to this mechanical room over here. Looks like it’s locked.
KAPLAN: Of course it is. Let’s see…biometric scanner with a hidden mechanical override. That makes things easier.
(MECHANICAL CLICK, LOCK UNLATCH. HEAVY DOOR OPENS.)
WES: These are…boats.
KAPLAN: They’re aquatic transport shuttles. Specialized boats that are meant to carry only cargo. They’ve been modified for oceanic use.
WES: So this is how they’ve been smuggling goods between cities?
KAPLAN: Yeah. Makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it? A smaller boat with no crew–the perfect thing to lower the chances of getting caught.
WES: And this is…Roy, come over here. There’s a…a man.
(FOOTSTEPS.)
KAPLAN: (V.O.) I went to see what Wes was talking about. Sure enough, one of the shuttles had been left open, and there was a person, strapped to what might generously be called a chair. They were completely emaciated, just skin and bones, with lines of fluid hooked into their chest, and a great mass of cables connected directly to the back of their neck.
WES: What is this?
KAPLAN: (Hisses) A robot surrogate.
WES: What?
KAPLAN: With cybernetics, you can connect your brain to a separate robotic body. You feel the robot’s senses like they’re yours, and you control it like it’s your own flesh. You remember Burgess, don’t you? He was like that.
WES: Well, then where’s the robot? I don’t see any around here.
KAPLAN: (Deep breath) Wes. What makes you think a robot surrogate has to look human?
(MUSIC TRANSITION.)
KAPLAN: (V.O.) There were six people total in that little mechanical room. Six oceanic navigators, wired into shuttles that were now their bodies, while their flesh wasted away into nothing. Six accomplished sailors, reduced to little more than navigational computers, complete with data terminals to command them where to go and when. I can’t imagine that nightmare, to wake up one day and find your body replaced by something strange and alien, to find your sense of touch, smell, sight, and all of that replaced by radio waves and depth meters and digital signals. I wonder how long you could last without going insane. I wonder how long you could last before forgetting what it’s like to be a human.
(DOOR KNOCKING, THEN OPEN. HEART MONITOR. VENTILATOR AIR. MACHINE BEEPING.)
KAPLAN: Hey, Babatunde. Is now an okay time?
BABATUNDE: Yes, come in. You can call me Adebola. You’ve helped me enough for that, Mr. Kaplan.
KAPLAN: Adebola. Then call me Roy.
BABATUNDE: Roy. Here, sit down.
(KAPLAN SITS.)
BABATUNDE: It’s good to see you again. You look much better today than yesterday.
KAPLAN: Thanks. I feel better. How’s Langley?
BABATUNDE: He is…not well. The doctors say he cannot breathe without help. He is not reacting to anything.
KAPLAN: He was in that machine for four years. I don’t think his brain knows how to use this body anymore.
BABATUNDE: I’m afraid you may be correct.
(PAUSE. HEART MONITOR AND VENTILATOR CONTINUE.)
KAPLAN: I’m sorry it had to turn out this way.
BABATUNDE: You couldn’t have known. And I’m glad to know what happened, even if it’s this horrible.
KAPLAN: What will you do? Langley doesn’t have any family, so you’ll have to decide what to do with him.
BABATUNDE: I think I will ask them to keep him alive. If he could learn to be a machine, he can learn to be a man again. And even if not, he doesn’t deserve to die for what those smugglers did to him.
KAPLAN: Even if he wakes up, he might not remember you anymore.
BABATUNDE: I know.
KAPLAN: Okay. As long as you know.
(KAPLAN PULLS OUT PAPER.)
KAPLAN: If you’re determined to see this through, you might want to contact this man–his name is Marius Burgess. He’s the best authority on robot surrogates. I don’t think he’s ever seen anything like this before, but if anyone would know how to reverse this, it would be him.
BABATUNDE: Thank you, Roy. I will be sure to speak with him.
KAPLAN: Good luck, Adebola.
(HOSPITAL AMBIANCE FADE OUT.)
KAPLAN: (V.O.) As for the rest, I’m sure you’ve heard about it by now. Cain was arrested, along with several other members of the fishery and a couple of sailors who had been responsible for the navigator’s high turnover rate. Three more navigators were recovered in the month that followed and they were brought to medical care with about as much success. The nightmare house burned down not a week after the case closed, and when I went to report Dr. Harlan Dearborn for his malpractice, he was discovered dead in his apartment. I don’t like that he’s dead, but I’m glad no one else is going under his knife. As for Babatunde and Langley, well. One can only hope.
(ENDING THEME.)
OUTRO: You’ve just heard Sleep Well, My Darling, the eighth episode of Roy Kaplan: Out of Sight. Kaplan was played by Jesse Peng, Wes by Caleb Jensen. Our cast also includes: Marion Toro, Ben Kramer, Noah Lanier, D Casellian, Steven Jobson, Wyatt West, Melissa Bowens, Rebecca Clifford, and Mike Castoro.
Roy Kaplan is written, edited, and produced by Jesse Peng. Our music is composed by Beacon.
This show is brought to you by The Pinwheel Lab. If you like what you hear, you can find us over at roykaplanpod on Tumblr, or on thepinwheellab.com. If you really like what you hear, you can also support us on Patreon, where you can hear the next episode a little sooner than everyone else. All financial support goes to production, and helps make Season 2 more likely to happen.
What mean streets are around the next corner? Tune in next time to find out, and I’ll see you on the other side.
07 – Family Dysfunctions | Roy Kaplan Home | Out of Sight Home | 09 – Calling Card