Gas Me Twice

## Cast

* Zach Valenti as Doug Eiffel and Alexander Hilbert
* Emma Sherr-Ziarko as Renée Minkowski
* Michaela Swee as Hera

**"Gas Me Twice"** is the thirteenth episode of the podcast, the second part of a two-part special, and the last episode of the first season. It was released on 25 December 2015.

## Episode Description

The repercussions of the crew's discovery and Dr. Hilbert's actions continue to disrupt the station's Christmas plans. Cut off from Minkowski and with limited time to act, Eiffel decides to take a risk. Plus, Smokey Bear Mode, Mr. Kettle, giant fireballs, laughing gas, and crazy plans.

## Plot summary

The episode begins with Eiffel coughing on the halothane gas, and it appears Hilbert’s plan has succeeded, but instead Eiffel is able to use the oxygen mask he had from his plan to smoke in Episode 12: Deep Breaths. Using it, he is able to avoid inhaling enough halothane gas to knock him out. He calls out to Hera, trying to get her to shake off Hilbert’s override enough to make a plan with him. Hera explains that Hilbert’s override has taken her control fully away, she can’t do anything besides her emergency protocols without a direct order from him.

On the bridge, Hilbert is working with Hera trying to pinpoint the origin of the signal when he receives a response to his pulse-beacon, noting it’s “sooner than [he] had hoped.” A man from Canaveral speaks, asking for authentication. Hera continually interrupts Hilbert saying there’s something she wants to tell him, but he shushes her, despite her insistence it’s important. The man from Canaveral asks why Hilbert called, and Hilbert explains he believes it is a “Theta Scenario.” He tells the man the crew has been “neutralized” and the A.I. unit is under control. When the man probes into the fate of the communication officer, Hilbert questions who he is speaking to, and it is revealed that it was Eiffel all along.

Hilbert threatens Eiffel with death, pointing out he has complete control over Hera and the station, but Eiffel points out that having control over Hera doesn’t mean anything if he doesn’t listen to what she has to say. Hilbert, horrified, asks Hera what she was trying to tell him, and she reports that a fire had started five minutes ago and has now spread to several other rooms on the station. Eiffel speaks up to say the cause had been a lit cigarette left floating around. Because of Hilbert’s overrides, Hera wasn’t able to run any of the fire containment protocols without his approval, which allowed the fire to spread.

Hilbert authorizes Hera to seal off the unaffected rooms and open the aft deck airlock to vent the remaining air and suffocate the fire. Eiffel then asks if Minkowski heard all of that, and she confirms she did and is en route to the aft deck airlock. Hilbert orders Hera to seal the airlock as soon as the fire is out and prevent Minkowski from getting back on the station, and to pull oxygen from the entire ship besides the bridge. Hera gleefully says she won’t be doing that because once an emergency response protocol is active, it overrides all other coding, so she is not under his control for the next twenty minutes. She can do anything to prevent fire, including flooding any room with liquid nitrogen. She says she’s mixing a fresh batch to deploy to the bridge, and begins a countdown.

Eiffel offers that instead he could just be put in the broom closet if he surrenders, but Hilbert refuses and instead says he was forced to do this as he rips out wiring that causes Hera to shut down. There is an error message that doesn’t sound like her, and Hilbert says he’s pulled out her personality programming and that the intelligence unit is gone. Hilbert begins to remove the oxygen from the rest of the station manually, saying he was sad to kill Eiffel. But before he can finish, we hear acid eating through metal and Minkowski bursts through the door to the bridge, once again quoting Pryce and Carter 614: “When in doubt, whip it out - ‘it’ being hydrochloric acid.” She attacks him, and then cancels the oxygen drain.

Minkowski confirms Eiffel is okay, and then says she’s not okay because Hilbert just tried to kill them both. They meet at the bridge for cleanup. Later, Minkowski confirms that Hilbert was telling the truth, and Hera is gone. The station computer is now in control. Minkowski compares it to a lobotomy, and that they might not be able to fix it. Eiffel tells her it’s his birthday, and then the real pulse-beacon hail from Canaveral comes through. Minkowski picks up, saying it’s time they got answers, and then the episode ends.

## Trivia

* The song towards the end of the episode is *Venus, the Bringer of Peace* from *The Planets* by Gustav Holst

## External links

* Listen on Libsyn.
* Official script. (beginning on page 19)