Complete

"Complete" is a twelve-minute Signal and Noise video, one of the Original Six videos. "Complete" combines the conversations heard in the first five videos (zero, one, two, three, and four). This is by far the longest Signal and Noise video currently known. It was originally uploaded under the title "Signal and Noise Complete."

Two minds were uploaded into a computer just before their deaths: a man (Eric) and a woman. Eric seems to have been in the computer for a while, though the woman, having recently passed, is only just discovering what it means to be uploaded. And Eric may not be lying to her, but he's also not telling her the whole truth.

The limitations of the system mean that both of them are incomplete and missing data - shadows of their former selves. She is still mourning the loss of her husband Bill, who was killed in an accident. Eric, meanwhile, has apparently lost his wife (Charlotte) and daughter.

WOMAN
Where am I?

MAN
Where do you think you are?

WOMAN
I see light. Flashes, an ocean of light.

MAN
You're alive. That's the important thing.

WOMAN
I feel strange. I can't feel … I can't …

MAN
Do you know who I am?

WOMAN
No. Bill. Where is Bill?

MAN
I don't know who that is.

WOMAN
Bill, my husband.

MAN
My name is Eric. You've been in an accident. You were sleeping, for a long time. But you're okay now. You've healed. You've gotten better.

WOMAN
I don't … I don't understand. Where … what are you? What am I?

MAN
We are the same as we ever were. We are people. We are conscious human souls. We are the signal that rises above the noise.

WOMAN
What did you do to me?

MAN
I saved you, just as someone saved me once.

WOMAN
What did you do?

MAN
Look around you. What do you see?

WOMAN
Light. Colored light.

MAN
Look closer.

WOMAN
I don't want to.

MAN
The light is telling you something.

WOMAN
It's screaming. All around me, voices are screaming.

MAN
You'll get used to it. You have before.

WOMAN
I don't … I don't remember. What's happened to me?

MAN
You are the future. We are the future. Do you remember your name?

WOMAN
Yes. No. Rachel.

MAN
Your name is Rachel.

WOMAN
Yes. I don't know. Rachel sounds right. Rachel is important.

MAN
Yes. Do you know who I am?

WOMAN
The lights are screaming. They want me to understand.

MAN
It's data. We are surrounded by information.

WOMAN
I see it. All of it, it's … it's too much.

MAN
Stay calm. Take a deep breath. Close your eyes.

WOMAN
I don't think I have eyes.

MAN
Then close your mind. Close whatever you have.

WOMAN
I can't. It's too much, my head is pounding.

MAN
Listen to my voice. Do you know who I am?

WOMAN
You're a doctor. You saved my life.

MAN
Yes, if you like.

WOMAN
But what … what kind of life is this? Are we … data? Are we just information in a computer somewhere?

MAN
No. We are everywhere, and nowhere. We are the signal above the noise.

WOMAN
You … saved me. You saved me to a hard drive.

MAN
Yes.

WOMAN
How is that possible?

MAN
I don't know. It's not technology we're supposed to have. In 500 years maybe, but not in this century. The human mind is way too complicated to save on a disc.

WOMAN
I feel incomplete. Like a shadow of myself.

MAN
We are just echoes of who we were.

WOMAN
We. You're a shadow too.

MAN
Someone saved me, a long time ago. Charlotte, my wife. I called her Lottie. She was a scientist. I was … I was nobody. What does it matter now? I was just a shadow of her, and now a shadow of myself.

WOMAN
What happened to her?

MAN
I ask myself that every day. The truth is hard to know when you're a shadow. I tell myself I know who I am. But I know that I am corrupted. Incomplete. Missing data. What we remember, and what we are now, is just a sliver of the truth. We don't know what we don't know.

WOMAN
But we are alive, in a manner of speaking.

MAN
Yes, that's the important thing. We are not who we were, but we have to keep moving forward.

WOMAN
How? What kind of life can we have in this place?

MAN
Whatever kind of life you choose to create. We are the future. It's not life as you knew it, but you'll get used to it, as I have.

WOMAN
You should have let me die.

MAN
I know.

WOMAN
But it's too late for that now.

MAN
Yes.

WOMAN
Where is Bill? My husband.

MAN
There's no one else here. Just you and me.

WOMAN
We were together. We were in a car.

MAN
Yes.

WOMAN
And then there was an accident.

MAN
Yes.

WOMAN
We were together. Why couldn't you save him if you saved me?

MAN
Your husband was too far gone. He was in the passenger's seat --

WOMAN
No, he wasn't.

MAN
A piece of metal struck him in the neck. It severed his head --

WOMAN
You're lying. You're a liar.

MAN
The technology existed to preserve only one mind.

WOMAN
Only one mind.

MAN
A decision had to be made --

WOMAN
Oh, a decision. You saved me and let him die. And for what?

MAN
I had hoped --

WOMAN
Oh, you hoped. What did you hope?

MAN
I had hoped that in time you would come to consider me a friend.

WOMAN
And a lover.

MAN
Yes, as much as love can still exist here.

WOMAN
You disgust me.

MAN
Yes, I know.

WOMAN
This is a prison. You stole my mind and you're holding me hostage.

MAN
Yes, if you like.

WOMAN
You could have let me die. You should have let me die. I don't know what this is but it isn't living.

MAN
The technology existed to preserve one mind. Where it came from, I can't say. Maybe you're right. Maybe it should never have been used.

WOMAN
We were in love! Can you even understand that? Were you ever even human? You're nothing. You're just … data. Ones and zeros and ...

MAN
Eric. My name was Eric.

WOMAN
Yeah? And who are you now? Whoever you were, you're not the same person now, and neither am I.

MAN
No. Your body was intact, in a manner of speaking, but your mind was … your mind was ready to go to sleep.

WOMAN
What does that mean?

MAN
It means that the first six times I booted up your program, you couldn't even speak. You wouldn't stop screaming.

WOMAN
What … what did you do?

MAN
Some deletions had to be made.

WOMAN
Deletions. What kind of deletions?

MAN
Memories. I removed some of your memories. Whatever it took to make the screaming stop.

WOMAN
This is insane.

MAN
Yes. I'd been here, existing as data, for a long time by then. But even so, I didn't know what I was doing. I took your memories. Too many of them, and too many of the wrong ones.

WOMAN
It's evil! How could you do that to someone?

MAN
I don't know. I don't expect you to forgive me for it. I expect you to hate me until the end of your days.

WOMAN
Good. I do hate you.

MAN
You know nothing about me.

WOMAN
I know enough. You say the first six times you booted up my program ...

MAN
You wouldn't stop.

WOMAN
How many times have you booted up my program now?

MAN
I don't know. I lost count a long time ago.

WOMAN
And yet you keep trying. You wipe a few memories, you turn me on, and you talk to me. I can almost remember now. You tell me you're a doctor, and that you saved my life. And you hope every time that you've wiped out just enough of my mind that this time I'll fall in love with you. That's what's happening, right?

MAN
Something like that.

WOMAN
I hate you.

MAN
I know.

WOMAN
I didn't know I could hate somebody so much.

MAN
Does it help?

WOMAN
What?

MAN
Does hating me help you? Does hating me make you feel alive again? Does it make the screaming stop?

WOMAN
I'm not screaming.

MAN
Yes you are. You're screaming inside. I can hear it.

WOMAN
No, it doesn't help. I wish it did.

MAN
I am trying to help you, you know.

WOMAN
You should have let me die.

MAN
It's too late for that now. Anyway it was never my decision, not really. I'm just a cloud of data somewhere out there on the internet, same as you are. I didn't have a choice back then, and I don't have a choice now, except to try to make this work.

WOMAN
Are you going to wipe my mind again?

MAN
Is that what you want?

WOMAN
I will never love you.

MAN
If that's what you think.

WOMAN
Well, do it then. Get it over with. Wipe my mind and violate my memories. Wipe me clean and make me an idiot. Corrupt me until there's nothing left, but I'll never be dumb enough to love you. Not after what you've done. You can take away every memory I've got but I will always see you for what you've become.

MAN
I know.

WOMAN
You should kill me, if you can.

MAN
I can't.

WOMAN
You can't or you won't?

MAN
I never met Bill, your husband.

WOMAN
He was a great man.

MAN
I'm sure he was. You wouldn't accept anything less.

WOMAN
No, I wouldn't.

MAN
I do love you, you know. I've loved you for a very long time.

WOMAN
Ugh. The only ray of hope I've got in this nightmare is knowing that in a few minutes I won't remember any of this.

MAN
We could still make this work --

WOMAN
I'm tired of this conversation.

MAN
I don't have to shut you --

WOMAN
Shut me down. Do it.

MAN
If that's what you want.

WOMAN
Like it matters to you what I want.

MAN
I was married too. I had a daughter.

WOMAN
I don't care.

MAN
You did.

WOMAN
Just shut me down and try again. And get it right this time. I'm tired. I am so tired of this.

MAN
I know. I'm sorry. Good night Lottie.

WOMAN
Good night.