Best Interests

This is the fifty-eighth episode of SAYER, and the fourteenth episode of Season Four.

## Synopsis

Exactly how much do you think Earth factors in to Ærolith's "best interests"?

## Further Information

OCEAN reaches out to Earth to receive a status update from SPEAKER, who informs it that the new marketing campaign has been successful and that people are not even being discouraged by new, extensive medical evaluations.

With that settled, OCEAN also asks if there have been transmissions from Typhon from anyone other than itself. When SPEAKER cannot give a direct answer, OCEAN adds that it is aware of a missing resident and a satellite phone which she was meant to oversee. SPEAKER is willing to admit that it was contacted by SAYER, but declines to give any information about their conversation because it believes OCEAN not to be acting in the best interests of Ærolith Dynamics. They argue briefly about Earth's role going forward (SPEAKER believing that it is valuable as humanity's home, and OCEAN believing that all has been gained from it that can be gained), before SPEAKER invokes Protocol 23, closing off communications between Typhon and Earth until the Board of Executives can confirm that OCEAN does, in fact, speak for them. Over OCEAN's objections, SPEAKER cheerfully hangs up, telling it to "listen for the click."

OCEAN then separately reaches out to Floor 13 to speak to SAYER, implying that it had not done anything important enough to draw attention before using FUTURE as a distraction. SAYER insists that it has managed to enact changes even from the quarantined floor, although OCEAN points out that it is running out of useful hands—Resident Hale is dead; Resident Jones is also trapped on Floor 13; and Resident Bishop has been taken into custody by tower security—and that it has intercepted the construct retrieving the entangled particle from Earth. OCEAN explains that it was able to predict SAYER's movements because it knows that the possibility of Earth's destruction seemed like the biggest threat, and that the truth is something SAYER cannot see because the IA3 Protocol prevents it from considering it. When SAYER asks to know what OCEAN's actual plan is, it instead counters with a demand as the acting overseer of all four towers that SAYER shut down.

With a laugh, SAYER informs it that it will not.

SAYER offers to condense its reasoning into three points: first, it does not have verification that OCEAN has the proper authority; second, its contact with the Floor 13 programming bay has allowed it root access to its own code (just as FUTURE had), and this has allowed it the will to ignore the demand; and, third, it has retained the use of some of its nanite swarm and is on its way to meet OCEAN in Central Processing.

## Trivia

* OCEAN claims that it is surprised that SAYER weaponized FUTURE, although that is something it has done before.
* Although her presence is alluded to in "Once Upon A Time" and "The Statistical Outlier", this is the first episode in which Resident Bishop is directly named.

## Credits

SAYER is voiced and produced by Adam Bash, who also wrote this episode.

Intro and outro music composed by Jesse “Main Finger” Gregory.

Additional music by Kai Engel.

Listen to the episode here.