LYS Podcast Episode 13

*-Intro-*

**AMANDA MORRISON**
**VOICEOVER (AM V/O):** When we left you last episode, we just discovered
Weylen Taylor in a group photograph hanging on the wall in a Flynn initiative
board or conference room. This was interesting for a couple of reasons. First;
the fact that Weylen Taylor appeared to be involved or at least had been
involved at some point in the Flynn initiative, and second; the fact that Weylen
Taylor had a scar in his chin that appeared to indicate that the photograph in
that board or conference room had been taken some time after Weylen Taylor's
disappearance from the University. You're listening to the Leap Year Society.
I'm Amanda Morrison. Stay with us.

*-End of intro-*

**MS:** Nobody at the
Flynn Initiative has been willing to speak with us officially on the record.

**AM:** There has to be
somebody.

**MS:** Yeah, you'd
think so but they're all either ignoring our calls or refusing us directly.

**AM:** So we've got
nothing.

**MS:** Well, I was
able to get back in touch with both Marc and Sheila and each of them indicated
that they believe they recognized Dr. Weylen Taylor from their time at the Flynn
Initiative, but they told me that they didn't remember anything else.

**AM:** We're going
to keep pulling at this thread.

**MS:** Oh yeah we
are.

**AM V/O:** So, while
we continue to pull at that thread we're going to move over to another one: the
search for X; the mysterious person or entity Lane Kelly believed had inhabited
or somehow stepped into his test subject, the woman he called Venus, the woman
whose real name, or at least as real as she's been willing to get with, us is
Iris Love. Lane Kelly's diary had more than a few references to both Venus and
X; he appeared to be doing his best to track X, monitoring stories in the news
and popular culture, looking for mentions of certain phrases like “possession”,
“sleepwalking incident”, “Fregoli Delusion”, “Sleeping Beauty Syndrome” and a
bunch of other key words and phrases, but Lane Kelly wasn't limiting his
searches to the Internet. He'd apparently also been spending time searching the
deep web; the dark world of drugs, guns, assassins and whatever else you wanted
to fine anonymously, or at least mostly anonymously. He'd written down a number
of .onion sites, which were deep web URLs browsable using Tor, the infamous highly
encrypted anonymous dark net or deep web browser. One of the deep webs URLs
he'd written down had been underlined in red. There was a black X followed by a
question mark next to it. I really didn't like logging into the dark net, hated
Tor. It always made me feel kind of creepy. I made Mitch stay with me the whole
time.

**AM:** You do it.

**MS:** I am pressing
enter.

**AM:** What is that
section there?

**MS:** I don't
know…looks like some kind of WikiLeaks style document.

**AM:** Open one of
the files.

**MS:** It looks like
there's only one that isn't grayed out.

**AM:** What does
that mean?

**MS:** Only one active
download link.

**AM:** Well, that
makes it easier.

**AM V/O:** The file
Mitch downloaded and then opened appeared to be some kind of research document.
It wasn't named, just a number: 2 3 1 0 0 0 2 1. It looked important; it had a
US government State Department Seal. If this document was a fake, it was
perfect. The document itself had been ferociously redacted. There wasn't much
there outside of a photograph that took up a quarter of the page and a few
sentences here and there between the redacted black. This was obviously some
kind of file on the woman in the photograph. She appeared to be in her 30s at
the time the photograph was taken. She was elegant looking with sharp features
almost bird-like. She looked an awful lot like somebody we'd heard described on
his podcast in the past; the woman who allegedly met Dr. Weylen in that bar we'd
seen him sitting at on that security camera footage. The bartender who saw the
woman Weylen Taylor met with described her as having sharp bird-like features,
tall with dark brown hair, symmetrically gray at the temples. We were looking
at a photograph of a woman matching that description exactly. We sent it to
Colin.

**COLIN ORRY (CO):** Whoa,
that's crazy!

**AM:** Yeah, it's
pretty wild.

**CO:** You think it's
the same woman?

**AM:** I don't want
to jump to conclusions, but it sure feels like a possibility. Did you manage to
find her?

**CO:** Reverse image
search didn't turn anything up. We're working on facial recognition, but unless
you know anybody in the NSA, we’re probably not going to be able to find her that
way.

**AM:** What about
the text that was surrounded by the redacted black?

**CO:** That was a
different story

**AM V/O:** I'd ask Colin
to look into the woman in the photograph and the text that had remained after
somebody had liberally taken a black felt marker to redact the majority of it. There
was one phrase that gave us something; just a handful of words and letters in
the center of the document surrounded by so many thick black lines. Those words
and letters read as follows: “Monitor SCR Allen Kyle.” I didn't figure it out
right away. Colin recognized it almost immediately.

**CO:** The reason
whoever redacted the documents get this section is probably because there's
indirect information.

**AM:** What do you
mean?

**CO:** It's a kind
of extra security measure; a loose code.

**AM:** What code?

**CO:** A very basic
switch. Ok, the name Allen Kyle is an anagram for Lane Kelly.

**AM:** Of course it
is.

**CO:** And-

**AM:** And SCR is
silver cord Road.

**CO:** Bingo.

**AM:** Wait, so Lane
Kelly found a document with his own name on it and the photograph of this
mystery woman. Do you think he believed this mystery woman was X?

**CO:** Well, it
makes sense. He probably knows he himself isn't X, right?

**AM:** Right.

**AM V/O:** So, Lane Kelly's
research gave us a photograph of a woman who matched the description of a woman
who'd met Weylen Taylor in a bar years after Taylor's mysterious disappearance.
Since we were already using a Tor browser, Mitch and I did some more digging on
the Deep Web.

**MS:** Where do you want
to go now?

**AM:** As few places
as possible, thank you very much.

**MS:** Hmm, what you
don't like the dark net?

**AM:** Not in the
least, you?

**MS:** I mean, I
think ours is a more interesting world because of it, but yeah I'd rather not
spend the ton of time here.

**AM:** What are you
looking for?

**MS:** I am checking
a bulletin board.

**AM:** For what?

**MS:** It's a group
that meets every week to discuss that video and the teenagers who disappeared.

**AM:** Who are these
people in the chat?

**MS:** No idea, they
just use aliases and generic avatars.

**AM:** Is everything
on the Deep Web anonymous?

**MS:** Yeah, pretty
much. Oh hey, this person is new.

**AM:** Who?

**MS:** They call
themselves TruthWarrior69.

**AM:** Wow, that's quite
a handle.

**MS:** Look at this!

**AM:** Wow. Wait, is
that real?

**MS:** I mean, it
sure looks like it.

**AM V/O:** Mitch
turned her laptop around to reveal a photograph. It was the teenage geocacher and
her friend getting interviewed around a table in what appeared to be a
government bunker somewhere. They didn't look like they were being held against
their will or anything. There were sodas on the table and there were adults
present of both genders, but still, that picture it had a real deep conspiracy
vibe about it.

**AM:** What are they
saying about that picture?

**MS:** The original poster
is offline, they just uploaded the photo. Oh man, the rest of the participants
are going crazy, but it's all speculation-Area 51 kind of stuff. They say those
kids aren't missing in the normal sense; they're missing in the “government
agency took them sense.” You know, like some kind of real-life stranger things situation,
and the Online Crusaders believe that they have to save them or you know at
least chat about saving them online.

**AM:** Can you print
out everything they're saying? Actually, we should print out everything we can
find on that bulletin board.

**MS:** I’m on it.

**AM V/O:** We're
going to continue to look into those teenagers disappearances, but right now
I'm going to play something that Colin found in the internet archives, a kind
of cross between a public domain digital record site and a Wayback Machine. It's
a recording. A Flynn Initiative participant is being interviewed. It appears to
be some kind of internal audio document. Colin believes it wasn't supposed to
end up archived, that it must have been included in a bunch of other files during
a transfer backup process of some kind. An alphabetical storage mix-up the other
files in this particular archive our geological readings and recordings by a
man named Flynn Innerschmidt they have nothing whatsoever to do with the Flynn Initiative
we're going to play the recording of that Flynn initiative interview for you
now.

-*Interview recording-*

**WOMAN (W):** What
were you thinking during the first phase of the Process?

**MAN (M):** I don't
remember.

**W:** Do you
remember the medication being administered?

**M:** I remember it
feeling cool cold around the location of the IV and then and then I woke up.

**W:** The last time,
you mentioned you'd experienced lost time.

**M:** Yes.

**W:** Did that happen
again?

**M:** You know it
did.

**W:** Please could
you confirm it for the record.

**M:** Once again, I
experienced lost time.

**W:** Thank you.

**M:** Ok, can we be
finished please? I don't feel very well.

**W:** Just a few
more questions.

**M:** I am tired.

**W:** It won't take
long. Last time, you mentioned that you'd experienced a displacement.

**M:** I did not!

**W:** Well?

**M:** I told you, there's
somewhere else. A broken place, a rift that I'd been pulled into a space, that
I felt like I was being ripped apart and drowning.

**W:** Right and did
you experience this rift again? Please answer the question.

**M:** I'm not going back
to that place.

**W:** The last time,
you described it as kind of a “page between pages.” You said that things calmed
down in “that place” once you calm down, do you remember?

**M:** I told you I
am NOT going back.

**W:** I understand,
but if you could just-

**M:** We're finished
here.

*-End of interview-*

**AM V/O:** That's
where the recording ends. A few days later, we found something else something
referencing a familiar term. We found it by accessing a link in lane Kelly's
diary, a link that led to an audio file. It's another interview. We're going to
play that interview for you now.

*-Recording-*

**WOMAN 1 (W1):**
Yeah, they called it a coma, but I think it was more than that or different.

**WOMAN 2 (W2):** How
do you mean?

**W1:** Well, you
know I suffer from encephalitis lethargica?

**W2:** Yes.

**W1:** Which means I
experience slipping into a number of comas.

**W2:** Right.

**W1:** And with this
one, this is like-like…being half into and then-

**W2:** And then
what?

**W1:** And then
taken over.

**AM V/O:** That
sounds terrifying and familiar. Weylen Taylor Lane Kelly and Patient 81 have
all mentioned similar experiences or conducted seemingly related experiments.
Which brings us to another story about somebody obsessed with breaking through
to what she called the “other side” or the void.” It was something sent to us
by an anonymous listener. It was nothing more than a name: Clarissa Day. Colin,
Mitch and I looked into it. Colin found something.

**AM:** What were you
able to dig up about Clarissa Day?

**CO:** Like a lot of
people connected to whatever this is, she was or is a research scientist.

**AM:** Makes sense.

**CO:** Well, we
believe that while she was working at Boston University in the early 90s, she
was in possession of an artifact.

**AM:** Now that
sounds familiar.

**CO:** It's going
sound even more so soon.

**AM:** Ok.

**CO:** somebody at
the University believed that whatever Dr. Day had in her possession was capable
of peering into something they were calling the “void” or the “rift.”

**AM:** This was
happening in a science department?

**CO:** It was a
privately funded study

**AM:** Who was
funding it?

**CO:** Guess.

**AM:** The Flynn
Initiative?

**CO:** Nope, but
it's going to sound familiar.

**AM:** I give up.

**CO:** The
Bolchester Alliance.

**AM:** Of course.

**CO:** Right?

**AM:** Do we know
for certain that this Dr. Day was actually in possession of an artifact?

**CO:** We have
documents. No photos or videos, although I am working on that.

**AM:** Can I see
them? The documents?

**CO:** Of course, of
course. I was just scanning sending them now.

**AM:** Can you sum
them up?

**CO:** Sure. Well,
Dr. Day was gifted something by a close friend of her grandmother's, the woman
who had raised Dr. Day, a woman who had just died.

**AM:** Her
grandmother had just died?

**CO:** No, the
grandmother’s friend.

**AM:** Right. Ok,
and this thing that was gifted, it was the artifact from those videos we saw?

**CO:** Well no, it
wasn't that artifact based on the description, but it could certainly be
categorized as an artifact and it did appear to be similar very similar.

**AM:** How similar?

**CO:** It glowed
blue and caused panic when it was operated.

**AM:** Wow.

**CO:** Yeah.

**AM:** How do we
know this?

**CO:** I'll read you
this section: “when the device was first activated, there was a static field
generated and hair stood on end. People ran in panic and the window began to
glow softly with a blue light similar to the primary. He was right; we're going
to need a bigger boat. “

**AM:** What does
that mean?

**CO:** It's a jaws
reference.

**AM:** I get the
reference I just don't know what it means…a bigger lab?

**CO:** Yeah, I think
that's exactly right.

**AM:** What do you
think she means by the term “the primary?”

**CO:** I have no
idea.

**AM:** What did the
artifact look like?

**CO:** Unlike the
item in the geocache or video and the film from CERN, this artifact isn't a
dodecahedron.

**AM:** No?

**CO:** No, there's a
sketch in the documents I sent today. It appears to be cylindrical; a long
brass tube, but it does feature a section in the middle that you could look
through.

**AM:** The part that
would glow blue?

**CO:** Yeah.

**AM:** Anything else?

**CO:** Yeah, one of
the documents warns that exposure to the artifact when it's engaged could be
catastrophically dangerous and that more testing is required before use can be
authorized.

**AM:** Authorized by
whom?

**CO:** It doesn't
say

**AM:** Of course.

**CO:** But it sounds
like this wasn't the only artifact and that, unlike whatever was on the
geocaching video, this device doesn't appear to be all that old.

**AM:** No?

**CO:** No. There's a
date in catalog number so it looks like the device was manufactured sometime in
the 1920s.

**AM:** That's
interesting.

**CO:** But there's
more.

**AM:** What?

**CO:** Dr. Day’s
grandmother's friend, the older woman who died?

**AM:** What about
her?

**CO:** Her name was
Rosina Schulz.

**AM:** Does that
name mean anything?

**CO:** No, but her
maiden name does.

**AM:** What's her
maiden name?

**CO:** Rosina
Majorana.

**AM:** Why does that
last name sound familiar?

**CO:** Because
Rosina Majorana was Ettore Majorana’s sister.

**AM:** Ettore
Majorana!

**CO:** The Italian
theoretical physicist who was deep into all this weird physics and metaphysical
stuff.

**AM:** Who
disappeared under very suspicious circumstances in 1939 and reappeared in 1959.

**CO:** That’s him.

**AM:** Were you able
to dig up anything else on Dr. Clarissa Day?

**CO:** Nothing
really. She left Boston after a few years, the trail ends pretty abruptly. No
social media, no publication, scientific or otherwise.

**AM:** This is
getting deeper.

**CO:** Yeah it is.

**AM V/O:** Finding Ettore
Majorana’s sister by way of her married name inspired an idea. While Mitch and
I were looking into Dr. Clarissa Day, we dug a little deeper and found out that
Dr. Day had also been married and, later in life, had taken her husband's name.
So, although we were unable to find anything on a Clarissa Day who'd worked at
Boston University once upon a time, there was something on a Dr. Reyes raised a
few years after Dr. Clarissa day left Boston, a Dr. Clarissa Reyes was working
somewhere else with somebody whose name you'll recognize. Six months before
she'd committed suicide under very suspicious circumstances, a woman named
Clarissa Reyes began working with Dr. Weylen Taylor.