Case File MO70

[Dictaphone was tuned for wide-audio capture before recording. Transcript is based on the modified recording with relevant sound isolated, created in 1882]

Walstead: And it’s live. Good, that’s the last one. Now just stay there in the barrel all quiet-like, and hopefully you’ll have enough recorded to finally bring that Negro down.

[A sound of wood scraping on wood. Subsequent audio is slightly muffled.]

Macy: Mattie? Why are you inside?

[A loud, fast scrape, accompanied by footsteps]

Walstead: Oh! Gigi, it’s you. Just needed a moment to get warm before I cover the entrance. The chill’s fierce tonight. Is everything else set?

Macy: I’m set, and you should be too. I just need to double-check the main relay.

[Wood scraping on wood]

Walstead: Careful with that barrel, it’s-

Macy: Mattie, I know all the hidey-holes in this house. Mrs. Judith used to watch me when Father was in the army and Mother was busy. I know they never fill that barrel. Now…

[Sound of electricity sparking]

Macy: Yep…yep…good, looks fine. I had a dream last night where the copper wiring got loose and electrocuted one of Bean’s kids. I have to be sure about this.

Walstead: Of course. Letting things fall to chance right now would be…irresponsible.

[Silence]

Walstead: Judith? Oh, the pastor’s wife? I haven’t had much opportunity to talk with her.

Macy: She’s very quiet. Father jokes that the Bean men always find quiet women for wives to balance out all the preaching they have to do.

Walstead: Or because they don’t want spouses who might have their own opinions on what the Lord’s truth means. Oh, you’re making that face again!

Macy: I’m just worried. The base theory behind the Switch is solid but…we’re mixing it with a lot of unknown factors. Even if I prepare everything properly, it might go wrong.

Walstead: Well I’d be able to help if you told me about some of those factors…

Macy: You know why I shouldn’t.

Walstead: But what I can do now is say that you’re as smart as anybody can be with this abnormal engineernig. If anything fails, it couldn’t have been your fault.

Macy: I suppose…yes, that makes sense. Okay, I have to go pass out cobbler to some of the kids without Bean or my parents seeing me. Go back outside. If anybody comes in at the wrong time, we may be actually, literally dead.

[Leaving footsteps]

Walstead: Hmm. Do I wait for them to activate this thing before I confront them, or do I sabotage the main relay now? No, no, keep playing loyal until it’s time to confront him.

[Leaving footsteps]

[Seventeen minutes of unrelated dialogue. Subsequent dialogue starts from further away, ~12 yards]

Bean: Mr. Freestone. I see you came.

[Silence]

Bean: Have you been enjoying the dinner? Judith worked hard on it. Even Roger’s wife helped pitch in.

[Silence]

Bean: Are you planning to glare at me from the corner for the rest of the night or do you plan to talk at some point?

Freestone: Pastor.

Bean: You may call me Lament, if you choose. Or Lam.

[Silence]

Freestone: Very well, Lament. I see you’ve finally deigned to talk to me.

Bean: I have. I spent so long trying to avoid this exact moment, and yet now that it’s here…I don’t know what I was worried about. Really I should be apologizing to you.

Freestone: What? I…that’s…you don’t have to…really, it’s nothing, you were just-

Bean: Oh, if it were only me being rude, perhaps it’d be nothing, but you saved my son’s life. Even if you were the devil himself, I should thank you for that.

Freestone: Of course I did. The question of my degree aside, I’m a medical professional. It would be unethical to-

Bean: Ethics! Not even morals, but ethics, like a crown of light above your head. It baffles me. It baffles me how good you are. We both know who raised you; you should be a conniving, amoral murderer.

Freestone: Enough. You are clearly under the influence of some intoxicant. I can’t smell liquor on your breath, but your lips - laudanum?

Bean: You should have been the monster I expected.

Freestone: Hello? Is the Mayor around? It’s the pastor, he’s-

Bean: That’s what she tried to make me into.

[Silence]

Freestone: Belay that. I’ll take care of him.

[Footsteps, again. When the dialogue restarts, it’s louder and clearer]

Freestone: You are a monster, but you chose that. She gave you every chance to reconsider and you kept going.

Bean: [laughs] No, what I am is broken, a healthy tree snapped and sharpened into a stake. She had too much blood on her hands. I had to.

Freestone: You chose the knife and cleaver as your weapon, not the law, not your words, not the Word, when you had her at your mercy. You convinced yourself there was no other way, and suffered for it. Did you even consider talking to her?

Bean: She killed my uncle. She took the one man who encouraged me to hone my mind and had him trampled to death, added him to a list of dead men as old as the Flood. She’s a walking leviathan among humans, snapping their lives in her teeth as if they were twigs. And you want me to have tried talking to her?

Freestone: I’m talking to the man who killed my mother. Fair is fair.

[Silence]

Bean: You’re here for her bones.

Freestone: Among other things. If you give me them, I’ll gladly leave tonight and let Henshaw return to being the pale enclave it wants to be.

Bean: I committed an unbearable sin to kill her; I will not cancel out that sacrifice by letting her return to flesh. No matter how many people you mend, it won’t outweigh the blood on her hands.

[A shout in the background]

Freestone: I don’t need your assistance - I know you keep them close to you - but it would save you and the town a lot of trouble.

Bean: Does a good man make threats? I wonder.

[A lot of shouting in the background]

Freestone: I’m doing what I see necessary, and that is all I’ve ever – what is that shouting?

Bean: That? Little Josie Campbell is choking to death.

Freestone: What? How do you-

Bean: It’ll be strychnine poisoning. Her body will shut down, muscles flailing out of control, nerves frying - I’m not a medical professional, but I get the gist of it. This late after the dosage, she may only have minutes.

[Silence]

Freestone: Lament, good God, what have you done?

Bean: I’ve put my trust in God. Surely, He won’t let this girl die in such a horrible way. He’ll have sent someone to take care of that. A normal doctor wouldn’t be able to save her now - but you can, can’t you? Isn’t that what your ethics are telling you to do, go out there and save her, by any means necessary?

Freestone: No, but…I don’t have time to…no, I see what you’ve done. You truly are a monster.

Bean: No? Perhaps I am. But if you don’t help her, so will you.

[Frantic footsteps out of the closet, followed by normal footsteps]

[Recording lasts for twelve minutes before catastrophic destruction. Please see transcript #2 for this incident for later events]