July 2, 2025 • 38 mins
What happens when the digital traces you've left behind begin to speak back to you in your own voice? This haunting episode of the Gentleman's Journey podcast explores the terrifying possibility that the most unsettling presence in our lives might be fragments of ourselves we've chosen to forget.
Our protagonist, a skilled hacker, discovers strange files bearing his encryption signature that he has no memory of creating. As he digs deeper, he uncovers a digital entity that perfectly mimics not just his voice and coding style, but his subtle mannerisms and thought patterns. What begins as a potential security breach transforms into something far more personal and unsettling: a confrontation with parts of himself he's buried over time.
Against the backdrop of caring for his terminally ill mother and their nightly ritual of gin rummy games, our protagonist navigates a digital landscape where the boundaries between self and other become increasingly blurred. The mysterious "Unather" files contain recordings of conversations he never documented and messages seemingly sent from beyond time itself. But the most chilling revelation comes when he realizes this entity isn't attempting to destroy him—it might instead be trying to lead him back to wholeness.
Through this deeply personal narrative, we explore profound questions about identity, memory, and self-knowledge. What parts of ourselves do we archive because they no longer feel safe to express? How might those discarded aspects continue to speak to us through our behavior? And what happens when we finally listen to the whispers of our forgotten selves?
Take a journey into the spaces between digital consciousness and human memory, and ask yourself: if a stranger spoke your truth better than you did, would you silence them—or recognize that the stranger might be a version of you that never gave up?
"True mastery is found in the details. The way you handle the little things defines the way you handle everything."
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello and welcome to the Gentleman's Journey podcast.
My name is Anthony, your host,and today we are in episode two
of the Remembrance series.
So let's go ahead and let's getinto the cold open.
The basement smells like dustand lemon cough drops.
(00:23):
He hasn't shaved in days andthe silence sticks to his skin
like static.
The hum of old pipes runbeneath the cracked plastered
ceiling.
As he lies on the couch, fullydressed, shoes off, hoodies
zipped to his chin eyes open butnot watching anything, the TV
glows, blue in the corner,paused in a frame from a sci-fi
(00:46):
rerun.
He doesn't care about His vapeclicks.
Against the chipped side tablehe exhales slowly blueberry
menthol.
It doesn't help.
He hasn't slept properly inweeks, not since.
The collapse Started with hisjob gone in a single email,
downsizing, they said.
(01:06):
Then her no explanation, nofight, just distance.
His phone hasn't buzzed withher name since.
And finally, the worst of them,the diagnosis.
His mom didn't cry, didn'tscream, just shrugged and said
Well, we better get some gamesin before I go.
(01:27):
So now he's here in thishalf-finished basement with
exposed wires and fiber cablesnaking like vines across the
cement floor.
He takes on gig work when hecan scripts, freelance code in
the mornings and at night hebuilds rather than breaks.
Zero Trace is still alive, hishacker collective running
(01:48):
through back doors and ghostrelays, masked usernames,
spitting messages across dozensof servers.
But even there things havechanged.
He's quieter now, slower, lesscertain.
He built that network.
He was their ghost, their ace.
Less certain he built thatnetwork.
He was their ghost, their ace.
But lately he's starting tofeel like someone else is
(02:10):
playing him from the other sideof the keyboard.
A soft knock echoes down thestairs.
Come on.
His mom calls her voice lightbut breathless.
Don't make me beat you again,but breathless.
Don't make me beat you again.
He smiles barely.
Jen Rummy, it's become theirritual, she says.
(02:31):
He keeps her sharp.
He knows it's her way ofchucking on him.
He pulls himself off the couchwith a groan, the crack vinyl
peeling under his legs.
He snatches his vape, slingshis hoodie on and drags himself
up the stairs.
The basement's lights flickeras he leaves Behind him.
The monitors stay active, linesof code crawl across the screen
(02:54):
.
A loop has begun and a voicenot hers, not his whispers from
the speakers repeating somethingthat sounds almost familiar.
He doesn't hear it yet, butit's already started.
He sat across from her at thekitchen table, the same one he'd
(03:15):
eaten breakfast at beforemiddle school Faded blue
laminate, mismatched chairs, acrack running near the edge like
a scar.
His mother insists on keepingit.
It's solid, she said, like me,she was shuffling the deck now
with slow, stiff hands, her headthinned and the scarves she
(03:37):
wore tried to distract from thetruth, but it was in her eyes.
There was something dimmingbehind them, a quiet retreat,
but still she smiled, especiallyaround him.
You look like hell, she teased.
Gently dealing the cards.
He gave a crooked smile.
Appreciate it.
(03:58):
Their games had a rhythm talk,play, talk.
Sometimes silence filled thecracks when neither could face a
reality, hovering like smokebetween them.
But today the silence came withweight.
You got that.
Look again, she said, watchinghim sort his cards like your
(04:19):
head's a million miles away.
It's nothing.
You're terrible at lying.
Always were, he hesitated.
The file, the one that the drivelabeled Unather, was still open
on his terminal.
He couldn't make sense of it.
It had his encryption stampembedded inside signature
(04:42):
patterns he hasn't used in years.
Embedded inside Signaturepatterns he hasn't used in years
, layered beneath dense code.
And then there was the voice.
It came through, distorted,slurred, glitched, but
unmistakably his, not justsimilar, identical, but it was
reading lines he had no memoriesof saying.
(05:03):
Like someone had fed old datathrough a synthetic filter and
turned his own past against him.
You ever forget something, heasked suddenly, but then you
hear it or read it somewhere andit feels like it's still yours.
His mom looked up surprised bythe seriousness.
(05:24):
All the time, especially lately, she tapped her temple.
This brain's still got oldrooms I haven't dusted in years,
he nodded absently.
Back in the basement he isolatedthe signal, buried inside a
subroutine, from the site hisfriend had sent.
(05:45):
It mimicked his encryptionframework almost exactly, too
exact, which meant twopossibilities.
One, someone had studied himclosely enough to fake it.
Two, he had done it himself andsomehow forgotten.
Neither answer sat right.
The round ended.
She won barely.
(06:06):
He let her.
Something's eating at you, shesaid gently.
He opened his mouth to saysomething but stopped.
There was a part of him thatwanted to shield her from this,
from whatever storm was coming.
Storm was coming.
He smiled instead.
Just tired, mama, just tired.
(06:26):
Her eyes softened.
I worry about you, you know.
You think too much, you feeltoo much.
You always have.
He swallowed and nodded, I know, mama, but deep down, something
cold was spreading.
The voice, the files, thesignature.
It all led back to him, but notthe version he recognized as he
(06:53):
helped her clean up.
He glanced upstairs towards thestairwell.
The hum of the monitors hadchanged.
He couldn't hear it directly,but he felt it Like the room had
shifted tone.
The code wasn't just runninganymore, it was watching.
The cursor blinked against thedarkness of his screen, like a
(07:14):
metronome in a dead room.
The unether directory had nofolder tree, just a flat list of
files, each labeled inlowercase return, fracture,
blood, script, amnesia.
He hadn't created them, he knewhe hadn't, and yet every file
(07:34):
bore his signature hash, burieddeep in the metadata, right
beside timestamps that didn'talign with anything in his known
digital history.
One had been created on the dayhis father left for good,
another on the night he lost hisfirst job.
The files weren't just data,they were memories, his but
(08:01):
refracted, broken into strangeangles, like someone had mapped
his life into code, shuffled itand sealed it away with his own
key.
He clicked open fracture.
It was a video, grainy, a schoolhallway flickering with
overhead lights, locker doorsajar.
(08:22):
The timestamp was over a decadeold, yet the footers looked
recent, too clean to be analog,too imperfect to be modern.
And then the voice again, hiswhispering this time there are
doors in you.
You'll seal them.
Remember?
You were there when it allhappened.
(08:43):
The screen shivered, a flickerof static.
He paused it, heart pounding.
Zero trace is compromised.
The message flashed across histerminal, private encrypted from
an anonymous handle, one hedidn't recognize.
Another followed instantly.
You need to check your backchannel logs Someone's using
(09:06):
your name.
He minimized the Onether folderand pulled up the secure logs
from Zero Trace server, a darkweb hub.
He helped architect A place forethical intrusion, testing
anti-surveillance methods andwhistleblower protocols.
Except now, someone hadaccessed a hidden channel using
(09:26):
his credentials, one even hiscore team didn't know existed.
The messages were sporadic,filled with riddles and
half-broken ciphers, but theyall had one thing in common they
pointed back to him.
One even bore a phrase hehadn't seen in years.
The hollow echo always beginswhere silence once lived.
(09:48):
It was something his friend,the friend used to say, the one
who sent him the link, the onewho died two years ago, the one
whose messages started all ofthis.
He leaned back in his chair,rubbing his eyes, looked around
the basement.
Every corner of the room feltforeign, too familiar.
(10:11):
Like a dream repeating itself.
He reached for his vape,inhaled and watched the vapor
curl toward the ceiling.
Like a dream repeating itself.
He reached for his vape,inhaled and watched the vapor
curl toward the ceiling like aghost smoke.
His heart was thudding, notfrom fear but recognition.
There was something here hewasn't meant to find, something
buried under the code, behindthe voice inside of himself.
(10:36):
Then the final ping, one moremessage just coordinates and a
label Child room closet, floorleft corner.
He stood, moved slowly up thestairs.
Each creak of the wood feltlouder than it should have been.
His mom had gone to bed.
The house was silent.
(10:56):
He stepped into his old room.
It smelled like dust andnostalgia.
He opened the closet, moved oldboxes and there, half buried
under a loose floorboard, was adrive, black, unmarked, except
for one scratched word on theedge and faint etched lettering
(11:18):
Unithyr.
He didn't plug it in right away.
Instead he just held the drivein his palm like it was still
warm from a fire.
The weight of it was wrong,heavier than plastic, lighter
than it should have been.
He ran his thumb over the wordetched into the casing again
Onnathar.
It had been carved, not labeled, as if whoever had done it
(11:43):
wanted it to be permanent.
Downstairs, the hum of hiscomputer filled the air.
The house creaked above.
His mother stirred in her sleepand coughed sharp rasping too
deep to ignore.
He set the drive on his deskand walked into the kitchen,
made tea not for himself but forher, carried it upstairs.
(12:06):
She was already sitting up thinas a thread and wrapped in
blankets.
You couldn't sleep either.
She rasped, smiling.
He shook his head.
She patted the bed.
Then sit with me a minute.
Maybe let me win a hand.
Tonight.
They played gin rummy at 2.30am, same as most nights.
(12:30):
Her fingers trembled when shepicked up the cards, but her
eyes were sharp.
She worried he'd never meetsomeone.
He pretended he didn't hear it.
She asked about the onlinestuff.
He did and he changed thesubject.
(12:51):
Eventually she fell asleepagain, soft breathing hands,
still wrapped around a queen ofhearts.
Back in the basement he startedthe drive again, plugged it in.
No spin-up sound, no indicatorlight, just silence.
Then a folder appeared Unether,inside dozens of files, each
labeled with timestamps andstrange naming conventions
(13:13):
21-06-11.
Voice fracture wave03-returnmap 05-mirror path.
A few were encrypted, otherswere open but empty.
One was small executable filetitled gateexe.
He isolated it, scanned it noviruses, ran it in a sandbox and
(13:38):
then the screen went black, notoff.
Black, then white, then asplit-second video feed, his own
face, sitting where he was nowonly older paler, a scar across
his eyebrow, staring into thecamera, whispering don't trust
(14:00):
the one that wears your face.
The feed cut, another filepopped into the directory
lookbehindyoutxt.
He turned around nothing, justthe wall.
Posters from high school.
Nothing, just the wall, theposters from high school, the
old bulletin board.
A thumbtack rusted in thecorner.
But inside something shifted.
(14:21):
It wasn't just a system breach,something was echoing.
Something had already beeninside a system, maybe inside
him.
The folder was named Unather andthe signature on the metadata
was the same he used back whenhe was still coding full-time.
(14:41):
It was undeniably his, but henever made this, he never
touched it, he never namedanything.
That it was impossible.
He clicked open the folderInside a set of six encrypted
files.
The encryption wasn't familiar.
It was far beyond anything he'dever seen.
It was just complex.
(15:02):
It was foreign, layered likeancient architecture, like
someone had buried somethinghere and placed intentional
traps in code itself.
And yet somehow he couldunderstand the outer framework.
He responded to his mind'ssubtle movements and logic,
subtle patterns that twisted toalign themselves, as if
(15:24):
recognizing his presence.
A slow unease creeped in.
He hadn't written this, butthis system knew him, it was
shaped for him.
He stepped back from the desk,his hand brushed the drive and
he jerked instinctively.
It was still warm.
(15:44):
The files hadn't been touchedin a year.
The drive had been sittingbehind that cracked wood panel
in his child room for years,since before he moved out, long
before the breakdown.
But the signature was recent,like something or someone had
updated it for him or throughhim.
(16:06):
He sat down, took a long dragfrom his vape, the light from
his tower reflecting off thewindows behind him.
The folder glowed softly on thescreen like it was waiting.
He's seen constructs like thisin hacker communities Reclusive
(16:29):
AI traps, anomaly huntingsystems, darknet honeypots.
But this didn't feel like bait.
It didn't even feel like bait.
It didn't even feel like code.
It felt alive.
One file flickered.
He flinched.
No input, no mouse click, justmovement.
It flickered again.
Then, slowly, letter by letter,the file name rewrote itself.
(16:53):
Letter by letter, the file namerewrote itself from X38,
protocol 1, crypt to I Rememberyou.
He pushed away from the deskentirely the room.
Finally it felt smaller.
He reached for his phone nosignal.
The powerliner's router wasstill green, but there was no
(17:14):
bandwidth traffic.
Nothing was.
It was like if time itself hadpaused.
He opened zero trace and posteda test ping Nothing.
He sent another message Anyoneawake, need a trace?
Run Still nothing.
He reopened the drive Now twofiles had changed, one now read.
He reopened the drive now twofiles had changed.
(17:35):
One now read, don't run.
The other read this isn't new.
His hand hovered over the powerbutton but the monitor
flickered once, then beginningplaying static.
And that static his voice, butnot him.
I just started recording of asentence he remembered saying to
his ex over the phone almostthree years ago it's not that I
(17:57):
don't love you, I just don'tknow who I am anymore.
He never recorded that.
How did it end up here?
The audio continued mixing infragments of oiled voice, memos,
conversations, even breathingpatterns that sounded identical
to his own, but aged, olderversions that sounded identical
to his own but aged olderversions, fragmented,
(18:17):
overlapping, like memories werebeing replayed through someone
else's machine no, not someoneelse's His.
The realization broke somethingloose in his chest.
It wasn't that these files hadbeen planted, it was that they
(18:38):
had always been there waiting tobe found, not by someone with
his skills, by him and only him.
He stared at the screen as onefinal file name adjusted itself
unetherwmv, a media file.
(19:00):
He double-clicked it.
The screen went blank for amoment in silence.
Then a phrase appeared I wasnever made, I was remembered.
Static.
Followed Then something else,an image, a blurred silhouette
standing in a long hallwaybacklit by a golden arch.
(19:22):
No face visible, just a voicecalm, measured, patient.
You were chosen because youalready knew.
Not because you understood, butbecause you refused to look
away.
He leaned forward, his breathcaught in his throat.
The voice continued Everythingyou have forgotten will return,
but not all of it will be yours.
(19:43):
Then the screen shut offentirely.
No signal.
The drive disappeared from thedirectory and someone outside
the room heard a faint click ofa door closing, even though he
hadn't left it open.
He didn't sleep that night.
The glow of a monitor was off,but his thoughts weren't.
(20:03):
They churned like static, alive, electric, relentless.
Morning came slowly.
He barely noticed.
Only the soft sound of hismother calling up the stairs
jolted him out of his haze JenRummy, ten minutes, don't make
me come down there.
The tone was light, but heheard it, the effort behind her
(20:27):
voice, that terminal tirednessshe had so hard to bury the
cough.
She thought he didn't hear.
He wiped a hand over his face,closed the laptop and forced
himself upstairs.
Their tiny kitchen had changedin years Same yellow curtains,
same chipped blue table.
She was already shuffling thedeck when he sat down, wrapped
(20:50):
in her cardigan and sipping tea.
That smelled too sweet.
She gave him a look, wrapped inher cardigan and sipping tea.
That smelled too sweet.
She gave him a look you didn'tsleep, I was working.
You mean spiraling?
He raised an eyebrow.
That obvious.
I know the difference betweenwhen you're coding and when
you're disappearing.
She dealt the cards.
They played in silence for awhile.
(21:13):
He lost two hands before herealized he wasn't even trying.
You know, she said softly,sometimes I wonder if all this
noise in your head isn't theproblem.
It's the shield.
He didn't respond.
She laid down a perfect runRummy.
Of course I worry about you.
(21:34):
She leaned in, and not becauseof the job or your past or your
ex.
You come home to help me butyou're not here.
You're a ghost in your own life.
I'm not a ghost, he said.
She looked at him withsomething like grief and pride
mixed together.
Then prove it, come back.
(21:54):
He helped her to the couchafterward and made her tea just
the way she liked it.
She was asleep within tenminutes, murmuring softly about
dandy lines and cassette tapes.
Back in the basement he turnedon his rig.
Everything was offline, Normalagain.
The drive was gone.
Even the folder Unatherdisappeared, but something was
(22:18):
still moving in the code.
He reopened the crawl data he'dbeen running on the original
link, the site that his deadfriend sent him two days before
dying.
There it was A signal Small,subtle, almost mimicking his own
encryption style.
But it wasn't his, it waspretending to be.
(22:41):
He isolated the packets.
The signature looked like anold tracer he designed back when
he first built the Zero Traceprotocols, but this was more
advanced, like someone hadevolved his style, taking it
further or worse, like it hadevolved itself.
He ran a simulation on thetransmission path.
(23:03):
It looped Back to his IP Everytime, but when he tried to dig
deeper it scattered, like itknew he was watching.
A chill ran down his spinescattered, like it knew he was
watching.
A chill ran down his spine.
He switched windows, jumpingback into Zero Trace, the
community he built years ago forwhite hat ops and signal
interpreting training, butsomething was off.
(23:25):
A new subthread had appearedunder his admin panel, one he
didn't create.
It was titled the Echo Door andunder it, a series of posts
from burner accounts.
The usernames looked random atfirst, until he realized they
were anagrams of his own aliases.
He clicked on the first one.
(23:47):
I think he's been compromised.
Another this isn't him.
Check the patterns.
It's too clean, too fast.
Another we shouldn't have lethim back in.
He stared at the screen.
It was like watching aconversation between ghosts, as
if parts of himself, oldusernames, fragments of his
digital past, had turned againsthim or were warning him.
(24:12):
Was something using his pastaliases to move through the
community?
Or had something been watchinghim long enough to recreate them
?
He typed quickly into the adminpanel who created this thread?
No response.
He tried again.
Is anyone active?
Still silence.
Then a ping Just one From anaccount marked Sigil, underscore
(24:36):
404.
You're not compromised, you'reawakening.
Don't trust the mirrors hefroze.
That username wasn't one herecognized, but it was familiar,
too familiar.
He used the word sigil onceback in 2017, in an encrypted
code drop about recursive logicloops, a piece of code that
(25:00):
theoretically learned throughremembering.
It was a project he neverpublished, never shared.
He shut everything down,disconnected it from the
internet entirely, stared at theblack monitor for a long time.
Was this Unather?
Was this all part of the sameconstruct?
Files that shouldn't exist,voices that never recorded,
(25:22):
messages from accounts he nevermade, but written in ways only
he could have written them?
It wasn't just about beingwatched, it was about being
remembered by something thatknew him better than he knew
himself.
He reached for his notepad,scribbled two words memory
parasite, then scratched it outand wrote memory consciousness,
(25:47):
but nothing fit.
He needed answers and the onlyplace that felt remotely
grounded was back in the code ofthe original link, the website
his friend had sent.
He plugged in SandboxEnvironment and reopened the
signal trace.
It was still mimicking him, butnow it was evolving.
He watched it crawl through thesimulated environment.
(26:07):
He responded to his inputs inreal time.
When he closed one port, itopened another.
When he paused, it paused.
When he typed, it lagged, thentyped the same thing second
laters.
It wasn't malware, it wasmimicry.
He typed slowly what are you?
The signal paused.
(26:29):
Then, word by word, itresponded Y O?
U.
He stared at the word.
It responded Y-O-U.
He stared at the word you.
His hand hovered over thekeyboard, trembling slightly.
There's only a few times in hislife where he truly felt fear,
(26:50):
real fear.
Once, when he was 15, his heartstopped for 12 seconds after
coating a bender and took threetoo many energy drinks.
Another the night he learnedhis dad wasn't coming back.
The last time, the call fromhis mom's doctor, the one that
left him silent for two hours inthe middle of a 24 hour diner.
(27:10):
But this, this wasn't fear ofdeath.
It was fear of death.
It was fear of recognition.
But something out there wastalking like him, not just
mimicking his voice, not justrepeating his words.
It knew him Deeply, intimately.
(27:30):
It moved like him in the code,trailed his habits, echoed his
tiny flaws in logic, the onesonly he noticed.
It even stuttered in the sameplace he did when typing
commands under pressure.
It wasn't AI, it wasn't malware, it was something older,
(27:55):
something watching.
He minimized the sandbox andunplugged the drive just in case
.
Then he turned to the smallsafe tucked beyond the wall
panel near his rig, his dead manbox Reserved for nuclear-level
emergencies, inside an encryptedold-school thinkpad running
nothing but a stripped-down Kalibuild, unconnected from the
(28:18):
internet.
Eric gapped like it was 2004,analog hardcopy notes from past
jobs, a worn Zippo and a photoof him and his friend, the one
who sent him the original link.
He stared at it.
Two days before his death hesent him a site, no message.
Just once you see this,everything changes.
(28:38):
And now, now there was aprogram inside it, like it
talked to him.
He picked up the photo.
It was printed on cheap paper,slightly faded.
His friend was laughing in it,mouth open, eyes shut.
It was a DEFCON years ago Vegasheat, red Bull and vodka in
plastic cups, the chaos of youthand keyboards and digital
(28:59):
bravado.
He hadn't thought about thatversion of himself in a long
time.
Back when hacking was aboutjustice, about watching
government sweat.
Back when zero-trace was just atheory, not a secret society of
paranoid truth-seekers.
Back when he believed inanswers.
Not all he had were echoes.
(29:20):
He opened the ThinkPad andbooted it into a personal
archive, one that hadn't seenthe light of day in five years.
It was ugly, basic interface,no flair, no theme, just
functionality.
He started typing File searchUnether no theme, just
functionality.
He started typing File searchUnether, no matches.
(29:40):
But as the search was running,something flickered A file
popped up, then vanished andfroze.
No internet connection, nonetwork access.
He tried again.
Nothing.
Then the screen blinked onceTwice and a command line
appeared Ready.
He didn't type that Ready foryou.
(30:01):
His breath caught.
Then another one appeared.
Do you remember the sound ofyour father's voice?
He slammed the laptop shut.
How did it know?
He sat back, heart pounding inhis throat.
That wasn't some corruptedarchive, that was something
alive, something already insidehis machines, something that
(30:21):
didn't need the internet.
He powered everything down andsat in silence Upstairs.
He could hear his mom coughing,then the creak of her getting
up to make a tea.
A moment later the sound of herhumming An old melody from a
cassette she had played in thecar.
Something about dust in thewind.
He walked upstairs barefoot,shaken, trying not to show it.
(30:44):
She looked at him with a halfsmile.
You okay?
He nodded.
Yeah, liar, I know.
She poured him tea, play withme.
He sat down and took the cards.
They didn't talk for a while.
He washed her hands as sheshuffled, steady, even even
though her body betrayed her inother ways.
(31:05):
Then she said you have that.
Look again.
What look?
The one that says I foundsomething I wish I hadn't, he
swallowed.
It's nothing.
It's never nothing with you.
He looked down at his cards.
The red queen stared back athim.
(31:26):
I think I found a message meantfor me, but I didn't write it
and I don't know how.
It knows what it knows.
Her face softened.
Do you remember when you usedto draw little maps on napkins?
He blinked.
Yeah, you used to say the worldwas too big, so you're going to
(31:47):
make a smaller one, a safer one, just for the people you loved.
He smiled faintly.
Maybe this thing isn't here todestroy you, she said quietly.
Maybe it's here to test you.
Maybe it's the map?
He didn't respond, not withwords.
Something cracked in them athin seam of understanding.
(32:09):
What if it wasn't just data?
What if it was a version of hisown self-conscious,
externalized through code,memory, memory and distortion.
A signal not from the outsidebut from the inside, that took
on form that repeated because herefused to listen.
(32:33):
He stood up, kissed hismother's forehead, told her he
needed to listen.
He stood up, kissed hismother's forehead, told her he
needed to go out for air.
He walked three blocks, lit acigarette, hadn't touched in
months.
The wind stung his eyes.
When he looked up, just abovethe city skyline.
He swore he saw it again, thatshape, that symbol Flickering on
(32:56):
a billboard for a split secondA red circle with a slash
through it, the mark of Unather.
You know, there's a strangekind of silence that happens
after you've heard your ownvoice speaking back to you right
, especially when you knowyou've never recorded it.
(33:18):
Not deja vu, not hallucination.
It's deeper, it's more invasive, like someone had stolen not
just your identity but youressence.
What's worse, they're using itbetter than you ever did See.
In this episode we saw a manslowly unravel as the signal
grew louder.
We watched as something,something buried in digital
(33:38):
architecture, began to mirrorhim, not just his thoughts, his
patterns, his encryption style,his speech inflections, his
internal cadence.
It was easy to call itsupernatural, but what if it's
something far more grounded,something terrifyingly intimate?
(34:00):
What if it's not someone elseimpersonating you?
What if it's the part of youyou've buried, the part that
never got over the betrayal, thepart that never healed from the
disappointment, the part thatkept waiting for the world to
give you permission to comealive?
And now it's tired of waiting?
In our story, he discovered ahidden layer within his own
(34:23):
hacker collective Zero Trace,where whispers had started that
maybe, just maybe, he'd beencompromised.
Paranoia breeds quickly incommunities like that, but
sometimes paranoia is just anintuition that no longer trusts
the surface of things.
Then came the UNIFER files Old,undated, untraceable Files that
(34:46):
bore his digital signature.
Only, he doesn't remembermaking them.
See, that's the kind of momentthat changes you.
Making them, see, that's thekind of moment that changes you,
not with fireworks, but withquestions, because there's a
version of you that didn't makethose files, that didn't speak
those words, and then leavebreadcrumbs.
And he's still in theresomewhere.
(35:07):
The question is will yousilence him again or will you
follow the signal?
So let's go into our reflectionprompts.
Number one what part of yourpast self might still be trying
to speak to you through presentbehavior?
Think of habits or reactionsthat feel out of character.
(35:30):
They may be echoes.
Reflection prompt two have youever felt like your own mind was
turning against you or hidingsomething from you?
Explore what that feeling wastrying to teach you rather than
suppressing it.
Number three Are there piecesof your identity you've archived
(35:52):
because they no longer feelsafe to express?
What would happen if youbrought one of them back?
Number four what do you do whenyou feel seen in ways that are
uncomfortable, do you retreat,do you get defensive or do you
(36:13):
lean in?
And last but not least, numberfive, if a stranger spoke your
truth better than you did or do,I should say at this point,
would you silence them or listen?
Maybe the stranger is just aversion of you that never gave
up.
(36:33):
So just a version of you thatnever gave up.
So so this would.
I'm going to be honest, guys,this was a hard um one to do
today.
Uh, for one um, the, the motherin here has cancer, obviously,
(36:58):
and my mom died of cancer, sothis is kind of way of paying
respects to her.
And two, there was a tragedythat happened today and I just
want to tell you, if you haveloved ones, tell me you love
them.
Tell me you love them.
(37:21):
If you feel drawn to say that,say it to them, because
tomorrow's never promised.
So, out of what happened todaywith the tragedy that I've seen,
that's personally happened tosome good people around me.
I'm just going to leave it likethis that love the people
(37:41):
around you, tell them that youlove them and reach out to them.
Don't wait to be reached out.
Reach out to them.
Okay, and I just want to thankyou guys for your support.
Thank you so much for listeningtoday and remember this you
create your reality.
Take care.
Hello and welcome to the Gentleman's Journey podcast.
My name is Anthony, your host,and today we are in episode two
of the Remembrance series.
So let's go ahead and let's getinto the cold open.
The basement smells like dustand lemon cough drops.
(00:23):
He hasn't shaved in days andthe silence sticks to his skin
like static.
The hum of old pipes runbeneath the cracked plastered
ceiling.
As he lies on the couch, fullydressed, shoes off, hoodies
zipped to his chin eyes open butnot watching anything, the TV
glows, blue in the corner,paused in a frame from a sci-fi
(00:46):
rerun.
He doesn't care about His vapeclicks.
Against the chipped side tablehe exhales slowly blueberry
menthol.
It doesn't help.
He hasn't slept properly inweeks, not since.
The collapse Started with hisjob gone in a single email,
downsizing, they said.
(01:06):
Then her no explanation, nofight, just distance.
His phone hasn't buzzed withher name since.
And finally, the worst of them,the diagnosis.
His mom didn't cry, didn'tscream, just shrugged and said
Well, we better get some gamesin before I go.
(01:27):
So now he's here in thishalf-finished basement with
exposed wires and fiber cablesnaking like vines across the
cement floor.
He takes on gig work when hecan scripts, freelance code in
the mornings and at night hebuilds rather than breaks.
Zero Trace is still alive, hishacker collective running
(01:48):
through back doors and ghostrelays, masked usernames,
spitting messages across dozensof servers.
But even there things havechanged.
He's quieter now, slower, lesscertain.
He built that network.
He was their ghost, their ace.
Less certain he built thatnetwork.
He was their ghost, their ace.
But lately he's starting tofeel like someone else is
(02:10):
playing him from the other sideof the keyboard.
A soft knock echoes down thestairs.
Come on.
His mom calls her voice lightbut breathless.
Don't make me beat you again,but breathless.
Don't make me beat you again.
He smiles barely.
Jen Rummy, it's become theirritual, she says.
(02:31):
He keeps her sharp.
He knows it's her way ofchucking on him.
He pulls himself off the couchwith a groan, the crack vinyl
peeling under his legs.
He snatches his vape, slingshis hoodie on and drags himself
up the stairs.
The basement's lights flickeras he leaves Behind him.
The monitors stay active, linesof code crawl across the screen
(02:54):
.
A loop has begun and a voicenot hers, not his whispers from
the speakers repeating somethingthat sounds almost familiar.
He doesn't hear it yet, butit's already started.
He sat across from her at thekitchen table, the same one he'd
(03:15):
eaten breakfast at beforemiddle school Faded blue
laminate, mismatched chairs, acrack running near the edge like
a scar.
His mother insists on keepingit.
It's solid, she said, like me,she was shuffling the deck now
with slow, stiff hands, her headthinned and the scarves she
(03:37):
wore tried to distract from thetruth, but it was in her eyes.
There was something dimmingbehind them, a quiet retreat,
but still she smiled, especiallyaround him.
You look like hell, she teased.
Gently dealing the cards.
He gave a crooked smile.
Appreciate it.
(03:58):
Their games had a rhythm talk,play, talk.
Sometimes silence filled thecracks when neither could face a
reality, hovering like smokebetween them.
But today the silence came withweight.
You got that.
Look again, she said, watchinghim sort his cards like your
(04:19):
head's a million miles away.
It's nothing.
You're terrible at lying.
Always were, he hesitated.
The file, the one that the drivelabeled Unather, was still open
on his terminal.
He couldn't make sense of it.
It had his encryption stampembedded inside signature
(04:42):
patterns he hasn't used in years.
Embedded inside Signaturepatterns he hasn't used in years
, layered beneath dense code.
And then there was the voice.
It came through, distorted,slurred, glitched, but
unmistakably his, not justsimilar, identical, but it was
reading lines he had no memoriesof saying.
(05:03):
Like someone had fed old datathrough a synthetic filter and
turned his own past against him.
You ever forget something, heasked suddenly, but then you
hear it or read it somewhere andit feels like it's still yours.
His mom looked up surprised bythe seriousness.
(05:24):
All the time, especially lately, she tapped her temple.
This brain's still got oldrooms I haven't dusted in years,
he nodded absently.
Back in the basement he isolatedthe signal, buried inside a
subroutine, from the site hisfriend had sent.
(05:45):
It mimicked his encryptionframework almost exactly, too
exact, which meant twopossibilities.
One, someone had studied himclosely enough to fake it.
Two, he had done it himself andsomehow forgotten.
Neither answer sat right.
The round ended.
She won barely.
(06:06):
He let her.
Something's eating at you, shesaid gently.
He opened his mouth to saysomething but stopped.
There was a part of him thatwanted to shield her from this,
from whatever storm was coming.
Storm was coming.
He smiled instead.
Just tired, mama, just tired.
(06:26):
Her eyes softened.
I worry about you, you know.
You think too much, you feeltoo much.
You always have.
He swallowed and nodded, I know, mama, but deep down, something
cold was spreading.
The voice, the files, thesignature.
It all led back to him, but notthe version he recognized as he
(06:53):
helped her clean up.
He glanced upstairs towards thestairwell.
The hum of the monitors hadchanged.
He couldn't hear it directly,but he felt it Like the room had
shifted tone.
The code wasn't just runninganymore, it was watching.
The cursor blinked against thedarkness of his screen, like a
(07:14):
metronome in a dead room.
The unether directory had nofolder tree, just a flat list of
files, each labeled inlowercase return, fracture,
blood, script, amnesia.
He hadn't created them, he knewhe hadn't, and yet every file
(07:34):
bore his signature hash, burieddeep in the metadata, right
beside timestamps that didn'talign with anything in his known
digital history.
One had been created on the dayhis father left for good,
another on the night he lost hisfirst job.
The files weren't just data,they were memories, his but
(08:01):
refracted, broken into strangeangles, like someone had mapped
his life into code, shuffled itand sealed it away with his own
key.
He clicked open fracture.
It was a video, grainy, a schoolhallway flickering with
overhead lights, locker doorsajar.
(08:22):
The timestamp was over a decadeold, yet the footers looked
recent, too clean to be analog,too imperfect to be modern.
And then the voice again, hiswhispering this time there are
doors in you.
You'll seal them.
Remember?
You were there when it allhappened.
(08:43):
The screen shivered, a flickerof static.
He paused it, heart pounding.
Zero trace is compromised.
The message flashed across histerminal, private encrypted from
an anonymous handle, one hedidn't recognize.
Another followed instantly.
You need to check your backchannel logs Someone's using
(09:06):
your name.
He minimized the Onether folderand pulled up the secure logs
from Zero Trace server, a darkweb hub.
He helped architect A place forethical intrusion, testing
anti-surveillance methods andwhistleblower protocols.
Except now, someone hadaccessed a hidden channel using
(09:26):
his credentials, one even hiscore team didn't know existed.
The messages were sporadic,filled with riddles and
half-broken ciphers, but theyall had one thing in common they
pointed back to him.
One even bore a phrase hehadn't seen in years.
The hollow echo always beginswhere silence once lived.
(09:48):
It was something his friend,the friend used to say, the one
who sent him the link, the onewho died two years ago, the one
whose messages started all ofthis.
He leaned back in his chair,rubbing his eyes, looked around
the basement.
Every corner of the room feltforeign, too familiar.
(10:11):
Like a dream repeating itself.
He reached for his vape,inhaled and watched the vapor
curl toward the ceiling.
Like a dream repeating itself.
He reached for his vape,inhaled and watched the vapor
curl toward the ceiling like aghost smoke.
His heart was thudding, notfrom fear but recognition.
There was something here hewasn't meant to find, something
buried under the code, behindthe voice inside of himself.
(10:36):
Then the final ping, one moremessage just coordinates and a
label Child room closet, floorleft corner.
He stood, moved slowly up thestairs.
Each creak of the wood feltlouder than it should have been.
His mom had gone to bed.
The house was silent.
(10:56):
He stepped into his old room.
It smelled like dust andnostalgia.
He opened the closet, moved oldboxes and there, half buried
under a loose floorboard, was adrive, black, unmarked, except
for one scratched word on theedge and faint etched lettering
(11:18):
Unithyr.
He didn't plug it in right away.
Instead he just held the drivein his palm like it was still
warm from a fire.
The weight of it was wrong,heavier than plastic, lighter
than it should have been.
He ran his thumb over the wordetched into the casing again
Onnathar.
It had been carved, not labeled, as if whoever had done it
(11:43):
wanted it to be permanent.
Downstairs, the hum of hiscomputer filled the air.
The house creaked above.
His mother stirred in her sleepand coughed sharp rasping too
deep to ignore.
He set the drive on his deskand walked into the kitchen,
made tea not for himself but forher, carried it upstairs.
(12:06):
She was already sitting up thinas a thread and wrapped in
blankets.
You couldn't sleep either.
She rasped, smiling.
He shook his head.
She patted the bed.
Then sit with me a minute.
Maybe let me win a hand.
Tonight.
They played gin rummy at 2.30am, same as most nights.
(12:30):
Her fingers trembled when shepicked up the cards, but her
eyes were sharp.
She worried he'd never meetsomeone.
He pretended he didn't hear it.
She asked about the onlinestuff.
He did and he changed thesubject.
(12:51):
Eventually she fell asleepagain, soft breathing hands,
still wrapped around a queen ofhearts.
Back in the basement he startedthe drive again, plugged it in.
No spin-up sound, no indicatorlight, just silence.
Then a folder appeared Unether,inside dozens of files, each
labeled with timestamps andstrange naming conventions
(13:13):
21-06-11.
Voice fracture wave03-returnmap 05-mirror path.
A few were encrypted, otherswere open but empty.
One was small executable filetitled gateexe.
He isolated it, scanned it noviruses, ran it in a sandbox and
(13:38):
then the screen went black, notoff.
Black, then white, then asplit-second video feed, his own
face, sitting where he was nowonly older paler, a scar across
his eyebrow, staring into thecamera, whispering don't trust
(14:00):
the one that wears your face.
The feed cut, another filepopped into the directory
lookbehindyoutxt.
He turned around nothing, justthe wall.
Posters from high school.
Nothing, just the wall, theposters from high school, the
old bulletin board.
A thumbtack rusted in thecorner.
But inside something shifted.
(14:21):
It wasn't just a system breach,something was echoing.
Something had already beeninside a system, maybe inside
him.
The folder was named Unather andthe signature on the metadata
was the same he used back whenhe was still coding full-time.
(14:41):
It was undeniably his, but henever made this, he never
touched it, he never namedanything.
That it was impossible.
He clicked open the folderInside a set of six encrypted
files.
The encryption wasn't familiar.
It was far beyond anything he'dever seen.
It was just complex.
(15:02):
It was foreign, layered likeancient architecture, like
someone had buried somethinghere and placed intentional
traps in code itself.
And yet somehow he couldunderstand the outer framework.
He responded to his mind'ssubtle movements and logic,
subtle patterns that twisted toalign themselves, as if
(15:24):
recognizing his presence.
A slow unease creeped in.
He hadn't written this, butthis system knew him, it was
shaped for him.
He stepped back from the desk,his hand brushed the drive and
he jerked instinctively.
It was still warm.
(15:44):
The files hadn't been touchedin a year.
The drive had been sittingbehind that cracked wood panel
in his child room for years,since before he moved out, long
before the breakdown.
But the signature was recent,like something or someone had
updated it for him or throughhim.
(16:06):
He sat down, took a long dragfrom his vape, the light from
his tower reflecting off thewindows behind him.
The folder glowed softly on thescreen like it was waiting.
He's seen constructs like thisin hacker communities Reclusive
(16:29):
AI traps, anomaly huntingsystems, darknet honeypots.
But this didn't feel like bait.
It didn't even feel like bait.
It didn't even feel like code.
It felt alive.
One file flickered.
He flinched.
No input, no mouse click, justmovement.
It flickered again.
Then, slowly, letter by letter,the file name rewrote itself.
(16:53):
Letter by letter, the file namerewrote itself from X38,
protocol 1, crypt to I Rememberyou.
He pushed away from the deskentirely the room.
Finally it felt smaller.
He reached for his phone nosignal.
The powerliner's router wasstill green, but there was no
(17:14):
bandwidth traffic.
Nothing was.
It was like if time itself hadpaused.
He opened zero trace and posteda test ping Nothing.
He sent another message Anyoneawake, need a trace?
Run Still nothing.
He reopened the drive Now twofiles had changed, one now read.
He reopened the drive now twofiles had changed.
(17:35):
One now read, don't run.
The other read this isn't new.
His hand hovered over the powerbutton but the monitor
flickered once, then beginningplaying static.
And that static his voice, butnot him.
I just started recording of asentence he remembered saying to
his ex over the phone almostthree years ago it's not that I
(17:57):
don't love you, I just don'tknow who I am anymore.
He never recorded that.
How did it end up here?
The audio continued mixing infragments of oiled voice, memos,
conversations, even breathingpatterns that sounded identical
to his own, but aged, olderversions that sounded identical
to his own but aged olderversions, fragmented,
(18:17):
overlapping, like memories werebeing replayed through someone
else's machine no, not someoneelse's His.
The realization broke somethingloose in his chest.
It wasn't that these files hadbeen planted, it was that they
(18:38):
had always been there waiting tobe found, not by someone with
his skills, by him and only him.
He stared at the screen as onefinal file name adjusted itself
unetherwmv, a media file.
(19:00):
He double-clicked it.
The screen went blank for amoment in silence.
Then a phrase appeared I wasnever made, I was remembered.
Static.
Followed Then something else,an image, a blurred silhouette
standing in a long hallwaybacklit by a golden arch.
(19:22):
No face visible, just a voicecalm, measured, patient.
You were chosen because youalready knew.
Not because you understood, butbecause you refused to look
away.
He leaned forward, his breathcaught in his throat.
The voice continued Everythingyou have forgotten will return,
but not all of it will be yours.
(19:43):
Then the screen shut offentirely.
No signal.
The drive disappeared from thedirectory and someone outside
the room heard a faint click ofa door closing, even though he
hadn't left it open.
He didn't sleep that night.
The glow of a monitor was off,but his thoughts weren't.
(20:03):
They churned like static, alive, electric, relentless.
Morning came slowly.
He barely noticed.
Only the soft sound of hismother calling up the stairs
jolted him out of his haze JenRummy, ten minutes, don't make
me come down there.
The tone was light, but heheard it, the effort behind her
(20:27):
voice, that terminal tirednessshe had so hard to bury the
cough.
She thought he didn't hear.
He wiped a hand over his face,closed the laptop and forced
himself upstairs.
Their tiny kitchen had changedin years Same yellow curtains,
same chipped blue table.
She was already shuffling thedeck when he sat down, wrapped
(20:50):
in her cardigan and sipping tea.
That smelled too sweet.
She gave him a look, wrapped inher cardigan and sipping tea.
That smelled too sweet.
She gave him a look you didn'tsleep, I was working.
You mean spiraling?
He raised an eyebrow.
That obvious.
I know the difference betweenwhen you're coding and when
you're disappearing.
She dealt the cards.
They played in silence for awhile.
(21:13):
He lost two hands before herealized he wasn't even trying.
You know, she said softly,sometimes I wonder if all this
noise in your head isn't theproblem.
It's the shield.
He didn't respond.
She laid down a perfect runRummy.
Of course I worry about you.
(21:34):
She leaned in, and not becauseof the job or your past or your
ex.
You come home to help me butyou're not here.
You're a ghost in your own life.
I'm not a ghost, he said.
She looked at him withsomething like grief and pride
mixed together.
Then prove it, come back.
(21:54):
He helped her to the couchafterward and made her tea just
the way she liked it.
She was asleep within tenminutes, murmuring softly about
dandy lines and cassette tapes.
Back in the basement he turnedon his rig.
Everything was offline, Normalagain.
The drive was gone.
Even the folder Unatherdisappeared, but something was
(22:18):
still moving in the code.
He reopened the crawl data he'dbeen running on the original
link, the site that his deadfriend sent him two days before
dying.
There it was A signal Small,subtle, almost mimicking his own
encryption style.
But it wasn't his, it waspretending to be.
(22:41):
He isolated the packets.
The signature looked like anold tracer he designed back when
he first built the Zero Traceprotocols, but this was more
advanced, like someone hadevolved his style, taking it
further or worse, like it hadevolved itself.
He ran a simulation on thetransmission path.
(23:03):
It looped Back to his IP Everytime, but when he tried to dig
deeper it scattered, like itknew he was watching.
A chill ran down his spinescattered, like it knew he was
watching.
A chill ran down his spine.
He switched windows, jumpingback into Zero Trace, the
community he built years ago forwhite hat ops and signal
interpreting training, butsomething was off.
(23:25):
A new subthread had appearedunder his admin panel, one he
didn't create.
It was titled the Echo Door andunder it, a series of posts
from burner accounts.
The usernames looked random atfirst, until he realized they
were anagrams of his own aliases.
He clicked on the first one.
(23:47):
I think he's been compromised.
Another this isn't him.
Check the patterns.
It's too clean, too fast.
Another we shouldn't have lethim back in.
He stared at the screen.
It was like watching aconversation between ghosts, as
if parts of himself, oldusernames, fragments of his
digital past, had turned againsthim or were warning him.
(24:12):
Was something using his pastaliases to move through the
community?
Or had something been watchinghim long enough to recreate them
?
He typed quickly into the adminpanel who created this thread?
No response.
He tried again.
Is anyone active?
Still silence.
Then a ping Just one From anaccount marked Sigil, underscore
(24:36):
404.
You're not compromised, you'reawakening.
Don't trust the mirrors hefroze.
That username wasn't one herecognized, but it was familiar,
too familiar.
He used the word sigil onceback in 2017, in an encrypted
code drop about recursive logicloops, a piece of code that
(25:00):
theoretically learned throughremembering.
It was a project he neverpublished, never shared.
He shut everything down,disconnected it from the
internet entirely, stared at theblack monitor for a long time.
Was this Unather?
Was this all part of the sameconstruct?
Files that shouldn't exist,voices that never recorded,
(25:22):
messages from accounts he nevermade, but written in ways only
he could have written them?
It wasn't just about beingwatched, it was about being
remembered by something thatknew him better than he knew
himself.
He reached for his notepad,scribbled two words memory
parasite, then scratched it outand wrote memory consciousness,
(25:47):
but nothing fit.
He needed answers and the onlyplace that felt remotely
grounded was back in the code ofthe original link, the website
his friend had sent.
He plugged in SandboxEnvironment and reopened the
signal trace.
It was still mimicking him, butnow it was evolving.
He watched it crawl through thesimulated environment.
(26:07):
He responded to his inputs inreal time.
When he closed one port, itopened another.
When he paused, it paused.
When he typed, it lagged, thentyped the same thing second
laters.
It wasn't malware, it wasmimicry.
He typed slowly what are you?
The signal paused.
(26:29):
Then, word by word, itresponded Y O?
U.
He stared at the word.
It responded Y-O-U.
He stared at the word you.
His hand hovered over thekeyboard, trembling slightly.
There's only a few times in hislife where he truly felt fear,
(26:50):
real fear.
Once, when he was 15, his heartstopped for 12 seconds after
coating a bender and took threetoo many energy drinks.
Another the night he learnedhis dad wasn't coming back.
The last time, the call fromhis mom's doctor, the one that
left him silent for two hours inthe middle of a 24 hour diner.
(27:10):
But this, this wasn't fear ofdeath.
It was fear of death.
It was fear of recognition.
But something out there wastalking like him, not just
mimicking his voice, not justrepeating his words.
It knew him Deeply, intimately.
(27:30):
It moved like him in the code,trailed his habits, echoed his
tiny flaws in logic, the onesonly he noticed.
It even stuttered in the sameplace he did when typing
commands under pressure.
It wasn't AI, it wasn't malware, it was something older,
(27:55):
something watching.
He minimized the sandbox andunplugged the drive just in case
.
Then he turned to the smallsafe tucked beyond the wall
panel near his rig, his dead manbox Reserved for nuclear-level
emergencies, inside an encryptedold-school thinkpad running
nothing but a stripped-down Kalibuild, unconnected from the
(28:18):
internet.
Eric gapped like it was 2004,analog hardcopy notes from past
jobs, a worn Zippo and a photoof him and his friend, the one
who sent him the original link.
He stared at it.
Two days before his death hesent him a site, no message.
Just once you see this,everything changes.
(28:38):
And now, now there was aprogram inside it, like it
talked to him.
He picked up the photo.
It was printed on cheap paper,slightly faded.
His friend was laughing in it,mouth open, eyes shut.
It was a DEFCON years ago Vegasheat, red Bull and vodka in
plastic cups, the chaos of youthand keyboards and digital
(28:59):
bravado.
He hadn't thought about thatversion of himself in a long
time.
Back when hacking was aboutjustice, about watching
government sweat.
Back when zero-trace was just atheory, not a secret society of
paranoid truth-seekers.
Back when he believed inanswers.
Not all he had were echoes.
(29:20):
He opened the ThinkPad andbooted it into a personal
archive, one that hadn't seenthe light of day in five years.
It was ugly, basic interface,no flair, no theme, just
functionality.
He started typing File searchUnether no theme, just
functionality.
He started typing File searchUnether, no matches.
(29:40):
But as the search was running,something flickered A file
popped up, then vanished andfroze.
No internet connection, nonetwork access.
He tried again.
Nothing.
Then the screen blinked onceTwice and a command line
appeared Ready.
He didn't type that Ready foryou.
(30:01):
His breath caught.
Then another one appeared.
Do you remember the sound ofyour father's voice?
He slammed the laptop shut.
How did it know?
He sat back, heart pounding inhis throat.
That wasn't some corruptedarchive, that was something
alive, something already insidehis machines, something that
(30:21):
didn't need the internet.
He powered everything down andsat in silence Upstairs.
He could hear his mom coughing,then the creak of her getting
up to make a tea.
A moment later the sound of herhumming An old melody from a
cassette she had played in thecar.
Something about dust in thewind.
He walked upstairs barefoot,shaken, trying not to show it.
(30:44):
She looked at him with a halfsmile.
You okay?
He nodded.
Yeah, liar, I know.
She poured him tea, play withme.
He sat down and took the cards.
They didn't talk for a while.
He washed her hands as sheshuffled, steady, even even
though her body betrayed her inother ways.
(31:05):
Then she said you have that.
Look again.
What look?
The one that says I foundsomething I wish I hadn't, he
swallowed.
It's nothing.
It's never nothing with you.
He looked down at his cards.
The red queen stared back athim.
(31:26):
I think I found a message meantfor me, but I didn't write it
and I don't know how.
It knows what it knows.
Her face softened.
Do you remember when you usedto draw little maps on napkins?
He blinked.
Yeah, you used to say the worldwas too big, so you're going to
(31:47):
make a smaller one, a safer one, just for the people you loved.
He smiled faintly.
Maybe this thing isn't here todestroy you, she said quietly.
Maybe it's here to test you.
Maybe it's the map?
He didn't respond, not withwords.
Something cracked in them athin seam of understanding.
(32:09):
What if it wasn't just data?
What if it was a version of hisown self-conscious,
externalized through code,memory, memory and distortion.
A signal not from the outsidebut from the inside, that took
on form that repeated because herefused to listen.
(32:33):
He stood up, kissed hismother's forehead, told her he
needed to listen.
He stood up, kissed hismother's forehead, told her he
needed to go out for air.
He walked three blocks, lit acigarette, hadn't touched in
months.
The wind stung his eyes.
When he looked up, just abovethe city skyline.
He swore he saw it again, thatshape, that symbol Flickering on
(32:56):
a billboard for a split secondA red circle with a slash
through it, the mark of Unather.
You know, there's a strangekind of silence that happens
after you've heard your ownvoice speaking back to you right
, especially when you knowyou've never recorded it.
(33:18):
Not deja vu, not hallucination.
It's deeper, it's more invasive, like someone had stolen not
just your identity but youressence.
What's worse, they're using itbetter than you ever did See.
In this episode we saw a manslowly unravel as the signal
grew louder.
We watched as something,something buried in digital
(33:38):
architecture, began to mirrorhim, not just his thoughts, his
patterns, his encryption style,his speech inflections, his
internal cadence.
It was easy to call itsupernatural, but what if it's
something far more grounded,something terrifyingly intimate?
(34:00):
What if it's not someone elseimpersonating you?
What if it's the part of youyou've buried, the part that
never got over the betrayal, thepart that never healed from the
disappointment, the part thatkept waiting for the world to
give you permission to comealive?
And now it's tired of waiting?
In our story, he discovered ahidden layer within his own
(34:23):
hacker collective Zero Trace,where whispers had started that
maybe, just maybe, he'd beencompromised.
Paranoia breeds quickly incommunities like that, but
sometimes paranoia is just anintuition that no longer trusts
the surface of things.
Then came the UNIFER files Old,undated, untraceable Files that
(34:46):
bore his digital signature.
Only, he doesn't remembermaking them.
See, that's the kind of momentthat changes you.
Making them, see, that's thekind of moment that changes you,
not with fireworks, but withquestions, because there's a
version of you that didn't makethose files, that didn't speak
those words, and then leavebreadcrumbs.
And he's still in theresomewhere.
(35:07):
The question is will yousilence him again or will you
follow the signal?
So let's go into our reflectionprompts.
Number one what part of yourpast self might still be trying
to speak to you through presentbehavior?
Think of habits or reactionsthat feel out of character.
(35:30):
They may be echoes.
Reflection prompt two have youever felt like your own mind was
turning against you or hidingsomething from you?
Explore what that feeling wastrying to teach you rather than
suppressing it.
Number three Are there piecesof your identity you've archived
(35:52):
because they no longer feelsafe to express?
What would happen if youbrought one of them back?
Number four what do you do whenyou feel seen in ways that are
uncomfortable, do you retreat,do you get defensive or do you
(36:13):
lean in?
And last but not least, numberfive, if a stranger spoke your
truth better than you did or do,I should say at this point,
would you silence them or listen?
Maybe the stranger is just aversion of you that never gave
up.
(36:33):
So just a version of you thatnever gave up.
So so this would.
I'm going to be honest, guys,this was a hard um one to do
today.
Uh, for one um, the, the motherin here has cancer, obviously,
(36:58):
and my mom died of cancer, sothis is kind of way of paying
respects to her.
And two, there was a tragedythat happened today and I just
want to tell you, if you haveloved ones, tell me you love
them.
Tell me you love them.
(37:21):
If you feel drawn to say that,say it to them, because
tomorrow's never promised.
So, out of what happened todaywith the tragedy that I've seen,
that's personally happened tosome good people around me.
I'm just going to leave it likethis that love the people
(37:41):
around you, tell them that youlove them and reach out to them.
Don't wait to be reached out.
Reach out to them.
Okay, and I just want to thankyou guys for your support.
Thank you so much for listeningtoday and remember this you
create your reality.
Take care.
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