[water rippling]
[whale singing]
[Becca] Tell me about the end.
[Eve] The end?
Where does a circle end?
It is always now ending, and now beginning.
We rise and fall on our breath for as long as the world allows.
The days press against us,
and then move past.
Now becomes next until we fall away.
And return what has been taken.
Is that what you wanted to know?
[Becca] I want to know everything.
[child snoring lightly]
Hey, tiger. [kisses]
You fell asleep with the TV on.
Grandma was reading me a story. The one with the flying elephants.
Mmm. [chuckles]
But... they can never really fly.
Can they?
[inhales sharply] No, sweetie, they had trunks, not wings.
You know that. I showed you pictures.
[growls] Come on, amigo. Let's go.
[grunts] I hope it's not another orange day.
[announcer] August 17, 2046.
Orange alert in effect for Cali, Colombia until sunset.
Minimize time outdoors.
[Marco] Not a single humpback this season over here.
Feel like I'm walking through an old, abandoned house,
yelling if anyone is home. [inhales deeply]
If they're out there, they don't seem to wanna be in contact.
That reminds me of you, now that I think about it.
I saw there was another beaching event.
Three individuals at Farewell Spit. Do you have any thoughts on why?
Why would a healthy,
beautiful animal choose to end its one life just because the world's a mess?
- I don't know. You tell me. - Okay, Marco.
Maybe calling you was not a good idea.
Okay. You work for the competition, Bec.
Technically, that's corporate espionage you're asking for,
not professional courtesy. [inhales shakily]
TomorrowZoo's become very paranoid about hackers
and spies and old lovers from the competition
calling for the information.
I'm sure you sign all the same confidentiality agreements I do.
The world is running out of animals and time.
Scarcity equals value.
All the more reason to share information.
If I had one I was working on, I'd let you know.
I'm sure you'd do the same for me.
You [scoffs] would, wouldn't you?
I had one.
Just last week. And then she went silent. [sighs]
Just nothing for days. Now I've lost her.
Ocean temp is over 90 most days.
Krill is gone, almost.
- It's just, food column is collapsing. - [sighs]
If she doesn't come back, they're gonna shut us down.
Well, fingers crossed, Bec. I hope she comes back.
It's good to know that there's at least one still out there.
Mm-hmm.
- You keep in touch. - [both sigh]
[door opens]
- [clattering] - [dog barks]
- [sighs] - [barks, whimpers]
[health monitor voice] In addition to heat and air quality,
emotional stress has been known
to trigger cardiac events related to summer heart.
I know.
Four fatalities have been linked to thermal cardiomyopathy,
commonly known as "summer heart," during the current extreme heat event--
Pet Patrol health monitor powering down.
[sighs]
Okay, I want you to stay safe out there, and you know what to do.
- [sighs] Mom-- - Keeping this pin blue--
I know. It's up to me to do.
And if it turns yellow?
- I have to mellow. - And if it flashes red?
- Think happy things instead. - That's right.
Okay.
[seat belt clicks]
[automated vehicle voice] Rebecca Shearer, archivist.
Employer, Menagerie2100. Welcome. Select destination.
Field site, Bahía Málaga.
Playback last contact archive session, 005.
[Becca] I am a mother. Are you?
[Eve] Four times.
[Becca] And when was the last?
[Eve] Five turns before now he made his way into the world.
Empty of understanding but full of want.
He took his place against my skin.
I was all food for him, every direction.
He was, for me, the purpose.
[Becca] How did you know what to do?
[Eve] My mother did this for me.
She taught me the path and the problem.
- [nurse] Morning, Ezra. - Morning.
[nurse] How are you today?
Hmm.
And you know what kind of day it is today, right?
Yeah, orange.
[nurse] So, no more than 15 minutes outside.
With the fire still burning, the air quality isn't that good.
And that means your heart needs all the oxygen it can get.
Let's keep that pin blue.
[Becca] Where is your child now?
[Eve] He moved beyond the sound of my voice.
Then he went further.
I asked the distance for him to return.
He became lost and fell away.
- [child] You did not see one. - [Ezra] I did too.
- [growls] - [child] No way!
Those haven't existed for, like, thousands of years.
Like, since the dinosaurs.
- Did she introduce you to any dinosaurs? - That one is real.
My mom saw it. It's what she does. She studies the last ones.
[child 2] Wanna see me fart out a tiger?
- [Ezra] Ugh! What's wrong with you? - You should be careful, Ezra.
[child] Yeah, liar. Red means dead.
My mom knew that tiger! She did!
Rebecca! Good morning.
I didn't know you were back.
Corporate's getting nervous. [sighs]
We're spending a lot of time and money here.
Any idea what's going on?
Well, you know, it was going great. She was very responsive.
But, uh, [sighs] you know,
we seem to have lost contact entirely the last few days.
I wonder if we have competition issues like we had in Virunga.
You need to let me know if I should get the lawyers involved.
If TomorrowZoo is interfering in your work--
It's just ambient noise, mining activity. It's loud down there.
So, you know, I'll switch frequencies today.
See if that helps.
We definitely wanna fast-track this one. We're running out of time.
Well, if she shows up, I'll let her know. [chuckles]
Playback last contact. August 12th. Morning.
[Eve] The path my mother taught me grows harder to follow.
Is it like that for you?
Playback stop.
[sighs]
Where are you?
Open speech microphone. Initiate playback.
Time and date stamp broadcast.
Select Mahler, Symphony 10, the Adagio.
["Symphony No. 10 (Adagio)" playing]
[inhales deeply]
You asked me last time about my mother.
Her name was Eve.
I hear her voice when I speak to you.
That's what you sound like to me.
An older woman who liked to sit in a rowboat
on a lake in the Berkshires and drink bourbon at sunset.
[chuckles] Not that you know what any of that means. [sighs]
She used to say that whenever I felt sad or lonely,
I could just imagine Gustav Mahler communicating
with me from another time.
[symphony continues]
Mahler's heart was breaking when he wrote this.
His daughter had died the year before of scarlet fever.
This is how life made him sound.
Mahler died before he ever heard it actually played.
Wasn't even finished.
My mother used to tell me
to finish it in my head.
I really want you to come back.
[beeping]
Shit. [panting]
[symphony continues]
[Becca] Summer of '37, there were all those fires.
Something like 30 EHDs in a row during my second trimester.
Tried to stay out of the heat. Electricity kept going out, so...
Does he understand the severity of his condition?
Have you told him?
Does he understand he could die from a sunny day?
No, I haven't quite found the words for that.
[sighs] He knows he has summer heart.
He knows what an EHD is and that he has to avoid them.
He calls them "empty heart days" instead of "extreme heat,"
so, yeah, he understands that he needs to be careful.
Is that what happened? Did he spend too much time outside?
No, he wasn't outside.
Evidently, some older boys were teasing him about something,
and that got him worked up.
Triggered the event.
There was a little girl with him when I got there.
She has summer heart as well.
[Nick] Wherever the future leads, we know we're going there together.
That's why Alpha Integrated Therapeutics offers you the latest in edible medica--
Did Dad have summer heart and then he gave it to me?
No, sweetie.
Your dad was born in 1999, and nobody had summer heart then.
Your dad gave you a great, big heart.
[inhales deeply] And that great, big heart
is why he was in Manila when the storm came.
The world made you sick because we made the world sick.
[spoon clatters]
But now we're gonna make you better.
- There's a girl at school who said... - Mm-hmm?
...that people with summer heart only live to be 30.
So, since I'll be turning ten next year,
that means I'll only get two more ten-year lives.
Well, I don't believe that.
I believe you will have many more ten-year lives.
Maybe you're like a cat. You'll have nine lives.
- That's 90. - Right.
And I bet by the time you're 30,
someone will have invented an entirely new heart just for you.
[WinterChill announcer] Welcome to WinterChill,
the best immersive therapy for heat-related conditions.
Come on, ref. Why can't I play?
[WinterChill announcer 2] Sorry, buddy.
Looks like you had a bit of an episode today at school.
But I wanna play. WinterChill sucks.
Sometimes the things that protect us aren't the most fun.
But your friend Lola is here.
[Lola] You want to help, Ezra? I found buttons for his eyes.
[Ezra] My mom says you're wrong.
She says they're gonna make new hearts for both of us.
And that I'm gonna live to be 90.
[Becca] This is a secured link for Menagerie2100.
Rebecca Shearer, archivist for HW1998F.
Everything that follows in the communications interface
is the property of Menagerie2100.
August 18, 2046. Three, two, one.
If you are receiving this, please respond.
[sighs]
Come on. [exhales sharply]
If you can still hear me, please respond.
[whale singing]
- [Eve] I heard another last night. - [sighs]
Where is he?
[chuckles]
If there is a male out there, I will help you find him.
I want to be a mother again.
In this place, in this now.
Is there enough food for that?
[whale sings]
If he is here, then there must be enough.
- There must be-- - [whale sings]
Add sound to vocabulary interface.
Why do you make my sounds? After all this time.
I have watched your kind all my life.
I was curious about you.
Do you know what curious is?
Have I seen you where the sky begins?
- Have you caused some of us to fall? - No.
No, I would never hurt you.
I want to learn from you.
You have been watching. You know how we are.
Could you tell me what you're looking for?
We, who are us, share the world.
All that is there.
When it becomes less, so do we.
Is it like that for you?
Our new ones do not rise and fall on the breath.
They leave us for the distance.
We watch them vanish.
All of mine have gone that way.
I will look for food for you.
[whale singing continues]
I need to find him. He knows--
[whale singing, echoes]
Add to vocabulary interface.
[whale singing]
If she doesn't find something to eat, we could lose her again. And the male.
What if we offer her food to keep going?
Adult humpbacks require 3,000 pounds of food a day.
- Mainly krill, but-- - I didn't know. [stammers]
Yeah, that obviously has ramifications we would need to talk about internally.
Well, the good news is she wants to mate,
which is part of her migratory cycle,
so we could have a real window into that behavior if the male is,
you know, strong enough.
She's gonna be the prototype for every humpback we ever develop.
- Great work today, Becca. - Thank you.
Food?
- That's a tricky one. - Yeah?
I mean, it's not a good look to take quality protein
and offer it to animals.
There's a damn drought in Asia.
People are dying there,
and we're gonna feed a whale human-quality nutrients
to get it to chat about eating and fucking.
[inhales sharply] It's a PR nightmare.
Okay, okay. That's fair enough.
The surface temperature is up. Acidification is up.
The bay is destined to become a dead zone.
It's likely to be the last season here.
We just need to move this along.
Wrap it up by end of week before everything comes out.
Agreed. [sighs]
Exclusivity of a humpback knocks TomorrowZoo out of the game.
Just give me a couple more nights.
[Eve] "'We are roses,' the roses said.
And he was overcome with sadness 'cause his flower had told him
that she was the only one of her kind in the universe.
And here were 5,000 of them,
all alike, in one single garden.
'She would be very much annoyed,' he said to himself,
'if she should see that.
She would cough most dreadfully,
and she would pretend that she was dying to avoid being laughed at.
And if I--
- And I would be obliged to pretend... - [whale singing]
...that I was nursing her back to life.
For if-- if I did not do that
to humble myself also,
she would really allow herself to die.'" [breathes heavily]
- You want me to read for a while, Mom? - No, no, no. [stammers]
I'm-- [sighs] You're going to be here.
I'm not. So, this is Grandma time.
[inhales deeply]
"S-So, then he went on with his reflections.
- 'I thought that I was rich with a flower... - You like that one, don't you?
...that was unique in all the world'"--
Does the whale you're talking to sound like the way the orangutan did?
No, I made the orangutan sound like your father
because I missed him. [sighs]
Then what does the whale sound like?
Like Grandma Eve.
No, but what does she sound like in real life?
Wanna hear?
[inhales sharply] Play HW1998. Basic vocabulary.
[whale singing]
What is she saying?
She's saying, "Who is this little human, Ezra,
- who I love so much?" - [chuckles]
[inhaling sharply, grunts]
When I'm gone, will you make an animal sound like me?
No, baby. Because you're not going extinct.
[clicks]
"'And all I had was a common little rose.'
You wanna see, Ezra? You wanna see roses?
'A common rose,' he said."
[on monitor] I'm Nick Bilton, and many of you may have heard
that I'm interested in joining forces
with the most sophisticated DNA-based IP company in the world,
Menagerie2100.
Now, [inhales sharply] you might ask why a company
like Alpha wants to be in this space,
and the answer is easy.
Alpha is interested in only one thing:
identifying what about the present belongs in the future.
A better future.
A future with genetically banked elephants, orangutans and,
from what I hear, maybe even humpback whales.
The Alpha benefits package is outstanding.
I have so much to learn from you all.
And I am hoping that, with shareholder approval,
you will join me in this journey.
- [creatures screeching] - [birds chirping]
[creature shrieks]
Come on.
[Becca] Play archive session 008.
Where did you hear the last male?
[Eve] He was not far from here.
We found each other at the bottom of the sky.
He was different from this one.
[Becca] What happened to him?
[Eve] It was a day.
The sky was close.
The ones that were food for us were gone.
So, we looked in new places.
He did not see what hit him from above.
It put holes in him,
and he fell away.
All the way down.
He is still there.
I see him as he changes.
Where is this new male?
I cannot find him.
[whale singing]
You must be Rebecca. I'm with Operations. Hendricks.
Southern Hemisphere Project Resources Management.
- Playback, stop. - [whale song ends]
Sorry, Christina didn't tell me that anyone else was working
- with the subject. - No, I've been coming in at night
to help speed things along, you know?
- [inhales deeply] - Oh.
Time is of an essence.
There's a good chance this is-- this is the last humpback out there.
- The last two. [sighs] - Hmm.
HW1998 and the male she has been communicating with.
Do you have a copy of last night's transcript?
For some reason, it's blocked.
Huh.
I say we wanna keep our focus on the female right now.
I was-- I was going over some of your recordings.
[automated voice] Our new ones do not rise and fall on the breath.
[Hendricks] I wanted to ask you about the voice you've been using.
- Voice? - For the whale.
You use a human voice avatar, which is against Menagerie protocol.
I mean, it leads to exactly the kind of... [inhales]
...emotional attachment we try to guard against.
You gonna turn me in?
- [chuckles] - [chuckles] No, no.
No. Whatever floats your boat.
I mean, who am I to judge?
I-I knew a bloke who worked with bats. Made them sound like Marilyn Monroe.
[chuckles] I just-- I went back in your file.
You used a voice avatar for the elephants as well.
It helps me connect, ask better questions.
[Hendricks] The human voice you're using here,
Eve Shearer,
is your mother, I assume.
And, um, the orangutan in Sumatra,
some gent called Omar Haddad.
- My late husband. - Right.
Well, like I said, you know, whatever floats your boat. [sighs]
[Becca] I put in a request for a dive team
to get a visual on the male, maybe even a DNA sample.
Did you see him? How did he look?
[Hendricks] Yeah,
you're not going to be able to work with the male today,
and, uh, sadly, the dive team won't be able to find him.
- [switch clicks] - [whale vocalizes, chirps]
What you're hearing...
[whale singing, chirps]
...that's an archive recording from near Glacier Bay seven years ago.
It was a male. He's dead now.
Dead?
[Hendricks] Ship strike, I believe.
You played her a mating call from a dead whale?
What the fuck is wrong with you?
Me? [chuckles]
Now, did you-- did you read the mission statement?
We're not saving individuals here.
We're after a blueprint for the whole species.
She is out there right now, searching for him.
Exhibiting mating behavior, which is, uh, what we need her to do.
I'm not sure why that's so hard for you to wrap your mind around.
Uh, I mean, you-you--
you think we haven't bribed them with food and shelter to get what we needed?
I mean, maybe you didn't know that was what was happening
with the elephants you were working on.
I'm--
Maybe you just thought it was looking for a human
to catch up with about current events.
- I mean-- [laughs] - I can't be a part of this.
Really? You already are a part.
Hey, Shearer!
What did you think we were doing here?
These are highly sophisticated creatures!
Yes, they are, and so are we.
And if we don't drain her brain
before she realizes she's the last whale in the world,
then we don't really have a business, do we?
At least not one you could sell.
[chattering]
[Christina] Ready for this meeting?
- [businessperson] Absolutely. - [Christina] Okay.
- Great. - And I think it's a great idea to--
- I'd like to speak to you. - Oh. Rebecca,
- I'm a little busy right now. - This is important.
I can come back.
[Becca] You didn't just lie to me.
You lied to her.
She's going extinct either way.
At least this way, we can bring her back when we fix things.
First we turn them into candles and corsets,
and then we run them over with ships and fill their bellies with plastic bags.
And yet, still, somehow, a few survive.
Until the carbon dioxide turns the ocean into acid,
and the animal she eats can't even form bones.
And so now--
now when there is only one left,
you have to lie to her.
And if you had told her all that at the beginning,
how eager would she be to tell you her life story?
Or what if you had told her that the recordings we're making
will replace the information imparted from an adult to a juvenile in the wild
because there will be no wild?
Would that be honest enough for you?
Bilton pays more because we're the ones who have an exit interview
- with the humpback whale. - [scoffs]
That's a win.
If people knew what we were doing, if the press got ahold of this--
And how would that happen?
Hendricks can finish up here.
We need you to head to Alaska.
- There's a species of wolf up there... - What does that mean, "finish up?"
- ...called the Alexander Archipelago wolf-- - What's he gonna say to her?
Is he trying to get her to beach herself so TomorrowZoo won't have a humpback?
Is that what he's doing?
If you'll excuse me, I have a meeting.
Playback. Broadcast male song.
Continuous loop.
[machine beeps]
[whale singing]
[whale chirps]
[singing, chirping continue]
"Let the light of late afternoon shine through chinks in the barn,
moving up the bales as the sun moves down.
Let evening come.
Let the crickets take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles and yarn.
Let evening come.
Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned in long grass.
Let the stars appear.
Let the moon, uh, disclose her silver horn."
- [Becca] Mom. - "Let this"--
[stammers] Let me f--
Let me finish. I memorized the entire damn poem.
Just let me--
I just want to get this down before I forget it because my memory...
- "Let the f"-- "Let the fox"-- - Stop. Stop.
"Come it will. You don't have to be afraid."
- I'm so fucking angry with you, Mom. - [sighs]
- I know. I know. - So fucking angry.
But if I'd done anything differently, I would have been angry with myself...
and I don't wanna die in the middle of an argument with me. [chuckles]
You told me that Doctor Carragher had said that you're getting better.
I wanted to come home. You told me to take my time.
Well, humans aren't going extinct, and-- and elephants are.
That was not your decision to make, Mom.
Your work is important.
Becca, she-- she was trying not to upset you.
- She wanted you to finish your work. - You knew. You knew.
Why didn't you-- What the fuck is wrong with you people?
Well, I have cancer of the liver and pretty much everything else.
Mom, no. No jokes.
You lied to me, Mom.
You lied to me.
[mutters]
When you get to this part of the story, you know, the part I'm in now,
you, uh-- you stop being angry about the past.
And the future, the future doesn't have you in its plans, so that just leaves now.
That's all we have, is n-n-now. Hmm.
- Mmm, it's not enough. - No.
But... [sobs] ...it's all we have.
- It's just a little more now. - [sniffles]
- [inhales deeply] - [sniffles]
- I bet that's all we ever had. - [sighs]
[no audible dialogue]
[sighs]
[exhales sharply]
[whale singing]
[gasps]
- [device beeps] - Stop broadcast. [breathes heavily]
Convert content to standard English syntax.
[automated whale voice] There is no path. There is no path.
- There is no path. There is-- - Oh, my God.
Open speech microphone. [pants] Do not record session.
Can you hear me?
What you just heard, do not listen.
Do not listen to the male. Can you hear me?
[sighs] Fuck.
If you're still out there, please just-- [sighs]
There is a reason he does not appear in front of you,
a reason he does not answer.
He does not exist.
There is no male.
That voice that you were hearing was from many years ago, from very far away.
It is just a recording.
[inhales deeply] Okay, fuck.
Fuck. No, you don't-- don't know what a recording is.
Um... [breathes deeply]
Okay, how do I explain this to you?
[sighs]
We wanted to know the inside of you,
how your life works.
We wanted it for ourselves,
not to make it better for you.
We are telling you to swim to a place where you will die.
We are doing this, not him.
Not a whale.
[sighs, breathes shakily]
That whale fell away years ago.
He is not here.
His voice is not real.
Swim away.
Go find food.
We are lying to you.
That is what our kind does when we are in pain.
We lie.
[huffs]
[breathes shakily]
[sighs]
[whale singing]
[Eve] He is not here?
[breathing heavily]
No.
You have a sound for what is not here?
Not real?
It's called a lie.
We do not have a sound for this.
Why say a thing that is not real?
It is possible that you are the last one of your kind.
We cannot find any others. Just you.
Then it is time for me to fall.
You said that when you fall, it starts over.
You become all that follows.
You return what is taken.
Yes.
It is possible that one day there will be more of you.
When?
It will take time.
More time than either you or I have.
But what you have told me, what we have said to each other...
that will feed more new ones.
And how will it be different next time?
[Becca] Open speech microphone. [pants] Do not record session.
We noticed there's no additional data from your unapproved session.
I was unable to make contact.
Nothing?
She's gone.
Now, I don't need to remind you that we own all content from any conversation
between a Menagerie2100 employee and a target specimen.
Look, I violated protocol.
I used my late mother's voice. I'm sorry.
Won't happen again.
Oh, we are saying goodbye to so many things these days.
Animals, each other, entire cities.
Of course it takes a toll.
I noticed that Alpha have started mining the bay.
I'm glad we got there before they did.
Yeah, it looks like we, and now they.
[chuckles]
[Christina] You'll be out in the field in Alaska,
so you'll need to pick up a portable unit.
It'll have an uplink to the database.
The colder weather might be easier on Ezra.
Yeah. Yeah.
I'm not going to be at school anymore.
- Because you're sick? - [Ezra] We're moving.
- [Lola] Where? - [Ezra] Alaska.
My mom is gonna talk to the wolves.
- [howling] - [Lola howling]
Will you meet me back here and tell me what that means?
[Ezra] Yeah. I think they still have winter in Alaska.
[Lola] Maybe I can visit you and we can build a real snowman.
Go ahead. Open it.
[toy whale] The humpback whale went extinct in 2046.
At one point, there were over 125,000 on the planet.
[cackles]
They migrated from summer feeding grounds near the poles
to mate in warmer water near the equator.
They were famous for their songs,
complex vocalizations that allowed them to communicate.
[toy vulture] The Indian vulture went extinct in 2039.
Although there were once 80 million...
[toy elephant] The African elephant went extinct in 2040.
It was, before extinction...
[toy orangutan] The Tapanuli orangutan went extinct in 2045. After having...
[toy polar bear] The polar bear went extinct in 2043
due to loss of their sea ice habitat resulting from climate change.
- You ready? - Ready.
- [person speaks Spanish] Three hours? - [Becca] Yes.
And you tell nobody you did this.
[person speaks Spanish] No one, no one.
Never.
[speaking Spanish]
[Eve] But how will it be different next time?
[Becca] It will only change if we do.
If we stop lying about the world.
If we stop expecting the ones who come after us to fix it because we did not.
Here is good.
[speaks Spanish] Here is good.
[sighs]
There are no fish anymore.
If there were, we would know.
I work for Alpha now.
Of course.
[in English] How do you know she's still here?
I don't.
[device chimes, clicks]
Come on.
- You ready? - [Ezra] Yeah.
- Three, two, one, go. - [Ezra] Three, two, one.
[Ezra] How long could I be here?
[breathes heavily] Not long.
She won't eat us, will she?
You have more teeth than she does, but you can't really blame her if she did.
[Eve] I don't know what this sound means.
[Becca] Music? It means something different to everyone.
[Eve] The one of you who made it, do you know him?
[Becca] I never met him, only the music he made.
[Eve] But you can still hear him?
[Becca] Yes.
Come on.
[Eve] So you can know his world and not know him?
[Becca] Yes.
[Eve] And the ones who have not yet begun?
They will hear these sounds that we make today?
[Becca] Yes.
Where is she?
- [sighs] - I think she's gone, Mom.
There she is.
[Becca] You will show them a way to be in the world.
Warn them about us.
You see what we can do, what we have already done.
Tell them who we are.
[Eve] I already did.