Season 2/Episode 2: Another Form of Algebra

by Bilal Dardai

Everything echoes
If you know how to listen
Rudy learns some history

----

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This episode features: Joshua K. Harris as Rudy, Marsha Harman as Dot, Michael Turrentine as Wes, Anuja Vaidya as Norah Tendulkar. Additional voices by Anne C Baird, Graham Rowat, Josh Rubino, Ryan Schile, Eleanor Hyde, and Jeffrey Nils Gardner.

Written by Bilal Dardai, sound design by Ryan Schile, directed by Jeffrey Nils Gardner, music composed by Stephen Poon, recording engineer Mel Ruder, Theme performed by Stephen Poon, Lauren Kelly, Gunnar Jebsen, Travis Elfers, Mel Ruder, and Betsey Palmer, Unwell lead sound designer Ryan Schile, Executives Producers Eleanor Hyde and Jeffrey Gardner, by HartLife NFP.

INTERIOR OF THE OBSERVATORY. CHALK
BEING USED TO WRITE ON A
CHALKBOARD, ALTERNATING BETWEEN
SMOOTH STROKES AND STACCATO. A
PUNCTUATED STAB AT THE BOARD.

RUDY: That’s a very good question. Spencer, right? I’m glad you asked that, Spencer.

A FEW MORE CHALK LINES ON THE
BOARD.

RUDY: You’re 100 percent correct: This projection
only works if we ignore a fundamental
assumption of Newtonian physics. Now I know:
That is asking a lot. But follow me for a
moment. As a thought, you know, a thought
experiment. What if--

DOT: --Rudy?
RUDY: Dorothy?
DOT: Hi there. It’s me and Wes.
WES: Hey Dr. Peltham! Whoa. Echo. (SHOUTS)

Helloooooo.

ECHOES COME BACK.

WES: Wicked.
RUDY: This is a nice surprise. I forget, have youbeen inside the observatory before?

DOT: Often.
WES: First time for me. Ohhhh-hiiiii-ohhhhh.

ECHOES COME BACK.

DOT: Rudy, were you talking to somebody? When we first came in?
RUDY: I...was.
DOT: Rudy, who were you talking to?
RUDY: (CLEARS HIS THROAT) Class, this is Dorothy.
Wait. Dot. She might prefer Dot.

DOT: Either one. But--
RUDY: --and this is Wes.
WES: Hi?
DOT: (AFTER A LENGTHY PAUSE) So this is a thing--
RUDY: --this is a thing I do.
DOT: Uh-huh. You pretend that you’re--
RUDY: --I pretend that I’m teaching a class.
DOT: So that--
RUDY: --it helps me organize my thoughts.
DOT: Who’s Spencer?
RUDY: Spencer. Spencer sits right there, back row, next to Judith.

DOT: Uh-huh.
RUDY: Or at least he does when he shows up.


DOT: And...who else?
RUDY: Just a few. Keith, Rajiv, Cecilia; and then
Holly and Heather down front. I’m an
elective. It’s a small group. But very
dedicated.

WES: Except for, um, Spencer.
RUDY: Now, let’s not be too hard on Spencer. He
works doubles at the Waffle House to pay his
tuition. (BEAT) It’s okay. You can say it. I
know. It’s strange. I was hoping that maybe
if I kept going with it, it would stop being
strange, but I’m...I realize...it’s just
going to keep being strange.

DOT: It’s unusual, Rudy. Then again, I’m not
one to say unusual’s the same thing as
strange.

RUDY: That’s kind of you. That’s kinder than I’ve
gotten before. (BEAT) Class dismissed. So!
What brings you both here?

WES: You haven’t been back to the house in six days.
RUDY: I haven’t?
DOT: You didn’t know that?
RUDY: It’s already Monday?
WES: It’s Tuesday.
RUDY: Morning?
DOT: Afternoon. Rudy.

RUDY: Wow.
DOT: Right.
RUDY: Wow. Did I miss anything--?
WES: --there was a fire. In the woods.
RUDY: Wow.
WES: And I’m not sure I heard this right but I
think some campers got eaten by wolves.

RUDY: Say what now?
WES: Hey, can I take a look around? This place is
kinda awesome. I can’t believe I’ve never
come here before.

RUDY: Sure, Wes. Knock yourself out. Don’t really knock yourself out.

WES WALKS AWAY, WHISTLING. HIS
WHISTLING ECHOES BACK.

RUDY: He said “eaten by wolves”?
DOT: They’re still investigating.
RUDY: “Eaten by wolves” isn’t some kind of
charming local expression that means
something other than what it sounds like?

DOT: I’m not sure what--?
RUDY: “Did you see what color Joe and Annie
painted their dining room? I swear; those two havebeen eaten by wolves.”

DOT: No. Nobody says that. Listen, Rudy, I came
here to talk to you. I run a boarding house.

RUDY: I know that.
DOT: For now, anyway.
RUDY: Is the bank--?
DOT: --what? Oh, I’m not worried about that.
Chester’s going to send me a bunch of stern
letters but he’d never have the spine to
actually come after me for it. What I mean
is, if you’re going to be sleeping here I
can’t in good conscience keep charging you
for room and board.

RUDY: In my defense, I don’t think I’ve been sleeping.

EMPTY POTATO CHIP BAGS BEING
CRINKLED UNDERFOOT.

DOT: Or eating properly, from the look of it.
Here. In the hope you were still alive we
brought along a stack of sandwiches and a
six-pack of celery soda.

A PAPER GROCERY BAG IS HANDED
OVER.

RUDY: What’s in the thermos?
DOT: This is mine. Don’t be greedy.
RUDY: I wasn’t--

DOT: --it’s water.

SLIGHT SLOSHING OF WATER IN A THERMOS.

RUDY: Huh. That’s strange. I’m having déjà vu. Or
a sense memory. Maybe those are the same
things. Something about a water bottle.

DOT: I gave you an errand.
RUDY: That’s right! You asked me to pour a bottle of water on the stones downstairs.

DOT: Which you did.
RUDY: Absolutely I did. (BEAT) Would you mind
explaining to me why I did that, now?
DOT: It’s a family superstition, is all.
Something we Harpers have been doing for dog’s years.

RUDY: But because...?
DOT: It’s a long story. My god, SUCH a long
story. I’ll tell you some other time when you’re not
so bone tired.

RUDY: Fair.
DOT: Are you coming back to the house anytime soon?

RUDY: I don’t know.
DOT: I’ll bring you a pillow. Promise me you’ll use it.
RUDY: I promise.
DOT: For sleeping.
RUDY: I promise.
DOT: Jesus, look at you, you’re like a scarecrow
with half its stuffing out. Do you have a
cot? No. I’ll bring you a cot. Wes!

WES: (FROM ACROSS THE ROOM, WHICH ECHOES) Yeah?
DOT: Remind me when we get back home that I need
to bring Rudy here a pillow and a cot!

WES: Okay!

A ROLLING CHAIR IS WHEELED OVER.

DOT: Here. Get some rest. Right now. Dot’s
orders.
RUDY: I’m fine.
DOT: You’re a million miles away from fine. Give
me your phone. I’m setting an alarm. This
will wake you up in six hours. You can keep
boring your imaginary class with whatever,
all this math mumbo-jumbo, after you wake
up.

RUDY: Two hours. Two hours is plenty.
DOT: Six.
RUDY: Four?

DOT: Five. Final offer, and you don’t have enough fuel in your tank to fight me.

RUDY: No, no, you’re right. (HE SITS IN THE ROLLING CHAIR) Five. (YAWN) Five will do me good.
(YAWN) Remember to, remember to read the
packet I gave you on Burnell’s work (YAWN)
Burnell’s work in (YAWN) radio pulsars.

DOT: Rudy? You already dismissed your class, remember?

RUDY: Oh. (PROLONGED YAWN.) Right. (FALLS ASLEEP.)
DOT: Rudy. You did water the stones, didn’t you?
(BEAT) Rudy? (BEAT) I trust you. Wes and I
will be back in a bit. (TO HERSELF) Enough
scientists for awhile, Dot. Next time a
nice, simple, serial killer.

FOOTSTEPS ACROSS THE OBSERVATORY
FLOOR, ECHOING AROUND THE ROOM.
THE ECHOES FADE FOR A MOMENT, BUT
THEN BECOME LOUDER, AS IF THE
FOOTSTEPS ARE COMING BACK, FAST,
RUNNING STRAIGHT UP TO RUDY.
THE PHONE ALARM GOES OFF. IT
ECHOES THROUGHOUT THE OBSERVATORY.
RUDY: (JOLTING AWAKE.) Huh! Hm! Wait. Hold on hold on.

RUDY STUMBLES OUT OF THE ROLLING
CHAIR AND STEPS HEAVILY OVER TO
HIS PHONE TO TURN IT OFF. THE
ECHOES LAST A MOMENT LONGER.

RUDY: What? Wait, what? What time is...

RUDY STEPS QUICKLY TOWARDS THE
OBSERVATORY DOOR AND PUSHES IT
OPEN. CRICKETS, OWLS, THE SOUND
OUTSIDE AT CLOSE TO MIDNIGHT.

RUDY: Five hours should have been...what?
DOOR CLOSES. RUDY WALKS BACK TO
THE CHALKBOARD.

RUDY: Oh of course. Of course you did. You say
six, I talk you down to five, you set it for ten.
Solid scheming, Dorothy. (YAWN) And you
weren’t wrong. I needed it. Fine. Thank you
for the cot, by the way. You’re not here.
Where was I? (BEAT) Class, does anybody here
understand what I wrote on the chalkboard?
(BEAT) No. Okay. Me neither. Let’s
maybe...let’s forget about this. Never
happened. Delete it from your minds.

CHALKBOARD BEING FURIOUSLY ERASED.

RUDY: Control-A, Control-X. How about. How
about...how about we get away from
theoretical physics for a bit? Maybe today,
tonight, let’s call this a review session.
Spencer, I’m glad you’re here for this. No,
there’s not going to be a quiz. Sit down.

CHALK WRITING ON CHALKBOARD
THROUGHOUT.

RUDY: A review...of what we know...about...the
Mt. Absalom Observatory. Scratch that: What
we...think...we know about the Mt. Absalom
Observatory. Let’s go around the room.
Holly. Yes, records indicate it was
established sometime late 19th-century.
Keith. Yes, the telescope is broken. Very
funny. What can you tell me based on the
RUDY (CONT): pieces that were still in the basement?
Good.

Yes. A standard Cassegrain reflector. Now
who remembers what we discovered when we looked
at the mirrors? Yes, Rajiv. Exactly right
but raise your hand next time. Yes, it looked
like it might have had some early version of
the Dall-Kirkham design, which means it was
probably constructed after...Heather? 1928.
On the money. So.

NORAH: 1909.
RUDY: Hm?
NORAH: The telescope was designed in 1909.
RUDY: That’s not likely, Cecilia.
NORAH: I’m not Cecilia.
RUDY: (AFTER A LONG MOMENT) You’re not?
Then...then who are you? (BEAT) Hello?

THE SOUND OF RUDY’S PHONE ALARM,
AND A PIECE OF CHALK FALLING FROM
HIS HAND TO THE FLOOR.

RUDY: Huh! Hm. Wait. Hold on hold on.

THE ALARM TURNS OFF. THE ECHOES
LAST A MOMENT LONGER.

RUDY: Ugh. Class, I’m sorry. I seem to have, well,
I don’t know how to say it exactly, but I
think I fell asleep for, must have been a
minute or two. Right in front of you, out
like a light. And I do apologize. You have
every right to expect better of me. I’ve
been, you know, the phrase. Burning the
candle at both ends. Yes, Spencer, I know
you get it. Anyhow. Where were we. The
telescope.
As Rajiv and Heather observed, the pieces of
the telescope we found appeared to follow a
Dall-Kirkham design, which should indicate
that it was built in the late 1920s. But,
um.
Maybe it’s worth doing some more
investigating into that. What else do we
know? Yes. Judith. That’s what I was waiting
for... (CHALK WRITING ON CHALKBOARD)
observatory...built on top...of another...structure.
NORAH: That’s not important.
RUDY: What?
NORAH: You’re looking at the wrong thing.
RUDY: (AFTER A LONG MOMENT) Class, I think we have a new--
NORAH: --stop that.
RUDY: I’m sorry, who am I talking to? (BEAT) I
know I heard you. I’m wide awake this--

THE SOUND OF RUDY’S PHONE ALARM,
AND A PIECE OF CHALK FALLING FROM
HIS HAND TO THE FLOOR.
RUDY: Huh! Hm. Wait. Hold on hold on.

THE ALARM TURNS OFF. THE ECHOES
LAST A MOMENT LONGER.

RUDY: Um. Okay. Um. I seem to be. Wow. Class.
Class dismissed. No, no homework. You all get some
rest. Self-care. It’s, it’s important. It
RUDY (CONT): seems. I’m going to lie down for a bit. (TO
HIMSELF) Point taken. You’re not a young man
anymore. You cannot work the same way you
did in Egypt. This isn’t burning the candle at
both ends, it’s throwing the whole damn
thing in the fire.

RUDY LIES DOWN ON THE COT AND
FLUFFS THE PILLOW.

RUDY: Just a few more hours. Enough to get my head
back in order. Get up, take another look at
the telescope. 1909. That can’t be right.
Shut up, Rudy.

A LONG SILENCE EXCEPT FOR RUDY’S
BREATHING, WHICH GRADUALLY SLOWS
TO A SLEEPING RATE. A BREEZE
WHISTLING THROUGH THE OBSERVATORY.
AS IF IN THE DISTANCE, ECHOES OF
CHALK WRITING ON A CHALKBOARD,
RADIO STATIC, NORAH’S VOICE
SPEAKING WORDS THAT CANNOT BE
DECIPHERED, AND THE TONES OF
RUDY’S PHONE ALARM, SLOWED DOWN.
ECHOES OF OTHER SOUNDS LAYER ON
TOP OF EACH OTHER: VARIOUS
FOOTSTEPS, THE HUM OF THE
GENERATOR, A RATCHET TWISTING NUTS
AND BOLTS, A LARGE TELESCOPE BEING
REPOSITIONED, BURSTS OF RADIO
STATIC. THE SOUND ALL FUNNELS INTO
A SINGLE POINT AND THEN ABRUPTLY
HALTS.
RUDY JOLTS AWAKE, THE COT CREAKING
AS HE SITS UP.

RUDY: Hold on. Now, just hold on one minute.
There is still a building under the
basement.
Why wouldn’t that be important?

NORAH: I assure you, Dr. Peltham. It simply is not.
RUDY: (AFTER A LONG PAUSE) You’re not in my head, are you.
NORAH: No.
RUDY: Not a hallucination.

NORAH: No.
RUDY: You’re somebody I’m really talking to right
now who is really right now talking back to
me in a voice I am hearing through my ears.
NORAH: Do people hear through other body parts now? It’s so hard to keep up.

RUDY: Which means you’re either a ghost or a radio
signal. Or the ghost of a radio signal. Or
the radio signal of a ghost. What. Stop
that. Sorry. I’m still processing this. Um. What
do I call you? Do you have a name?

NORAH: Norah.
RUDY: Just Norah?
NORAH: Just Norah for now.
RUDY: Are you only a, a voice, or do you have a physical form?

NORAH: Is sound no longer considered physics?
RUDY: No, that’s not what I meant.
NORAH: It’s so hard to keep up.
RUDY: How do I. Do you have an appearance?
NORAH: Would that make you more comfortable?
RUDY: I’m running on fumes and talking to a ghost.
Comfortable doesn’t seem likely.

NORAH: You’d take me more seriously if you could
see me.

RUDY: I already take you very seriously.
NORAH: I’m unsure that you do.

AN UNUSUAL ECHOING SOUND AS NORAH
MANIFESTS A VISIBLE FORM.

NORAH: This is my appearance.
RUDY: Hello.
NORAH: Hello.
RUDY: I’m Rudy.
NORAH: I know who you are, Dr. Peltham.
RUDY: Rudy.
NORAH: I’ve been watching you for weeks.
RUDY: So I’m gathering. Well I am very glad that
you decided to introduce yourself. In person. I suppose.

NORAH: In person. Yes. Such as it is. Am I what you imagined?

RUDY: I...didn’t even know you existed until five minutes ago.

NORAH: You expected someone pale and dreadful,
perhaps. The governess from Henry James.
(BEAT) Yes, thank you, my English is very good indeed.
RUDY: I didn’t--
NORAH: --I’m quite happy that you’re impressed.
RUDY: Norah--
NORAH: --I’m from Boston, you see. By way of
Liverpool, but from there by way of Bihar.
RUDY: Norah, I wasn’t about to ask you any of
that.
NORAH: No?
RUDY: No.
NORAH: Bihar is--
RUDY: --a region of India, I know. I’ve been
there.
NORAH: Have you? I never have. My father often
spoke of it fondly.

RUDY: Some years back. There’s another abandoned
observatory, on the roof of Langat Singh
College. But listen, I promise you. I wasn’t
going to ask. (BEAT) I’d like to know when,
though, if you don’t mind.

NORAH: When?
RUDY: You said the telescope was designed in 1909.
NORAH: It was.

RUDY: Which is information you have because?
NORAH: I was here when it was built.
RUDY: Gotcha.
NORAH: Because I’m the one who built it. (BEAT)
Surely that must surprise you. I doubt there
were many women in America during that time
with such knowledge of astronomical
instruments.

RUDY: Even if there were, I doubt we’d have known about them.

NORAH: None of you had heard of me before, after all.

RUDY: I’m not the first person you’ve spoken to. Since you became a ghost, I mean.

NORAH: You’re perhaps the 25th or 26th. Unless
you’re the 50th or 100th. It’s so hard to
keep up. Am I the first ghost you’ve spoken
to?

RUDY: You’re not, actually. (BEAT.) But you are
the first who’s spoken back.

A SUDDEN AND SURPRISING YET NOT
UNPLEASANT LAUGH THAT ECHOES
THROUGHOUT THE ROOM.

RUDY: I’m going to ask a really basic question.

(BEAT) Are we cool?

NORAH: Cool?


RUDY: Uh. Good. Simpatico. With each other. I’m
not 100 percent clear on what kind of haunting
this is.

NORAH: Are there many kinds?
RUDY: Oh, certainly.
NORAH: I’ve only ever experienced this one.
RUDY: Well--and please keep in mind, parapsychology isn’t my field of expertise,
more like an, um, an occasional hobby--but
either you don’t mind my being here or you
really want me to leave. (BEAT) Do you want
me to leave?

NORAH: No.
RUDY: Good! Great!
NORAH: Not at the moment.
RUDY: I’ll take it! Hold on.

CHALK WRITING ON THE CHALKBOARD.

RUDY: Cool...with...me staying. Follow-up
question: Is there something you need me to
do? A task. I feel like that’s common.

NORAH: A task.
RUDY: So you can move on.
NORAH: Move on.
RUDY: To...wherever.

NORAH: Do you...want me to leave.
RUDY: No, that’s not what I said.
NORAH: Where is it you suppose I need to go.
RUDY: I have no idea. I’ve studied even less
theology than I have parapsychology.
NORAH: May I stay here. Is that allowed. Is that acceptable to you.

RUDY: Of course it’s allowed! I’m not saying I
want you to leave, I’m saying that if you had
wanted to leave, that if there was something
you needed done so that you could leave,
that if there was something you needed done that
I could do for you that would allow you to
leave if you wanted to leave, then, then,
that’s. That’s. All what I am saying.

A VERY LONG SILENCE. A HANDFUL OF
RADIO STATIC ECHOES AND FOOTSTEPS.

NORAH: I understand.
RUDY: Anyhow. (WRITING ON CHALKBOARD) No...task.
NORAH: I do have a task.
RUDY: Oh?
NORAH: Yes. (BEAT) It’s very funny. I forget. This
is different than the last time. Or the last
20 times. Whichever one you are. You would
come into the observatory. Not you. Those
before you. You would do everything but the
one thing I wanted. So I would speak to you.
I would tell you what I wanted. You wouldn’t
do it. You would leave. So I stopped asking.

RUDY: What did you want?

NORAH: Give me a moment.

A LAYER OF ECHOES. RADIO STATIC,
FOOTSTEPS, SOUNDS OF TOOLS WORKING AND
DROPPING TO THE FLOOR. NORAH’S VOICE
DESCRIBING THE POSITION OF SEVERAL
STARS. OTHER VOICES: ECHOES OF LINES WE
HAVE PREVIOUSLY HEARD DOT, RUDY, AND
ABBIE SPEAKING IN THE OBSERVATORY;
ECHOES OF LINES WE HAVE NEVER BEFORE
HEARD CHESTER OR HAZEL SPEAKING IN THE
OBSERVATORY. AMID THIS CHAOS, THE WORD
“TELESCOPE” GRADUALLY BREAKS FREE, SAID
BY SEVERAL DIFFERENT VOICES IN
OVERLAPPING ORDER.

NORAH: Telescope. That’s right. I’d like you to
help me build it. Rebuild it, that is. There are
parts that need to be re-acquired. And
there’s only so much I’m able to do in my
state, you see.
RUDY: How did you do that?
NORAH: How did I do what?
RUDY: Just now. I heard...
NORAH: You heard that?

RUDY: Yes. I don’t know what I just heard but I heard an awful lot of it.

NORAH: Fancy that. I never knew you could hear
that. I wonder if that’s why so many of you ran
away screaming.
RUDY: What is it?
NORAH: This?

AN ECHO OF RUDY’S VOICE SAYING
“WHAT IS IT?”

NORAH: Echoes. Echoes of every word ever spoken,
every sound ever made inside of this
building.

RUDY: How far back?
NORAH: November 12, 1911.
RUDY: That’s more specific than I expected.
NORAH: That’s the day I figured out how to do it.

Three days after I died.
RUDY: Every word and sound?
NORAH: All of them.

ANOTHER CASCADE OF ECHOES.

VOICE 1: “Are you a ghost?”
VOICE 2: “A ghost!”
VOICE 3: “GHOST!”
VOICE 4: “Begone, spirit!”
VOICE 5: “D-don’t hurt me!”
RUDY: “...or the ghost of a radio signal. Or the radio signal of a ghost.”

ECHOES END.

RUDY: When my alarm was going off earlier.
NORAH: Yes, I apologize.
RUDY: That was you. I didn’t keep nodding off. You were just messing with me.

NORAH: I kept changing my mind about speaking with you. I didn’t trust you yet.

RUDY: What? Me? Why wouldn’t you/ trust me?
NORAH: /because you lied to your friend.
RUDY: I did what?
NORAH: Your friend. The older woman who comes here to pour water on the floor.

RUDY: Dot?
NORAH: You told her you performed her ritual.
RUDY: I did!

AN ECHO.

ABBIE: “Are you going to do it?”


RUDY: “I don’t know. I pour it out, I don’t pour
it out; those are two different horror
stories.”

THE ECHO ENDS.

RUDY: And then I didn’t do it?
NORAH: Not that I saw. I was watching you very closely.

RUDY: That’s rotten of me. I’ll have to apologize
to her. Thank you for telling me. Listen,
youcan trust me. I don’t lie to my friends.

NORAH: Is that not what you’d expect a liar to say?

RUDY: (CLEARS HIS THROAT, CHANGES THE SUBJECT) So.
This thing you do. The observatory, it’s,
um,
it’s like some kind of echo trap?

NORAH: “Trap?” I don’t like “trap.” Sanctuary. Yes.
This building is an echo sanctuary. I keep
the echoes.

AN ECHO.

DOT: “I’m not one to say unusual’s the same thing as strange.”

THE ECHO ENDS.

RUDY: That’s amazing.

NORAH: Is it? I suppose it must be. Were I you,
with no understanding of me. With no understanding
of the angles I perceive, the dimensions I
hadn’t known before. To you this is amazing.
To me this is simple. Another form of
algebra. The echo occurs and I know it
forever; and then I can recall it as I wish.
RUDY: This is all fascinating. (CHALK WRITING ON
CHALKBOARD) Let me make sure I have all of
this correct. Your name is Norah. You built
that telescope, the pieces of which I found
in the basement, around 1909, and then you
died November 11. No. Scratch that. That’s
not what you said. November 8, 1911.
Somehow,
and I’m not going to understand how you’re
doing it, but somehow you have a catalog of
every sound that ever occurred in the
observatory since a few days after you died.
And all this time you’ve been waiting for
somebody to help you rebuild your telescope.
Is that all of it?

NORAH: That hardly sounds like all of it. It might be enough of it.

RUDY: You know what’s especially amazing about this, Norah?

NORAH: No.

RUDY: I’ll tell you. The reason I’m here, in Mt.
Absalom? Why I was in Bihar, for that
matter? I’m doing a large-scale project on
something I call Forgotten Astronomy.

NORAH: I’ve never heard of this.

RUDY: No. Of course you haven’t. Because I have
made it up. That sounds bad. I don’t mean
“made it up” like it’s fake. I mean “made it
up” like nobody else was studying it. See, I
have a hypothesis, which is that every time
we’ve made a breakthrough in science--any
science, chemistry, medicine, astronomy--any
time we move forward we leave things behind.
And most of those things should be left
behind. But maybe some of those things were
still useful and we shouldn’t have left them
behind, and maybe if we found them, if we
remembered them, then we can bring them
forward and think of new ways to use them.
Huh?

NORAH: (AFTER A PAUSE) That seems...sensible.

RUDY: THANK YOU. So I go searching. Little clues,
here and there. Something that looks like it
might be an equation, carved on a stone
Mayan calendar. A set of navigation tools on
display in the Royal Museum. A telescope in
an observatory in a small town in Ohio, with
a Dall-Kirkham design that predates
Dall-Kirkham by two decades.

NORAH: Then you will help me repair the telescope?
RUDY: Are you KIDDING me? The only reason I hadn’t
done that already is that I had no idea
where to begin! There weren’t any plans that
I could find, although you know, I probably
should have asked Abbie about that. But
wait, now I don’t have to, do I? I’ve got
the woman who built it right here! Sort of!
Mostly!

NORAH: Enough.
RUDY: Enough! And you help me with my project at
the same time! And as long as we’re
working, perhaps you can help me figure out
what’s going on with whatever building is--

NORAH: --no.
RUDY: But--
NORAH: --I already told you it’s not important.
RUDY: It doesn’t have to be important, Norah! It
just has to be interesting!

NORAH: There’s nothing to help you with. There’s
nothing down there.

RUDY: There’s an entire building down there!
That’s nonsense! When you create a new
structure you knock down the old structure
first, you don’t cover it with tons of earth
and concrete and then build on top of it.
Norah, you do get what I’m saying here.
You’re a scientist, like me.

NORAH: I’m an astronomer like you. Neither of us
are archaeologists.

RUDY: You know what? It’s okay. You don’t have to
help me. But you, as far as I can tell,
don’t really have the mass to stop me, either.

ECHOES: A CHORUS OF SEVERAL DOZEN
DIFFERENT VOICES, ALL SAYING “NO.”

NORAH: Leave it alone. I have existed in this
building in one form or another since 1908
and I know every single inch and particle of
this place in multiple vectors. I need you
to

NORAH (CONT): respect that I’m an authority on this
observatory, Rudy, including whatever you
think you need to discover underneath it.
And if you can’t do that then I will have to
reconsider what kind of haunting this is.

RUDY: (SHAKEN) All right. I think I...all right.

NORAH: Now. Let me tell you about my telescope.
(BEAT) You should probably write this down.

A BRIEF PAUSE, AND THEN THE SOUND
OF CHALK ON THE CHALKBOARD.
END