1
[ominous music]
A round head, like a flower...
And the blue coming down from it...
Hello Emily.
I am an incomplete backup copy
of your third generation clone,
grown in a storage facility in the outer
rings 254 years into your future.
I was a little girl when we witnessed
the great explosion of Earth
and the end of your genetic line.
You have to sit down, okay?
I suffer many deteriorations. I am alone.
SOMETIMES I HAVE TROUBLE
CONTROLLING MY EMOTIONS!
Without third generation
Emily, my brain is now
an obsolete storage
drive without a purpose
for I will never inherit her consciousness.
I have spent most of my life in hibernation
I frequently dream of four people
buried headfirst in the sand.
I drew you a picture of a flower.
You made that picture all by
yourself without any help from me!
This is a bracelet that was
once -- [pounding noise]
This was -- [pounding noise]
This is a bracelet that was given
to me by my -- [pounding noise]
This is a bracelet that
was given to me by my
experimental sister who lived
in a tube in the stars.
Her name was Felicia.
This is just an object
without value like any other
object, yet I feel a
great attachment to it.
Why should this object matter?
I drawed it for you!
NOW YOU ARE FURTHER
COMPLICATING MY EMOTIONS!
I'll get a new paper.
I have forgotten why I
have traveled here today.
I have now remembered why I
have traveled here today.
I was next in line to be
Emily and now I am no one.
On the back of my time unit, I have
installed a portable neural network
so that I may fully replace
my mind with a copy of yours.
If I cannot be a copy of next generation
Emily, I wish to be a copy of you.
I made a duck.
As we merge consciousnesses, the machine
will take some time to recalibrate my mind.
It will be a little like dreaming.
Anything we think of can happen.
Hey, look at this I made a duck!
You may be frightened of some of
the things you see, Emily Prime.
I have suffered a great deal, and my
subconscious is not a pleasant place.
Also this machine is partially broken
and may delete part of your brain.
No problem!
[loud electronics charging up]
Wooooooooo!
You are dreaming
and... blue things are coming around me.
It's all... shooty blue stuff.
You wonder what could this
be, this big long thing.
[laughing]
[desolate winds and faint electric buzzing]
That's me there.
Me?
You.
You!
Yoouuuu!
Look.
What is it?
It's a bracelet, it's a lovely bracelet.
Do you love it?
Hey! My bracelet disappeared from this box!
You just lost it!
How did it change box?
Oh I know!
Oh... oh I know!
I know!
Oh I know!
Maybe somebody moved it.
Maybe somebody just moved it.
Not in that box!
Oh it's disappeared from here.
Maybe somebody moved it.
Heyyyy! I found this in the box!
What is it?
It's a bracelet but I don't
know what it's doing in there.
That is strange. I left it in
here, but I forgot to take it!
I just found it!
It says, "Felicia," it's for me.
It she pretty?
She bought this for me for my birthday.
Do you like this? I'll let
you have it for few days.
Here.
Oh it's a bracelet it's a bracelet!
There you go!
I like Christmas, oh much, much, much
I like Christmas, boop boop!
[laughter]
For listening that good I'll give you this.
It's a bracelet it's a bracelet!
That is strange, I left it in
here but I forgot to take it!
I found it!
It says, "Felicia." It's for me.
She bought this for me for my birthday.
Is this from a long, long time ago?
Yeah.
Now I'll give it to you.
Thank youuuuu
We can go in our cave.
[deep rumbling]
Look. There's flowers.
Flowers!
They just died.
I'm really tired.
Look this big one that died as well.
I'm gonna go back to sleep
and have another dream,
a nice dream this time.
A dream!
Woah!
[murky electronic noise and sludge]
[very faint music]
What could it be?
That is a glimmer of hope.
Put it back.
Beneath the surface lie
countless glimmers of hope
that I buried long ago when they
became too painful to hold on to.
This is the bog of realism.
Oh!
Yes. My mind was young and idealistic once.
Like yours.
Then I grew up.
I haven't seen a new glimmer
of hope in many years
[faint music]
What's this one called?
That was my dream of growing
up outside of a laboratory.
I wanted to be a dancer.
I wanted to be a dancer
in the Nutcracker ballet.
Put it back.
Look, Emily. It is a piano.
I am very good at the piano.
I studied it for years.
[she plays terribly]
Laaaaaa
[she plays terribly]
It turns out I do not know
how to play the piano.
I must only have inherited piano
memories from other Emilys.
The closer I look at
things, the less I know.
At least I am still a
world-class violinist.
[ominous music]
[rolling thunder]
[Emily Prime]: You know
what the sky is now?
[Emily Prime]: It is...
hot, icy melty stuff...
and, it... if it melts on
there, the air will blow out
'cause it's icicles up there.
No.
Those are memories.
This is a valley of buried memories.
Many of these memories have flavors.
Some of them are sweet.
Some of them are bitter.
[Projection]: No. Those are memories.
Many of them are not mine
but lost moments from Emilys long ago.
[Emily Prime]: A person!
I can see a man walking.
[distant distorted voices]
That's you and that's me.
Don't pick up too many. It is
easy to get lost in memories.
Looking up into the sky here.
[distorted voice, speaking Chinese]
[Unknown voice]: The children
are forming too many thoughts
of their own and taking up
a lot of storage space.
[Unknown voice]: Could we limit
their activities, please?
[Unknown voice]: Does that one have its
eyes open? Could you shut it down, please.
[thunder]
Look. It is a memory of something
that hasn't happened to us yet.
I must have inherited it
from you, later in life.
[Emily 6, distant]: Oh. I
believe I know where we are.
Smell that one. It's strawberry.
It is very important that you don't
think of a baby dinosaur later.
Okay.
[deep bass and crackling thunder]
[Together]: Hello, Emily.
Please pay no attention to us.
We are memory tourists.
Assorted backup clones of your future self
using time travel to revisit
many of the pleasant
memories we have inherited
from your life.
Please carry on as though
we are not here at all.
YOU'RE DOING GREAT.
Do you remember this one?
Yes. It is very nice. It
is just as I pictured it.
IT IS VERY NICE.
[a pleasant restaurant]
[Together]: Hello, Emily.
You may remember us from seven years ago.
We are on holiday!
We are memory tourists.
Pay no attention to us!
Oh. This is such a nice moment.
HELLO, EMILY.
Shhh!
[loud electronic beeps and sensors]
Oh, I wish we could stay here forever.
Well, we can't do that.
That would be intrusive.
Do you remember what happens next?
Of course I do.
Wait for it...
Shame what happens to him though, isn't it.
[life support beeps and breathing machines]
[Together]: Hello, Emily.
[series of smartphone camera shutters]
Wait a minute. Where's Emily Six?
She was just with us.
Oh, what year did she run off to this time?
Now we have to go find her.
Yes. And she already knows
we will try to find her.
Yes. Because she will remember
this conversation through her.
Yes. And if she's with an
earlier Emily, then all of
us should already have a
memory of where she went.
[Together]: Hmmm...
Could you leave, please?
[slow, distant piano music]
[Projection]: That's you and that's me.
[Projection]: Bracelet, it's a bracelet!
[Projection]: I made a duck.
That's just weird!
[Projection]: I was next
in line to be Emily...
[Projection]: It is easy
to get lost in memories.
I wonder what this one is
It tastes like an autumn night.
Oh. Why are we here?
Because you were looking at that!
It's a memory from a childhood...
I killed an insect.
I don't know why.
It was the saddest day of my life.
For all of eternity, throughout
the infinite universe,
this had been its only
chance at being alive.
This was all the insect
was ever going to be.
[Young Emily 6]: He didn't die...?
[Young Emily 6]: No!
It was not its fault it was an insect.
An incomplete creature,
without any backup copy.
All of its experiences are gone forever.
We can never know them.
If there is a soul, it is
equal in all living things.
We all cling to the same brief, flickering
windows in the infinite darkness.
Except for clones. Clones are better.
Look!
It is my sister, Felicia.
They separated us after the destruction
of Earth so she could be reprogrammed
to store the memories of a wealthy
family who are no longer alive.
She now permanently orbits this red planet,
unconscious in a stasis tube,
for archival purposes.
I have been searching for her but I don't
remember where this planet is located.
This memory - [glitch noises]
-is hurting me.
Oh my goodness!
Do you know where I can find her?
Do you recognize this planet?
It's where... uhhhh...
It's near... Kitty Land?
It's near Circle Land, Owl Land, Bear Land,
and... Light Land, it's near any land.
Emily Prime I am distorting with sadness!
Just sit over there and look at the show.
What kind of a show is it?
It's, like... a show... that...
people do this.
The show's finished now.
Because we were both backup copies
we were rarely allowed
to spend time together.
Every year, one of us was
placed in partial hibernation
while the other stayed behind.
Emily Five was my best friend.
We had images of gardens in our heads,
but had never seen one for ourselves
and pretended the planet's brown
mineral cubes were flowers
and the oil pools sparkling fountains.
In our brief times together,
we'd swim in all the
identical memories we had
of Emilys from long ago.
[laughter]
'Til I got lost! On like a street! And I
couldn't find my way back home, or school!
Yeah! And there was like,
real snow coming down!
Yeah!
Do you hear the cars outside...?
[Together]: A round head, like a flower...
[Together]: and the blue
coming down from it...
You can't draw the same thing!
He doesn't look real, he
doesn't look real, or him...
He looks real, he looks
real, he looks real.
Yeah, he look real.
That one's just a statue.
Those are real people!
We didn't both want to be called Emily
so we secretly decided her
name would be Felicia.
We traded ID tags because they were
the only possessions we owned.
So you can remember me.
[Emily 5, singing]: Twinkle,
twinkle, Christmas star
How I wonder what you are
If I didn't still have her ID tag, I would not
have even known that this was a memory of mine.
But I'm so glad we found you, Felicia.
[loud electronic bass]
We can live on the red planet now.
[loud glitches]
This is the reason we came.
[loud glitches]
No, I think it's not.
We can be children forever.
This is the reason we came.
No.
[echoing]: But I'm so glad
we found you, Felicia...
Heyyy, what are you doing?!
We can live on the red planet now...
I know that!
We can be children forever...
Look, I've watched that, like, many times.
[echoing]: But I'm so glad
we found you, Felicia...
Uh oh.
Close your eyes!
A lot of my friends in my school
have brown eyes like you.
Yeah!
[laughter]
I forgot all their names!
We have to do more things
at home, don't we?
[Adult Emily's voice]: I have a
memory of an important man...
[energetic Beethoven music]
I don't know who he was.
He had the haircut of a man who had
seriously misinterpreted himself.
There was an error in a time traveling unit
and he was accidentally transported with
no preset destination in time or space.
Technical support informed us that
he was literally sent nowhere.
He was sent "into the unknowable."
I think about this man often.
If he is still alive, and
what dimension he may be in.
I wonder sometimes if he erased
his destination date on purpose.
I have memories of dying two times and these
memories traveling across three Emilys.
Dying is one of my least
favorite things to do.
I remember vast amounts of snow.
I am not afraid. I don't
want to be copied anymore.
Youth is not an accomplishment.
Oh. I believe I know where we are.
This is my brain's logic center.
Woah, we're in it!
We have to be careful. We must find
a way out as soon as possible.
If we should think of
something illogical in here,
it could be a major shock
to my system and--
Baby dinosaur!
[loud electrical bursts and
catastrophic glitches]
Triangle Land! Triangle Land!
Triangle Land!
[thunder clap]
You've brought us into your mind!
MUH MUH MUH MUH!
Where are you taking me?
Triangle Land!
[Classical waltz music]
What do they do in Triangle Land?
They do... Triangle stuff?
They do Triangle work,
they do Triangle flying in the air,
they do Triangle driving,
they do everything.
[laughter]
Who are they?
Triangle mans with... uh...
star hats on them.
[maniacal laughter]
[Emily Prime]: Look what's coming out
of his mouth to the other triangle.
[Emily Prime]: It's a triangle.
I think I just transported
into Square Land.
Look, there's a square.
And a square.
Square, square.
Square.
Your mind is a lovely place, Emily Prime.
Yeah!
I no longer feel the burden
of other people's thoughts.
Of dreams that were not my own.
What emotion should I be
experiencing right now?
SHOULD I BE YELLING?
Nope!
We cannot live in the past.
We have to let it go.
My brain is really sticky.
I look forward to my new
and unknowable memories.
Woah.
Oh. I am starting to disappear.
The machine is doing its job.
When I am completely gone, I shall no
longer have a memory of my old self.
Stop it.
Make you disappear.
Yes. Let's try to think of
only nice things as I go.
[orchestra tuning]
I can feel myself slip. Oh. I am slipping.
["The Waltz of the Flowers" begins]
Here's the ticket, okay?
A ticket? A ticket for what?
It's "The Nutcracker."
It... it's gonna be your present, okay?
Emily, I am slipping.
Emily, I am slipping away.
In 230 years you will meet Felicia again.
She will give you this bracelet.
Tell her we love her.
Tell her I am glad we were
both alive at the same time.
Am I dying?
I feel beautiful.
Tell me a story.
Once... once upon a time,
there was a super girl that
was really little, she
didn't grow her power yet.
Because she wasn't big yet!
And then, then she was eight.
And she...
Was doing all the powers and saved
all the people from monsters.
So!
The end.
[the music fades away]
Now we're here again.
What a happy day it iiiiis!
Look what I got for your new sister coming!
I don't have a sister.
I'm your new sister!
What should we draw?
You... you just draw whatever you want to.
There you are.
Come along then, come on.
You can't live in the past and all that.
Come on, let's go, say goodbye, come on.
Goodbye.
Bye!
Okay.