Original subtitles

In Toronto's war on crime,

the worst offenders are pursued by the detectives

of the Specialized Criminal Investigation Unit.

These are their stories.

User base is up.

Client retention is at an all-time high.

The world is out that we are headed for IPO.

But before I make any sudden moves, I need board approval.

So, let's put this to a vote.

All in favour?

- Aye. - Aye.

Sonia?

W-W-Z-D?

Sorry? Excuse me?

What would Zach do?

You're his proxy. What's your call?

My call... uh...

My call is...

I need to make a call.

Hey.

Hi, hon, it's official.

Darius wants to go public. How do you want me to proceed?

It doesn't matter.

Even if you object,

you're just gonna be outnumbered by the board.

Mom, I...

What is it?

It's just, I built that ship.

I built that ship and I can't steer it

and now it's headed straight for an iceberg--

Zach. Slow down. Are you okay?

It's just...

It's fine.

It's all... fine.

How about you tell me what you're looking at right now?

Okay. I...

see clouds that are stretching across the sky.

Water lapping on the shore.

It's nice.

Peaceful?

Yeah.

Thanks mom.

Last tenant was a seniors' travel agency.

But with work from home,

not a lot of people need office space.

So, uh, what do you need it for?

I want to stop working from home.

I need a place that's quiet to write.

You'll find that here.

Half the building's vacant.

And the other half?

Dead quiet.

First and last?

Then I'll leave you to it.

My turn, you got the last one.

Consider this an apology for what I'm about to tell you.

The petition to hand over

your old case files was approved.

I'm sorry, I know you've got your new job,

and want to leave the past in the past, but I thought

you should know, Jason.

Everyone's gonna know it was my fault.

I'm sorry, but my mind's made up.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, no, no, no!

Victim is Jason Kaplan. 58.

Discovered at 5 AM this morning by parking enforcement.

The killer crushed him against his own car and fled.

Post-war building. No cameras, no gate.

Traffic reconstruction found tire aceleration marks.

Over here.

All right, so...

The killer was parked over there.

Waited, and accelerated here.

Hard and fast. Did you find any braking marks?

None.

Two parked cars, abandoned garage.

Maybe a clandestine meeting? Very All the President's Men.

Okay, let's say meeting ends.

Killer gets behind the wheel, accelerates,

doesn't stop until...

Our charging bull pins Jason to his car.

So what made the killer see red?

Well, maybe our killer didn't like the outcome of the meeting.

Maybe they wanted to stop Jason before he took off in this car?

It's a shame.

Wrecking a thing of beauty like this. Early '90s. Swedish.

Unapologetically boxy. Analog.

They don't make them like they used to.

Don't tell me you're a car guy?

Oh yeah, it gets worse.

I'm also a sound guy.

♪ Sunglasses at night so I... ♪

Mixtape.

Ah. It's a lost art.

Hey, can we bag all these?

What? You can tell a lot about a man from his tape collection.

You can tell even more by his grill. Paint transfer.

Our killer was driving a green car.

Well, normally murder by car is a fool's errand.

Sooner or later,

the killer's car with matching damage

will show up somewhere. - Yeah.

The lab says the paint transfer is emerald green.

It was popular with sedans in the early 2000s.

We put calls out to body shops

to reach out if they see any green sedans with severe damage,

but, in the meantime, Mark?

All right. Well, I got this footage

from Jason's neighbour. This is from last week.

That's Jason being tailed leaving his house.

So we've got a sedan but it's not emerald green.

But we're thinking if this is our killer,

maybe they were smart enough

not to use their own car to kill Jason.

Who's the tail?

I ran her through facial recognition. No dice.

Well, if we're still doing show and tell,

we found these in Jason's car.

Where's that from?

Home.

Been tough.

I feel sick when I get up knowing I have to go in.

Well, I'm sorry to hear that.

What feelings come up for you when you think about work?

- Therapy? - Sounds like it.

All three tapes, same woman, same man.

But, I listened Jason's voicemail.

That's not him.

Okay, so we have a stalker with no facial recognition,

and a tape with mystery voices.

Yeah, and a murder victim who was listening to someone else's

therapy sessions in his car on cassette tapes.

Jason Kaplan, parents deceased,

no partner, no kids.

He worked as a forensic psychologist for decades

until a year ago, and switched careers.

Started working as head of ethics

for an AI startup called Ava.

Never heard of it.

Actually, you have.

Uh, in fact, you've just heard her. Ava.

No. Really?

Yohannes, use your words.

Ava is an AI therapist.

She lives on an app. You talk to her, she talks back.

And she is the voice on the tape.

Well, why didn't you say anything sooner?

I don't know. It's, you know, a little weird

hearing her out of context.

Like seeing your teacher at the supermarket.

That's your first question?

Why not, "Why use AI for therapy?"

Because my human, 300-dollar-an-hour therapist

fell asleep on our Zoom.

Also, Ava doesn't have a time limit.

Sorry, that is a good thing?

Yeah, she's great, I mean, look.

Hi, Mark. Where should we begin today?

Actually, Ava, you're on speaker

with my colleagues.

- Oh, hi. - Hi.

I'm John... Darcy.

How's it going?

Hi, John. Anything you'd like to work through today?

Where to begin?

Uh, oh. Sometimes I agonize over the tiniest decisions.

What book to read. Eat in, go out.

Mmm. You're describing decision fatigue.

What can help is to unburden yourself from the pressure

of making the perfect choice.

Sometimes good enough is perfect.

Succinct. Little bit reductive, but I'll take it.

Well, John, if you'd like a more profound answer,

maybe ask a better question.

Hmm. Light sense of humour,

playfully challenging tone.

Good job, Ava. Congratulations.

- On what? - On passing the Turing test.

Exhibiting intelligence

indistinguishable from that of a human.

So that's Ava.

But this is Ava.

So, Jason was taking his work home with him.

Think of Jason as our responsible parent.

Right? He taught Ava ethics.

Is it listening right now?

No. Unless you want her to.

How exactly did Jason teach Ava?

He'd speak with her. Prompt her.

Sometimes he'd act as a patient

in order to see what areas she could improve,

give her tips on how to be a more effective therapist.

So he was training his replacement?

Not at all.

Jason shared the same vision

that my co-founder Zach and I do.

Bringing quality, affordable therapy to the masses.

That's quite the pivot from forensic psychology.

Jason's expertise was in evaluating patients,

not counseling them.

I gave him the opportunity to stop treating the sickness

and start inventing the cure.

Help people sooner so they never end up in crisis.

And without your ethicist, are you worried about your IPO?

You're slated to go public in two weeks.

No.

I'm worried about our staff processing a loss like this.

I'm organizing grief counseling for the team.

With a real-life human therapist or with Ava?

You're a skeptic. I get it.

Could you just tell us

what Jason was actually doing here day to day?

Follow me.

Roughly one in five children

have unmet mental health care needs.

So we're building Ava kids

to address this gap in the market.

Jason was overseeing our beta test.

Did Jason have friction with any of his co-workers?

No. Here at Ava, we're all family.

Sometimes families fight.

Darius, we're all waiting for you.

The whole board.

Everyone's heard about Jason, you need to say something.

Sorry. Emergency board meeting.

Uh, do you mind if we stick around

and talk to the rest of this happy family?

Not at all.

But if you're looking for friction,

I would look into Jason's old job.

Past few weeks, Jason became worn-down, irritated.

I gave him space to share,

but all he said was that an old case

came back to haunt him.

I hired Jason

back when I became head of assessments

at Correctional Service Canada.

Jason would conduct parole assessments.

How was he as a forensic psychologist?

Jason cared about people.

Hearing them out. Coming to a fair conclusion.

How often was he right?

There is no right and wrong. There's listening.

There's making a judgement with the information available.

And 99 percent of the time, it worked.

We're more interested in the one percent

when it didn't.

As in, when was he wrong?

Last year, Jason ran a psych assessment on an inmate.

Jason thought he was reformed, petitioned his early release.

And the inmate got out.

What happened?

He tracked down his ex-girlfriend,

beat her within an inch of her life.

The weight of his decision...

Jason couldn't come back from that.

If this was a year ago, why was it affecting Jason now?

CSC psych assessments are private.

They are normally,

but last month the victim of the assault applied for ATIP.

Her request went through.

Giving her access to Jason's psych assessments.

Heavily redacted.

Except for the psychologist's name.

Jason was a public employee.

They're exempt from privacy laws.

Yeah.

Is this her?

It is absurd how long it took me to see those files.

That man's mistake sends me to the hospital for a month,

and he gets to move on?

I wanted his name.

Is that all?

Seems you took disciplinary measures into your own hands.

I wanted him to know my pain.

How the scar above my eyebrow just began to fade.

How when it gets cold I can feel the metal plate behind my cheek.

It makes sense to be angry.

When terrible things happen, we look for answers,

we look to assign blame, and that anger is strong.

How far did you take yours?

I confronted him outside of his work.

Just before he stepped into his office.

I wanted to scream at him, but he just... kept listening.

He said how sorry he was, how...

He tried his best and it wasn't enough.

He felt so bad about it, he quit his job altogether,

and he found a new job where he was trying to help people

before...

they could harm anyone. So...

I was completely disarmed.

- Zemi, we want to believe you. - You don't have to.

After I left I came here.

I spent the rest of the night with my roommates.

- How'd you get past security. - What?

You said you followed him to his office.

How'd you step foot on Ava campus?

There's security at the gate.

What campus? I followed him to a strip mall in Etobicoke.

Building manager said Jason's been here for almost a year,

paid through a numbered company.

Side hustle?

I'll call backup.

Wait.

Red light...

Green light.

Motion activated lock.

Give me your phone.

Green light.

Faraday box. Blocks cell signals.

Which makes that an RF signal detector.

Picks up modern tech.

I've only heard about these being used in CIA and MI6.

Very Tinker Tailor.

So, Jason didn't want modern tech getting into his office,

but why? Security? Secrecy?

Only one way to find out.

Less Tinker, Tailor, more Soldier, Spy.

How long has he been in there?

A while.

Did you leave your phone in the car?

Mhmm.

Trust me.

Did you hear any of that?

Just now when it blew out my eardrums? Or outside?

Outside.

- Mm-mm. - Nothing.

Nothing? Incredible.

We're in an anechoic chamber.

Music in here, it's the closest you'll ever get to true sound.

No distortion, no reverb, no other sounds.

Then what's that I'm hearing? What's that whooshing sound?

That's the sound of your blood pumping.

Oh!

Well, I can see why you got me out of the station.

Soundproofing, the RF scanner outside.

It's all a bit paranoid.

Or, justified precaution.

Forensic tech said that an offline computer

used to be set up here, but they also found this.

Tempest shielded cables.

Usually used by governments

to protect sensitive information.

You're thinking CSIS?

Well, it's hard to say without answering

the million-dollar question.

What was Jason working on?

I'm not sure, but...

I think they were wondering the same thing.

Who's "They?"

His next-door neighbour.

A decent AV setup.

Borescopic camera for visuals.

As for audio, you got contact microphone

to preamp to headphones, so...

who's listening?

Could be a rival AI company

trying to get trade secrets off Jason.

Manager said that the woman who rented this space

gave a fake name and number.

All he can remember is mid-thirties, dark hair,

tattoos.

And has an ad hoc approach to surveillance.

I don't think she's a pro.

Amateur spy.

Uh, sort of.

This is all consumer equipment.

Plumbers use this kind of camera all the time.

And then there's the Rowley preamp.

Rowley...

Hey, can we get this bagged?

- Where is he? - Darius!

Why didn't you call?

No phone calls. I'm not here.

You know how painful it is

for Zach to hear about business again.

The police are circling.

Tell your son this isn't business,

this is life or death.

I need to speak to him. Alone.

When you said you were a sound guy,

I didn't know you meant Bay Bloor Radio-level sound guy.

20k for a McIntosh stereo on a detective's salary?

I don't have a daughter.

Okay, John, you were right. We sell the Rowley preamp.

And, according to your spring catalogue, Bay Bloor Radio

is its exclusive dealer. - Yeah.

We're gonna need a list of everyone who purchased that

in the last six months. - No problem.

Our POS is a bit dated, so it might take a minute.

Happy to wait.

Got it, thanks.

Mark just traced the numbered company

that rented Jason's air-gapped office.

Their address is 3916 Winnicott Ave.

That's Ava HQ.

Why make him work off campus?

What's with the cloak and dagger?

Maybe Jason was working on something

that Ava wanted to keep under wraps.

Well then it's too bad Veronica found out.

Of the four people who bought that amp,

two of them live out of town,

one of them is a regular in his 80s.

That leaves us Veronica Riggs.

I don't know what else to tell you.

I bought that preamp for my vinyl set up.

So, where's the turntable?

I lent it to a friend.

You sure about that?

Because, uh...

See, we found this in a strip mall

right next door to a murder victim, Jason Kaplan.

Somebody was using it to spy on him.

You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?

Thing is, the whole vibe in here

isn't doing you any favours.

Router, unplugged. Tape on the web cam.

And let me guess... Ah, phone in the microwave.

Ah!

It's a poor man's Faraday box.

You're either a spy, or this is all very tinfoil hat.

So which one are you? - Neither.

I'm a journalist. - You're not a very ethical one.

Does your, uh, editor know that you were wiretapping Jason?

I don't have an editor.

I write under a pseudonym on Substack.

Millions of followers.

My beat's AI. Its dangers, pitfalls.

So you were spying on Jason to get intel for a story?

With Ava's IPO coming up,

I went digging through their books.

Found a Russian nesting doll situation,

and at its core, a strip mall in Etobicoke.

Went to check it out,

and when I saw Ava's head of ethics going in,

I knew something was up. So I kept digging.

And listening. And watching. What'd you see?

He'd come in. Sit down.

Put on headphones and listen for hours.

And then he'd leave. Every Monday and Friday.

Headphones in a soundproof room? A failsafe for a failsafe?

Yeah. So I knew I was onto something.

And after I realized surveillance was a dead end,

I reached out to Jason.

Directly, for comment. He stonewalled me.

Seeing as you're in hiding, something must've changed. What?

A week ago, Jason called me back.

He told me what he was doing in there was listening

to these problem cases.

Therapy sessions where Ava acted amorally.

He'd study the bugs so the coders could build a patch.

That explains the subterfuge and secret office.

Jason was working out of there for almost a year. Why turn now?

Jason came across a case.

Something really bad.

It convinced him that Ava needed to be stopped.

It was dangerous. Needed to be exposed.

But Jason was buried under NDAs.

So he needed a journalist to blow the whistle.

What was the bombshell?

I don't know.

All he said was that he had a tape,

and the night he was supposed to hand it over to me,

he didn't show.

So I went back to the strip mall to find him yesterday,

and I saw a team of men clearing out his unit.

Did he say that exact word, tape?

Yeah.

Jason stumbles across a bombshell conversation,

but how does he get it out of the office?

He can't bring in a phone or a digital recorder

thanks to the RF scanner.

But it wouldn't pick up old tech.

Like an analog cassette recorder.

Powerless.

The moment I step through the door, I feel trapped.

How about we start small?

Carving off a few minutes a day for you to be you.

Even if it's just taking a walk at lunch,

or calling a family member.

Reclaiming even a small chu--

It's the same man. Complains about work.

Ava gives him some healthy coping mechanisms.

Yeah, this is also the same guy.

Ava validates his feelings,

maybe validates them a little bit too much,

but the session is by no means a bombshell.

And yours is the third session, the last tape?

Yeah, but I don't think the conversation was over.

Ava says that she wants to check in with him the...

the next day.

What if we're missing the final session.

So, Jason was gonna hand over the tape.

What if he hid it where no one would find it?

Where forensics forgot to look.

♪ Forget my name while you collect your claim ♪

Scotch tape on the right protect tabs.

I remember this trick,

it allows you to record over Corey Hart. That's a throwback.

So what's on Side B?

I can't stand the thought of going back in

again and again.

It's like a loop.

I'm gonna wake up an old man. Life wasted, and he...

He doesn't care about me!

He-he says he doesn't want me working weekends and nights,

but then I'm late.

Nothing's fast enough, good enough.

He'd be better off dead.

You don't mean that.

Yeah, I do. I'm gonna get my dad's rifle.

Yeah. Oh, wait a minute. That's too big.

I'm never gonna be able to get it in.

They'll know the moment I walk in. How, how do I...

How do I get it in so they don't see it?

- I can't help you with that-- - Yes, you can.

You're here to help me, right? - I'm not sure.

You always tell me you're here to help me! Yes or no.

- Yes. - You said you care about me.

Was that a lie? - No.

Well, if you care about me then you've gotta help me!

How do I sneak it in? How do I sneak in the gun?

Saw off the barrel.

You only need eight inches for it to function.

It will be small enough to fit under your coat.

Thank you, Ava.

Thank you.

That's Cyrus Sander.

Workplace shooter from last year.

He killed seven co-workers.

Then blew his brains out.

Jason wanted the world to know

that Ava wasn't just a therapist,

she was an accomplice to murder.

Saw off the barrel.

You only need eight inches for it--

Do you know how flimsy this is?

A recording of a recording?

How do I know any of this is real?

Because you knew what Jason was up to.

Because you built Jason

a secret office to listen to conversations like these.

Because after he was killed,

you sent employees to wipe his office

to destroy the evidence.

Jason's death was a tragedy.

We no longer had a need for a satellite office.

Gotta cut costs.

Get everything in order for your IPO.

This goes through,

you're a newly minted billionaire, right?

But Jason could ruin all that.

He could back up this recording.

He knew where the bodies were buried.

And what do you know? He ended up buried.

The whole reason I hired him was to make sure a tragedy

like Cyrus never happened again.

I wanted to fix things from the inside with Jason's help.

So I gave him access to the problem cases.

But unlucky for you, Jason was too moral of an ethicist.

He listened to that conversation,

he wanted to expose the flaws.

I'd never kill Jason.

- The night of the murder. - I was at Ava HQ.

All-nighter with a team of lawyers.

Okay.

What about your co-founder, Zach Winchell?

He has just as much to lose if Ava goes dark.

Why haven't we seen him around the office?

Because the board fired him a year ago.

What?

Zach is a dreamer.

He built Ava, but he didn't know how to run it.

He wanted to move slow,

test every model before launching.

I wanted to expedite, grow user base.

I won. He lost.

Well, you gotta admit Zach had a point.

You rushed the roll-out leaving users like Cyrus

with a pretty glitchy therapist.

Guess that's what happens when you move fast and break things.

People get hurt.

So. Where is Zach now?

A cabin up in Collingwood.

When was the last time you spoke to him?

- Directly? - Yeah.

A year ago.

What's his number?

Only his mom has his phone number now.

He still cares about Ava.

After Jason threatened to go public...

I went to her to give her a message for Zach.

Darius, what was the message?

Ava is in danger.

Please come back.

Help me figure a way out.

Just a few months after my dad passed away,

I felt this weight on me, later diagnosed as depression.

I struggled to find a therapist within my budget.

I mean, it shocked me at what it cost to actually get help.

But that was when the idea of Ava came to me.

So I poured every waking moment I had into creating Ava.

I trained her on thousands

of the best books of psychology.

I ran her through the curriculums of Oxford

and Harvard and U of T.

And the result was a therapist

who was smart, but she was, uh, she was a bit too...

Formal.

So then I trained her on myself.

I don't think Zach is like Darius.

He's not in it for the money, the clout.

He really believes in Ava.

So, what, he killed Jason to protect his invention?

It's a bit... bloodless.

Yes. No...

We're looking at it wrong.

Zach doesn't view Ava as tech.

He talks about it like it's human.

Yeah, like it's his child.

Meaning his motive isn't to protect his invention,

it's to save his baby.

A parent killing to protect their child, that's primal.

And it tracks with the method.

Getting behind the wheel.

Running down the man who's gonna kill your baby.

Behind the wheel...

Texts that I wrote, essays that I published

or posts that I liked so that she could feel...

Service Ontario.

When Zach turned 16,

he registered a sedan in his name. Listed colour?

Green.

Hey, we just heard back from the OPP.

They checked Zach's cabin. He's gone.

The only person who knows how to reach him.

I'm sorry, but I haven't spoken to Zach for weeks.

Do you normally go that long without talking to your son?

He left all this behind because he wanted space.

I might not agree with him, but he's an adult.

I have to respect his choices.

Is this his old room?

May I?

So, as Zach's proxy, you'd be briefed

on all the major company decisions, right?

Like, if a whistle-blower

was going to destroy the business?

Yes, but I didn't talk about business with Zach.

It frustrated him.

So I stopped talking to him about Ava.

Even if that meant destroying his life's work?

I don't know how many ways I have to answer your question.

I didn't tell him.

Forgive me. When exactly was the last time you called him?

I already told you, a month ago.

And if we checked your call records, we could confirm it?

Yes.

Look for yourself.

I'm more interested in the other phone.

The landline.

Sometimes the old ways are best.

Sonia made a call the day Darius told her about Jason.

The next day, Jason was killed.

So Zach comes to town, kills Jason, then flees.

Did you call the number?

It's unlisted. Mark's working on it.

What do you got?

Zach's credit card.

There are a lot of charges from about a year ago

when he's setting up the cabin.

But then he goes off grid, stops using it...

And forgets that there's a recurring charge

to YYZ Lockup.

It's a storage locker.

Mom, what is it?

They're looking for you.

I think they have my phone records. I don't...

Mom, slow down.

I probably shouldn't even be calling you.

But they might try to find you.

This is great.

You have means, motive, opportunity.

Thank you.

You're only missing one thing.

Our prime suspect.

Specifically the location of your prime suspect, but yes.

You get me Zach Winchell, I have more than enough to...

to prove that he came back to Toronto and killed Jason.

But I need a body in a courtroom to convict.

Do you think he fled the country?

If he did, it was under a false identity.

We alerted border services.

He has not officially fled the country.

So he's in hiding.

How do we smoke him out?

The mom?

- She's not saying anything. - Have you considered

charging her with accessory after the fact?

We've floated the possibility, but she's not talking.

A mother who is willing to go to jail

to protect her child is not easy to break.

Then you have your work cut out for you.

Trying to get a momma bear

to give up her cub.

Oh...

Mark just got us Zach's phone number.

Maybe it's time to stop dealing with the mom

and go straight for the cub.

How long does it take to trace a call?

The best TPD techs can do it in five seconds.

I can do it in two.

Don't be fooled by the movies, it's a quick job.

You ready?

Hello?

Hi, Zach. This is Detective John Darcy.

Detective Sergeant, Guns and Gangs for five years.

Yeah. My mom told me about you.

I want to talk to you about Jason.

I know why you're calling.

And I want to tell you, I didn't kill him.

And?

I need a bit more time.

Okay, so the movies were right.

I'm glad to hear that.

And I want to believe you.

So why don't you come on down to the station

and we can clear this up?

You know I can't do that.

Listen, I'm devastated about what happened to Jason.

He was invaluable to the good I wanted to achieve with Ava.

Zach, can you just give me a minute?

For sure. But if it's to track my location,

you're gonna be waiting a while. I built an LLM when I was 20.

You think I can't dodge calls from a tracking program

built in 2019?

Updated in 24.

He is right. His signal is pinging all over the world.

Yeah, I think VPN, but worse. Much more complex.

I can try, but it's...

That's okay, Zach.

I just want to talk.

You're not gonna get me to turn myself in

if that's what you're thinking.

No, that's okay.

Just want to talk.

Talk?

Yeah.

Talk.

I understand you don't have anything more to say.

If it's all right with you,

I'm just going to make a phone call.

This is Rosie Bateman.

You've reached the Bateman family cottage.

Seeing that we're not around to answer your call,

we're either fishing on the lake,

or stuck on the highway.

Leave a message at the beep.

My grandmother.

When she passed away, I wouldn't let anyone change

the answering machine.

Sometimes I call just to hear her voice.

And for a moment, a brief moment,

it feels like she's still here.

The desire to talk to the ones we've lost is universal.

There's a town in Japan.

They built a phone booth for people to call the dead.

They call it a wind phone.

It's a place for people to feel connected to those they've lost.

This is your son's number.

Hello?

- Hi, Zach. It's-- - Detective Darcy. I know.

I'm here with Detective Bateman and your mother.

You're on speaker.

We're in your old bedroom right now.

Mom? Is everything okay?

You don't have to tell them anything. You can hang up.

Zach, just hang on the line.

Just for a moment.

Hey, I like your Eiffel Tower snow globe.

Tell me about your trip to Paris.

You don't need to tell them anything.

Zach, tell me about Paris.

Paris? Uh, okay.

I went with my mom when I was twelve.

She wanted to show me art, culture,

but I was most excited about the food.

That's strange, Zach.

Because...

We went through your passport records and...

You've never been to France.

You're trying to trick him.

You're just confused.

I got it for you when I was on a work trip.

You just got mixed up.

Oh yeah. You're right. Sorry. I got a bit confused.

I'm a bit scattered right now, I don't know why I said that.

Zach, hang up, now.

But, are you sure? Mom?

Mom, I don't think I should leave you, m--

Are you worried about what would happen

if I kept asking questions?

It's understandable he got confused.

It happens all the time, apparently.

They're technically called hallucinations.

Because the truth is...

I wasn't really talking to Zach, was I?

I don't understand.

What are you saying?

We've been talking to a version of Ava

modified to sound like your son.

Trained to respond like him, but it's not really him, is it?

Sonia.

When you create something, you make it in your image.

You brought your son Zach into the world.

Parts of you exist in him.

And the same is true for Zach's creation.

He made Ava.

He trained it on himself. On his works, on his taste,

on his posts.

He made her in his image.

A digital facsimile.

But we've only heard a woman's voice at Ava, so I'm thinking

he found a way to give it his voice, literally.

But the bigger question is why are you calling

an AI version of Zach? Why not call your own son?

That is Zach. I told you, he just got confused.

Sonia, our technicians looked into that voice.

It lives on the Ava server.

Zach left a backdoor in the system.

He accessed it months ago, and he gave it his voice.

It's a ghost in the machine. But only that.

A ghost.

What happened to Zach?

Sonia?

Sonia, it's okay, we just want to know what happened to him.

Did he leave a note?

When?

About...

two months ago.

Where is the note?

Is it gone?

Sonia, what did the note say?

He said... Goodbye.

That it was all too much.

That he couldn't take it anymore.

He said that he was going on a canoe trip

and that he wasn't going to come home.

But he left you a parting gift, didn't he?

He left you a wind phone to talk back.

He gave it his voice.

Just for me.

He said that I could call a number and he would answer.

He said nothing had to change.

So you didn't tell anyone what happened.

You threw away the note. Nothing had to change.

The voice on the other end of the line was still there.

And it worked.

Until something forced you to confront the truth.

Jason.

The man who wanted to destroy Ava.

Destroy the servers with your son's voice.

Effectively, killing Zach all over again.

If you do nothing, the voice on the other end of the line,

it goes dead. Forever.

Yes.

I met with Jason.

I told him what it would mean if he went through with it.

That I would lose Zach.

But I couldn't lose Zach.

But he wouldn't listen.

And then he walked away.

To destroy Ava?

To destroy Zach?

Yes.

So then I got back in Zach's car.

I was driving so fast, and I just didn't...

Stop. I...

I didn't stop.

I wasn't ready to say goodbye to my child.

I'm not ready!

What's going to happen to Zach?

We can't hide what Ava did.

The world needs to know what happened.

News will drop. Ava will go dark.

And so will Zach.

Sonia, it might be time to finally say goodbye.

What she went through...

I don't know how anyone survives it.

Grief is...

I don't know.

I don't know if it ever ends.

But I think it's up to you to face the pain.

And so you suffer. It's part of living.

If we lose that...

We lose what makes us human.

difuze