Without a Trace

Limitless Podcast Transcript [S2E4]

Sicheng: [Quietly] Does he do that every episode?

Mark: Yeah, it's a part of the sponosorship deal.

Sicheng: Ahh, okay.

Mark: Do you have any other interesting theories that you're legally allowed to impart onto us?

Sicheng: I do, actually. A few of our detectives believe that Charlatan and Cypher are either the same person or working together.

Mark and Johnny: Oh?

Sicheng: The way they both work is rather similar, no? They announce something publicly and someone is sent after that person shortly after. They're similar fundamentally. Of course there are much more obvious diffences, especially in terms of targets. But myself and my team are working on it. It is an interesting theory though.

Mark: It is! Oh man, me and Johnny were just talking about Charlatan, I'm surprised we didn't put two and two together ourselves.

Sicheng: It is just a theory. Cypher has helped out the precinct, which I admit begrudgingly, many times and even now. But the higher ups have been on our tails for two years to get Cypher and each time we get a lead it's shot down. It's ridiculous, almost.

Mark: Almost? I'm surprised your team isn't larger.

Sicheng: It was, at first. There were about twenty of us at the beginning but when we didn't show progress most of the team got moved to other divisions.

Johnny: Oh, I get it now. If you don't mind, Mark and I would like to ask you a couple of questions about Cypher.

Sicheng: Sure, I'll explain everything I can!

Mark: Nice, question number one, what is the determining feature that the police use to distinguish actual Cypher Attacks from copycats?

Sicheng: For obvious reasons, I won't say what it is exactly. But there is a certain frequency involved that is a dead giveaway for us.

Johnny: I see, I see, Mark, write that down.

Mark: Got it, got it. Next question, many people on Reddit, specifically the r/BringVigilantesBack subreddit, have shared stories of Cypher allegedly contacting them, what do you have to say on this?

Sicheng: Detective Liu actually monitors various subreddits of that caliber for these. We have made requests and follow ups to a majority of these people, Dr. Jung included, and the numbers the messages came from are being kept in a database. However, after a certain period of time, the numbers get deactivated or are redirected to a random person, which we thoroughly investigate.

Johnny: So it's a case of a number getting deactivated and recycled to new subscribers then?

Sicheng: Exactly. Whoever Cypher is planned this out in the long term. We're not sure how they get a hold of these numbers to begin with, but the common assumption is hacking. He's always miles ahead of us when we discover things.

Mark: Doesn't help that Cypher taunts you either.

Sicheng: Oh, you have no idea, Mark. He embeds messages in his posts, did you know that? Detective Huang just caught onto it and we've been decoding past posts.

Johnny: This is news to us, can you tell us more?

Sicheng: Certainly. I've seen it mentioned on a few tweets before, but basically we found that it gives instructions. Connecting this to Cheshire, that was probably how they worked together, considering that we always saw Cheshire alone. Even in his most recent target, we found hints of what seems to be a secret code, but we've yet to properly make anything out of it.

Mark: Whoa, have you checked any internet sleuths? I bet other people have caught on.

Sicheng: They have, we've been interviewing a few of them too. One thing we do know is that Cypher is everywhere, I feel like they have access to everything.

Johnny: Cypher probably does, it's so intimidating.

Sicheng: To be honest, I was a real fan of Cypher for a while, even now they impress me. But now that I'm on a special task force for them, it really kind of changes things. If Cypher has access to all of these, who knows who else does, you know? There's something oddly terrifying about it.

Mark: I saw a lot of people on Twitter saying that Cypher has the metaphorical ability to play "god" and I can understand why that's so scary. Cypher could easily end someone's entire career in the click of a button, anyone would be scared of that.

Johnny: Some people are more concerned about what exactly he has access to, actually. Can you imagine what he's seen in encrypted areas?

Sicheng: Not to mention, he has his own agenda. You'll never know when he decides to go rogue.

Johnny: And, with that, we leave the listeners with our question of the day. What are your thoughts on Cypher? Let us know and tag us on Twitter, yeah?

Mark: Thank you for listening in tonight! Also, thank you to Detective Sicheng here for coming in despite your busy schedule!

Sicheng: It's no problem, I'm just glad to have made it.

Mark: Buy either us or Crys a Kofi, if you want! We'd really appreciate it. And the first 100 questions on our CuriousCat will be answered, as per usual.

Johnny: And we'll see you next episode!

Mark: Bye, bye!

Johnny: Laters!

Outro Song: - C4C ft. kokoro