00:00:01.459 --> 00:00:02.913
(bird cawing)

00:00:02.913 --> 00:00:05.496
(wind rushing)

00:00:11.130 --> 00:00:11.963
There's that one.

00:00:11.963 --> 00:00:13.590
Let's do the oldest toward you.

00:00:13.590 --> 00:00:15.000
And what about that,

00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:17.190
that's the highest resolution one, right?

00:00:17.190 --> 00:00:18.023
Yeah.

00:00:18.023 --> 00:00:21.660
I mean, this takes significantly longer,

00:00:21.660 --> 00:00:23.490
but it's worth it.

00:00:23.490 --> 00:00:25.230
Mm-hmm.
It's no longer

00:00:25.230 --> 00:00:26.823
basic plastic filament.

00:00:28.080 --> 00:00:32.760
The idea is create a perfect fake tortoise.

00:00:32.760 --> 00:00:35.130
This is sort of what we're aiming for.

00:00:35.130 --> 00:00:37.890
This level of gloss.

00:00:37.890 --> 00:00:40.500
It's a little bit maddening to try to replicate that detail

00:00:40.500 --> 00:00:43.773
but we're getting there, and we can booby trap 'em.

00:00:44.814 --> 00:00:47.820
(moody guitar music)

00:00:47.820 --> 00:00:49.740
I think there's a thing that runs in us

00:00:49.740 --> 00:00:52.560
which is the critic, the critic of our thoughts.

00:00:52.560 --> 00:00:55.320
There's a little voice in there saying, "That's absurd."

00:00:55.320 --> 00:00:57.600
And the little voice in me said, "That's absurd,"

00:00:57.600 --> 00:00:59.730
and I just, I turned to the little voice

00:00:59.730 --> 00:01:00.927
and I said, "Shut up."

00:01:02.340 --> 00:01:04.410
I'm just gonna see where this leads

00:01:04.410 --> 00:01:06.243
because I don't have anything else.

00:01:08.280 --> 00:01:10.563
A raven won't be able to tell the difference.

00:01:13.110 --> 00:01:15.300
I'm trying to keep tortoises from going extinct

00:01:15.300 --> 00:01:17.873
'cause they're being eaten by ravens.

00:01:17.873 --> 00:01:19.911
(pressurized whooshing)

00:01:19.911 --> 00:01:20.880
(drone whirring)

00:01:20.880 --> 00:01:22.980
I almost feel like a SWAT team guy, it's like,

00:01:22.980 --> 00:01:26.940
we just come in with the toolkit and start trying stuff.

00:01:26.940 --> 00:01:30.150
Lasers, terrestrial rovers, drones,

00:01:30.150 --> 00:01:32.580
3D printed fake tortoises,

00:01:32.580 --> 00:01:34.740
and I'm having a hell of a good time.

00:01:34.740 --> 00:01:37.290
These have a spacer built in on both sides.

00:01:37.290 --> 00:01:38.850
Gotcha, to hold it at a distance.

00:01:38.850 --> 00:01:39.683
Exactly.

00:01:39.683 --> 00:01:41.220
You thought this through?

00:01:41.220 --> 00:01:42.480
For once

00:01:42.480 --> 00:01:44.472
Circle back the other way.
(rover whirring)

00:01:44.472 --> 00:01:47.139
(Tim chuckling)

00:01:50.386 --> 00:01:52.983
Conservation biology can be really depressing.

00:01:54.180 --> 00:01:55.860
You're the scientist.

00:01:55.860 --> 00:01:58.590
The objective observer.

00:01:58.590 --> 00:01:59.670
You don't get involved,

00:01:59.670 --> 00:02:01.983
you're just taking notes on the catastrophe.

00:02:05.220 --> 00:02:08.100
And I came to a breaking moment for me, it's just like,

00:02:08.100 --> 00:02:11.010
what the hell is all this knowledge good for

00:02:11.010 --> 00:02:12.513
if I don't do something?

00:02:25.680 --> 00:02:26.513
Here he is.

00:02:27.720 --> 00:02:29.013
Oh, you're a little fart.

00:02:29.910 --> 00:02:31.500
Look at that little guy.

00:02:31.500 --> 00:02:32.763
So gorgeous.

00:02:33.930 --> 00:02:37.800
I can't remember a time when I wasn't in love with reptiles.

00:02:37.800 --> 00:02:39.450
Little dragons.

00:02:39.450 --> 00:02:42.303
When you look at it on the sand, it's just incredible.

00:02:43.678 --> 00:02:47.261
(sparkling ethereal music)

00:02:50.010 --> 00:02:51.273
His shell is beautiful.

00:02:52.530 --> 00:02:55.593
That's a 275 million year old pattern.

00:02:58.590 --> 00:03:02.070
Looking back on my entire youth, time in the classroom,

00:03:02.070 --> 00:03:03.060
it's sort of black and white,

00:03:03.060 --> 00:03:05.580
it's kind of a Wizard of Oz thing,

00:03:05.580 --> 00:03:08.460
but in the field, everything came alive.

00:03:08.460 --> 00:03:09.930
Mojave Desert.

00:03:09.930 --> 00:03:11.553
Hot, dry, and nasty.

00:03:12.750 --> 00:03:13.583
And yet,

00:03:15.900 --> 00:03:17.260
in certain places

00:03:19.620 --> 00:03:21.847
the wonder of tad poles.

00:03:24.210 --> 00:03:27.120
I'm kind of in the middle of this wildlife documentary

00:03:27.120 --> 00:03:28.800
that's unfolding in real time.

00:03:28.800 --> 00:03:30.873
There's a bobcat staring at me.

00:03:32.580 --> 00:03:33.413
Hey, kitty.

00:03:36.349 --> 00:03:39.516
(soulful opera music)

00:03:42.180 --> 00:03:44.070
Right as I got my masters,

00:03:44.070 --> 00:03:48.270
a project was announced by the local BLM office in Riverside

00:03:48.270 --> 00:03:52.140
that this woman, Dr. Kristin Berry, was starting

00:03:52.140 --> 00:03:55.500
a desert tortoise population monitoring project.

00:03:55.500 --> 00:03:58.620
I was the one that set up the studies

00:03:58.620 --> 00:04:01.380
and laid out these plots

00:04:01.380 --> 00:04:04.413
so that they could be revisited over time.

00:04:05.490 --> 00:04:09.370
Tim Fields, he would make himself a long gown

00:04:10.320 --> 00:04:12.903
but he had no shorts on underneath.

00:04:18.150 --> 00:04:21.783
He was one of the field people and he was one of the best.

00:04:23.820 --> 00:04:27.603
And he's above even the best in finding babies.

00:04:29.550 --> 00:04:32.703
They genuinely have a joie de vivre.

00:04:33.780 --> 00:04:36.213
They live life passionately.

00:04:40.020 --> 00:04:42.180
They are thought of as gentle, slow-moving

00:04:42.180 --> 00:04:44.850
kind of dumb creatures.

00:04:44.850 --> 00:04:46.350
They're not dumb.

00:04:46.350 --> 00:04:49.173
They can't be dumb and make it where they make it.

00:04:50.264 --> 00:04:52.920
(movie projector clicking)

00:04:52.920 --> 00:04:55.470
The desert tortoise has been in trouble

00:04:55.470 --> 00:04:57.453
since the 1930s.

00:04:58.366 --> 00:05:00.180
(moody guitar music)

00:05:00.180 --> 00:05:02.160
So we'll do north-south.

00:05:02.160 --> 00:05:04.380
That'll establish the two corners, and then we'll just,

00:05:04.380 --> 00:05:06.003
it's just up and down like that.

00:05:08.131 --> 00:05:10.410
We have loss of habitat,

00:05:10.410 --> 00:05:14.850
the deaths of animals from roads and vehicles, disease.

00:05:14.850 --> 00:05:17.223
And then of course there's climate change.

00:05:18.690 --> 00:05:19.890
Every time we came back,

00:05:19.890 --> 00:05:23.013
every four years it was a 50?cline in numbers.

00:05:24.840 --> 00:05:29.820
Bottomed out at 35 tortoises, something like that,

00:05:29.820 --> 00:05:32.013
40 tortoises, it was terrible.

00:05:33.030 --> 00:05:36.333
Oh buddy, that's not so good.

00:05:38.670 --> 00:05:41.700
It was really hard as a human being

00:05:41.700 --> 00:05:43.590
who also loved these creatures

00:05:43.590 --> 00:05:47.370
to go out and spend months just picking up dead tortoises.

00:05:47.370 --> 00:05:48.333
95.

00:05:49.770 --> 00:05:53.130
I could no longer be passive about this

00:05:53.130 --> 00:05:55.533
and simply watch the end of the show.

00:05:56.389 --> 00:05:57.300
(eerie atmospheric music)

00:05:57.300 --> 00:06:00.540
I focused on the raven as an idea

00:06:00.540 --> 00:06:03.363
simply because it seemed like a manageable threat.

00:06:09.120 --> 00:06:11.730
As human population has risen in the desert

00:06:11.730 --> 00:06:14.760
there's a fairly simple mathematical relationship.

00:06:14.760 --> 00:06:18.545
More humans equals more ravens equals fewer tortoises.

00:06:18.545 --> 00:06:20.580
(ravens croaking and calling)

00:06:20.580 --> 00:06:22.563
There aren't that many tortoises left.

00:06:23.910 --> 00:06:26.013
They're like caviar for ravens.

00:06:27.510 --> 00:06:30.270
It's another day in Raven Town.

00:06:30.270 --> 00:06:32.550
There's a group of about five ravens right here.

00:06:32.550 --> 00:06:34.440
So there's one right there, yeah.

00:06:34.440 --> 00:06:35.397
Oh, there's a whole shit load in there,

00:06:35.397 --> 00:06:38.100
and here comes another one in here.

00:06:38.100 --> 00:06:41.100
These ravens will know which restaurants are sloppy

00:06:41.100 --> 00:06:42.720
about closing the dumpster,

00:06:42.720 --> 00:06:45.720
which dumpsters are more likely to be opened up by the wind,

00:06:45.720 --> 00:06:47.463
all of these sorts of patterns.

00:06:48.360 --> 00:06:50.700
So you're dealing with a genius animal

00:06:50.700 --> 00:06:53.280
that is also an omnivore.

00:06:53.280 --> 00:06:54.810
I'm starting to see 'em come in

00:06:54.810 --> 00:06:57.116
in this alley right in front of us.

00:06:57.116 --> 00:06:58.800
(counter clicking)

00:06:58.800 --> 00:07:01.263
The lowest count I've ever had I think is 1500.

00:07:02.460 --> 00:07:05.910
So what we've done is we've imported ravens

00:07:05.910 --> 00:07:09.243
right through excellent tortoise habitat.

00:07:12.884 --> 00:07:15.750
I'm looking for, yeah, here's a good one.

00:07:15.750 --> 00:07:16.890
This is very typical,

00:07:16.890 --> 00:07:18.660
which is punching through the plastron,

00:07:18.660 --> 00:07:20.430
which is the underside of the shell

00:07:20.430 --> 00:07:22.950
to remove the internal organs

00:07:22.950 --> 00:07:25.260
and maybe eat the meat, or not.

00:07:25.260 --> 00:07:28.500
Takes 'em five to 10 years, minimum,

00:07:28.500 --> 00:07:30.600
to get to the point where they can resist

00:07:30.600 --> 00:07:34.320
the attack of a raven, but during that time,

00:07:34.320 --> 00:07:36.960
the odds of them avoiding detection by a raven

00:07:36.960 --> 00:07:38.313
are functionally zero.

00:07:39.921 --> 00:07:43.200
(wind whistling)

00:07:43.200 --> 00:07:44.050
All right, Frank.

00:07:45.660 --> 00:07:47.100
It's not ready for prime time,

00:07:47.100 --> 00:07:49.000
but it certainly is ready for testing.

00:07:49.980 --> 00:07:54.870
The antithesis of the depressed conservation biologist

00:07:54.870 --> 00:07:58.350
is the engineer, because now they have all these new tools

00:07:58.350 --> 00:08:01.182
and they're going "We can do anything."

00:08:01.182 --> 00:08:02.760
(ominous guitar music)

00:08:02.760 --> 00:08:05.760
Savvy technologists are expensive, frankly.

00:08:05.760 --> 00:08:07.980
And I meet this crazy kid, Frank Guercio,

00:08:07.980 --> 00:08:11.550
a high school kid who turns out to be kind of a genius.

00:08:11.550 --> 00:08:14.130
You know, grow up, you watch James Bond,

00:08:14.130 --> 00:08:18.060
and you watch all these tech guys build tools for spies,

00:08:18.060 --> 00:08:19.503
and now I'm Q.

00:08:21.030 --> 00:08:24.120
This is our prototype laser.

00:08:24.120 --> 00:08:26.370
We call this the Blast-o-lux.

00:08:26.370 --> 00:08:30.330
For whatever reason, ravens hate green.

00:08:30.330 --> 00:08:33.780
Someone may as well have started a bar fight amongst them.

00:08:33.780 --> 00:08:37.233
Many times they disperse and don't come back.

00:08:38.970 --> 00:08:42.810
Ravens are arguably the most intelligent birds

00:08:42.810 --> 00:08:45.960
on the planet, and arguably more intelligent

00:08:45.960 --> 00:08:48.360
than we are in certain respects.

00:08:48.360 --> 00:08:51.600
They operate on a lot of the same circuits that we do

00:08:51.600 --> 00:08:55.113
in terms of our opportunism, our ability to innovate.

00:08:56.550 --> 00:08:58.950
We just have to change the cost-benefit ratio

00:08:58.950 --> 00:09:00.480
inside the bird's head,

00:09:00.480 --> 00:09:03.720
so that it chooses somewhere different,

00:09:03.720 --> 00:09:05.163
away from tortoise habitat.

00:09:06.000 --> 00:09:07.980
We can do it without killing the birds.

00:09:07.980 --> 00:09:09.720
The way I think about it is,

00:09:09.720 --> 00:09:11.490
a bird educated by Hardshell Labs

00:09:11.490 --> 00:09:14.070
is more valuable than a dead bird,

00:09:14.070 --> 00:09:15.840
because they are very social creatures

00:09:15.840 --> 00:09:17.540
and because they watch each other.

00:09:19.170 --> 00:09:20.220
There, you got him.

00:09:20.220 --> 00:09:21.605
There they went.

00:09:21.605 --> 00:09:22.770
(Tim and Frank laughing)

00:09:22.770 --> 00:09:24.933
It's so clear when you hit 'em.

00:09:25.950 --> 00:09:28.290
And then there's the social effect of like,

00:09:28.290 --> 00:09:31.320
oh, everybody's panicking, I better panic too.

00:09:31.320 --> 00:09:32.460
It's so wonderful.

00:09:32.460 --> 00:09:35.040
The laser worked really well.

00:09:35.040 --> 00:09:36.753
That fired me up.

00:09:37.770 --> 00:09:39.480
I parked here,

00:09:39.480 --> 00:09:42.480
and I just had this feeling going in,

00:09:42.480 --> 00:09:43.953
there's a raven nest in here.

00:09:44.880 --> 00:09:47.100
Welcome to the millennial starter home, boys.

00:09:47.100 --> 00:09:48.060
Yes.
(laughter)

00:09:48.060 --> 00:09:49.860
It's a bit of a fixer upper.

00:09:50.850 --> 00:09:52.080
There it is.
Awesome.

00:09:52.080 --> 00:09:52.913
Raven nest.

00:09:53.790 --> 00:09:56.160
This is that borescope we were talking about.

00:09:56.160 --> 00:09:58.110
Raise it somewhat.

00:09:58.110 --> 00:09:59.250
There.

00:09:59.250 --> 00:10:01.607
There's the nest cup right there.

00:10:01.607 --> 00:10:03.870
(liquid squirting)

00:10:03.870 --> 00:10:06.873
Remote egg oiling is a way of changing their numbers.

00:10:07.830 --> 00:10:11.610
Their babies don't hatch, they don't have as many babies.

00:10:11.610 --> 00:10:12.690
Already we have evidence

00:10:12.690 --> 00:10:14.490
that they're abandoning those areas.

00:10:15.518 --> 00:10:17.790
(truck roaring past)

00:10:17.790 --> 00:10:19.440
This will be so thrilling if there are

00:10:19.440 --> 00:10:21.390
a good number of eggs in there.

00:10:21.390 --> 00:10:23.643
I've been wanting this nest for a long time.

00:10:24.930 --> 00:10:25.968
Yep, four eggs.

00:10:25.968 --> 00:10:26.801
Okay.

00:10:26.801 --> 00:10:27.634
(trucks roaring)

00:10:27.634 --> 00:10:30.240
Ah, the din of the 21st century.

00:10:30.240 --> 00:10:32.253
What a setting to oil eggs.

00:10:34.890 --> 00:10:36.450
Can we alter their numbers?

00:10:36.450 --> 00:10:37.830
Can we alter their distribution,

00:10:37.830 --> 00:10:39.660
or can we alter their behavior?

00:10:39.660 --> 00:10:41.660
And they'll probably all come into play.

00:10:43.470 --> 00:10:48.000
The driving force behind this project is aversive training.

00:10:48.000 --> 00:10:50.190
The raven comes in, flips it over.

00:10:50.190 --> 00:10:52.980
For whatever reason, artificial grape flavoring

00:10:52.980 --> 00:10:56.550
drives birds crazy, including ravens.

00:10:56.550 --> 00:10:58.350
On the inside we have a bladder

00:10:58.350 --> 00:11:00.420
which acts like a pepper spray.

00:11:00.420 --> 00:11:02.104
That means it's going to arm.

00:11:02.104 --> 00:11:02.937
(electronic beep)

00:11:02.937 --> 00:11:04.140
That one's primed and ready to go,

00:11:04.140 --> 00:11:06.660
so if you turned it on right now and waited to three,

00:11:06.660 --> 00:11:08.853
it would explode it all over us.

00:11:10.290 --> 00:11:11.970
If a certain number of ravens

00:11:11.970 --> 00:11:15.090
have the bad experience with the Techno-tort

00:11:15.090 --> 00:11:18.830
we should see a reduction in the frequency of attacks.

00:11:18.830 --> 00:11:20.070
(electronic tone)
Three.

00:11:20.070 --> 00:11:22.845
Don't touch it, 'cause it'll go off.

00:11:22.845 --> 00:11:25.680
(brisk rhythmic music)

00:11:25.680 --> 00:11:28.710
The idea is just to make the haunted landscape

00:11:28.710 --> 00:11:31.650
where there's just no relief from the surprises,

00:11:31.650 --> 00:11:33.453
and all the surprises are bad.

00:11:34.305 --> 00:11:38.190
(intense drum and cymbals)

00:11:38.190 --> 00:11:40.204
They're such funny animals.

00:11:40.204 --> 00:11:41.209
The look-
I know.

00:11:41.209 --> 00:11:43.530
Straight back at the camera, is great.

00:11:43.530 --> 00:11:45.810
It's like, do you get this?

00:11:45.810 --> 00:11:46.660
I don't get this.

00:11:47.580 --> 00:11:50.790
This was the guy who just was like, would not give it up.

00:11:50.790 --> 00:11:53.797
You know, maybe they're a mated pair and she's just going,

00:11:53.797 --> 00:11:55.773
"Charlie, you're a fool.

00:11:56.880 --> 00:11:58.500
It ain't worth it.

00:11:58.500 --> 00:12:01.380
I'm going off to the McDonald's dumpster."

00:12:01.380 --> 00:12:04.797
(Tim and Frank laughing)

00:12:05.670 --> 00:12:07.440
We're sitting in a space that three months

00:12:07.440 --> 00:12:09.450
from now is gonna have a hundred printers,

00:12:09.450 --> 00:12:12.780
filament production lines, resin printers,

00:12:12.780 --> 00:12:17.310
CNC machines, laser cutters, anything and everything

00:12:17.310 --> 00:12:20.605
that can be used to solve the problem.

00:12:20.605 --> 00:12:22.650
(emotive guitar music)

00:12:22.650 --> 00:12:23.760
Do these things work?

00:12:23.760 --> 00:12:24.963
Can we do this?

00:12:25.830 --> 00:12:29.460
We already think we're having a positive effect.

00:12:29.460 --> 00:12:32.010
The attack rate is significantly lower

00:12:32.010 --> 00:12:33.873
that you can pick it up in the data.

00:12:36.210 --> 00:12:38.733
Very cautious optimism is how I feel.

00:12:40.500 --> 00:12:43.410
After a lifetime of observing this thing

00:12:43.410 --> 00:12:45.060
that was falling apart,

00:12:45.060 --> 00:12:47.943
the work we're doing has injected an element of hope.

00:12:48.900 --> 00:12:52.350
The promised land, my baby tortoises.

00:12:52.350 --> 00:12:54.654
May you grow and prosper.

00:12:54.654 --> 00:12:56.730
(uplifting guitar music)

00:12:56.730 --> 00:12:59.945
My heart is beating fast for this little tortoise.

00:12:59.945 --> 00:13:01.713
I love finding little turtles.

00:13:03.990 --> 00:13:07.650
All of these tortoises have huge growth rates this year.

00:13:07.650 --> 00:13:09.903
It's been a very productive year.

00:13:10.770 --> 00:13:14.307
I like humans well enough, but we have flaws (chuckles),

00:13:15.150 --> 00:13:19.140
and I don't learn as much from other human beings

00:13:19.140 --> 00:13:22.593
as I do from tortoises, they're just my best teachers.

00:13:25.530 --> 00:13:28.920
The desert tortoise is one example

00:13:28.920 --> 00:13:32.340
of a species that are suffering from

00:13:32.340 --> 00:13:35.550
the way humans are doing business in the world.

00:13:35.550 --> 00:13:38.580
But this is a global phenomenon.

00:13:38.580 --> 00:13:42.040
We have thrown the world ecosystem

00:13:42.990 --> 00:13:46.830
so far outta whack that if we don't put our hands

00:13:46.830 --> 00:13:50.550
on those ecological levers, letting nature take it course

00:13:50.550 --> 00:13:52.920
is gonna be really bad for us as well.

00:13:52.920 --> 00:13:54.303
Look at that face.

00:13:55.260 --> 00:13:59.160
He's slightly awake, but very sleepy.

00:13:59.160 --> 00:14:01.920
If we don't want a really lonely planet

00:14:01.920 --> 00:14:05.700
that's just us and ravens and rats and cockroaches,

00:14:05.700 --> 00:14:07.331
we have a whole ton of work to do.

00:14:07.331 --> 00:14:09.160
(wings fluttering)

00:14:09.160 --> 00:14:12.810
(ladder clanking)

00:14:12.810 --> 00:14:16.110
Oh, it's gonna be great, ah, it's just spectacular.

00:14:16.110 --> 00:14:17.340
Hi cows.

00:14:17.340 --> 00:14:19.953
Look at all these birds eating the grain.

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I have this little human life.

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I'm just one of these human sparks,

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we're all just like phew, we're gone like that.

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This seems like a reasonable way to spend my golden years.

00:14:35.176 --> 00:14:36.207
(cows mooing)

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(Tim imitating cow)

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Three, two, one.

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(ravens crowing)

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Ta-da!

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People started building cathedrals knowing

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this thing isn't gonna be done for 200 years.

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I'm laying bricks here.

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I'm never gonna see the finished product.

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I'm gonna be recycled into creosote bush

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by the time any of this pays off.

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So I kind of feel like one of those cathedral builders,

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it's just like, lay some bricks.

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But, it's alright being a brick layer.

00:15:28.923 --> 00:15:31.793
(wind whooshing)

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(ethereal atmospheric music)

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(wind blowing)