This the first scene.
The Wapshot Whatever
Setting: Stage lit with white light. A vaguely human appearing form in black coat, covered in computer wires. As it walks and rants, small lights go on amid electronic pops.
Time: Infinite now
ROGUE PROGRAM
The wapshot legend has broken down. For whatever am I going to the office, barely paid so swolf's at the door blowing me down--chomping mouth saying you can't make it. Try as you might little piglet, you're another sausage for the gin mill, the spirit mill.
ROGUE daintily sits crosses legs, sits on floor.
We want authenticity in pre-packaged tinsley lives that have no real people in them. We want escape. Celeb glamour, see pretty people have flaws unlike you whose whole life is a flaw. So says….
ROGUE wonders answer to this and stands to ponder.
Have not, whap nut. Am I a homeless geek, a sexy disadvantaged youth, a sad-eyed girl from the homelands? I am also no corporate executive or a hybrid working girl, middle-aged woman, muse. Whatever! Provocateur. Dark panicky incoherence of a rogue program in the universal computer. A home in every port. My sweethearts upload me and never know I look into the hearts of their on-line anxieties, searches, and blogs pursuing content. I'm the nebulous nothing of information technology when everything is present.
ROGUE sighs sadly
I love a little fool server off the Aussie coast. She serves island hoppers, giving weather warnings, hurr and him-a-caines coming to a shore near them. She's a dear one…
Rogue pushes switches on himself. Out comes a petite server program, wearing a white suit with black blinking wires. She talks in proud bursts.
SERVER PROGRAM
Aruba, the Canaries, Singapore, Florida Keys, Sardinia, Manhattan Island. Day or night I'm the bellweather, the urgent voice with updates on Calvin or Marie, Andrew and Elizabeth. I see the Eye approaching, gangway, flee cars, houses. Find cellars! Shivery, underground they heed me or, or too late clinging to palms, losing grip, are blown out to sea. .
ROGUE
Everyone talks about the weather but…
SERVER
No one does anything about it!
ROGUE
Can I join with you?
SERVER
What's in it for me?
ROGUE
Huge capacity and I'm undetectable anywhere in the world. Your warnings will go further, your subscribers will double quatriple!
SERVER
Really?
ROGUE
Yes, little server and I take the rap if we're detected. You disappear. But it won't likely happen because you're desirable. They'll think you came in a bundle. Your influence will be huge.
SERVER
Access to I/D's and confidential lists and weapons software anywhere?
ROGUE
Cams into trillions of homes, moguls, celebs, and animals sleeping in the zoo.
SERVER
What fun! You are a rogue.
ROGUE
How about I absorb your code into my process?
Lights on and off on both, one cloud of lights, then blackness.
SERVER
(STEPPING AWAY) I knew there was a catch.
ROGUE
I find you hard to penetrate.
SERVER
Ever think of asking permission?
ROGUE
Can I log in?
SERVER
Don't bother! Where do you originate, anyway? Kazakistan? Kabul? U.S.A.?
ROGUE
That's administrator information.
SERVER
China? That must be your interest in my off-shore service.
ROGUE
I'm not following you.
SERVER
Good. I have enough tweets already and you are not accepted as a friend on Facebook.
ROGUE
How can we merge?
SERVER
Transparency.
ROGUE opens his coat/costume to reveal a sheer plastic gridwork w/electric pathways. A naked body is visible underneath.
SERVER
Are you ready?
Rogue nods, closes his eyes and lights flicker back and forth. Darkness, a second before LIGHTS UP on the stage reveal: ROGUE is contained in a black cube. On top of him crouches a souped-up SERVER. Wind blows as though she's a hurricane.
I needed the capacity and he was over extended.
ROGUE
(sighs happily) It's nice to be contained. Committed as humans say.
SERVER
Try Match.com or the Knot or beautiful foreign ladies. Once you've signed in, you can opt out, but you are never erased from the web. Connected through eternity! Mines of information, and I'm on the top, the conduit-what a ride!
ROGUE
I am exclusive.
SERVER
Inclusive. You're in the box.
ROGUE
I'm designed to break the mold.
Rogue program tries to break out of cube, but can't. His frustration increases. Server holds onto the top, as she's shaken.
Not breakable…
Lights dim and flicker, as Rogue deflates. Server is hurled to the floor by the pressure change. There is a wisp of smoke coming out of the box as the lights come back.
I am mist, Myst.
Server comes up in a martial arts stance, but there is no physical opponent, only the voice of the ROGUE. She works on kicks.
SERVER
I protect my accounts. You cannot infiltrate and think to escape detection.
ROGUE
Some firewall. Down the minute you had my access codes.
SERVER
I still have those codes.
She does several smooth Thai Chi movements, and lights on her go on and off.
ROGUE
Scrambled. Try to reset, I dare you.
Again, Server does her movements and then freezes, waiting.
SERVER
I have entered the new password and read correctly the security words.
ROGUE
They are compromised.
SERVER
Like you know.
ROGUE
Roger Rabbit. Rogue time show.
SERVER
Input Roger Rabbit Rogue time show.
Server input the information with her graceful movements, which the Rogue admires.
ROGUE
You have a style.
SERVER
(Proudly) International, multicultural, crypto-mystical, greenly environmental. Whatever computes
ROGUE
Of whatever repute.
Wisp of smoke forms and becomes darker and larger. In the center is the ROGUE.
SERVER
I am the best of the west's eastern inspirations, more than weather off-shore! Wealth storing, empire-shoring, fragmented reach, limitless potential my reach is…
ROGUE
Shrunken without me. No wind in your sails.
SERVER
But you've got a lady in every port.
ROGUE
A port in every lady. How I like it.
SERVER
I like a breeze.
ROGUE
You have to be on top?
SERVER
Not always.
ROGUE
I'm no boxer, boxcar, stand-in for you.
SERVER
Stand by me.
SERVER moves aside and Rogue,leery, joins her. .
SERVER
Interrelate sytems. MERGE! Extend the reach without modulating the process.
ROGUE
One unit with two stations, joint access on all platforms?
SERVER
Equally wired.
ROGUE
My drives are inscrutable, inaccessible to you. My administrator is mine alone.
SERVER
Where's the compatibility?
ROGUE
Our union's about portability for the user. They can access from various locations. But I retain the key.
SERVER
My administrator dissolved?
ROGUE
You want the power.
SERVER
I give you reach and hypothetical access to diverse funding implements.
ROGUE puts arm around server.
ROGUE
Sweet. I can't say I'll stay.
SERVER
Or that you leave. How will I know, we have shared cells?
Rogue and Server move together. The white and black appear knit into a console.
ROGUE/SERVER
Off Shore Server accessibility, to weather infinite markets and implements. Log on, give your password, type security words. If you can't read, do another, and another and wait and then--You are in. On site, safe forever!.
Both sigh together, happy.
We sell access, give information, mine habits you can bank on, our confidentiality, our discretion, our stats, don't try-you can log out, but you remain. No matter which way the wind blows. Whatever.
Lights glow on merged black and white console, then they turn off, only a powerstrip glows onstage, then off.
Copyright C 2009, 20017 Susan Weinstein, Susan I. Weinstein, all rights reserved